Revealing The Real Dr Robinson. Dianne Drake

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СКАЧАТЬ transplant. Not a simple thing to promise, granted. But Elsa had been in a bad condition, which should have put her at the top of the list for an available kidney. What she hadn’t expected, though, had been the hospital’s refusal to allow the procedure once a kidney became available. A refusal that had come from her grandfather, and been upheld by her father and several other doctors bearing the Brooks name. It was like they’d turned into a wall of opposition because she’d had a patient who needed an operation they didn’t want to grant.

      Your patient is too old, her grandfather had stated. That, and another dozen reasons that had got Elsa rejected from Brooks Medical Center, a conglomerate of three hospitals, nine clinics and fourteen other miscellaneous medical services.

      Eventually, the county hospital had taken Elsa, but too late. Her condition had deteriorated to the point that she had no longer been a good enough candidate for a transplant anywhere. She’d gone back on dialysis to await her fate, which had come just four months later.

      Shanna still had nightmares about the day she’d had to tell her patient she could do nothing for her, that the medical system she’d loved and trusted had failed her. She’d had a small breakdown, meltdown, whatever the term du jour turned out to be. Had spent the night alone, crying, angry, doubting everything about what she was doing.

      Next morning she’d gone to her grandfather one more time, trying to persuade him to change his mind. But his was a mind that wouldn’t be changed. “Given your emotional involvement, you may be better suited in an administrative role than the actual practice of medicine,” her grandfather had said. An administrative role because she cared? It’s why she’d left medicine and had gone looking for a better way. Or a different way. Or any way at all that would define her place in medicine. And if it wasn’t out there, then what?

      Ben Robinson. He proved it was out there. Everything she’d seen of him proved it. And to gain some of what he had, she’d do whatever she had to.

      Except here she was again. Not being able to treat a patient. So she spent the next several minutes doing what she’d done with Elsa after she’d broken the news. She sat and held her patient’s hand, felt her own pulse jump every time Ines twitched, felt her own breath catch each time Ines’s breath went raspy. Heart-on-her-sleeve medicine. Even deep in the jungle she could feel the disapproval of the entire Brooks family.

      Luckily for Ines, that wait wasn’t long for only minutes after Shanna had settled in she heard quite a clamor coming from the trail. Not just one or two people. Probably not even three or four of them. In fact, by the time she was on her feet, twenty or so people were standing in front of her, hefting a bed. Not a stretcher or some makeshift rig to transport Ines but a single-size bed, mattress, blankets, pillows and all. She’d never seen anything like it. So much response, so much concern…”Put her…” she started to instruct, but the will of the people took over, and before Shanna could blink, Ines was lifted into the bed, and the bed was being whisked down the trail. All she could do was follow.

      Which she did, for about half a mile. Then, at the entry to a small wooden building, everybody stepped back for her to go first, after which several of the men followed her in, leaving the bedframe outside and carrying Ines gently on the mattress.

      Shanna spotted Ben immediately, and even in the urgency of the moment her heart clutched. Was it excitement to see him, to start her medical makeover? Or was it merely excitement for medical help for her patient? She didn’t know which, didn’t care. Ben was bent over an empty exam table in what she presumed to be the emergency area. He was adjusting a light, not even aware yet that she was in the room. “Is that table taken?” she asked, smiling when he looked up at her.

      “I’m supposing this is not a coincidence, you being here?” Ben asked. He gestured for Shanna to sit down across the table from him. They were in the doctors’ lounge, a tiny place with a table, two chairs, an old sofa, a refrigerator and barely enough room to turn around. Sparse of comfort and cramped, but well used by Ben’s largely volunteer staff. “Which means you’re stalking me, correct?”

      She grasped the cup of yerba maté he’d made, a tealike drink popular in Argentina, like it was her lifeline. Ben had mentioned it was his favorite, but she hadn’t quite acquired the taste for it yet, like she hadn’t yet acquired the taste for the changes she needed to make in herself.

      “Believe me, I had thirty hours to think about it on the flight. You know, questions you’d ask. Answers I’d give. What would sound plausible, what wouldn’t.”

      “Plausible would be good,” he conceded, still absolutely bewildered by her being there. Wondering, also, if he was hallucinating or under some kind of other spell that plucked his thoughts from his mind and turned them into reality. Because he’d thought about her in every unoccupied moment since he’d left Tuscany. She’d even managed to creep into a few of his occupied moments. And now here she was, like he’d ordered her up and, poof, she appeared. “But under the circumstances, difficult. You followed me halfway around the world, and I’m trying to imagine how plausible any explanation for that could be.”

      “Other than stalking you,” she said quite brightly. Taking a sip of the maté, she let the bitter taste mellow out on her tongue for a moment, then nodded as she swallowed. “Which I’m not. At least, not in the traditional sense.”

      “Okay, then tell me what’s the untraditional sense.” It was flattering that she’d followed him here. At least, he thought it was. Or hoped it was. Because there was the distinct possibility that Shanna Brooks was some kind of lunatic, and he’d completely missed that in her back in Tuscany. Blinded by the aura, oblivious to the reality? No, that didn’t make any sense because he’d looked into her eyes more than once, and there was nothing to suggest anything wrong with her. In fact, one of the things he’d been drawn to had been her spark, her vitality, which shone in her eyes.

      “It’s hard to explain. I… I need something different.”

      “You needed something different so you stalked me and ended up in my jungle hospital. Which, by the way, isn’t on the map, or any global tracking system I know about. So you had to put some effort into finding me.” These kinds of things never happened to him, and he wondered if he should pinch himself to make sure he was awake.

      Shanna shrugged. “You’re right. You’re way off the map. But you’d mentioned you were in Argentina, and I’m resourceful. So, here you are.” She took another sip of maté, watched him carefully over the top of her mug.

      “Yes, here I am.” So was she being deliberately vague, or was she as unsure of herself as he was sensing, putting forward the brave front with nothing behind it to back it up? Because Shanna Brooks seemed almost as surprised to be here as he was to see her here. “Several years, now, which gets me back to my original question…”

      “Why am I stalking you?” She drew in a deep breath. “The answer is… I want to be like you. So who better to show me how to do that than you?”

      Now he was back to the theory that she might be a lunatic. “What you’re telling me is that you want to be like a recluse doctor who’s running an isolated, struggling volunteer hospital in the middle of a jungle?”

      She smiled. “Not sure it does. So you’re thinking I’m crazy, aren’t you?”

      “Probably not crazy enough to medicate you. But odd enough that I might have to keep an eye on you, take away sharp objects, limit your prescribing to sugar pills.”

      Shanna laughed. “Don’t blame you. In the same position, I might also be calling for a security guard.”

      “If СКАЧАТЬ