had worked in the hospital for several years and had seen this woman nearly every day. I’d never once read her name tag. I’d never greeted her with more than a nod. Adam Pollard had been there less than a week and was already on a teasing basis with her.
“How’s the ladies’ man doin’?” Adam asked her.
Charlene rolled her eyes. “Goin’ be the death of me, Doc,” she said.
The doors slid open. “Don’t let that happen, Charles.” He touched the woman’s shoulder as we walked out of the elevator. “Can’t do without you ’round here.”
“Do you know … did you know her before you came here?” I asked as we started walking toward the O. R.
“Uh-uh,” he said. “Works her butt off. Did you ever notice? She’s everywhere at once. She’s raising her daughter’s kids, too. Daughter’s got a monkey on her back.”
“Who’s the ladies’ man?”
“Her ten-year-old grandson. She’s worried about him. Can’t remember his name, though. I’m crap with names.”
“How have you been able to learn all that in a week?”
“I talk to people,” he said with a shrug. “How else?”
After Lani Roland’s uneventful surgery, Adam caught up with me in the hallway outside the O. R.
“Dinner tonight,” he said. It wasn’t a question. He said it as if I couldn’t possibly have other plans.
“All right,” I answered, since that was true.
“Casual or fancy?”
“Casual. Definitely.”
“Mama Dip’s okay? I’ve missed that place.”
I nodded. “I’ll meet you there,” I said. “I should be able to get out by six-thirty.”
“Cool.” He gave my arm a playful punch as if I were a teenage boy. It made me laugh.
He was sitting at a table near the windows when I walked into Mama Dip’s a few hours later, and he was already joking with a waitress. He stood as I walked toward them.
“Hey, Maya.” He sounded as though we’d known each other for years. He leaned over and bussed my cheek. “Dr. Ward, this is our server tonight, KiKi. KiKi, this is an amazing surgeon, Maya Ward. She knits together teeny little bones.” He pulled out a chair for me, touching my arm as I sank into it.
KiKi smiled at us both. “What can I get you to drink, sweetie?” she asked me.
“Lemonade,” I said, unwrapping the napkin from around my silverware.
Adam chuckled to himself as KiKi walked away. “I introduce you as a surgeon, she calls you sweetie,” he said. “Gotta love the South. Does that bug you? The sweetie bit?” I loved the way his smile crinkled the corners of his eyes.
“Not at all,” I said. I knew plenty of professional women who bristled at the familiarity, but I’d lived in North Carolina long enough that I didn’t even notice it.
“I love it,” he said. “Boston was great, don’t get me wrong, but nobody there ever called me sweetie or darlin’ or dear. And you can’t get enough kind words. Know what I mean?”
“I do,” I said.
KiKi was back with our drinks and I popped a straw into my lemonade.
“You’re obviously not a native,” he said. “Where are you from?”
“Virginia. Outside D.C.”
“How’d you end up here?”
“I followed my sister. She went to medical school at Duke and loved it, so when it was my turn, I followed her lead.”
He sat back, eyes wide. “Wow!” he said. “There’s two Dr. Wards? Where does she practice?”
“She works full-time with Doctors International Disaster Aid, so she’s here, there and everywhere.”
“DIDA!” he said.
“You know it?”
“I thought of applying to do a stint with them, but never got around to it. Maybe one of these days. It’d be so cool to do that sort of work.” He sipped his iced tea. “She’s a do-gooder? Your sis?”
“She’s …” I hadn’t thought of Rebecca that way. Gutsy was the word I usually used when describing my sister. But she was a do-gooder, and not only with DIDA. Rebecca was my hero. “Yes, she is actually,” I said. “I haven’t seen her in a couple of months, though we talk all the time when she’s someplace with cell coverage. Right now she’s working in China at an earthquake site. She’s unreachable.”
KiKi returned with my bowl of Brunswick stew and Adam’s barbecue platter.
“Anything else for y’all?” she asked.
I shook my head.
“We’re good,” Adam said, though his gaze never left my face. “So, you’re really close to your sister,” he said once KiKi’d walked back to the kitchen.
I felt like telling him everything. About my life. About Rebecca and the complicated bond we shared. Everything. I never felt that way. I kept things locked tight inside me, never wanting to show any dent in my professional demeanor. I knew how to hide my flaws.
Rebecca hated my wimpiness, and I’d learned early to erect a brave facade. I needed to work with Adam. Better that he saw me as a competent physician than a woman who could still be unnerved by the past.
“Yes,” I said simply. “We are.”
“You’re so lucky to have a sib.”
“You don’t?” I finally got around to picking up my spoon, but I was so intent on our conversation that I didn’t even consider dipping it into the stew.
He shook his head, swallowing a mouthful of barbecued pork. “No family,” he said. “Lost my parents when I was fifteen.”
I drew in a breath of surprise. The urge to tell him my own story expanded in my chest, but it was a story I never told. “Both at once?” I asked. “An accident?”
“Exactly. They were coming back from a party. Drunk driver.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry,” I said. “Did you live with relatives then?”
“Didn’t have any of them, either. Just grandparents who were too frail to take me. So I did the foster home thing.”
“Was it hard?” I’d been spared foster care. I ate a spoonful of the stew. I loved Mama Dip’s Brunswick stew, but now I barely tasted it.
“I got into a good one,” he
