exactly what does this ‘game’ involve?” Cole asked.
She really was having trouble putting her thoughts into words this morning. Getting trapped in the elevator didn’t have anything to do with it. Pulling double shifts, however, did. Someday, she would catch up on her rest and sleep for a week.
“Poor choice of words,” she acknowledged. “The only ‘game’ in town, as far as I’m concerned, is making sure that your grandmother leaves the hospital healthier than when she came in.” I might as well make use of this man being here, Nika thought as they turned a corner down the corridor. “Can you tell me briefly what her complaints are?”
She peered at his face as she asked the question and was rewarded to see the corners of his mouth curve ever so slightly.
The word “complaint” triggered memories of the last conversation he’d had with his grandmother before he discovered her neglected medication. “You mean other than the fact that they brought Becky Warren back from the dead?”
Nika stopped abruptly just shy of Ericka Baker’s single care unit and stared at him. “Excuse me?”
“Becky Warren,” he repeated. “The town ‘harlot,’ to quote my grandmother.” And then he filled her in on the joke. “My grandmother watches Living the Good Life faithfully,” he said, naming his grandmother’s favorite soap opera. “Has for the last fifteen years. It’s her only weakness—or vice. That and dark chocolate with coconut,” he added. “Otherwise, she’s a trouper who doesn’t complain. I wouldn’t have known about her heart condition if I hadn’t been there for one of her ‘episodes.’” He vividly remembered fearing the worst as he saw his grandmother clutch her chest, the side of her neck throbbing wildly. “Scared the hell out of me,” he said as he pushed open the door to his grandmother’s room. “I got her to go see Dr. Goodfellow.”
Nika nodded as she walked into Ericka’s room. “Good choice. He’s one of the top cardiologists in the state,” she informed him.
At the sound of their voices, the woman in the hospital bed turned her head toward them. The look on her finely lined face was affectionate disapproval as sharp, sapphire-blue eyes swept over the dirt and grease on Cole’s clothes.
She shook her head. “Have you been making mud pies again, Coleman?” she asked.
Chapter 3
The question his grandmother asked hung in the air, unanswered.
It scraped against Cole’s heart.
G wasn’t teasing him the way she occasionally did, and she wasn’t being witty. She was serious. He’d seen that look enter her eyes several times before. The look that silently announced that she had temporarily slipped away from him and was now off into the past. A past when she had been all things to him, including both mother and father.
Cole slanted a glance at the physician at his side, wondering if anything in his grandmother’s behavior had tipped her off that the woman wasn’t quite lucid.
But since this doctor he’d brought to his grandmother’s bedside didn’t know G, from all appearances, she seemed to be taking the remark at face value as a sign of affection between his grandmother and him.
Good.
Walking over to the older woman’s bedside, Cole leaned over and kissed the weathered yet incredibly soft cheek.
“Not this time, G,” he said quietly in response to her question. When he took a step back, he saw that she’d returned to her old self and he breathed a silent sigh of relief.
“Coleman, how did you manage to get so dirty?” Ericka wanted to know, clearly surprised by his less than neat appearance.
“Rescuing me,” Nika told her, stepping forward.
Instead of picking up the elderly woman’s chart, or accessing Ericka Baker’s records on the portable computer just outside the woman’s room, Nika preferred to go straight to the source and meet her patients first, then look at their records. It helped her form a relationship with the patient, however briefly it might last, and that, she’d always felt, held her in good stead. It also made the patients feel that she viewed them as people first and patients second.
But before Nika could introduce herself, the woman in the bed gave her a quick, albeit penetrating, once-over, Ericka’s very blue eyes sweeping over her.
“And you are?” Ericka asked.
“Dr. Veronika Pulaski,” Nika told her, putting her hand out to the woman.
She found herself on the receiving end of a handshake that was both firm and confident. No matter what the notes on the chart claimed, this was no “little old lady.” This was a force to be reckoned with, Nika thought with a warm smile.
“Dr. Goodfellow asked me to run some tests on you to make sure that the procedure he intends to perform to get your atrial fibrillation under control won’t do you more harm than good.”
Ericka made a small, dismissive sound, accompanying it with a wave of her hand. “He’s just afraid of a lawsuit.”
“No,” Nika contradicted, her smile still warm as she continued focusing on the small woman, “he’s afraid of putting you through something that won’t result in you getting better. He is an excellent cardiovascular surgeon,” she told Ericka. “Patience Memorial wouldn’t give him operating privileges here if he wasn’t.”
“We’ll see,” was all Ericka was willing to concede. She shifted her eyes toward her grandson. “Coleman, you said you had some questions to ask this very young lady,” she reminded him.
Nika picked up on the woman’s inflection. “I’m not as young as I look, Mrs. Baker,” she assured her.
Ericka blew out another breath. “You couldn’t be,” she retorted. “And don’t go dismissing that particular attribute so lightly,” she warned. “Someday, when you’re an old lady like me, looking younger than your years will be something you’ll treasure, not disclaim. Mark my words,” she underscored with a look meant to pin Nika against the wall.
“You’re not an old lady, G,” Cole rebutted affectionately, taking her hand in both of his. “You’re just a little older than I am.”
“This is why I keep him around,” Ericka confided to her new doctor. “He’s very good for my ego. Even if he lies really badly,” she added with a laugh. “Now, ask her what you want to ask her, then go before they realize they can do without you at the precinct.” Her thin lips pulled into a frown as she reviewed his attire again. “And maybe you’d better stop at your place to change,” Ericka added with a shake of her head. “What exactly did you rescue Dr. Pulaski from?” she asked, curious. “A garbage dump?”
When the detective didn’t look as if he would answer right away, Nika was more than happy to fill his grandmother in.
“The elevator I was on got stuck between floors and the repairman wasn’t going to be able to get here for a few hours.” She looked across her patient’s bed at the detective. “Your grandson very kindly shimmied down the elevator cables to get me out of there.”
Ericka nodded, as if there was no other course her grandson
