Italian Doctor, Full-time Father. Dianne Drake

settled in?”

      “Yes, doctor,” Marianne Hesse answered. “According to the floor supervisor, he’s settled in, and grumpy about being here.”

      Dante grumpy? Now, that was something she’d never seen. “Page Dr Rilke to go greet him. He’s been assigned as Mr Baldassare’s doctor, so he can have the honor of welcoming him to Aeberhard.” While she made up more excuses to keep herself away for as long as possible.

      “You’re not going?” Marianne asked, sounding surprised. If there was one thing that could be counted on at Aeberhard Clinic, it was that protocol didn’t change. They stood on tradition, and while the clinical concept was casual, the overall clinic tradition was rigid. Except this once. But she couldn’t help it. She just plain didn’t want to see the man, not until she’d girded herself a little better for it.

      “In a while,” Catherine responded, hedging. “I have a few other patients I need to see first.” And supplies to order, and staff review reports to be filled out, and phone calls to return, and patient discharge recommendations to finalize. There were any number of excuses not to go, all of them quite legitimate. Not good, but definitely legitimate.

      To be honest, though, she was curious. That annoying little part of her that knew she was about to do something she’d regret was pushing her into it regardless of what she wanted, positively fighting to burst through. Admittedly, she did want to know if Dante would be impressed by her achievement. After all, she’d gone from junior hospital staff to clinic medical director in five years—an accomplishment of which she was proud. But what would Dante think of it? Or would he even care? He was so long out of medicine now, maybe none of this world would matter to him any more.

      Actually, she still wasn’t sure how he’d walked away from medicine and been so indifferent about it—a man with his passion and skill. Of course, she knew how he’d walked away from her. That was probably the easy part for him, considering how he’d walked straight into the arms of another woman, then another, and another after that. A whole string of others, to be frank.

      But she’d done well for herself in spite of all that mess. Gotten on with her life, albeit with a little glitch on the marriage front a couple years ago. Three years after Dante and she’d finally connected with another man, so they’d had a brief try together. No children as a result, however, and no particularly lingering impact from one year spent with a man who, one week after their wedding, had declared it was time for his wife to stay home, cook dinner, do laundry and bear him lots and lots of children. Somehow Robert Wilder had missed the fact the she was a career-woman, and somehow she’d missed that fact that her husband’s views on the perfect marriage were anything but what she considered perfect. It hadn’t worked out, and there really wasn’t much to say about it. She’d made a mistake. Robert deserved a woman who could be everything he wanted and she deserved her freedom from a man who wasn’t anything she wanted. Which was what she’d got.

      Still, the impact of being left out of the important decisions in her marriage, of having someone else make them and not include her in them…she cringed even now, thinking about it.

      But the timing of that little detour in her life had worked out as one month after their divorce she’d found herself in a major career change, going from being a lower-end staff doctor in a rehab hospital in Boston to medical director of a rehab clinic in Bern. A sensible move that had made her divorce seem all the better. The only thing that had bothered her some had been keeping Robert Wilder’s name. She’d intended to go back to Dr Catherine Brannon, but the whole Aeberhard Clinic offer had come so quickly, and her move to Switzerland almost in a whirlwind, then the ensuing months had been so busy she’d barely had time to breathe. So all her legal papers were still in her married name, but getting everything changed back to her maiden name was definitely on her to-do list when she had time. Right above taking that long, uncomfortable walk to the Geneva Suite to greet their new patient.

      The phone buzzed, and Catherine jumped like a skittish cat.

      “Dr Rilke isn’t here yet,” Marianne informed her.

      “Where is he?”

      “He’s on his way. Says he’ll be here in fifteen minutes. And we don’t have another doctor in the building at the moment.”

      A long, quiet pause on Marianne’s end spoke the words the woman did not say. It was Catherine’s responsibility to go greet Dante. Catherine knew that, and her secretary knew that. Of course, Marianne wouldn’t say it, but she didn’t need to. “If he’s not here in fifteen minutes, I’ll go and see to Mr Baldassare.”

      “Very good, doctor,” Marianne said, clicking off.

      Catherine leaned forward, studying the outside of Dante’s folder. She was drawn to read more about him, and her fingers even skittered their way across the desk, latched onto the folder and pulled it back towards her, inch by inch, across the glossy mahogany top. She’d already read the routine information—height just over six feet, weight one hundred and ninety pounds. “You haven’t changed much,” she whispered, still refusing to take another look, specifically at the line indicating spouse. The truth was, she didn’t know. The bigger truth was, she didn’t want to know. She’d seen that he still lived in Tuscany. She’d also seen that he listed his occupation as race-car driver. Not medical doctor. But she hadn’t looked at anything filled in under family.

      Her fingers played across the top of the file and just as she’d decided on pushing it away so she wouldn’t be so tempted, Marianne buzzed.

      “Dr Rilke just called in.”

      “And?”

      “He’s stranded. Car trouble. He said he’ll call for a mechanic and be in as soon as he can, but that it won’t be for quite a while.”

      Catherine balled her fist and gave a little slam to Dante’s medical folder. Now she’d have to go and see Dante. No getting around it. “Ask him if we could send the clinic car to fetch him.” A suggestion made from sheer desperation, and a rather pathetic one at that. But desperate times called for desperate measures… Catherine knew all about that.

      Something else she knew was how silly she was being about taking a look in the folder. She was the medical director here, for heaven’s sake. It was her duty to know her patient. Her duty to know every patient in Aeberhard Clinic. After all, she could practically recite Mr Newlyn’s family tree by heart, and call off the last four surgeries performed on Mrs Rakeen. She knew the names of Mr Gaynor’s three grandchildren and had intimate details of how to contact each of Mr Salamon’s four ex-wives. All from studying the charts. So this was ridiculous, thinking of Dante as anything but a patient.

      Opening her balled fist, Catherine flipped back the cover of the folder and began reading. The first page was chock full of all the routine information she’d read before. The second page was about Dante’s medical history, which she’d also read earlier. Most of it sketchy, though. At the very bottom her eyes caught on the section where Dante had listed past surgeries. Appendectomy ten years previously. Damn, she didn’t want to remember that. Not the surgery itself, but the scar. How many times had she kissed that scar?

      Fighting back that image, she kept on reading. More routine facts, financial information connected to how he could cover his bill, that kind of thing. Then, on the last page, she came to what she hadn’t wanted to read—family contact information. Not that she cared if Dante was married, because she didn’t. Yet it felt funny. An intrusion to which she wasn’t entitled. Or one that would dredge up some of the plans they’d made that would have put her name there on that page as his spouse.

      “Stop it,” she whispered, drawing in a steadying breath. “One ex-fiancé pops up and look how you’re acting.” Her heart hadn’t even skipped a beat six months ago when Robert had called to ask her to sign a property settlement document she’d overlooked during the divorce. Yet look what she was doing over Dante. Going positively crazy! And she didn’t know why. That’s what troubled her. Dante was just another patient…granted, he was one she’d slept with and almost married, but he was still just another patient. She