No matter how pains takingly Elizabeth and her team prepared, she wasn’t fully satisfied until she saw the completed work…until the patient was rolled to recovery. The time required to heal varied, but in a couple of weeks the swelling would lessen, the red lines would fade. And the new face would bloom like a rose in the sun’s light, as close to nature’s work as man could come.
As Elizabeth started for the exit, intent on going straight home and crashing for a couple of hours, the rest of the team poured into the scrub room, high-fives and cheers of elation rumbling through the group. Elizabeth smiled. She had her self a hell of a team here. They were the best, each topping his or her field of expertise, and they were good folks, lacking the usual “ego” that often haunted the specialized medical profession.
“Excellent work, boys and girls,” she called to the highly trained professionals who were quickly regressing to more adolescent behavior as the adrenaline high peaked and then drained away. “See you in two weeks.”
Elizabeth pushed through the doors and into the long, white sterile corridor, still smiling as the ruckus followed her into the strictly enforced quiet zone. She inhaled deeply of the medicinal smells, the familiar scents comforting, relaxing. This place was her real home. She spent far more time here than in side the four walls of the little brown stone on which she made a monthly mortgage payment. Not really a good thing, she had begun to see. She didn’t like the slightly cynical, fiercely focused person she was turning into.
A change was definitely in order.
Two weeks.
She hadn’t taken that much time off since—
She banished the memory before it latched on to her thoughts. No way was she going to dredge up that painful past. Two months had elapsed. She clenched her jaw and paused at the bank of elevators. Giving the call button a quick stab, she waited, her impatience mounting with each passing second. She loved her work, was fully devoted to it. But she desperately needed this time to get away, to put the past behind her once and for all. She had to move on. Regain her perspective…her balance.
The elevator doors slid open and Elizabeth produced a smile for the nurses who exited. Al most three o’clock in the afternoon, shift change. The nurses and residents on duty would brief those arriving for second shift on the status of their patients. Orders would be reviewed and the flow of patient care would continue without interruption.
Dr. Jeffrey would stay with her patient for a time and issue the final orders. There was nothing for Elizabeth to worry about. She boarded the elevator and relaxed against the far wall. Her eyes closed as she considered the cruise she’d booked just last week. A snap decision, something she never, ever did. Her secretary had insisted she could not spend her time off at home or loitering around her office. Which, in retrospect, Elizabeth had to admit was an excellent idea. Hanging around the house or office, organizing books and files or personal items that were already in perfect order, would not be in her best interest. The last thing she needed in her life was more order.
Making a quick stop at the second-floor staff lounge to pick up her sweater and purse, more good byes were exchanged with coworkers who couldn’t believe she was actually going to take a vacation. Elizabeth shook her head in self-deprecation. She really had lost any sense of balance. Work was all she had, it seemed, and every one had taken notice. One way or another she intended to change that sad fact.
Hurrying through Georgetown University Medical Center’s expansive lobby, she made her way to the exit that led to the employee parking garage. She could already see her self driving across the District, escaping everything. As much as she loved D.C., she needed to get away, to mingle with the opposite sex. To start something new and fresh. To put him out of her mind for ever. He was gone. Dead. He’d died in some foreign country, location unspecified, of unnatural causes probably, the manner also unspecified. His body had not been recovered, at least, as far as she knew. He was simply gone. He wouldn’t be showing up at her door in the middle of the night with an unexpected forty-eight-hour furlough he wanted to spend only with her.
Stolen moments. That was all she and Special Agent David Maddox had really ever shared. But then, that was what happened when one fell in love with a CIA agent. Covert operations, classified missions, need-to-know. All familiar terms.
Too familiar, she realized as she hesitated mid stride on the lower level of the parking garage, her gaze landing on her white Lexus—or more specifically on the two well-dressed men waiting next to the classy automobile.
One man she recognized instantly as Craig Dawson, her CIA handler. All valuable CIA as sets had handlers. It was some sort of rule. He’d replaced David when their relationship had gotten personal. There were times when Elizabeth wondered if that change in the dynamics of the interaction between them had ultimately caused David’s death. His work had seemed so much safer when he’d been her handler.
Stop it, she ordered. Thinking about the past was destructive. She knew it. The counselor the Agency had insisted she see after David’s death had said the same. Face forward, focus on the future.
Her new motto.