Susan Carlisle - The Surgeon's Cinderella

“Hey, Tanner,” the last man getting on the plane called. “We gotta go. This heart won’t wait on us.”

Tanner looked back to her. “I’ve got a patient that’s been waiting for months for this heart. I have to see that he gets it. Look, I’ve heard you’re the best in town. Do your thing. I’m sure you can find someone for me. Here’s my contact information.” He handed her a business card. “Call when you have something. Don’t pull away. I’m going to give you a quick kiss on the cheek. I need for these guys—” he nodded toward the plane “—to think that you’re my girlfriend.”

Before Whitney could agree or disagree, his lips brushed her face and he jogged away.

The man’s nerve knew no bounds!

Minutes later Whitney watched as the plane lifted off the ground and flew into the darkening sky. Somehow tonight the Tanner she’d had such a crush on and worshipped in college from afar had become a mortal man. The thing was she really didn’t know this Tanner any better than she knew the old Tanner. If she did manage to find him a match, would he take the time to get to know the woman or just expect her to bow to his list of requirements? Whitney’s goal was to find love matches, and Tanner had said nothing about wanting that.

And while they worked together there would be no more physical contact. She was a professional.

* * *

Tanner looked down from his window seat of the plane at the woman still standing beside her small practical compact car. She looked like a matchmaker. Simply dressed. Nothing sexy or suggestive about her clothing—he’d even characterize her style as unappealing. Her hair was pulled back into a band at her nape.

He didn’t go around kissing strangers but he had kissed her. Little Ms. Matchmaker had the softest skin he’d ever felt. She was nothing like the women he was attracted to yet he found her no-nonsense, straight-to-the-point personality interesting. People generally didn’t speak to him so frankly.

Did he know her from somewhere? Maybe she’d been a member of one of his former patients’ families? But she’d said nothing about knowing him. He was good with faces. It could be her smile that drew him. It was one of the nicest he’d ever seen. Reached her eyes.

He hoped he’d made the right decision in calling her. There had been noises made by the powers-that-be at the hospital that he might be in line for the head of department position when Dr. Kurosawa retired. A subtle suggestion had been made that a settled married man looked more appealing on the vita than a bachelor.

For a moment he’d thought about doing the online dating thing but couldn’t bring himself to enter his name. He didn’t have the time or inclination to wade through all the possible dates. Make the dates and remake dates. The speed-dating idea came close to making him feel physically sick. Being thought pathetic because he used a dating service also disturbed him. The fewer people who knew what he was doing the better. Truthfully, he was uncomfortable having others know he needed hired help to find a partner. Even employing a matchmaker made him uneasy. But he’d done it. He wanted that directorship.

Finding women to date was no problem for him, but he had never found someone who met his requirements for a lifelong commitment. Tanner wasn’t interested in a love match but in a relationship based on mutual life goals. Maybe with the help of an outsider, an impartial one, he could find a woman who wanted the same things he did? The search would be handled like a business, a study of pros and cons.

One thing he did know was that love wouldn’t be the deciding factor. He’d already seen what that did to a person. His mother had loved his father but his father had not felt the same. In fact, she’d doted on him, but he’d stayed away more than he’d been at home. Each time he’d left she’d cried and begged him not to go. When he’d leave again she’d be depressed until she learned that he was coming home. Then she’d go into manic mode, buying a new dress and spending hours “fixing herself up.” His father had never stayed long. Leaving two boys to watch their mother’s misery as he’d disappeared down the drive. Finally he’d divorced her. Tanner refused to have any kind of relationship like that. His career demanded his time and focus. He had to have a wife who could handle that.

Maybe the executive matchmaker could help him find what he needed in a woman. If that woman was happy with what he could offer outside of giving his heart then she would suit him.

“Hey, Tanner,” the kidney team surgeon said after a tap to his arm, “who was the woman you were talking to? Did you have to break a hot date?”

He shrugged. “Just a woman I met.”

“You know one day you’re going to have to settle down. Hospital boards like to have their department heads going home to a family at night. I’ve got a friend of a friend with a sister. Pretty, I heard.”

“I’m good, Charlie.”

He grinned. “I’m just saying...”

Tanner was tired of being fixed up by friends and family. Everyone wanted their daughter or friend to marry a doctor.

He looked over at the nurse sitting beside Charlie. She was talking to a member of the liver team. They’d been out a number of times but nothing had really clicked. Tanner didn’t want to date out of the nursing pool anymore. He wanted to go home to someone who wasn’t caught up in the high adrenaline rush of medical work. A woman who gave him a peaceful haven where he could unwind.

He expected Whitney Thomason to find that person for him.

By the next morning, Tanner had put in over twenty-four hours at the hospital, but his patient, who had been at death’s door, was now doing well in CICU. The life-giving gift of a heart transplant never ceased to amaze him. He was humbled by his part in the process.

Thankfully he’d managed to catch a couple of hours’ sleep on the plane to and from the hospital where his team had retrieved the heart. Now he had morning rounds to make and then he was headed home to bed. His scheduled surgeries had been moved back a day or postponed. Sleep was the only thing on his agenda for today.

Knocking on the door of Room 223 of the step-down unit, he slowly pushed it open. “Mr. Vincent?”

“Come in.” The man’s voice was strong.

Tanner entered and moved to the bed. “How’re you feeling today, Mr. Vincent?”

“I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t sore.”

Tanner smiled. Mr. Vincent was only a week out from transplant. Where he’d hardly been able to walk down the hall in the weeks before his surgery, now he could do it back and forth with confidence. Transplants were amazing things. “Sorry about that but it’s just part of the process. It should get better every day.” Tanner looked around the room. “Mrs. Vincent here?”

“Naw. She had a hair appointment. She doesn’t like to miss them.” He sounded resigned to his wife’s actions. “She’ll be here soon, though.”

“The plan is for you to go home tomorrow. There are a number of things that the nurses will need to go over with you both.”

“Cindy doesn’t like blood and all this hospital stuff.”

“She’ll need to help with your care or you’ll have to find another family member to do it. Otherwise home health should be called in.”

Mrs. Vincent’s self-centeredness was just the type of thing that Tanner couldn’t tolerate. This man’s wife was so focused on her own needs that she couldn’t be bothered to support her husband’s return to good health. Her actions reminded him too much of his father’s.

“I need to give you a listen, Mr. Vincent.” Tanner removed his stethoscope from his neck. After inserting the earpieces in his ears, he placed the listening end on the man’s chest. There was a steady, strong beat where one hadn’t existed before the transplant.

“Can you sit forward, Mr. Vincent?”

“I can but I won’t like it much.” The middle-aged man shifted in the bed.

Tanner was listening to the man’s lungs when a platinum blonde strolled through the door. She stopped short as if she was surprised to see Tanner.

“Hello, Dr. Locke,” she said in a syrupy thick voice.

Tanner had only met Mrs. Vincent a couple of times but each time he had the prickly feeling that she was coming on to him. This time was no different. At least twenty years younger than her husband, she was overdressed and too absorbed in herself for someone who should have been concerned about a husband who had recently been at death’s door. Wearing a tight top and pants a size too small, she sauntered up to the bedside, leaning over. Tanner had a view of her cleavage that had no business being shared with anyone but her husband.

More than once Tanner had seen his mother act the same way toward his father. The action then and now made him feel uncomfortable.

“Hi, sweetie. It’s nice to see you.” Mr. Vincent gave her an adoring smile.

“So how’s the patient doing?” she cooed, not looking at her husband. His mother had used that same tone of voice when she’d spoken to his father.

“He’s ready to go home after we make sure you both understand his care.” Tanner wrapped his stethoscope around his neck.

“I’m not sure I can do that. I’m no nurse. I’m not good with blood and stuff.” She gave him a wide, bright, red-painted-lips smile.

Tanner stepped toward the door. “I’m sure the nurses can help you practice so that you become comfortable with what you need to do.”

“Cindy, sweetie, we’ll figure it out together.” Mr. Vincent took her manicured hand and gave her a pleading look. Just the way Tanner’s mother had looked at his father before he’d left for weeks.

“I’ll let the nurse know that you’re ready for her instructions.” Tanner went out the door.

The Vincents’ marriage was exactly the type he didn’t want. The one-sided kind. Tanner was afraid he would be too much like his mother. Give his heart and have it stomped on. A relationship where one of the partners couldn’t see past their love for the other while the other cared about nothing but themselves. A bond based on mutual respect would be far more satisfying in the long run. With his executive matchmaker contacts, that should be just the type of arrangement he’d manage to find.

The censoring look in Whitney’s eyes when he’d given his list of requirements had him questioning that she might have expected something more.

* * *

Whitney had spent the last two days working through her database in search of women who fit the description of what Tanner wanted. She had five names she thought might be of interest to him. Now she had to pin him down for a meeting so they could start the process.

She picked up the card he’d handed her and tapped it on her desk.

Why couldn’t Tanner find his own mate? What was his deal with the passionless list of requirements? He had nothing in common with her in that regard. She was looking for true love. The kind of love that endured forever, no matter what the hardships. The till-death-do-us-part kind that her parents and grandparents had. She’d built her business on that idea. Believed her clients should have that as well.

Once she’d thought she’d had it. That love. With a business degree in hand, she’d taken a job in a corporation. There she’d met Steve. He’d worked in an adjoining department and had seemed not to care that she’d been heavy. That had been a first for her. She’d had no dates in high school and very few in college. When Steve had started giving her attention she’d been ecstatic. For once in her life someone had been interested. After dating for over a year, they’d started planning a wedding.