Marie Ferrarella - M.D. Most Wanted

Wheres your bodyguard? Reese asked. Isnt this where he bursts in, whisks you behind the door and slams it in my face?

Reese wasnt altogether sure about that.

He picked up a strand of her hair. The softness unsettled him. Aroused him. And whats to keep you safe from me?

She raised her eyes to his in a clear invitation. Who says I want to be safe from you?

M.D. Most Wanted Marie Ferrarella

MARIE FERRARELLA

To

Dr. John G. Miller,

who answers all my questions,

and

is the perfect example of everything

a doctor should be

Contents

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 1

This was one of those days.

Hed been up, dressed and driving before he was fully awake. Normally punctual, Reese was running behind, thanks to an asthmatic alarm clock that had chosen this morning to make a sound more like a cough than a ring when it went off. The sound had barely registered in his consciousness, and hed fallen back to sleep only to jerk awake more than half an hour later.

When it came to getting up, Reese had been cutting time to the bone as it was, setting the clock to give him just enough leeway to shower, shave and have breakfastprovided he moved at a pace that could easily be mistaken for the fast-forward speed on a VCR.

That had been before his fateful early-morning encounter with the little alarm clock that couldnt. Consequently, the shower had lasted all of two minutes, his hair had still been wet when hed gotten behind the wheel of his 94 Vettethe single indulgence he allowed himselfand his face was fated to remain untouched by a razor until he could find some time at the hospital in between rounds, emergency room patients and whatever else the gods chose to throw at him this morning.

Eating was something he couldnt think about until he came within coin-tossing distance of a vending machine at the aforementioned hospital, Blair Memorial.

Reese knew he only had himself to blame. No one had made him become a doctor, no one had told him to go into general surgery or to specialize in internal medicine. Those had been his own choices. His mother, bless her, would have been satisfied if hed become a part-time sanitation engineer. As long as he was happythat was her only criterion. Rachel Bendenetti never placed any demands on him, only on herself.

But healing was the only thing that did make him happy. It was in healing others that Reese felt as if he were healing himself, renewing himself. Building a better Reese Bendenetti.

He never quite understood why, he just knew that making someone elses life a little better, a little easier, always managed to do the same for him.

That was why whenever Lukas Graywolf, a cardiac surgeon, returned to the reservation where hed been born and raised, Reese always volunteered to go along with him and provide

services to people who would otherwise not be able to afford them. The way he saw it, the rewards were priceless. It had never been about money for Reese.

Hed been enamored with medicine ever since hed applied his first Band-Aid. Almost twenty-five years later he could still remember the circumstances. After calling him a name, Janet Cummings had turned and begun to run away, only to trip on the sidewalk. Shed scraped her knee badly and it had bled. Without hesitating, hed run into the ground-floor apartment he and his mother were living in at the time, gotten a Band-Aid and peroxide out of the medicine cabinetthe way hed seen his mother doand run back outside to come to Janets aid.

He never stopped to think that she deserved it because shed been nasty to him, all he could think of was to stop the bleeding. Watching him, Janet had stopped crying. When he was finished, shed shyly kissed his cheek.

Reese remembered lighting up like a Christmas tree inside. Janet had been six at the time. Hed been almost seven.

It was a feeling that he wanted to have again, and he did. Each time he worked on a patient.

Working on Tomas Moraless perforated ulcer was a little more complex than applying peroxide and a Band-Aid to a scraped knee, but the feeling of satisfaction was still the same.

Taking off his mask, he tossed it into the hamper and sighed, bone weary. The operation had taken longer than hed expected. As he ran a hand through his hair, holding the green cap hed just removed in his other hand, his stomach growled. Fiercely.

I heard that all the way over here, Alix DuCane cracked. She was standing by the sink, putting lotion on her freshly scrubbed hands. The gloves shed just taken off chaffed her flesh. If she wasnt careful, she thought, she was going to wind up with skin like a lizard.

As if in response, his stomach growled again. One of the orderlies chuckled to himself.

Reese shrugged, tossing the paper towel hed just used to dry his hands into the wastebasket.

Thats what happens when all youve had for breakfast is a small candy bar. Itd been stale at that, he thought. Hazards of war.