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you?” she shot back. “Don’t we have to be?”
    The first day they’d talked, he’d felt a bond with Violet because of Ryan. Now he realized they had another bond, too—their work. “We have to use our skill the best way we know how. We can be perfectionists but we’re not God.”
    When she took a deep breath, he heard it. As doctors, they had power, but sometimes they didn’t realize their power was finite.
    â€œYou’re right, of course,” she murmured. “And usually I take what happens in stride. For the past couple of months I haven’t been able to do that. I took a cruise to get some perspective.”
    â€œDid it help?”
    â€œIt was a distraction but no, it didn’t help.”
    â€œMaybe once we know what’s going on with Ryan you’ll find perspective again.”
    â€œMaybe.” She sounded doubtful.
    Peter’s pager beeped. “I’m being paged,” he said to Violet. “Hold on a minute.”
    Seeing the extension number, he knew he had to go. “I have to check on a patient, Violet.”
    â€œI know the sound of a pager when I hear it,” she assured him with complete understanding. “I’ll talk to Ryan and one of us will be in contact with you.”
    In spite of the conversation they’d just had, Peter hoped thatperson would be Ryan. Violet Fortune was simply too interesting, too intriguing and too beautiful for his peace of mind.
    However, when he said goodbye, he wondered if she would be at the bachelor auction Friday night.
    Whether she was or wasn’t didn’t matter. He was going to sleepwalk through it, get it over with and take whoever bought him to the Riverwalk the following weekend. That would be his contribution to charity.
    Giving up fistfuls of money would be a hell of a lot easier.
    As Peter headed to the third floor to answer his page, he couldn’t sweep Violet from his thoughts. At least not until he stopped at the nurses’ desk in Pediatric ICU, learned which patient needed him and went down the hall to Celeste Bowlan’s room. The six-year-old was crying and nothing the nurses tried could console her. For whatever reason, Peter’s presence always seemed to calm her. He strode toward her bed now, his heart going out to the little orphan with the straggly straight black hair, bangs and huge dark eyes.
    â€œHey there,” he said softly. “Nurse Carmelita told me you’re having a bad day.”
    When Celeste turned her tearstained face to his, he saw her desolation and sorrow. Over a year ago she’d been staying with a babysitter when her parents, who had gone out for the evening, had been involved in a three-car pileup. They’d both died on impact.
    Celeste had been entered into the system and placed with a foster family. But her foster family hadn’t cherished her as her parents had. Apparently her foster father had been a closet alcoholic who’d been driving drunk with Celeste in the car. They’d been in an accident, and Celeste’s back had been fractured. Along with spinal injuries, a lung had collapsed, and she’d experienced belly trauma. Peter was going to operate to fuse her spine, but he had to wait until she was more stable.
    The social worker on Celeste’s case had told him she wouldn’t be going back to that foster family, but another hadn’t been found yet. Unable to walk and absolutely alone in the world, she was desolate with good reason. He tried to visit her as often as he could.
    Pulling up a chair beside her bed, he brushed a few tears from her cheek. “Come on now. Let’s see if you can stop crying so we can talk.”
    Sedated and on pain meds, Celeste was groggy. Slowly she complained, “You didn’t come in all day.”
    He felt a stab of guilt, but he really hadn’t had a spare moment.
    â€œI know, but I had patients to see. They need help just as you do. I was