Danielle Steel: Changes

CRITICAL RAVES FOR

DANIELLE STEEL

“STEEL IS ONE OF THE BEST.” —Los Angeles Times “THE PLOTS OF DANIELLE STEEL'S NOVELS TWIST AND WEAVE AS INCREDIBLE STORIES UNFOLD TO THE THRILL AND DELIGHT OF HER ENORMOUS READING PUBLIC.”—United Press International“A LITERARY PHENOMENON… ambitious… prolific … and not to be pigeonholed as one who produces a predictable kind of book.”— The Detroit News “There is a smooth reading style to her writings which makes it easy to forget the time and to keep flipping the pages.”— The Pittsburgh Press “Ms. Steel excels at pacing her narrative, which races forward, mirroring the frenetic lives chronicled here; men and women swept up in bewildering change, seeking solutions to problems never before faced.”— Nashville Banner

Also by Danielle Steel

a cognizant original v5 release october 19 2010

LEAP OF FAITH LONE EAGLE HEARTBEAT JOURNEY MESSAGE FROM NAM THE HOUSE ON HOPE STREET DADDY STAR THE WEDDING ZOYA IRRESISTIBLE FORCES KALEIDOSCOPE GRANNY DAN FINE THINGS BITTERSWEET WANDERLUST MIRROR IMAGE SECRETS HIS BRIGHT LIGHT: THE

STORY OF NICK TRAINË FAMILY ALBUM

FULL CIRCLE THE KLONE AND I CHANGES THE LONG ROAD HOME CROSSINGS THE GHOST ONCE IN A LIFETIME SPECIAL DELIVERY A PERFECT STRANGER THE RANCH REMEMBRANCE SILENT HONOR PALOMINO MALICE LOVE: POEMS FIVE PAYS IN PARIS THE JUNG LIGHTNING LOVING WINGS TO LOVE AGAIN THE GIFT SUMMER'S END ACCIDENT SEASON OF PASSION VANISHED THE PROMISE MIXED BLESSINGS NOW AND FOREVER JEWELS PASSION'S PROMISE NO GREATER LOVE GOING HOME Visit the Danielle Steel Web Site at:

www.daniellesteel.com.

Books by Danielle Steel

SUNSET IN ST. TROPEZ NO GREATER LOVE THE COTTAGE HEARTBEAT THE KISS MESSAGE FROM NAM LEAP OF FAITH DADDY LONE EAGLE STAR JOURNEY ZOYA THE HOUSE ON HOPE STREET KALEIDOSCOPE THE WEDDING FINE THINGS IRRESISTIBLE FORCES WANDERLUST GRANNY DAN SECRETS BITTERSWEET FAMILY ALBUM MIRROR IMAGE FULL CIRCLE HIS BRIGHT LIGHT: THE

STORY OF NICK TRAINA CHANGES

THURSTON HOUSE THE KLONE AND I CROSSINGS THE LONG ROAD HOME ONCE IN A LIFETIME THE GHOST A PERFECT STRANGER SPECIAL DELIVERY REMEMBRANCE THE RANCH PALOMINO SILENT HONOR LOVE: POEMS MALICE THE RING FIVE DAYS IN PARIS LOVING LIGHTNING TO LOVE AGAIN WINGS SUMMER'S END THE GIFT SEASON OF PASSION ACCIDENT THE PROMIS'E VANISHED NOW AND FOREVER MIXED BLESSINGS PASSION'S PROMISE JEWELS GOING HOME Visit the Danielle Steel Web Site at:

www.daniellesteel.com

DELL PUBLISHING

To Beatrix, Trevor, Todd,

Nicky, and especially John,

for all that you are, and

all that you have given me.

With all my love,

d.s.

Acknowledgment

And with special thanks to Dr. Phillip Oyer

CHAPTER 1

“Dr. Hallam … Dr. Peter Hallam … Dr. Hallam … Cardiac Intensive, Dr. Hallam …” The voice droned on mechanically as Peter Hallam sped through the lobby of Center City Hospital, never stopping to answer the page since the team already knew he was on his way. He furrowed his brow as he pressed six, his mind already totally engaged with the data he had been given twenty minutes before on the phone. They had waited weeks for this donor, and it was almost too late. Almost. His mind raced as the elevator doors ground open, and he walked quickly to the nurses' station marked Cardiac Intensive Care.

“Have they sent Sally Block upstairs yet?” A nurse looked up, seeming to snap to attention as her eyes met his. Something inside her always leapt a little when she saw him. There was something infinitely impressive about the man, tall, slender, gray-haired, blue-eyed, soft-spoken. He had the looks of the doctors one read about in women's novels. There was something so basically kind and gentle about him, and yet something powerful as well. The aura of a highly trained racehorse always straining at the reins, aching to go faster, farther … to do more … to fight time … to conquer odds beyond hope … to steal back just one life … one man … one woman … one child … one more. And often he won. Often. But not always. And that irked him. More than that, it pained him. It was the cause for the lines beside his eyes, the sorrow one saw deep within him. It wasn't enough that he wrought miracles almost daily. He wanted more than that, better odds, he wanted to save them all, and there was no way he could.

“Yes, Doctor.” The nurse nodded quickly. “She just went up.”

“Was she ready?” That was the other thing about him and the nurse marveled at the question. She knew instantly what he meant by “ready"; not the I.V. in the patient's arm, or the mild sedative administered before she left her room to be wheeled to surgery. He was questioning what she was thinking, feeling, who had spoken to her, who went with her. He wanted each of them to know what they were facing, how hard the team would work, how much they cared, how desperately they would all try to save each life. He wanted each patient to be ready to enter the battle with him. “If they don't believe they have a fighting chance when they go in there, we've lost them right from the beginning,” the nurse had heard him tell his students, and he meant it. He fought with every fiber of his being, and it cost him, but it was worth it. The results he'd gotten in the past five years were amazing, with few exceptions. Exceptions which mattered deeply to Peter Hallam. Everything did. He was remarkable and intense and brilliant… and so goddamn handsome, the nurse reminded herself with a smile as he hurried past her to a small elevator in the corridor behind her. It sped up one floor and deposited him outside the operating rooms where he and his team performed bypasses and transplants and occasionally more ordinary cardiac surgery, but not often. Most of the time, Peter Hallam and his team did the big stuff, as they would tonight.

Sally Block was a twenty-two-year-old girl who had lived most of her adult life as an invalid, crippled by rheumatic fever as a child, and she had suffered through multiple valve replacements and a decade of medication. He and his associates had agreed weeks before when she'd been admitted to Center City that a transplant was the only answer for her. But thus far, there had been no donor. Until tonight, at two thirty in the morning, when a group of juvenile delinquents had engaged in their own private drag races in the San Fernando Valley; three of them had died on impact, and after a series of businesslike phone calls from the splendidly run organization for the location and placement of donors, Peter Hallam knew he had a good one. He had had calls out to every hospital in Southern California for a donor for Sally, and now they had one—if Sally could just survive the surgery, and her body didn't sabotage them by rejecting the new heart they gave her.

He peeled off his street clothes without ceremony, donned the limp green cotton surgery pajamas, scrubbed intensely, and was gowned and masked by surgical assistants. Three other doctors and two residents did likewise as did a fleet of nurses. But Peter Hallam seemed not even to see them, as he walked into the operating room. His eyes immediately sought Sally, lying silent and still on the operating-room table, her own eyes seemingly mesmerized by the bright lights above her. Even lying there in the sterile garb with her long blond hair tucked into a green cotton cap she looked pretty. She was not only a beautiful young woman but a decent human being as well. She wanted desperately to be an artist … to go to college … to go to a prom … to be kissed … to have babies … She recognized him even with the cap and mask and she smiled sleepily through a haze of medication.