Career Girl in the Country / The Doctor's Reason to Stay (20 page)

“T
HREE
ribs, one ulna, one tibia, luckily no surgery. But he’s got a long recovery ahead of him.” He spun away from the X-ray viewing-box to face Edie. “And since this is the third time he’s fallen out of the tree, I’m going to prescribe cutting the tree down.”

She laughed. “Or maybe a simpler solution, such as putting a lock on his bedroom window that he won’t be able to unlatch.”

“Which is why you’re the CLS and I’m not.”

“Trees and kids … big temptation. Bobby’s just doing what any normal little boy would do when presented with such exciting temptation.”

“But this temptation is going to get him killed if his parents aren’t careful.”

“I’ll talk to them and if better locks aren’t the answer, I’ll bring up your idea.” She smiled. “But with kids, simpler is usually the best course of action. And I have an idea that since Bobby’s going to spend the next couple of months being sidelined from pretty much everything, he might not be so inclined to
escape
again.”

“Ah, the optimism of a girl who probably never climbed a tree. Maybe next time we go out, I’ll have to teach you to climb. Seeing the world from that high
up … Definitely our next date.” Pulling the X-rays off the viewing-box, he stuck them in an envelope and handed them over to the waiting ward clerk, an older woman whose scowl betrayed her obvious disdain for non-professional chitchat on the job. “Will you see that these get into the proper file, please, Wilma?” he asked the woman, reading the name on her name tag.

She cleared her throat critically, grabbed the envelope and marched from the room.

“Wilma’s a stickler for professional protocol,” Edie said, laughing. “And it doesn’t matter if the person who’s not following it
does
own the hospital.”

“Then she’s an asset to her job. So, about climbing that tree …”

“Never have, never will.”

“Then it’s not a date?” he asked, faking a sad frown.

“The only date I have is with Bobby Morrow’s parents, after you talk to them about Bobby’s injuries.”

“Another stickler for professional protocol.”

“No. Just someone who’s trying to get away from the man who wants her to climb a tree. Look, you go do what you need to do with Bobby, and I’ll be in there in a couple of minutes to talk to his parents. In the meantime, avoid Wilma. She’ll report you to the Chief of Staff.” In a flash, Edie was gone, leaving Rafe alone in the designated viewing-room, wondering why the only thing on his mind was climbing a tree with Edie.

Because he was crazy, that was why! Crazy, and borrowing trouble he didn’t need.

But the image of her clinging to a tree limb, him shinnying up to rescue her … Shaking his head to rid himself of that rather nice daydream, he cleared his throat and headed back to Exam 3, chiding himself that
this flirtation, even though most of it was in his mind, had to stop. Edie was Lilly Lake, he was not. The twain that would never meet.

“So, by—” The words were barely out when Bobby’s body nearly shook off the table in a huge convulsion. The first thing that came to Rafe’s mind was a bone fragment broken lose and moving, or a blood clot. Instantly, Rafe pushed the emergency button on the wall near the door, then flew to the child’s bed and wedged himself between Bobby and his mother, who was practically in the bed with the boy, trying to shake him into a response.

“Doctor!” she cried helplessly. “Bobby … what’s wrong with him?”

“Please,” Rafe said, trying to move the mother aside. But she wouldn’t be moved, and when Rafe looked at Bobby’s father, he seemed to be in some kind of a trance. “I need room …”

“Mrs. Morrow!” Edie called from the doorway. “Please step back from the bed.”

“But my son—”

“Dr. Corbett will take care of your son, but you need to give him room.”

Rafe, who was struggling to take a pulse, managed to diagnose tachycardia, meaning the boy’s heart was beating too fast. “Did you give him any medication, or is there a possibility he got into something prescribed to you?” he asked the woman.

“No!” she screamed. “Nothing!”

“Nothing at all?” Rafe persisted.

“He fell out of a tree, now this …”

But what he was seeing didn’t seem connected to the broken bones, and Bobby’s symptoms didn’t appear
to be a bone fragment or blood clot broken loose. “If he took something, I have to know what it was,” he said, his patience wearing away as quickly as Bobby’s life seemed to be ebbing. “Tell me, Mrs. Morrow, Mr. Morrow!” he shouted, as his patience finally snapped.

“Nothing,” the woman cried. “Nothing!”

Rafe sucked in a sharp breath, then turned his back to the couple and spoke to the nurse in charge. “I need this boy treated with activated charcoal, stat. And get a crash cart in here. We also need oxygen, and get an IV in him.”

Mrs. Morrow grabbed hold of Rafe’s arm. “Please, you’ve got to help him,” she begged, but he removed her hand so he could focus on the child.

“Could somebody please see that Bobby’s parents are made comfortable while we take care of their son?” he barked at the crowd of people now amassed in the room—nurses, interns, lab techs, respiratory therapists … the full emergency team at the ready.

“No,” Mrs. Morrow cried, as a nurse stepped forward. “I won’t leave here. This is my son, you can’t make me—”

“Mrs. Morrow, you must leave so Dr. Corbett can help your son!” Edie’s voice was gentle but firm. Taking the woman’s arm, Edie physically pulled her all the way to the hall outside the exam room, then came back and did the same with Mr. Morrow, as one of the nurses rolled the red crash cart into the area and immediately began the efforts to save Bobby’s life. Oxygen, IV, heart monitor, intubation tube just in case. Rafe led the way, calling the shots, the other medical personnel responding.

About two minutes into the procedure, Rick
Navarro appeared, but rather than throwing himself into the mix he took his place alongside Edie. “What happened?” he whispered.

“When I got here, Bobby was having a convulsion. Rafe was handling it, but the Morrows were getting pretty … let’s just say in the way. So I got them out of the room, which is a good thing because Rafe also diagnosed tachycardia, and, well …” She glanced out into the hall at the Morrows, who were huddled together, and her heart went out to them. Too often, she’d been the one looking in the tiny window, watching the doctors frantically trying to save her mother’s life. She knew what it felt like to be left out at the moment the person she loved most in the world needed her. “Look, they shouldn’t be watching this, so I want to get them out of the area, unless you need me …”

“Go,” Rick said. “Take them to the doctors’ lounge, do what you have to.”

She looked at Rafe, who caught her eye at the same time then smiled at her. He was so … in charge. Larger than life. Confident. Maybe, just maybe, she
would
like to go and climb that tree with him some time after all.

“It may have been an aspirin overdose,” Edie whispered to Rafe, who was looking at the test results of blood drawn from Bobby.

They’d stabilized him for the moment. Treated the tachycardia and convulsions, splinted the broken ribs, and Rafe was in the process of getting ready to set the broken arm and leg. Overall, the kid was in bad shape, part of it caused by the fall, part of it because of what had happened afterward. “Aspirin?” he said, going straight to the result for the serum salicylate levels.
Sure enough, the indication was there. “Then it’s a good thing I got the charcoal into him. It was a shot in the dark, but it seemed.” He shrugged. “Logical?” she asked.

“Kid gets hurt, he’s in pain … in Bobby’s case, excruciating pain due to so many injuries. And the parents’ first reaction is to help ease that pain. I’ve seen it before. Give the child aspirin, maybe in a panic give them too much. A lot of people think that baby aspirin isn’t strong enough so they load the child up and, essentially, overdose them.”

“And you spotted that?”

“I suspected it. But you’ve got to look at a whole list of other complications, too. Especially with children. There are so many childhood conditions that mimic something else, so you’ve got to be careful.”

“Careful, as in suspecting it could be poisoning of some sort and treating for it before you have the lab results back?”

“Time is critical. You don’t want that aspirin, or other painkiller, being absorbed into the system, because then you could be looking at a whole boatload of other complications—metabolic acidosis, renal shutdown, respiratory problems.” He shrugged. “How did you find out it was aspirin? When I asked, they wouldn’t say a word.”

“I told them that having the best doctor in the hospital wouldn’t do Bobby a darned bit of good if that doctor didn’t know what he was working with. Then Mrs. Morrow admitted giving him a couple of baby aspirin, and Mr. Morrow said it was more than a couple.”

“Well, now we know what we’re dealing with, so it’ll be easier for us to treat Bobby. Thanks for getting
it out of them because I sure as hell didn’t have the silver tongue to do it.”

“Maybe because you were too busy saving Bobby’s life.”

“Or maybe I lack the people skills.” “Aren’t you being a little too hard on yourself?” Edie asked.

“What I’m being is honest. Nothing else intended. I treat conditions of the bone, it’s what I do, it’s who I am. The rest of it doesn’t matter.” With that, Rafe spun away and returned to the treatment room, ready to finish the process with Bobby Morrow and his parents. It wasn’t his intention to be rude to Edie, or to even shut her off, but he didn’t like compliments, didn’t like anyone glowing over his work. He did what he did, and that was all there was to it. Oh, he liked being an orthopedic surgeon. Actually, he loved it. But he didn’t want, didn’t need accolades, and as sure as a new day rolled around every twenty-four hours, Edie had been on the verge of accolades. So it had been easier to leave. But he felt a little rotten about it. She’d done a masterful job of getting the information out of Bobby’s parents. It probably wouldn’t have hurt him to lay a few accolades on her. Hindsight, he thought, as he walked through the door to Bobby Morrow’s treatment room. It was a kick in the rear end. Too bad he hadn’t used a little foresight.

“I come bearing a peace offering,” Rafe said, setting the cup of hot tea down on Edie’s desk.

She looked up at him. “For what?”

“I was pretty rude to you earlier. Didn’t mean to be,
but that’s how it happens with me sometimes. It just slips out.”

She hadn’t taken it personally, though. He’d been a little abrupt, but not so much that she’d been offended. “A real apology would have included a vanilla bean scone with the tea,” she said, pulling the cardboard cup over to her, “but I appreciate the thought.”

Rafe laughed. “You’re a tough one, Edie Parker.”

“No one’s ever accused me of being tough before. I think I like it.”

“Look, sometimes I get … preoccupied with my work, and …”

“And you don’t take compliments very well.”

“That, too.”

“Well, how about a hand signal? Maybe a subtle salute, or a half-wave? That way, it’s not a real compliment, but you’ll know one was intended.”

“Tough, and relentless. Not a bad combination, actually.”

“No one’s ever called me relentless either. Normally I was the gushy one, the one given to the biggest emotions, the one who sort of got shoved to the wall when the room filled up and I didn’t know how to fight my way to another spot. But I appreciate the description. I aspire to being tough and relentless.”

“Would you aspire to grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup from a can tonight? I promised Molly her favorite meal, figuring I’d be ordering take-out pizza or something, and that’s what she wanted. So I’m going to be donning my chef’s apron and whipping up a culinary masterpiece later on, if you’d care to join us.”

She laughed. “A man who cooks? How could I refuse?”

“Actually, I have ulterior motives. I’m pretty sure I can handle opening the soup cans, but grilling the actual sandwiches may be well beyond my culinary capabilities.”

“What do you do back in Boston?”

“Eat at the hospital cafeteria, or order in.”

Edie shook her head. “Bet you don’t do your own laundry either.”

“As a matter of fact … no.” The way her eyes twinkled when she laughed caught him off guard. He really didn’t intend to stare, but he couldn’t help himself. She had such depth. More than that, she had a spirit like he’d never seen in anyone before, and he was pulled in by it. Edie was a woman who generally cared about everybody. She couldn’t help herself. It’s what she was about. And, honestly, other than his aunt, he’d never known people like that existed. “But I do bundle it up and haul it down to the laundry myself. Even sort it.”

“A man who sorts laundry and opens cans of soup …”

She gave him a salute,
and
a half-wave. But the thing that caught his heart most was her smile. He was already addicted to it, and even though that should have worried him in a big way, it didn’t. The fact that he wasn’t worried didn’t worry him either. Actually, he spent the rest of the day enjoying the lingering results of something as simple as Edie’s smile.

“And for dessert, I have a surprise,” Rafe said, setting the silver-domed platter on the picnic table on the patio. Soup and sandwiches had gone down well and Edie and Molly had done all the preparations while he’d stood back and watched them interact. It had
occurred to him, more than once, that Edie would be the perfect parent for Molly. Their genuine affection for each other showed, and they had a natural rhythm together, one that would cause anyone looking on to see them as mother and daughter. That, plus the fact that they simply looked the part.

Could it work out? It was a thought, maybe even a good one. And somewhere, in the back of his mind, he’d even considered that if he did manage to make it happen, he might be able to keep himself on the fringes of the relationship. Seeing Edie again … he wouldn’t mind that. Wouldn’t mind having some insignificant part in Molly’s life either. “And I’ll have you know that I spent all afternoon in the kitchen.” He whisked the lid off the dome. “Arranging these vanilla bean scones on the platter.”