Flirting with the Society Doctor / When One Night Isn't Enough (31 page)

The nurse administrator instructed her to proceed to the E.R., stat.

A winter storm had moved in earlier than predicted. Madrin Memorial was the hospital closest to the crash site. With dangerous travel conditions no patients would be diverted. Ali gave report to Victoria, who would cover her patients until the next shift of nurses arrived.

Before leaving the floor, Ali made a call of her own.

“We need you, Gramps, and Mrs. Meyer. Two elementary school buses collided out on Clover Hill. Wear your hospital volunteer blazers and bring your ID badges. The E.R. is going to be a madhouse.”

“We’ll see you in ten.” He hung up the phone.

Ali would have offered to send someone to get him, but, living three blocks from the hospital, she knew Gramps would have refused.

“All non-essential personnel report to the emergency room, stat,” boomed over the hospital PA system. Ali ran for the stairs.

Hospital employees from every department, in a rainbow of scrub colors and uniforms, moved with purpose throughout the emergency room. Extra stretchers brought out of storage lined every spare inch of wall space along the main inverted T-shaped hallway. Staff from Housekeeping washed them down while men from Maintenance trailed behind them, tying on clean sheets. Wheelchairs, which never seemed to be around when you needed them, were collapsed and lined up three deep along the back corridor.

Security guards set up tables and barrier screens. Staff from Food Service assisted staff from Patient Registration by putting together and stacking new patient files. Men from Engineering hung premade signs directing ambulance staff and family members of the injured, signs that, for the most part, were ignored.

After receiving her assignment, Ali found Jared in Trauma Room One, Bed One, listening to the chest of an elderly man through his stethoscope. The patient looked up at her, sighed, and said, “I’ve died and gone to heaven.”

Jared lifted his head and bent toward his patient’s ear, his eyes fixed on Ali. “I feel the very same way every time I see her, too,” he whispered loudly, making certain she heard.

He smiled but it didn’t reach his eyes. Something wasn’t right. She’d thought he might show up at bingo last night. He hadn’t. Their last contact had been physical in nature, and when she’d woken up in the morning, he had gone. He’d snuck out, again.

“Is there anything I can help you with, Dr. Padget?” she asked.

“Why, yes, Nurse Forshay,” he countered. “Mr. Conran fell at the nursing home and is having some left hip pain. Let’s get a left hip X-ray.”

“Right away, Doctor.” She hesitated, stared at his luscious mouth, remembered.

He smiled, this one genuine. “Penny for your thoughts?”

Not for a million pennies. Her body in the midst of a heated flush, she turned and left the room, heard him laugh behind her. At the front desk she entered the radiology request into the computer.

“Do me a favor, Ali,” Tani said. “Tell Dr. P. his attorney is holding on line three. He promises this is his last call. He says it’s important.”

Ali met Jared outside Trauma One and relayed the message. He stiffened, looked … guilty? Well, he should feel guilty about sneaking out the way he did.

The first ambulance siren rang out and Ali’s attention turned to her patients. Her heart went out to the young children, especially three scared little girls who refused to be separated: a five-year-old in a right arm sling; a five-year-old in a left arm sling and a seven-year-old with her right leg immobilized, all snuggled close on a stretcher. The oldest held it together until Jared ordered X-rays all round and the one stable force in the group lost it. “I don’t want an X-ray,” she screamed, as if the word “X-ray” was synonymous with a blow to the head with a blunt object.

“Calm down, honey,” Ali comforted the oldest of the girls, while her bedmates looked up at her like she was an alien preparing to suck their brains out of their ears. “An X-ray is a picture of your bones. Pictures aren’t scary, are they?”

Then help, in the form of a spunky senior citizen wearing a red-wine-colored polyester pantsuit, arrived. “Pictures? Did I hear someone say pictures?” She patted her springy white curls. “I love having my picture taken!” Gramps’s neighbor Mrs. Meyer, all five feet two inches of her, loved
to mother little girls. Growing up, she’d helped Ali through quite a few difficult years. With her navy-blue volunteer blazer and photo ID proudly displayed on her chest pocket, she walked in like an army sergeant reporting for duty. “Where do you need me, Allison?”

“I think right here will be perfect. These little ladies are first-timers to the E.R. All three need X-rays. Would you please talk them through what happens during an X-ray, while I arrange for transport to Radiology? And if you would accompany them, I would greatly appreciate it.”

Her three little patients well in hand, Ali went to look for Gramps. She found him in the lobby, working with a male medical technician arranging screens to give the children some privacy. He’d brought his stash of board games, which were stacked on a chair next to a box of old coloring books and crayons.

He saw her in the doorway and waved. “We’ve got everything under control.” As if she’d had a doubt. He took his volunteer work at the hospital very seriously. And when children were involved, he gave two hundred percent.

When she returned to the E.R., a triage nurse called down the hall, “Ali, eight-year-old male in respiratory distress, possible asthma, ETA three minutes.”

“Put him in Trauma One, Bed Two,” she called back.

After calling a respiratory therapist to the E.R., she went in search of Jared, finding him in Exam Room Five with two of the older boys sitting next to each other on a stretcher, their legs dangling over the side. “Wow,” Ali said looking at the reddish, purplish swollen eye each one wore with pride. “You two are going to have some cool shiners tomorrow.”

“What’d I tell you?” Jared asked, playfully elbowing the boy closest to him. “Chicks dig bruises. Now, tomorrow when someone says, ‘Oh, Tommy, oh, Bobby what
happened?'” His voice slid from falsetto back to tenor when he added, “What are you going to say?”

Both boys puffed out their chests, smiled and said in unison, “You should see the other guy.”

“My work here is done,” Jared declared.

His joking lifted Ali’s spirits. Things were back to normal. Maybe his distant behavior had something to do with the calls from his attorney. Maybe things between them were fine. “Jeez Louise,” she said. “The macho vibe in this room is so strong I have the urge to challenge someone to arm wrestle.”

Jared stepped forward, sliding the sleeve of his lab coat up over his left elbow and flexing his arm. “What do you say, boys? Think I can take her?”

They both smiled up at their new hero. “I bet you can pin her in ten seconds flat,” the smaller of the two said.

“Ah, the naiveté of youth,” Jared said to Ali, then turned his attention to the boys, who listened raptly. “When in the presence of a beautiful woman, you never want to rush. You need to take your time, draw out the pleasure of her company.”

Ali heard the ambulance siren and put a stop to the fun. “Hold that thought, Romeo. That ambulance is for us. Pediatric respiratory distress. Possible asthma. Going into Trauma One, Bed Two. Respiratory Therapy is on the way. I’ll finish up with these bruisers and meet you there.”

Playful Dr. P. disappeared. “They’re both free to go. No fractures. Give their parents the closed head injury instruction sheet.”

She nodded.

After a respiratory treatment and the arrival of his mother, her asthma patient was breathing easier. Ali was walking between rooms when Gramps called her over to
the door leading to the lobby. “One of my boys isn’t looking well. He’s holding his belly.”

“I’ll get Dr. Padget.”

She found him in Exam Room Seven, involved in an intense discussion about how his patient’s favorite cartoon heroine would have reacted to getting stitches in her hand. He was so good with children. He’d be a great father some day. “Knock, knock.” She peered around the curtain. “Almost done?”

He tied off his last stitch. “Ta-dah. I think this was some of my best work.”

His patient seemed to concur, holding up her hand for Ali to see. “Now I have stitches just like my brothers.”

“You sure do,” Ali said.

“And she didn’t even cry.”

Ali walked to the bedside. “I’ll finish up here. Bacitracin dressing? You’re needed in the lobby. Now. Grab a wheelchair on your way.”

He snapped off his exam gloves and stopped at the sink to wash his hands. “Bacitracin dressing. Suture instruction sheet. She’s ready for discharge.”

Allison made fast work of the dressing, updated the chart and headed for the lobby. Halfway there Jared rushed through the door back into the E.R., pushing a pale, diaphoretic little black-haired boy, who sat hunched over in the wheelchair. “Possible internal injuries. I’m taking him straight for a CAT scan. Call them and tell them I’m on my way. Stat.”

The call made, Ali walked into the lobby. Her gramps and a nurse’s aide were looking after fifteen children, all sucking on lollipops. The man loved sugar and thought everyone else should, too. “I hope you made sure none of these children have diabetes.”

“I checked with the nurse when each one was brought out.”

“Everything okay out here?”

“Fine now, except this little imp keeps beating me at checkers.” A little blond girl sat on the other side of a checkerboard, a big toothless smile on her face.

“Good call on the little boy.” She gave him a quick hug.

“Thanks, Allison.”

The next few hours flew by. Around dinnertime, Ali stood in the doorway to Trauma Two, waiting to ask if Jared wanted anything from the cafeteria. She watched him examine a construction worker who’d fallen from scaffolding, his movements purposeful, self-assured. He took charge, didn’t second-guess himself. She loved those qualities in a man. At the same time he acknowledged his patients’ fears at being in the E.R., didn’t narrow his focus to symptoms only, like some physicians did, so intent on solving the mystery of a patient’s condition they paid little attention to their emotional trauma.

He engaged his patients in conversation when they were stable enough to converse, got to know them, put them at ease. He had a calming way about him when he wanted to. Charming. He had all the qualities she valued in a man, in a mate, except one. The ability to commit to a lifetime with one woman.

“Caught ya,” Victoria said, coming to stand beside her. “He is worth a second look, isn’t he?”

Ali nodded.

“So what’s going on between the two of you?”

Ali shrugged.

“Come. Take a quick break with me.” She took Ali by the arm. “Tani,” Victoria said. “Ali’ll be in the lounge if
you need her.” She held up two fingers. “Two minutes. Promise.”

The door to the lounge wasn’t even halfway closed when Victoria said, “You like him. I can tell.”

Busted. It’d crept up on her little by little each day. A smile. A joke. A caring word or gesture. But it had been their date, and the night that had followed that had pushed her feelings from plain old lust to liking. A smidge past liking, to be honest. “I’ve gotten to know a bit more about him this time around.”

“The two of you make a great-looking couple.”

“He is totally wrong for me, Vic.” Ali threw up her hands and started to pace. She held up her index finger. “He is not at all interested in marriage.”

“Very few men are at first,” Victoria said. “It’s up to you to bring him around.”

Ali brought up a second finger. “He’s leaving town in two weeks.”

“Maybe if he had a reason to stay, he would.” She made it sound so simple. “I hear a position in the E.R. may be opening up in March.”

Ali had never considered the possibility of Jared staying in town. Excitement started to simmer inside her. If they had more time together, maybe like would turn to love, and days of fun would transform into a lifetime of happiness. Dare she hope?

No. She added a third finger. “He’s just like my father.”

Victoria laughed. “Where did you get that idea from? In all the time he’s worked at this hospital, the only woman I’ve ever heard his name associated with is you.”

How could that be? “Michael said—”

“Ali, you of all people should know that everyone
has a past. It’s how you live your life in the present that matters.”

Victoria was right. Ali had based her opinion of Jared on stories from Michael. His horn-dog antics toward her seemed to corroborate Michael’s claim. Yet she couldn’t recall any rumors about Jared sleeping around. And at Madrin Memorial, nothing remained secret for long.

I’m hardly the womanizer you think me to be.

“I’m an idiot,” Ali said.

“Don’t tell me. Tell him.”

Ali hugged her friend. “Thanks, Vic.”

“Where are you going?”

“To have a talk with Jared.”

Ali couldn’t find him anywhere in the E.R. According to Tani, “He ran down to the cafeteria to get some dinner.”

“I’m going to run down, too,” Ali said. “Page me if you need me.”

A few minutes later Ali slammed a yogurt onto her orange cafeteria tray, lifted it and moved to the fresh fruit display, where she had a perfect view of the cozy couple.
Gak.
Dr. Padget could have dinner with whoever the hell he wanted. Jerk. The unnaturally big-boobed blond nurse she recognized from 4B leaned in. Jared met her halfway, to get a better view down the deep V of her floral scrub top, no doubt. The hussy placed her hand on his arm, said something, they both laughed. An intimate moment between lovers?

Ali seethed, picked up an orange, tested its weight and eyed the trajectory necessary to whack him between the eyes. Years of tossing a baseball around with her gramps made it easily doable.

Less than twenty-four hours after getting her into bed, he was flirting with another woman. He’d probably never stopped, probably had dates lined up for every night of the
week and she had fallen into his Tuesday slot. She needed to spend more time listening to hospital gossip and less listening to Victoria. She was a fool to have considered, even for a few minutes, the possibility of something more than sex between them.