Trauma Plan, page 6
Riley pulled the cart along the last stretch of hallway toward the storage closet just beyond the ER doctors’ combination office and sleeping room. She rested her right hand on the cart’s handle, using it alternately with her left. It was weaker but pulling nevertheless. With her particular injury, pulling was easier than pushing. Riley wheeled on, heard the bustle of the ER in the distance, felt her pulse quicken slightly. It wasn’t quite a gurney, but she was doing it.
She thought of Kate’s advice to call a housekeeping tech and felt a small surge of pride. She hadn’t needed help. The plastic manikin family was no problem to transport, nor had the conference room cleanup been difficult. Surprisingly, Jack Travis had tidied up after—
Oh no. Riley stopped the cart abruptly as Jack stepped from the ER physicians’ office into the hallway. The IV arm slid to the floor, palm up.
He jogged forward to help.
“Thank you,” she said, suddenly wishing it were Fat Old Fred who’d been catapulted to the floor. In flames. It would have been a nice diversion while she ran off and called housekeeping to finish up. She’d had one too many run-ins with Rambo Travis today.
“You’re welcome.” Jack slid the arm back onto the cart, then stood looking down at Riley for long enough that she felt the heat rise in her face. He reached into his scrub shirt pocket. “Do me a favor now?” He pulled out a small, preloaded syringe and smiled at the look on her face. “A tetanus shot, Safety Officer. I swear.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I need a tetanus shot. You’re a nurse. Unless you fibbed to Vesta Calder.”
Riley squirmed. “Of course not. But . . .”
“You’ve given shots?”
“Hundreds.”
“So, please. Help me out?” He glanced into the office. “I have an alcohol swab, a Band-Aid—everything I need but you.” He stepped back into the office, leaving her in the doorway. “I’m sitting down. Six hours into my tragic risk of lockjaw. Which is almost always fatal.”
She smiled despite the fact that she’d begun to tremble—deep inside, where she knew that the only injections she’d given in more than a year were into a dozen H-E-B grocery store oranges. She’d developed a left-handed system and, in fact, hadn’t done too badly. No complaints from any injected produce. But . . .
Jack held out the syringe. “Six hours and forty seconds. My jaw’s feeling tense.”
“Oh . . . fine.”
She strode into the small office, refusing to acknowledge the sound of her heart pounding in her ears. Or that it kicked up more than a notch as he lifted the sleeve of his scrub top to reveal a smoothly muscled left shoulder. Very muscled. “Be a gentleman and open that alcohol swab?”
“Sure.” He handed her the syringe. “And no, I don’t have any drug allergies.”
“Thanks. I was about to ask.” Riley read the label on the medication before taking the offered swab. She rubbed it briskly against his deltoid. “Relax your muscle.”
“It is.”
It is? She ignored the heat in her face, said a silent prayer, then uncapped the syringe. And—“A little stick here”—sank the short needle left-handed into his muscle. She held her breath and used her numb fingers to depress the plunger. All the way until the syringe emptied. When it was over, it was all she could do not to leap up and down and shout, “Hallelujah”—or cry. But she managed it. And Jack Travis had no idea he’d just been an unwitting lab rat.
“Good job. I didn’t feel a thing.” He handed her the opened Band-Aid.
“Me either,” Riley said, finally meeting his gaze. She was surprised again by the burnt-toffee color of his eyes. And by the genuine kindness in his expression, the same look that she’d noticed earlier when he was kneeling in the chapel. It looks like he really cares.
“So,” she said, turning her attention back to the Band-Aid, “you’re good for another ten years or ten thousand miles, whichever comes first.”
He laughed. “You’ve said that before, Chaplain.”
“Hundreds of times.”
Riley stepped out into the hallway and Jack followed.
“Need help with that?” Jack pointed to the cart.
“No,” she answered, feeling a ridiculously heady wave of confidence. “I’ve got it. No problem.”
“Quite a pile you have there,” he said, lifting the toddler manikin from the cart. He walked a few steps farther across the corridor, hefting it in his hands, turning it over. “Realistic. About the weight of a three-year-old, I’d say.”
“Um, sure. Well, I’m going to tote my little plastic family back to the closet and head home.” Riley glanced down the hallway, anxious to get away—out of the hospital—before the blush of her small victory began to fade. “So . . .”
“Here . . . catch!”
Riley flinched and then lurched forward with arms raised as Toddler Tim hurtled through the air.
7
Jack watched Riley grab instinctively with her right arm, then clutch again with both hands as the manikin slipped from her grasp. She quickly raised a knee to awkwardly pin its plastic legs between her elbow and her midsection, stopping its head from striking the floor. By less than an inch.
“Nice recovery,” he said, instantly wishing he’d chosen another word. Especially when she straightened up and he saw the look on her face. “Sorry—instinct. I was raised by two generations of football coaches.”
“I would . . . have guessed . . . wolves.” Breathless and flushed, Riley shifted Toddler Tim into the crook of her left arm. Her eyes narrowed. “What were you thinking? This manikin costs over four hundred dollars. What if I’d dropped it?”
But you didn’t. So . . . “You’re right. I shouldn’t have done that,” he said, noticing that she’d begun to jiggle the plastic boy very slightly as if comforting a child. For some reason, it touched him.
“No, you shouldn’t have.” She sighed. “I’m going.”
He watched as Riley added the manikin to the others, telling himself that he’d probably blown his chances with the tossing stunt. Besides, the idea that had been tumbling in his brain since his conversation with Gilbert was crazy at best. He shouldn’t go ahead with it, but—“Hey, one more thing?”
She looked up at him.
“Come work for me?”
Her mouth fell open. “What?” If she were still holding Tim, he’d be looking at a skull fracture.
“At the free clinic,” he explained, stepping closer. “Volunteer there. As a staff nurse.” He saw her initial disbelief morph into wariness. “I think you’d like it. And—” he gentled his voice—“I think the patients would like you, Riley. In fact, I’m sure they would.”
“I haven’t . . .” She hesitated, her left hand rubbing her right. “I haven’t been working as a clinical nurse for a while.”
“We’re not an ER,” he said quickly. “Sore throats, sprained ankles, high blood pressure.” He smiled. “And the occasional tetanus shot. We’re providing everyday care—the kind of safety net that most people take for granted—to folks who don’t have that luxury in their lives. Because they’re transient, down on their luck, underemployed, or victims; we’re preventing them from falling through the cracks. It’s important work.”
“Even if the neighbors don’t want you there?”
“Even then.” Jack’s lips tensed, but he made himself smile. “But that’s only because they think the same thing you do.”
Riley raised her brows.
“That I was raised by wolves.” Her faint smile propelled him on. “There are a couple other volunteer docs, so you could come in on their shifts and completely avoid me, and—”
“Wait.” Riley lifted her palm to cut him off. “I’m sorry, but I really can’t work at your clinic.”
“Can’t or won’t?”
“Can’t. I’m out of town a lot on my days off. My responsibilities as chaplain require time beyond my hospital hours. There’s a safety review coming up, and . . .” Her gaze dropped to the equipment cart for an instant. “I’m hoping to secure a new position here at Alamo Grace.”
“As triage nurse?” Jack asked, his rising irritation making him dump the subtlety he’d striven for.
“How did you know that?”
Jack hesitated, but only for a moment. “Kate Callison.”
“Kate told you about me?” Riley’s face paled.
He wasn’t going to win this one. Jack shoved past a prod of guilt. “I saw the bruises on her arm. I asked where they came from.”
Riley closed her eyes.
“Look,” Jack offered as gently as he could, “Kate wasn’t gossiping. Far from it. She only said that you’d had an accident a year ago. And that it’s been difficult finding opportunities to practice your clinical skills.”
“So you offer yourself up as a lab rat with that tetanus shot. Then—” something close to a growl rumbled deep in her throat—“you heave a manikin at me? To see if I could keep it from smacking me in the face? So you could tell me ‘nice recovery’ if it didn’t?”
“Hey, don’t.” Jack glanced down the hallway, took a step closer.
“No,” she said, grabbing for the handle of the cart. “Don’t you. Don’t you dare think that you can dismiss me as a chaplain one minute and then swoop in to rescue me the next. I am not on fire in your parking lot, Dr. Travis. And I’m not even close to ‘falling through the cracks.’ I don’t need to tolerate crude aptitude tests or your offer of a pity job. I don’t need you. Period. What I need is the privacy I’m entitled to. And to go home. Now.”
Jack told himself that he didn’t see a shimmer of tears in Riley’s eyes before she turned and walked away, towing the manikin family behind her. He reminded himself that his clinic offer had been to effect a win-win, not an attempt at rescue—or humiliation. She was wrong.
When she disappeared into the equipment closet, he walked back to the ER. After the next patient, he’d call the clinic to see if the fire investigation was still going on. Then take a peek at the evening news. Hopefully any coverage about him would be concerning current-day conflict and not an unearthing of his monumental past mistakes.
He agreed completely with what Riley had said about privacy. She deserved hers. And he felt the same way about his.
* * *
Safe . . . I’m safe here.
Vesta lowered the binoculars and set them on the windowsill beside a tulip-shaped sherry glass. She scanned the view unaided, willing its familiar peace to wash over her. It was only a modest one-third acre, tucked between her cozy guest cottage and the owners’ much-larger home, but it held a treasure trove of foliage. Cedars, live oaks, mesquite, several crepe myrtle, a young redbud, an old hollowed-out black walnut stump—destined for destruction by the eager ladder-back and golden-fronted woodpeckers. As well as an array of wispy Texas grasses and flowering sage and salvia, jewel-bright splashes of color irresistible to the native black-chinned hummingbirds and several other species that migrated through south Texas on their way to Mexico.
The Bluffs cottage was a balm for Vesta’s soul in every season. A peaceful, private haven. And her fourth lease in the fifteen years since she’d sold her own home . . . and begun to hide.
I’m safe here. Even though . . .
She picked up the binoculars again, adjusted the focus, and strained to see the slice of San Antonio Street visible beyond the trees. A few cars. None of them police or fire vehicles, though they could have used the Crockett Street route; construction for The Bluffs’ security gates had a good section of the road in upheaval. The evening news assured viewers that the routine investigation was winding down. But was it routine? Or was it . . . arson?
Vesta’s throat tightened. The video of the man on fire in the clinic parking lot had been horrific, his screams for help desperate, chilling. Far too much a reminder of . . . No, don’t think about it.
Her hands began to tremble and she set the binoculars down, reminding herself to breathe slowly. I’m home. Safe. It’s long past time to let it go.
She had made some progress toward that in recent months. No panic attacks, only rare nightmares. She’d even ventured farther into the wooded yard to hang hummingbird feeders on the redbud tree. Then laced on her hiking boots to make cautious loops around the small property, leaving a worn path—proof she was better. It had begun to feel like she could finally breathe again, that perhaps there was hope. Until the news started to report suspicious fires in neighboring New Braunfels. Then today . . . The familiar mix of shame and fear brought a wave of nausea. The same as when she’d cowered in that hospital chapel, paralyzed and gasping like a bird that had struck a windowpane—helpless, terrified, and certain she would suffocate and die.
Vesta reached for the glass of pale, straw-colored fino sherry and used both hands to steady it as she raised it to her lips. Crisp, nutty, strong—always better at calming her nerves than any prescribed medication, but something she enjoyed only rarely because of her diabetes. And shouldn’t be touching tonight because of the danger of it leading to another deadly plummet in her blood sugar. Dr. Travis would absolutely disapprove, but then . . .
Vesta took another sip, closed her eyes, willed her heart to stay steady, her breathing to cooperate. The irony was that Jack Travis was the reason she needed this forbidden remedy. Because seeing him—meeting him finally—brought the awful memory back as if it had happened yesterday, not nearly fifteen years ago.
Please, God, have mercy. Spare me this.
Vesta downed the last of the sherry, eyes watering, then picked up the binoculars and glanced toward the street in time to catch a glimpse of Andrea Nichols’s white Lexus. Stirring things up, no doubt. Andrea was after Dr. Travis’s clinic like a woodpecker on that walnut stump. Even though it was suspected to be accidental, the fire at the clinic had already prompted the media to repeat statistics about suspicious fires in neighboring communities. And with Jack Travis’s name in the news, how long could it be before they dug into much older cases?
An unsolved arson-murder would be far more interesting.
Vesta shivered. I’m safe . . .
* * *
Riley pulled her sun-faded Honda Civic into her condo’s driveway at dusk, watching as the garage door opened to reveal the quartz-blue Mercedes E550 parked inside. She knew she should drive the coupe around the block once in a while to keep the oil from settling. Her trips to Houston had been less frequent lately, and she only drove the car there to please the man who’d gifted it to her. Grandfather Hale—Poppy. She smiled, thinking of him.
He’d surprised her with the convertible when she graduated with her bachelor’s degree in nursing. And was the one relative who’d always applauded her attempts at independence. From the days she climbed out onto the highest branches of the pecan tree to when he saw her in that hospital after the assault, bruised and battered with a halo brace bolted into her skull. Even then, he’d leaned close and whispered, “You’re still my brave little tiger. Remember that.”
Brave . . . Her gaze swept over the letters on the car’s vanity plate—TYGRR—and to the Scripture reference on the silver frame holding it: 1 Corinthians 16:13. “Be on your guard; stand firm in the faith; be courageous; be strong.” Her grandfather’s favorite Scripture . . . locked in the dark. Guilt jabbed. She eased the Honda into the garage, reminding herself that she didn’t drive the coupe because flaunting wealth had always made her uncomfortable, because driving a luxury car invited vandalism and theft, and because the Honda was less conspicuous, more gas economical.
Riley frowned with impatience at her fumbling attempt to turn off the car’s ignition, then yanked her purse from the passenger seat. The TYGRR-mobile was a moot point; Kate was moving in soon and she’d need the parking spot. Riley would have to find a place to store the Mercedes until she could figure out how to tell her grandfather that she couldn’t keep his generous gift. It might be harder than telling her parents that she wasn’t moving home. But both things had to be done. The fact was that she was staying in San Antonio and resuming her nursing career at Alamo Grace Hospital. Moving on with her life at long last, and—
“Hi there!”
Riley whirled toward the driveway, body tensing, and then felt immediately foolish. She managed a casual smile. “Hi, Wilma.”
Her next-door neighbor clutched a handful of envelopes against her purple blouse, the other hand holding fast to the leash of her rambunctious border collie. “Got some of your mail delivered to my box.” Wilma stepped closer, blinking as Riley’s string of motion sensor floodlights lit her hair like moonlight on Colorado snow. “My goodness, you’ve certainly got wattage. Between those and your walkway lights you could land a 747 here.”
“I’m sorry,” Riley said, embarrassed. “I hope the lights aren’t a problem for you.”
“No. No problem—I understand.” Wilma held out the mail, her kind eyes showing compassion. “I remember how hard it was to come home to an empty house when Gene was traveling for work.” She glanced down at the dog. “And now we have Oreo, of course . . . not that she couldn’t be distracted with a Milk-Bone. But these days, it’s wise to be cautious.”
For some reason, Riley thought of Jack Travis. “Right. Better safe than sorry.” She took the mail from her neighbor. “Thank you, Wilma. I appreciate this.”
“You’re more than welcome.”
Riley closed the garage door and entered the condo before the last of the daylight dwindled. She tapped in the code on the security alarm system, triple-locked the door behind her, and then leaned back against it. She hated that her knees still felt rubbery from an everyday encounter with a friendly, helpful neighbor. In a community tucked behind security gates. She shook her head, recalling Wilma’s remark about her garage lighting, then glanced down the hallway of the condo toward the interior lights timed to switch on at dusk—along with the TV, to sound as if she were home. She supposed most people would call those things overkill, paranoia even. But how could Riley explain the helplessness she’d felt that night in the hospital parking garage?
