Tears welled up in her eyes, but she turned her head, blinked them back before Eric could see. “And maybe you should trust mine.” Even the whisper of her voice was shattered by grief.
“Think about it. The offer will be here when you’re ready.”
“It’s a tempting offer, and I appreciate it, but, no. I…don’t think I should.”
“When you’re ready, Dinah. Like you told me the other day, it has to be when you’re ready.”
Eric stepped closer to her, so close she could feel the tickling of his warm breath on the back of her neck. So
close she could smell the scent of soap on him. So close that if she turned around she’d be in his arms. Which was why she backed away, intent on leaving. She
did
want to be in his arms, feeling his comfort. Wanted it badly. Which was pure trouble.
“Can I help you with this?” he practically whispered. “I know I told you I’d let it go, but…”
“Promised. You
promised.
”
“And I’m not breaking my promise, Dinah. I
will
let it go, if that’s what you want. But I want to help you, if I can. I don’t know what’s bothering you, but if you could trust me…”
If she could trust? Well, that was easier said than done, wasn’t it? Dinah spun around, found herself so close to Eric it caught her off guard, and she swayed right into him. But pushed herself back immediately. “No, Eric. I can’t trust. That’s the problem. I can’t, and I don’t want to.”
“Because of what your fiancé did to you?”
Dinah laughed bitterly. “Because I lost heart. Everything I thought I was, everything I thought I could be…I was wrong. Good skills don’t necessarily make a good nurse, because a good nurse needs heart. When you lose it…”
“Or when it’s broken?” he said gently.
“Or when you decide you don’t have it.” Emphatic words. Hard to say but she had to, if she were ever to believe them. Now maybe he would leave her alone. Pull back his offer and walk away. It was for the best, she told herself. Definitely for the best.
But Eric didn’t so much as flinch. “Do you want to tell me what happened?”
“No.” It still hurt too much. To fall so in love with a child with anencephaly made no sense to most people. A child born without a substantial part of her brain. A child with no
prognosis for long-term survival. But that’s exactly what she’d done.
“Then I’m sure you’ll tell me when you can. And like I said, I did check your background, and there were no complaints. No reprimands. No mention of anything bad. So, unless I discover something different, or unless you tell me something that would make me change my mind about you—and I doubt that’s going to happen—I’d like you working for a few hours on the night shift, if you decide to do this.”
“Why?” she sputtered, disbelieving. How could he still want her? Or trust her?
“Because I believe in you. I’m not sure why you don’t, but I have enough belief for the both of us. You’re a good nurse, you belong in nursing and you’ll see that once you’re back. Maybe even find some of that heart you’ve lost. So, I’m offering a part-time, fill-in position, most likely only a part of a shift on the nights you’ll work. But as a nurse, Dinah. Not a volunteer.”
“Well, you’re either a very brilliant man, Eric Ramsey, or a very stupid one.” Dinah allowed a slight smile to touch her lips. “I haven’t figured out which it is.”
“Been called both. Maybe if you come work for me we can solve that puzzle together.” He strolled to the door then stepped into the hall. But before he walked away, he turned back to Dinah. “And just so you know, the girls want to try their hand at oatmeal raisin cookies. And Pippa thinks she’ll be up to a chocolate cake pretty soon.”
“Thank you,” she said, feeling the slightest bit of excitement. She wouldn’t let herself get too excited, though, because that required some level of trust…trust in Eric. And as much as she wanted to, she couldn’t. Wouldn’t. Still, her stomach was starting to churn.
Five minutes later, on her way to the personnel office,
what she’d just done finally began to sink in. She’d said yes to something she’d vowed not to do again. It was temporary position, and things would go right back to where they were in a matter of weeks, after Angela had delivered her baby and her help in White Elk was no longer needed. That’s what she kept reminding herself on her way to fill out her employment papers. But that little warning voice was creeping in, too.
Not again, Dinah. Don’t do this again.
Wise words, but was she wise enough to listen to them? Because, with all her heart, she wanted to trust Eric.
Dinah’s first official shift as a practicing nurse was quiet. In fact, if she hadn’t been so keyed up to work as a nurse again, she could have had herself a very good nap because, except for one over-indulgent eater from the lodge and mild case of sniffles, she’d had the evening pretty much to herself. But that didn’t matter. Nothing did, considering how she was back where she wanted to be, back where she belonged. So, for her six assigned hours, she patrolled the halls, tidied the supply cabinets, straightened the bed sheets, fluffed the pillows and simply existed in a place that made her happy. Dinah Corday, happy again. She desperately wished it could be permanent.
Eric called twice within the first hour, volunteering to come in if needed. But Dr. Jane McGinnis, on call for her shift, was sufficient for what seemed to be a very slow evening. In fact, she hid herself in a closed room and hung a “Do Not Disturb” sign on the door. Orthopedist by day, medical mystery novelist by night, Jane was in the middle of what she called revising a sagging middle, getting close to her deadline. Her orders were simply to leave her alone except for an emergency or unless she had the solution for getting the bound and gagged heroine out of the trunk of
a car, safe and sound, while it was speeding at ninety miles per hour down the highway.
Since Dinah didn’t have the solution to that one, she left Jane to her writing.
Then there was a grandmotherly-looking night clerk, Emoline Putters, on hand in the emergency department, spending her night transcribing doctors’ notes, guzzling hot, black coffee and grumbling rather loudly, and often obscenely, over illegible handwriting. And Ed Lester, a man who mopped the halls and dusted the light fixtures, made his presence known a few times, pushing a broom up one corridor and down the next, but he did nothing more than nod and offer a half-salute to Dinah when she greeted him.
So, basically, Dinah was pretty much left alone.
At first she dreaded a long, empty night pacing up and down the hollow halls and listening to the squeak of her rubber soles on the tiled floor, and Emoline’s muttering off in the distance, then at the halfway point of her shift she was amazed how quickly her first hours had flown by.
The hours, no matter how fast or slow, didn’t matter, though. This was all about being back where she belonged. Smelling the smells, hearing the sounds. Home.
“Want me to go out and scare up some business?” Eric asked, as Dinah scurried by treatment room number three on her way to do nothing in particular.
She glanced in, saw him stretched out on the exam table, feet up, head propped up on several pillows, hands clasped behind his head. “Are you checking up on me?”
“Maybe.”
She wasn’t sure if she should be flattered or angry. “If that’s standard for all your new employees, fine. Check. But if it’s something about me…”
“Don’t be so defensive. Jane called. She’s at a plot
point she doesn’t want interrupted unless we absolutely have to. She asked if I could back her up.”
“A plot point.”
“She’s going to donate part of the proceeds from her book to expanding the orthopedic wing. We’re in ski country here. We want that expansion, so we do what we have to.”
“So we’re not supposed to call the doctor on call.”
“Not when she’s at a crucial plot point.” He swung his legs down off the exam table and sat straight up. “If we can at all avoid it.”
“You run a very lenient hospital here, Doctor.”
“We try to. I came from a very typical medical background, it worked. But when I got here, this just seemed like the place to…to be something different, do something different. We try to make our medicine more relaxed, more personal.”
“More involved?”
He nodded. Neil and I both felt that medicine’s moving too far away from being personal, which is why we decided to go in the opposite direction when we bought the hospital. We were both starting over at the time…he’d just gone through a messy divorce, I was recently widowed. Fresh starts all the way round.”
“Easier said than done.” She wanted a fresh start, but she hadn’t yet figured how to rid herself of the stale past.
“Or easier done than said, if you want it badly enough. I wanted it and, thank God, I found White Elk.”
“Then you’re happy here?”
“We’re all three happy here.” Finally, he stood. “You could be, too, if—”
“Got one coming in,” Emoline Putters’ voice boomed over the intercom.
Eric chuckled. “What she lacks in finesse she makes
up for in efficiency.” As he headed out toward the hall, with Dinah practically right behind him, they greeted a frantic mother leading the way while her husband carried a child through the emergency door.
“He’s not responding to us,” the mother cried, while Eric took the boy in his arms and rushed into the first treatment room. “Barely able to talk.”
“When did this start?” Dinah asked.
“About an hour ago. We heard him moaning…”
“Has he been sick?”
The father stepped in and slid his arm around his wife’s waist. “My name is Frank Jackson, this is my wife, Elaine. Our son, Henry, is ten. He hasn’t been sick, at least not that we’ve seen. And he hasn’t said anything to us about not feeling well. But about an hour ago we heard him moaning, thought it was an upset stomach, but he wouldn’t respond to us when we tried talking to him…just moaned.”
Dinah squeezed Mrs Jackson’s arm. “We’ll let you know as soon as
we
know something.” She turned and hurried into the treatment room and joined Eric at the side of the exam table.
“Blood pressure’s normal, pulse rate fine, pupils equal, respirations perfect,” Eric said.
“He wasn’t sick prior to this episode.” Instinctively, she picked up his wrist to take a pulse, felt the boy flinch. “Any temperature?”
Eric shook his head as he placed his stethoscope into his ears and bent to listen to Henry’s lungs. “Sound clear,” he finally said. “Heart sounds good, too.”
“But he’s not responding,” Dinah said, staring across the table at Eric. “I wonder how his reflexes are. Could be serious, if he has The Drop.”
“The Drop,” Eric responded, nodding. Fighting back
a smile. “Yes, very serious. Perhaps you should do that test, Nurse.”
“Very well, Doctor.” She picked up Henry’s arm, held it steady for a moment then dropped it onto the table. There was a hesitation in movement, just for a split second, before his arm fell.
“Looks like a partial case of The Drop to me,” Eric said.
Dinah glanced down at the boy, barely containing her own smile. “Thank heavens for that. Because the needle you have to use for a full case of The Drop is so big…” She held up her hands in front of Henry’s face, indicating something at least the size of Eric’s forearm.
Henry’s face scrunched, but he still didn’t respond.
“But I don’t have a half-sized needle for a partial case of The Drop,” Eric said.
“Then I think we can use a full-sized needle and stick it only halfway into him. Wouldn’t that work?”
“Good idea, Nurse. Why don’t you roll Henry over on his side and I’ll get the injection ready.”
“Are you going to give the shot in his bottom, Doctor?” Dinah asked.
Eric’s grin was from ear to ear. “I know it will hurt worse there, but I think it’s for the best. And since he’s not awake, he won’t feel it.”
“Very well, Doctor.” With that, Dinah started to roll Henry over on his side, but his eyes popped open.
“No!” he screamed. “I don’t want a shot!”
“But you could get sick again,” Dinah said, “and one shot should keep you from getting The Drop for at least a year.”
Henry bolted upright on the exam table. “I’m not sick. I wasn’t sick. I was just…”
“But you have all the symptoms,” Eric said.
“I don’t have symptoms,” Henry protested. “I just
didn’t want to go to school tomorrow. We’re having a math test, and I didn’t…” Big tears rolled down his cheeks. “I didn’t study for it. Am I in trouble?”
“Faking an illness and scaring your parents the way you did could be very serious,” Dinah said.
“And what if someone who was really sick needed our help but we couldn’t take care of them because we were taking care of you?” Eric stepped up to the table and helped Henry to the floor. “And it costs a lot of money to come to the emergency room. Are you going to be able to pay for this?”
“M-money?” he asked.
Dinah and Eric both nodded solemnly.
“I have an allowance…my lunch money.”
Dinah slipped out into the hall to talk with the Jacksons while Eric continued the discussion with Henry, and by the time the Jackson family left the hospital, the arrangement was made that Henry would pay back what he owed for his little prank by volunteering every Saturday morning for the next several weeks. His duty would be as the toy monitor in the hospital waiting room’s play area for children.
“You spotted that one pretty fast,” Eric said, stretching back out on an exam table.
“Experience. He was peeking at us when he thought we weren’t looking.” She laughed. “The harder they scrunch their faces, the more they’re faking.”
“You’ve used The Drop before?”
“In some variation. Threaten them with the big needle, and they’ll confess every time.”
“For a math test,” Eric said, settling back.
“And to think you have two daughters who’ll be conspiring together in deeds probably much more devious than anything poor little Henry’s ever thought of.”
Groaning, Eric shut his eyes. “Maybe I can fake them out and pretend I have The Drop.” He raised his arm and dropped it to the table.
“Remember, that one gets the big needle.”