Jack glanced around at the bustle of the ER before asking, “Is Riley still capable?”
Kate raised her brows.
“Of performing the physical tasks required of an ER staff nurse,” Jack explained. “Giving medications, doing treatments—” he ticked a list off on his fingers—“clearing an airway, pumping stomachs, handling a defibrillator, starting IVs . . .” His gaze dropped toward her bruised arm, and Kate reminded herself to wear her scrub jacket to the charge nurse meeting.
Kate swallowed. “She’s proposing a position as a triage nurse.”
“You reminded me that you’d done CPR on the triage floor. And wondered how Riley would cope if someone shoved an unconscious kid into her arms.” His expression softened. “Right?”
Kate’s stomach sank. “Right.”
Jack dragged his stethoscope back and forth against his neck. He was quiet for a while, then pinned Kate with his gaze. “As charge nurse, do you really want her out there in triage? Do you feel comfortable with that?”
Thanks a bunch, Rambo.
“Please, give me a scorpion in my shower, but don’t ask me . . .” Kate tugged a short wisp of her hair. “Look, Riley’s a friend. And she’s going to be my roommate, too. She’s sharp, dedicated, and incredibly perceptive. I have complete confidence in her assessment skills. But she’s had almost no opportunity to practice clinical tasks.” She stared at Jack, wanting him to understand how trapped-in-the-middle she felt. “I’ve never known a triage nurse who wasn’t expected to be certified and competent in
all
emergency department skills. But then we’ve never had a chaplain assigned exclusively to the ER either. Maybe administration will make an exception in this case, too.”
“Because . . . ?”
“Because . . .” Kate stopped herself. “Because Riley’s an exceptional person.”
“I see.”
Kate wasn’t sure he did, but she wasn’t going to bring up the subject of the Hale family’s connections to the Grace Hospital system. Or Riley’s obvious discomfort with their protective hovering. She finished her water, then glanced up as the triage strobe flashed. “I’d better check on that. I told the nurse to take a break. She’s still having trouble with morning sickness.”
“Right. Oh, hey . . .” Jack reached into the pocket of his scrub top and pulled out a medication-filled syringe. “I picked up a dip-tet from the pharmacy. When you get back, can I get you to give it to me?”
Kate smiled slowly. “What’s the matter, Dr. Travis? Don’t you trust anyone else?”
* * *
Riley punched in the security code, pushed her hip into the door leading to the emergency department corridor, then pulled the equipment-laden cart along behind her. She’d piled the CPR manikins—Adult Sani-Man, Buddy Infant, and Toddler Tim—three high and tucked the rubber IV arm and other equipment on the shelf below. She chuckled, glad the hospital hadn’t purchased the heaviest manikin, Fat Old Fred. The training device was used to simulate the challenge of performing CPR on an obese, elderly patient.
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.