Paradise Valley (12 page)

“Months,” Jack mimicked, disappointment drawing out the word. And then,
“Years?”

“Jack, even if he weren’t wounded, catastrophically wounded at that, his return from a war zone would be a serious adjustment. Every family of every soldier goes through this. And you know that.”

But while Jack knew it, he didn’t really know it from experience. He’d always been active duty and had only visited his family. He moved on to the next challenge and if anyone thought he’d gotten depressed or crazy, they didn’t mention it. Certainly Jack knew he was adjusting after a combat assignment, he just didn’t think anyone else knew. And of course he’d never sustained an injury that would retire or discharge him.

Although Rick was on Mel’s mind every bit as much, she had other people to care for. She had called Liz regularly and talked with her in person when Liz came to town to help her aunt Connie in the corner store. She convinced her to visit that counselor who helped her after her baby had been stillborn, a definite step forward. A couple of women from town were prenatals and she did all she could to assist Cameron in the clinic with other patients.

At the end of March spring teased the mountains—one day pleasantly warm and a few days later, an icy rain, a threat of snow. Mel was seeing a prenatal patient one afternoon when she heard a commotion in the front of the clinic. Fortunately she wasn’t doing internal exams; she stepped out of the room to see a breathless, skinny man who looked to be in his sixties in a panic as he yelled at Cameron, waving his arms excitedly.

“She’s dyin’, I know it! You gotta come! She’s dyin’!”

Cameron looked over his shoulder. “Mel?”

She stepped forward. “Where are we going, sir?” she asked calmly.

“A couple blocks. Hurry!”

“Let me excuse my patient, Cam. Fire up the Hummer, get the gentleman in it and I’ll be right there.”

So while Cameron and the man got into the Hummer, she told her patient she had an emergency and would call her to complete the exam another time. They didn’t bother locking up for something like this; the drug cabinet and patient records were already locked. Because Mel had appointments, the children were with their aunt Brie for the afternoon, otherwise she wouldn’t be able to hurry along with Cameron until Jack or someone could come for them.

Cameron followed the man’s directions two blocks to a house that Mel recognized at once. She’d been here before, months and months ago, when she fetched thirty-two-year-old Cheryl Creighton from her alcoholic stupor and carted her off to a county-funded treatment facility. She had never seen Cheryl’s father, who this must be. But she would never forget Cheryl’s mother—she was a morbidly obese chain-smoker who wheezed with every laboring step she took. One look at her and Mel had worried about the woman’s heart. If it hadn’t been for the fact that since she first laid eyes on Mrs. Creighton they’d had a major forest fire and lost their town doctor, Mel would have had a pang of guilt for not checking on her, even though she was not a patient.

“What’s your wife’s name, Mr. Creighton?” Mel asked as they pulled up to the house.

“Dahlia,” he answered. “Dahlia Marie. She can’t breathe and she’s grippin’ at her chest.”

Cameron threw the Hummer into park and, grabbing his bag, ran up the steps, across the broken-down porch and through the front door, Mel close on his heels with her own bag. “She’ll be in the kitchen,” Mel said.

The familiar squalor greeted them; the little house hadn’t been cleaned in forever and smelled like an ashtray. As Mr. Creighton hurried behind them, she was aware of
his
wheezing.

As Mel had predicted, Dahlia was slumped back in her favorite kitchen chair, the mess of paperbacks, magazines, newspapers, Coke cans, ashtrays and miscellaneous food items like cookies and chips all within reaching distance. Her eyes were round and fearful, her lips turning blue while her pallid skin glistened with sweat. She had trouble breathing. “Let’s see if we can help, Dahlia,” she said.

Cameron had the stethoscope in his ears and pressed against her chest. He listened for only a second before reaching in his bag and giving her an aspirin. “Can you swallow this for me, Dahlia?” he asked. While she did so, he reached for the new blood-pressure cuff that fit around her wrist, tightened it and took an electronic reading. He lifted that hand against her breast, nearer her heart, for accuracy.

Mel was locating the emergency drugs she kept ready in her bag—atropine, epinephrine.

“Mel, can you manage the oxygen canister?”

“Of course,” she said, darting out of the house. By the time she got back, Cameron was slipping a nitro tablet under Dahlia’s tongue. She pulled out the tubing and fit the cannulas into the woman’s nose. “This will help,” she said.

“We need a transport,” Cameron said.

“We can do that,” Mel said. “Give me one second.” She saw the old-fashioned wall phone beside the refrigerator and picked it up, dialing with the rotary dial. “Preacher, hey. Cameron and I are at the Creighton house and have to take Mrs. Creighton to the hospital right now. Yes, that’s exactly what I need—both of you. Thanks.” She hung up and told Cameron, “Jack and Preacher will be right here to help.”

Cameron looked at her, smiled slightly and lifted an eyebrow.

“I’ll go get the gurney and bring it in.”

“Let me—”

“No. You handle this and start an IV. I won’t be a minute.”

By the time Mel had the gurney out of the back of the Hummer, Jack and Preacher were jogging up the block toward the house. She didn’t wait for them, but began to push the gurney toward the house, over the cracked and broken walk. When she reached the porch, the men were beside her, lifting the gurney up onto the slanted porch, avoiding the missing boards. “What is it?” Jack asked softly.

“Possible coronary,” she said just as quietly. “She needs to go to the hospital.”

“Want me to drive so you can ride in the back with Cameron?”

She grinned at him suddenly. “You boys come in so handy. Thanks.”

Jack and Preacher got the gurney as far as the kitchen doorway and lowered it like professional paramedics. Then they went into the kitchen and stood one on each side of her. “Afternoon, Dahlia,” Jack said. “Let’s take a ride. How about that?”

Cameron lifted the portable oxygen canister and IV bag, hanging on to them.

Dahlia Creighton got a very frightened look on her face and Jack said, “Dahlia, this will be easier if you just let me and Preacher do the work, okay? We’re going to lift you onto the gurney and wheel you out, easy as pie. But if you struggle or wiggle around, we could drop you, so be still and trust us. We’ll be rolling you into the Hummer in seconds. How about that, huh?”

She nodded, but she hadn’t said a word yet.

Jack and Preacher slipped arms under her thighs and behind her back, counted to three and hefted close to four hundred pounds of woman into their arms and carried her the short distance to the gurney, lowering her onto it. They pulled it up, which took enormous effort given her weight, and got her to the back of the Hummer to slide that gurney inside.

“You have gas in that truck, Mr. Creighton?” Mel asked. When he nodded, she asked, “You all right to drive? It would be better for you to follow us to the hospital so you have transportation.” He nodded again and started fishing in his pocket for his keys.

And something happened during this whole operation that Mel would never comment to anyone about but that filled her with a warm pride. Dahlia had had a little accident, possibly from stark fear that she was dying, or maybe fear that the men would drop her. She’d wet herself and, in the process of moving her, Jack’s sleeve had been soaked.

Cam and Mel jumped in the back of the Hummer. Mel asked Preacher to call the hospital and tell them they were en route. The door slammed behind them and, without a word, Jack and Preacher unbuttoned their shirts and exchanged them. Jack was swimming in Preacher’s dry shirt; Preacher was walking back to the bar in a sleeveless T-shirt in the cold late-March afternoon, carrying Jack’s soiled shirt. And within ten seconds, Jack was behind the wheel of the Hummer, driving out of town.

Oh God, she thought. Where do you find men like these? Men who will do absolutely whatever it takes to help people, no matter what? She’d chosen this profession; she’d chosen to be up to her shoulders in whatever medical problem or mess came her way. She’d been bled on, crapped on, peed on, puked on, and it never discouraged her from providing whatever was needed medically. But Jack was just Jack. Preacher, a cook! They weren’t nurses, doctors or medics, and yet she couldn’t count the times they jumped in and helped, even if it left them covered with blood or amniotic fluid or—this time—the wet accident of a woman he barely knew who was in a traumatic, life-threatening situation.

They were made of gold.

Cameron, Jack and Mel didn’t hang around—there was nothing more they could do for her now. The drive back to Virgin River was long and quiet in the Hummer. When they got to town, there wasn’t enough day left to open the clinic. Jack pulled up in front of the clinic and Mel said, “I’ll get a bucket of soapy water to clean out the back.”

“I’ll help,” Cam said. “We’ll get it done quickly.”

“Need another hand?” Jack asked.

“Nah,” Mel said. “Your dinner crowd will be showing up pretty soon. I’ll stop by the bar before I head out to Brie’s to pick up the kids.”

Donned in latex gloves with twin buckets, Cam and Mel scrubbed things down. Mel took the gurney out and was working on it while Cam crawled inside the back of the Hummer, washing it down, standard procedure between uses. When everything was shining, supplies in the Humvee and medical bags refreshed, buckets of water tossed in the flower beds around the porch, Cam said, “I’ve been meaning to talk to you. I’m going to have to make a few adjustments in my schedule. I’m going to have to find another job in a few months.”

She smiled at him and dried off her hands. “I figured something would have to change.”

“I invited Abby to come here for dinner tonight. I want to talk to her about things. I’m going to try to convince her we should be roommates.”

“Roommates? How romantic,” Mel said.

“Yeah, well, she doesn’t have romantic feelings, but I want to take better care of my family. Whether she likes it or not, she’s my family. At least, she’s giving birth to my family. In another month, she’s going to realize how much she needs me nearby. After they’re born…” He shook his head. “After they’re born, she’s going to need me even more.”

“So. You have a plan?”

“I don’t want to let the town down. But if I can find a hospital or practice nearby that could use a doctor, at least part-time, I’ll live in Virgin River and keep appointments here as often as possible. I’d like to be on hand either in the mornings or afternoons, and evenings and weekends for house calls. The problem is the emergency care.”

“Cam, we have an emergency that needs medical intervention and transport about three or four times a year. There’s a fair chance you’d be taking a day off or out of town visiting your family when those emergencies occur. On the other hand, there’s an equal chance you could keep a job in Fortuna or Eureka and be right here when we have an emergency. What I really need is a physician who keeps appointments and makes a few house calls, not an E.R. doctor. We call the sheriff’s department or paramedics—it might take them a little longer, but that’s how it is when you live in a rural area. Our people understand that. If you hadn’t been here today for Dahlia, I could have called Mercy Air, medical transport.” She smiled. “I might hang on to you a little longer if you have a way to take care of your family.”

“Maybe,” he said with a shrug. “In the end, where I live isn’t going to be up to me. I’m not letting them get away. If Abby insists on living in some godforsaken place like London, I’ll follow.”

Mel couldn’t help it, she burst out laughing. “Godforsaken London? I’d give my eyeteeth to spend a year in London.”

“You know what I mean,” he said.

“I understand—you got your head wrapped around being a small-town doctor, living in the mountains, a low-stress lifestyle, and then, whoops—you’re going to be a father.”

“As you would say, boy howdie.”

“So—tell me your plan,” she said. “I know you have one.”

“The beginning of one. I’m solvent for a while yet. I won’t be desperate for more income before the end of summer, but I should start looking. I want to hang close for now because those babies could come in a couple of months, hopefully not earlier, and then after they’re born, I want to help Abby get a couple months under her belt before I start working two or three jobs. There’s room for her in the clinic while I look around for something to rent that will hold all of us, something real close. I can give her my room and sleep in the patient room. If there’s a God, I’ll find a nice, comfortable three-bedroom not far from here.”

“I can help you out there. The cabin’s empty. Two bedrooms and a loft, ten minutes from town, no farther away than I am.”

“Don’t you need it for family and friends?”

“Now that Luke Riordan has those cabins on the river all fixed up, we’re in great shape. The Sheridans show up from time to time, but we have a guest room and guesthouse. We bought the cabin to have a handy alternative for emergencies. This qualifies.”

He hung his head and shook it. “You must think I’m a complete idiot.”

Her laughter brought his head up. “Me?” she asked. “Cameron, I never planned a pregnancy in my life, and I’m the expert! Just work it out if you can. I want the best for all of you.”

He smiled. “I’ll work out some rent agreement with you and Jack.”

“Don’t be absurd. You practically work for free. The longer I can keep you around, the better. Besides, that cabin has good fortune. I gave birth to David there.” She laughed at the shudder she saw pass through him. He was no doubt imagining his twins coming out in that cabin. She put a hand on his arm. “Work things out any way you can, Cameron. You can have the cabin for as long as you need it.”

“Should you check with Jack about that?”

“Please,” she scoffed. “Jack will do anything I ask.” Then she grinned. “Besides, Jack would approve of this idea. If it works for you.”