The Doctor's Devotion (Love Inspired) (18 page)

“I like how you think.” Mitch rounded the bend, glad to see Caleb and the girl still frolicking in the waves. Only now they rode one jet ski together. The pair turned at their approach.

“Having trouble?” Mitch indicated the ski, dead by the dock.

“Hey, Doc Wellington, sir!” Caleb heartily saluted Mitch.

He smiled and waved Caleb’s hand down.

Caleb indicated the limping ski and grinned sheepishly. “I ran it out of fuel. This is my sister Bri.”

“Hi,” Bri said shyly.

“This is Lauren.” Mitch grinned. “My nurse and girlfriend.”

Caleb laughed. “That’s convenient.”

Everyone chuckled. Lauren’s face beamed through her blush. He wound fingers through hers. She clasped back and smiled.

“We’re having a cookout. I have an extra jet ski and fuel. You two are welcome to join us,” Mitch offered.

“Really?” Caleb turned to his sister. “Want to?”

Bri eyed Mitch and Lauren tentatively.

“It’s no imposition,” Mitch assured.

“We’d love for you to come,” Lauren added.

“This is the decorated military surgeon who founded the trauma center,” Caleb explained when Bri remained leery.

Decorated? Word must travel fast, is all Mitch could figure.

“Oh, cool!” Her face lit then fell. “I wish your center had been here sooner.” She eyed her brother with intricate care.

Caleb hugged her shoulders before facing Mitch. “Our mom just had a heart attack. She’s on a transplant list but doesn’t have much time. Dad is gone. So I’m on military medical leave and Bri is renovating the lodge our mom owned.”

Lauren’s face showed compassion, probably because the siblings faced losing both parents, as she and Mitch had.

“I know that lodge. It’s been closed awhile,” Mitch said.

“Mom’s health declined. She couldn’t take care of it,” Caleb said. “Bri wants to reopen it so she relocated here.”

“Lauren’s also relocating,” Mitch said. But when Lauren stared down and didn’t speak, another caution railed Mitch.

Wait. She’d mentioned there being things he didn’t know.

Days had been hectic. He’d been so busy with the center, hiring and other agendas, plus courting her, he hadn’t taken much care to ask how the Texas red tape was rolling.

What new piece of information was he apparently missing?

Yet the bigger question: Was the problem reconcilable?

Or insurmountable?

Chapter Twenty

H
ow could she tell him?

Lauren couldn’t. Not without crying. The assessment she’d had on the building was far less than she owed. Also, her ex was using legal leverage to bind her to her agreement against his sister’s wishes.

Mitch motioned Caleb. “I’ll take you to get some gas for your downed ski while the ladies get acquainted.”

At his retreat, emotions tossed over Lauren like waves. Aggravation over her unwise financial choices. Dismay at Mitch’s unrealistic expectations of her to simply pull herself up by her bootstraps and ditch her obligations. It wasn’t that easy.

It also wasn’t the time to angst over it.

Lauren set aside her own struggles and focused on Bri. “I’m so sorry about your recent loss and struggle.”

Bri fiddled with her swim vest. “Every day I look into the brave eyes of my mother and search for what to say.” She peered up, as if Lauren were the life vest and Bri sinking. “What do you say to someone who knows their only chance to live means someone else must die?”

Lauren spontaneously crossed the dock and pulled Bri in. “You say everything you never have and everything you’ll wish you had once they’re gone. I never had that chance.” Lauren choked up. “God can help.”

Bri leaned on Lauren’s shoulder. “I hope.”

“I know.”

Bri swiped tears from one cheek while Lauren tended the other. “Caleb and I recently started attending church back home. Now we have to find another church here.”

“I’ve started back recently, too. You could visit mine. Refuge Community lives up to its name.”

Lauren calling Grandpa’s church hers revealed how much her heart had detached from Texas.

“I’d like that.” Bri craned her neck toward something behind Lauren. “They’re turning around,” Bri said of the guys.

Lauren noticed. And by the imminent look on Mitch’s militant face, there could only be one reason.

“We have a trauma page.” Lauren surprised herself by including herself in the team. Truly, she finally felt like it.

Bri faced Lauren as the men approached. “I’d like to know you better, since you’re moving here. Could we do a rain check?”

Lauren gulped. What if she couldn’t move here? She got the feeling Bri was so shy, it took a lot for her to reach out. Which meant she needed friends. “Sure,” Lauren said. “I’d like that.”

Mitch waved Lauren over. “Air trauma fifteen out. Coming?”

“Of course. Can we redo the picnic tomorrow at nine?”

“Great plan.” Mitch faced Bri and Caleb. “You guys game?”

“Long as Mom’s having a good day, we’ll be here,” Caleb said. Bri waved as Mitch and Lauren headed to the trauma center.

“Caleb appeared disappointed not to be part of the trauma page,” Mitch said to Lauren as they prepped for the helicopter.

“I noticed,” Lauren said, unable to say much else.

Bri’s excitement over thinking Lauren was definitely moving here was increasingly disconcerting. If Bri was disappointed, Mitch would feel terrible for presuming. Besides that, what was he doing to try to make this work?

Mitch going around telling people she was moving here didn’t solve the real problems keeping her from doing so. He had no idea how binding her contracts were, and how vindictive her ex could be. Lauren fought frustration at the entire situation, but shoved it mentally aside and readied for what they faced. “What’s the trauma?”

“Hang gliding accident. A power line got the better end.”

“Ouch. When you said air trauma, I assumed that just meant the patient was arriving via helicopter.” Adrenaline surged in Lauren, yet not the stark fear she’d been experiencing.

Moments later at the trauma center, a flurry of activity erupted as two gurneys crashed through the doors. “She struck a young male bystander on the way down,” the helicopter pilot explained.

His crewmate nodded. “We didn’t know until we reached her. She got hit with lethal voltage. He has a nasty head laceration.”

“I see that.” Mitch checked the man, conscious but shell-shocked. He said to Lauren, “Get him a CT STAT.”

Lauren nodded and rushed the gurney to the imaging area, holding pressure on the young man’s head as she went.

“Ma’am, where’d he say I am going?”

“To get a CAT scan.” Lauren adjusted his lines.

“Whew. Not the morgue.”

She laughed. “No. Today’s not your day.”

“A scat can you say?” The man rubbed his nose drowsily.

Scat? Lauren looked down. Had his words slurred before? “No. Cat. Scan. Of your head.”

“I’m pretty sure I don’t have any cats in there.” He tried to smile past the wince of pain.

Lauren laughed. “We’re about to find out.”

“What hit me?” he asked as she rolled him into the room.

“A hang glider.”

“A person?” He tried to sit up.

Lauren guided him back down, a real feat since he was built like a bodybuilder. “Yes.”

The man strained upward again. Why? “Sir, stay put for me, okay? You’re hurt.” And becoming combative.

Which could mean a slew of bad medical things.

“What about the other guy? He gonna make it?” he asked.

“She. We’ll do everything we can for her.”

“Whoa. A girl knocked me down? Wow, I feel even worse now. Probably not half as bad as her. I'm sure I fared better than she.”

Lauren had thought that too at first, but now she wasn’t so sure. “Sir, are you feeling all right?”

“Depends. You got night crawlers?”

“Tell me where you are.”

“Eagle Point Bait Shop.”

“Are you kidding me?” Lauren asked because the man had been a jokester. He’d also been more alert before. Not now. His blue T-shirt emblem arrested her.

Eagle Point Sheriff’s Department?

Ice went through her veins. A sheriff’s deputy would know what a CAT scan was.

A horrible feeling hit Lauren that he’d been misdiagnosed at the triage level. She pushed the gurney faster.

This patient was far from stable.

“You have the best fishing lures here. Little pricey, though.”

“Sir, you’re at the trauma center. Don’t you remember?”

“Trauma? Now you’re kidding me.” They reached the room.

“Afraid not.” She upped his oxygen. The imaging tech walked in. “His color does not look good,” Lauren said. “Get a bag.”

The tech’s eyes bugged. The patient’s eyes rolled until all Lauren could see was white. His eyelids and fists violently clenched. His broad chest heaved and he frothed.

“He’s seizing.” She watched his chest a full minute after the seizure ended. “He’s also not breathing. Bring a CPR cart now.”

While Lauren yanked the emergency cord and started resuscitation, the tech ran for a medication cart.

Another tech ran into the room. “I’m new. What do I do?”

Lauren pointed to the loudspeaker phone. “If I can’t stabilize him, I’ll signal you. Call the operator, who will page the code overhead.”

“What’s happening?” The tech snapped close to the phone.

Lauren watched the man for ominous signs.

“I fear he’s crashing.”

* * *

“She’s crashing.” Mitch observed the hang-gliding patient. “Might wanna trach her, Ian.” Mitch indicated the woman’s numbers, which fell to lethal levels.

Ian performed the procedure.

“Thank goodness,” Kate said as the woman stabilized.

The overhead speaker crackled. “Code blue, imaging! Code blue, imaging, room four. STAT.”

Kate gasped. “That’s where Lauren headed.”

Mitch’s heart fell to his toes. “With the other patient.” Mitch and Kate sprinted to imaging, leaving Ian to attend the electrical burn patient.

Lauren ripped open a package as they entered. “He stopped breathing after a seizure. I resuscitated. He’s still unstable.”

“Repeat the meds and up the oxygen.”

“Done.”

Ian joined them. “The burn patient is stabilizing.”

Over the next few minutes Mitch and Ian rattled off order after order. Lauren performed each instantly without error.

If Mitch had any doubt in Lauren’s ability to perform under fire, it dissipated now. She acted swiftly and confidently.

As he told her the first day…in her element.

“Normal,” Lauren said of the man’s levels thirty grueling minutes later. Litter covered the floor.

Mitch stepped over various tubing and thrown plastic bags, which had held equipment they’d opened to save the man’s life. “Well done, everyone.” Mitch faced Lauren. “Especially you.”

Lauren sighed. “He’s not out of the woods yet, is he?”

“He will be after we get him into O.R.,” Mitch assured.

Lauren observed the man’s head wound. “It didn’t look that bad from the outside.”

“As we all know, looks can be deceiving,” Ian said.

They thought the hang glider was the least stable of the two. Not so.

“In trauma care, things can turn on a dime. You held up fantastic, Lauren, and once again, your quick actions and keen assessment skills saved a life.”

She didn’t appear to know how to respond. She drew in a brave breath and faced him and Ian. “To surgery with him we go?”

Mitch smiled. “To surgery we go.”

“How’s the female?” Lauren asked after surgery.

“Come see.”

Moments later, Lauren stood over the stabilized girl whose glider crashed into a power line pole, causing electrical burns.

“She’s so young. And so badly scarred.” Lauren looked closer. She paled. “Mitch, she’s also the mayor’s daughter.”

Mitch peered past facial burns, and recognition came. “You’re right. I remember her from the ribbon-cutting day. Anyone called him or other next of kin?”

“Doubtful,” Ian said. “She didn’t have ID on her. The sheriff called minutes ago and is on his way. He found her license and other items a few hundred yards from her crash site. He also asked to visit the injured deputy she fell on.”

“I’ll go meet him and phone her dad.”

Ian rubbed his neck. “We need consent to transfer her to a burn facility once she stabilizes in a day or so.”

“Yeah, she’ll need restorative surgery that we’re not equipped to perform here.” Mitch peered at Lauren quizzically.

“I’m good. Go,” Lauren said before he could ask.

He smiled.

The sheriff met Mitch in the lobby. “Found her cell phone. Thankfully she had
ICE
logged by her dad’s number in her contact list so we knew who to call first. He’s on his way.”

Mitch knew ICE was a universal acronym for laypeople and first responders that meant
In Case of Emergency—call.
“Good.”

The sheriff adjusted his hat. “How’s my deputy?”

“Better. He was worse than it first appeared. It’s that golden hour in trauma. Anything can happen. Lauren caught and quickly reversed it.”

“Speaking of Lauren, is she here and able to talk?” The sheriff scratched his temple and looked tense.

“I can relieve her so she can be. Everything okay?” Mitch asked in case he needed to cushion Lauren for bad news.

“You know the young girl she visits over at the jail?”

“Mara? The teen who texted and caused the fatal crash a few weeks ago?” Mitch’s heart clenched.

“About that…we have new developments. In fact, you all ought to hear the update. It concerns your team and my force.”

“Is Mara okay?”

“Much better. Thanks mostly to Lauren. You know she alerted us to Mara’s suicidal ideologies, right?”

“No. Didn’t realize that. When?” Mitch became aware that he hadn’t known a lot of things.

They still needed to talk about Texas and whatever adverse developments were going on there.

“Week before last. Lauren expressed grave concern over Mara, who woke up and went into extreme emotional duress upon finding out the boy had perished. She confessed to Lauren she wanted to die. Lauren talked her into getting help from a counselor.”

“Is she?” Deep concern for Mara penetrated Mitch.

“Yes. We set it up. She’s drastically improved, thanks to counseling and Lauren. She’ll want to hear what I have to say.”

Mitch gathered the team and shared the sheriff’s missive. He walked next to Lauren to infuse strength by osmosis.

Her face expressed the query in everyone’s mind:
What
was going on with Mara?

And what did it have to do with the sheriff’s department plus them?

Two steps from the conference room, the sheriff’s radio toned. He plucked it off his belt and stepped outside.

A minute later he returned, bearing an apologetic expression. “I’m afraid I need to reschedule, folks. I’ve got a domestic dispute to deal with, then I’m off duty.”

“No problem. How about tomorrow morning, here in the conference room?” Mitch asked while watching Lauren slip out.

“Sounds good.” The sheriff gave a backward wave upon exiting.

“I wonder what that’s all about.” Ian leaned casually.

“Me, too,” Mitch said. “We’ll know tomorrow.” In the meantime, where had Lauren gone?

And why was she avoiding him?