NECESSARY MEASURES

by Alexander, Hannah

  Jessica released his hand and stopped mid-stride. “What kind of a person would do something like that?”

  “A very complicated, wounded person with too much power for anyone’s peace of mind right now.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Mitchell’s a family practice doc who moonlights in the ER. He’s taking advantage of Grant’s absence and throwing his weight around as the hospital’s chief of staff. I’ve known him since I was a kid.” Sometimes it seemed to Archer as if he’d known everyone in the world since childhood and the world was getting a little cramped. “He graduated a few years ahead of me in school.”

  “So he’s chief of staff. That doesn’t give him the right to tell you what to do.” She started walking again and Archer followed.

  “You know what bothers me the most? I’m more upset about the threat of being dropped from the call list than I am about Mitchell’s pain. I’m a pastor. I need to get my priorities straight. In fact, Dad was Mitchell’s pastor about five years ago. That’s where I should focus.”

  “You’re saying this doctor was a member of Dogwood Springs Baptist?”

  “He and his wife and daughter attended for a while. They never joined but nearly every Sunday for about six months he dragged Darla and Trisha to morning worship.”

  Archer remembered that there had been an almost expectant quality in Mitchell’s attendance, as if he was looking for the physical presence of God in that building. In contrast, his daughter never lost the bored expression from her face and his wife always seemed irritated about something. It hurt Archer to realize that no one in the Caine family ever seemed to encounter God in the church.

  “Dad always felt as if he had somehow let them down. And that meant he had let God down.”

  “Why?” Jessica asked.

  “I guess because Mitchell decided he wasn’t going to find what he was looking for in church.”

  “What was he looking for?”

  Archer shook his head. “What do most people look for? Help with their problems. Soon after he and his family stopped attending, Trisha ran away from home, driving the car her parents had given her for her sixteenth birthday. His wife made their problems a matter of public record by writing a letter to the editor of The Dogwood with a plea to anyone who might have information about her.”

  Jessica groaned. “Did it get the desired results?”

  “The police found her in Springfield about a week later and arrested her and Simon Royce for grand theft auto. It seems the car wasn’t in her name.”

  “Simon Royce?”

  “Aka Peregrine. He’s our famous hometown drug pusher.”

  Jessica sighed quietly. “How that must hurt her parents.”

  “I can’t help thinking Mitchell and Darla knew something was going on with Trisha long before she ran away and that was why they tried church.”

  “What happened to Trisha?”

  “She left a few months after they brought her home. They couldn’t press charges against Royce without pressing charges against their daughter so he went free. She hasn’t been back since she left.”

  “That family needs our prayers.”

  “Just don’t tell Mitchell we’re praying for him.”

  She took his hand with both of hers and held it against her cheek. “That’s what I like about you, Pierce. You pray for your enemies even if you have to force those prayers down their throats.”

  He smiled but he felt a pang of guilt. The prayers didn’t come without resentment. Though he knew from past experience that forgiveness and a more tender heart would come to him as he continued to pray, he hadn’t yet achieved that goal this time. Mitchell Caine was a threat to the call program and he was capable of revenge.

  “Come on, keep walking.” She tugged on his hand and drew him along the sidewalk.

  This was an older section of town where the residents were slower about clearing the streets of their aging autumn splendor. The rustle of the leaves, the peace of their surroundings, and the gentle flow of Jessica’s voice soothed something inside him. Would married life offer more of this taste of heaven on earth?

  “Remember Tito? My Chihuahua?” Jessica asked. She kicked a thin layer of leaves and watched them flutter down.

  “Of course I remember him.” It had ruined Archer’s macho image in Branson when he fell in love with Jessica’s feisty and affectionate little dog. He’d been devastated when it was hit by a car and killed a year and a half ago.

  She held her right hand up in front of him, showing where three small scars marked the deepest of the wounds she received the day Tito was hit. “I only touched him. He was in so much pain he didn’t realize what he was doing. He sank his teeth deep and held on with all his might and I know he didn’t intend to hurt me. It was instinct. People sometimes do the same thing when they’re in pain.”

  “Thanks for the reminder.” His hand tightened around hers. “Jessica Lane, will you marry me?”

  “Let me think about it.”

  “I don’t know how I was ever called as a pastor to this church without your steadying influence.”

  “Must I remind you that we were already engaged when they called you?”

  “And will you promise to forgive me on those rare times when I get jealous because you’re more popular than I am?”

  “Aha! So you finally admit it! That’s what’s really bothering you.” Her laughter filled the street. His joined with it. She knew how to make him feel better.

  He was marrying the most wonderful woman in the world.

  Chapter 21

  On Wednesday evening Beau sprayed disinfectant on the vinyl surface of the bed in exam room seven, wiped it dry, and spread a clean fitted sheet over it, all to the tune of “Silver Bells.” He was getting tired of the artificially cheery music and lights that did nothing to cheer the patients. Most of them had been doing too much Christmas shopping with too little money and were no longer in the best of spirits. With over two and a half weeks to go before Christmas, how bad would it get?

  Voices jumbled with the music from several different exam rooms.

  Lauren and Muriel were on duty today and they’d kept Beau busy ever since he’d come in two hours ago. He liked being busy. It kept him from thinking too much.

  He was tossing the used sheets into the bin at the end of the counter when the distant trill of the triage bell outshouted the buzz of the telephone at the central station. A new patient needed to be seen. Lauren was assisting Dr. Caine with a suture repair two doors down and Muriel was keeping a close eye on a man with chest pain in one. Lester, the other tech on duty, was taking a patient down the hall for x-rays. The float nurse who would ordinarily come down from the floor was swamped with three new admissions. Business was great at Dogwood Springs Hospital.

  The bell rang again twice and Beau looked over his work to make sure he’d cleaned the room thoroughly.

  Muriel poked her head out of the cardiac room and caught sight of him. “There you are. Doctor Beau, honey, would you check out that triage and do some vitals?”

  “Sure.” All right, some hands-on!

  “Let me know if it’s bad.”

  “I will. I’m on my way.”

  She grinned and winked at him.

  He rushed to the scrub sink and washed his hands.

  Doctor Beau. Muriel knew he loved the sound of those words. He suspected, however, that wasn’t the only reason she called him that; she enjoyed irritating Dr. Caine when she could get by with it. No one had missed the doctor’s grimace when he heard the title she gave Beau the first time.

  Besides Lauren, Muriel was Beau’s favorite nurse in the department. She was all muscle and solid as a rock. Beau had seen her in action one day when an old man fell on the slick floor out in the waiting room. Before anyone else could reach him to help she’d picked him up all by herself and eased him into a wheelchair. She had the underbite of a bulldog but the gentle brown eyes of a newborn fawn. They reflected a kind heart.

 
Beau took the stethoscope from around his neck on the way to the triage room. As a medical technician he couldn’t fill out charts for the nurses but he could take vitals and write down the results. He could also escort patients to the exam rooms. He loved the personal interaction with patients and he looked forward to the day when he could do more than just tech.

  He stopped inside the door of the triage room. There sat Dru Stanton from school, the one with the shy smile who worked in the office during her free hour. Her face was flushed to an unhealthy red and her eyelids drooped. She looked miserable. A woman too old to be her mother sat in the chair to her left.

  “Hi, Dru.” He stepped over to the supply counter and reached for a thermometer. “Not feeling too well today?”

  She shook her head. “I feel awful.”

  The woman beside her eyed his blue scrubs. “You know my granddaughter?”

  “Sorry, I should have introduced myself. I’m Beau Sheldon. I have a couple of classes with Dru and I’m an emergency technician here at the hospital.”

  She studied his face with close deliberation and her mouth formed a bow with radiating frown lines. “You’re in high school?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “And you’re allowed to work unsupervised with patients?” There was more than a shadow of doubt in her voice.

  “I get to do the basics when we’re busy and I take every chance I can get. The nurses are all tied up with emergencies right now and I’ve been asked to check Dru’s vital signs so we can be a step ahead when a nurse gets free. If you would prefer to wait, I’ll go—”

  “Please.” Dru’s face grew brighter red and she slumped farther down in her chair. “Grandmother, let him do his job.”

  The woman hesitated before nodding. He could tell she wasn’t convinced.

  He jotted his patient’s name on a blank notepad. “Dru, I’m going to check your temperature and heart rate and see what your blood pressure is.” He took her temperature while counting her respirations.

  He nodded and replaced the thermometer on the counter. “No wonder you feel bad.”

  “What do you mean?” her grandmother asked.

  “She has a temperature of 102.6. I think anybody would feel sick with that but you’ll probably feel better as soon as we get it back down.”

  “Now that you’ve proven she’s sick why don’t you get a nurse?” the grandmother asked. “What do you think it could be?”

  “I don’t know. The doctor will look at the readings I’ve taken.” He put the BP cuff on Dru’s arm.

  “When’s that going to be? I don’t want to wait around here all day.”

  Beau felt sorry for Dru. “I’ll get this information to a nurse as soon as I can—”

  “I still don’t like this. What kind of a hospital hires teenagers to handle emergencies?”

  The woman’s voice carried a little too well. Beau flinched. He was accustomed to working with grumpy people. The ER averaged probably two really irritable people every shift and more during the holiday season. He had been instructed by the best—Dad—to allow the complaints to pass unchallenged, apologize when appropriate, and treat the patients with courtesy and respect at all times.

  He could usually handle that but for some reason Dru always made him nervous—probably because Brooke kept telling him Dru had a crush on him.

  He also had a little bit of a crush on her. Crushes made him goofy.

  He checked vitals on the blood pressure machine and wrote them down. The heart rate was above a hundred. She was certainly sick but part of that rate was most likely due to nervousness about her grandmother’s attitude.

  He removed the cuff and pulse oximetry probe. “It’ll be okay, Dru. I’ll get you into a bed as soon as possible.” And then he forgot himself and did something he never did around strangers. He attempted to smile. It came automatically the way it used to before the wreck. He did it just to reassure Dru. Unfortunately, weeks of practice in front of a mirror reminded him that other people didn’t see a smile, they saw a twisted grimace. Almost like a leer.

  Dru stared at him. Her grandmother gasped. And then he realized the import of his word choice. Oh boy, he’d done it this time.

  “What did you say?” The woman stood up, the pale wrinkles striating across her face.

  “I meant I’d see her to an exam room as soon as one is avail—”

  “You certainly will not.” She reached for the curtain. “I want you out of here. I don’t know what the people in this hospital are thinking.”

  “Grandmother, stop it,” Dru begged.

  Before the woman could reach the curtain it snapped open. A tall white-coated form loomed in the doorway. Dr. Caine. Lauren entered behind him.

  Beau groaned inwardly. It was getting worse.

  “What’s going on in here?” Dr. Caine asked.

  “This young...kid is trying to make a pass at my granddaughter,” the older woman growled. “Right here in front of me!”

  Dru groaned. “He did not.”

  “I wasn’t trying to make a pass.” Beau handed the doctor the page of vitals. “The nurses were all busy so I came in to do a triage on this patient so we could get her into an exam room more quickly.”

  “That isn’t what you said,” the woman accused. “And you should have seen the look he gave her.” The woman did a parody of his awkward attempt at a smile. It was hideous.

  Did he really look that bad? “I’m sorry, I’ve had some facial damage—”

  “I don’t want this kid near my granddaughter,” the woman snapped.

  “Of course,” Dr. Caine assured her. “Mr. Sheldon, you’re dismissed.”

  Beau felt his face begin to burn.

  Dr. Caine stepped aside and gestured for Lauren to approach the patient. “Nurse, I want you to take this patient’s vital signs.” He tossed the sheet with Dru’s vitals into the trash bin. He looked at Beau. “You may go now.”

  Lauren’s eyes flashed green fire. “We need Beau. We’re busy.”

  Beau caught her gaze with his and shook his head. No more. He just wanted to get out. He escaped the department as quickly as he could.

  ***

  Lauren’s hands shook so badly she had trouble forcing her fingers to punch the correct buttons on the computerized drug dispenser. She had to clear it and start over before she got it right.

  If the ER wasn’t so busy, she would go looking for Beau. She’d seen the misery in his eyes.

  A shadow fell across the counter and she sensed someone close behind her. She pivoted almost directly into Dr. Caine’s chest.

  “I can see you are having some kind of problem tonight, Lauren.” He paused until she looked up and made eye contact with him. “I’m sorry if you’re upset about the unfortunate incident with Beau but I need you to speed things up a little. Patients are waiting.”

  She reached down for the drugs from the dispenser. “We’re busy because our help was dismissed.”

  “We can discuss this when there’s more time.”

  “What’s to discuss? Weren’t you just waiting for any excuse to humiliate Dr. Sheldon’s son?” She caught a curious look from Lester Burton, who wheeled an elderly man past them in the hallway at that moment and saw the shocked surprise in Caine’s face.

  She’d surprised herself. Seldom did she lose her temper, especially on the job. This was the second time in less than two weeks she’d lost it with Caine.

  “That woman had a legitimate complaint about a member of my staff,” Caine said.

  “That woman didn’t realize Beau’s situation. You didn’t even give him a chance to explain.” She needed to shut up and get to work. “He didn’t deserve to be humiliated in front of an audience of patients and staff.”

  “When a patient complains about the care she receives, that reflects on all of us.”

  “When a doctor allows a member of his staff to be abused because of a disability, that reflects on the very heart of human compassion.”

  Dr. Caine frow
ned in apparent confusion. “What are you talking about? What’s this about a disability?”

  The rough spike of Lauren’s anger eased a little. Of course he wouldn’t know. Beau didn’t talk about it and neither did Grant. “Beau was in an automobile accident two and a half years ago that killed his mother and damaged his facial nerves.” She felt as if she was betraying Beau in some way but they hadn’t attempted to keep the facts a secret, Beau just didn’t like to talk about it to strangers.

  The steel in Caine’s eyes flicked with deepening confusion and something else—was that dismay? “How could I have known something like that? His father and I are not exactly bosom buddies.”

  Oh yeah? And whose fault was that? “Beau tried to defend himself but nobody was willing to listen. So now you know.” She collected the medications from the dispenser and walked away. Maybe she could get her old job back in Knolls. If she continued to spout off at Dr. Caine she probably wouldn’t have this one much longer.

  ***

  Beau pushed through the unlocked door into the business office and heard the slow click-clatter-click of a computer keyboard from the far corner of the cavernous room. The door swung back into place with a phlunk. The clicking ceased.

  “Who’s there?” came a sharp demand filled with stress. It was Brooke.

  “Just me.”

  “Beau! Thank goodness.”

  He strolled to the aisle on the eastern side of the room. “What’s wrong?”

  There was a soft squeak of a chair and Brooke’s silhouette popped up from behind a partition. Dark spikes of her hair stuck out in angles from her forehead as if she’d combed her fingers through it several times. With glue. Mascara smudged her face.

  She’d been crying?

  “Beau, I can’t do this job. I mean it. Why did I ever tell them I could type?”

  He joined her at the desk where she was working. Manila file folders decorated the floor like confetti. “Because you can. Kind of.”

  “Not three thousand words a minute!” She gestured to the data stacked on the desk beside the keyboard. “I terminated the lives of three patients between four o’clock and quitting time. The supervisor had to enter them again from scratch to resurrect them. And then she was crazy enough to leave me here to finish up. I mean, is that stupid?”