URGENT CARE

by Alexander, Hannah

  “I’ll stay up here with Mr. Horner,” Archer said. “This is an emergency. We both know Grant wouldn’t have asked if he didn’t think it was necessary.” Gone was the usual conciliatory thread in Archer’s voice. So the good man wasn’t all sweetness and light under that pastoral façade.

  Mitchell gave Mr. Horner a final squeeze on the shoulder, nodded to Archer, and headed for the stairs.

  Chapter Three

  The public warning system had gone silent, much to Jessica’s relief. For several minutes it had blasted through the church basement with extra force every time the doors admitted a new arrival. Now, with seventy-some individuals in attendance, the flash of headlights against the windows promised more to follow unless they received an all clear before long.

  Helen Netz had commandeered her husband to round up more food from the freezer and was in the process of opening another package of frozen cookies, clucking her tongue at the rowdy teenagers who had swarmed in upon them in the past few minutes.

  “Listen to them,” Helen muttered. “Laughing and acting up like this is some big joke. They’ve all been out cruising the streets.”

  Jessica smiled and nodded. “I did that a few times when I was a teenager.”

  “We’ll have a mess to clean up when this is all over,” Helen warned. “We’ll have dishes to do.”

  “Didn’t I see some paper plates up there somewhere?” Jessica asked. “Maybe we could use them since this is an emergency situation.”

  Helen gave a warning glance that told Jessica more clearly than words that she was once again treading on sacred ground. “Eileen believed we should always offer our best to God, especially for the poor souls who’ve never seen His hospitality.”

  Headlights flashed again across the basement windows. Jessica thought she recognized the outline of a pickup truck. A flicker of lightning flashed a brief snapshot of the driver—Lauren McCaffrey, long blond hair, classically pretty features. She parked just about the time a strong blast of rain-soaked wind sent an arm-sized tree limb skittering across the parking lot.

  Lauren shoved open the door of her truck and scrambled out of the way as the wind closed it for her. She turned and ran toward the church, eyes wide, her face a mask of fear.

  The wind switched directions again, driving the rain against the church windows like an ocean tide. Jessica instinctively laid her spoon down and rushed to the entrance.

  She pushed down the bar and tried to shove the door open. It didn’t budge. Through the reinforced window she saw Lauren grab the handle from the other side and pull. The wind changed. The door gave way and the whirling wind jerked the bar from Jessica’s grip. Lauren stumbled and Jessica rushed out to help her as the door slammed against the outer brick wall. Thunder shot through the darkness and Lauren froze as if paralyzed with terror.

  “Come in. Get out of this!” Jessica put an arm around her and urged her through the wide-open threshold. She reached for the door to draw it shut. The wind jerked it from her grasp again with startling power.

  Jessica stood breathless against the onslaught of water for barely a second before giving up to escape back inside.

  “What on earth?” came a shocked cry from behind them that mingled with the roar of the wind and the onslaught of rain.

  Jessica turned to find Helen Netz and several others rushing toward them.

  “What happened to the door?” the woman cried.

  Jessica escaped the path of the incoming rain. “The wind caught—”

  “We just got those doors this year.”

  John rushed to the entrance and nudged his wife aside. “For Pete’s sake, Helen, you can’t shame the wind. Come on, everybody out of the rain. No use in catching pneumonia.” He and two other men braved the storm and wrestled the door shut once again. “Better get out of line of the windows, folks,” he shouted over the roar. “Never seen it do anything like this before.”

  “Think we oughta build us a barricade with the tables?” someone said.

  “Sounds good to me,” John said.

  “Thanks,” came an unusually soft voice behind Jessica.

  She turned to find Lauren hugging herself and shivering.

  “You’re welcome. Are you okay? We need to get you warmed up.”

  “I’ll be fine. I’m just a coward when it comes to tornado warnings.” Lauren gave one more glance over her shoulder toward the wall of rain as the men managed to get the door closed. “Mind if we get away from the windows?” She turned and led the way toward the kitchen in back. “I should have gone to the hospital to help with patients but I was too scared to drive that far.”

  “Sounds to me as if coming here was the smart thing to do,” Jessica said.

  “Listen up, folks!” Mr. Netz called over the din of voices, “I heard over the radio that they extended the warning another thirty minutes. Better settle in and be prepared to wait awhile. The storm could get worse.”

  Lauren groaned and hugged herself more tightly.

  ***

  Mitchell was sorry he’d taken the northern stairwell as soon as he reached the crowded main corridor of the basement.

  “Dr. Caine, thank goodness you’re here!” The familiar face of one of his single-mom patients beamed at him from the small crowd huddling by the door. She pushed her way past the others. Mitchell nearly groaned aloud, though he knew he should be grateful for any friendly face. This one, however, seemed to have become far more intrusive since word spread that he hand Darla had separated.

  “Dr. Sheldon’s busy with some other patient,” she explained, “and Mark got his arm sprained or broke or something in track at school.” She pulled her fourteen-year-old son from the crowd and nearly dragged him forward. “Can you look at it?”

  Mitchell closed his eyes and sighed. Why did some patients think all a doctor had to do was reach out and touch them and everything would be better? “We would need to have an x-ray of his arm and our x-ray equipment is upstairs. I’m sure this alert will end soon and the personnel will take Mark to Radiology.”

  “But—”

  “I’ve received word that there’s an emergency down here. Where is Dr. Sheldon?”

  He caught sight of someone waving at him from the other end of the corridor. It was Beau Sheldon, obviously keeping watch for him. Mitchell sorted his way through the noisy crowd toward the kid. Something about Beau settled the nerves. Determined to become an emergency physician like his father, Beau spent as much time as school would allow at the hospital. He had the calm demeanor of someone far more mature than a teenager of seventeen. Mitchel had caught himself several times watching to see if the boy’s smile might break through past the damage that had destroyed some nerves in his face three years ago.

  Beau opened the south stairwell door to reveal the white coat and dark hair of his father, Dr. Grant Sheldon. The man was helping Muriel and a tech lower their patient’s gurney.

  Mitchell swallowed the automatic rise of intimidation he always experienced when in Grant Sheldon’s presence. This was no time for personal conflict. He could see before he reached them that the patient was having another seizure. Her whole body arched and Sheldon’s team hovered over her.

  They might, indeed, have to do an emergency C-section on this woman.

  ***

  Jessica searched through the kitchen drawers until she found the towels. Lauren’s green sweatshirt and denim bib overalls dripped water. Her blond hair clung to her neck and shoulders in wet tendrils. Silently daring Helen to complain, she took out two towels and handed one to Lauren.

  “Thanks. Those sirens put my nerves on edge.” Lauren dabbed at her face and neck and then went to work on her hair.

  “I don’t know anyone who’s too crazy about them.” Jessica drew her toward a more secluded corner of the cavernous room.

  Lauren gave another dab at her hair. “Pretty dress, Jessica. Looks like you just got home from a show. Nasty weather for driving.”

  “It took me a while to get here from Bran
son.”

  “Bet you wish you’d stayed up there for the night.”

  “I don’t usually mind driving in the rain.” Jessica scanned the room to see if Helen was searching for her. The woman had apparently decided it was her duty in life to force the new pastor’s wife to form to the mold of the former pastor’s wife.

  Several people looked their direction and Jessica wondered what they were thinking. Did they still see her and Lauren as rivals for Archer’s affection? Rumors died hard in a small town like Dogwood Springs.

  “Most times I like a good thunderstorm,” Lauren said. “I even like walking in the rain but when I heard that alert go off tonight I felt like someone had shot me with a dose of epinephrine. I didn’t even take time to get my raincoat, I just grabbed my keys and ran out to the truck. Times like this I wish I’d bought a house with a basement.”

  Jessica noticed Lauren’s slight Ozark accent. It wasn’t ordinarily so obvious. Or perhaps Jessica was particularly sensitive to everything tonight. Helen Nezt tended to do that to her.

  “Want to hear something funny?” Lauren asked. “It was a tornado that made me decide to become a nurse in the first place. I saw the effects of a bad one coming home from church camp one year, up by King’s River.”

  “What was it like?”

  “We heard about the warning at camp.” Lauren’s mezzo-soprano voice softened with the memory. “We didn’t think much about it. To us kids, it was just a good excuse to act silly and huddle together in the storm shelter and exchange scary stories.” She gestured toward some of the teenagers who were congregated together in another corner of the basement. They appeared to be doing the same thing.

  “The tornado didn’t touch down?” Jessica asked.

  “Nope, we just got a little rain at the camp.” Lauren’s expressive face reflected the sorrow and horror she must have experienced all those years ago. “But on the bus going home from camp, we drove past the town that was hit.” Her green eyes widened and she touched Jessica’s arm for emphasis. “Practically eighty percent of the buildings had been destroyed, Jess, and seven people were killed. I cried the rest of the way home. It was right then that I decided I wanted to go into medicine.”

  “Particularly emergency medicine?” Jessica asked.

  “That’s right. I wanted to be able to help people like that if it ever happened again.” She spread her hands. “And here I am hiding out at church instead of seeing to the patients at the hospital.”

  “Well, I’m glad you’re here.” Jessica studied Lauren more closely. Even dripping wet in bib overalls she was a beautiful woman, with softly sculpted facial lines, well-proportioned and wholesome.

  To hear Archer tell it, Lauren had the faith to move mountains, the ability to charm teenagers into silence for hours at a time, and the gentle touch of the late Mother Teresa—although when Jessica asked him how he knew what her touch felt like, he blushed and explained that he didn’t know about that personally, but several patients had commented on it.

  Archer had known Lauren McCaffrey since they were kids. He obviously admired her. Though Jessica had battled jealousy in the past, she respected Archer’s insight.

  Lauren glanced toward the kitchen. “Uh-oh, Helen’s looking our direction. You know, I don’t think that woman knows how to sit down and take it easy. Sometimes I think if we were to sneak in here in the middle of the night we’d find her in that kitchen behind that counter.”

  “Even during a tornado alert.” Jessica regretted the sarcasm as soon as the words left her mouth. “Did my mother-in-law really start this business of serving snacks during these storms?”

  Lauren shrugged. “Eileen was the essence of hospitality but since I didn’t grow up here I never saw her in action on her home turf.” She glanced toward the kitchen area where Helen was making more sandwiches. “Guess we could go help.”

  “Or not.”

  Lauren blinked at Jessica, a slight smile in her eyes. “Feeling rebellious, Mrs. Pierce?”

  “Would that be a sin?”

  “I don’t think what we’re talking about is exactly the biblical definition of sin and you’re probably tired from your show.”

  Something about the way Lauren said it helped Jessica lower her defenses for a moment. It was as if Lauren actually admired Jessica’s talent. Unlike some of the long-time members of the church who were slow to accept Jessica into their midst, Lauren was also a newcomer to town—though she’d been here nearly a year and a half. She wasn’t star-struck like some of the other members, she simply appeared to accept Jessica for her own God-given gift.

  Jessica glanced toward the kitchen corner and sighed. “I guess I’m not too tired to help make a few more sandwiches.”

  ***

  Mitchell barely noticed the voices of the crowd on the other side of the door. His attention, along with that of Grant, Muriel, and Beau—as well as Joanne’s brawny son, Kent—was focused on Joanne’s swollen face, caught in a grotesque mask of seizure.

  Mitchell hated to admit Grant was right about this one. They needed to do a C-section and they needed to hurry. “We’ll take the baby.”

  “We won’t be able to get an anesthesiologist here in time,” Grant said.

  “You’ll have to take care of the anesthesia. We have no choice.”

  “It’ll mean taking a chance in the elevators, and those sirens are still screaming.”

  “We can’t do anything here,” Mitchell snapped.

  “Let’s go then,” Grant said. “Do you have the password to OB?”

  Mitchell nodded as he checked the patient himself. “Let’s get her to OB. Quickly.” He reluctantly turned to Muriel. “Will you assist? You have OB experience.”

  “You’d better believe it,” Muriel said. “I’m not leaving this patient’s side until she’s out of danger. Let’s get her up the elevator while it’s still working. Beau, you clear everybody back. Where’s Lela? I saw her down here a few minutes ago. She can circulate—”

  “Not on my watch,” Mitchell said. He’d once fired Muriel for insubordination only to have Grant overrule his decision and bring her back to work. It rankled to be forced to admit to himself that Grant had been right, but Lela was out of the question. “Beau, come with us. You can assist, can’t you?”

  “Yes, I think I can.”

  “You think?”

  “I can do it.”

  Mitchell nodded. “Good.” Although Grant’s son was only a part-time tech here at the hospital, he could be trusted to keep his cool and assist when needed, unlike Lela-the-Emotional, who cried when she got stressed. “Let’s go.”

  “Wait a minute.” The patient’s muscled son came forward. “I want to go with my mother.”

  “I’m sorry, Kent,” Grant said. “Not this time. We’ll take good care of her.”

  Kent glowered at him.

  “She’ll probably be okay as soon as they deliver the baby,” Beau said quietly as they wheeled the gurney past Kent and out into the hallway toward the elevators. “Why don’t you stay down here with Brooke? That way we can locate you more easily when we’re finished. C-sections don’t take long.”

  Yes, the doctor-to-be was already showing his assertiveness. It would be interesting to see how he handled his first surgery.

  ***

  “Hey, Jessica?” called one of the teenagers from the back of the room, “storm’s letting up. Can we go now?”

  “Not yet.” She laid slices of bread on a platter. “We haven’t gotten an all clear and the sirens are still going off.”

  There was a general groan until Helen Netz filled a plate with cookies and handed it to Jessica to pass across the counter to the group of hungry teenagers. “That’ll keep ‘em occupied,” she said. “Speaking of your mother-in-law, Jessica, now there was a church worker.”

  “Yes, that’s what I’ve heard,” Jessica said. Over and over and over again.

  “That woman could cook and she loved company. She could pick up on a person’s troubles w
ithout anyone having to tell her. She fit the bill for this church. She knew just what a pastor’s wife ought to be.”

  Lauren rolled her eyes at Jessica, wadded a piece of used aluminum foil, and made a perfect bank shot into the trashcan against the wall. “I love Eileen but every person has her own set of gifts, Helen. I don’t think there’s any job description set in stone for a pastor’s wife.”

  Helen shoved more sandwich material in Lauren’s direction and ignored her comments. “When Aaron Pierce was pastor, Eileen had a spring brunch at the parsonage every year and invited all the women in the church.” She glanced at Jessica. “I know they’d love to do that again.”

  “Every year?” Lauren exclaimed. “How’d she fit everyone into the parsonage?”

  Lauren McCaffrey, the beautiful woman that Archer admired so much, leapt toward the top of Jessica’s popularity list.

  “It was a come-and-go affair. She didn’t have any trouble.” Helen poured hot cocoa into cups and shoved them toward the far side of the counter with a little extra force, nearly spilling the contents.

  “Eileen Pierce makes the best strawberry tarts I ever tasted,” Lauren said, “but no music ever touched my heart the way Jessica’s does.”

  Really? Jessica wanted to hug her new best friend. “Thank you.”

  “Still,” Helen said, “a little hospitality goes a long way toward encouraging the church to have a sense of community. Just trying to make some helpful comments, dear.” She patted Jessica’s arm. “You’ve got some mighty fine shoes to fill.”

  “I’m all for hospitality,” Lauren said. “But have you noticed how big our church has grown?”

  “When Eileen lived in the parsonage they always had company,” Helen said. “Folks in the church knew they were always welcome there. Aaron and Eileen had a special relationship with our church. It’s important for people to get to know their pastor and his family.”

  Jessica did not reply. In spite of her high-profile career choice—or perhaps because of it—she had a strong need for privacy when not on stage. It had been one of the reasons she’d hesitated to marry a pastor in the first place.