“Oh yeah. We saw it,” Beau said dryly.
Lauren bit her lower lip. Yes, the kids had seen it far too closely.
“So I’m gonna tell your preacher’s class that now I’ve gotta go get my GED because they don’t want me back in school.”
“Because you did drugs,” Brooke said, counting off his offenses on her fingers. “And introduced your pusher friend to minors and encouraged other kids to take drugs and attacked Evan in the hallway.”
“I wouldn’t do it again,” Kent said. “I mean it, I wouldn’t. I learned my lesson. I don’t want to end up like Royce.”
A solemn silence descended on the room. Royce, the drug kingpin of Dogwood Springs, was dead.
Lauren sank onto a chair beside Brooke.
“Ever hear that rumor about Dr. Caine?” Kent asked.
Another round of silence. Beau shifted uncomfortably.
“You know he was the one that took care of Royce when the ambulance brought him in?” Kent said. “Some people think Caine killed him somehow.”
“Killed Simon Royce?” Beau shook his head. “Dr. Caine wouldn’t do that.”
“He had a good reason,” Kent said. “You’ve only been here about a year, so you didn’t know Simon got with Caine’s daughter about four years ago.”
“He has a daughter?” Brooke asked. “How old is she?”
“Probably about twenty now.”
“Which would mean she was sixteen when it happened?” Beau said. “Isn’t that statutory rape?”
“Couldn’t prove anything and Trisha wasn’t talking. She ran away with him. Dr. Caine and his wife went nuts trying to find her. When they finally did she was living with Royce in Springfield. They brought her back but she just left again. She’s never moved back home.”
Lauren had heard rumors but she didn’t pay attention to them and she didn’t intend to do so now. Still, Mitchell Caine’s past could have a lot to do with his impending divorce.
“Yep,” Kent said, “I guess if Caine did do something to kill Royce that night, he did everybody a favor.”
“But he did not kill Royce,” Beau said.
“Beau,” Lauren interrupted, “your dad told me you two went home. What are you doing back here?”
Beau got up quickly, as if he, too, felt uncomfortable about the topic of conversation. “We wanted to go upstairs one more time and check on Kent’s mom and the baby. We found Kent pacing up and down the hallway.”
Lauren smiled up at Beau. “You came in the middle of the night?”
“I helped with the delivery. My first.”
“Probably not your last,” Lauren said.
“I’m going with you guys,” Kent said. “Guess I’ll sleep in the waiting room and keep an eye on Mom.”
“Since you two are already here,” Lauren said, “do you mind giving me a lift home?”
“Of course we will.” Brooke stood up and wrapped her arms around Lauren. “I was so glad to see you come into the ER tonight. We were terrified for you after the tornado and we didn’t know where you were and Dad as freaking.”
“I saw his hands shaking.” Beau stepped into the hug.
Lauren closed her eyes and savored the moment. Falling in love with a whole family could be a messy business, painful and raw and frightening. For now, however, she would enjoy it.
“Hey, guys, I’ll meet you up there,” Kent said as he walked from the room.
The kids released Lauren at last.
“Go see Dad,” Brooke said. “We’ll meet you there.”
“Gotcha, Boss.” Lauren saluted and watched them leave.
***
Grant was slumped in his chair brooding over a blank computer screen when he heard a knock. He looked up to the very welcome sight of Lauren framed in the small oblong window of his office door.
“I didn’t expect to see you again tonight.” But he sure enjoyed it.
She entered and closed the door behind her. “I’m catching a ride so I thought I’d bring your keys back. That way the kids can sleep late. They’re here again, by the way. Beau had to check on his handiwork. Congratulations on your new baby doctor. I thought for sure you’d be in the call room trying to sleep, quiet as it is out there right now.”
He circled the desk and reached for her, not caring this time that they were in full view of the window. He caught her against him and buried his face in her hair the way he’d wanted to do earlier. He was amazed by the sudden comfort that flowed through him.
He held her that way for a long moment.
Lauren stirred. “What happened?”
There it was. The same sense of connection he once experienced with Annette—something he had never expected to find again after her death.
“Grant,” Lauren said gently. “What?”
“Norville Webster is back in surgery. I missed a compartment syndrome.”
She caught her breath and exhaled softly. “No. Have you heard if he’s going to be okay?”
“Not yet.”
“Has anyone called Evan?” Norville’s sixteen-year-old son was spending the weekend with his mother and stepdad in Springfield.
“Becky called him earlier,” Grant said. “His mother’s bringing him here tomorrow. I didn’t want to disturb him again tonight.” He sighed, closing his eyes. “If Norville’s lost the use of his leg because of my oversight...”
He felt a gentle squeeze on his shoulder and looked down to see Lauren watching him intently.
“If anyone’s to blame it would be me,” she said. “I was first on scene; I should have given him a thorough exam. I even saw him limping after the tornado hit, and—”
“Lauren, you did all you could to save his life.”
“Exactly. Are you trying to tell me you should have taken the time to do an exhaustive head-to-toe evaluation to make sure you didn’t miss some other injury that might also present itself?”
“That’s exactly what I should have done.”
“And what would have happened to the other incoming patients in the meantime? Let up on yourself a little, okay? We were hit by a tornado and it was a war zone.”
He allowed the comforting words to settle. “Do you have any idea how much I value our friendship?”
She smiled. “Yeah, I do.”
There was another knock at the door. They both looked up to see Brooke and Beau grinning at them through the oblong pane. Beau opened the door and led the way in. “Good news. There was a surgery going on and we checked it out. Norville’s leg’ll be okay. He’s in recovery again, and Jade’s decided to camp out in the surgery waiting room just in case something else happens here tonight.”
Grant saw his relief mirrored in Lauren’s eyes. How he loved this woman.
“Honey Creek’s over its banks again,” Brooke said. “So’s Black Oak River.” She ambled to the chair in front of his desk and eased down into it. “The water level’s way above normal. I hope no one tries to go swimming in the creek for the next few days or you might see ‘em here in the ER. Still, with all the damage, it wasn’t as bad as it could’ve been.”
“Not that we’ve seen,” Beau said. “Wait until daylight before you make any informed decisions. We’re expecting more storms to come, so I don’t think it’s over yet.”
Chapter Seven
By early Monday evening after a weekend of hard work by the maintenance crew and several outside sources, the sounds of reconstruction ended in the ER waiting room. Grant was grateful. Though he didn’t have time to step out and inspect the handiwork of the maintenance people, rumor had it they had a new impact-resistant plate-glass window.
Grant entered exam room four to find Mimi Peterson sitting on the side of the exam bed, breathing fast and shallow as she held her hands over her abdomen, shoulders hunched forward. Her long face and pale features were drawn together in the typical mask of suffering that haunted this department so often. The lines of the grimace aged her far past the forty-five years noted on the chart Lauren had given him.
>
“Mrs. Peterson?”
Her gaze focused on him, eyes narrowing.
He stepped to the bedside. “I’m Dr. Grant Sheldon. I understand you’re having some abdominal pain.”
“I thought it was my spastic colon but it kept getting worse.” Her voice cracked. She cleared her throat, still watching him with that disconcerting focus.
“Does the pain feel the same as your spastic colon has felt in the past?”
She shook her head. “It isn’t acting the same at all. I don’t have diarrhea or anything like that.”
Lauren entered the room behind him and stepped to the other side of the bed.
“When did you start having these symptoms, Mrs. Peterson?” Grant continued.
“Mimi. I’m Mimi. Not quite a week ago and they keep getting worse.”
“Continual?”
“No, it comes and goes.”
“Any nausea, loss of appetite?”
“Some but not always.”
He listened to her heart and lungs with his stethoscope and then suggested that she lie back so he could listen to her stomach and inspect her abdomen for any visual signs of a problem.
She hesitated. “Can’t you just call my own doctor? He knows how to treat it.”
Grant looked at the chart. “According to your records Dr. Caine is your family physician.”
Mimi nodded and grimaced at another apparent spasm. “He knows me. He needs to come and treat me here.”
“I’ll be glad to have him notified that you’re here, Mimi, but he has patients at his clinic today, and—”
She raised a preemptive hand. “Dr. Sheldon, I’ve been through this whole thing before. Maybe you don’t recognize my name but Dr. Caine will.”
“I’m sure he will as soon as—”
“If you don’t think I know what I’m talking about, why don’t you give my friend the mayor a call? My husband was transferred here last fall from Little Rock. He’s the general manager of—” She grimaced again.
“I don’t intend to ignore your request,” Grant said, “but meanwhile, why don’t we check this out and see if we can discover what’s going on.”
At Lauren’s urging, Mimi lay back at last. Grant palpated the right lower quadrant of her abdomen but she shoved his arm away.
“That hurts! I told you I’ve been in pain. Don’t you believe me?”
“I have to be able to find what is causing your problem. From what I can see you have rebound pain, which could mean you have an inflamed appendix.”
“It wasn’t my appendix last time.”
“I thought you said you had a spastic colon last time.”
“No, that isn’t... I’ve had this before, too. It goes away with Percocet.”
Grant straightened and stepped back. Percocet.
“I told you,” Mimi said. “Dr. Caine knows what to do about it. If you’ll just call him he’ll have to come and see me here.”
Grant doubted Mitchell would do anything of the sort. Not only did he hate being called away from patients in his own clinic, he was always suspicious of drug seekers, and Mimi had all the signs—she already knew what drug she wanted, her symptoms were not typical of anything in particular, and she didn’t want close scrutiny.
“It’s your option,” Grant said. “I’ll be happy to take care of you, get the tests started—”
“Tests?” She rubbed her neck. “What kind of tests? I’ve already had every test imaginable.”
“Does Dr. Caine have the results?”
“I’m sure he does but they were all negative.”
“You had blood drawn?”
“Yes, and I don’t want to do that again. Dr. Caine knows I hate needles.”
“Lauren is very gentle with blood draws and I think you’ll feel better if we can get a little more information about the culprit that’s—”
“Would you just call Dr. Caine?” she snapped.
Grant pressed his tongue against his teeth to control his irritation. “Dr. Caine is across the street. If you wished to see him you could have called his office yourself.”
“I couldn’t get past his receptionist. She told me they were booked.”
Grant turned to Lauren. “Have the secretary get Dr. Caine on the line if she can.”
Lauren nodded and left the room. Grant turned to follow her out.
“Wait a minute, you’re just leaving me here?” Mimi cried. “I’m in pain! What if something happens to me?”
Grant began to suspect something more was, indeed, wrong. People with psychological problems often resorted to pain medications to make their emotional pain go away. “We’ll leave the door open, of course,” he said gently, indicating the central desk, which was in sight of her bed. “We’ll never be far away.”
“You’re going to leave me just sitting here in plain view of anyone who wants to walk by and see me? I thought patients had a right to their privacy.”
“I’m sorry but if you’re truly ill you need to be—”
“What do you mean if I’m truly ill? You think I’m lying?”
Grant paused and took a slow, steady breath. “Is there someone you would like us to call? Your husband, perhaps? Or a friend.”
“I told you what I wanted.”
“Dr. Sheldon?” called the secretary from her switchboard at the central desk, “I have Dr. Caine on the line.”
“If you’ll excuse me for a moment,” he told the patient, “I’ll take this call.”
“Tell him I need to see him today,” she ordered as he left the room.
By the time he picked up the receiver in his office, Grant was more than willing to turn Mitchell’s patient over to him. “Dr. Caine, I’m sorry to bother you. I know you’re busy. I have one of your patients, Mimi Peterson, in the department with a complaint of severe abdominal pain.”
“Oh, no. Spare me from that woman if you have any compassion in you.”
“So she isn’t your patient?”
“Unfortunately, she is.”
“She insists on seeing you and she refuses further testing.”
“So you haven’t completed an exam?” Mitchell asked.
“She wouldn’t allow it.” Grant gave the specifics.
There was a pause and then a sigh of irritation. “I’m sure she asked for her pain med of choice.”
“Percocet.”
“I’ve given it to her a few days at a time and I receive constant requests—or rather, demands—for refills. I refuse to fuel her addictions. She generates these symptoms from one organ of her body. Her brain. She won’t see a psychiatrist.”
Grant didn’t mention that had been his thought, as well. “I won’t give her pain medication until I have an etiology for the source of pain,” Grant said.
There was a dramatic, long-suffering sigh. “Fine, I’ll see her when I do my rounds tonight. Meanwhile the queen can wait. Tell her I insist that she have a blood test taken before I get there.”
“How long should I tell her to expect to wait?”
“I have another patient to see before I’m finished here and I’ll make no promises about time.” He hung up.
Grant shook his head and sat back. He could only hope Mitchell’s final patient was cooperative.
***
At five-fifteen Monday evening Mitchell Caine glowered at the chart of his final patient of the day. Clyde Buckman, a sixty-seven-year-old farmer, sat on the exam table. He stank of cattle manure, though his clothing didn’t look soiled. Most likely he’d stepped in something and his senses were so accustomed to the smell of the barnyard that he didn’t even notice. He had been kicked by a steer when he and his wife were herding cattle into a truck to take them to market early this morning. This morning!
“Why didn’t you go to the emergency department when it happened?” Mitchell asked as he examined Clyde’s bruised shoulder.
The patient grunted when Mitchell pressed the affected area. “Didn’t think it was that bad and I couldn’t afford to miss sale day.
I heard prices would drop before the next sale—”
“Sit up.” When the man did so, Mitchell checked range of motion and Clyde couldn’t complete the process. “As I said, you need to go to the ER. They’ll have to x-ray your shoulder.”
“But do I have to check into the ER to do it? That’ll cost a lot of money and my new Medicare plan won’t cover everything.”
“The hospital takes assignment, so you shouldn’t have a problem.” Mitchell was tired. He’d seen more than his share of complaining patients today and he didn’t get paid overtime wages when a patient decided, several hours after an accident, that he felt bad enough to come in to see the doctor.
“Couldn’t you just give me something for the pain like you did last time?” Clyde asked. “Then if there’s a problem it’ll show up in a couple of days.”
Mitchell rolled his chair away from the patient-room computer keyboard. He reached for his prescription pad and jotted orders, dated it, signed it. He ripped the sheet off and gave it to Clyde. “That is for an outpatient x-ray. You won’t have to check into the ER for that.”
“Well, thanks, Dr. Caine. This x-ray gonna help me with the pain?”
Irritably, Mitchell printed a script for Percocet, signed it, and slapped it down on the table beside the patient. “Do not use these pills as a treatment for your shoulder. Understand? If you do, I won’t be responsible for the consequences. You could lose the use of that shoulder for good.”
The farmer eyed Mitchell and then hesitantly reached for the prescription, as if Mitchell might snap at him again before he could get it into his pocket.
Mitchell felt ashamed. He had grown up among these country hicks and still he didn’t understand them. They would rather make sure a field was plowed and ready for planting than take care of a physical ailment. And they were the least likely people to sue a doctor for a bad medical outcome. At least he had that in his favor. Lately, there didn’t seem to be much else.
So why take my frustration out on Clyde? And where had all those good feelings gone from the delivery Friday night?
“As soon as you get the x-ray,” he said more gently, “make sure I get a copy of it. If it doesn’t need surgery I’ll treat it here in the office.”
“Thanks, Doc. You don’t know how much that—”
URGENT CARE Page 7