The Doctor's Undoing

by Gina Wilkins

  His jaw tightened as he stared grimly ahead. “I would never want you staying with me because you don’t believe in giving up. Sometimes it really is best to walk away. For your own sake.”

  Her temper flared higher. “And I wouldn’t want to stay with someone who wasn’t willing to fight against all the odds to keep us together. What’s the point of making commitments at all if a person is willing to just walk away when the going gets hard? How can you pour everything you have into anything if you aren’t willing to invest whatever it takes to succeed?”

  He risked glanced at her again. “Are we talking about school again—or about us?”

  “We’re talking about whatever is important to you,” she answered evenly.

  She might as well face it. She had told herself she wouldn’t fall in love with him. She had promised herself she could keep it light. That she wouldn’t expect too much and therefore wouldn’t be disappointed when it inevitably ended. After all, she’d been able to accomplish that goal with other men from her past.

  It wasn’t the same with Ron.

  When had she fallen in love with him? Since they’d become lovers? Sometime during the two years prior to that? The first day she’d met him?

  “Haley—”

  He cursed when rain lashed the car so hard it nearly blew them sideways. “We’re going to have to pull over for a while until this band blows over.”

  Nodding stiffly, she peered through the torrents. “Looks like a little café up ahead. We could wait in there.”

  She wasn’t hungry, but there was no need to risk both their lives in this weather.

  He pulled into the parking lot and as close to the door as he could get. There were only a few other cars in the lot at just before six on this Saturday evening. Either it was too early for the dinner crowd or other people had the good sense to stay out of this storm.

  “You want to make a run for it or just sit out here in the car?”

  She looked at the sheets of rain between them and the door, weighed the discomfort against a continuation of this painful discussion with Ron. She really didn’t think she was ready to hear him confirm that she had offered her heart to a man who wasn’t interested in the responsibility of caring for it long-term. Maybe she just wanted to hold on to the fantasy for a little longer.

  “Let’s go in.”

  They didn’t bother with umbrellas, but simply jumped out of the car and made a dash for it. They shed their wet coats inside the café, hanging them to dry on a coat rack just inside the door. Their pants and shoes were wet, and their hair hung damp and limp, but at least they weren’t soaked to the skin.

  A waitress with flame-red hair and too much black eyeliner approached them with a commiserative smile. “Pretty bad out there, isn’t it? We’ve got the TV on in the corner over there so we can watch the radar. You know we’re under a tornado watch, don’t you?”

  “Yes, we know.” Ron glanced at the screen where a graphic showed almost the entire state covered in boxes depicting thunderstorm warnings, tornado watches and flash-flood warnings. Two serious-looking men in white shirts and loosened ties sat at a news desk, discussing the radar activity they were showing on-screen. “We thought we’d have a bite to eat and wait for the rain to let up a little before we keep driving to Little Rock.”

  Nodding, she waved a hand tipped with blue nail enamel toward the small dining room. “Just sit wherever you want. I’ll bring you a menu. And some coffee?”

  “Please,” Ron and Haley said in unison.

  “Be right with you.”

  At a quick glance, Haley noted that only a few other people were in the café, counting the two waitresses and whoever was working the kitchen. A family of four sat at a table next to the front glass wall. Mother and father in their late thirties, a boy and girl of maybe nine and twelve, respectively, all talking at once as they ate. An elderly couple—mid-seventies, perhaps?—were silently putting away bowls of soup and a basket of corn bread muffins at a table in the corner. And a younger couple dined on hamburgers and fries while stopping often to coo at the baby sitting in a carrier on a third chair at their table. Occasionally they glanced at the TV and out the windows, keeping an eye on the weather, probably judging when it would be safe to make a run for their car.

  Haley doubted that the little establishment often had a full dining room, but she suspected there were usually more here than this. The place was clean and the food looked good. The weather had to be a factor in the lack of business tonight.

  “Here’s your coffee.” The waitress, identified by a name tag as Candi, set steaming mugs in front of them. “Bet you’re both chilled with that damp hair.”

  “We are,” Ron answered her with a smile that made her eyelashes flutter. “Thank you, Candi.”

  She grinned back at him, as people always did. “What can I get y’all to eat?”

  “What do you recommend?” Ron asked.

  “The burgers are always good. The soup of the day is homemade vegetable beef, and that’s pretty good, too. But my favorite is the chicken-fried steak with mashed potatoes and fried okra.”

  Ron sighed regretfully. “That sounds really good, but we had a big lunch. Guess I’d better just have the soup.”

  “I’ll have the same, thank you,” Haley decided. Warm soup sounded good on a day like this, and a light enough dinner after their hearty lunch. Maybe by the time they’d finished eating, the rain would have let up enough to allow them to get underway again.

  Candi had their soup on the table in less than five minutes. “This feels more like spring weather than December, doesn’t it?”

  “It does, indeed.” Ron reached for a corn muffin from the heaped basket she’d set in the center of the table.

  They were all used to regular tornado watches in the turbulent Arkansas springs. It wasn’t that they didn’t take the reports seriously, but they knew most watches expired without producing the destructive twisters that hit this part of the country so frequently. So they would eat their meals and listen to the talking heads on the screen and when the skies cleared enough, they would be on their way.

  A hard blast of wind crashed against the windows and rattled dishes, eliciting a few startled squeaks followed by sheepish, somewhat nervous smiles. The mother of the baby was beginning to look a bit frightened now as she studied the television screen. Haley didn’t blame her. The storm was definitely intensifying.

  Candi cleared her throat, her eyes a bit anxious, but her smile determinedly professional. “Y’all be sure and save some room for dessert, you hear? Millie makes the best chocolate pie you ever tasted.”

  Despite his big lunch, Ron perked up at that. “Chocolate pie?”

  She laughed. “You’ll like it.”

  Haley frowned and lifted her hands to the sides of her head. “My ears just popped.”

  Twisting her jaw, Candi nodded. “Mine did, too.”

  Ron was half out of his seat before the sudden wailing of tornado warning alarms sounded from somewhere outside. “Everyone get away from the windows! Under the tables, quick.”

  Haley glanced instinctively toward the windows as Ron dashed over to help the older couple out of their seats. Even in the darkness outside, she could see debris rushing sideways past the rain-streaked glass.

  “Candi, get down!” She grabbed the waitress’s arm and jerked, sending them both tumbling to the floor, half under the bolted-down table.

  Chaos descended around them at that instant. She caught just a glimpse of the couple huddled over their baby beneath their own table, and then the lights went out to the sound of breaking glass and hammering impacts against the outside of the building.

  Chapter Eleven

  Haley’s shirt was soaked as she huddled beneath the table with her arms crossed protectively over her head. Something large hit the floor right next to her. She thought she heard screams, but it could have been the shrieking of the wind. The pressure was suddenly so strong that she felt almost as though she were being
pulled off the floor. She grabbed the metal base of the table, clinging to it frantically.

  The noise abated almost as suddenly as it had intensified. It might have only been seconds, brief minutes at the most, but it felt so much longer.

  She was so cold, and so wet. At least part of the roof must have been ripped off above her.

  Someone was screaming in earnest now. She took a moment to make sure it wasn’t her before lifting her head and opening her eyes.

  It was hard to see through the darkness. She heard excited voices crying out, babbling questions and calling for help. Realizing she had instinctively grabbed her purse when she ducked beneath the table, she shoved a hand into it, pulling out the small, high-beam flashlight she always carried.

  Candi still sat beside her, huddled beneath the other side of the table.

  “Candi, are you all right?”

  Her face white in the beam of the flashlight, the waitress nodded tentatively. “I think so. Damn, that rain is cold.”

  “Be careful of broken glass when you stand up.”

  Haley rose carefully, sweeping her flashlight over what had been a tidy dining room. Tables and chairs were scattered among broken crockery now, and shattered light fixtures dangled from the partially missing roof above. At least with the power out they didn’t have to worry about electrocution, though there was still the danger of falling debris.

  She saw the couple with the baby standing nearby and she stumbled toward them, almost tripping over what must have been a pile of ceiling tiles and insulation. “Are you all right? The baby?”

  She could hear the child crying, as was his mother, who had taken him from the carrier and now held him tightly. The father hovered near them, trying to shield them from the rain by holding his coat over them. “I think we’re okay,” he said. “I got hit in the back of the head by something. Got a goose egg there, but I think I’m okay. We were both covering the baby, so he wasn’t hit by anything.”

  Candi was calling for outside help; Haley could hear the waitress shouting into a cell phone behind her. “Haley? Haley!”

  Her knees almost buckled in relief at the sound of Ron’s voice. The last she’d seen of him, he’d been rushing toward the wall of windows. Turning her light in that direction, she saw that the entire front of the café had been destroyed. “Ron?”

  A hand grabbed her arm, and she was pulled tightly into his arms for a moment. She felt a hard tremor run through him as she clung to him in return. “You’re okay?”

  She nodded against his chest. “I’m okay. Are you?”

  “Going to have some bruises, but I’m all right. We have people hurt over here. Can you help me?”

  She straightened away from him. “Of course.”

  The beam of another powerful flashlight joined Haley’s in piercing the wet rain pouring in through the broken ceiling. “Is everyone okay?” a man’s voice called from the area of the kitchen.

  “Do you have a first aid kit?” Ron called in that direction.

  “I’ll be right there.”

  “Ambulances are on the way,” Candi announced, already pressing buttons again on the lighted pad of her cell phone. The blue light from the phone threw her face into an eerie silhouette, and her eyes glittered with reaction and excitement.

  Haley thought she heard the faint keening of sirens from somewhere in the distance but had no way of knowing if they were ambulances, police or fire trucks, or even if they were headed this way. She didn’t know how much damage the surrounding area had sustained, how many people might be hurt and waiting for help.

  She and Ron threw themselves into assessing injuries. Identifying themselves as medical students, not doctors, they did what they could to help those who had been hurt. The elderly woman had been cut by a flying piece of glass. In the beam of the flashlight, the cut on her arm didn’t look too deep, but they instructed her to lie still and keep the arm elevated in her husband’s lap as he sat beside her, staunching the flow with his handkerchief.

  The man’s breathing was rather labored and his heart rate felt somewhat thready when Haley pressed her fingertips to his neck. “Do you have a heart condition, sir?”

  He nodded. “I got nitro tablets in my pocket.”

  “Do you need to take one? Are you having chest pains?”

  He shook his head. “I’m okay. I’ll just sit here with Nita and wait for the ambulance.”

  Hoping he was right, she moved to help Ron with the remaining family.

  The boy had been thrown backward by the winds and had fallen on his arm. “It’s broken,” Ron informed Haley when she knelt beside him to hold the light as he swept his fingers gently over the awkwardly twisted limb.

  The boy was trying so hard not to cry, though his breath was catching in swallowed sobs. “It hurts pretty bad.”

  “I know it does, buddy.” Ron rested a hand on the boy’s head. “You’re doing great. It’s okay to cry a little if you need to, okay? I’d probably be crying, too, if I’d broken my arm.”

  The boy snuffled. “You would?”

  “Heck, yes. I’m a real baby. Ask my friend, here, she’ll tell you. But you’re going to have a cool cast to show off to your friends. You can tell them how brave you’ve been. Now lie very still while I check on your mom, okay?”

  The boy’s father had unearthed an umbrella from somewhere. He knelt over his son to shelter him from the rain, though his concern was obviously divided between his son and his wife, who half lay against the bottom of the booth with her daughter hovering tearfully nearby holding another umbrella.

  “Will you check on her, doctor?” the dad asked Ron.

  “I’m just a medical student, but yes, I’ll see what I can do.”

  Holding the flashlight, Haley moved with Ron to the woman’s side. This woman had also been hit by debris, and her face was streaked with blood and rain. She was awake and coherent, having insisted they look after her son first, but Haley suspected the woman would need stitches to close the gaping cut above her left eye.

  A large man materialized beside them, holding his flashlight in one hand and a first aid kit in the other. “I’m Mike, the owner of what’s left of this place. You needed this?”

  “Thanks.” Ron dug in the box and found a gauze pad and some tape, which he used to cover the wound temporarily.

  “You’re doctors?” Mike asked.

  “Medical students,” Haley replied. “I’m going to check on that other couple again, Ron. I’m a little concerned about the man’s breathing. And the young man with the baby got a hard bump on the head. I’ll do a quick concussion check, though I think he’s okay.”

  Ron squeezed her hand. “Okay. Call if you need me. I’ll check on the boy again.”

  She straightened. Either the rain was lessening or she was getting used to it; she hardly noticed it now. The sirens outside were definitely getting closer, sounding as though they would arrive very soon. She could imagine that resources were limited in this rural area; she would guess that local emergency services were spread thin until help arrived from surrounding counties.

  Candi stood by what had once been the entryway but was now a gaping hole surrounded by twisted metal. “I think I see flashing lights,” she called out. “They’re getting closer.”

  Haley stepped toward her. “You’d better move away from that wall,” she said with a frown, noting the tangled wiring and dangling construction materials hanging around where Candi stood. Electrocution might not be a danger, but this structure was far from safe. Haley wouldn’t breathe easily until everyone was safely out. “Maybe you should come wait over here with me and—”

  A wind-driven gust of cold rain hit her directly across the face, cutting off her words. Something creaked loudly in the wind; something else banged.

  “Haley, watch—”

  She never heard the rest of Ron’s warning. One moment she was standing there looking at Candi; the next she was lying on the floor buried beneath what had been the front roof of the diner.
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  Something covered her face, and something else lay heavily on her chest, making it hard to breathe. There was pain, sharp and angry, but she wasn’t sure of its source. It seemed to be coming from several places. She couldn’t move, but she didn’t know if that was because of the weight on top of her or something else.

  She closed her eyes. Maybe she’d just go to sleep for a while. Maybe the pain would be gone when she woke. Ron would take care of her. Ron…

  “Haley. Damn it, Haley, open your eyes!”

  Ron sounded annoyed with her. She opened her eyes reluctantly, wincing when the beam of a flashlight pierced her pupils.

  “Move the light, it’s right in her eyes. Haley, honey, open your eyes again. Look at me.”

  Someone had moved the stuff out of her face and off her chest so that it was easier to breath, but now something seemed to be clogging her brain. She was having trouble thinking clearly. “Ron?”

  Her voice sounded slurred, drowsy. Who was screaming now?

  Oh, yes. Sirens.

  “No, Haley, don’t drift off again. Stay with me, okay?”

  Pain clawed at the lower half of her body. She tried to squirm away from it, but hands held her still. Someone else was kneeling over her. Candi? What was the owner’s name? Mike. She focused on those trivialities to keep from dwelling on the pain. The mounting fear.

  She lifted her head, looked downward to where the flashlight beam was focused now. Then wished she’d kept her eyes closed.

  Her head fell backward against the hard, wet floor.

  “Shouldn’t you take that out of her leg?” Candi asked fearfully from somewhere behind Haley’s head.

  “No!” Ron spoke somewhat more quietly the second time. “No. Don’t touch her. The ambulance is almost here.”