An I.O.U. from a Billionaire
Page 11
Joan followed Mae into the hallway and when they were sufficiently far enough away from Director Wheatley’s office, she asked Mae, “What did you just do?”
“I saved your job.”
“You said I am engaged to Liam. He has a girlfriend, Mae. A crazy, sociopathic, rich, Victoria Secret model girlfriend. How am I going to ask him to come down here and pretend to be engaged to me?”
Mae rolled her eyes. “You’re being so dramatic. You saved his brother’s life. I’m so sure he’ll have a problem coming down here and pretending to be your fiancé for like ten minutes,” she said, her voice thick with sarcasm.
“Ten minutes?”
“Yeah.” Mae nodded. “He meets President Little, throws a donation his way and says you’re his lady.”
Joan massaged her temples fighting off the migraine that was sure to be coming. “No one is going to buy that.”
“Yes they will. You know why? Because at lunch you and I are going to go to Amanda’s family jewelry shop and get you a fat cubic zirconia that you’ll wear until Earl forgets to be after your job.”
“Why am I starting to think this might work?”
Mae laughed removing Joan’s hands from her temples. “Because it will. Call him tonight after work and then when he shows up, you start wearing the ring. We can do this.”
Joan thought of how hard she’d worked to get hired on at the best hospital with the best surgeons and cancer treatment center in the country. If Kenna relapsed, working there would give Joan access to the best doctors, and the best care for Kenna.
I have to try.
“Okay. I’ll do it.”
“Amanda is going to lunch soon. I’ll see if she can get the ring. What size?”
Joan shook her head trying to find the number in her freaked out brain. “Six.”
“I’ll go fill her in.” Mae hugged her and Joan hoped she hugged her back. She felt like she was in a fog. Mae dashed off and all Joan could think about was trying to find the right words to ask Liam to go along with this crazy plan of Mae’s.
Getting to work was the only thing that would help her get through the day without losing her mind. She signed in and put on her communication Vocera badge and lanyard. Joan was taking over for Nurse Green, a nurse who was relatively new. Joan walked the floor checking on the rooms assigned to Nurse Green in an effort to track her down. When she didn’t find her, Joan introduced herself to the patients she was taking over and carried on with her work.
When she did finally locate Nurse Green, it was a half hour into her shift. Nurse Green’s face was pink and her long, red hair was down and tangled. Her scrubs askew enough to know that she was probably locked away in a supply closet with some other tech, nurse, or doctor.
“Sorry, I took a break and I guess I fell asleep.” Nurse Green tucked her hair behind her ear and then seemed to realize it was down. “Do you need a rundown of the patients?”
Joan shook her head. “No. I’ve already introduced myself.” Joan scanned the hallway quickly for the charge nurse. Not seeing her she added. “Be careful messing around at work. If you’re caught you could get fired.”
Her cheeks turned a deeper shade of red. “No, I wasn’t. I was sleeping.” She bit her lip watching Joan’s raised brow. “I’ll be more careful.”
“Nurse Taylor? Can you help me with my patient in 34A?” Mae asked. Mae had that look she got when she might be sick.
Nurse Green took that moment to dash away.
“Sure. What’s up?”
“He burned his hand over a week ago. It looks like he was cooking meth. He must have been on a bender because he wrapped his hand in strips of an old t-shirt. Then he put a grocery bag over it and left it like that for close to two weeks.”
Joan nodded. “Okay, you need help removing the bandaging?”
“It smells really bad and I haven’t taken off the bag yet.”
“Okay, let’s do this.”
The smell hit Joan like a finger on her gag reflex. She had to take a step back into the hallway and get another breath. Mae handed her a face mask and she put it on as she re-entered the room.
“Mr. Harvey, we are going to remove the bag and bandages you applied to get a look at what condition your hand is in,” Mae explained.
Mr. Harvey nodded. The sores on his face were indicative of Mae’s methamphetamine assumption. He was maybe twenty-five. The pupils of his eyes were dilated. Mr. Harvey nodded. “It’s not a big deal. I just burned my hand.”
The smell alone convinced Joan he would have some gangrene and would need surgery. She hoped she was wrong and that somehow, they would be able to save his hand.
Using scissors, Joan cut carefully into the too tight plastic bag around his wrist. When she slid the bag from his hand the mask no longer was enough to save her from the smell. The wrapping was yellow and green, stiff, and stuck together from the dried fluids that had oozed from his wounds.
Concentrating on keeping her fingers steady, she ignored the smell and Mr. Harvey’s constant chatter about how he’d suffered worse burns and this was nothing.
It was the meth talking.
This definitely wasn’t nothing. Using the scissors to cut the crusty material next to the knot she was careful not to go too deep with the scissors. Once that was cut, she began to peel back the first layer of his binding.
“I’ll be right back.” Mae rushed out of the room.
She’s going to be sick. Poor Mae.
“Maybe we should put the bag back on it. Smells like a bitch. Huh?” Mr. Harvey laughed. “Maybe we should wash it off and just rewrap it. I think I’m good.”
Joan continued working. “I’ll know more as soon as we get these bindings off. Just be still please.”
“All right. It’s nothing really.”
The first layer gone, she set it on the tray. It stood on its own, the material was so hard. Starting the second layer she asked, “Are you here alone? Is there anyone you would like us to call for you?”
“No. I don’t need anyone to come. It’s just a little burn. I’m fine.”
Once the second layer was off, Joan could see that he’d wrapped his fingers individually as well. Mae returned in time to help with the third layer which was the most challenging yet because it bonded with his skin, making the removal a tedious process so as not to further damage the injury.
“Remind me after this that I have something for you,” Mae said sounding like her nose was plugged.
Joan nodded absently, too concentrated on her work to form a response.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
“When you said you were in town and wanted to hang out, you did not mention this,” Westley Hawthorne said, gesturing to the building.
Liam smiled. “West, we have been through a lot of shit together over the years. You know I always have your back.”
“I’ve never seen you act this way over a woman, Liam. What’s so special about her that you’re willing to go through all this trouble?”
“She’s not special, she’s a know it all.”
Westley laughed. “That means she doesn’t agree with everything that comes out of your mouth.”
“Joan saved Cole. I have a debt to pay. It’s been a couple of days and by now she’s probably come to her senses.”
“Tell me again why we aren’t going to the front desk and asking for her.”
Liam rolled his eyes heavenward. He hadn’t explained in the first place because he knew Westley would be less likely to want to help him. “I may have inadvertently insulted her last we spoke.”
Westley nodded watching Liam sweat. “Is there a restraining order in place? This feels a little stalker-ish, Liam.”
“No, of course not.”
“There might be after this.” Westley gestured toward the hospital.
Liam laughed, the sound a little forced even to his own ears. “She’s not going to get a restraining order. She grabbed my crotch, so if anyone has the right to get a restraining order….”
Liam ignored his phone vibrating in his pocket.
Alise again. Probably wants to know who will be there so she can namedrop to her friends.
“Are you going to help me or not?” Liam loosened the red tie at his neck.
Westley rolled his shoulders and stretched his neck. “You’re attending the benefit tonight like you promised. I can hardly back out now. Let’s do this.”
The waiting room was moderately filled and the wait time was not an option. The admitting clerk took the hundred dollar bill and Westley was called right away. It was too much to hope for that Joan would be the nurse assigned to Westley.
The nurse who entered the patient room they were shown to introduced herself as Amanda. “What are we seeing you for today, Mr. Hawthorne?”
Westley put his hand on his left arm. “I think I tore a muscle lifting weights. I’m in a lot of pain.”
She looked at him as he spoke and then glanced at Liam. “On a scale of one to ten with ten being the highest where would you rate your pain?”
“Ssseven,” West answered in a tone that sounded like a question. He was going to get them booted out of the ER before Liam had a chance to look for Joan.
“Is there a bathroom I can use?” Liam asked.
Amanda nodded. “You go outside this door turn left in the hall and it’s the second door on the left.”
“Thank you.” Liam walked out the door and turned left in case Amanda was watching him. Pausing in the hall he scanned the medical staff hoping to spot Joan. When he did find her, he wanted her to be happy to see him.
The doors to the patient rooms had windows. As subtly as possible, he looked through the window of the first door. She wasn’t in that room or the next. When he got to the next door a guy in orange scrubs pushing a cart full of medical supplies started toward him.
Shit.
He was probably about to be kicked out of the ER anyway, might as well look. Liam turned his head and looked into the room. There were two nurses bent over a patient. They were unwrapping a soiled bandage from around the hand of the patient.
The nurse on the right-hand side had a long, curly golden brown ponytail. Liam was pretty sure he’d found Joan even though he’d grown used to seeing her with her fro of big hair curls. The nurse turned her head watching the binding come off the hand and he got a look at her profile.
I found her.
Liam smiled as the guy with the cart passed him. Now that he’d found Joan, he would wait until she came out of the patient’s room and then he’d convince her to use the I.O.U. so he could forget her with her high and mighty ways.
“Are you in pain?” He heard Joan ask the patient.
Liam turned his head automatically when he heard her voice. The wrapping was just being removed from the last finger. As the wrapping was set aside, the thumb fell off onto the tray next to the discarded bandaging.
He felt the blood drain from his face like his feet were a vacuum sucking every lost drop from his brain. His stomach lurched, and he slapped his hand over his mouth.
The man who’d just lost the thumb wiggled the stub.
Sweat broke out on his brow and at the back of his neck as he fought the urge to vomit.
Don’t throw up. You will not throw up.
“Necrosis has set in. You’ll need to go to surgery for your hand.” Joan’s calm, no-nonsense voice found him in his haze of walls tilting. Liam leaned against the wall as a doctor was summoned by the other nurse.
Joan is going to come walking out of that room any second and find you in the hallway losing your eggs Florentine like some little girl. Man up, Liam.
When the doctor arrived. he passed Liam and pushed the door open. The smell of rotting flesh assaulted his nostrils. Liam’s stomach lurched again, harder this time. Sweat dripped down his face and the tips of his fingers tingled as he leaned heavier on the wall behind him.
He scanned the hall for a garbage can. There was no way he could hold it back any longer.
The patient’s insisting that he was fine carried into the hallway where Liam still clung to the wall.
No garbage can? Are you kidding?
The doctor agreed with Joan that he would indeed need to see the hand surgeon. Liam could hear what they were saying easier now since the doctor left the door open. It also meant the smell that was scalding his lungs was thick in the air.
Find a puke bag. Get to the bathroom.
“I’ll go with him to make sure he makes it to surgery,” the other nurse said over the patient, who was still continuing to insist that he was fine.
Joan emerged from the room as the image of the purple and green thumb stump wiggling, dark yellow puss oozing out with the motion, combined with the stench following Joan out was more than he could bear.
He turned his face away, dry heaving. Clamping his mouth shut he fought what now seemed an inevitable outcome.
“Excuse me, are you alright, sir?” Joan asked his back.
“Mmmhmm.” He waved a hand in her direction angling his face away from her view.
Joan didn’t take the hint. “Are you here with this patient?”
Liam shook his head.
The stench was strong again as the other nurse wheeled the man with the rotting fingers out the door parking it next to Joan.
For the love of sanity. Take him away.
He pressed his mouth into his elbow as another heave wracked his body.
They still weren’t moving away.
Liam looked at the nurse driving the bed. She was staring at him. Her eyes darted from him to Joan and he knew she was going to bust him.
“Uh… Joan?”
“Do you want me to take him?”
The nurse pointed at Liam.
Shit.
He swallowed hard. Wiped a hand through his now sweaty hair in an effort to compose himself. Lips still sealed shut, he held his breath knowing one more whiff of the guy would have him heaving again.
“What the hell are you doing here?” Joan asked.
“Joan. A face to face is a good thing. Right?” the nurse said behind her mask.
Liam covered his mouth with his hand. “Please, take him away,” he said to the nurse.
She looked down at the man on the bed. Liam pointed his eyes at the ceiling knowing the man was probably playing with his nasty stub.
“Right.” Wheels squeaked as she pushed the bed down the hallway.
Joan grabbed his arm and pulled him into the now vacant room. “Please no. Anywhere but here,” Liam said through the sleeve of his jacket pressed over his mouth and nose.
“How did you get back here? Did you talk to the director? I can explain.”
Explain?
Liam shook his head and pointed in the direction of the room where he’d left Westley. The sleeve muffled his voice as he told her about Westley, but she was clearly having difficulty understanding him because she had her face turned a bit to the left and was leaning toward him with her eyes squinting.
“Did you say you were poisoned? Do you need to have your stomach pumped?”
Sucking in air through his sleeve in an attempt to filter the smell he shot out. “This air is poison.” Reaching past her, he opened the door.
“It’s not poison it’s just odorous from the….”
“Ub-ub-ub-ub,” he said grabbing her hand to pull her along with him. He had to get outside to the fresh clean air. Joan didn’t argue or fight him as he suspected she would.
Dr. Earl from the plane watched them as they passed through the ER and out the ambulance receiving bay. His eyes narrowed on Liam and then dropped to his hand linked with Joans. His nostrils flared.
Once outside he took several deep cleansing breaths. Joan rubbed his back. “Do you want me to look away so you can throw up?”
“I’m not going to throw
up.”
“You look like you need to throw up. There’s a garbage can over there by that bench.”
Liam inhaled the warm air through his nose but could still smell it. Was it stained into his clothes? Into his nostrils?
“I’m fine.”
“Okay,” she said in a disbelieving tone.
Fixing his tie, he turned toward her. “See. I’m fine.” He combed his hand through his moist hair and cleared his throat.
“What’s the big deal? I’m not going to think less of you if you have to vomit.”
“Stop saying vomit.” He swallowed the foul-tasting moisture in his mouth, a shiver of revulsion adding to the beads of sweat at his hairline.
Joan pocketed her face mask. “Is Cole okay?” Her gaze followed the drop of sweat that dripped down the side of his face.
“He’s fine.” Liam searched for the right thing to say to get this meeting back on track. He was here to pay a debt. “You haven’t called security or told me how pompous I am yet. I take it you’ve changed your mind about using that I.O.U.?”
Her eyes narrowed at him as her hands slid to her hips. “That’s probably because you look like you should be a patient here. You’re about as white as your handkerchief you know.”
Liam plucked it from his suit pocket and wiped his forehead off. “Arizona heat. That’s all.”
“Uh huh.”
“So you haven’t changed your mind?”
Joan’s gaze looked just past him at the parking lot. “I didn’t say that.”
“Nurse Taylor, please come to Director Wheatley’s office.” The intercom device on her lanyard sounded, relaying a female voice.
Joan blew out a breath her posture straightening. “Come on,” she said. “I’ll explain on the way.”
“Now that you’ve changed your mind you can just call me….”
“Just come with me.”
She didn’t speak as she led him back into the hospital. Earl was no longer standing behind the desk at the bay entrance. Nurses watched them as they passed by. Liam was used to the attention, but he could see that Joan wasn’t.
The pretty pink color her cheeks took on when she was mad or embarrassed was staining the back of her neck. Her pace quickened to an almost run. Liam wasn’t about to run. He kept his pace as it was and smiled as Joan held the elevator giving him a look that told him she wanted him to rush in and end her embarrassment.