by Radclyffe
“How’d you do?” Glenn asked from the doorway.
Mari glanced over at her. “Okay, I think. I didn’t lose anyone.”
“That’s a good first day, then.” Glenn grinned and checked her watch. “Of course, you’ve still got another eleven hours to go.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Nope. It’s just a little bit after 0830.”
“Oh my God.” Mari blew a strand of hair from her eyes. “Is it over? Did we win?”
Glenn’s eyes clouded. “Mostly. Two fatalities, both submersion casualties—a twenty-year-old farmhand, first day on the job, and the thirteen-year-old daughter of the farm owner.”
“Damn,” Mari whispered, sadness blunting the thrill of victory she’d experienced just moments before.
“But I hear you saved her brother—smart thinking. A gutsy call.”
Mari shrugged. “Probably more beginner’s luck.”
“I don’t believe in luck—unless it’s bad.”
At the sudden dark tone in Glenn’s voice, Mari took a hard look at her. Her skin was pale beneath her tan, her face drawn and tired. She’d had the critical patients and had probably been involved with the fatalities. “Are you all right?”
“Me? Sure. Fine.” Glenn shrugged and her usual mantle of calm control fell back into place. “Come on, I’ll show you where the locker room is. You can get clean scrubs and shower if you need to.”
Following Glenn’s pointed gaze, Mari looked down at herself and realized that a spray of blood from one of the IVs she’d started had left a crimson crescent across her chest. Another splotch of blood marred her thigh. She couldn’t see patients the rest of the day like this.
“You’re right. I need to get cleaned up.”
“You probably ought to have something to eat. This kind of thing burns off a lot of energy, and you don’t want to crash later.”
“I’m not eating anything until…” Mari made a face and indicated her blood-soaked scrubs.
“I’ll grab something for you while you shower. Cereal is always a good quick fix.”
Mari grimaced. “How about a bagel.”
“I can always dig up a bagel. Cream cheese?”
“Peanut butter. More protein.”
Glenn grinned. “You got it.”
The women’s locker room occupied the opposite end of the ER from Dr. Remy’s office. Glenn tapped a locker with a small metal tag stamped with the number 37. “This is yours. You’ll need to bring a lock from home, but truthfully, no one is going to take anything.”
“I don’t really have much to take. A five-dollar bill is all the money I brought with me.” Mari shook her head. “I should’ve thought to bring a change of scrubs.”
“Don’t worry about that. The hospital provides. Towels are in the shower room.”
“Thanks.”
“Don’t mention it.” Glenn hesitated for a second. “And you’re right, you’re not all that green.”
Mari smiled to herself as Glenn disappeared, leaving her alone. She chose the farthest of the three shower stalls, found the clean stack of white towels, and grabbed two. She left her clothes in a pile on a narrow bench outside the stall and stepped into the hot water. She kept her hair dry as she slowly turned in the strong jet, reveling as the heat soaked into her muscles and eased away the tension and stress. Tilting her head back, she closed her eyes and emptied her mind.
“Hey, you need anything?” Glenn’s voice called from somewhere nearby.
Mari’s eyes snapped open. She thought she might actually have been asleep.
“No. Thanks. I’ll be right out.” She quickly turned off the water and stretched an arm outside, feeling around blindly for the bench where she’d left the towel. Only then did she realize she couldn’t reach it without stepping out. “Um…do you think you could hand me the towel?”
For a long moment, she thought Glenn had left.
“Sure,” Glenn said at last.
Suddenly shy and having no idea why she should be, Mari curled the curtain back but kept it covering her body. Glenn stood three feet away, one arm extended, the white towel dangling from her hand, her face averted.
Mari took the towel. “Thanks.”
“You’re welcome,” Glenn said in a slow, soft, impossibly sultry voice. Slowly, Glenn looked in her direction.
Mari could’ve ducked back into the shower, but why should she? She certainly wasn’t ashamed of her body, and she wasn’t bothered by Glenn seeing her. Besides, she was pretty much completely covered by the very not-sexy shower curtain. “I’ll be right out.”
“Got your bagel out here.” Glenn turned away.
“Glenn?”
Glenn spun back around. “Yes?”
“I forgot to get scrubs.”
“They’re in the other room.”
“I was afraid of that.” Mari wanted to laugh, but Glenn’s expression was so intense, so serious, so focused on her.
“Smalls?” Glenn asked, making the word sound ridiculously personal.
“Medium. I like them roomy.”
Glenn gave a little bow. “At your service.”
Mari finally laughed. “I don’t usually require this much service.”
“I don’t mind.”
Mari let the curtain fall closed, holding the towel between her breasts. Nothing had happened. But she felt as if it had.
Chapter Five
Abby ought to be celebrating, but she couldn’t shake the bittersweet taste of flawed victory from her mind. Her ER staff had earned high marks for their handling of their first mass casualty alert. Everything had gone well, by the book. But by-the-book success didn’t make her feel any better when she’d had to tell the parents of a thirteen-year-old girl that she hadn’t been able to save their child. Telling a family member they’d lost a loved one was never easy, no matter the age of the patient. Everyone always thought the death of an older individual was easier to accept, but it wasn’t. Everyone was important to someone—loved and cherished and depended upon. Everyone, she’d come to learn, was woven into the fabric of life in some way, even those who seemed to be most disenfranchised. She could still remember the day a homeless person, one of the favorites of just about everyone at the otherwise big impersonal city hospital, had died in his sleep on the corner by the main entrance, wrapped in his many layers of clothing and surrounded by his tattered grocery store bags filled with what remained of his earthly possessions. Everyone mourned, perhaps more than would have mourned the loss of someone known to far fewer people. Perhaps more than anyone would mourn for any of them. Benny the Bagman. She smiled sadly at the memory.
Flannery Rivers tapped on Abby’s open door and strolled in.
“Hey,” Abby said softly. Just the sight of her lifted Abby’s spirits.
“Hey yourself, Dr. Remy.” Flann turned, eased the door closed behind her, and came around behind the desk. She crouched, cupped Abby’s cheek, and kissed her.
“Flann,” Abby murmured. “Not appropriate behavior for the work environment.”
“Hey, this used to be my office. It’s seen worse.”
Abby laughed and some of the pall lifted from her heart. “I actually believe you, and I’m very glad to know that your new office is about the size of a telephone booth and not very private.”
“Why would I want to have sex in a telephone booth when we have that spacious eight-by-ten bedroom at home with a sixteen-year-old sleeping in the loft?”
“Oh, come on. It’s at least ten by twelve.” Abby sighed, aware their courtship was far from typical—they hadn’t had much chance to bask in the insanity of falling in love when she had a teenager to raise. A particularly vulnerable teenager at that. She couldn’t be more in love or more ecstatic, but she still wished she could be as free as her friend Presley seemed to be in her new love life. For all appearances, Presley Worth and Harper Rivers spent every spare second enjoying one another. Abby didn’t want Flann to miss a second of that kind of pleasure. “I know, I’m s
orry. It is crowded.”
Flann ran her thumb along the curve of Abby’s jaw. “It’s perfect. I wouldn’t change a thing—well, I’d like a bigger bedroom with a slightly more substantial door on it.”
The light in Flann’s eyes telegraphed exactly what she was thinking about. Abby blushed.
“Really, Abs?” Flann murmured. “After what we did just last night, you’re blushing at the mere suggestion of carnal pleasure?”
“Stop,” Abby whispered, struggling not to touch her. “I can’t be thinking about that right now.”
“Funny, I can hardly stop thinking about it.” Flann traced a finger along her jaw. “Besides, we won’t be there much longer.”
“God, I hope this contractor turns out to be someone we can work with. I really want to get the new place renovated so we can move in before winter.”
“Baby,” Flann murmured, “winter comes early in these parts.”
Abby’s eyes took on that fierce light Flann had come to recognize as absolute determination. “The first snowfall is five months away. That’s plenty of time to get us two working bathrooms and a decent kitchen.”
“And a roof that doesn’t leak and some modicum of heating,” Flann added.
“You said one of those pellet stoves would heat the whole place.”
“Probably. I said probably.”
Abby tapped Flann’s chest with a fingertip. “We paid cash so we could get our family moved in as soon as possible. And that does not mean next year. I want to have our own private bedroom.”
“I’m sure Blake would like a bedroom too.”
Abby laughed. “I think he only mentions it once a day.”
Flann’s heart gave a little jog at the words our family. She had her own family to look after now, and she hoped to God she was anywhere near as good at it as her mother and father were. “I take it the excitement is over down here. Sorry I missed the fun. How did it go?”
“Good,” Abby said quickly. “Good. Everyone held steady and did their part. We admitted five, streeted three, and didn’t have to transfer anyone.”
“Good for you.” Flann rose and settled her hip onto the corner of the desk, playing with a strand of Abby’s golden hair. She loved the color, like sunshine on a wheat field, and the texture, soft and silky as the strands of fresh young corn. “So what did I see in your eyes when I walked in? Some kind of trouble.”
“I hope you’re the only one that can read me that well,” Abby muttered.
“I better be.”
Abby caught Flann’s hand and kissed her palm. “Believe me, you’re the first to do it and the only one who is ever going to see inside me.”
“What happened?”
“We lost a teenage girl, just a couple years younger than Blake. It was horrible. She suffocated in the silo.”
“Damn,” Flann murmured. “Every couple years something like that happens around here. Who was it?”
“A farm family up the Hudson a ways. Hoffertin. The girl’s name was Annie.”
“I knew a Jim Hoffertin, used to be a quarterback for Granville High. About four years older than me, I think. I know his family had a farm.”
“That’s the father.”
“Man, that’s hard.”
“It’s worse, I think, because the girl went in after her brother when the silage funnel collapsed and they managed to get him out but not her.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Yeah, so am I.”
“But the brother made it?”
“He did, at least we think so. He’s still on a blower and probably will be for at least twenty-four hours, but his vital signs are good and preliminary EEG shows pretty normal activity. We were lucky—our PA started to lavage him right away and cleared his lungs enough to ventilate him.”
“Nice. Pretty sweet trick for the ER.”
Abby smiled. “Eventually you’ll learn to respect what we can do down here.”
Flann spread her hands. “Hey, I’m not arguing. The more you do, the more time I have to take care of the real emergencies.”
Abby snorted. “God, I don’t know why I love you as much as I do. You’re such an arrogant ass sometimes.”
Flann leaned down and kissed her. “It’s because I’m so good in bed.”
“That must be it, because it’s certainly true.”
“Replay tonight since neither one of us is on call?”
“Tonight, sometime. I think Blake and Margie need a ride to some event at the fairgrounds, and we’ll probably have to pick them up.”
“Not one of the music festivals, is it?” Flann frowned. “Those crowds are rough and there’s alcohol and every other thing around.”
Abby smiled. “Take it easy there, cowboy. You know those two aren’t going to get into that kind of thing—they have good judgment, but even so, I’m not that naïve. It’s a rodeo.”
“Huh. Slightly better. Okay. Sex between chauffeur trips, then.”
“It’s a date, Dr. Rivers.”
Flann rose. “I’ll be thinking about you the rest of the afternoon. Text me when you’re ready to leave, and I’ll see if I can get away. We’ll grab dinner somewhere.”
“I’ll do my best. We’ve got new students today and a couple of new staff and it’s already been a hell of a morning.”
“Hey, you wanted to run the ER. It takes a unique level of skill and—”
“Go before your head doesn’t fit through the door.” Abby made shooing motions.
Laughing, loving to tease and loving that Abby let her, she headed down the hall and nearly ran into the other member of her family. He’d grown two inches since that morning, and she was pretty sure his voice was lower. He was still skinny as a beanpole in an oversized T-shirt and baggy shorts, though. “Whoa. Hey, Blake. What are you doing here?”
Blake shoved a thick lock of dark hair off his forehead, a habitual motion when he was nervous. He had his mother’s intense eyes. “I just wanted to talk to Mom for a few minutes. Is she busy?”
“You’ll have to check with her, but I think she’s still free. Everything all right?”
“Yeah, sure. Great.”
Flann was getting used to teenage speak, since her sister Margie was just about Blake’s age and about as communicative. When Margie’d been a little girl, you couldn’t shut her up. Why this, how that, what are you doing? Now she was usually lost in a book or off with Blake or doing other things that were clearly unexplainable, because when asked, her usual response was nothing special, not much, whatever, and really with several exclamation points. Flann hadn’t been a teenager for a decade plus some, but she did remember when she’d reached the monosyllabic stage, she’d mostly been thinking about sex. She didn’t really want to think about her sister Margie and sex, or Blake for that matter, and especially not the two of them and sex together. Her head hurt all of a sudden, but now she was a parent. “You can talk about it, you know, whatever…it is…you know?”
Blake stared at her. He’d only ever talked to his mother about things that really mattered, the things that scared him, and that probably scared her too. And then Flann had come along and his mother had fallen in love with her and he’d pretty much fallen in love with her too. Not the same way, for sure, but he couldn’t think about the future now without seeing Flann and his mother and him all together. Still, it was hard to trust someone who hadn’t been there his whole life, especially with things that nobody seemed to understand. Not even his mom sometimes. “Yeah. I know. It’s not that.”
Flann grinned. “Well, if it ever is…that—one of us, me or your mom, we’ll probably know something about whatever that is.”
“Yeah. Maybe. Sure.”
Flann resisted the urge to tousle his hair, but she really wanted to. He was so sweet, although she’d never say so. Teenage boys weren’t sweet, not in their minds. But he was. He was good and kind and sensitive. She deeply, deeply feared he was going to get his ass kicked more than once, more than most teenagers. She didn’t want that
to happen. Wouldn’t let it happen if she could help it. She squeezed his shoulder. “I gotta get back to work. I’ll see you at home tonight.”
“Right.”
Flann turned away, and Blake called to her. “Hey, Flann?”
Flann looked over her shoulder, one dark eyebrow raised.
“Thanks.”
“Don’t mention it.”
Blake peeked into his mother’s office. She was sitting behind her desk, her head tilted back, her eyes closed. He wasn’t sure if he should interrupt or not but she knew he was there, she always did.
“Come on in,” she said, eyes still closed. “Is there blood?”
“No, no injuries.”
“Good.” Abby opened her eyes. “What are you doing here? I thought you and Margie were going on rounds with the vet.”
“I was going to, and then I thought I’d come talk to you instead.”
“Okay. Is something wrong?” She had a horrible thought. “Please, please don’t tell me you want to move back to the city, because that is so impossible.”
“No way,” Blake said dismissively. “I don’t ever want to move from here. But Margie and I were talking.”
“Uh-oh.”
“Come on, Mom,” Blake said in his long-suffering tone.
Abby laughed. “Okay, okay, I’m sorry. I know the two of you never come up with anything together except brilliant ideas. So what is it?”
“We decided that we need to get as much clinical experience as we can, before we get our formal training and set up practice together.”
“Meaning?” Abby said, wondering if either of them would ever go through with their teenage dream to become vets, return to the community, and set up a practice together. She’d wanted to be a doctor as long as she could remember, and she’d never wavered, but many teenagers their age changed their minds about the future along with their hairstyles. Add to that the fact Margie had never had much experience outside her hometown and Blake’s big city exposure hadn’t been exactly great—they both had a lot of the world left to see. “So did you change your game plan?”
“No, but we thought we should get some human experience as well as, you know, animal.”