by Dianne Drake
“You must be the doctor.”
Mitch Durant took Frank’s hand, asking, “And you are?”
“Anna’s father. She’s in a bad mood today, so please don’t hold that against her. The reality is beginning to sink in and she’s not dealing with it too well.”
“The reality is that people don’t even have the courtesy to talk about me behind my back. They think that because I can’t walk, I can’t hear, so they talk about me right in front of me.” Anna wheeled into the hallway and looked straight into the smiling face of the man in the doorway. It was a crooked, friendly smile that broadened when he strolled past Frank and extended his hand to Anna.
“I’m Mitch Durant,” he said, his voice as pure and rich as milk chocolate. “And I’m not into self-pity, so cut the crap or I’m out of here.” That with the smile still plastered to his face.
Ignoring his extended hand, Anna raised her head, leveling a cool, contemptuous stare at Mitch. Her eyes were glacial as she retorted, “You know where the door is.”
24/7
The cutting edge of Harlequin Medical Romance
The emotion is deep
The drama is real
The intensity is fierce
24/7
Feel the heat—every hour…every minute…every heartbeat
Nurse in Recovery
Dianne Drake
I would like to dedicate this book to Fiona McArthur. Thanks, mate, for shoving me in a new direction!
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
EPILOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
January
ANNA WELLS stood on tiptoe, gazing out the tiny, grimy window overlooking the parking lot. Nothing had changed much in the past thirty-six hours, except the depth of the snow. But this was an Indiana blizzard after all. Four feet in thirty-six hours wasn’t unusual, and what she could see out there was well over four feet deep.
“Maybe it’s a drift,” she said to Eva Rainart, her second in charge. She hoped it was, since the TV weatherman was predicting at least another foot in some areas of Bloomington.
“More to come,” he’d said with such enthusiasm Anna had thought about inviting him to the emergency room to see the repercussions of all that snow. Patients piled everywhere, in every chair, on every gurney, lining the halls, filling every treatment cubicle. That was the reality, but thank heavens her share of the reality was coming to an end—for the night and the next few days. She’d earned every one of those blessed seventy-two hours off.
“Well, drift or not, my hubby’s arrived on the dogsled so I’m out of here.” Eva buttoned her coat and headed for the exit, not bothering to wave goodbye. She was a tireless nurse, dedicated and very good. She was also on the verge of being put on report for working too many shifts in a row—hospital policy—even though Anna had worked one more than Eva plus a few stray hours on top of that. But she was evening charge nurse, and when several of her nurses hadn’t made it in, it had been Anna’s responsibility to find ER coverage, or cover it herself.
But she’d be out that door herself in another ten minutes tops, and in her mind she was already curled up in her recliner in front of her fireplace, drinking hot chocolate—the only good thing to do during a blizzard.
Before trudging to her locker, Anna took one last look at the mass of humanity huddling everywhere there was a spare inch. Most weren’t sick really—just sick of being shut in, sick of being cold or isolated while the snow just kept coming. So what better place to congregate than in the halls of an emergency room? It was warm, overflowing with other people looking for a diversion, and safe from the storm raging outside.
Anna didn’t blame them, but enough was enough, and she was looking forward to getting away from them and doing nothing but sleeping, eating and reading romance novels. Along with lots of hot chocolate, what more could a girl want?
Well, this girl wanted Kyle, who was, unfortunately, scheduled for an early a.m. surgery. It sure would have been nice having him there to cozy up with—Kyle and his to-die-for foot massage—but it was almost one, and he was long since cozying up with his pillow. One thing eight months of dating him, and now three weeks of engagement, had taught her: nothing, including her achy feet, came between Kyle Lassiter and a good night’s sleep when he was operating in the morning. Of course, that was the way it should be—had to be. He was good at what he did, diligent to his patients, had a sterling reputation and so far no one had sued him for ending up with the wrong nose.
“Are you sure you don’t want to stay a few more hours?” Sunny Gilbert teased, giving her best friend a hug. It was Sunny’s turn to take over, and just in the nick of time. Anna was having trouble deciding which foot to put in front of the other as she walked. “You’re not looking so hot,” Sunny added.
“Trunky,” Anna replied, tossing her scrubs in the laundry bag. “My trunks are already packed and I’m out of here.” Now that she was on the verge of leaving, the full weight of her weariness was setting in, from the tingle in the balls of her feet all the way up her aching calves to her cramping thighs. The stiffness in her neck and the deep-down exhaustion oozing right through her bones were the other dead giveaways, not to mention the dark circles under her eyes.
“Anything planned for your days off?” Sunny asked. “Kyle?”
Shaking her head, Anna slumped wearily onto a hard, wooden bench, tugged on her heavy, fake-fur-lined snow boots, then lobbed her white athletic shoes across the aisle into her locker. They hit the metal bin with a bang, and she laughed when Sunny jumped. “Serves you right, for even thinking I have another hour left in me,” she teased. “And, no, no plans except keeping my feet off the floor as much as possible.” Standing, Anna stretched her aching arms above her head, took a deep breath, then gave her locker door a thump with her elbow, slamming it shut. “If I thought you wouldn’t bother me every few minutes, I’d stretch out right here and take a nap before I head for home.” At this point, even the cement slab floor looked good. A blanket and a pillow somewhere out of the flow of traffic, and she’d be out cold in ten seconds or less.
Turning to Sunny, who was tucking a pair of baggy surgical scrubs into place, Anna shook her head and frowned. “When was the last time you put in thirty-six hours straight?” She yanked a blue knit cap from her coat pocket and pulled it down over her straggly blond hair, sighing. Probably a good thing Kyle wouldn’t be seeing her tonight, looking the way she looked.
Glancing at her watch, Sunny smiled, saying, “As of now, never. But you’ve always been more of a glutton for punishment than I am. And I was up in Indy. Couldn’t get here, or I would have. You know that.”
Anna laughed. “Up in Indy, and was he cute?”
Sunny blushed. “Go home, Anna.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Fumbling through her coat pockets, she found her bulky purple mittens, then tugged them over her hands. “Call me tomorrow. Let me know how it’s going. But not too early. I’m sleeping until noon.”
“With Kyle, I hope.” Sunny wrinkled her nose as she said his name. “’Cause with all the snow outside, you two should get in some good sleeping time, if you know what I mean.”
“He’s got surgery in the morning. That Buy Your Sweetie a Botox Christmas special he ran is keeping him busy.” Plastic surgery. Kyle Lassiter did lips, thighs and baggy eyes. Instinctively, Anna reached up to feel the bags under
her own eyes, surprised he’d never come at her with his scalpel. “And right now I’m just too tired.”
Sunny leaned towards Anna and whispered, “Sounds like an excuse to me. With a man like that waiting for me—asleep or awake—I wouldn’t be standing here talking to this pitiful bunch of night nurses. So get on out of here, OK?”
Anna laughed. “Done. Nighty-night.”
Sunny deliberately bumped her hip into Anna. “Goodnight, sweetie. Sleep tight, and don’t let the bedbugs—or Kyle—bite…at least, not in places that can be seen.” She gave her friend a wink then flitted out to the desk to check the duty board.
In the hall, Bonnard Quaid, Bonsi for short, whooshed past Anna with the deftness of an Olympic runner, his arms stacked so high with sterile white blankets that his face was hidden. “Better get out of here while you can,” he said, his voice muffled.
“Believe me, I’m getting.” Anna signed off the duty roster and looked out the nursing-station window one more time, shivering reflexively as sheets of the cold white stuff blustered across the parking lot. Go while the going was good was right.
“Unless you want to stay and sterilize some bedpans for me.” Bonsi chirped, giving her a feisty wink as he flew down the hall in the other direction, sans blankets. “I’ve got two shifts’ worth to clean.” A super-efficient man, no taller than Anna, no larger in stature either, he was the best of the best, and coveted by the charge nurse on every shift.
“We use disposables.” Anna laughed, turning away from the window. “And I thought you were supposed to be getting ready to chart vitals instead of doing the dishes.”
“Blood pressure, bedpans. It’s all the same to me—work you registered nurses won’t dirty your hands with.” Bonsi, a nursing assistant, razzed the nurses about their status over his, but he was only a semester away from completing his nursing degree, and the offers were already rolling in. They always did for male nurses. “And since you haven’t bothered to check, the vitals are done. All charted and everything.” He scurried away to check on a moan erupting from cubicle fifteen.
Anna glanced up at the clock on the wall. If she hurried, she could be home and in bed by one-fifteen, sound asleep by one-twenty. “Out of here,” she called, hurrying to the pneumatic doors.
Not even two steps outside into the cold, the wail of several sirens accosted her and instinctively she bustled back in. “Sunny?” she called, as Sunny rushed past her to the triage area. “What’s up?”
“MVA.” A motor vehicle accident. “On Highway 37. Several cars. Lots of injuries. Dispatch says some are pretty bad.”
“Need me to stay?” Anna volunteered, without intending to.
“Not on the floor I don’t.”
“I’m good for another hour or so, triage, if you need me. That’ll free up whoever’s assigned there for the floor.” Triage, the initial assessment and assignment of incoming patients, was safe.
“You sure?” Sunny asked. “We’re mostly covered, but an extra hand for an hour or so, until the rush is over, would help a lot.”
“Not a problem,” Anna replied, “but you owe me big time, girlfriend. And could you ask Bonsi to bring me a cup of coffee—black?” Anna pulled on a disposable yellow gown to cover her street clothes. Once she was garbed, she rushed to the triage area to greet the first wave of patients on their way in.
Patient number one was a teenage boy with multiple fractures—both legs, an arm, maybe a collarbone. He went to the ortho room while his girlfriend, who had been much luckier with only minor lacerations on her arms, was put on hold until the more serious victims were seen.
The next patient, male, mid-twenties, stout, looked bad but he wasn’t. He’d sustained a gash on his forehead and it was bleeding out all over the place, but it was superficial. Head wounds, as a rule, were big bleeders, but the man was conscious and coherent, his pupils equal and reactive to light, and his vital signs—blood pressure, pulse, respirations—stable. “You’ll need a few stitches,” she told him, as she assigned him to a regular examining cubicle—a small curtained section, one of a couple dozen in the main room—rather than a private room, saved for the patients who required more serious treatment.
“Aspirin,” he moaned.
“I’m sorry, but we can’t give you any pain medication until the doctor checks you out.”
“Not even a freakin’ aspirin?”
“Not even a freakin’ aspirin,” she replied amiably, applying a clean towel to his head. “But maybe I could find you a bullet to bite on. Any particular caliber you prefer?”
He smiled, attempting a weak laugh. “Rather have a shot of whiskey.”
“You and me both,” Anna said, patting his hand. “And make mine a double.”
The next accident victim coming through the door looked bad—way too pale, cold and clammy to the touch, incoherent. Internal bleed, she guessed, feeling his belly. All the right signs. “Trauma one,” she told the paramedics, punching the button to dial the nursing station. “Internal bleed coming back,” she said to the secretary who answered. “Belly distended, rigid, patient cold, clammy, vitals low. Get the trauma surgeon.” Poor man, she thought as the paramedics hurried him back to one of the trauma rooms. Half an hour ago he’d been going about his life as anyone did, doing normal things. Then suddenly this! No one ever thought it could happen to them, but night after night she saw those it did happen to, saw them forced into coping with something totally unforeseen and life-changing, something where there was no choice but to pick up the pieces and move on from there. Shattered lives…
By the time one patient was being rushed into emergency surgery, Anna was already with her next patient. Actually, there were two of them. A nice-looking fifty-something couple whose injuries weren’t serious. The man, a crisp-looking, gray-suit business type, held his wrist, moaning, “It’s broken. I need some pain pills right now, Nurse.” His wife, thin and nervous, complained about some general aches and pains and naturally she wanted pills, too. Both were pretty nasty about it when Anna designated them as low priority. The emergency room graded by priority, not first come first served. Apparently, that was something the couple didn’t grasp.
“I’m sorry, but you’ll have to wait a little while longer while we take care of the more serious injuries. We’ll get someone in here as soon as one of the doctors is free.”
“I said I need something now,” the man yelled. “Do you understand me, Nurse? I’ve been here twenty minutes already, and this is absolutely ridiculous! Do you hear me? Ridiculous!”
Of course she’d heard him. Everybody in the immediate vicinity had heard him. “Like I said, we’re really backed up with serious injuries, sir. And I apologize.” Some people wouldn’t be nice no matter what, but she was usually a patient person with them. “So it may take a little while before a doctor can see you, but I promise we’ll get to you as soon as we can.” Patience was something Anna was good at, one of her most valuable ER skills, she thought. And normally patience begat patience. “In the meantime I’ll have someone take you back to the waiting room.”
“And what about me?” the wife screeched. “My hip’s beginning to hurt like hell. I need a doctor, too. Right now!”
Well, so much for patience begetting anything from these two. “You’ve been married a long time, haven’t you?” Anna commented, prodding the woman’s tender hip area. It showed. Same vicious disposition, same sour expression, same arrogant attitude. Please, don’t let that happen to Kyle and me. “So, how many years?”
Instead of answering, the woman emitted a howl, punctuated immediately with, “I’m going to sue you. As soon as I’m out of here, I’m calling my attorney.”
“There’s a payphone in the waiting room,” Anna said, still clinging to a thread of civility. Her very last thread, though. “Costs fifty cents.” She fished the change from her pocket and offered it to the woman, who snatched it from Anna’s hand without hesitation.
“What the hell were you doing to her?” the husband sh
rieked, hopping off his own stretcher to get to his wife. “You leave her alone!” To prove he meant what he said, he shoved himself between Anna and his bawling wife. “So help me, God, if she’s hurt I’ll sue you.”
“There’s a payphone in the waiting room,” Anna said by rote, this time no civility left. Her very last thread had just snapped. “Costs fifty cents, but I’m fresh out of quarters, and you’ll have to stand in line. You’re wife’s going to sue me first.” With that she spun around and walked away, leaving the two in the hall staring in gape-mouthed incredulity.
“You come back here,” the man screamed. “I demand—”
“Get ’em out of here,” Anna instructed Bonsi, “and I don’t care where you put them.”
“I want a doctor right now! I won’t go anywhere without seeing a doctor first!” the man was shrieking. “If you don’t find us a doctor immediately, I’ll have your job, Nurse. So help me, I’ll have your job.”
How many times had she heard that one? Most of the time it just rolled off, but nothing was rolling tonight. They were out of line, she was tired, and they were at the back of the emergency queue. “Bonsi, take a history, get an order for Tylenol, and gag ’em if you have to,” Anna grumbled. “Do whatever it takes to keep them away from me, OK?”
“Whatever it takes?” His eyes lit up as he bounced down the hall to calm, cajole and collect his new patients.
“MI,” the paramedics called, rushing the next patient into emergency. MI—myocardial infarct or heart attack. “Sinus tach, no PVCs right now.” The patient’s heart rate was fast but basically normal, no premature contractions indicating another attack might be in the works. “Lidocaine drip.” Instinctively, Anna checked the IV drip, made sure the line wasn’t kinked, there was no backflow of blood through the tube.
“How are you feeling, sir?” she asked, adjusting the strap of his oxygen mask. It had come loose, causing the mask to slip, so that much of the oxygen was flowing straight into the air.