At the time Dawn had wished her sister was wrong, but the reality was that she did like Jon. If he was a rancher, businessman or something other than a doctor at the clinic she would buy into the signs pointing to something serious brewing between them other than coffee. But that wasn’t the case.
“He’s a good guy but we work together. So, it’s a bad idea.” Dawn didn’t dare tell Marina about the kiss. She was beginning to think her sister had turned the tables and was torturing her now. “Let’s talk about something else.”
“Like what?”
“It won’t be long until school starts. Are you looking forward to going back? Filling those fertile minds with knowledge?”
Marina thought for a moment and shook her head. “I’d rather talk about Jon kissing you.”
“Darn it. Can’t tell Mom anything.”
“She needed someone to talk to because she was worried.”
“Why would she be? As far as she’s concerned I haven’t dated anyone for a while. She doesn’t know about the weasel dog toad boy at the hospital—” Dawn stopped when she caught a glimpse of the guilt on her sister’s face. A knot tightened in her stomach. “You told Mom.”
“I’m sorry. She knew something was wrong and couldn’t get any information from you so she came to me.”
“And you bent like a palm tree in a hurricane.”
“She’s relentless.” Marina’s expression was filled with remorse. “We’re talking about Mom. Have you ever tried to resist when she’s determined to get something out of you?”
“Yes.”
“Okay. Let me rephrase. Did you ever successfully resist?”
“No.”
“I rest my case.” Her sister’s tone was triumphant.
“So that’s why she went to Jon and warned him not to hurt me.”
“Go, Mom!”
“Wait, I’m not finished being mad about you telling her why I left the hospital. I didn’t want her to know how stupid I was. Or be disappointed in me.”
Marina smiled down at her cooing little girl. “You don’t have the market cornered on being foolish about a man. And I didn’t have the luxury of hiding my stupidity. Do you think Mom is disappointed in me?”
“Of course not.”
“Then why would she be disappointed in you?” Marina’s look challenged her. “For that matter, she married our father. People who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.”
Dawn let that sink in. “It’s in our DNA. The curse of the Laramie women. You and I have not been wildly successful with relationships.”
“Not true. I get along with you, and Mom and other teachers at work. I have friends—”
Dawn put up a hand to stop her. “Let me rephrase. We are a disaster with men.”
Just then the front door opened and closed. Their mother called out, “I’m home.”
“It’s Mom,” Marina whispered. “Don’t tell her I told you that I told her about—”
Glory walked into the room and dropped her purse on the couch next to Dawn’s. She smiled at the baby, then the two of them. “My girls.”
“Hi, Mom. Your granddaughter said to tell you thanks for the dinner invitation.”
“I’m glad you could make it.” She bent over and cooed to the baby who smiled back. “Hi, sweet girl. You’re even more beautiful than the last time I saw you.”
“It was just a couple days ago,” Marina said wryly.
“That’s too long.” Then she looked at each of her daughters. “There’s something I want to talk to you girls about.”
“Should we be worried?” Dawn asked.
“No. It’s a good thing.” Glory brushed her hands over her worn jeans. “I’m going to change clothes and wash up so I can hold that baby girl and spoil her rotten. Be back in a couple minutes.”
Marina watched their mother until she disappeared down the hall, then met Dawn’s gaze. “You live here. Do you know what this is about?”
“Not a clue. She just asked me to put the roast in the Crock-Pot and that it was big enough to invite you over. Then she called you.”
“Is she feeling all right?”
“As far as I know,” Dawn answered. “Between her business and painting the house she’s tired, but—”
“Isn’t Hank helping?” her sister demanded.
“Yes, but it’s still more work for her. And I don’t trust him.”
“Me, either.” When the baby started to fuss Marina scooped her up. “But he came through on this project. It looks great.”
“Yeah. Mom picked out the colors—”
The woman in question joined them again. She’d put on a pair of black sweatpants and a clean T-shirt. It was obvious she’d heard what they’d been discussing when she said, “What do you think of the new paint?”
“It looks beautiful, Mom. The soft gold walls with that bold olive green accent behind the fireplace is supercool.” Marina glanced around the room, admiring the new look.
“I love it,” Glory said. “It would have taken me forever without Hank’s help.”
With their shoulders brushing, Dawn felt her sister tense at the mention of their father. Neither of them said a word and the silence went from longer than normal to awkward. Then the baby started to cry.
“Can I hold her?” Their mother put out her arms and Marina handed Syd to her. She snuggled the little girl close and paced the family room to quiet her. “Part of the reason I wanted you both here was to show off the new paint. The other part is to tell you that I’ve forgiven your father for what happened when we were married.”
The two sisters exchanged a glance. Dawn wasn’t surprised but she didn’t know what Marina was thinking.
“I understand that Hank wasn’t there when you girls were growing up and I can’t tell you how to feel about him. I can only explain where I’m coming from. Hank and I were too young to be parents but it happened anyway.” She tenderly rubbed her palm over the baby’s back to soothe her. “He was trying to do the right thing when he proposed and I was pregnant and scared so I said yes. The odds were stacked against us, what with all the pressure. And we didn’t handle it well.”
“You didn’t abandon us, Mom,” Marina quietly pointed out.
Glory nodded. “Over time maturity set in and Hank realized he didn’t accept the responsibility well, but he’s older and wiser now. He’s trying to make up for what he did. He’s doing his best to be a stand-up guy. And he doesn’t expect you to forgive or believe him but I’ve done both.”
“Mom—” Dawn got a look and closed her mouth.
“He wants to be friends and I’m in favor of that. I don’t expect you to agree with me, but I do expect that when he’s a guest in my home you’ll be polite to him.”
Glory gave each of her daughters a look that clearly said she wouldn’t tolerate rebellion in the ranks. Dawn knew when her mother made up her mind there was no changing it. Determination was both a blessing and curse.
“Understood, Mom,” was all Marina said. After the words were out of her mouth Sydney let out a screeching howl. “She’s hungry.”
“She’s not the only one,” Glory said. “Let’s get her fed and then we’ll eat.”
Glory and Marina took care of the baby while Dawn set the table and put the finishing touches on dinner. Her mind was spinning from what just happened. Her mother was choosing to put her trust in a man who had let her down too many times to count. That concerned her but it also made her think of Jon.
Dawn couldn’t help comparing him to her father. Wasn’t that why a girl needed a strong male role model when she was growing up? When she started to like boys that role model would help her to separate a heel from a hero. So where did that leave Dawn? All she’d learned was to be wary of men in general.
The only
other man who’d tempted her had reinforced everything she believed. But now there was Jon and she had no evidence that he was anything other than the wonderful man he seemed to be. Marina had pointed out that Dawn was focusing on his faults. She realized that was true. It was a strategy to neutralize her reaction to him, like an antidote to poison.
Most people just avoided toxic substances entirely because they were bad for you. But Dawn couldn’t avoid Jon. In fact she would see him in the morning. And, God help her, she was looking forward to it.
* * *
“There are a lot of sick kids coming in today and it’s becoming a pattern. One I don’t like.”
Jon was standing in the clinic hallway talking to Steve Shepard. It was late afternoon and they’d been slammed with walk-ins all day. Most were children exhibiting cold and flu symptoms.
“What are you thinking?” Steve asked.
“RSV—respiratory syncytial virus.”
“Yeah. It’s not my sphere of expertise, but I know it can be dangerous.”
“That’s right.” He leaned a shoulder against the wall. “And we seem to have an unusual number of cases. The waiting room is still full. And I’ve already got one really sick baby that I’m keeping here for observation.”
“How can I help?” Steve asked.
Jon had to admit the guy was a team player, and in situations like this that was important. He thought for a moment. “Triage everyone who’s waiting to see a doctor. If they can reschedule, have them check with Brandy to make another appointment. For the rest, the ones with the most severe symptoms need to be seen first. We need to get them out of here. Healthy people shouldn’t be exposed and sick ones don’t need to be sitting out there for hours while feeling like crap.”
“Will do.” Steve turned and headed for the waiting area.
“Wait.”
The other doctor turned. “Yeah?”
“As best you can, isolate the sick kids from everyone else. Emmet and I are working on plans for a separate waiting room for kids but that won’t help us today. Just put all the pediatric patients and their parents in a corner of the room and the adult patients as far away as possible.”
“Got it.” Steve nodded and hurried off.
Jon straightened away from the wall and prepared to go into an exam room, but hesitated when Dawn rounded the corner. She was like a breath of fresh air and he couldn’t remember the last time he’d needed that as much as he did now.
“Hi,” she said, stopping in front of him. There was a chart in her hands. “You don’t look happy.”
“What was your first clue?”
She studied him. “Your eyes. And you’re not smiling.”
“Do I smile so much that today is noteworthy?”
“Yes.”
“Okay. I’ll do my best to fix that,” he said.
“I never said it was a problem.” She was looking stressed, too, but managed a spirited, sassy tone.
It was amazing. They were slammed with patients but a little bit of her particular teasing took the edge off. And he really needed the edge off. “I’m not smiling because our resources are stretched to the limit and this concerns me.”
“Yeah. I’ve worked here less than a year, but the clinic has never been this busy before.”
“Then it would appear Emmet got reinforcements just in the nick of time.”
“You’ll get no argument from me.” She handed over a chart for the patient in the exam room beside them. “Four-month-old Michael Sherman presents with fever, runny nose, productive cough and lethargy. His mother’s name is Emily.”
“Let’s go take a look,” he said.
“Okay.”
He glanced through the chart, then opened the exam room door and walked in. The baby was in his mother’s arms, listless and quiet. Jon much preferred loud crying. That was normal; this was not.
He recognized the fear in the young mother’s brown eyes and smiled reassuringly. “Hi, Emily, I’m Jon Clifton.”
“Nice to meet you, Doctor.”
“What’s going on with Michael?”
The young mother listed the baby’s symptoms and responded to all of Jon’s pointed questions. He didn’t like the picture that was forming.
“When the runny nose started he didn’t seem to be sick so I dropped him off at Just Us Kids.”
Jon knew that was the new day care center in Rust Creek Falls. “By itself it’s not indicative of anything serious.”
The worried mother caught her bottom lip between her teeth, clearly upset and conflicted. It was the challenge of all working moms. “I have a baby book that says not to be too overprotective. That if their disposition is normal... I should have kept him home.”
Dawn cleared her throat. “Don’t go there, Emily. Let’s not borrow trouble.”
Way to go, Nurse Laramie. Give support to a frightened mother, calm her down.
“I’ll try.” She put the baby on the paper-covered exam table and removed his one-piece lightweight sleeper.
Jon listened and didn’t like what he heard. For the second time that day he delivered the same message. “He’s a very sick little boy. I want to start an IV to get medicine and hydration going. I also want to get moisture into his lungs.”
“How? Why?” There was a hint of panic in Emily’s voice.
“The technical name is an infant aerosol mask. We call it a face tent that fits over his nose and mouth. It’s a nebulizer that will distribute cool, moist air for him to breathe. It should break up the mucous plugs.”
“Will it hurt him? I’m not sure—”
“Some infants tolerate it fine.” Jon suspected Michael would because of his sluggishness. “But if he has a problem with it, we can set up a tent that will do the same thing without making him feel so confined. This is medically necessary to prevent pneumonia and bronchiolitis, an inflammation of the small airways around the lungs.”
Emily nodded. “Will it help?”
“Yes.” It would help, but if she’d asked whether or not her son would be cured, Jon would have been more evasive. He’d learned the hard way never to commit unequivocally and tell a parent their child would be fine. Most of the time that was the case. But sometimes a patient’s condition deteriorated for no apparent reason.
“All right, then.”
“Dawn will be back in a few minutes so you two sit tight.” He figured they would be here for a while. “You can get him dressed.”
Emily nodded and he opened the door, letting Dawn precede him into the hall.
“There’s something going on with the babies in this town.” He was worried.
“Yeah.” A serious look settled in Dawn’s eyes. “You should know that Michael isn’t the first child we’ve seen today from Just Us Kids. Almost every one of our patients today goes to that day care center.”
“That’s good information.” And she was an excellent nurse to pick up that crucial detail and bring it to his attention. He knew that in close quarters viruses could easily spread and quickly. “I’ll call the day care center and alert them that there could be a problem. Right after we start treatment on that little guy.” He glanced through the boy’s chart. “I don’t see anything unusual in his medical history that would cause dangerous complications from RSV, so, for now, I’d like to avoid putting him through the trauma of a hospital. We’ll keep him here and see if he responds to the standard treatment protocols. But—”
Dawn met his gaze. “What?”
“That means more work for you. The waiting room is packed. I have to see patients, so the burden of this is going to fall to you.”
“Callie will help. And I’m sure I can count on Lorajean.”
“I know. But with your pediatric hospital experience, you’re the point on this. And he’s the second baby you’ll
be looking after.”
“Don’t worry about me. I can handle it.”
“Okay. I’ll check in and if you need me holler.”
“Will do. If you’ll write up the treatment orders, I’ll get the supplies.”
“Right. And, Dawn?”
“Hmm?”
“Can you move Michael next to the room where the little Marshall girl is set up? I’d prefer to keep them isolated from each other, but it will be easier for you to go between them that way.”
“No problem.” She nodded and hurried away.
Jon let out a long breath, taking just a moment. It would probably be the last break for a while. Dawn was a remarkable woman and a damn fine nurse. Vital to making this medical facility run smoothly was her positive, team-centered attitude. And that could change if he didn’t keep his personal feelings to himself. But not touching her was killing him. Especially after he’d kissed her and she’d kissed him back. It had been potent.
Right now selective amnesia would be good—just to erase memories of having her in his arms. Since that wasn’t going to happen, he figured the next best thing was burying himself in work. And he had more of that than he wanted. At this rate he wasn’t sure when he would get out of the clinic.
Of course that meant Dawn would be here, too.
Chapter Eleven
It was long after closing time before the clinic’s two little patients finally went home. Dawn was beyond tired when she stopped in the break room to retrieve her purse and car keys. But the effort to actually pick them up seemed more than she could manage, so she sat in one of the chairs. Just for a minute, she told herself. That’s where Jon found her.
“Are you okay?” His voice was deep, concerned.
“Hmm?” Her eyes snapped open and she saw him just inside the door.
“You were sleeping.”
“Not quite.” She stretched her arms over her head to loosen up the tight, cramped muscles. “What a day.”
Jon sat down in the other chair. “That’s an understatement.”
“It’s going to be a rough night for those parents.”
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