Her Maverick M.D.

by Teresa Southwick

  “Dr. Clifton,” he said after hitting the talk icon.

  Dawn was standing on the other side of the truck but could see his face over the hood. His expression turned grim. The last time she’d seen him look this way was when the clinic had been slammed with sick babies.

  “I’m in Rust Creek Falls. I’ll meet you at the clinic,” he said, his voice professional but serious. “Get her there as quickly as you can.”

  “What is it?” Dawn asked.

  “That was Heather Marshall. The baby is not good.” He unlocked the truck and got in.

  “I’ll go with you,” she offered after climbing inside.

  “I was going to ask,” he admitted. “Since you’re here.”

  This was not the way Dawn had expected her day off to go. Seeing Jon, putting their office awkwardness on hold had been a nice surprise. But a lost dog and a seriously ill baby were not the way she would have wanted it to happen.

  At least he hadn’t shut her out. That was something, right?

  * * *

  The Marshalls were waiting outside the clinic when Jon and Dawn drove into the parking lot. He turned off the ignition and looked over at her.

  “I’m glad you’re here.”

  “I’ll do whatever I can to help,” she said.

  “That’s why I’m glad you’re here.”

  She could read the body language of the worried parents and her heart went out to them. “Let’s go.”

  Quickly they walked to the clinic door where the young couple stood. Pete Marshall had a white-knuckle grip on the infant carrier. “Thank you for coming, Doctor.”

  “Of course.” Jon unlocked the door and they all went inside. “Follow me.”

  Dawn flipped on the lights. “I’ll get Georgina’s chart.”

  “Thanks. This way,” he said to the Marshalls. “We’ll be in exam room one.”

  “Okay.” She found the chart, then met everyone in the room.

  Heather lifted the baby out of the infant carrier. “Should I take off her shirt?”

  “Yes. I’ll be right back.” He walked out of the room.

  “She just can’t shake this cold,” Heather put the child on the exam table. “We’ve been doing everything the doctor said. And then this morning—” Her voice caught and she put a hand over her mouth to hold back a sob.

  “She’ll be okay, honey. We have to believe that.” Pete put a comforting arm across her shoulders. “She’s going to be fine. Dr. Clifton is going to help her.”

  “I know.” Her voice was shaky but she managed a nod and put the tears on hold.

  Jon came back into the room with his stethoscope and read the notes from her recent visit to the clinic. He looked at Heather then listened to the baby’s chest. As he did she described the symptoms. There was a worried look in his eyes and Dawn knew why. During her time in the hospital she’d seen and cared for babies who looked like this. The child’s breathing was too rapid and there was a tinge of blue to her lips. Her lungs were compromised and she was having difficulty taking in enough oxygen.

  He straightened and looked at the parents. “This is RSV.”

  “I thought she had a cold,” Pete said.

  “It has the same symptoms,” Jon explained.

  Heather had one hand on her baby and with the other gripped her husband’s fingers. “You can give her a different prescription, right?”

  “She needs to be transported to the closest medical facility with a Level I pediatric trauma center and ICU.”

  “That would be Mountain’s Edge Hospital,” Dawn said. “It’s excellent. I used to work there.”

  “Okay.” Pete was doing his best to stay calm but he was clearly on the edge. “We’ll drive her—”

  “It’s an hour away.” Jon’s voice was firm but calm, not wanting to alarm the already scared parents. “I’m going to call for a care flight helicopter.”

  “Is she going to be okay? Please tell me she’ll be all right,” Heather begged.

  There was a dark, troubled expression in his eyes. He wanted to say yes, but Dawn knew he couldn’t tell them something he didn’t know. “Everything possible will be done for your baby.”

  Jon left to make the arrangements and Dawn did what she could to reassure the parents. But the doctor needed her, too.

  She found Jon in his office talking on the phone. He stood with his back to her and she looked at his wide shoulders and listened to his deep, calm voice. He was such a good man, the kind who would be there for the people he loved. What a concept, she thought. A man who stayed.

  “Okay,” he said. “We’ll be waiting.” He put the phone down and turned, then leaned a hip on his desk. “The chopper is on the way.”

  “Good.” She moved closer, stopping by the visitor chairs on the other side of the desk. “Heather and Pete are really scared.”

  “I know. Who can blame them?” He dragged his fingers through his hair. “I almost intubated her.”

  “Yeah, I could tell you were thinking about that. She’s a very sick little girl. Why did you decide not to?”

  “Because she should be in a hospital for a procedure like that where there’s a ventilator to take the stress off her breathing and respiratory therapists to monitor it. It would help her rest and gather the reserves to fight this. I want a CAT scan. And sophisticated equipment that’s not available here.” Anger crept into his voice. “Damn it. This town needs more. You know as well as I do that with any trauma there’s a golden hour, sixty minutes when medical intervention can save a life. We just don’t have what we need here in the clinic.”

  “I know. But we’re getting there.” She badly wanted to touch him, somehow transfuse him with her own hope. “But until we have a hospital and more sophisticated equipment, it’s all the more reason to have a dedicated, knowledgeable, caring staff like we’re building right now.”

  He straightened away from the desk and looked down for a moment. When he met her gaze again his eyes were blazing with the fire of frustration. “Sometimes you can’t do anything to stop a kid from dying. Call it God’s will, fate, whatever helps you sleep at night.”

  “Jon—”

  “Other times, with the right machine, the perfect diagnostic test, even medication administered quickly, you can spare parents the heartbreak of losing their child.” He shook his head. “Those are the ones that keep me awake. The ones who could have been helped with the right stuff.”

  “You’re thinking about the child who died unexpectedly,” she guessed.

  He nodded. “And you’re going to remind me that it happened in a hospital with all the bells and whistles a health care facility can provide.”

  She had been, but didn’t confirm that. This was his crisis of conscience, so to speak. It had been eating away at him and he needed to get everything out.

  “I don’t blame myself, if that’s what you’re thinking. But it affected me in a deep, profound way. Medical school teaches you anatomy and how to treat sick people but there are no courses or strategies for not becoming attached to your patients. I took a job that didn’t allow me to form attachments or a long-term doctor-patient bond. But I became a doctor to help people and that’s what I’m going to do.”

  Little Georgina Marshall had pushed all his hero buttons and snapped him back from a place where he’d been healing himself. This was a good thing; he was a gifted doctor. But Dawn couldn’t help feeling as if she was the one losing out.

  The distant sound of mechanical rotors drifted closer. Jon looked up and stated the obvious. “Chopper’s almost here.”

  “Yeah. I’ll go get the Marshalls ready.”

  He nodded. “I’m going with Georgina. Just in case she takes a bad turn and needs to be intubated before we can get her to the hospital.”

  “I figured you wou
ld.” Because that’s what a good, caring, dedicated doctor would do, Dawn thought. “I’ll let Emmet know to take the calls until you’re available.”

  “Thanks.”

  They were outside when the helicopter set down on the helipad in the clinic parking lot. Dawn stood a safe distance away and watched as Heather and the baby stepped in, followed by Jon. Due to space limitations Pete would drive to the hospital.

  When everyone was onboard the door closed and the blades of the chopper picked up speed, stirring the wind. It blew the hair around Dawn’s face and scattered the shattered pieces of her heart all to hell.

  She was glad that Jon had reconciled what had happened in the past with his lifelong calling to be a healer. But she was pretty sure the message he was taking away from his time at the clinic in Rust Creek Falls was not the best one for her. He was going to leave this town behind in favor of a state-of-the-art hospital where he believed he could help more kids get better and make a bigger difference.

  There was no way to make him see that he’d already made a tremendous difference in Rust Creek Falls.

  And to her.

  Because she was in love with him.

  Too bad she figured that out at the same time she realized he wouldn’t stay for her.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Dawn locked up the clinic after the chopper was gone with Jon and the baby. It was difficult to be left behind when one was so accustomed to helping. She could only wait for Jon’s call when he had news about baby Georgina’s condition. Now she should get back to her routine, even though she had the sinking feeling that nothing about her life would ever be routine again.

  Having left her car in Crawford’s parking lot, she walked back to the store on foot to complete her grocery shopping. A benefit of living in a small town.

  She grabbed a basket out front and took it inside. That’s when she realized a lot had happened in a few short hours. The awkwardness between her and Jon had dissipated after joining forces to look for his dog. And Dawn had realized she was in love with him.

  “Dawn? Hi.”

  She looked up at the familiar voice. And this was the downside of small town living, not being able to go to the store without running into someone you knew. “Lorajean. Hi.”

  The older woman looked at her closely and frowned. “Are you okay?”

  “Of course. Why?”

  “Seemed as if you were somewhere else and would have walked right on by me without saying a word.”

  “Sorry. It’s been a weird morning.”

  “Speaking of that... Do you happen to know anything about that helicopter that flew in and out of here a little while ago?” Her sharp brown eyes could be warm and welcoming, or sometimes wary. But always perceptive. This woman did not miss much.

  “I guess the whole town heard it,” Dawn hedged.

  “Pretty hard to miss, what with all that racket.” The other woman leaned a forearm on the handle of her basket, settling in for a response.

  Dawn thought about her answer, acutely aware of patient privacy. “Jon called care flight to transport a patient to Mountain’s Edge Hospital.”

  “Georgina Marshall.” Lorajean nodded. “I ran into Wendy Crane, a friend of Heather’s, and she told me the baby wasn’t getting better. That Pete and Heather were going to call Jon.”

  “Whoever came up with those privacy laws did not live in Rust Creek Falls.” Dawn sighed. “And by that statement I neither confirm nor deny what you just said.”

  “Fair enough.” The other woman met her gaze. “Did Jon go with Georgina?”

  “He accompanied the patient, yes.”

  “So you were at the clinic with him.”

  “His dog is missing and I helped him hand out flyers around town. I was there when he got the call and went to the clinic with him.”

  And he’d told her he was glad she was there. Because he knew she would do everything she could to help. That was professional, not personal, no matter how much she might wish it could be.

  “What’s wrong, Dawn?” Lorajean was studying her. “Before you try to tell me nothing, you should know I have keen powers of observation. Something is going on with you and unless I miss my guess, which almost never happens, it’s about Jon.”

  They were standing in the canned food aisle blocking both lanes and someone was behind Lorajean. Dawn moved her basket, partly to be polite, but mostly to stall for time. She could dodge the direct question but didn’t think the other woman would take no for an answer. She could come up with something.

  “You’re right. It is about Jon. I’m afraid he’s going to leave Rust Creek Falls.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “He was pretty upset about the clinic’s lack of sophisticated equipment and resources, not to mention the hospital being so far away.”

  “All the more reason to have good, competent medical staff on-site,” Lorajean pointed out.

  “That’s what I told him, but it didn’t seem to make a difference.”

  The other woman nodded thoughtfully. “Don’t jump to conclusions.”

  “You didn’t see how angry and concerned he was.”

  “No, but I see the way he looks at you.” The expression in Lorajean’s eyes was daring her to deny it.

  “I don’t know what that means. Could be he wants to choke me because I annoy him and test his patience. Or...” Dawn was afraid to say it out loud. It wouldn’t take much for false hope to dig in and that would make his leaving a lot harder to get over.

  “Or he’s lusting after you.” Lorajean nodded for emphasis.

  “The choking me because he’s annoyed one is easier to believe.”

  “It is if you’re planning to keep trying to hide what you feel. Take it from someone who knows, Dawn, you’ll be sorry if you don’t fight for what you want.” The woman’s smile was meant to ease tension, but there was some regret in it, too. “Now that I’ve stuck my nose in where I shouldn’t, it’s time for me to get my shopping done. My gray roots have a standing appointment at Bee’s Beauty Parlor.”

  “Okay.” The other woman started to turn away, but Dawn said, “Lorajean?”

  “What?”

  “Thanks for talking to me. And you didn’t stick your nose in. Well, maybe a little but that’s what friends do.”

  “You’re sweet to say that. See you Monday.”

  “Bright and early,” Dawn confirmed.

  Her mind buzzed with what Lorajean had said, but Dawn managed to finish the shopping. She was certain that after taking the groceries home she would think of something important that she forgot.

  But after getting home and putting everything away all she could think about was why Jon hadn’t called with an update on Georgina Marshall. Dawn paced for a while, then noticed a piece of paper sticking out of her purse on the kitchen counter. It was one of the flyers Jon had made up about his lost dog.

  She couldn’t do anything for the sick baby but she could help by continuing the search for Rerun.

  It was late afternoon when she got to the ranch and drove through the open gate with an arch over it that said Flying C. The main compound consisted of Will and Jordyn Leigh’s house, the foreman’s cottage which was where Will lived, the bunkhouse, barn and corrals. There was a series of fenced pastures close by.

  She parked in front of the little house and got out of her car. There was no welcoming bark from inside and she could picture the worried look that would be on Jon’s face if he was here.

  His brother’s truck was parked up at the house and before she beat the bushes, literally, it might be a good idea to check with Will and Jordyn Leigh, to see if the dog had returned. She walked up the hill, admiring the white-sided farmhouse with the blue shutters bracketing the upstairs windows. She stepped onto the wraparound porch and kno
cked on the front door.

  Seconds later Will opened it. He didn’t seem surprised to see her. “Dawn. Hi.”

  She lifted a hand in greeting. “Hey, Will. I ran into Jon in town and he said Rerun is missing—”

  Just then she heard a high-pitched yipping coming from inside. She smiled at Jon’s brother. “Is that who I think it is?”

  “If you’re thinking it’s that rebellious rat dog, you’d be right.”

  The scoundrel in question appeared in the doorway, then danced over to her and put its one front paw up on her leg. Dawn dropped to one knee and scooped the disheveled creature into her arms, laughing when he licked her face.

  “You little stinker. Do you have any idea how worried we were about you?” She looked up at Will. “Did he come home?”

  “That would have been too easy.” The man who looked so much like Jon grinned down at her. “This little mutt doesn’t work that way. I was out riding fences and found him wandering around. Either he lost his way or wasn’t ready to stop chasing rabbits yet.”

  Dawn rubbed Rerun’s back. The hair was matted and had stuff stuck in it. She scratched his chin. “Your dad is going to be very happy to know you’re okay.”

  “Speaking of Jon... Where is he? I texted him about Rerun turning up.”

  “Good. He’ll be glad to know that.” She met his brother’s gaze. “There was an emergency. He’s with a patient at the hospital.”

  Will nodded. “Kid couldn’t be in better hands.”

  “No question.” She stood and grinned at the dog who was whining for more of her attention. “This guy seems okay.”

  “Yeah. He was thirsty and dirty, but I couldn’t find anything wrong with him.” Will shook his head. “I hate to leave him here alone, but Jordyn Leigh and I are meeting friends at the Ace in the Hole.”

  Without thinking it through Dawn said, “I’ll clean him up and feed him.”

  Will’s mouth curved up in a knowing smile. “Jon will be glad to see you when he gets home.”

  Lorajean’s words came to mind as Dawn carried the dog back to the guesthouse. Maybe this was her fighting for what she wanted.