by Dianne Drake
“And in your delirium you recognized me? You had a concussion, you were dehydrated, infected and dying. How could you possibly remember me?”
Because the heart never forgets, pretty lady. The heart never forgets. Such a simple explanation, and one she couldn’t hear. “I suppose the mind does strange things under duress.”
“I suppose,” she said. “But it does seem like such an odd coincidence, doesn’t it?”
Coincidence—that word again. And another coincidence… “Are you related to Bertrand Léandre?” he asked, completely out of the blue. She stiffened immediately under the question, and from her response he already knew the answer.
“He’s my father. Why?”
“Since you’re with IMO in a sense, and since he’s taken over as head of the board of directors…”
“What?” she gasped.
She seemed genuinely surprised. Actually, shocked was a much better word. So, was she acting, or hadn’t she known? “Your father—he’s the director of IMO now. Has been for several weeks, ever since—”
“Davey,” Matteo yelled, running up behind Solaina, “we’ve got six people on their way in. All victims, all in pretty bad shape. They’re coming in with International Rescue, and they’ve radioed ahead that they’re halfway up the hill to us already. They’re about ten minutes out.”
David dropped his legs over the side of the bed and started to stand.
“No way in hell you’re going in for this one,” Matteo said. “But I was rather hoping you might be up for some triage.”
“I’m fine,” David snapped, struggling to his feet. Immediately his head started to spin, and he reached out for the bedpost to steady himself. Before he plunged back down onto his mattress, Solaina was at his side, steadying him.
“You can’t go out there,” she cried, pushing him back down into bed.
“We’re short-staffed. Someone’s got to—”
“I don’t give a damn who does it,” Matteo shouted from the hall, “as long as someone gets down there in two minutes.”
“This is what we do here,” David said, wincing as he went to stand up again. “Doesn’t matter if we’re up to it or not. We just do it because we’re all they have.”
“And it doesn’t matter if the doctor keels over in the middle of it?” she asked, latching onto his arm as he wobbled to the door. “You’re not up to this, and you know it. Matteo knows it.”
“Thank you for caring about me,” he said quietly. He slid his feet into a pair of deck shoes, without socks—too much effort to bend over to put them on—then leaned against the wall, trying to catch his breath. It wasn’t like he was going to operate today. This was triage after all. He’d take the first look, make the assessments and assignments and move the patient along in the medical queue. He could do that from a chair, and with the way he was feeling, that might just be the case. “Remember when I told you my list of attributes…that I don’t follow the rules, that I’m stubborn…I’m fine, Solaina, and with any luck this stubborn ass will be back in bed in an hour.”
“It’s difficult, taking care of a patient who doesn’t want to be taken care of.” She kissed him affectionately on the cheek.
“And it’s difficult, being the patient when the nurse is so distracting.” He returned her kiss, but to her lips. “I’m fine,” he promised.
“Matter of opinion,” she said, as he stepped out into the hall.
That much was true. He hurt like hell, and the dull headache that had been with him since he’d been attacked was sharpening. But he could do this. He had to. There was no one else. “There’s a guest room across the hall. Settle in there for the night, and I’ll stop by after I’m through in Triage and we can finish our talk.”
“About my father and IMO?”
David nodded grimly as he lurched away, his left hand on the wall to keep him steady. “That, and other things.” He would much rather talk about other things…things that lovers talked about. But they weren’t lovers. He wasn’t even sure if they were friends.
Solaina watched David grip the wall as he made his way to the reception area, and once he was out of sight she picked up the telephone next to his bed and made a collect call. It had been a year since she’d last talked with her father, and at the time she hadn’t expected that it would be only a year until the next time. “Bonjour, papa,” she said when he answered, her voice so brittle it could have cracked and broken under the weight of a feather.
“Solaina, sweetheart. I’ve been expecting your call.”
“I’ll just bet you have,” she said, already feeling the tension setting into her neck. She’d been the dutiful daughter for years, while her sister Solange had always rebelled. Somehow she’d thought being dutiful would earn love and respect. But Solange had been right about the whole thing. Bertrand Léandre wasn’t about love or care or paternal concern. He was about blind obedience. It was his way, or he cut you off.
“So tell me about IMO, papa.”
“There’s not so much to tell. They were in need of a good business director, and since you were involved with them in the loosest sense I thought it might be a chance for us to work together. Something to bring us back together. And it has.”
“And you didn’t tell me?”
“I knew that it would come up when the time was right. It’s a worthy organization, Solaina. They needed someone with a name that would offer them more recognition than they were receiving.”
Solaina shut her eyes. It always happened this way. He couldn’t let go. Throughout her entire life, no matter where she went or what she did, her father always managed to impose himself in some fashion. He offered a financial contribution or a business consultation…No matter what, the minute he was in the door he took control. “Why?” she whispered.
“For you, darling. As always. I knew you were ending your job at the hospital.”
Of course he had, even though she hadn’t told him. He always knew.
“And I thought a position as the administrator of IMO might be a fine next step for you,” he continued. “It would give you international prestige.” He chuckled. “Take you into better circles where you might find the right man to father my grandson. It’s time for that Léandre legacy to get under way. I’m not getting any younger, you know.”
“This is about your legacy?” she sputtered. “You take over an organization with which I’m affiliated because you want a grandson?” Dear God, even from thousands of miles away he was all about control. It grew in him like yeast in rising bread dough.
“You keep yourself isolated, darling. I was just trying to draw you out a bit. For your own good, naturally.”
Bertrand Léandre, an immense mountain of a man, chuckled on the other end of the phone line, and Solaina could just picture him. He was in his home in Miami at present. It was late there and he was sitting behind his large, nineteenth-century Moorish desk, smoking a Cuban cigar, mulling over his investment portfolio. He had a snifter of brandy in one hand, and he would glance over at the photo of her mother, Gabriella, as he took a sip. That was his custom, and if there was one thing she could count on with her father, he never changed his custom.
“What do you know about David Gentry?” she asked, trying to put off her anger. Going volatile on her father never accomplished anything, and since David believed IMO could be behind his attacks, which would make her father responsible, she had to know. Which meant she had to stay calm.
“Only that he’s an idiot. Good doctor, but a terrible idealist. He left when the board revised policy. I wasn’t there then, but that’s what they’ve told me—and as far as I’m concerned, it was good riddance. Why?”
“Because someone’s after him. They beat him within an inch of his life and I happened to be the one who stumbled on him and had to nurse him back to health.” She wasn’t about to mention David’s hospital. Chances were her father already knew. But if he didn’t she wouldn’t be the one to tell him.
“You nursed him back to hea
lth?” Bertrand sputtered. “But I thought that after that nasty little Jacob Renner incident you’d given up all that and stuck to—”
“That nasty little Jacob Renner incident killed a man, papa.” she snapped. “Do you remember? He died. They sued me and went after my license. And I did give up nursing after that. The kind that I really wanted to do.”
“But they didn’t win against you, and in the end you were much better off for it, getting away from all that patient care nonsense and into something more respectable. Something more in keeping with your credentials.”
“In the end, Mrs Renner lost a husband, and her son a father.” Because she hadn’t recognized a simple symptom. And any future patients she might have had, if she’d made the switch to patient care, would have been better off for it. “So, are you after David Gentry, papa? Did you send someone after him for some reason?”
“You mean him and that little place he calls a hospital?”
So he did know. She wasn’t surprised that he did. Neither was she surprised by the feeling of dread forming in the pit of her stomach. “Are you behind the vandalism here, and the attempt on his life?”
“And you think I would be?” He sounded more amused than outraged. A sound she knew, and one she hated. It was the one he always used when he was backed into a corner.
“I think you could be, but I hoped that you would not.”
“David Gentry is not an issue with me. What’s done with him is done. He put IMO in a bad spot publicly. His departure caused speculation and rumblings throughout the organization, and several of our financial backers have had a rethink on their contributions. A few have withdrawn and gone over to his clinic. Others have cut back to see how we’re going to come out of this, which makes it very tough on the organization as a whole. And makes my position more difficult. But would I go after him because of all that?” That’s where he stopped.
Solaina shut her eyes and shook her head. There certainly was no denial in that. But Bertrand Léandre would never admit his misdeeds. “Leave him alone, papa. If it’s you, leave him alone.”
“You’re involved with him!” Bertrand accused. “You can do better than the likes of David Gentry, if that’s what this is all about.”
Her father would dictate her career and choose her husband. Now she remembered why she didn’t get involved. Involvement meant control. And she’d had enough to last two lifetimes. “And you are more controlling than ever, papa. So listen to me, because I’m only going to say this once. I do not want—No, I demand that you stop interfering with David and his hospital. In any way, for any reason. Do you understand me?”
“You want? You demand? If you’d been a son, Solaina, I do believe you might have made me a proud man.”
“Nothing in your life is worthy of pride, papa. Anything that might have been good died when maman did, and on that day I lost both parents—the one who always was, and the one who never was. If I’d have been your son, I would have hung my head in shame. As your daughter, even that much is not required of me.”
“This is the thanks I get for all the trouble I’ve gone to, getting your name in the IMO arena for that head position?”
Solaina shut her eyes, torn between slamming down the phone and just plain ripping it out of the wall. “I don’t want it,” she snapped. “And I won’t take it if it’s offered.”
“You took the last job.”
“What?”
“The one in Chandella. You certainly don’t think it just came out of the blue?”
“You influenced it?”
“I’ve influenced them all, Solaina. Every last one of them. And any job you want in the future is yours. All those grand offers you’ve had coming in…That’s what a father’s supposed to do, isn’t it? Stand up for his child?”
“Silly me. And I though I’d earned them on my merits.”
“Your merits are good, but merits with the Léandre name attached are better. And if you’re considering something foolish, like staying at that hospital in Kantha, I’d suggest—”
“They need real nurses here, papa. Not the likes of me. You don’t have to worry.”
“But if your heart gets in the way…”
“I’m a Léandre. My heart never gets in the way.”
As she hung up, Solaina looked at the phone for a moment, her mind more blank than anything else, then finally she remembered David. Had her father been able to hear love in her voice? Had she been so obvious, or had he merely been guessing?
“Merely guessing,” she said hopefully, as she headed to the reception area to see how David was faring. It was too late to return to Chandella now anyway, and she might be of some use here tonight. Not much, but some, in spite of what her father thought of her.
CHAPTER NINE
“HOW often does this happen?” Solaina asked a young man who was carrying a small child in his arms. The little girl was three, maybe four years old. And she was too frightened to cry. Cuddled into the man’s shirt, the occasional hiccup of a sob escaped her, but never a wail. “So many victims coming in at once. How often does this happen?”
“As far as mass casualties go, not as often as it used to. But incidents like this, where you have five or six people injured, it’s pretty common. Are you a doctor?” he asked.
She shook her head. “Just a visitor.” Solaina could see several cuts and scrapes on the little girl’s arms. Nothing that looked serious, unless you were three or four, and scared to death. “What happened to her?” she asked.
“Collateral damage from some shrapnel. She caught a few pieces on her arms and legs. Nothing too bad, but the mine was a couple of decades old, and rusty, and she needs to be looked at, maybe have a tetanus shot, since it was out in a field.”
David was busy attending a potential BK—below the knee—amputation, a rather messy job by a landmine. The patient was a young man, probably no more than twenty. He was sitting there quietly, hands folded in his lap, eyes cast downward as David went through the assessment.
She watched David work for a moment. He was compassionate. She could see more pain for the young man on David’s face than the young man himself displayed. And David was efficient. As much pain as he was in himself, he was sorting out the particulars of the man’s injury—the bleeding, the bone fragments, the options. He’d earned his reputation rightly, she decided.
In the next bed over from David, someone Solaina took to be a nurse was starting an IV in an older man. He was crying and moaning, rocking back and forth and holding onto his wrapped hand. David called out an order for morphine from across the way, to which the nurse quickly responded with a piggyback pouch of it to add to the IV drip.
“Can you take care of that?” David asked Solaina. “The little girl?”
“No!” she cried, instant panic setting in. “I don’t do—”
“Yes, you do,” he said. “And it’s a simple thing, Solaina. Just a minor injury. You can take care of it, and I’m right here to help you if you need it! You’re a good nurse.”
“But, David…” Her protest vanished into thin air. David had gone back to concentrating on his patient and the man carrying the child was thrusting her into Solaina’s arms.
“Her name is Pholla,” he said. “Her father is on his way, once he gets clearance to cross the border.” He whispered something to the child—Solaina assumed it to be in Cambodian—then handed her over. “I told her not to be afraid, that you would take good care of her.” Without another word, the rescue worker turned and ran out of the door, leaving Solaina standing in the middle of the hall, holding a wounded child.
“I can do this,” she said to Pholla. “It’s just a few cuts, and I can really do this.” The words were brave, but her hands were shaking because these were the same words she’d said to Jacob Renner all those years ago. I can do this.
Jacob’s had been a simple case, really. Headache. Even the most inexperienced nurse could have handled that one. And when her night nurse in Emergency had called in sick,
Solaina had had no reason to believe she couldn’t do the job. No, she wasn’t a critical care or emergency specialist. But she was certainly good enough for the minor things—the minor things like Pholla’s shrapnel injuries. Like Jacob Renner’s headache.
She looked at the little girl, and shuddered. “You’re going to be just fine in a few minutes,” she said, setting her gently on the emergency bed.
She had told the triage nurse, that night in Emergency when Jacob had come in, to send her only simple cases. The cuts, the bruises, the headaches. And that’s exactly what she’d got. In the first hour she’d almost convinced herself that her time behind a desk hadn’t diminished her skills as much as she’d believed, because the transition had been smooth. The patients came in, she treated them, they went home.
Then Jacob Renner had come in. He had been a nice man who’d had a tension headache. He’d had it all day, and it hadn’t got better. Maybe he needed new glasses, he said. The ones he carried with him were thick, and Solaina certainly thought they might be the cause of his headache. Or maybe he’d eaten too much sugar. Sugar gave him migraines and his wife had baked cookies. So many causes, but when she told him he’d be fine, he believed her. So did his wife and ten-year-old son.
They believed and they trusted in someone who had gone straight from nursing school into an administrative position, and had never passed by a patient on the way there. They trusted in someone whose practical skills were rusty.
But it never occurred to her that she couldn’t do the job. And it never occurred to Jacob Renner’s family that they would be going home without him that night.
The aneurysm in his brain burst before Solaina could get a doctor to look at him. She was handing him an ibuprofen tablet at the time. In retrospect, the doctors said he couldn’t have been saved. He had been too far along and that even getting him to surgery to do the repair would have been futile because Jacob had been past the point of no return even before he’d got to the emergency department.