Her Hometown Hero

by Melody Anne

  Sage had been working long shifts for five days in a row and she felt—and looked—like the walking dead. She had the next two days off and she wasn’t going to leave her apartment the entire time. Bed, food, and romantic comedies on the television screen—she didn’t care in what order.

  When she turned a corner and saw Spence walking toward her, her heart did a little flip-flop and she couldn’t prevent a smile from popping up on her face. The man was a gift-giving genius. She wanted to not like them, but she couldn’t help it. How was a woman to resist when she kept getting packages on her front doorstep and in her locker at work?

  She knew she should tell him she couldn’t accept these presents, but each one was so unique, so special, that there was no way to give them back. Grace was green with envy each time Sage showed her the newest installment in Spence’s recurring gift club.

  He’d left her the crystal apple, two silver bells, a miniature dragon, and a single red rose. All of them had a theme from her favorite princess movies, all had a meaning, and each came with its own note.

  This man was flipping her world upside down and she was so ready to pull him into the nearest broom closet and show him her appreciation—and maybe, just maybe, relieve the constant ache in her body, which grew worse every time she saw him.

  “How did your last trauma case go?” he asked, standing well within her personal space.

  She didn’t care.

  “It went well. I have to admit I was a little disappointed when I had to come back home for my residency, but I’m learning a lot and logging massive hours. And not only is it excellent training, but it’s been good to be home.” Sage started walking toward the locker room, because, as much fun as it was to stand there and chat with Spence, she really was exhausted and more than ready to get back to her apartment and put her feet up.

  “Yes, it’s been a slow season, too, so imagine what you’ll learn when things start heating up.”

  “Is it awful to hope for disasters?”

  “It is if you want people hurt, yes, but not if you want to learn how to save more lives.”

  “Well then, I shouldn’t be in too much trouble. I do want to learn how to be the best doctor I can.”

  “You’re off work tomorrow, right?”

  Of course he knew her schedule. He was asking, but she knew he was planning something. She waited, not bothering to answer.

  “It’s time I get my tree, and if I do recall, you offered to help me.”

  “If I remember correctly, you pretended I offered to help,” she informed him.

  “That’s not what Grace said.”

  There goes my lazy day off, she thought. And still she couldn’t feel a hint of regret. Spending the day with him and picking out the perfect tree sounded pretty darn great.

  “Why don’t we go get some coffee and discuss our strategy? Better yet, let’s get some dinner. You’re off the clock, right?”

  “Yes, my shift is over, but it’s been a really long day. I was planning on heading home, sinking into a deep, hot bath, and not emerging from the apartment until I have to work again,” she said, though she knew he wasn’t going to be discouraged that easily.

  “Then it’s my mission to make sure you are well fed, and that you get out to see the sunshine. Being cooped up either in the hospital or in your apartment for too long will turn your skin white and endanger your health. Doctor’s orders.”

  “Oh, I see. You’re just a concerned doctor?”

  “Of course I am. As the head of the ER, I have to make sure all my patients are well taken care of.”

  “You’re now my doctor?” she asked, and was greeted with the instant image of the two of them playing doctor. Bad move, but she was having trouble feeling disgusted.

  “I’ll be your doctor anytime you like. I have all the tools I need—right on me,” he said with a wink. When he saw her eyes straying involuntarily down his body—however convenient in general, scrubs weren’t good for voyeurism—he had to ask, “Like what you see?”

  Her head snapped up to meet the devilish smile on his face and the small box in his hand. “What’s that?” She wanted to reach out and grab the package. But though she knew it was for her, she also knew she should refuse it so she wouldn’t encourage his behavior. That wasn’t going to happen, though, because she loved presents too dang much.

  He held out his hand. “Just a little gift.”

  “You’ve got to quit getting me things,” she said, but, after looking around to make sure that they were alone, she reached for the box.

  “I like getting you gifts, Sage. Open it.”

  “It’s not even Christmas and you’ve already left several packages at my place and at work. People are going to talk.” Damn. Even the packaging was beautiful.

  “Let them talk. I have nothing to hide.”

  “The other staff will hate me if they think you’re playing favorites, you know.”

  “Everyone in this hospital knows already. As a matter of fact, if you want to earn a few extra dollars, you can sign up on the big office betting pool. People are laying down wagers on the date they think we’ll get married.”

  Sage’s mouth almost hit the floor. Marriage? Ridiculous. No way. She was so not ready for that. She hadn’t even gone out on a real date with this man. Yes, there’d been a lot of flirting, and then, of course, their night in his hot tub . . . Add the fact that they kept running into each other—it was a small town, after all—and she was with him more than anyone else she knew. But still, they weren’t a couple, and certainly weren’t anywhere near having him proposing marriage.

  “You have to stop saying things like that,” she whispered as they reached the locker room.

  “I like shocking you. I love the way your mouth opens into a perfect circle, love the way your skin flushes. I love watching you, love waiting on you. I don’t think there is anything about this unusual relationship we have that I don’t love.” He leaned in even closer as he spoke.

  Sage’s heart fluttered again. The word love was sure coming from his mouth a lot. They weren’t in love. She knew that. But, oh man, was she falling for this guy—falling hard.

  Lifting the lid on the box, she sighed as she looked inside at the jewel-encrusted comb.

  “Every princess needs a special comb,” he said into her ear, making her heart beat faster.

  Unfortunately, she had no doubt the gems on the handle were real. “I can’t take this, Spence. It’s far too expensive,” she told him, though she wasn’t putting much effort into handing the gift back to him.

  He closed her fingers around the comb. “You will take it, use it, love it, and . . . think of me.”

  And he was right—she would.

  “How do you know what to get? How did you know how much I love princesses?”

  “A lot of determination and research on the perfect gifts. I’ll have you know that I had a Disney movie marathon and watched Cinderella, Beauty and the Beast, Mulan, Sleeping Beauty, Tangled, Frozen, and a few others. I wanted to make sure you were fully enchanted.”

  She looked at him and knew he was speaking the truth. How could he be wrong for her when he was doing all the right things? Why had she decided dating him was a bad idea? The reason was beyond her right now, because at least in this moment, he seemed more perfect than humanly possible.

  She was in a fog as she gazed up into his eyes.

  “Why? Why me?” she asked him, letting the walls tumble down and opening herself up.

  “I like you,” he said as he got even closer, his body brushing against hers in the most sinful of ways, his lips grazing her ear before he continued speaking. “I want you. You’re all I think about. Right now, I plan to take you for a nice meal, and then I’ll take you back to my place, where I’m going to make love to you all night long, sleep with you in my arms, wake up to a nice brunch, and then go Christmas tree shopping.”

  He ended his little speech by connecting their lips, kissing her gently, and wiping away the last o
f her defenses. One night wouldn’t do any harm. One night—that was all he was asking for.

  “I can’t seem to think around you . . . breathe around you.”

  “Good. Don’t think; don’t breathe. I’ll provide the oxygen for both of us,” he said, his hand wrapped around her, pulling her tightly against him. “All you need to do is say yes.”

  But he didn’t give her time to say yes. He just devoured her mouth and claimed her body with his hands. Just when she was ready to give him her full surrender, her pager went off, making her jump as the blood continued rushing straight to her core.

  “I need to check this,” she whispered, barely able to get a word out.

  “You’re off the clock.”

  “We’re never off the clock, Spence, and I can’t believe you of all people would say such a thing.” It was quite amusing, really, that her boss was the one trying to talk her out of work.

  He pulled back, the glaze over his eyes starting to clear up when he noticed that his own pager was going off. “Crap! I need to check on this.”

  Overhead, they heard “Trauma alert, ER” come over the hospital speakers. Both of them headed straight there.

  “Dr. Whitman, we have a six-year-old female, auto versus pedestrian. ETA, one minute.”

  Sage tensed instantly. She hated cases involving children. She knew it was a reality of her job, but she hated it. All traces of passion were long gone as she stood side by side with Spence and waited for the huge bay doors to open. It would be any second. The sirens had been blaring and now were silent.

  “Let’s go,” Spence called as the doors opened and the paramedics rushed in with a small girl on the gurney. Sage moved to one side, listening as they shouted out important information. Spence was on the other side of the gurney, doing his own assessment of the child as the paramedics spoke.

  “Female, age six, run over by mom’s half-ton pickup. Found unresponsive and apneic, with unstable pelvis. Abdomen tight and distended. Placed two eighteen-gauge IVs to bilateral ACs with IV fluid wide-open, but girl’s blood pressure keeps dropping. Has been intubated, and we needle decompressed her left lung. In full C-spine precautions. Vital signs are BP sixty over thirty, HR one forties, no spontaneous respirations, oxygen saturation eighty-two percent.”

  “We can save her,” Sage said beneath her breath, determination shining in her eyes.

  “My daughter!” a woman screamed as she rushed into the room. Sage took only a second to glance up at the hyperventilating woman. The poor mother was held upright by her husband; her face was red, and her body looking almost lifeless in her despair. “Please! My baby girl!”

  The woman suddenly started writhing in her agony, and when her husband lost hold of her, two nurses had to grab her before she fell to the floor. Sage tuned everything out as they moved the child to the trauma bay, everyone doing their job like well-choreographed dancers. The nurses cut the rest of the child’s clothes away and began looking for the damage while Sage began her exam at the head of the table.

  She assessed neuro status, pupils, airways, calling out orders to the trauma nurse, making sure it was all getting documented. “Pupils are fixed and dilated.” The girl had severe head trauma. But Sage wouldn’t lose this child—she couldn’t!

  No. She had to keep her cool, had to do a full assessment. She couldn’t think about losing the child; she just needed to look at each individual piece that had to be fixed. “I don’t hear any lung sounds on the left side, and her ventilator pressures are high. We need a chest tube set up, stat.”

  As Spence placed the chest tube, Sage continued her assessment of the girl, and it wasn’t looking hopeful, but she wouldn’t think this way.

  “She has a flail chest to her left side with multiple rib fractures bilaterally, distant heart tones indicating possible cardiac tamponade,” Sage reported.

  “Left side hemothorax,” Spence called after inserting the left-side chest tube.

  “I need two units of O negative. PRBC’s, stat. Abdomen is distended with ecchymosis noted to bilateral flanks. Pelvis unstable; place a pelvic binder now to reduce internal bleeding. No obvious deformity to her lower extremities. Get me the fast scan so I can take a look at internal bleeding.”

  People continued moving and Sage wanted to shake, wanted to weep, but she wouldn’t. There was a job to do and they would do it. There was no time for weakness.

  Sage was on autopilot, calling out commands and working furiously with Spence to save the child. Then the room seemed to slow down as she looked up, his eyes connecting with hers. When it seemed there was nothing else she could do from her end, he spoke.

  “What do you do next, Sage?”

  What? What did he want her to say? She didn’t know what to do. This wasn’t a training moment. He needed to save the child. “We need to get her to surgery now, save her,” she said.

  “How, Sage? How do we save her? Take over,” he commanded.

  The force in his voice shifted something inside her. Not knowing how it was happening, she moved, shouting out orders, doing everything she could to heal this child’s broken body.

  The scan showed significant internal bleeding. “I can’t see the source of this bleeding. It could be her spleen or liver. We need to get her to the OR, stat!” Sage commanded.

  “They are ready for us, Dr. Banks,” the ER nurse Mo said, the look in her eyes making her opinion obvious. She didn’t think the girl would make it.

  “Don’t look at me like that, Mo. Don’t give up on this girl.”

  “Please don’t let my baby die. I didn’t see her. I didn’t see her,” the mother wailed. A couple of nurses were holding her and whispering soothing words. Sage didn’t have time to address the mother yet. All she had time to do was take care of this child.

  Suddenly, the endotracheal tube disconnected and a groan came from the girl’s throat before she coughed, spraying blood all over the front of Sage’s gown.

  “Suction her ETT now and tell the OR we are en route. Get two more units of O negative to the OR to prepare for surgery and keep those fluids wide-open,” Sage commanded. “Let’s go!”

  They began moving and Sage noticed that Spence wasn’t following. Why wasn’t he doing something? He needed to help this girl, and he needed to do it now, before it was too late.

  “Go, Sage. You have this,” he said as they reached the elevator and rushed inside.

  Sage looked back, seeing Spence standing in the hallway, watching them leave the bay. She didn’t have time to analyze the look in his eyes—but it looked like sadness.

  No!

  He wouldn’t be sad for this child, because she would live. Sage wouldn’t allow her to die.

  Nothing but a long, eerie tone could be heard in the room as the heart monitor indicated the patient’s heart had stopped.

  Sage stood there, her hands and scrubs bloodied, a single tear falling down her face. “Time of death, 6 p.m.”

  She turned and walked from the room. Despite all they’d done, nothing had worked. The little girl kept on fighting, kept on struggling to live, but where one problem was fixed, another had appeared. Her little body hadn’t been able to endure any longer.

  Finding her way to the locker room, Sage sat hard on the bench, no emotion, nothing able to break through. Spence had told her to save the child, and she had failed.

  This little girl had her whole life ahead of her, and because of a stupid accident, her parents were being told right now that they wouldn’t be taking their daughter home, but instead, they’d be saying good-bye to a cold corpse.

  Finally, Sage stood up, moved to the showers, and stripped, then climbed in, not even able to tell whether the temperature was right. On days like this she hated her profession. This was when she wanted to quit. Why put herself through the hell of medical school and residency if she couldn’t save the life of one small, precious child?

  She didn’t know how long she stood beneath the spray, but she eventually stepped from the shower and dressed. S
he couldn’t say what she was wearing. Her night, which had looked so promising, had just crashed around her.

  She just wanted to go home, curl into a ball, and let the tears out. She’d get over this—she had to. It might take a little bit longer than normal, of course. She could still see the bright blond curls, the pink jumpsuit. In her years in the medical program, she’d seen death, but it always seemed so much harder when it was a child.

  As she emerged from the locker room, she spotted Spence, changed and ready to leave. She walked past him, not wanting to talk. Not wanting to talk to anyone. She just needed to escape from this place, get away before it consumed her.

  “Sage . . .” He was following her, his voice quiet, hesitant. She didn’t want his sympathy, didn’t want assurances that everything would be all right. She just wanted to go home and forget everything.

  “Leave me alone,” she said, moving into the snow-covered grass beyond the parking lot. She gazed out at newly falling snow and wished she could just drift away in the wind.

  She’d been trained for this, and had been told over and over that she mustn’t and couldn’t take it personally. There were more lives she would save than lose. And yet if all of that was true, why did her heart ache so badly right now? Had her instructors been lying to her? It sure as hell seemed like it.

  “I’ll give you a ride home,” Spence said, his hand grazing her shoulder.

  She shrugged it off. “I can get home myself.” She didn’t need him to look after her. She didn’t need anyone. She was strong and independent. She was a doctor, a woman, and a person. She would survive.

  Unlike the small child.

  “You can’t drive right now, Sage. This was a hard case,” he said, wrapping his arms around her from behind. She tried to push him away, but he wasn’t allowing it, wasn’t letting her grieve. Damn him!

  “I’m fine, Spence. It wasn’t like this was a natural disaster with thousands of lives lost. This was one person—one . . . child. Yes, it’s harder when it’s a child, but it happens. Isn’t that what we’re taught? Of course, they can say what they like about not blaming yourself. They’re teaching, not trying to save a life. I know we did all we could. I know we tested her, and fixed things. I know she was beyond help. None of that makes a difference, though, does it? Nothing we did saved her. Right before Christmas and she’s gone forever. Her parents will get up on Christmas morning, wait to hear the sound of her excited voice, and only hear silence.”