Leaving the door to slam shut behind his rushed exit, Patrick strode down the hall to the nurses’ station. He shoved the laptop across the counter. “Schedule these tests for Exam Three and get them out of here now.”
He turned toward his office, heedless of the stares coming from his staff, but he didn’t miss the muttered conversation behind him.
“I wonder what the mom in three said that turned the temp down on the Ice Castle? Geez...”
“Right? I didn’t know he could get any colder.”
He ignored their words and walked away.
Thankfully, Levi had been his last patient of the day. Shutting the door, Patrick leaned back against the smooth wood and closed his eyes, trying to shove all the pain back into the depths of his mind. He tugged at the tie around his neck, loosening the silk that threatened his air supply.
Nothing could have prepared him for Rhiann’s return to his life.
Nothing.
Inhaling deeply, he focused on the abstract painting behind his desk. His late wife had painted the simple lines, with bold and contrasting colors, to help ground him when he found himself overwhelmed by the emotions and heartbreak that came with being a pediatric heart surgeon. Mallory had been deeply aware of his need to keep his environment outside the operating room calm. She’d known him better than he’d known himself at times.
He followed the lines across the canvas with his eyes, from light to dark, then back to light, while he took several slow, deep breaths.
He had to pull it together.
His nerve endings were twitching at the memories assaulting his consciousness, overpowering his present with painful reminders of the past.
Of all the people to walk into his practice today, it had had to be Rhiann—the one person he’d never wanted to see again. He’d wanted to rage at her and have her removed from his sight. He’d wanted to pull her into his arms and find out just what her perfectly pink lips tasted like.
There was just something about her... Something that had always fascinated him almost as much as it had angered him. Rhiann had been his first crush, his unattainable first love, but they’d never been on the same page when it came to a relationship. Then he’d met Mallory, and Rhiann’s role as his best friend had been locked in.
At least until she’d betrayed his trust...
And now she had to be the first woman to catch his interest in three years.
The dark shadows under her eyes told him she wasn’t sleeping, and he didn’t have to wonder why. The way her clothes hung off a frame much thinner than he remembered had brought back protective instincts he would rather not have had reawakened.
Just for that he wanted to hate Rhiann.
Hate her for making him feel.
He’d tried not to notice how Levi’s illness was affecting her. They weren’t friends anymore and it shouldn’t matter to him at all that she’d lost the dead weight from her life by divorcing that idiot Pete.
But it did matter.
Too much.
He’d almost told her to get out.
Almost.
But then he’d looked down at the little boy in her arms and found himself unable to banish her from his life once more. When he’d opened his mouth to tell her to go he’d heard himself say instead that they’d run some tests. Why? Because the blue tint to her tiny son’s skin reminded him of who he was and why Rhiann had come back into his life. And, regardless of how Rhiann had betrayed him, he couldn’t take all that resentment out on an innocent baby. Even if he wanted to hurt her like she’d hurt him, he couldn’t bring himself to say no to Levi.
Instead of being a robust and active toddler, the frail eighteen-month-old Levi was the size of a nine-month-old. His little heart wasn’t pumping right and his every breath seemed a struggle.
He hadn’t got out of Rhiann’s lap to run around the exam room. He hadn’t crinkled the paper on the table with delighted giggles. He hadn’t torn pages from the books and magazines. No, he’d only sat in Rhiann’s arms and barely reacted to the exam.
Levi was a very sick little boy who urgently needed Patrick’s help. And he’d help Levi. But not because he was Rhiann’s son. He’d help Levi because it was the right thing to do, both as a physician and as a human being. He’d help Levi and then Rhiann could get out of his life once more, like he wanted.
Seeing Levi snuggle into Rhiann’s embrace had triggered a heated assault on his emotions. The wall of ice surrounding Patrick’s heart had thickened again, though, when he’d read Levi’s birthdate on the chart. It was exactly two years later than his own daughter’s due date.
But his sweet little Everly had never drawn a breath.
Everly would never snuggle into his embrace.
And the woman who had just begged him to save her son’s life had been the one who’d cost him everything.
With a single angry gesture he swept everything from his desk into the floor. Files and stationery fluttered down without much sound, but the metal organizer tray clattered as it hit the floor and bounced.
A tentative knock preceded a soft, “Are you okay in there, Dr. Scott?”
“Leave me alone,” he snarled in response.
The “Jerk...” his nurse muttered was only just audible.
He sank down onto the floor and leaned against the door. Taking some deep breaths, he stared at the platinum band on his left hand. His whispered words were too soft for anyone outside to hear.
“I miss you so much, Mallory. I don’t know how to go on without you.”
CHAPTER TWO
Rhiann
WITH THE WAY Patrick had run out of that exam room like someone had set his lab coat on fire, Rhiann wasn’t entirely certain that she’d gotten through to him. Before he’d rushed out she’d been certain she’d glimpsed a crack in his frozen façade, but now, as the days passed without a word, worry crept in and set up shop.
If Patrick wouldn’t help Levi she had to come up with a backup plan. She was all he had, and she refused to let him down.
On the fifth business day after Levi’s appointment her patience ran out. When she stopped for lunch, she steeled her nerves to call his office and check in. Holding a finger against the twitch at the corner of her eye, Rhiann learned they had already scheduled Levi’s echocardiogram.
And, of course, it was smack-dab in the middle of one of her shifts at work.
Before she could ask to reschedule, her partner shouted over that they had a call and she had to hang up quickly. She shoved the last of her sandwich into her mouth and ran over to Charlie and their rig.
In the three years she’d been a paramedic with County Hospital, Charlie had been her partner. He’d been with County for seventeen years and, beyond having become one of her closest friends, the older man had quickly become her mentor and the nearest thing she had to a father figure.
She had never known her father—that deadbeat having left before she was born. Her mom had told everyone in town she had been widowed while pregnant—not that anyone had believed that. They’d lived in a small but immaculately clean trailer for the entirety of her childhood.
An only child of an only child, Rhiann had never had any other family. That had changed when she’d met Patrick.
Unlike her, Patrick had grown up in an affluent two-parent family. While his mom had never worked, his father had been an award-winning podiatrist. They’d been able to afford sports and extracurricular activities, private tutors, and anything else their son had needed. But, despite her being from a vastly different social class, his parents had always been kind to her, the poor girl from the outskirts of town.
Now her family circle had dwindled down to more of a triangle. She had Levi, and she had Charlie. And that had to be enough. Because she couldn’t risk the damage to her heart if another man let her down.
Dispatch sent them out to a minor car
accident, and after that to a nasty burn. Rhiann used the time between calls to tell Charlie about the upcoming tests and surgery.
“How much is all that gonna cost?” Charlie asked. “Sounds like a whole bucket of expensive to me.”
He winced when Rhiann listed off the estimates that the calculator on the insurance website had given her. She’d flinched too when she’d seen the numbers.
“I’ll figure it out somehow,” Rhiann said, gnawing on her lower lip.
The tests and the surgery were going to break her already fragile financial equilibrium, but what choice did she have? Levi needed them, so she’d make it happen. She’d pick up as much overtime as she could, and she’d set up a payment plan with the hospital—like she’d done for his shunt surgery.
Next month, that would finally be paid off. She’d been looking forward to having a larger food budget again, but that was clearly not meant to be. Yet she knew she’d make it.
Charlie looked over from the driver’s seat, a kindhearted look on his age-lined face. “You always do, but it sure would be easier if you had some help.”
Rhiann sighed, ignoring Charlie’s last comment. Pete had no interest in helping support Levi. He had zero interest in being part of Levi’s life. She’d only learned after her separation how little Charlie and the rest of her coworkers had thought of her now ex-husband. The station house had even had a running bet on just how long her marriage would last.
Charlie had won two hundred and thirty bucks for his guess. When she’d found out about it she’d made him take her out to dinner with some of the money before she’d forgiven him for betting on her marital status.
“So, this old doctor friend of yours is going to fix our boy up, right?”
“If anyone can, it’s Patrick.”
She might not have confidence in a lot of things, but she was confident in Patrick’s abilities. Seeing him again, even if it had been hard, had felt good. They’d gotten that first awkward meeting over with now, and maybe someday they could work toward being friends again. He’d looked good, even with the uncharacteristic coldness of his personality, and that new touch of gray in his hair added a distinguished vibe she really liked too.
“What’s that blush about? You hot under your uniform collar for a dude in a lab coat?”
“I am nothing of the sort!”
Rhiann slugged him on his shoulder and laughed. She and Charlie had an easy-going camaraderie that allowed for a lot of teasing. In some ways Charlie had filled a little of the void Patrick’s absence had left in her life. But not entirely. No one could replace Patrick, after all.
He laughed. “That pink in your cheeks tells me enough—now tell me about your doc.”
“He’s not mine.”
“So you’ve said.” Charlie snorted. “But that pretty shade of embarrassment darkening up your cheeks tells me that you want him to be.”
She looked away, staring out the window as they drove back to the station where both the paramedics and the firefighters for the county were based. She wanted to argue, but she didn’t like to lie to Charlie. So she kept her mouth shut for the remainder of the drive.
They had only just pulled in to the station when Dispatch sent them straight back out.
“Couple of teens shooting things out over at the county line...” The voice on the radio crackled out the info and the address followed.
“I hate these calls,” said Charlie, and turned the rig around with a sigh.
He flipped on the lights and sirens as they hurried toward the given address. They kept quiet as they headed to the scene, taking the time to mentally prepare themselves for what they might find. Kids and guns—it was never a good combination.
The address was a gas station just off I-24, and the lot was full as Charlie eased in, trying to find their patient through the crowd of people.
“There,” Rhiann said, pointing to an older sedan with a shattered window near the air pump at the back corner of the lot.
A boy around thirteen, maybe fourteen, lay on the oily pavement next to the rusted car. Blood pooled around his right leg, and the bright red was a dismal sign, even as a young woman pressed what looked to be a jacket to the wound.
Rhiann hopped out of the rig and grabbed her kit.
“I think it hit a vein or an artery or something,” the woman said.
Only a few years older than the boy lying on the pavement, the young woman was about three shades too pale. From experience, Rhiann knew that the shock of this was going to hit the woman hard once the adrenaline rush was over.
“Do you know his name?” Rhiann asked as she gloved up.
“Naw, I never seen him before today. I was just getting air in my tire when he came running up and some guy shot at him. I saw how he was bleeding—there was just so much blood—I took a first aid class and they said to put pressure on wounds, but I didn’t have anything but my hoodie, and—” She finally ran out of air and stopped to take a shuddering breath.
Rhiann had some gauze pads ready. “Okay, you did really good. On the count of three, I want you to take your hoodie away and I’m going to take over, okay? One, two, three.”
On three, the woman pulled the ruined hoodie away, and Rhiann got her first view of the kid’s thigh. A large gaping hole exposed not only injured muscle, but a damaged femoral artery, and blood squirted out with every erratic pump of his heart.
“Charlie!” Rhiann shouted. “Nicked his femoral!”
She reached in and pinched the artery closed with her fingers. With her free hand, she fumbled through her bag.
“I can’t find any clamps that will hold in the position of the damage. We need to get him to a surgeon and fast—before he bleeds out.”
Charlie brought the gurney over and they carefully loaded the teen. Once they got him into the rig, Charlie got an IV started and hopped into the driver’s seat.
“Dispatch, this is Rig Three. That kid you called us out to is in bad shape. Requesting permission to transport to Metro or Vanderbilt, because County’s not going to be able to handle this. They need to have a surgeon meet us, because my partner’s holding this kid’s femoral artery in her hand and he’s already lost a lot of blood.”
Rhiann swallowed hard, feeling the nerves filling her when Dispatch gave Charlie the go-ahead to transport their patient to Metro. Every time a call took them to Metro she worried that Patrick would be in the Emergency Room when they rolled in. But only once had she caught a glimpse of him from a distance, and he hadn’t seen her.
Shaking her head, she returned her full focus to the patient in front of her. “Charlie, you better be standing on that gas pedal, or this kid doesn’t have much of a chance.”
Patrick
“Dr. Scott, we have a three-year-old with a possible murmur. Would you mind taking a look?”
Dr. Dixon’s grating nasally voice had called from behind him. Patrick stopped and spun toward the ER attending, who had stopped his escape from the hospital after rounds.
“Who’s on call from Cardio?”
“Belcher. We’ve paged him three times, though, and he hasn’t responded. I just don’t want to discharge this kid if there’s something serious and I—”
Holding a hand up, Patrick cut the younger doctor off mid-ramble. “I got it. You’re trying to cover your own butt since Belcher isn’t here to do it for you.”
The attending’s ears reddened at the accusation that Patrick had thrown at him, but he didn’t deny it.
“Is that a no?” Dixon asked.
“I’ll take a look. Where’s the patient?”
The attending handed him a file, relief obvious on his face. “He’s in Curtain Two.”
“I’ll find you when I’m done.”
He strode to Curtain Two, where a cursory check told him the boy was fine. He heard no sign of a murmur at all. He’d just shoved the file b
ack into the attending’s hands when a trauma page came from overhead.
“Ready, Trauma Bay One. Ready, Trauma Bay One. Incoming. ETA: two minutes.”
Nurses and doctors came from other rooms and started readying themselves for the incoming ambulance.
“What do we have?” asked, Dr. Abbott, head of trauma.
“Teen with a gunshot wound, possible femoral involvement,” one of the nurses said, gloving up and putting a gown over her scrubs. “Probably going to be a messy one.”
When he saw the rig that pulled in didn’t have an MMH logo on the side Patrick’s curiosity was piqued and he stayed to watch the trauma. But when the doors opened and Rhiann sat straddling the patient, her hand inside the gaping wound on the teenager’s thigh, watching was no longer an option.
Shoving his hands into gloves and quickly donning a gown, he moved to support her as they lowered the gurney from the ambulance.
“I’ve got a young male, approximately thirteen years of age, name unknown. Large-caliber gunshot wound to the upper thigh. The bullet nicked the femoral artery and he lost probably a fourth of his volume at the scene. I couldn’t get a clamp on the bleeder, due to the damage, so I’m currently providing manual pressure. He’s been in and out of consciousness—mostly out.”
Rhiann rattled off stats as they pushed her and the teen through the doors into the trauma bay.
Her face was pinched and the tension in her arm worried him. “Is your hand cramping?”
“Getting there.” She looked up, their eyes meeting. “I’m tightening up, for sure.”
He grabbed some lap pads and moved closer, trying to get a view of what they had to work with in the kid’s thigh. “His thigh is trashed.”
“I couldn’t get a clamp on. The artery is almost shredded under my hand.”
Patrick had an idea. “What if I clamp above and—?”
“Below? And that will let me get out of the way.” She finished his sentence, nodding her agreement with his idea. “And hopefully that will hold until—”
Heart Surgeon's Second Chance Page 2