by Cate Ashwood
He nodded like he knew exactly what I was talking about. “So, you like working on the rigs?”
“It’s a job.” I shrugged. “The schedule laid out in the contract is decent—two weeks on, two weeks off—but I normally pick up as much overtime as I can. Got nothing else to do, so why not?”
Logan nodded. “Yeah, sounds familiar.”
“Workaholic, huh?”
“Kind of. Living here, there’s not much of a choice. Especially recently.”
I sat down across from him to waited for him to elaborate. I shouldn’t have cared—I’d never see him again after tonight, but it was nice to have someone to talk to for a change. Until that moment, I hadn’t realized how good it felt.
“We have three surgeons in Sawyer’s Ferry, plus one who was off on medical leave until recently. I’m not sure if she’ll be coming back at her regular hours. Gage and Holden are full-time, but they’ve been taking some time off lately to deal with personal shit, so I’ve been picking up the slack in the meantime.”
“Seems like a lot to fall on your shoulders.”
“It can be, but the team at the hospital is good. We’ve been doing this together for a long time.” He cocked his head. “I’d imagine it’s the same in your line of work.”
“Can be. We have a lot of turnover. Some of the guys get up here, and it takes them all of one rotation to realize how shit this job is. Belcourt is isolated. There’s nothing to do, nowhere to go, the hours are long, the nights are cold as fuck.” I chuckled, remembering how quickly the latest rookie was run off the rig. “But the money’s good. I don’t think there’s a single guy out here doing this for the love of the job.”
“How long have you been doing it?”
“Almost four years.”
“And I’m guessing since you’re living here and not on-site, you’re planning to stay a while?”
I shrugged. “Not really the kind of guy who puts down roots. But man camp really wasn’t my thing. My contract is up at the end of the new year. I’ve already got something else lined up after that.”
“Could we circle back around to ‘man camp’?” He stressed the words, laughter tinging the edges of his voice.
“You’ve never heard that term tossed around?”
He shook his head.
“Just a nickname for the barracks where most of the guys bunk while they’re up here. Not many of us stick around for more than a handful of seasons, and lodging provided by the company makes sense for most of them.”
“Not you, though?”
“No privacy there, and life on-site is nothing but eating, sleeping, and working. Not that I get to have much of a social life in Belcourt—there’s fucking nothing to do, but leaving the site at the end of the day feels like more of a life than being holed up with those assholes 24/7. This job—this place—it’s as good as any, I guess. I dunno where I’d go if I wasn’t here.”
“Where are you from?”
“All around. Never stayed in one place too long.”
I knew I was being vague, but partly because it was true, and partly because this felt awfully close to the type of getting-to-know-you conversation we’d have on a first date.
And that wasn’t what this was.
I walked to the oven and peered inside. The edges of the pizza were golden, and the cheese was bubbling. “I think we’re good.”
“Good. I’m starving. You’ll be lucky if you get a single piece of that.”
“Maybe I should let you have it,” I said.
“Why’s that?”
“Because you’re going to need your energy.”
Logan
“Dr. Baker.” Dawn’s words were slightly muffled through the paper mask she wore, her hands tucked into the front pockets of her scrubs. “We’ve got another one.”
“Same symptoms?”
She nodded, and I could see her trying to focus, see how exhausted she was. She’d been at the hospital more than me, and that was saying something.
“Any idea where I should start putting people?” she asked, sounding defeated, and I looked around, at as much of a loss as she was.
While it wasn’t normally my responsibility to help the nurses figure out where to put patients, the two weeks since I’d gotten back from Belcourt had been especially hectic. A nasty outbreak of norovirus had run rampant through the hospital, creating chaos out of our well-oiled machine. We’d even had to haul a couple of the older beds out of the basement and double up on isolation rooms.
Gage had been hit, as had half our nurses, leaving us woefully understaffed, and the remaining employees were running ragged trying to keep up with the influx of patients through the door. I was one of the last remaining healthy medical staff. Shaun and Leslie even took what time they could to lend a hand whenever possible, staging in the ER rather than the ambulance station next door.
I opened my mouth to tell Dawn I’d make some calls when the ambulance bay doors whipped open, and Shaun and Leslie blasted through, their stretcher wheels squeaking as they rolled into the ER.
Mr. Whitson lay on the bed, his skin pale and sweaty, the bandage pressed to his throat soaked with blood.
“Never mind. I’ll figure it out,” Dawn said, hurrying away to deal with yet another sick patient while I got the rundown on the trauma now sitting in our EHS bay.
“What have we got?” I asked, already slipping into surgeon mode. I surveyed the patient as Shaun gave me the specifics.
“Seventy-five-year-old male, lacerations to the neck and a suspected pelvic fracture. Diaphoretic, slightly tachycardic, BP of 115 over 70, spO2 at 98, and GCS of 15. Received a bolus of 500mL saline en route…”
I stared down at Mr. Whitson, knowing everyone who had hands on this guy today would know who he was. It was obvious Shaun’s professional and clipped manner in conveying the medical information was a way of distancing himself from the intensely intimate business of dealing with a patient he knew well. Everyone had their way of coping. In a town this small, where everyone knew everyone else, rarely a day went by that business didn’t become personal.
Mr. Whitson was a local legend. He’d been the librarian in town for the last five decades. He’d been the one to get me hooked on Goosebumps books when I was a kid and The Perks of Being a Wallflower when I was becoming an awkward teen. He’d helped me fill out my college applications and encouraged me to aim higher than I’d thought possible when I told him I wanted to be a surgeon.
He’d been the one who’d encouraged most of the kids in Sawyer’s Ferry to strive to reach beyond their potential. He meant a lot to the community, and now he was sitting in my ER, battered and broken and covered in blood.
In a place like Sawyer’s Ferry, it was impossible to go about your day with the same distance other doctors were afforded at other hospitals in larger centers, but some patients hit me harder than others.
I examined the cuts on his neck, then the rest of his battered and broken body. That familiar shot of adrenaline rushed through me, knowing what the next few hours would be like. It would be a race against the clock, replacing the blood he was losing as quickly as we could, and if we weren’t careful, there was no way we’d be able to keep up. He’d nicked his carotid, and without an immediate repair, he’d bleed out.
And even once that had been stabilized, there was a slew of other injuries that would need to be addressed. Without even fully realizing I was doing it, I began to calculate the probability he would survive this. For a man his age, it was unlikely. I couldn’t think about it, because there was still a chance. We had to try.
“Nadia, can you please make sure the OR is prepped? He’s going to need surgery immediately. And can someone page Prescott?”
Holden Prescott was the best surgeon I knew, and vascular surgeries were his specialty. I could repair the laceration myself if I had to, but if Holden was available, I wanted his hands.
Though we were understaffed, the staff I did have were experienced and competent. Craig hung more saline, and Dawn order
ed extra units of blood to be kept on hand, and less than a minute later, Nadia was back with good news. “OR is ready and Dr. Prescott’s on his way.”
“Thanks, Nadia.” Mr. Whitson had time, but he didn’t have a lot of it. “Let’s get this show on the road, then.”
I trailed behind the gurney, running through the procedure in my head as we crossed through the doors into the operating room. I was on autopilot scrubbing in, the water cascading over my arms and down my hands as I prepared myself to try to save Mr. Whitson’s life.
As I stepped up to the operating table, nodding tightly at Dr. Ariana Cole, our anesthesiologist, Nadia set the music to play. A split second later, Bowie filled the operating room. It was time to get to work.
“Any word on Prescott?” I glanced at the clock. Only minutes had passed since she’d called him, and Mr. Whitson’s vitals were on a slow but steady decline. We couldn’t wait. “Never mind. Let’s get started.”
He’d fallen on his pruning shears. A freak accident—what the hell were the chances? I removed the compressive dressing and tamponaded the bleeding. With patience, determination, and a little luck, there was hope he could make a full recovery.
“Ten blade, please.”
The entire team worked seamlessly around me as I made the first incision. When the facial nerve was exposed, it appeared to be undamaged, and I breathed an audible sigh of relief, then increased the size of the incision to temporarily clamp the vessel.
As my blade drew back across flesh, I could see the extent of the damage. Blood began to hemorrhage from the wound, and my heart pounded faster. I’d been here before; I’d seen this, lived through this, and knew that it rarely ended well.
“I need more light,” I demanded, trying desperately to see through the blood. Nadia moved the light, shining it over the incision, and I could see the vessel had been entirely shredded. In the background, I could hear the beeping of the monitors like a clock counting down the last minute of Mr. Whitson’s life.
“Pressure’s dropping.” The words filtered through my consciousness, and I resisted the urge to snap back at them. Of course his pressure was fucking dropping. Half his blood was on the floor, and I couldn’t stop it.
I was so lost in trying to staunch the bleeding, I didn’t notice the sound of the doors sliding open or Holden entering until he was standing across from me, gloved and gowned.
“Thank Christ,” I said as Holden stepped closer, and though he wore a mask, I could see the look of quiet resignation etched into his features. I stepped to the side to let him work, and he took over, attempting to repair the extensive damage. His hands flew, practiced and skilled, and all I could do was look on, completely helpless.
The beeps on the monitor slowed, Nadia giving Holden updates every few seconds with the vitals, until the alarm sounded.
“Shit, he’s coding.” Holden looked stressed as he kept working, but as the seconds ticked by, it was clear it was a lost cause. The room hushed as Nadia silenced the monitor.
“Time of death, 16:36.”
I let out a long breath, my body rigid. I couldn’t stop staring at Mr. Whitson, lying lifeless on the table. It wasn’t the first time I’d lost a patient. It wasn’t the first time I’d lost a patient I’d been close to. But it never got any easier.
Holden ran his hand over my shoulder, but I barely felt it. He applied more pressure, turning my body and guiding me out of the OR.
“I’m sorry, Logan,” he said once the door had slid shut behind us.
I pulled off my gloves and mask, tossing them into the bin, and exhaled another long breath. “It’s been a long week.”
Holden picked up his phone from the table where he’d left it and checked the screen.
“I know. Go home. I’ll cover the rest of the day.”
“You don’t have to—”
“I’m due on call in less than three hours. There’s nothing else on the books for the OR this afternoon, and I’ve got a consultation appointment in an hour anyway. I can multitask. Worst-case scenario, the remaining four healthy residents of Sawyer’s Ferry come in with gastro, in which case, I’ll stash them in the broom closets.”
My laugh sounded tired even to me.
“You need a break, and you’re in no condition to keep working today.” With both hands against my shoulder blades, Holden pushed me toward the door. “Get out of here. Go get some rest. Gage is out for the count right now, and the last thing we need is for you to keel over from exhaustion.”
“I’m okay,” I tried to assure him.
Holden rolled his eyes. “I’m good, but I’m not good enough to cover all the surgeries forever. Go home. Regroup. Get some rest.”
When Holden had first shown up in Sawyer’s Ferry, truthfully, I hadn’t thought much of him. To this day, he still had no idea how I’d felt about him at the beginning, but after getting to know the guy, I’d had to begrudgingly admit that he’d grown on me.
The thought of leaving the hospital already had the last of my energy draining away. “Thanks.”
Holden grinned. “Think nothing of it. Now get outta here.”
Making the drive home seemed almost insurmountable, and not for the first time, I regretted not choosing to live right in town. It wasn’t all that often that a balls-to-the-wall, do-or-die surgery came in through our doors, but when it did, it always had the same effect on me—in the moment, I was absolutely focused, riveted in on exactly what I needed to do, driven by buckets of adrenaline.
And once it was all over, I was left feeling turned out and dead on my feet, as though I’d used a week’s worth of energy over an hour or two. When we lost a patient, that feeling was compounded by a thousand, and I was dead on my feet and emotionally shot.
I should have known better than to buy a place so far from the hospital, but when I’d returned to Sawyer’s Ferry after medical school, Bishop Ridge Ranch had been on the market, and the eight-year-old in me who’d ridden horses and picked blueberries out there as a kid had jumped at the chance to own it.
Of course, it wasn’t a ranch anymore, but I’d kept the name and the memories. I loved living out there, but right about now, a shitty little apartment somewhere sounded pretty fucking good, as long as it had a mattress that wasn’t covered in plastic.
But since the only mattress within walking distance was the one in the on-call room at the hospital, and that one did happen to be covered in plastic, I opted instead to grab a cup of coffee with a shot of espresso for good measure at the Cornerstone Café, then head home.
Once I’d stripped out of my scrubs and washed the sweat and stress of the surgery off me in the shower, I got dressed and set out in search of a heavy dose of caffeine. I hadn’t made it more than two steps out the front door of SFHR when I ran headlong into a solid wall of muscle.
“Oh, excuse me. I’m sor—”
I looked up to see a familiar face, and I might as well have actually swallowed my tongue. Staring back at me in all his cocky, badass glory was Jackson Daley.
“Hello, Dr. Baker.” His voice sounded like melted butter when he spoke.
It took me a moment to gather my wits, my brain launching directly into memories of sweaty skin and come-stained sheets. I went from exhausted and dragging ass to strangely invigorated in the span of a single heartbeat. Had he come all the way to Sawyer’s Ferry for another hookup? And then it hit me.
“You’re here for your consult with Dr. Prescott?”
His eyes were trained on me, the strength of his gaze boring right through me. I could almost see his brain working, the process that took him from one thought to the next as one corner of his mouth turned up in a smile I recognized as though it had been imprinted on my brain.
“Sure. We’ll go with that.”
I could already feel my body begin to heat, the exhaustion from earlier replaced almost immediately with an uncomfortable sensation. The sound of his fucking voice was making me hard as memories of the last time I’d seen Jackson flooded my head.
I rubbed at my wrists, my eyes raking up and down his body. The desire to get horizontal from minutes ago was back full force, but now sleep was the furthest thing from my mind.
“You got an appointment?”
He nodded.
My skin ached with how much I wanted his hands on me again. The memory of the last time I’d seen him had played so many times in my head that if it’d been a VHS, I would have worn out the tape.
But we’d both known what it had been. There’d been no need to talk about it at the time because we both knew there was no future beyond the following morning. I’d told myself that over and over, despite the fact that I’d craved him again almost the minute I pulled out of his driveway.
There was nothing worse than a clingy one-night stand. But him standing here in front of me now, and the way I wanted him, though, it was worth the risk of seeming like a needy asshole.
I locked eyes with him, the chemistry arcing between us tangible. “You in town a while?”
This had bad idea written all over it. But letting off a little steam after a surgery like the one I’d just performed was what I needed. In my world, self-care wasn’t limited to adequate sleep and eating well. A night of intense sex with Jackson would be better than anything else to help me refocus. And if it wasn’t, it would at least help me to forget for a little while.
“Could be.” He’d said it without a second of hesitation, and any remaining worry evaporated. There was no reason not to indulge a little—forget about my problems for a while.
“Good.” I took a step closer and reached for his wrist with one hand while I searched in my pocket with the other, pulling a pen from it a second later. I turned his hand over in mine, palm up, and scrawled my address across it. “Meet me there when you’re done.”
His gaze flickered from his hand to my face, a slow smile spreading across his lips.
“You need directions?” I asked.
“Nope. I’ll find you.”
“Good,” I repeated.
He gave me one last smile—a promise of exactly what would happen later—and walked into the hospital.