by Dianne Drake
“Manicures? They’re five!”
Dinah laughed. “But a girl is never too young to have her hair and fingernails done.” Her eyes wanted to trail down to his ring finger, but she resisted. “And Pippa and Paige informed me they’ve never had a manicure. So…”
“They’re growing up.” He sighed heavily.
“A little bit.”
“And I don’t have a clue.”
“Well, that’s probably true. But it’s curable, because I have an idea your daughters will always let you know exactly what they need, and when. Like I said, they’re amazing little girls. Full of life.”
“Like their mother.” He cleared his throat and continued. “The girls and I…we’re going to move,” he said, out of the blue. “I love my sister, but she’s put up with us for too long, without ever complaining. She disrupted her life back in California and moved here with us because she didn’t want us coming here alone. But she’s the one who got her life together, not me. And I think it’s time the girls and I had a place of our own so she can live more of that life.”
He was moving out? Did that mean he was starting to move on? Eventually, it always happened. Her mother had, after a while. She herself had, after her divorce from Damien, and in a sense this was part of her moving on from Charles. But Eric’s situation was something she couldn’t even begin to understand. “You’re sure you’re ready for this?” she asked, for a lack of something better to say. “I mean, I know that you have to get to a certain point where it feels right, feels like it’s time. When Damien and I were married—”
“You were married?” he interrupted.
“Not for long. I was barely in my twenties. Not so smart about relationships. He was…not who I thought he was. The marriage lasted for less than a year, but I stayed near him for a year longer than that because I couldn’t force myself to make the move. You know, move on. I suppose I always hoped something would change, that the situation wasn’t really what it was. So I left him, reconciled, left, reconciled…”
“And?”
“I wised up when I finally realized that you don’t change a cheating husband, no matter what he promises you. No matter how much you want things to be different, some things will never change.”
“I’m sorry,” he said, rubbing the empty spot on his ring finger. “That had to be rough.”
“It was.” Because she’d grown up picturing herself living happily-ever-after. Because she’d grown up wanting it. Sadly, she didn’t believe in that anymore. “Moving on wasn’t easy.”
“I know,” he said. “Not easy, but necessary. But I’ve put it off too long, so now…”
“Can we bake some more?” Paige called from the door. “We got them ready on the pan.”
“Duty calls,” Dinah said, backing away from Eric. “And it’s pretty demanding.”
“I appreciate this, Dinah. I know we’ve got a little friction going between us, and I’m sorry about that.” He chuckled. “Seems like I’m always apologizing for something, doesn’t it? But I do appreciate what you’re doing for my girls. And if they need some new unmentionables and a manicure, and you don’t mind…”
“I don’t mind, Eric. In fact, I’m looking forward to it.” She glanced down at his empty finger this time, and this time he saw her do it. But he didn’t say anything.
“Eric, I’m so sorry,” she whispered, laying her hand on his as Pippa ran up, grabbed her by the other hand and started tugging.
“So am I. But it was time.”
The broken whisper of his voice broke her heart as her hand slid away from his.
“Pedicures, too?” Eric said, smiling.
“A girl can’t really have the full manicure experience without having the pedicure, too.” It had been a wonderful morning, and she almost hated turning the girls over to their cousin, Debbi. But the arrangement had been made, and now she had the rest of the day ahead of her with nothing to do as it was her day off. Angela was simply too pregnant to do anything but sit with her feet up and manage the kitchen from that position, so Dinah had a lot of empty hours ahead of her. “I promised them we’d do it again some time. And have high tea in the lodge conservatory. Father permitting, of course.”
“You’re kidding, aren’t you?”
Smile bright, eyes wide, she shrugged. “Actually, no. We all thought it was a brilliant idea.”
Eric laughed out loud. “You know they’re taking advantage of you, don’t you? They’re very good at it. Better than I thought, apparently.”
“You’re probably right. But I’m a willing participant.” Besides, she truly enjoyed their company, probably more than she’d thought she would. It was nice, being in the company of children who weren’t sick. Although the more she was with the girls, the more she ached to get back to nursing. “I was wondering…would you need someone part-time in the hospital? Maybe the emergency department? I know you mentioned something the other day about nursing, but I thought maybe I could do something as a volunteer.” Perhaps being back in a non-medical capacity would help ease the ache. “I could be a clerk, maybe check supplies…”
“Or be a nurse, like I suggested.”
She shook her head adamantly. “I told you…”
“No, you didn’t. But I agreed not to ask, so I won’t. However, I still need a part-time nurse, and it’s a serious offer.”
Nursing scared her, though. In little bits and pieces she was OK. But how could she tell him that she no longer trusted herself for anything more than the bits and pieces? That all those words about being a good nurse were only words? That when she’d most needed to be professional in her duty, she’d let herself down? “Just forget it, OK? It was stupid of me to ask. I don’t need to be back in a hospital. In fact, I don’t want to be back in a hospital.”
“Yes, you do. Or you wouldn’t have asked. Wouldn’t have come here to the hospital, to my emergency room, to tell me that you’d left the girls with my niece when that was the plan all along, and I knew you’d do that. Or you could have called and told me. But you didn’t. Instead, you came here, which makes me think you want to come back. And don’t tell me that we can’t always have what we want, because I’m offering you the opportunity to have exactly what you want…a few hours a week in the emergency department. As a nurse, not as a clerk or someone who stocks the shelves.” He stepped closer, leaned in to her. “I trust you here. I think you’ve lost your confidence for some reason I don’t understand, and I’m not going to ask why, but I do trust you, Dinah.”
“Well, maybe you shouldn’t give away that trust so easily.”
“And maybe you should trust my judgment, because I know a good nurse when I see one, and I’m looking at one right now.”
She wanted to accept his offer. She really wanted to and, more than that, she was tempted. But he couldn’t know how, in the waning moments of Molly’s life, she’d lost part of herself. It was hard to explain, but it was like she was afraid to care now. The pain of it was unbearable, and to be around children was to care.
Tears welled up in her eyes, but she turned her head, blinked them back before Eric could see. “And maybe you should trust mine.” Even the whisper of her voice was shattered by grief.
“Think about it. The offer will be here when you’re ready.”
“It’s a tempting offer, and I appreciate it, but, no. I…don’t think I should.”
“When you’re ready, Dinah. Like you told me the other day, it has to be when you’re ready.”
Eric stepped closer to her, so close she could feel the tickling of his warm breath on the back of her neck. So close she could smell the scent of soap on him. So close that if she turned around she’d be in his arms. Which was why she backed away, intent on leaving. She did want to be in his arms, feeling his comfort. Wanted it badly. Which was pure trouble.
“Can I help you with this?” he practically whispered. “I know I told you I’d let it go, but…”
“Promised. You promised.”
“And
I’m not breaking my promise, Dinah. I will let it go, if that’s what you want. But I want to help you, if I can. I don’t know what’s bothering you, but if you could trust me…”
If she could trust? Well, that was easier said than done, wasn’t it? Dinah spun around, found herself so close to Eric it caught her off guard, and she swayed right into him. But pushed herself back immediately. “No, Eric. I can’t trust. That’s the problem. I can’t, and I don’t want to.”
“Because of what your fiancé did to you?”
Dinah laughed bitterly. “Because I lost heart. Everything I thought I was, everything I thought I could be…I was wrong. Good skills don’t necessarily make a good nurse, because a good nurse needs heart. When you lose it…”
“Or when it’s broken?” he said gently.
“Or when you decide you don’t have it.” Emphatic words. Hard to say but she had to, if she were ever to believe them. Now maybe he would leave her alone. Pull back his offer and walk away. It was for the best, she told herself. Definitely for the best.
But Eric didn’t so much as flinch. “Do you want to tell me what happened?”
“No.” It still hurt too much. To fall so in love with a child with anencephaly made no sense to most people. A child born without a substantial part of her brain. A child with no prognosis for long-term survival. But that’s exactly what she’d done.
“Then I’m sure you’ll tell me when you can. And like I said, I did check your background, and there were no complaints. No reprimands. No mention of anything bad. So, unless I discover something different, or unless you tell me something that would make me change my mind about you—and I doubt that’s going to happen—I’d like you working for a few hours on the night shift, if you decide to do this.”
“Why?” she sputtered, disbelieving. How could he still want her? Or trust her?
“Because I believe in you. I’m not sure why you don’t, but I have enough belief for the both of us. You’re a good nurse, you belong in nursing and you’ll see that once you’re back. Maybe even find some of that heart you’ve lost. So, I’m offering a part-time, fill-in position, most likely only a part of a shift on the nights you’ll work. But as a nurse, Dinah. Not a volunteer.”
“Well, you’re either a very brilliant man, Eric Ramsey, or a very stupid one.” Dinah allowed a slight smile to touch her lips. “I haven’t figured out which it is.”
“Been called both. Maybe if you come work for me we can solve that puzzle together.” He strolled to the door then stepped into the hall. But before he walked away, he turned back to Dinah. “And just so you know, the girls want to try their hand at oatmeal raisin cookies. And Pippa thinks she’ll be up to a chocolate cake pretty soon.”
“Thank you,” she said, feeling the slightest bit of excitement. She wouldn’t let herself get too excited, though, because that required some level of trust…trust in Eric. And as much as she wanted to, she couldn’t. Wouldn’t. Still, her stomach was starting to churn.
Five minutes later, on her way to the personnel office, what she’d just done finally began to sink in. She’d said yes to something she’d vowed not to do again. It was temporary position, and things would go right back to where they were in a matter of weeks, after Angela had delivered her baby and her help in White Elk was no longer needed. That’s what she kept reminding herself on her way to fill out her employment papers. But that little warning voice was creeping in, too. Not again, Dinah. Don’t do this again.
Wise words, but was she wise enough to listen to them? Because, with all her heart, she wanted to trust Eric.
Dinah’s first official shift as a practicing nurse was quiet. In fact, if she hadn’t been so keyed up to work as a nurse again, she could have had herself a very good nap because, except for one over-indulgent eater from the lodge and mild case of sniffles, she’d had the evening pretty much to herself. But that didn’t matter. Nothing did, considering how she was back where she wanted to be, back where she belonged. So, for her six assigned hours, she patrolled the halls, tidied the supply cabinets, straightened the bed sheets, fluffed the pillows and simply existed in a place that made her happy. Dinah Corday, happy again. She desperately wished it could be permanent.
Eric called twice within the first hour, volunteering to come in if needed. But Dr. Jane McGinnis, on call for her shift, was sufficient for what seemed to be a very slow evening. In fact, she hid herself in a closed room and hung a “Do Not Disturb” sign on the door. Orthopedist by day, medical mystery novelist by night, Jane was in the middle of what she called revising a sagging middle, getting close to her deadline. Her orders were simply to leave her alone except for an emergency or unless she had the solution for getting the bound and gagged heroine out of the trunk of a car, safe and sound, while it was speeding at ninety miles per hour down the highway.
Since Dinah didn’t have the solution to that one, she left Jane to her writing.
Then there was a grandmotherly-looking night clerk, Emoline Putters, on hand in the emergency department, spending her night transcribing doctors’ notes, guzzling hot, black coffee and grumbling rather loudly, and often obscenely, over illegible handwriting. And Ed Lester, a man who mopped the halls and dusted the light fixtures, made his presence known a few times, pushing a broom up one corridor and down the next, but he did nothing more than nod and offer a half-salute to Dinah when she greeted him.
So, basically, Dinah was pretty much left alone.
At first she dreaded a long, empty night pacing up and down the hollow halls and listening to the squeak of her rubber soles on the tiled floor, and Emoline’s muttering off in the distance, then at the halfway point of her shift she was amazed how quickly her first hours had flown by.
The hours, no matter how fast or slow, didn’t matter, though. This was all about being back where she belonged. Smelling the smells, hearing the sounds. Home.
“Want me to go out and scare up some business?” Eric asked, as Dinah scurried by treatment room number three on her way to do nothing in particular.
She glanced in, saw him stretched out on the exam table, feet up, head propped up on several pillows, hands clasped behind his head. “Are you checking up on me?”
“Maybe.”
She wasn’t sure if she should be flattered or angry. “If that’s standard for all your new employees, fine. Check. But if it’s something about me…”
“Don’t be so defensive. Jane called. She’s at a plot point she doesn’t want interrupted unless we absolutely have to. She asked if I could back her up.”
“A plot point.”
“She’s going to donate part of the proceeds from her book to expanding the orthopedic wing. We’re in ski country here. We want that expansion, so we do what we have to.”
“So we’re not supposed to call the doctor on call.”
“Not when she’s at a crucial plot point.” He swung his legs down off the exam table and sat straight up. “If we can at all avoid it.”
“You run a very lenient hospital here, Doctor.”
“We try to. I came from a very typical medical background, it worked. But when I got here, this just seemed like the place to…to be something different, do something different. We try to make our medicine more relaxed, more personal.”
“More involved?”
He nodded. Neil and I both felt that medicine’s moving too far away from being personal, which is why we decided to go in the opposite direction when we bought the hospital. We were both starting over at the time…he’d just gone through a messy divorce, I was recently widowed. Fresh starts all the way round.”
“Easier said than done.” She wanted a fresh start, but she hadn’t yet figured how to rid herself of the stale past.
“Or easier done than said, if you want it badly enough. I wanted it and, thank God, I found White Elk.”
“Then you’re happy here?”
“We’re all three happy here.” Finally, he stood. “You could be, too, if—”
“Got
one coming in,” Emoline Putters’ voice boomed over the intercom.
Eric chuckled. “What she lacks in finesse she makes up for in efficiency.” As he headed out toward the hall, with Dinah practically right behind him, they greeted a frantic mother leading the way while her husband carried a child through the emergency door.
“He’s not responding to us,” the mother cried, while Eric took the boy in his arms and rushed into the first treatment room. “Barely able to talk.”
“When did this start?” Dinah asked.
“About an hour ago. We heard him moaning…”
“Has he been sick?”
The father stepped in and slid his arm around his wife’s waist. “My name is Frank Jackson, this is my wife, Elaine. Our son, Henry, is ten. He hasn’t been sick, at least not that we’ve seen. And he hasn’t said anything to us about not feeling well. But about an hour ago we heard him moaning, thought it was an upset stomach, but he wouldn’t respond to us when we tried talking to him…just moaned.”
Dinah squeezed Mrs Jackson’s arm. “We’ll let you know as soon as we know something.” She turned and hurried into the treatment room and joined Eric at the side of the exam table.
“Blood pressure’s normal, pulse rate fine, pupils equal, respirations perfect,” Eric said.
“He wasn’t sick prior to this episode.” Instinctively, she picked up his wrist to take a pulse, felt the boy flinch. “Any temperature?”
Eric shook his head as he placed his stethoscope into his ears and bent to listen to Henry’s lungs. “Sound clear,” he finally said. “Heart sounds good, too.”
“But he’s not responding,” Dinah said, staring across the table at Eric. “I wonder how his reflexes are. Could be serious, if he has The Drop.”
“The Drop,” Eric responded, nodding. Fighting back a smile. “Yes, very serious. Perhaps you should do that test, Nurse.”
“Very well, Doctor.” She picked up Henry’s arm, held it steady for a moment then dropped it onto the table. There was a hesitation in movement, just for a split second, before his arm fell.
