The Rescue Doctor's Baby Miracle

by Dianne Drake

  “But then I went and changed things. I did something I wanted to do, and you hated that.”

  “Didn’t hate it,” he mumbled.

  “Didn’t respect it, though. Still don’t.”

  She waited for a response, a back down, a denial. But none came, which told her everything. She’d lost his respect the first time she’d stepped in front of the camera. All these years later, she still didn’t have it.

  “Suture,” he said. And that was it.

  Lorna found the package of suture on the surgical tray and opened it, then handed it across. Gideon worked silently for another few minutes, after which he straightened up and backed away from the table. “Bandage him up, basic amputation technique, and I’ll find a couple of volunteers to take him to a bed.”

  Basic amputation technique? Easy for him to say! It had been years… “You can’t just leave me here, Gideon! Not while he’s—”

  Gideon snapped off his gloves and pulled down his mask. “It’ll make a nice sidebar for your story, how you jumped right in to save a life. It’s not quite as glamorous as smiling for the camera, but your listeners should be impressed.” Without another word he strode through the curtain, leaving her there with an unconscious patient so fresh from surgery that, technically, the surgery wasn’t even over with.

  “Yes, Gideon,” she whispered, as she picked up the roll of gauze. “That’s what you did best. You always walked away.”

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Jim Frayne yelled from the tent opening.

  “Being a doctor,” Lorna yelled back. Six straight hours of back and forth, from one incoming patient to another, and she’d barely had time to breathe. Six straight hours of being a doctor and of looking over her shoulder to see if Gideon was coming back. But he hadn’t. Not even to check on his surgical patient. This had become her hospital tent to supervise, not by directive so much as simply stepping in and doing the work, and with the help of three local volunteers who didn’t understand a word of English, the nurse called Gwen, and Brian Fontaine, a paramedic who was running back and forth between the two hospital tents, she was now caring for twenty-five casualties.

  “You’re not supposed to—” Frayne started.

  Lorna looked over at the man. “Tell that to all these people,” she snapped, frantically brushing her golden blond hair from her eyes with the back of her hand. “They’re understaffed, and I can’t just sit around and watch and take notes for the story when so many people need help.”

  “OK, OK. Be a doctor, if that’s what you want to do. But just let me film it.”

  Certainly, that’s what they were there to do. Right now, though, it seemed like such a violation. These people were injured, they’d lost homes and loved ones, and allowing her little world of media medicine into their suffering was vulgar.

  “Not now,” she said, kneeling down to check the pulse of one of her patients bedded on the floor. “Maybe later, when we’re not so—”

  “It’s your job, Lorna. Not this. You didn’t come here to hold hands, and I didn’t come here to sit on my ass and wait for you to get off yours.”

  Jim Frayne was a big, burly man. Shaved head, bulging muscles, he was the best cameraman in the business, and totally devoted to his work. He was right about this…her job was to find the story, not treat the patients. Except the story would keep and her patients wouldn’t. “Fine. Then take some long shots of me,” she finally conceded. “No close ups of anyone but me. Do you understand? I don’t want these people disturbed.”

  He shrugged. “Not much of a story from a distance. But if that’s the way you want it…” He hiked his camera up and zoomed in on Lorna’s face. “Smile for your audience, Doc,” he said.

  Instead of smiling, she spun around to have a look at the patient behind her…a young boy separated from his family. He was more frightened than injured, but there was no place else for him right now. The village streets were still clogged with people hoping to find surviving family members and good-hearted volunteers bringing in food and fresh water. Among them, Cristovão, as he called himself, would get lost. So for now he had a bed. And tomorrow…She didn’t want to think about that. “I wish you could understand me,” she said, as she checked the bump on his head. It wasn’t a nasty gash, but she knew his head had to be aching something terrible.

  “They understand in actions and smiles,” Gideon said, finally coming back in to check on his surgical patient.

  Lorna looked up at him. “He’s got to be scared to death.”

  “I think most of the people who survive something like this are.” He grabbed a blood-pressure cuff and took the man’s reading, then listened to his chest. After, he pulled back the sheet and looked at the wrapped leg. “Any bleeding?” he asked.

  “Not excessive. Vitals have been stable, blood-pressure normalizing. He’s been asleep…”

  Gideon nodded. “I’d have been back sooner, but I was up on the south face, helping pull a family of five out of the…”

  Lorna held up her hand to stop him. “You don’t have to explain it to me,” she said. “I knew you’d get back when you could.”

  “About earlier, some of the things I said…”

  She shook her head. “Don’t, Gideon. It was bad enough when we went through it all before. Let’s just leave it alone here. OK? So, those five people you helped pull out?”

  He frowned. “Fine. Not injured other than scratches and scrapes. The house above them came right down on theirs, but they were lucky.”

  “Why do they live like that, all stacked up?”

  “Free land essentially, and you can’t blame them. People all over the world do it—build in places that go against nature. But comes the rain and they wash out. Look at what happens in California during rainy season. Huge mansions sliding right off the mountain face, only the houses aren’t stacked up one on top of another like they are here. The lure of the land prevails, though, and people don’t think about the consequences. And here, in this area, which is overpopulated to begin with, where no one rightfully claims the land and it’s basically there for the taking, they take it.” He held his hand out to help her up. “You need to take a break.”

  “I’m fine,” she said stiffly.

  “We take breaks,” he said. “Two hours every six, not negotiable unless the boss says otherwise, or unless you’re out on an active rescue.”

  “Except you’re not my boss.” She studied his hand for a moment, then rose without taking it. “You don’t get your way with me, Gideon. Not anymore.” Admittedly, she was tired to the bone from the most frantic medical pace she’d ever experienced in her life, which made two hours off sound like a mighty tempting offer. Had anyone other than Gideon suggested it, she would have gladly given in and been half asleep by now. But because this was Gideon… ”I’m perfectly capable of another few hours of work, in spite of what you think of me as the media doctor.”

  “What I think of the doctor who makes call-in diagnoses on national television doesn’t matter here, but what I think of a field doctor who’s just worked six hours for my response team does. And what I think is that you’re inexperienced at this, therefore you’re relieved of duty. Two hours off. If you’re still here after that, you’re welcome to come back and work for another six.”

  “What do you mean, if I’m still here?”

  “Haven’t you got your story yet? You’ve seen the suffering. Your man has filmed his share of it. So now you can go back to New York and act like an expert on what we do here. Isn’t that the purpose of this trip? To put yourself in the middle of a disaster to boost your television ratings and let your audience know you’re still a real doctor?

  “How dare you?” she snarled.

  “I dare any damned thing I please, Lorna. If you stay, get used to it because there’s more where that came from.” He turned to walk away, then paused. “The row of tents out behind the food tent…sleep in any of them that has room. We don’t pick bedmates, and we don’t get private
quarters. There’s a wooden floor down and some bedding. I’d suggest you use it. If you choose not to, do whatever you want. Just don’t do it anywhere near my base camp.”

  Stunned, Lorna watched Gideon march though the door and disappear into the darkness outside. When had he turned so hard? Sure, there had been problems when they’d divorced…problems, bitter feelings, harsh words. But never, ever had he acted this way. Was she bringing out the worst in him, or was he always like this when he was out on a rescue? One thing was for sure—she certainly didn’t know the man who’d once been her husband. Not when they’d been married. Not now.

  “He means what he says,” Priscilla Getty, Jason’s wife, called to Lorna on her way inside to relieve her for the next two hours. “Gideon’s a stickler for procedure. He’s fair, but he keeps order, which makes him just about the best in the world at what he does.” A soft smile brushed over her lips. “Like my Jason.”

  Lorna took an immediate liking to Priscilla. She was a pretty woman. Blond like her husband, and tall, she was a good match for him physically. And the look in her eyes as she spoke of him…Lorna almost envied that. She might have had that same look for a time when she’d been with Gideon, but honestly, she couldn’t remember it if she had. “He gets away with acting like that even though everyone here is a volunteer? I’d think he’d treat people better.”

  “Actually, he treats people quite well. I think you were just on the receiving end of a long, bad day. And Gideon really doesn’t like public attention, so you’re getting that fallout, too.” She poured a cup of water from the cooler sitting in the middle aisle, then took it over to a young woman bedded on the floor. Bending down, Priscilla straightened her blankets then handed her the cup. “I think because everyone here is a volunteer, it’s easy to overwork yourself when there’s so much to do,” she continued. “You come here because you want to help, but if you don’t take care of yourself, you’re no good to anyone. So Gideon sees to it that we take care of ourselves, even if he seems a little testy doing it. But he does care.” After the woman had taken her water, she patted Priscilla’s hand, said something Lorna didn’t understand but took to be a thank-you, and shut her eyes to sleep.

  “You’ll like him when you get to know him better,” Priscilla said, moving on to the next patient in the row. “Let me rephrase that a bit…when Gideon lets you get to know him. That’s the other thing about him…most of the time he keeps people at an arm’s length.”

  Lorna poured a cup of water and handed it to Priscilla, who bent down to tuck in the next patient and give him a drink. “How long have you and Jason been doing this?” she asked.

  “Almost since the day we were married. Jason’s an ear, nose and throat specialist. Nice practice, but rather boring, I think, and he needed a higher calling. Being the newlywed that I was, I didn’t want to be separated from him so I tagged along when he joined First Responders. That’s where we met Gideon. We kept bumping into him on rescues. Then Gideon took over Global Response and asked Jason to come over as his partner.” She shrugged. “It’s what I do. I don’t have a lot to contribute medically except some basic care, but I like making a difference where I can, and I’m pretty good at the rescue end of it.”

  “And your marriage survives,” Lorna commented. That, in itself, was a miracle.

  “It survives, and even thrives.” She gave Lorna a cheery smile. “Go take a nap. You really do need it.”

  Lorna handed her stethoscope over to Priscilla. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe I do need it.”

  And who knew? Two hours without thinking of Gideon might be just what the doctor ordered, since all she’d been doing for the past six hours had been thinking about him.

  CHAPTER THREE

  THE volunteers’ tent row consisted of several rounded domes sitting up off the soggy ground on wooden planks. Each nylon tent would hold two people, three if you didn’t mind sleeping on top of each other, literally, and as Lorna soon discovered, the tents that were zipped up all the way were occupied. After checking the first two, she found the third one unzipped, so she peeked inside to make sure she wasn’t intruding, then tossed in her backpack and crawled straight into the bedding on the left side. It was a very cozy arrangement with little room to separate her from whoever would be sleeping in there with her. It was kind of a throwback to those early days in the hospital on-call room, where, after a very long shift on duty, any open bed was welcome, and it didn’t matter who slept next to you so long as they didn’t snore too loudly, sleepwalk or, worst of all, talk. And actually, during her medical residency, when she’d been required to work long, consecutive shifts without leaving the hospital, and sleep had been a luxury that had been taken wherever and whenever she could get it, snoring, walking and talking aside, by the time she’d usually bunked down in an on-call room, she had been so tired that a band of marching bagpipers coming through wouldn’t have disturbed her.

  Tonight, after she’d finally admitted it to herself that she was even more tired than she could remember, that heap of bedding on top of a stopgap wooden floor felt almost as good as goose-down. It didn’t take Lorna any time at all to pull off her rain-soaked clothes, slip into a pair of dry ones from her pack, and snuggle down into the blankets. Heaven on a wooden floor.

  Was Frayne bedding down for the night, too? She hadn’t thought about him for a while, she’d been so busy, but she wasn’t awfully worried about him. As much as they worked together, they worked even more than that apart, and she was sure that he was fending for himself quite nicely. Just the way Gideon was fending for himself. It was a hard life that Gideon had chosen, she was just now coming to discover, but this was everything he’d ever wanted. Everything he’d wanted, more than he’d wanted her. She was sure he was happy this way, doing the thing he loved most in the world, which was good because she didn’t, in the least, begrudge him his happiness. As miserable as they’d been at the end of their marriage, she’d never wished him anything bad. Actually, she was glad he had this. He was a good man who deserved his happiness.

  It was funny how, after so much time, the marriage wounds she’d thought long since healed actually ached a bit. “Proximity,” she mumbled into her pillow, as she turned over on her side, her back to the center of the tent, and pulled herself into a ball. An unexpected proximity to Gideon was all it could be. Old pains resurfacing, possibly a few unresolved feelings nagging. It was natural, she decided. After all, they had planned a life and made a baby together. She was entitled to some leftover emotions, even after all this time.

  Lorna’s eyes weren’t even closed when someone else crawled into the tent. For a moment, she thought about making pleasantries since they would be sleeping together these next two hours, but she decided to forgo it since the other person didn’t so much as mumble a hello to her. Maybe that was the protocol with Gideon’s people. Crawl in, sleep, crawl back out. Most likely, her roomie was as bone tired as she was…someone more interested in sleep than chat. Did she know that feeling!

  Tugging her blanket up to her chin, Lorna shut her eyes and let out a little sigh.

  “You always did that,” her companion said. “Let out that sigh right when you were on the verge of going to sleep.”

  Her eyes snapped right back open. “What did you do? Watch which tent I chose then follow me in?” He nudged at her back, and she scooted closer to the tent side. “And don’t touch me, Gideon. Sleeping with me back then doesn’t give you the right to do so much as breathe on me now!”

  “Believe me, if I’d known you were in here, I’d have slept in the rain if there weren’t any other open beds.”

  “Weren’t you supposed to be out on rescue or something?”

  “Dani took watch. Dag, her dog, was up for it. Max was a little tired, and the dogs get the same consideration as the people. When it’s time to rest, they rest.”

  He nudged at her back again, this time a little harder, and she could feel him settle in, almost back to back with her. “Come on, Gideon. Just stay
on your side of the tent. OK?” The argument was futile. Most of them with Gideon had been because no one won. Normally, they’d fight until they were tired of it, then they’d give in and make up by…No! She wasn’t going to dwell on that! Sometimes the making up seemed the point of the argument.

  “Hey, if you don’t like the arrangement, go find yourself another spot,”

  “I was here first.”

  “I suppose this is the place where I could raise the argument that I own the tent, but I won’t because all I want to do is grab a couple hours’ sleep. So, at the risk of starting an argument that we already know we’d be brilliant at dragging out for the whole two hours, all I have to say is if you don’t want to utilize your two hours off, that’s up to you. But, please, allow me mine.”

  As he said the words, he pushed himself even more into her back…close enough that she could feel the heat of him through her blanket. Then…Dear God! What was that sliding across the back of her neck? “Gideon,” she snarled, rolling over into a large…very large…dog. “Max?” she asked, pushing away from him just as his tongue caught her across the face.

  Hearing his name, Max took that as an open invitation to join her, and rolled over, laying his head across her chest. “Would you get him off me?” she sputtered, not sure how the dog would respond if she tried forcing him.

  “He doesn’t take to very many people that way. You should consider yourself fortunate,” Gideon replied, laughing.

  “Just get him off me,” she muttered, still too wary to move. “I’ll go sleep somewhere else and you two can have the whole tent to yourselves if you’ll just get him off me!”

  “He’s very stubborn. Don’t know if he’ll obey me.”

  “Do it, Gideon! Just get the dog!”

  “But I thought you liked dogs. Didn’t we even talk about getting a puppy once?”

  “A puppy weighs a hundred pounds less,” she said, starting to ease herself away from the dog. “And doesn’t smell like…”