by Cheryl Wyatt
Her resolve lasted an entire eighth of a mile.
At the next red light, she caught Mitch studying her through the rearview mirror. He said nothing at first, then, “Feels almost like we’re having a family spat here.”
“Yeah. Hatfield and McCoy caliber,” she quipped. Especially if he joined forces with Grandpa and tried to talk her back into nursing. Not happening. Even if Lem put him up to it. And no one softened her like Grandpa could.
He’d essentially raised her every summer since her tenth birthday after her parents died. She spent the rest of the year changing homes with the seasons, depending on which relative had room. Lauren’s mom was Lem’s only daughter. Grieving over her had bonded the two like suture glue.
Now it seemed as if Mitch’s bond with Grandpa was stronger.
She shifted in her seat to put some distance between herself and Mitch. His overwhelming presence in the truck’s cab made her feel snuggled next to a nuclear reactor with a compromised cooling system. Lem stretched, scooting her closer to Mitch again. She shot Lem a that-did-not-help look.
Which he ignored with fervor.
The whistling old scamp clearly had matchmaking in mind, which meant he was out of his mind. Lauren would no more date a doctor than Grandpa would give up his greasy biscuits and gravy.
These last twenty minutes were going to be one long ride.
Despite her pulse pounding, the ribbon-cutting was not something she could bring herself to joyfully anticipate. Hopefully her unruly heart rate had nothing to do with notions of romance.
* * *
Mitch never thought this day would come. Or end.
But here he was, standing at the door of a dream. He poised an outrageously large pair of scissors over the ribbon. “They’re heavier than my military rifle.”
Laughter erupted from the crowd. Bulb lights flashed and popped from every angle. Townspeople and reporters snapped images of Eagle Point Trauma Center’s grand opening.
Surgery tech Kate Dalton leaned over the microphone. “You’d think our top trauma surgeon would slice right the first time,” she teased in reference to this being Mitch’s second attempt.
“Cut me some slack. These are duller than your bedtime stories.” Actually Kate’s stories coaxed countless soldiers to sleep, though she claimed she bored them into oblivion instead.
“Come on, Mitch! Those scissors can’t be older’n me,” Lem heckled good-heartedly from the crowd.
Laughing, Mitch sought out his friend in a sea of onlookers but snagged on a stunning redhead instead. Her gaze hit the ground like platelets in a blood storm, and her face turned just as red.
Same attraction that had jolted them earlier. Mitch hadn’t counted on this distraction.
Therefore his inner guard better be on its best behavior.
Lauren was profoundly attractive in pictures Lem so proudly displayed, but exponentially more beautiful in person. Her eyes were so unique he could barely look away. Mitch diverted attention to Lem, who watched him studying Lauren with peculiar interest. Lem’s grin heated Mitch’s neck.
He shifted uncomfortably at the podium, unable to recall the last time he’d blushed.
“To-day, Dr. Wellington.” Kate gave a dramatic sigh.
Though the sash-cutting delay was staged by request of news camera crews, Mitch’s team joined the crowd in genuine laughter.
Getting cues from reporters to continue the stall, Mitch pivoted. “If I had a scalpel rather than these turn-of-the-century scissors, I’d be set.”
Kate’s eyebrow cocked. Having worked with her in Afghanistan performing combat surgeries, he knew the look.
Mitch turned his palm up. “Scalpel?” He used his official surgeon voice. Kate produced the stainless-steel instrument.
The crowd went wild. Cheers and clapping abounded. Jubilation escalated when Kate raised the blade and saluted the building’s flag with it. The curved edge glinted in sunlight.
“Scalpel,” she repeated per surgery protocol and gently smacked its handle into Mitch’s palm.
How he loved that feeling. Only, this was epic. The moment turned surreal. Mitch hardly believed they were standing at the newly built trauma center, set to open part-time the first of next month. Seventeen days, and his team’s battlefield dream would become reality.
Next the mayor started a speech about how the center would bring their town economy-reviving revenue.
Mitch’s gaze drifted to the building, an undeniable answer to prayer. Awe for God engulfed him as he studied the magnificent steel-and-glass structure. It took his breath away, because despite titanium faith, he was a frontline fighter who’d wondered if he’d ever live to see this day.
Thank You, God, for bringing us through and to.
His eyes caressed a scripture etched above the Eagle Point Emergency entrance logo. A battlefield promise he’d clung to and prayed over every service member his scalpel came in contact with. His architect cousin had engraved it on the building: “The Lord turn his face toward you and give you peace. Numbers 6:26”
Speech ended, the mayor left the podium.
Ian Shupe, Mitch’s best friend and head anesthesiologist on his trauma team, stepped up and pulled the ribbon taut. “Ready?”
Mitch drew an elated breath and inhaled pure joy. “Ready.”
“Don’t amputate your fingers.” Ian slid his hands farther apart and grinned, evoking more crowd laughter. “Or mine.”
Mitch chuckled and set scalpel to ribbon, camouflage to celebrate the team’s war-veteran status.
He opened his mouth to utter the dedication, but sounds of distantly approaching helicopters ripped wings from his words. Probably news choppers.
Mitch didn’t look because he really didn’t fancy the notion of slicing or suturing his best friend’s finger.
That instant, Ian’s hands went lax. The uncut ribbon fluttered like a feather to the ground. Mitch looked up at Ian.
But Ian wasn’t looking at the fallen ribbon.
He stared at the sky. And he definitely wasn’t smiling.
Mitch turned, saw what Ian saw and straightened. Sheathed the scalpel and handed it to Kate, who said, “Hey, are those…?”
“Trauma choppers,” Mitch finished for her.
“What a show!” a crowd member yelled. Mitch and Ian stared at the two incoming helicopters. Medical, not news.
If this was part of the show, Mitch had missed the memo. He faced Ian. “You set this up?”
“No, you?” Ian followed Mitch, who stepped off the stage. They headed toward an adjacent field where the choppers seemed destined to land within minutes.
“What, have mock trauma teams come?” Mitch shook his head, adrenaline surging. “No. This is no drill. This is the real deal.”
Chapter Two
Mitch and his sparse trauma crew sprinted toward the field. Reporters and onlookers chased.
“Stay back!” Mitch commanded the engulfing crowd. Lauren skidded in her steps. Did she think he meant her?
He waved her to follow, but she froze in place. Her wind-tousled fiery hair rose up from her face like a crown of silken flames. Remarkable emerald eyes darted awkwardly between him and the landing choppers. Abject terror wrestled other emotions on her face. She was concerned. Conflicted. Stricken.
His heart was full of compassion for her as it had been in the car when she’d mentioned the tragic way her parents had died.
Lem once told him that she’d been traumatized by not knowing how to help her parents she’d found barely breathing. That tragedy birthed her dream to become a nurse who had moonlighted as a CPR coach so other families wouldn’t have to live her nightmare.
Mitch didn’t make a habit of questioning God, but what a terrible twist of fate it had been for sweet Lauren to lose her fi
rst patient off her obstetrics orientation a year ago.
Lem said the subsequent lawsuit also raked Lauren over the coals. Mitch knew because Lem, in his love of telling stories concerning Lauren, had left nothing out.
According to Lem, the ordeal had so devastated her, she had not only bolted from nursing, she had pulled away from God, faith, friends and family. Then wrapped herself up in her only other skill—sewing. Something Lauren’s mom had taught her and was their special mother-daughter connection before her mom died.
Mitch’s heart broke for Lauren now, seeing in person the unleashed emotion on her face. The unshackled fight-or-flight reaction in her eyes. He knew it.
That instant a veil lifted, allowing Mitch to see the huge gaping wounds Lauren’s own trauma had left her with. Hurts she had yet to be healed from.
The moment suspended Mitch in time and made him wish for words that would heal and not harm.
For Lem, Mitch wanted like crazy to comfort her but he’d have others to focus on soon. He couldn’t be everywhere at once.
But Someone could.
Jesus, rescue her. Show her the truth. Draw her back.
No idea what the last phrase encompassed, but that’s the prayer that pressed out of him so he let it fly.
He maintained eye contact with Lauren as long as possible to keep stride and still send visual cues that she was not only welcome to help, but worthy and needed.
Apparently misinterpreting his directive gaze, she whirled toward the encroaching crowd. “Cameras off!” Lauren yelled above chopper noise to reporters. “They may have real victims here.”
They? By that word, Mitch knew Lauren no longer thought of herself as part of the medical community, which saddened him.
Nevertheless, the authority in her voice impressed him because even the most aggressive reporters complied instantly.
The crowd stopped as one unit and fell back in silence. Concern infiltrated faces. Mass murmurs rose.
Mitch trudged forward. “I hope this is someone’s idea of a very bad joke,” he told Ian. Ian’s jaw clenched as he nodded.
But when a crew medic jumped from the chopper before it fully landed, Mitch knew with sick certainty it wasn’t. The strained look on the man’s ruddy face confirmed it.
“Incomiiiing!” Ian yelled.
Mitch’s team rushed ahead, leaving him to obtain report and issue orders.
As when overseas, they worked like neurons not having to be told their duty.
Ian and Kate met one chopper. Mitch’s circulating and triage nurses approached another.
Gratitude for their professionalism filled him.
His pre-op and scrub nurses weren’t flying in until next week, and his recovery nurse had pulled out to reenlist. Mitch would need to replace her ASAP.
He grabbed a man with a microphone. “Clear paths. This isn’t part of the ceremony. We have injured on the way.”
The microphone man complied. Officials looked as baffled as Mitch felt. “But are you set up for that?” one sputtered.
Mitch’s risen hands both halted and calmed them.
The mayor jogged to keep up. “Sir, you’re not officially open… .”
“We are if those choppers have wounded in them.”
The mayor’s face turned grim. “They radioed they were coming to see the trauma center opening, but not with patients. Dr. Wellington, I fear something terrible has happened.”
Mitch’s sentiments exactly. “We’ll handle it, Mayor. We’ve handled worse situations before.”
Respect gleamed from the mayor’s eyes. “I’m sure you have. What can I do?”
“Send any available Eagle Point EMTs and other first responders. And thank God choppers were right there.”
“Yes, indeed, but are you sure the center is ready to—?”
“Absolutely.” We’ll make it ready. Mitch turned, ending the conversation. The crowd parted as he plowed through. He paused to focus on a third approaching chopper.
What had just happened?
If distant smoke billowing above trees lining the interstate was an indication, something massive.
A horrible thought struck. There was one major road in and out. If this was a northbound motor vehicle accident, the victims had most likely been on their way here to the ceremony.
So in building the trauma center, he’d created catastrophe?
No. He refused to believe that or doubt God’s goodness.
Until another medical chopper ripped through the clouds. Disbelief coursed through him. How many more casualties would come? No matter. They’d handle it.
Mitch peered into the domed windows of medical choppers to get an idea of how many patients occupied each.
Rushing air and the high-pitched whup-whup-whups of whistling rotor blades pushed all other sound away.
Mitch mentally counted his staff. Not nearly enough. More nurses were flying in next week. He needed help now.
Instantly Mitch thought again of Lem’s granddaughter.
He turned, scanned the crowd.
Lem had said her biggest regret was that intense college years had prevented her from visiting Lem. Hadn’t he mentioned something about her working as a surgery tech while in school?
If so, that meant she had the experience he needed. Mitch hoped like crazy she hadn’t let her license or certifications lapse.
He ran toward the throng of people. Found her huddled next to Lem, whose eyes rivaled hers for biggest and roundest of the crowd.
Gauging that his staff was triaging the ground choppers and he still had a minute until the others landed, he sprinted over.
Mitch faced Lauren and placed firm hands on her shoulders. Willed her to look him in the eye. “Lauren, are you current?”
“Wh-what?”
“Your nursing license. Is it current?”
“N-not in this state.” She blinked furiously.
“In Texas?”
She nodded slowly, looking confused as to why he’d ask.
“Are all of your emergency certifications up to date?”
“Y-yes, but—”
“That’s good enough. You’re legal in a mass casualty situation, which is what I fear we have here.”
“What? No, you can’t possibly ask—”
He could and he would.
“Lauren, listen to me. I need your help.”
She shook her head vehemently.
He swiveled his neck to watch the next chopper prepare to land, its flight crew frenziedly working over someone.
No time to argue.
Facing Lauren again, he increased hand pressure, hunkered his shoulders and got nose to nose with Lem’s granddaughter. “Nurse Bates, I’m not asking. I’m ordering. Triage chopper number three, then meet me at four.”
Desperate hands came up to clutch his. “Mitch, please,” she rasped. “I can’t. I’m not qualified for trauma. I worked OB.”
Compassion vying for impatience, Mitch leaned close to her ear. “Lauren Esther Bates, I’ll tell you what a wise man told me when I doubted I had what it took to be a doctor.”
He eyed Lem respectively, then Lauren pointedly. “God doesn’t call the qualified, He qualifies the called. I’m convinced He put you here for this precise moment. I don’t have enough hands. People are dying. We need you. Go.” He gave her shoulders a nudge—okay, more like gentle shove.
Rage streamed from her eyes, then tears.
She spun and ran to the chopper. He caught the piercing cry she hurled at him upon turning.
Her scathing reaction promised she’d never forgive him for this. But practicing triage medicine wasn’t a popularity contest. He had a job to do and people to save.
He faced Lem. “Sorry, but—”
Lem
shook his head. “Just do your job, son. I’ll get a ride home.” Lem affectionately clasped his shoulder.
Mitch eyed the last chopper hovering above a windblown field. “I meant sorry for speaking to Lauren in that manner.”
“She’ll be all right.”
Mitch hoped so as he observed her taking a report from the third chopper crew on his way to meet the fourth.
She probably wondered how he knew her middle name. But Mitch knew nearly everything about her because, true to what he’d said in the car, Lem never stopped talking about her.
He’d already known how her parents had died, but had asked out of sensitivity in order to gauge how many details Lauren knew so he wouldn’t mistakenly speak of it.
Mitch had heard many times how she was named after the Biblical Esther at Lem’s request at her birth.
If Lauren Esther was made of the same moral fiber as her namesake and as her grandpa, she wouldn’t bail on him, his skeleton crew…or the people injured in those choppers.
Lord, I hope like the end of hiccups that You bestowed Lem’s courage, compassion, intelligence, recall, integrity and unflappable grit upon Lauren.
The next two hours would tell.
Chapter Three
Satisfied Lauren was on board with his plans, Mitch sprinted to the last-landed chopper. Three’s crew worked feverishly, but he had peace Lauren could handle it. A medic disembarked and rushed Mitch, who eyed his beeper to be sure he hadn’t missed pages about this.
“Status?” Mitch asked the out-of-breath flight medic.
“Three-car accident. High-speed head-on.” He hitched a thumb toward the interstate. “Mass casualties…” He indicated the array of life flight choppers. “Obviously.”
Blades wind-whipped Mitch’s lab coat as they approached the fleet. Gas fumes permeated the air. “What happened?”
The medic’s eyes hooded. “Texting teen crossed the center lane. Hit a minivan, which spun into a third car. Perpetrating car ejected unbelted passengers. Twelve victims in all. Van folks in bad shape, but we can make it to St. Louis with them.”
