Dating Dr. Delicious

by Laura Iding

  “Wait.” She reached out and lightly grasped his arm. He stared down at her slender hand, marveling at the warmth that her light touch brought forth, and once again he found himself wishing things could be different. “I also wanted to apologize.”

  Apologize? That distracted him from his turbulent thoughts. “For what?”

  “For being rude. For throwing you out of my apartment. I know I handled things badly.”

  He hesitated, staring down at her and trying to read her enigmatic expression. Had she changed her mind?

  And why was he even considering that possibility? When would he learn from his mistakes?

  “I’m sorry,” she said helplessly, when he didn’t respond.

  His initial reaction was to forgive her in order to put their differences aside. As ridiculous as it sounded, he missed spending time with her.

  One of the biggest differences with Hannah, compared to Allie, was that he could talk about the specific details of his job with her. Hannah understood different surgical techniques, even if she still had a lot to learn.

  He’d found himself opening up to her about some of their patients, too. Sharing a closeness that he never thought he’d experience again. Being in a new city and hospital, he didn’t have many friends. Which was probably why he’d bonded so quickly with her.

  And he was grateful, that from what he could tell, she hadn’t blabbed about their night together. He couldn’t bear to be the fuel for the hospital gossip grapevine.

  He needed to find someone else to bond with. Hannah was off-limits. “Doesn’t matter to me, one way or the other,” he said, pretending indifference. “I think you were right, it is best if we keep things on a professional level between us. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a page to respond to.”

  When her mouth dropped open in surprise, her eyes full of hurt, it took all his willpower to turn and walk away.

  CHAPTER TEN

  HANNAH headed home, feeling completely drained after Jake’s abrupt dismissal.

  At least she could take some measure of satisfaction from writing James Turkow’s discharge orders. Seeing patients go home after undergoing major surgery and a difficult stay in hospital, including a stay in the ICU, was an awesome feeling. Those were the moments that made the long hours and stress worth every bit of effort.

  Tomorrow, however, she’d have to write discharge orders for Devon, which meant he’d go straight to jail to await trial. And that depressing thought only reminded her of Tristan.

  Her conversation with her brother hadn’t gone very well but in the end she’d agreed to give him money, in the hope that he wouldn’t resort to armed robbery again.

  Being in debt with credit cards and then losing his job had gotten Tristan in trouble. Robbing the convenience store with a knife had been a stupid, desperate move. And now the odds were stacked against him. Who would give him a job with a criminal record in this tight economy?

  Trying to push her depressing thoughts out of her mind so she could enjoy a few hours of non-work-related activities, she walked from the subway stop to her warehouse apartment building. When she opened the door she was a bit startled to find Margie, her roommate, sitting in the kitchen, eating a salad.

  Not that Margie didn’t have every right to be there, but it seemed that more often than not, Margie stayed over at Bryan’s.

  To a certain extent, Hannah had grown used to living alone.

  “Hey, Margie. It’s been a while—how are you? How are things with Bryan?” She kicked off her shoes and shut the door.

  “Good. Great, actually.” Margie was a pharmacist, as was her boyfriend, Brian. She pushed her empty salad bowl aside and turned to face Hannah. “I have news.”

  Hannah dropped her backpack on the floor near the front door and crossed over to the kitchen area. The way her roommate was obviously wiggling her left hand drew her gaze to the flashy diamond sitting on her ring finger. It took a moment for the significance to register.

  “Oh, wow, Bryan proposed? You’re engaged?” Hannah squealed and rushed over to her friend’s side to give her a huge hug. “Margie, it’s beautiful!”

  “Isn’t it gorgeous?” Margie took a moment to admire her ring, along with Hannah. “He proposed last Saturday night. Of course, I accepted.”

  Saturday? Almost five days ago? “And you’re just telling me now?” Hannah demanded with a mock frown, her hands on her hips. “What’s with that?”

  “I’m sorry, but I guess we just wanted to keep the news to ourselves for a little while.” Margie’s gaze seemed a bit guilty and it took her a few minutes for the truth to register. But when it did, she realized why her roommate hadn’t immediately told her the news.

  “You’re moving out, aren’t you?” she asked, dreading the answer.

  Margie hung her head for a moment, and then nodded with a wince. “I’m sorry, Hannah. I know my timing sucks, but our lease is up at the end of August and you need to know I’m not going to renew. Bryan and I need to save money for our wedding, so I’m going to officially move into his place.”

  Hannah’s knees went a little weak, and she dropped into the nearest kitchen chair, pasting a bright smile on her face to hide the depth of her despair. She couldn’t blame Margie, and with a brief glance around the apartment she realized that over time Margie had slowly moved things over to Bryan’s, to the point that the only items left were the overstuffed sofa and cherrywood end tables.

  Margie and Bryan had obviously been planning this for a while. If she hadn’t been so focused on her own problems, she probably would have figured it out sooner, instead of feeling like an idiot, being the last to know.

  “I understand, Margie,” she said slowly. “I guess I knew this day was coming eventually. You and Bryan have been joined at the hip for the past year.” But she hadn’t expected to deal with finding a new roommate or a new place to live quite this soon.

  Even if she did find someone, she’d be forced to split the rent equally.

  She drew a shaky breath and let it out slowly, trying to rein in her panic. First Tristan getting out on parole and now losing Margie as a roommate. Her financial situation was going downhill fast.

  Less than two months. She had just over six weeks to work out new living arrangements.

  “I’m sorry, Hannah,” Margie repeated, as if sensing Hannah’s true feelings. “I dreaded telling you, because I knew it would be difficult for you.”

  Hannah shoved her bout of self-pity aside. “Don’t be ridiculous. Good heavens, Margie, you’re engaged! I think this news calls for a celebration.” She stood up and crossed over to rummage in the fridge. “Don’t we have an unopened bottle of champagne left over from New Year’s? Yep, here it is.” She pulled out the bottle and proceeded to open it, shooting the cork right up into the ceiling with a loud pop.

  Margie opened the cupboard above the sink and drew out two slender champagne flutes. “Let’s fill them up,” Margie said with a giggle.

  Hannah poured the champagne and then lifted her glass in a toast. “To you and Bryan—may your marriage be filled with many years of happiness.”

  “Aw, thanks, Hannah,” Margie murmured. “I’m so happy with Bryan. He’s a great guy.”

  “Of course he is—you wouldn’t settle for anything less,” Hannah said supportively.

  As Margie talked about their plans for a summer wedding, Hannah resisted the urge to down the entire glass of champagne in one gulp. She and Margie had been rooming together for the past six years, meeting in one of their undergraduate classes and being friends ever since. Their friendship had survived many ups and downs. The thought of starting over with someone new was overwhelming.

  “I’ll be out by the weekend. I figure I’ll leave most of the furniture here for you,” Margie said casually, “as Bryan has plenty of stuff.”

  “No, Margie, it’s only fair you take what’s yours,” Hannah argued. It was easy to see that Margie was trying to ease her guilt by leaving all the furnishings. “I’ll manage.
”

  “It’s not a big deal. Bryan has newer stuff anyway.” Margie finished her glass as her cell phone rang. “Oh, that’s Bryan now. He’s coming to pick me up.” After a brief conversation with her new fiancé, Margie rushed over to give Hannah another hug. “Thanks for not being mad at me,” she whispered.

  “Never,” Hannah replied, returning her hug and hoping her misty eyes wouldn’t be noticed. “Just promise me you’ll be happy.”

  “I will!”

  She managed to hold it together until Margie had left. Even though she’d stayed by herself in the apartment hundreds of times, the finality of Margie’s leaving made the emptiness worse.

  Hannah poured herself another glass of champagne and prepared to drown her sorrows.

  * * *

  “Okay, Devon, you’re all set to go,” Hannah announced, finishing the last of his discharge orders.

  “I don’t wanna go to jail,” the nineteen-year-old whined.

  At that moment he sounded exactly like Tristan. Four years ago Tristan had been the same age, nineteen, and he hadn’t wanted to go to jail. Now her brother was free and she hoped he’d make good choices.

  She gave him a stern look. “You tried to rob a liquor store,” she reminded him. “Call me crazy, but when you get caught breaking the law it shouldn’t be a surprise to end up in jail.”

  “It was Joey’s idea,” Devon muttered with a sullen look on his face. He had a liberal sprinkling of tattoos over his arms and chest but thankfully none of the gang markings she’d come to recognize.

  If he wasn’t sucked into a gang, there might be a chance Devon could pull himself back on track. Of course, that’s what she’d once thought about Tristan and so far that plan hadn’t exactly turned out as she’d hoped.

  “Devon, listen to me. You’re the only one who can turn your life around,” she said. “Not your brother Joey, not any of your other friends, only you. If you stay on the course you’ve chosen, you’ll end up in and out of jail for the rest of your life. Or you could use this opportunity to turn your life round. Take the classes they offer in prison. Learn a useful skill, because getting a job with a criminal background isn’t going to be easy. But if you believe in yourself, anything is possible.”

  Devon scowled but seemed to listen. She heard a noise outside the door and turned to find Jake standing there. His empathetic gaze met hers, and she realized he’d overheard her conversation with Devon.

  She moved as if to walk past him, but he stopped her with a light hand on her arm. “Almost sounded as if you were speaking from experience.”

  With his face so close, and his gaze locked on hers, she couldn’t lie. “Yes.”

  His eyes widened in shock but just then their trauma pagers went off simultaneously, announcing the arrival of another patient. The flow of trauma patients had been nonstop over the past few weeks.

  She followed Jake, who took the stairs, the quickest route, down to the trauma bay.

  Eleven in the morning should have been too early for motor-vehicle crashes, but that was the call on her pager. And when the four gurneys were wheeled in one right after another, her heart sank.

  “What happened?” she asked, rushing over to the last patient being taken over to the farthest trauma bay. The patient was a sobbing child, who Hannah estimated to be in her early teens.

  “A spare tire flew off the back of a pickup truck and smashed through the windshield of a van,” Andrea said, before going over to the third patient.

  Jake had taken over the care of the first patient, who looked to be the most serious of the bunch. The driver, no doubt.

  “I want my mommy!” The young teenage girl sobbed as one of the nurses tried to offer comfort. Hannah pulled her gaze away from the driver, whom she assumed to be the girl’s father, and began her trauma assessment.

  “It’s okay,” Hannah soothed, taking precious seconds to try to put the girl at ease. “I need to examine you, okay?”

  “BP ninety over forty-four with a pulse of one hundred and one. Respirations thirty,” the nurse announced.

  Stable vitals meant she could take her time in assessing for injuries. She didn’t want to miss anything. She bent over to do a neuro exam, breathing a sigh of relief that the girl’s pupils were equal and reactive. She’d get a head CT just in case, but there was at least one obvious femur fracture and she wanted to make sure there weren’t any others.

  “Give a five hundred cc bolus of LR to get her pressure up. And get X-Ray in here. I want to see films of her chest, pelvis and all extremities,” Hannah ordered.

  “What about her abdomen?” the nurse asked.

  “A CT scan of her abdomen will give us more information than a flat film.” She’d noticed that this was the same protocol that Jake tended to use. “Once I evaluate the status of her lungs, we’ll get the CT scan.”

  “Okay,” the nurse agreed.

  “Where’s my mommy and daddy?” the girl cried, again.

  Hannah glanced down at the girl’s name on the clipboard. “Emily, your mom and dad are in beds right next to you. We’re taking good care of everyone, so try not to worry about anything right now, okay?”

  “Is Eric here, too?” the girl asked, gripping her hand tightly. Hannah could only imagine how scared she must feel.

  “Is Eric your brother?” Hannah asked, as talking seemed to help make Emily feel better.

  Emily tried to nod, but they still had her strapped down to the trauma board so she couldn’t move her head. “Yeah, he’s a year older than me. I’m the youngest.”

  “Let me guess,” Hannah said, releasing her hand so she could write down her assessment. “Fourteen?”

  Emily’s luminous brown eyes widened in amazement. “How did you know?”

  “I was your age once,” Hannah said with a gentle smile. “Okay, Emily, here’s the X-ray machine. We need to take a lot of pictures, so you’ll need to stay really still. Can you do that for me?”

  “Yes,” Emily whispered. “But my leg hurts.”

  “We’ll give you something for pain. Do you have any allergies?”

  Her expression clouded. “I don’t know.”

  Hannah glanced at the nurse closest to the IV. “Start with two milligrams of morphine and watch for any sign of an allergic reaction. If she tolerates it well, you can go to four if she needs it.”

  She stepped back, out of the way, so the radiology tech could begin taking pictures. While she waited, she went over to call an ortho consult, and then went over to see how the rest of the family was doing.

  Emily’s father had clearly taken the brunt of the damage. His lower face was bloody and she’d bet he had a broken jaw at the very least. And as Jake was in the middle of placing an intracranial probe in his head, she surmised he’d sustained a bad head injury, as well.

  Emily’s mother and her brother Eric appeared to have multiple fractures, but so far they both were responding to questions. Clearly the father was the sickest of the bunch.

  Emily’s chest X-ray revealed a broken collarbone and a small pneumothorax. Hannah placed a small chest tube and then turned her attention to the rest of the films.

  Emily’s leg had sustained a compound fracture, and the bruising along her abdomen made her suspect a liver laceration. Since the rest of the injuries weren’t that bad, she went ahead and ordered a chest and abdominal CT scan.

  While she waited for Emily to return, she headed over to offer Jake her assistance.

  He was talking to the neurosurgeon on call and glaring at the monitor. “There has to be more we can do to bring his intracranial pressure down.”

  “You’ve already started the hypothermia protocol and given IV mannitol. At this point all we can do is wait. I have a bed ready for him in the neuro ICU.”

  She could feel Jake’s frustration radiating from every pore in his body. His face was tense as he nodded. “Fine, we’ll send him up.

  “Do you need anything?” Jake asked when he saw her hovering nearby.

 
“Just for you to review Emily’s CT—she should be back any minute.”

  “No problem.”

  The nurses scurried around getting everything ready, and soon Paul Scotland was being transported up to the ICU.

  Jake came over when Emily returned, and reviewed the scans for himself. “She has a grade-two liver laceration, but otherwise everything looks good to me.”

  “Should we watch her in the ICU overnight?”

  Jake hesitated, and then shook his head. “No, ICU beds are tight, and she’d only get bumped out later if someone more serious came in. Send her to the general surgical floor. Who’s the intern on call tonight?”

  “I am,” Andrea said, coming over.

  “Steven White is the attending, and I’ll update him on everything before I leave, but I’ll need you to keep an eye on her.”

  “I will,” Andrea promised.

  Jake gave a brief nod and walked over to check on Tracey, Paul’s wife, and Eric, Emily’s brother. Hannah tagged along, anxious to know what the rest of the family was facing. She was relieved to discover only Paul’s injuries were deemed to be life-threatening. The rest of the family would be sent to beds on the regular floor. Jake told her to make sure the family members’ rooms, other than Paul’s, were all together. She was impressed with his decision, knowing that they would do better if they were together. The floor nurses upstairs protested the extra work, but she refused to take no for an answer.

  While they were waiting for the beds to be ready, she stood by Jake as he did his best to reassure the fourteen-year-old. “Emily, I’m not going to lie to you, okay? Your father has a serious head injury.” Emily’s eyes immediately filled with tears. “But try not to worry. We’re going to watch him very closely in the ICU. He has a good chance of getting better.”

  Big tears rolled down Emily’s cheeks. “I want my daddy,” she sobbed.

  “I know you do.” Jake’s eyes were bright and his voice husky as he took Emily’s hand. “I promise you, we’ll do everything to help him get better.”