by Laura Iding
Only once Emily had calmed down did Jake finally turn away.
“That poor family,” she murmured, as the transporters arrived to wheel the stable family members to their rooms.
“Yeah.” He shook his head slowly, not embarrassed by his display of emotion. “Makes me thankful for what I have. Life is too precious to waste.”
She couldn’t help feeling a tiny flash of guilt. She hadn’t been thankful for her family lately, had she? No matter how difficult things were, people were more important than money.
She could try taking out another loan, although she’d already taken out loans for all her undergraduate and medical school tuition. Maybe she wasn’t quite maxed out yet. Even with the loans she already had, she’d be paying off the balance in monthly payments in an amount mirroring a mortgage on a house for at least the next thirty years.
But so what? She hadn’t gone into medicine for the money. She’d wanted to help people. The way Marilee McDaniel had helped her. The kind surgeon had spent hours at Hannah’s bedside during the ten days she’d been in the hospital, because her mother had either been working or taking care of Tristan. Marilee had befriended her. Had arranged for her teachers to send her homework, so she didn’t fall behind. And one night Marilee had helped her study for a biology test, encouraging her to study medicine since she loved science.
Marilee had shown by example how people were important. Money was easily replaced. People weren’t.
Her mother had made a bad decision in marrying her loser father, but it hadn’t been her fault she’d ended up with arthritis and was unable to work.
And if Tristan needed financial support to stay out of jail, she’d help him.
The trauma bay emptied out, and they walked toward the staff lounge to get out of the way of the cleaning crew.
“Jake?” she called, quickening her pace to catch up.
“Yeah?” He paused, glancing back at her over his shoulder.
Working with him, and watching him interact with this traumatized family, made her realize just how much he reminded her of Marilee McDaniel. And how lucky she was to have him as one of the surgeons teaching her. “I want you to know, I think you’re an amazing surgeon.”
Surprise bloomed on his features. And then he scowled, as if he felt uncomfortable. “I didn’t do anything,” he protested.
Throughout her four years of medical school training she’d discovered most surgeons had grossly inflated egos and personalities that tended to revolve around themselves. She’d rarely met any that showed the kind compassion of Marilee.
And Jake Holt.
“You did everything, and more.” His humbleness only made her like him more. “I can only hope that someday I’ll be even half as good a surgeon as you.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
JAKE stared at Hannah for several long seconds, wondering if he was dreaming or if she was really standing there telling him how much she admired him.
He searched her gaze, looking for a hint of the cold calculation he’d come to recognize in Allie.
But all he saw in Hannah’s eyes was frank admiration.
“You remind me of a surgeon who operated on me my freshman year of high school,” she continued. “She was amazing, going above and beyond while caring for me. She became larger than life in my eyes, and she was the reason I became a surgeon.”
He was humbled that she’d compared him to this person who’d made such a lasting impression. “Sounds like she was something special.”
“She was. And so are you.”
He did his best to ignore an abrupt surge of desire. He cleared his throat and tried not to look embarrassed. “Trust me, you’ll make a great surgeon, Hannah.”
“I hope so.” The bright, genuine smile on her face almost tempted him into grabbing her and kissing her until she couldn’t breathe. But, of course, her pager went off. “Well, I guess I’d better go. Maybe I’ll see you later?”
“I’ll find you,” he promised. For a moment their gazes locked, before she hurried away. He stared at her, knowing his resolve to stay away was sinking fast.
The way she’d tried to help Devon, when most people shrugged off gunshot-wound victims as getting what they deserved, humbled him. From what she’d described at breakfast, her life had been anything but easy. She was different from any woman he’d ever met. No matter how hard he’d tried to keep his distance, somehow he always gravitated back to her.
Suddenly he couldn’t understand why he was trying so hard to abide by his stupid rule. Hannah wasn’t Allie. She was a hundred times better than Allie!
Allie had deliberately schemed to land herself a surgeon. He’d heard her talking about it with another nurse and when he’d confronted her, she’d denied it, claiming she loved him. Yet when he’d broken things off with her, she hadn’t wasted any time in setting her sights on another attending, Jeff Andrews, one of the orthopedic physicians. Right before he’d left Minneapolis, he’d heard they were engaged to be married.
No, Hannah wasn’t Allie. She hadn’t thrown herself at him in her apartment. And she’d kept their relationship a secret, instead of spreading word through the hospital.
As he walked back to his office, he realized that staying away from Hannah would be next to impossible. For one thing he liked her, admired her too much. And just being near her made him want more.
He wanted to spend time with her. Talk to her. Maybe give a relationship a try. Take her out someplace nice, maybe a fancy dinner and a movie.
Make love with her again, if she was willing. Which she’d just given him the impression she was.
On one hand, he knew he was playing with fire. What if he managed to get burned, the way he had with Allie?
Yet he kept coming back to the differences between them. He wanted to believe Hannah was different. That she wasn’t just handing him a line when she told him she admired him.
That she’d really meant what she’d said.
He couldn’t stop thinking about Hannah when he should have been concentrating on finalizing his proposal for Gregory Matthews.
* * *
Dinner that evening with the chief went well and, best of all, Gregory approved both positions—the trauma program manager and the administrative/data-entry assistant.
His professional career was well on its way. At least he had all the changes on paper, even if the positions wouldn’t be filled instantly. And soon they’d be able to implement the rest of the changes he’d planned. Chicago Care’s trauma program was going to become the best in the country, if he had anything to say about it.
He was proud of what he’d managed to accomplish, but on a personal note he hadn’t been able to spend even thirty seconds alone with Hannah. She’d smiled at him every time their paths crossed, so he didn’t think she was avoiding him.
He was determined to spend at least a few minutes alone with her, but she was in surgery by the time he left for the evening. That night he kept waking up, annoyed to realize only a couple of hours had passed.
On Friday morning he headed to Chicago Care, surprised to notice the sky was filled with the threat of dark storm clouds. The humidity was so thick he could swear he felt the dampness of the air on his face. Obviously he hadn’t been paying much attention to the weather lately, but the impending storm was actually a good sign.
The members of the knife-and-gun club, as ED staff generally referred to those who tended to settle their disputes with weapons rather than words, didn’t come out to play as much when it was raining. Especially during thunderstorms. Which meant fewer potential trauma patients rolling through the doors.
A quiet day in Trauma meant he’d have the opportunity to talk to Hannah.
Yet his theory was soon proven wrong as the ED was hopping when he arrived. Since this was Steven White’s week to be on call, Jake didn’t have as many patient-care responsibilities. Instead, he’d scheduled several meetings with the hospital administrators on the upcoming budget and on the latest data from the pati
ent-outcome database they had participated in. There were several areas in which Chicago Care could perform better as far as their patient outcomes were concerned, and he wanted to put some new infection-control practices in place.
With a sigh, he strode toward the administrative conference room. A day full of meetings was only going to make the time drag even more.
On days like this he wondered why he wanted to be the chief of trauma surgery. Truthfully, he was much happier taking care of patients and doing surgery.
He managed, somewhat successfully, to put Hannah out of his mind and to concentrate on work. When the meetings were finally over he planned to head back up to the ICU to see how things were going. And to find Hannah. But on his way up, he received a 911 page from the chief operating officer.
With a frown he headed back down to the administrative offices. The COO was a man in his middle forties by the name of Burke Calhoun.
“What’s going on?” Jake asked when he noticed a handful of hospital executives gathered there.
“Have you been watching the news at all?” Burke asked in a grim tone.
“Ah, no, I haven’t. Why?”
“We’re going to activate a code yellow for an external disaster,” Burke informed him. “The evening rush hour is a total mess. There’s a forty-car pileup on the freeway thanks to the thick fog rolling in off Lake Michigan. We’re hearing there are already half a dozen patients in the emergency department and we have to anticipate there are probably more to come.”
Calling an external disaster was serious stuff, and hospitals didn’t take such actions lightly. “What do you want me to do?”
“For starters, don’t plan on going home anytime soon,” Burke said dryly. “I want you to be in charge of triage, down in the emergency department. We’re setting up the boardroom as the disaster command center.”
Jake nodded and didn’t waste any time getting back down to the emergency department. He’d participated in several disaster drills involving situations such as this one. Every hospital did.
But luckily they didn’t often have to activate the emergency-management system. He hoped their practice drills held up to the real deal.
When he arrived in the ED, he found complete chaos. He glanced around for Steven White, the trauma surgeon attending on call, as he should have arrived at the hospital by now, but didn’t see him.
He found Sarah, the nurse manager of the emergency department, standing in the center of the arena, trying to gain control of the chaos.
“Okay, we need to set up a triage system here,” he announced, and almost immediately the staff surrounding Sarah quieted down. “I want each of your nurses to team up with a resident to decide which patients go where.”
He glanced around the area, making several quick decisions. “I want all ‘red’ patients, who are deemed critical, to be immediately transported up to the ICU. We don’t have room to do full resuscitative care down here. ‘Yellow’ patients can be housed in here in the arena until we can determine which ward to send them to, and all ‘green’ patients, with minor injuries, are going to be shipped over to the clinic area. Send all available nurse practitioners and physician assistants over there to treat and release as many of the minor injuries as possible.” He paused and then asked, “Any questions?”
“No, that sounds good.” Sarah looked grateful to have a plan. “How many patients do you think we’ll get?”
“I have no idea. All the area hospitals have been put on alert, though, so we aren’t the only ones who will be getting casualties.”
Sarah nodded and everyone fell into their assigned roles. He stayed in the center of the arena, ready to jump in when needed.
Jake saw Hannah briefly, and started walking toward her to talk, but someone grabbed his attention. “Dr. Holt? There’s a phone call for you.”
He took the phone from the emergency department unit clerk. “This is Jake Holt.”
“Jake? Steven White here. I’m sorry, but I won’t be in for my call shift tonight.”
Jake scowled. “Steven, we’re in the middle of a code yellow, and we have dozens of patients coming in. I really need you.”
“Yeah, I know, but I’m trapped in my car in the middle of the forty-car pileup.”
Stunned, Jake didn’t know what to say. “You’re trapped in your car? Literally trapped? Dammit, Steven, are you all right?”
“It’s bad out here, really bad.” Steven’s voice faded in and out, either from a bad connection or because he was injured more badly than he was saying. “I’ve never seen anything like it, Jake. I’m not in pain or anything, but that might be because I can’t feel my legs.”
Jake’s fingers tightened painfully on the phone as he imagined how helpless Steven must feel. “You’re going to be fine, Steven, do you hear me?” He refused, absolutely refused, to consider the worst. “Help is on the way.”
“I can hear the sirens, but I’m afraid it might be too late,” he said softly. And then the connection was lost.
Jake tried to call Steven back several times, but his colleague didn’t answer.
* * *
Hannah glanced at Jake, sensing something was wrong. She finished triaging the last of the group of patients, and as there would be a lull in the activity until the next wave of patients arrived, she headed toward him.
“Something’s wrong. What is it?” she asked in a low voice.
His eyes widened. “What makes you say that?”
She stifled a sigh. “Because I know you, Jake. I watched your face when you were on the phone earlier. I could tell something bad happened. So you may as well tell me the truth.”
His gaze softened and he gestured for her to follow as he turned and headed for the staff lounge. She gently closed the door behind them to provide privacy.
“Something bad did happen. Steven White is out in the middle of the pile-up on the freeway,” he murmured.
She sucked in a quick breath. “Is he all right?”
“I don’t think so,” Jake said. He scrubbed his hands over his face in a gesture she recognized he often used when he felt helpless. “He sounded hurt, said he couldn’t feel his legs. And he was still trapped in his vehicle.”
“Dear God.” She could only imagine how difficult it would be for the rescue workers to get through the wreckage to find all the injured people. “I’m sure they’ll get him out soon.”
“I hope so. He has a wife and a two-year-old son.”
Jake’s grim expression tugged at her heart. The desolate expression in his eyes caused her to step closer, wrapping her arms around him in a warm hug. For a moment she thought he was going to pull back, as she was violating their agreement to stay apart, but then he clutched her close, burying his face in her hair.
The embrace carried a sense of intimacy that was far more intense than the night they’d first met and made love. Hannah didn’t want to let him go, but they were still in the middle of the code yellow and their time wasn’t their own.
When Jake loosened his grip, she gave him another quick squeeze and then stepped back. “Does this mean you’re stuck here all night with me?”
A reluctant smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. “Yep, I’m the lucky guy stuck here all night with you.”
Their pagers went off, announcing the arrival of six more patients. They’d already had word about how ambulances were bringing as many as possible on each trip.
“Let’s go,” Hannah said. “We’ll keep an eye out for Steven.”
“Yeah,” Jake murmured, but she could still see the shadow of doubt in his eyes.
There was an odd hush in the arena as they waited for the patients, and then a sudden burst of activity as the doors from the ambulance bay opened. There were two ambulances filled with patients, and Hannah quickly lost track of time as the steady stream of ambulances continued to bring patients.
By midnight the stream had slowed to a trickle. The last patients to arrive were by far the sickest, including Dr. Steven White.
He was on a long board, indicating a possible spine injury.
“What took you so long to get him out?” Jake snapped at the paramedic.
“We couldn’t get the jaws of life in to open the car until we’d cleared a path,” the paramedic responded.
Steven’s face was pale and his eyes were closed as if he had lost consciousness.
“Get me a neurosurgeon over here—now!” Jake ordered.
Hannah stepped forward, hoping to calm him down. “The neurosurgeon is working on the woman with the closed cranial trauma up in the ICU. Why don’t we get a spinal MRI scan first so we know what treatment he needs?”
“Fine, get him in the scanner, stat.”
“Jake?” Steven’s eyelids fluttered open and he raised his arm to grasp Jake’s arm. “Don’t call my wife.”
Hannah frowned and leaned closer. “You don’t want her to know you’ve been injured?” she asked, not understanding. “I’m sure she’s been watching the news, Dr. White. She’ll wonder if you were on the road during the multiple car crash. She’s probably worried sick about you.”
“Don’t call her,” he repeated stubbornly. “Not until I know the extent of the damage. Not until I know...”
And then she understood. He didn’t want his wife to know in case he might be paralyzed. The paramedics had confirmed that he hadn’t been able to move or feel his legs since they’d extracted him from his crushed car.
“You know she’d want to be here with you, Steven, no matter what,” Jake said in a low voice. And when Steven kept shaking his head, he finally relented. “But if you don’t want us to call, we won’t.”
“Thanks.” Steven’s eyes slid shut. Moments later, the nurse wheeled him over to Radiology for his MRI scan.
The results of his MRI weren’t as bad as they’d suspected. He had several broken vertebrae in his lower back but, from what they could see from the scan, the nerves in the spinal canal appeared to be intact.
Hannah watched as Jake gave Steven the hopeful news. “The paralysis should be temporary. As soon as the swelling goes down, you’ll get your feeling back. It may take some time and some work on your part,” Jake warned, “but the damaged nerves should come back.”
