by Susan Stoker
Guy took the results and studied them. “What are you thinking? Some type of diabetic ketoacidosis?”
“Yep,” Tess said as she slid her arms into the second surgical gown of the night. “I’m thinking he got D-five-W in the ambulance, and that helped his blood sugar. What you got running his line?” Nina pulled sterile gloves over Tess’s hands.
“Ringers Lactate.”
Tess nodded. “Good. Okay, ladies and gentlemen, let’s go.”
Unlike her first surgery of the night, this one couldn’t have gone any smoother. The chest tube slid in like a toothpick through a drink straw. The blood flowing in the tube was dark. Definitely not fresh. She attached the chest tubing to the collection chamber, made sure everything was secure.
“If only every surgery went that easy,” Tess said with a smile.
“I’d take it,” Guy replied.
Tess stepped away from the table and ripped off her gown. “I’ll head down and talk to the parents. I’ll meet you all in the recovery room.”
She found the Worthingtons where she’d left them. Their heads snapped up when she stepped into the room.
“All good news,” she said.
Helena Worthington burst into tears. Her husband hugged her. Tess could see him fighting back his own tears.
“Got the tube in with no problems at all. The bleeding is stopped and I’m not expecting it to begin again. Freddy’s in recovery now.”
“Can we see him?” Helena asked.
“Not right now. He’ll be back in here soon. He’ll have a tube coming out his chest about right here.” Tess pointed to her right side under her arm. “It’ll be connected to a box that’ll be hanging on his bed. You’ll see bubbles in the fluid inside that box. That’s normal.”
“Thank you, Doctor Sweeney,” Judge Worthington said.
Tess nodded, relieved to be giving good news this time. Inside her soul, where she’d been gloomy, the smiling faces of the Worthingtons brought light to all those dark places, chasing away her shadows.
“Who is Freddy’s regular doctor? I’m a little concerned about his blood sugar.”
“He sees Dr. Owens,” Mrs. Worthington answered.
Tess went on to explain about low blood sugar and how it can make people appear drunk when they weren’t.
“I’ve heard about that,” the judge said. “Had one guy claim that in my court once. I thought it was just bull.”
“No, it’s very real, judge. I know Dr. Owens. I’ll make sure the nursing staff knows to contact him.”
Freddy’s mother stood and hugged Tess. “I don’t know how to thank you.”
Tess smiled. “I’m glad I was in the hospital.” To both the Worthingtons, she said, “You two need to get some rest. You’ve done everything for Freddy you can tonight. Go home and get some sleep. That’s what he’s going to be doing for a while.”
“Oh, no,” Helena Worthington said. “I couldn’t possibly leave.” She looked at her husband. “You should get some sleep, Frederick. I’ll stay here tonight.”
Tess’s heart ached as she saw and heard the love Helena Worthington had for her family. She envied the woman. The odds were stacked against Tess ever having another baby, and that made her sad. It also drove away most men her age. They all wanted children—their own blood children. Adoption was usually out of the question…or at least that was true of the men she’d dated.
Now was neither the time nor the place for these feelings, so Tess locked them away until she could express them, preferably in private, alone, and in the dark.
The powerful judge took her hand. “Thank you, Dr. Sweeney. We are in your debt.”
She hurried away. The back of her throat ached. The back of her eyes burned with unshed tears. Privacy. She had to find a place and soon. A surgeon never cried in public…never ever.
On the surgery schedule board, she left a note for the morning OR crew to find her in a call room and wake her at six. On the fourth floor, she found an empty call room. She let herself in and locked the door behind her. Falling on the bed face first, she at last let all her suppressed tears flow, soaking the bed linens.
It seemed like the minute she’d finally turned off her brain and dropped off, someone was pounding on her door.
“Dr. Sweeney?”
Tess groaned and pulled her wrist closer to her face, trying in vain to read the numbers on her watch. “What?” Her voice cracked with the word.
“It’s Tia Brown, from the OR. There’s a note on the board to find you and wake you up at six.”
Tess groaned again. She’d forgotten she’d left a wake-up-call note. “Okay. Thanks.”
Six! How could it be six? She’d just shut her eyes. She stood, stretched sore muscles, and pasted a smile on her face. Slapping her emotions back into their secure lockbox, she headed for her first surgical case of the day.
She did four cases, made hospital rounds—taking extra time to check on Freddy, who was doing great—and finished the day seeing post-surgical patients in her office. As awful as her day had began losing the Lloyd child in surgery, the rest of day progressed smoothly. Her surgeries went off without a hitch. Her hospital patients were up and mobile. Her office patients were healing well and most were quite pleased with their progress. So why did she feel the sword of Damocles hanging over her head?
Chapter Four
‡
About four p.m., the sword finally fell in the form of a telephone call from Dr. Troy Monroe’s secretary. Dr. Monroe wanted to meet with her as soon as possible.
Damn Preston Lloyd. Had he really filed a complaint with the hospital?
At five p.m., she walked into the hospital chief of staff’s office, her heart doing a tachycardic tango with her lungs. Forcing a calm expression on her face—one that did not come close to matching her jumping insides—she tapped on Dr. Monroe’s office door.
“Come in.”
Troy Monroe was Sheriff Kyle Monroe’s identical twin. And even though she’d never been in the same room with the Monroe brothers at the same time, she’d bet she’d know which one was Kyle. However, it still jarred her senses to see a likeness of the man who’d been naked in her bed last night now sitting behind a large and, her opinion, intentionally intimidating desk. Probably overcompensating for an inadequate male package…not that Kyle had that problem. But this guy…
“Good afternoon, Dr. Sweeney.” Troy Monroe stood and gestured to a seat in front of his desk. “Please sit,” he said, retaking his massive leather chair—over compensating again—and putting his desk between them.
Tess took a seat as directed. She waited for Monroe to make the first move. When he didn’t say anything, or at least didn’t speak quickly enough for her, she said, “You called this meeting. What’s on your mind?”
Troy Monroe leaned back in his chair, apparently unaccustomed to doctors not being awed in his presence, or maybe he was accustomed to women being cowed in his office. He hadn’t been chief of staff when Tess had been hired as chief of surgery, but she’d heard rumors that he’d spoken against her hiring to the board.
The board had hired her anyway.
That had been two years ago. She still didn’t know if he felt she was unqualified for the job, or didn’t like a female in a position of authority, or if he’d had another candidate in mind for her job. Regardless, the nurses had clued her in that when Monroe had become chief last year, her surgeries had begun being covertly monitored, but not so clandestine as to keep it off the hospital staff grapevine…a powerful source of information.
Monroe steepled his fingers. “I had a visit from a very distraught parent today.”
She said nothing.
“I’m assuming you know to whom I’m referring.”
Tess leaned back in her chair, crossed her legs, and mimicked his steepled fingers. She swallowed and forced a calm expression on her face. “Tell me more.”
The chief’s face set into a harsh mask. He leaned toward her. His eyes took on a hard glare. “Prest
on Lloyd was in my office this afternoon. He tells me your inadequate surgical skills failed to save his child after a simple, non-fatal accident.” The muscles in Monroe’s cheeks flexed. “Additionally, he said you were impaired.”
“Impaired?” Tess’s eyebrows shot up. “Impaired, as in exactly what?”
“As in you’d been drinking.”
Tess’s hand slapped the arms of the chairs. “That is a lie.”
“Which part? Your surgical inadequacies or your drunkenness?”
“All of it. Preston Lloyd is full of crap. His son died on the OR table, but we did everything we could do to save him. The damage to all his internal organs was just too much. The child was small for his age and his blood loss was massive. I’m sure Guy Madison would be happy to tell you about our efforts to save the Lloyd child.”
Anger rolled through her. Hot flashes of fury seared her blood. That bastard Lloyd thought he could take her down? Well he had another thing coming.
“And exactly how much had you had to drink last night, Dr. Sweeney?”
“Not a drop.”
Troy Monroe shrugged. “I guess we’ll never know if you’re telling the whole story or not since any alcohol in your system has long since been metabolized. But you had a problem a few years ago, isn’t that right?”
She decided to ignore that dig into her past. She’d been honest with the board about her history when she was hired. Monroe had to have read her personnel record and already knew the answer to his question. The jerk was just trying to unnerve her. It wasn’t going to work.
“Want to know why Preston Lloyd wasn’t in your office first thing this morning instead of this afternoon?” She held up her hand when Monroe opened his mouth to respond. “It doesn’t matter what he told you about why he waited until late in the afternoon to call. The reason was he was drunk as a skunk last night. He couldn’t show up here still intoxicated. He had to go home and get all the booze out of his system.”
This time, it was Monroe who lifted an eyebrow. “And you know this because you drew a blood alcohol? No, wait. No blood was drawn.” He snapped his fingers. “I know. The state troopers at the scene did a breathalyzer and it registered greater than a zero point eight?” He knitted his brows as though confused. “No, that’s not it. So exactly how did you, without any tests, determine our esteemed prosecuting attorney was drunk as a skunk I think you said?”
Her blood boiled with rage. “I have a nose,” she said, jabbing her finger against her right nostril. “I could smell the bourbon.”
“I bet you could,” he said with a smirk. He leaned back in his chair. “Whether Mr. Lloyd was inebriated isn’t at issue. At issue is your performance and whether you were impaired.”
Tess was not going to let this self-righteous prick run her off from a job and town she loved. As she had that thought, she wasn’t sure if the prick in question was Monroe or Lloyd…or hell, maybe both.
She stood. “My surgical skills are outstanding. Lloyd’s child had a bad outcome that had nothing to do with my performance. Everything that could have been done was done. As far as booze goes, I do not drink. Ever.” She picked up her briefcase from the floor. “If you are planning a formal investigation, please let me know now so that I can hire legal representation. If you just are going to nose around in my cases as you’ve been doing over the past six months, feel free. I have nothing to hide. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve had a long day.”
She moved to leave.
“Dr. Sweeney.” His voice was like iron.
She turned back but said nothing.
“At this time, I’ll not initiate a formal inquiry. However, I will be talking with the staff involved in the case as well as asking for the child’s autopsy to be done STAT.”
She shrugged. “It’s your time to waste.”
“Yes, it is.”
Closing the door behind her, it was all she could do not to slam it, open it, and slam it again. The arrogant prick. To think that he and Kyle had shared a uterus, parents, and similar upbringing scrambled her mind. It completely defied understanding that Kyle could be so strong and so caring while his twin brother was a condescending, self-important jackass.
She sighed and made her way to her car. If only she could have just one drink. Her mind sent the taste of cold vodka sliding down her throat. Just one drink and the pain would go away. She’d forget her son’s face. She’d forget the day Preston had ordered her to get an abortion. She’d forget today totally.
But one drink always led to another and another and another, until there was nothing left in the bottle. She’d tried losing herself in a bottle once. It hadn’t worked then, so why would it work now?
Because now she was an adult…a different person. A person capable of controlling her impulses. A person with the ability to have a single drink and then set the bottle down.
The short drive home took her past restaurants, grocery stories, drug stores, and two package liquor stores. Ten different places in a ten-minute drive to get a drink or a bottle of vodka.
Damn it. She was a doctor. There wasn’t anything she couldn’t do. Besides, who would know? A short stop would take care of her day nicely.
She pulled into her garage, cut the engine, lowered the door, and just sat there, too depleted emotionally and physically to move. Today had been the day from hell. Dropping her head forward to rest on the steering wheel, she sighed. Her shoulders sagged under the weight of all her stress.
Between surgeries, hospital rounds, and office visits, she hadn’t allowed herself to think about the early morning surgery. Could she have done anything different? Better?
And poor Kyle, just dating her would suck him into a vortex of her problems. She didn’t have ESP nor fortune-telling skills inherited from a long-dead relative, but deep in her gut, she knew a continued relationship with her would threaten Kyle’s career and his bond with his brother. And while she and Dr. Monroe did not like each other much, Kyle loved his brother. He was too good of a man to lose that connection all because of her.
And Preston, damn his soul to hell. Their affair had been hot enough to challenge the sun for dominance. There’d been an unquenchable desire that’d burned like an inferno…until the woman he was divorcing had called to tell him she was pregnant. Talk about a man singing a different song after that.
She pulled herself out of her car and shuffled into her kitchen, carrying the fifth of vodka from the last liquor store before she reached home. Setting it on the counter, she stared at it for a long time before turning her gaze out her bay window toward Happy Jack Lake. A long sigh slid from her lungs. The water. That’s exactly what she needed. Her boat. She could usually find the solitude she needed on the water.
After changing clothes and pouring the entire tray of ice from her freezer into a cooler, she shoved the vodka on top, grabbed the keys to her boat and headed out.
*
Preston Lloyd drank so much coffee between three a.m. and noon, he was pretty sure his green eyes had to be brown. But he had to be sharp this afternoon. He had to be his best. He had an appointment with Dr. Troy Monroe, Chief of Staff of St. Michael’s Hospital, something he wasn’t looking forward to. He didn’t like Troy Monroe. The man was conceited. Thought the words doctor and God were interchangeable.
Monroe had been hired by the hospital board after an outbreak of Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus had caused the death of six hospitalized patients. The public outcry had been damaging to the hospital reputation, not to mention the financial bottom line. The hospital couldn’t afford another public disaster, like an alcoholic doctor on staff.
But Preston didn’t go into any courtroom underprepared. Before he met with Monroe, he had a long telephone conversation with his new friend, Roy McCall, the chairman of the hospital board of directors. McCall had been instrumental in Monroe’s hiring, as well as Tess Sweeney’s. Too bad Preston hadn’t been able to stop Tess’s hiring but he hadn’t had McCall’s ear back then. Now, however, a few ch
oice words in McCall’s ear, and he was ready to take whatever action needed to protect his hospital, as he called it. By the time Preston walked into Monroe’s office for their meeting, he had all his guns loaded with facts, dates, and alcoholic incidents for Tess Sweeney.
That bitch would pay.
Chapter Five
‡
“I want that Lloyd accident report on my desk today,” Sheriff Kyle Monroe said as he walked through the Diamond Lakes County Sheriff Department bullpen.
“Yes, sir, Sheriff,” the fresh-faced Adams replied. “I’m almost done.”
Kyle rubbed his exhausted eyes and headed for the coffee pot. At this time of the day, the pot had been brewing a good twelve hours since the morning shift had arrived at five. The cup of joe was thick, black, and jarringly strong…just how he liked it. He carried his favorite mug—the one with a gun grip for the handle—back to his desk and dropped like a rock into his chair.
Damn, he was tired. Tucking his chin toward his chest, he rolled his head back and forth, the muscles in his neck making a grinding sound as though filled with sand. After a couple of neck rotations, his neck popped…not that it helped his stiff neck or mood. But at least he felt like he’d accomplished something, which was more than he could say for most of his time today.
“Sheriff?”
Kyle looked up. “What?”
“Here’s our report from the Lloyd accident.” Joseph Adams, the young deputy who’d helped secure the accident scene, set the paper report on Kyle desk.
Even though the accident wasn’t his to investigate, preparing a written report would be a good learning experience for the deputy.
“In a nutshell, what happened?”
The deputy sighed. “We’ve got two different versions of the accident. The Worthington kid said the Lloyd car swerved into his lane and then back but he couldn’t react fast enough to avoid hitting the rear passenger door of the Lloyds’ Lexus. Lloyd says the truck driven by Worthington swerved into his lane and hit him. Both drivers deny using alcohol or drugs, but the Worthington boy was slurring his speech pretty bad. He had a little trouble walking, but he blamed it on hitting his knees during the accident. Lloyd smelled heavily of alcohol but he didn’t appear too drunk.”
