Lukas wanted to kiss her.
He was getting too emotional these days.
Zach and Lee Becker sat with their daughter, Shannon, in Mercy’s office. So far Lee had managed not to cry, but Zach’s eyes had dripped tears since they entered the office. He and Shannon had made a hefty dent in the box of tissues on the desk.
“The tests all came back negative,” Mercy announced, feeling the relief in the room. “No pregnancy, no disease. Shannon, you’ll have a black eye for a while, but it’ll go away. What I’m concerned about right now is how you’re dealing with this psychologically. Your counselor says you’re doing well, but she wants to continue to meet with you every weekday after school for at least another week and then taper off from there. Is that okay with you?”
Shannon nodded as new tears formed in her eyes. “I told Mom and Dad everything, Dr. Mercy, about when I came to see you last week. They know you couldn’t tell them that I asked you for birth control. They were upset I even thought about it. I can’t go riding around with my friends anymore.”
Good.
Zach grabbed another tissue and blew his nose. “I just wish I knew where we messed up, Dr. Mercy. I wish Shannon had felt she could talk to us.”
“If you feel that way, I think you and Lee should see the counselor again, as well. This is going to take a long time to work through. I’ll call today and have her schedule all of you for a meeting.”
Lee clenched her hands tightly in her lap. “That monster who raped her is out on bail. We’re going after him with everything we’ve got. He’s not getting away with this.”
“No, he isn’t,” Mercy said. “I called the prosecuting attorney’s office and told them I’ll be happy to testify or produce any evidence they need that I can give them.”
After the grieving family left, Josie came to Mercy’s open office door and knocked. “Dr. Mercy, we’ve had two cancellations and one walk-in who thinks she might be pregnant.”
Mercy couldn’t prevent the scowl that crossed her face. It seemed as if every other patient these days was pregnant, and right now it felt like a slap in the face from God, a reminder of what she’d lost. Maybe she should stop taking OB cases. After all, she was family practice, not ObGyn. Maybe she could start referring.
“Dr. Mercy?” Josie stepped into the room. “You okay?”
“I’m fine.”
“I guess Shannon and her parents are taking things pretty hard.” The nurse sank into the chair closest to the door. “I know I would if I had a teenage daughter who’d just been raped.” She sighed. “I guess I won’t have to worry about teenagers for a while, though…if ever.”
Josie’s voice sounded so despondent suddenly that Mercy looked up at her. Josie had been married for five ecstatic years, and never in that time had she openly lamented the fact that she had, as yet, been unable to conceive. “I’m sorry. Don’t give up, Josie.”
“Oh, I’m not. There’s time yet. I’m not even thirty. How about you? Think you’ll ever get remarried and have more kids?”
The innocent question buried itself deep in Mercy’s heart like the point of a blade. She forced herself not to react. All she could so was shake her head.
“Well, don’t give up.” Josie stood up and headed toward the door. “If grumpy old Dr. George can find somebody to marry him—”
Mercy looked up. “Jarvis is getting married?”
Josie turned back and shrugged. “Didn’t you hear? It’s all over town. I heard about it at church yesterday. Jarvis took off with his fiancée this weekend to get married.”
Mercy shook her head and leaned back in her chair. Was she the only person in the world who would be alone for the rest of her life?
Chapter Twenty-Four
After the noon rush was stitched up, cleaned up and written up, Lukas sank once again into his chair at the central desk. The secretary, tech and double-shift nurse had all escaped for lunch in the break room, leaving Lauren to call them if more patients arrived.
Lukas glanced over at her where she sat charting. “Uh, Lauren, do you have a minute?”
She looked up from her clipboard, her blond brows drawn together in concentration. “Sure, Dr. Bower. What d’you need?”
Something in him relaxed at the easy tone of her voice. Lauren never held a grudge. He liked her. She was a friend.
“Sorry I said what I did this morning. I’m just always amazed at the speed with which information travels in this town.”
“You were right, and I’m the one who’s sorry,” she said. “I am a gossip. I guess I try to tell myself that if the words I’m saying are true, it isn’t gossip. I always go to the source to see if it’s true, and that way I don’t feel so guilty. But it doesn’t work that way. The truth gets changed, and somebody always gets hurt. Like, for instance, it’s true that you’re a doctor, and word spread all over Knolls when you moved in here. I bet you got charged double the price to have your lawn mowed or gutters cleaned, because everyone knew you were a doctor, and they think you’re rich or something, and that they have a right to your money. So even though it’s true you’re a doctor, it’s nobody’s business outside the hospital. When I look at things like that, I know I’ve got to start trying to keep my mouth shut. I’ve always had trouble with that.”
Lukas decided he’d better get a lawn mower next spring.
She continued. “Gossip or not, I did hear that you and Dr. Mercy broke up. That’s hard. I know.” She cleared her throat and looked away. “You and Dr. Mercy were getting really close. I was afraid this might happen.”
He still didn’t want to talk about it, but he didn’t want to snap at her again. “You were?”
She shrugged. “I dated a guy once who wasn’t a believer. I couldn’t have married him. Two people can’t be unequally yoked, so I had to break it off with him. It was really hard. My friends all thought I was crazy. Ever since then I don’t date anyone who doesn’t believe the way I do. If I meet a guy and he asks me out, I ask him right off if he believes in Christ, and then I ask him to give me his personal testimony. It’s hard to do, and I’ve scared a few guys off like that, but it’s probably the best for both of us. But with you and Mercy, you started off as friends and colleagues, and I guess you were caught off guard. How’s she taking it?”
To his relief, before he could answer the question, the E.R. door opened, and a man walked through pushing a woman in a wheelchair.
Lukas thought he recognized the man, but it wasn’t until he looked down at the woman that he realized who these people were.
He jumped up and walked around the end of the central desk. “Arthur and Alma Collins!” He shook Arthur’s hand, then bent to take Alma’s proffered one. “You’ve been released!”
“That’s right,” Alma drawled in her Southern accent, pressing his hand between both of hers. Alma had short light brown hair, and eyes the color of honey that smiled into his with warmth. “You got me to Springfield so fast, they were able to save more of my leg than they expected.” She indicated the right leg, which revealed a below-the-knee amputation. “When I get my prosthesis, walkin’ will be a lot easier because of you and your staff, Dr. Bower. If you hadn’t been in such a rush to get me to help, I might’ve lost the knee, too. That’s what they told me up there.”
Alma Collins’s positive attitude and heartfelt appreciation for what he’d done felt great.
“We wanted to come by and thank you in person,” Arthur said. “For that, and for your prayers, and for the flowers you sent us.” Arthur stood about two inches taller than Lukas’s five foot ten, and he had wavy red hair mixed with gray. His face expressed the same serenity as Alma’s. “Are we keeping you from your work? We won’t take long.”
“I was hopin’ to meet that lady doctor who prayed with Arthur,” Alma said, glancing around the empty E.R. “He told me all about how nice she was to him, and the way she helped Mr. Martínez when everybody else was so mad at the poor guy for causin’ that wreck. Did you ever get a translator f
or him after Arthur left?”
“Yes, we called the man Arthur told us about.” Lukas urged them to follow him into the private waiting room. “I’ll let you go see Mercy, but I want you to myself first, if you have the time to talk.” Lukas held the door open while Arthur pushed Alma through. “Amazingly, we aren’t busy right now, and that’s unusual for us at this time on a Monday.” He gestured for Arthur to sit down on a chair beside Alma’s wheelchair, and then he sat across from them. “You’ve been on our minds a lot around here.”
Arthur smiled and looked sideways at his wife. “Hear that, Alma? They’ve been thinking about us, too. You’re the intuitive one. Do you think that’s a sign?”
“I should say it is. It’s an answer straight from God.” She looked back at Lukas. “We’re up to somethin’, Dr. Bower. We’ve done some checkin’ with the Knolls Chamber of Commerce, and you folks don’t have a Crosslines in this town.”
Lukas stared at her blankly. “A Crosslines?”
“Yeah, you know, kind of like the Salvation Army, only it’s supported by the local churches. We’re thinkin’ about startin’ one here.”
“You? But I thought your mission in—”
“We can’t go back to Mexico now,” Arthur said quietly. “Not for a long time, not with Alma’s leg the way it is. It’s going to take a lot of rehabilitation. Our mission board suggested that we might want to start a home mission in Missouri. They’ll still support us, and we can choose a place where we can work with Hispanic people and put our experience to work. You have a lot of Mexican people around Knolls. We feel there’s a definite need here, especially since you had so much trouble finding an interpreter the day we had the accident.”
Lukas nodded. This was too good to be true. “How serious are you about moving here?”
“We have an appointment in an hour to look at some real estate,” Alma said. “We’ve already received money from supporters throughout the state to help with our medical expenses, but the mission board had us insured. We’ll use the money we received for a down payment, and then next Sunday we’re beginning our rounds to the area churches to share our plan with them.”
Lukas whistled through his teeth. “You people don’t waste any time, do you?”
“Time wasted is souls lost,” Arthur said. “We’re not out of commission. God’s just pointing us in a different direction.”
“We thought we might also check and see if your hospital has a chaplain call list,” Alma said. “We know how important it is to have somebody prayin’ with you when you’re hurt and scared. Do you think your board of directors might be interested?”
“You’d better believe it,” Lukas said. “I’ll talk with Mrs. Pinkley, our administrator.” He was sure she would approve. He was sure, also, that the Collinses were an answer to several prayers. Lord, You know what we need before we even ask. Thank You.
Between patients, Mercy sank down at her desk. She shouldn’t be surprised that grumpy, cantankerous Jarvis George had actually convinced a woman young enough to be his daughter to marry him. He had a certain charm about him, sometimes. And he was worth a bundle.
Immediately, Mercy was sorry for her cynicism. She blamed it all on her inability to keep a relationship going with Lukas.
Was she that hard to get along with?
No, that wasn’t it at all. She had to remember that. It was the fact that she wasn’t a Christian. She was being rejected not only by Lukas, but by God.
Wasn’t she?
She shook her head and picked up the chart she’d been working on as a knock sounded at the open threshold of her office. She looked up to find a man standing there behind a woman in a wheelchair.
“Hello, Dr. Mercy. I almost didn’t recognize you without your trauma gear on,” he said.
She frowned at him and then suddenly recalled that awful day last month, and she remembered the kind eyes. “Arthur Collins?” She stood up and circled her desk, automatically searching for a healing scar on his head. She found it. It was him. She took his hand, and then Alma’s. They had actually gone to the trouble to come and see her?
“Come on in, have a seat.” She couldn’t help glancing at Alma’s bandaged leg, which ended about four inches below the knee.
“After we explained to your nurse who we were,” Arthur said, “she told us you wouldn’t mind if we came on back.” He pushed Alma’s wheelchair into the office and parked it beside the two chairs facing Mercy’s desk.
“So you’re the lady who helped God put my husband back together that day,” Alma drawled. “Honey, I just wanted to tell you in person what a blessin’ you were to him, and therefore to me. Thank you for prayin’ with him, too. We’ll never forget it.”
Mercy stood staring at them for a moment while the words soaked in, then she sat down in a chair next to Alma. “Thank you,” she said softly. “You can’t possibly know how much it means to me to hear that.” To her humiliation, she felt her eyes fill with tears. Her poor timing with her emotions had become a big problem lately.
Alma reached out and laid a hand over hers. “I guess you see a lot of sufferin’ and sorrow over there at the hospital.”
Mercy nodded, thinking about Shannon Becker, and Delphi Bell, and Clarence Knight. Compared to them, her life was wonderful. So why did she feel this way?
She dried her eyes and listened as Arthur and Alma described their plans, and she felt some of the depression lift. She couldn’t help being affected by the eagerness with which they shared their dreams. And it sounded as if their dreams might easily become reality.
“That’s perfect,” she told them when they’d finished. “Maybe…maybe God sent you to us for more than one reason.” It was hard to admit that God had such an active role in the lives of these people, but the truth was too obvious to ignore. “We need you here. There are so many people who have so many needs…sometimes it can be overwhelming.”
“Don’t be overwhelmed, honey.” Alma reached out to touch Mercy’s arm. “Just give it all to God, and He’ll work out the tangles for you. Look what He’s doin’ for us. I figure if I have to lose a part of my leg so Arthur and I can find direction about leading people to God, then that’s okay. Jesus Christ gave up His whole life on this earth for you an’ me. He had the Roman soldiers beatin’ and spittin’ at Him, and I had a nice soft hospital bed and lovin’ people all around me.” A sudden grin spread across her face like sunshine. “We’re in the lap of luxury.”
Arthur looked at his watch and stood up. “Well, Dr. Mercy, we won’t take up any more of your time. We’ve got an appointment to see a Realtor about a place for our Crosslines headquarters.” He took Mercy’s hand in another gentle grip as she stood. “Thank you again. We hope to be seeing a lot more of you.”
“You bet, honey!” Alma said as Arthur wheeled her out of the office and down the hallway. “Remember what I said. Just give it all to God.”
Mercy stood watching them until they rounded a corner out of sight, and then she walked slowly the other way to her patient in the OB exam room. Was it simply a coincidence that they had come at just this time, like a loving answer to her angry prayer? And what about Lukas calling her Saturday, just when she needed it most? Was that, too, a coincidence?
Did she have the courage to believe that something else might be going on here?
Lukas had just finished stitching an arm laceration on a local factory employee when he walked out and found Buck Oppenheimer leaning at the counter of the central desk. The man’s ears looked more prominent than usual because he’d just had a haircut so close his scalp showed through. Maybe he wasn’t happy with the haircut. His expression looked grim.
“Hi, Dr. Bower,” Buck said morosely.
“Hi, Buck. What’s wrong with you? Did your teenage sidekicks desert you?”
Buck sighed and shook his head. “Guess I’m deserting them.”
“Don’t sound so depressed about it. I thought you didn’t want to be a trainer.”
“What I want never
seems to matter.” His words sounded tired, defeated. He sighed. “I just came from the Personnel office to apply for a job as a full-time tech.”
“Really? Full-time?”
“I’m not with the fire department anymore.”
Lukas knew he had to be missing something. Buck would never quit the job he loved. “Buck, is this some kind of riddle?”
“I wish.” Buck slumped against the counter in an attitude of despair. “I’ve been suspended.”
“What?” Lukas was still missing something. “Who suspended you?”
“The fire department,” Buck said. “Pending further investigation. I can’t believe they’d do this to me, not after all these years. Eight years I’ve been with them. Eight! They’re on a witch hunt. That’s what this is, a witch hunt.”
Lukas had heard the rumors, though he hadn’t listened to them. He knew Buck too well. The idea that he could be an arsonist was ludicrous. “Did your chief give you any good reasons?”
Buck gave a heavy sigh. “He said there were some leads they wanted to check out.” He buried his face in his hands, rubbed his eyes, shook his head in frustration. “Eight long years down the drain.” He pounded the counter with his fist. “It’s crazy! And they don’t want me here, either. I guess I’m just bad news wherever I go.”
“What do you mean they don’t want you here?”
“They just told me they didn’t have any full-time openings for me.” He scratched his head, then shrugged with growing restlessness. “I bet the chief talked to them, told them I was dangerous or something. Now nobody wants me.”
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