Critical Care: 1 (Mercy Hospital)

by Candace Calvert

  “One dance.” He motioned to a volunteer passing a hat among the people gathered around the dance floor. “Remember, this is for charity.”

  Before she could protest, Logan draped his jacket across a chair and reached for her hand. He threaded his way through the tables, leading Claire, then stopped in front of the dance floor. He smiled at her. “And now,” he said, taking her into his arms, “watch your toes. They don’t teach this in med school.”

  Claire reminded herself to breathe. When was the last time she’d danced?

  Logan took hold of one of her hands and slipped his other hand around her waist as they merged into the one-way stream of dancers, following the still-giggling senior cowgirls. His dark brows furrowed, and Claire saw Logan’s lips move silently. She remembered with a quick tug of her heart how Kevin counted the cadence aloud when he’d taught her the two-step before her first dance at middle school. “Quick-quick, slow, slow. Quick-quick, slow, slow. You’re doing fine, Sis. And try to smile, would ya? You don’t want to scare the guy.”

  She summoned a smile. Logan returned it, looking anything but scared, and Claire was suddenly very aware that these weren’t her brother’s arms. Surprisingly, for the first time in a long time, she wanted to leave those old memories behind—even the good ones—and exist in the moment without worry or sadness. Just be. An unplanned detour. If only for tonight. One root beer. One dance. Nothing more.

  Though he made no move to close the distance between them, Claire felt the heat from Logan’s palm against her back as she followed the line of dance. She inhaled softly, and the scent of him—shampoo, trace of woodsy cologne, and warm masculine skin—made her feel unexpectedly woozy. She began to wish he weren’t holding her quite so far away, that he’d lean down enough that she might feel his cheek against hers. Then she began to imagine the brush of his beard growth, the touch of his skin. . . .

  “So am I making you crazy yet?” Logan asked.

  “What?” Claire startled in his arms, blinking at him. Her face warmed as if he’d read her mind.

  “With my dancing. I did warn you.” He grinned at her, his fingers tightening a little over hers.

  “No, perfectly sane here.” She nodded and began moving away from him. “But thirsty. You promised me a soft drink.”

  “Oh no you don’t,” Logan said, reaching for her hand again as the band started a slower tune.

  “You said one dance,” Claire reminded him as other couples drew close.

  “One slow dance,” he qualified, slipping his arm around her. Onstage, the bass strings thrummed as the chief of pediatrics crooned something sappy about the stars over Texas. “That first one was practice.”

  She began to protest but found herself laughing instead when she saw the look on his face—boyish and charming, with his eyes plainly pleading. “Fine,” she said, chuckling again. “But this is it, cowboy-doctor. End of this nurse’s shift.”

  +++

  Logan drew Claire closer this time, knowing since the moment of that unexpected hug at Daffodil Hill how perfectly she fit in his arms. He led her slowly, moving to the rhythm of the music, and she followed as naturally as breathing in and out.

  Minutes passed, and it was as if she belonged in his arms, almost like she was something he’d been missing and hadn’t even known it. Much the way he’d felt when he first escaped into the profound silence of the Sierra Mountains and realized his everyday life had too much noise. A revelation, a truth. Holding Claire Avery felt like that. He didn’t want the dance to end. Logan stooped down so his cheek rested against the softness of hers. She smelled as sweet as he’d imagined . . . sweeter. He closed his eyes, then snapped them open as she called his name.

  “Yeah?” he said, blinking and feeling like an adolescent fool when he noticed the music had stopped.

  Claire nodded toward a neon cactus. “Erin’s over there.”

  Blast. “Great,” he said as the charge nurse spotted them and began to wave. Why did she have to interrupt?

  “It is you,” Erin said, arriving beside them and prodding Logan with a finger. “I thought I was seeing things.” She shook her head at Claire, and her silver earrings shaped like boots swayed with the movement. “We’ve been trying to get him to join us in some R & R forever.”

  Go home. Logan smiled at Erin and shrugged. “Guess you finally did.” He glanced around the room. “Where’s Brad?” He could take you home.

  “Out in the parking lot, and that’s exactly my problem.” She turned to Claire. “Did Sarah ever call? I wasn’t surprised that Glenda and Inez bailed on us, but I was sure Sarah would show.”

  Logan frowned. Who was coming next? Merlene Hibbert? Maybe the chief of staff in a bolo tie and Stetson?

  “She called my cell maybe twenty-five minutes ago. She accidentally dialed me instead of you, but she wanted to say she couldn’t come.” Claire’s eyes clouded with concern. “She sounded kind of upset or maybe just tired. Not sure. My wireless connection was bad and it’s noisy in here, but it sounded like . . . something about her baby?”

  “Baby?” Erin shook her head. “Nope, no baby. Not Sarah.”

  “Well, then I’m not sure,” Claire said. “But she isn’t coming.”

  Erin touched Claire’s arm. “I’m sorry about this, but I need to leave. Brad’s feeling . . . Well, it’s complicated, but I need to do some damage control there, meet him at my apartment and talk things over. I wouldn’t have offered to drive tonight if I’d known that he’d show up like this.”

  “I’ll drive Claire home,” Logan offered hastily, causing Claire’s eyes to widen. She glanced down at her boots, and Logan knew she was squirming. “I mean, I could if she wants to stay longer. No problem.”

  “Great!” Erin nodded at Claire. “I’d feel so guilty for inviting you out and then dragging you away. Is that okay? Or should I call Brad and tell him I need to drop you off first?”

  No. Say no. Logan held his breath for what felt like forever, filled with the memory of Claire in his arms.

  “No,” Claire said, shifting in place. “You go on, Erin. I understand. I’ll get a ride with Logan. If it’s not out of his way.”

  Logan exhaled and waited a few casual seconds before answering. “Going right by your place,” he said with the linen-cool nonchalance of Cary Grant. “No problem.”

  Claire raised her brows, and Logan’s smile faltered as he realized—and then hoped Erin hadn’t—that, of course, he would have no idea where Claire lived.

  +++

  Logan stopped the Jeep in front of a modest A-frame cabin and told himself, though it was barely 9 p.m., there was no way Claire was going to invite him in. She’d gotten quieter during the hour after Erin left, and he was fairly sure she’d been embarrassed the charge nurse had seen them dancing.

  They’d finally had the root beers, but the only further dancing Claire had agreed to was a line dance. Some idiot thing called the Watermelon Crawl that made him look like a stumbling Neanderthal. At least she’d laughed, laughed hard enough to double over, and that was worth the embarrassment. She had such a great laugh. There were so many great things about her. But it was frustrating to have no clue what she was thinking about him, and there was every reason to believe she’d bought into all the ugly complaints she’d heard. The nurse who quit probably spray-painted them on the wall of the nurses’ lounge.

  “I’ll walk you to your door,” he said, breaking the silence after he’d switched off the engine and headlights. He peered up the dark, pine-studded driveway and then turned to her. “Although I forgot my grizzly rifle. I’ll have to wrestle ’em bare fisted, like Daniel Boone.”

  Claire laughed and her beautiful eyes lit up. Logan told himself to settle for that and to stop thinking about holding her again. It wasn’t going to happen. She stopped laughing, and he prepared himself for the fact she was going to say she could walk to the door by herself, thank you very much.

  “You’d better come inside, then.” Claire’s lips curved into a sm
ile. “The three bears could already be tasting my coffee.”

  +++

  Sarah pushed the cell phone’s End button and watched its screen until the familiar Pollock Pines number eclipsed into darkness. It was the phone’s first assigned speed dial slot: Dad. Her shoulders sagged beneath the old flannel robe as the irony struck her. The only “speed” in this call had been a rush to disconnect when her mother answered. And before she could hang up on Sarah.

  She reached for the near-empty bottle of merlot and refilled her plastic juice glass, spilling some of the liquid onto the apartment’s tidy breakfast bar. It welled up for a moment, dark as blood on the white tile, and then seeped slowly into intersecting grout lines. She frowned. Sloppy, careless. She’d retrieve that old toothbrush from under the sink, grab a bottle of bleach, and get the stain out. It would wipe away pure and clean like it never happened and . . .

  Sarah’s throat squeezed. Did her mother guess how desperately she’d needed to hear her father’s voice? Was that why she answered the phone herself? Had the call been purposefully intercepted, the way it had been this same time last year? Could her mother know how completely unbearable the next few days would be for Sarah? Oh, Mama, please. Please. She bit her lower lip, unable to stop the mournful groan. Did she remember that next week was Emily’s birthday?

  Two. She’d have been two years old.

  Sarah slid from the kitchen stool, letting a brief rush of dizziness pass. She stretched, pressing her knuckles into her lower back, then glanced down at the cell phone on the breakfast bar. She’d called Erin to say she wasn’t coming to that Denim and Diamonds fund-raiser tonight, hadn’t she? The memory was fuzzy, but . . . oh yeah, she’d accidentally punched Claire’s number. But at least Erin would get the message. No problem, then. She imagined Erin and Claire and the others who’d planned to go tonight, and the thought struck her. What had the social worker advised at the critical incident debriefing? “Do the things that feel good to you”? Yes. And that’s exactly what they were doing. Good for them.

  She walked across the short stretch of carpeting to the painted wooden rocking chair and eased into it. She pushed off with her bare toes and set the chair into gentle motion, hearing its familiar creak. Her body began to relax, and she sighed. This was what felt good to Sarah. Rocking. Imagining her baby in her arms, her daughter’s downy head brushing against her lips. Remembering the sweet scent of her skin. She closed her eyes, seeing a chubby blonde birthday girl laughing and riding on the shoulders of her adoring grandpa. Emily . . .

  After opening her eyes, she patted the pocket of her robe, making certain the pill bottle was there. The sleeping pills prescribed by a doctor she’d worked with in Sacramento. She’d had them for a year and never taken one. But if the wine didn’t do the trick, she’d break a pill in half and take it. This one time. She needed to sleep, and it had been so hard this past week. She shook her head. Wine. Pills. She hated them both, but she couldn’t work if she didn’t sleep, and it was critical to stay on top of things at the ER. People’s lives were at stake. Children’s lives. And Dr. Caldwell was counting on her.

  Chapter Eight

  Logan watched the one-eared animal glare at him from a perch on the back of the suede couch, its tail twitching. He wasn’t sure, but the thing might have growled. “Hey, should I be worried about this cat?” he called out.

  The clatter of dishes in the kitchen beyond was replaced by laughter. “Well, I’d watch my back if I were you,” Claire answered. Then laughed again, like she’d remembered some private joke. “But we’re taking our coffee out to the deck, so no need for panic.”

  Panic. Logan smiled to himself. She was a fine one to talk. Which was exactly why he’d left the kitchen instead of continuing to watch Claire do things like measure the coffee, find the cups, and retrieve some coconut cookies from a tin on top of the refrigerator. Though he’d liked watching all that. Especially after she’d pulled her hair up into a big clip and swapped her leather boots for pink flip-flops. But he’d also noticed that Claire chattered too quickly as she tried to avoid his eyes. Logan’s presence made her nervous. Which was the last thing he wanted. But then, what exactly did he want? Good question.

  Normally a Friday night would find Logan taking off on his bike, maybe meeting one of the Placerville docs for some basketball. Then going back to his condo to finish off a pizza and call his dad. Or he’d spend a few hours wrestling with that oak stump rooted deep in the middle of his planned home site. Anything but making small talk in the confines of a woman’s living space.

  Logan looked around. Not that there were any frilly pillows, fashion magazines, or scented candles anywhere in sight. It struck him once again how the rustic cabin was completely devoid of feminine touches. Or anything that seemed personal, except a pair of women’s running shoes sitting by the front door. Otherwise there were simply paneled walls, a woven rug, a neat stack of logs by the woodstove, a rock wall. . . . Logan’s gaze moved to the collection of framed photos on the mantel. He glanced toward the kitchen before crossing to look at them more closely.

  In the first, a young man wearing a Superman T-shirt under firefighter gear clowned for the camera. He was muscular, dark-haired, and good-looking. A twinge of jealously surprised Logan. Was this firefighter someone Claire had dated . . . maybe still dated? Because there he was in the next photo with Claire and an older couple who looked like they could be her parents. So this guy knew her parents? A serious relationship.

  His attention moved to the adjacent photo, a tin frame wedged between the parent photo and what appeared to be a hand-stitched line of Scripture. The photo was a black-and-white enlargement, draped with a metal cross: the same young firefighter, but this time he had one arm around a Hispanic child and the other across the shoulders of a different young woman—holding her close—obviously his girlfriend. Not Claire.

  Logan exhaled, realizing he’d been holding his breath without knowing it. And recognizing too that this unconscious act may have answered his question about why he was here tonight. For the first time in a long time, he was letting himself become interested in a woman. Hard to deny. Am I ready for something like that? Logan stepped away from the mantel at the sound of Claire’s voice.

  “We’re ready in here,” she said, beckoning from the doorway.

  +++

  Claire watched as Logan, standing beside her, lifted the dainty shell-pattern cup carefully to his lips. She smiled in the darkness. If he risked putting his index finger through that delicate handle, he’d be wearing the porcelain cup to work tomorrow. She should have offered him one of those big mugs from the set of hand-painted Mexican pottery that Gayle and Kevin—no, Claire wasn’t going to think about her brother tonight. She’d promised herself that. One root beer, one dance. Now one cup of coffee? Her unplanned detour was lasting longer than she’d imagined.

  “So what’s with your cat?” Logan asked, leaning back against the weathered railing that surrounded the hilltop deck. Behind them, the seasonal creek burbled in the darkness, already filling with melted Sierra snowpack. Stingy illumination from a string of solar lights lit the surrounding landscape in hit-or-miss fashion, outlining pine branches, the cabin’s shingled eaves, a long-abandoned copper fire pit, a small redwood table . . . and Logan’s handsome profile set against a backdrop of sparkling stars. He raised his coffee cup toward where Smokey, his single ear flattened, pressed his black nose against the sliding door to the kitchen. There was a thumb-size spot of fog on the glass from the cat’s breath. “He’s not allowed outside?”

  Claire rolled her eyes. “More like, won’t come out. He’s got that little pet door, and sometimes he pokes his head out during the daytime. But he won’t risk even that after dark.” She tapped her finger against her temple. “Poor Smokey’s not quite right after the raccoon ate his ear.”

  Logan’s eyes widened. “What?”

  “We . . . I mean, I . . .” Claire paused, telling herself she wasn’t being disloyal to her brother. It wa
s only that she couldn’t talk about Kevin. To anyone. “I think it was a raccoon, anyway. There are so many of them up here. Smokey’s a rescue cat. He’s only lived here with . . . me for a couple of years now. He’s never purred. Not even once. I suppose he won’t come outside because he’s afraid he’ll have to face another raccoon.”

  Logan set his cup down on the table next to the plate of coconut cookies. “Poor guy.” He shook his head, his eyes on hers. “I guess we’re all afraid of something.”

  Claire’s breath caught at Logan’s words and she looked away, helpless to stop the memory of Jamie’s desperate struggle for air. And her own crippling doubts as she’d tried to help him—the way the incident forced the memories of Kevin’s death to surface again. Had Logan noticed all that? Was that what he’d just implied?

  She fought a jaw-trembling shiver and then decided it was smartest to take the offensive. Turn the tables on this thread of conversation pronto. She took a sip of her coffee and faced Logan, lifting her chin and forcing a smile. “So what are you afraid of, Dr. Cald-w-well?” Despite her bravado, Claire’s chin quivered, goose bumps rising as her words dissolved into another full-blown shiver.

  Logan pulled off his jacket and held it out, insisting until Claire set her coffee cup down and slipped her arms inside. The jacket was huge, and the denim, warmed by Logan’s body, smelled so much like him that Claire shivered again.

  He stepped closer and turned up the collar. “Right now, I’m mostly afraid I’ll have to treat you for hypothermia.” He clucked his tongue, chiding her like a protective parent. “Flip-flops and no coat. Should we go inside?”