Critical Care (17 page)

"You mean he didn't meet her after she left the fund-raiser? I
know how fast she was trying to get home. We rode together and
then-" Claire stopped, and her face flushed. "Anyway," she said
after glancing toward Logan's office, "I was sorry you couldn't be
there. I gave Erin your message, but my cell was acting up so badly
I could hardly hear. In fact, you're going to laugh at this one: I told
Erin you'd said something about your baby."

Sarah gasped against a rush of dizziness and her stomach
lurched. "I ..."

Claire moved closer. "Hey, are you okay?"

Smile. Stop this. Oh no. Did I? Sarah coughed, reaching for her
Diet Coke. "Sure. I'm fine.... I'm great. Just fighting a cold. No
big deal." She turned and pointed toward Logan's office, desperate
to change the subject and get away. "Erin's in there with Merlene
and Logan. Raising her fists for our staff-you know how she is. But
she should be finished pretty soon. I need to go check vital signs,
but you could hang out at the desk if you want to wait." She stood,
avoiding Claire's eyes.

"Sure, okay. I-" Claire stopped midsentence at the sound of
voices.

Then it was only one voice-Logan's, deep and final. "Let's
make this happen, ladies."

Merlene, Erin, and Logan exited the office. Merlene's lips pinched together in a tight line. Erin yanked her hair up into a
topknot as she walked. Sarah's heart tugged. Logan looked frustrated and bone tired. Like her father at the end of a long day at
the shop, a day when nothing went right.

She watched as Logan rubbed the back of his neck, then rolled
his head side to side. Stretching his muscles as if he'd been doing
manual labor since dawn. Even though he did his usual diligent
scan of the ER, there was something different about the look in his
eyes. Almost as if he were troubled.

Claire stirred and Logan spotted her. He took a slow breath
before giving her a smile that seemed to ease the trouble in
his eyes.

"What? Oh, I haven't even checked my calls yet," Claire told Logan,
dismissing his apology with a wave of her hand. And a half-truth.
She hadn't checked them again in the last fifteen minutes.

She tipped her head to peer back through the glass doors and
down the emergency department corridor. Claire still needed to
catch Erin and make it clear she wasn't available to work anywhere
within a thousand yards of the ER. Standing outside its doors right
now within inches of Logan was unnerving enough. Because after
last night it felt like she was seeing him with new eyes-the way
the sunlight played across his hair, the striking contrast of dark
lashes and blue eyes, the shape of his mouth ... Stop it.

"Well, I'd intended to call." Logan lounged against the metal
railing outside the ambulance bay doors and squinted into the
afternoon sunshine. "But I've been doing battle all day. First with
an oak stump, now with-" he grimaced and his voice lowered-
"McMuffin."

"Mc ... ?"

He laughed. "New nurse Merlene tried to force down my throat.
That's why I was holed up with Erin and her for so long. This is
going to stop if I have anything to say about it." He scanned the
perimeter of the ambulance bay and beyond like a king surveying his realm. He turned to Claire and smiled. "Fortunately I have
everything to say about it."

"I'm not sure what you mean. Why did you meet with Erin
and Merlene?"

Logan's smile disappeared. "About the same thing I've been
arguing for since I agreed to head up this department. Permanent
staff. Moreover, competent staff. Honest-to-goodness ER nurses."
He shook his head and his tone hardened. "ER nurses staffing an
ER-what a concept. But you know what I'm saying. You've worked
ER. You know what it takes."

Claire stiffened. Everything I don't have anymore.

"You can't throw just anyone in here and make it work. I need
more nurses like Erin and Sarah. It takes the brightest and the best,
staff who can fly by the seat of their pants, make decisions faster
than that." He snapped his fingers. "You and I both know that at
any given moment, anything can come through those doors."

She nodded, fighting the image of those stretchers hurtling
through the doors in Sacramento. Firefighter after firefighter,
until ...

Logan's shoulders sagged as he sighed, and then his gaze fixed
on Claire's. "Nobody gets that I'm not trying to be a tyrant. I don't
wake up every day planning to be some insensitive, controlling
jerk that pushes the nurses too hard. Expects too much."

Sarah's exhausted face flashed before Claire's eyes.

Logan rubbed his brow. "It's true; I do push hard. Because I'm responsible for those patients' lives in there. The buck stops with
me. If someone doesn't do her job, I'm the one who has to answer.
I can't afford to have any ..."

Weak links? Claire's stomach sank.

Logan continued without completing his last thought. "Maybe
I just learned very young that I need to scramble to hold things
together. Maybe I try too hard to fix things."

She winced, thinking of the twelve-year-old Logan trying to
ease the grief of his father and younger brothers.

"I don't know why I'm the way I am, but I can't take the time to
figure it out. Because right now what I need is a team. And in a matter of minutes, I'll be losing another nurse." He nodded in response
to Claire's raised brows. "That's right-McMuffin. Bottom line, I've
seen enough and I'm not willing to take the risk with him. I'm not
saying he's a bad nurse, only that he hasn't got what it takes for the
ER. What if he'd been the one over there in urgent care when Jamie
started going downhill? What if he didn't make the connection
that a kid's slowing heart rate means he's headed into respiratory
failure? What if he hadn't alerted the nurse-practitioner?"

Claire swallowed, her mouth going dry as she remembered
Jamie's struggle.

Logan's thumb brushed against his stethoscope, and he was
quiet for a moment. "What if he'd left Jamie alone in that exam
room for ten minutes longer? It might have been too late." His gaze
connected with Claire's, and it was all she could do not to look
away. "But it was you over there in the clinic that day, and-"

Before he could finish speaking, the glass doors opened behind
him and Erin shouted, "Code 3 ambulance coming, Logan. Six
minutes out. Unresponsive teenager. Looks like a drug overdose.
We're getting things ready."

Call respiratory therapy; get the cardiac monitor ready, intubation
tray, IV supplies, overdose reversal drugs; prepare to pump the stomach, insert a Foley catheter . . . Claire's pulse quickened and her
legs tensed for action as her mind ticked off the list, responses
that came automatically despite the fact that she had no need for
them. Logan's team would pull together to save this patient, not
Claire. He'd have Erin and Sarah. They'd save this teenager. Claire
breathed a silent prayer. Then her thoughts scattered as she heard
the distinct wail of distant sirens.

She touched Logan's arm. "I came down here to tell Erin I'll do
everything I can to help your team. I'm going to put out the word,
make phone calls to qualified nurses, start an aggressive recruiting
campaign-"

"Whoa, Educator," Logan said. "Put down the phone and pamphlets. You won't need them. I arranged it with Merlene. You're
handling urgent care tomorrow."

Not my plan, not my plan, not my plan. Claire's shoes struck the
damp red-clay trail in perfect cadence with her thoughts.

She raised her arms overhead, rotated her wrists, and gulped
a deep breath of oak-scented morning air, realizing that the usual
balm of running wasn't happening. She'd covered more than three
miles of the Gold Bug Park loop and hadn't left any of her worries
behind. She may as well have zipped them into her backpack along
with the bottle of spring water. God wasn't cooperating either. He
was stubbornly allowing Logan and Merlene to send her to urgent
care. Backward, not forward according to her carefully crafted
plans. Why? He knew it was the last thing she wanted, knew that
every minute near the ER was like ripping the scab off a wound.

Claire's stride shortened, her footfalls slowing and scrunching into the gravel as she caught sight of the familiar gnarled oak.
Kevin's tree. She stopped and brushed her arm across her forehead,
letting the sleeve of his firehouse sweatshirt wick her sweat. The
oak, easily sixty feet tall, stood out in dark relief, its spreading
branches already lush with spring leaves.

She circled the trunk slowly, her gaze traveling over the graybrown ridges and deep crevices in the bark ... there. She pressed
her fingers to her mouth, blinking against a welling of tears. The letters carved just above her eye level had weathered since she'd
last seen them but were still easily visible. K. A. and G. S. Kevin
Avery, Gayle Satterfield. She traced the smooth hollows made by
her brother's pocketknife.

Claire had been here when he'd done it. A fall afternoon three
and a half years ago, just before Thanksgiving, when the air was
pungent with woodsmoke, and crimson, orange, and gold fallen
leaves crunched under their feet on the trail. They'd raced to this
clearing, and she'd beaten him to the tree with a last lung-bursting
sprint. Not that Kevin had cared. He was in love. He'd been giddy
with it, boyishly vulnerable and invincible at the same time. Exuberant and hopeful. Loving Gayle had deepened Kevin's faith, and
they'd thrown themselves heartfirst into Bible study, church volunteer work, and Mexico mission trips.

Her fingers moved to the carving below the initials. Jer. 29:11.
Kevin's favorite Scripture. The one Gayle had stitched and framed as
an engagement gift to him. For a wedding that never happened.

Claire shut her eyes against a burst of pain. Heal my heart. Move
me forward. Please, please ...

She pulled her hand away from the tree, feeling the shivers that
often heralded the onset of an endorphin rush. Balm at last. But
this time there was no runner's high, no respite. Just trembling followed by an empty, lonely ache. And a new whispering doubt: Was
it possible that Logan was right? that God didn't listen to prayers?
How else did she end up in urgent care?

By 9 a.m. Claire had showered and dressed, pulling her pink scrubs
from the corner of her closet, where she'd banished them after
her last stint in urgent care. She stuffed her purple stethoscope
into her purse and headed to the kitchen to check Smokey's water bowl. It was full. And strangely so was his food dish. Untouched?
She glanced around the room and spotted the black cat curled up
on the back of the couch, sleeping in the same spot as when she'd
left for her run.

"Hey, boy," she called out, reaching for his dish.

He lifted his head at the sound of her voice.

"What's the deal? You don't like Mom's cook-" Claire halted
as muddy animal tracks on the deck just outside the glass door
caught her eye.

She stepped closer, peering down at them through the glass.
A series of dried paw prints that looked more like slender palm
prints. Five toes. A raccoon. Right outside Smokey's pet door. He'd
smelled it.

Claire glanced back at the one-eared cat, feeling a stab of guilt.
She'd moved the dishes gradually closer to the little plastic door
on purpose. With a grand plan of moving them outside in the
next few weeks so Smokey would be lured into venturing into the
world again.

After snatching up the dishes, Claire trundled them over to the
couch and set them down. She walked back and slid the stiff resin
cover over the pet door, blocking it. Then she went to the fireplace,
lifted Kevin's pewter cross from the edge of the picture frame, and
fastened it around her neck. The cool metal nestled into the hollow of her throat.

Long-term plans would have to wait. Today was about survival.