Where Angels Tread (4 page)

“Hard to say. Memory damage, speech problems. It’s very possible that she’ll be completely fine, after a long recovery. When they’re that young, their body is capable of bouncing back in surprising ways.” Josie turned to Dr. Conway, who was making notes on Megan’s chart. “Are you going to go out there and speak to the parents?”

Dr. Conway checked the clock on the wall. “I have to head upstairs and check on a patient from earlier this evening. Why don’t you and Heidi handle it?”

Josie nodded and beckoned for Heidi to follow her from the room. “I’ve never done this before,” Heidi whispered, picturing once more the expression of frozen terror on the mother’s face. “What should we say?”

“I’ll take the lead,” Josie whispered back. “Then next time it comes up you’ll know what to do.”

Josie pushed through the emergency room doors, where a handful of patients with less serious injuries were waiting to be seen. At the sight of the two nurses, Megan’s parents leapt to their feet and dashed across the room. “How is she?” her father asked, his face pale and drawn. Her mother’s eyes were red-rimmed and bloodshot, and she held a crumpled tissue to her mouth. Heidi saw that her hands were shaking.

“Right now, she’s stable,” Josie said, and began to explain the extent of Megan’s injuries. Heidi listened as Josie rattled off a number of medical terms, impressed at how cool and collected the veteran nurse was in the midst of such chaos. Heidi, who had joined the team at Saint Andrew’s Hospital a mere four months ago, knew that she still had a lot to learn.

It was still difficult for her to believe that her path in life had led her here, to a career helping to save other people’s lives. As a child, Heidi was terrified of blood; she clearly remembered the time she sliced a deep cut into the tip of her finger with a kitchen knife while trying to saw through a particularly dense bagel. Those first few drops of blood had sent Heidi into a dead faint, and she only came to fifteen minutes later once her mother had patched her up. “I guess you’ll never be a doctor,” her mother had teased as she sat Heidi down in front of the television set with a plate of cookies. “Maybe a lawyer?” she asked, tugging playfully on Heidi’s hair.

But Heidi, who had always loved children, dreamed of being a schoolteacher. Her favorite form of playtime was lining up her dolls—Heidi didn’t have any siblings—and teaching them arithmetic, reading, and writing. While they weren’t always the most enthusiastic audience, Heidi would pretend that she was shaping their minds and awakening in them the same love of learning that she had.

After graduating from high school, Heidi entered the University of California, Santa Barbara on a scholarship, where she immersed herself in her studies, as well as the vibrant local culture. Santa Barbara was a beautiful place; when Heidi closed her eyes at night, she could still picture the skinny palm trees that lined the edge of the golden sand, which led directly to an ocean so crystal clear that Heidi could see the outline of her toes while standing in the water.

Santa Barbara would always hold a special place in her heart for another reason: it was where she first met John. On that morning, she had woken up to a brilliant sunshine, and decided to bring her textbooks to the beach, where she could read in peace while enjoying the soft breeze blowing through her hair. She stayed there, her toes curled in the sand, until her stomach began rumbling with hunger. The town’s historic wooden pier was only steps away, and every so often the tantalizing aroma of fried food wafted by, so Heidi gathered up her books and made her way over, her mind fixated on the juicy burger she planned to devour.

Her eyes on the hamburger joint, she failed to notice where she was going until she ran into something very solid. “Ouch!” a voice cried, snapping Heidi out of her trance. “Watch where you’re going, please.” She glanced up to find herself face to face with a young man about her own age, rubbing his hand along his sandy blond hair and surveying her with an expression of distaste.

“Sorry,” she stammered, her face flushed with embarrassment. “I didn’t see you there.”

“I’m as solid as a rock,” he said with a grin. “What on earth are you so fascinated with over there?” He followed her gaze to the row of colorful food stands dotting the pier.

“A hamburger,” she admitted. “I’ve been out in the sun all day and I’m starving.”

He stroked his chin, which was etched with a few days’ worth of stubble, and stuck out his hand to shake hers. “I’m John. Tell you what. I’ll forgive you for barreling into me if you let me buy you a burger.”

“You’re on,” she said happily, and followed him through the clusters of tourists perusing the vendor booths, which were selling colorful seashell necklaces, caricature drawings, and hand-painted knick-knacks.

Long after the hamburgers were gone, they sat on the benches overlooking the dock and talked about life in Santa Barbara. “I’ve lived here since I was a kid,” John had said, his blue eyes sparkling in the sun. Heidi had been unable to take her own eyes away from him. “My father’s a fisherman, and I followed in his footsteps.” He gestured to one of the boats bobbing gently in the waves. “That one’s ours. She’s a real beauty, isn’t she? We take her out six days a week and bring back what we’ve caught—mostly oysters, clams, and mussels. Then we sell them to the local restaurants.”

“What’s it like?” Heidi asked, following his gaze out to the horizon. “Being out on the water all day long?”

“Peaceful,” he said. “Gives you a lot of time to think. You’ve never felt so small and insignificant until you spend your days surrounded by nothing but water for as far as the eye can see.”

He insisted on walking her back to her tiny apartment, and they ended up sitting on her balcony and talking until the sun disappeared through the palm trees. John came back the next weekend, and the next, until Heidi found herself falling head over heels in love with him. A year later, three months before she graduated from college, he proposed to her on bended knee as they strolled along the beach hand in hand one night.

Despite her precautions, Heidi found herself pregnant a few weeks later. John’s eyes shone with happiness when she told him, and he cried openly when they found out that they were having a boy. They decided to move back to the Santa Ynez Valley to be closer to Heidi’s parents, and John took on odd jobs as a handyman while searching for more stable work.

When she first laid eyes on her infant son, Heidi couldn’t imagine leaving him to go to work every day; after much discussion, she and John decided that Heidi would stay home to raise Zachary. Every so often, as she chased her squealing toddler around the house, Heidi’s mind would stray to her college diploma collecting dust somewhere in the back of the closet.

The night of the accident, Heidi had watched helplessly as the nurses in the emergency room tried in vain to save John’s life. Afterwards, when all hope was lost, a woman about her age dressed in hospital scrubs had held Heidi for hours as she sobbed and screamed into the night, unable and unwilling to imagine the rest of her life—and Zachary’s life—without John.

A few weeks later, when Heidi’s head had cleared enough for her to at least function, she surveyed the state of their finances. She knew that as a single mother, she would need to provide for her son, but the thought of spending each day in a classroom no longer appealed to her. Her mind kept wandering back to that awful night, and the way the nurse had cried along with Heidi, telling her that everything was going to be okay. Shortly afterwards, Heidi took what little money they had saved up and enrolled in the local college to begin training to be a registered nurse.

Josie finished speaking with Megan’s parents and sent them back to their seats with the promise of updating them as soon as she received any more information. As she bustled back to the nurses’ station to write out some paperwork, Heidi filled two paper cups with coffee, poured in a swirl of creamer, and brought them over to where Megan’s parents were huddled in the corner, staring blankly at the television set bolted to the wall. For whatever reason, the hospital’s channel of choice always featured those sassy television judges who spent a lot of time yelling at the people who appeared on their show. Not exactly soothing programming for the patients and their families, Heidi thought to herself with a chuckle.

“Thank you,” Megan’s mother said gratefully when Heidi handed her the steaming coffee.

“I know you probably want to stay,” Heidi said, “but I just want to assure you that your daughter is in the best of care. She won’t be in the recovery room for at least a couple more hours, so you may want to go down to the cafeteria and grab a bite to eat. I promise I’ll come and find you if there’s any news.”

“You know, Kathy, that’s not a bad idea,” the father said, running his hands through his gray hair distractedly. “Might help us take our mind off of things for a minute or two. It’s been an excruciatingly long night.” He got to his feet and offered his wife a helping hand. She stared at him for a moment, her eyes slightly unfocused, then allowed herself to be pulled to her feet.

Heidi watched as the man led his wife to the elevators, his arm wrapped comfortingly around her waist. When they disappeared through the elevator doors, Heidi turned and headed back to the nurses’ station. She plopped down in an empty chair next to Josie, rubbing her bleary eyes and yawning widely. Josie smiled at her over the rim of her glasses. “Long night?”

“I’m ready to go home. I haven’t had much sleep in the past few days. Zachary ran away again.”

Josie set down her pen and peered at Heidi in concern. “What happened?”

“The usual. I confronted him about something, he shut down, then took off. This time he was picked up by the cops.” Officer Kensington’s face swam before Heidi’s tired mind. If she were being perfectly honest with herself, a big part of the restless sleep she had been experiencing was because of him. She had been so unsettled at her immediate and unexpected attraction to him that it threw her for a loop. Every time she thought of him, her skin tingled and her pulse quickened. Heidi did her best to squash those feelings; it felt to her like a betrayal of John, and of her marriage vows.

“Your boy’s just going through a rough time,” Josie said. “He’s at an awkward age where he’s just starting to come in to his own. The last thing he wants to do is listen to his mother.”

“What he needs,” Heidi said, “is a father. A male figure to help guide him until he’s an adult.”

“Think you’ll start dating again anytime soon?” Josie glanced at Heidi’s bare ring finger. Josie didn’t know it, but only last year was Heidi finally able to muster the strength she needed to stop wearing her wedding band. She had laced John’s ring through a gold chain, which she always kept hanging around her neck like a talisman.

Heidi winced. “No,” she replied flatly. “I’m just not ready.” Even as she said those words, Shane’s face, with those gorgeous eyes, popped into her head again. No, she thought firmly, closing her eyes to clear her mind. It was just a silly attraction, nothing more. For all she knew, he was married or in a committed relationship. Not that it mattered; Heidi would never find out.

Josie glanced at the slim watch wrapped around her wrist. “Your shift is almost over. I can cover you from here. Why don’t you go home early? Get some sleep. You look like you could use it.”

“Thanks,” Heidi said gratefully. “I think I’ll take you up on it. If it gets any later I’m going to have a hard time staying awake on the drive home.” She gathered up her purse and keys and bustled through the doors of the hospital, searching for her car. It was a cool, crisp night; the rain had stopped, leaving behind that heady, earthy smell that Heidi used to love so much.

She navigated the station wagon onto the highway, still yawning sleepily, her mind wandering to the cozy comfort of her warm bed. Maybe she’d treat herself to a warm mug of hot cocoa and a few chapters of a good mystery novel before turning in for the night. As she mentally worked her way through the stack of books on her shelf waiting to be read, a blue and red flash of police lights lit up the road ahead of her.

Dutifully, Heidi pulled her car over to the side of the road and waited for the squad car to speed by. As it did, she craned her neck to see inside. Moments later, as she steered back onto the highway, Heidi was cursing herself for the disappointment she felt when she saw that Shane Kensington wasn’t behind the wheel.

“Shane, can you come in here for a minute?”

Following the sound of Chief Palen’s voice, Shane made his way into the veteran cop’s office, which was stacked floor to ceiling with hundreds of file folders detailing cases that the chief had worked on over his forty year career. Never in his wildest dreams did Shane imagine that he would one day be working side by side with the man who first inspired him to become a police officer. Chief Palen was a popular man both in the community and among the other officers, who treated him with a respect that bordered on reverence.

“Sit down, son,” he said, motioning for Shane to close the door behind him. He waited for Shane to settle into a chair before continuing. “I wanted to check on you, see how everything was going.” He pulled out a sheet of paper and moved his eyes down the text quickly. “It says here that you’ve stopped seeing Dr. Holmby.” He fixed his gaze on Shane, who squirmed slightly in his chair.

“Yes, sir.”

“Any particular reason?”

“I didn’t need to go anymore,” Shane lied, twisting his fingers in his lap. He thought he saw Palen glance down; that man didn’t miss a trick. “Sir?” he continued. “I’ve been meaning to ask when you think I’ll be able to go back on patrol duty.”

Chief Palen set the paper back down on his desk and frowned at Shane, then leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms. “You think you’re ready?”

“Yes, sir,” Shane said quickly. “It’s what I was born to do.”

The older man sighed. “I know, Kensington, believe me. I know. You remind me a lot of myself at your age, matter of fact. But after what happened…well let’s just say that I have to be mighty careful about putting you out there again. I don’t want a lawsuit on my hands; frankly, we were lucky it didn’t happen this time. We may have had to let you go. Liabilities, and so on.” He studied Shane’s face carefully; Shane tried his best to arrange his features into a confident and capable expression. He tried to smile at Chief Palen, but unfortunately it came out as more of a grimace.