Читать книгу Solemn Oath - Hannah Alexander - Страница 9

I f this was another disaster drill, Mercy Richmond was going to make someone pay dearly. She kept her white lab coat on to protect the pink-and-blue bunny scrubs she wore underneath—her family practice consisted mostly of women and children. After apologizing to the six long-suffering patients in her waiting room, she marched out the front door and down the block toward the hospital.

Mercy’s stomach growled. Monday afternoon was the worst time to get called out. There’d been no time for lunch. Everyone in this town of ten thousand must have developed strep, flu or pneumonia over the weekend. She shouldn’t have agreed to be E.R. backup today. Her patient volume had increased to the point that she was going to have to stop seeing new patients or start keeping the office open an extra day a week.

This spring she might have considered that possibility, but she’d won custody of her eleven-year-old daughter a few months ago, and she wanted to spend more time at home with Tedi. Since she no longer had to make two house payments, two car payments, and cover the bills her ex-husband had run up, she didn’t need the income she made from E.R. shifts. She hoped Theo never got out of that detox unit in Springfield. Her life was going so well with him out of the way…and with Dr. Lukas Bower taking more of an interest in her and in Tedi. Everything was looking good.

As she stepped across the parking-lot curb and strode toward the E.R. entrance, the distant, thrusting rhythm of a helicopter in flight reached her for the first time. She noticed that the landing pad on the parking lot had been cleared of cars.

Okay, so this time it probably wasn’t a drill.

She looked down. That probably wasn’t fake blood on the concrete, either. In the back rooms of her clinic, she had never been able to hear the ambulances when they pulled into the E.R. Always before, she had considered that to be a good thing. Today, though, she could have used a little warning.

She rushed through the sliding glass doors to find the waiting room filled with people in various stages of fluster. A patient with a splinted arm was being helped inside by a friend. The buzz of voices and the aura of worry greeted her like a familiar coworker. A group of three middle-aged women and two elderly men stood in the west corner by the vending machines with their hands clasped, praying.

That happened a lot around here. It didn’t matter what you thought about God the rest of the time, when you faced life and death in the emergency room, you begged Him to give you another chance. Mercy had done it herself when her own daughter nearly died from a life-threatening allergic reaction to a bee sting—she who had always prided herself on her self-reliance. She’d even considered herself an agnostic until Lukas Bower exploded into her life last spring with his gentle humor, strong compassion for others and his vibrant faith. Nothing in her life had been the same since.

A moan and a tormented shout reached her from one of the exam rooms, but she couldn’t understand the words. The mingled scents of antiseptic, body odor and diesel exhaust from the ambulance bay drifted through the room.

“Thank goodness, Dr. Mercy,” Judy called from the emergency desk. She pulled off her reading glasses and picked up a clipboard with a T-sheet already attached. Her short salt-and-pepper hair spiked out on the right side, where she’d been keeping her ink pen tucked behind her ear. “Dr. Bower’s in Trauma One trying to save the leg of a lady who got hit by a car. Her husband’s in Trauma Two in stable condition, and the guy who hit everybody is in exam room three.” She shoved the clipboard across the desk. “There’s lots more, but Dr. Bower wanted you to see about the man in Two. Name’s Arthur Collins, and he’s really upset about his wife. They just took him off the backboard. Nice guy. Never complains about his own pain. Wish my husband treated me like that.”

Mercy took the chart, then paused as the patient in Three—or so she presumed—shouted something again. The words were slurred, and they sounded Spanish. She raised a brow at Judy. “Who did you say that was?”

Judy waved a dismissive hand. “That’s the drunk driver who hit them. He drove right up onto the courthouse lawn and mowed over a bunch of people from a tour group. He doesn’t even speak English.”

“Has he been checked?”

“Dr. Bower ordered some tests and a trauma panel, but they’ve been busy with the other patients, and nobody’s gotten to him yet except to put him on oxygen.”

“Get to him.”

Judy shrugged. “Okay, but I hope we can find somebody who can speak Spanish. So far the translator hasn’t come in.”

The thumping of the helicopter rotors grew louder as the Air Care helicopter descended to the landing spot outside, the loud whomp-whomp-whomp of the rotors vibrating the windows.

“Oh, good, they’re here for Alma Collins,” Judy said.

“How many patients do we have, and how many more are coming?” Mercy asked, glancing at the T-sheet.

“We’ve got six in and two more coming that I know about, but Dr. Wong’s on his way over to take care of our favorite exotic-animal rancher.”

“Cowboy’s hurt again?”

“He sure is. His neighbor shot him.”

Mercy wasn’t sure she’d heard the secretary correctly. “ Shot him! ”

Judy shook her head. “Nobody’s going to tell me human beings aren’t meaner than any other mammal. Looks like we’ll all be busy for a while.”

Mercy suppressed a sigh. “Call my office, then. Tell Josie to do a triage and find out who really needs to see me today. Let her know what’s going on here. She’ll have to send some people home.”

“Don’t worry, Dr. Mercy. They’ll come in here looking for you if they have to.”

Mercy carried her clipboard into Trauma Room two, where Claudia Zebert, a stout fifty-year-old RN with twenty-five years of E.R. experience, took the blood pressure of a slender forty-seven-year-old man in a pressure turban. The view box on the wall held two shots of a dislocated right shoulder. Not broken. That made things a lot easier.

Mercy stepped up to the exam bed. “Mr. Collins? I’m Dr. Mercy Richmond. My patients call me Dr. Mercy, and you just became one of my patients.”

He looked up at her with troubled hazel eyes. “Dr. Mercy…that’s a good name for a doctor.”

“My father was a physician, and he named me. When I got my license, our shared last name confused patients, so we both started using our first names. We were Dr. Cliff and Dr. Mercy.” Were . Dad was dead now.

“You can call me Arthur. You’ll have to excuse me. I’m so worried about my wife that I’m not very good company.”

“I understand, Arthur. Your wife is in good hands. Dr. Bower is one of the best.”

Claudia reached down and squeezed his left arm. “See there, Arthur, I told you Dr. Bower will take good care of Alma.” The nurse’s brisk, familiar manner almost always calmed frightened patients. She gestured toward the turban. “We need to get this fixed up and get that shoulder back in shape so you can be there for Alma. The helicopter’s here now to pick her up and take her to the trauma center in Springfield.”

Arthur caught his breath and reached up toward the side of the bed, as if he might try to get out. “I don’t want her to go alone.”

“There’s no room in the helicopter for any passengers, but she won’t be alone once she gets up there,” Claudia soothed. “I saw half your tour group climbing into one of the vans to drive up and meet her there. The rest are staying here to pray for you. They seem like good people.” She squeezed his arm once more before leaving the room to check another patient.

Mercy read Claudia’s notes on Arthur, then did her own assessment. He was a little tachycardic from blood loss, but IV fluids were already running into his uninjured left arm, and his pressure was already rising. Good sign. His heart would slow down naturally.

Another shout reached them from the next room, and Arthur laid his head back against his pillow and sighed. “That poor man’s sure hurting. Can you do something for him?”

Mercy frowned. She had heard the drunk driver had no obvious injuries. “Someone will be getting to him as soon as possible.”

“He’s not drunk, you know.”

Mercy looked up from her chart and studied Arthur’s green-gold eyes. “How can you tell?”

“I speak Spanish. Alma and I are missionaries in Mexico. He’s making some sense. He’s saying over and over again how sorry he is, and that he doesn’t drink, doesn’t do drugs.”

Mercy didn’t comment. She heard that a lot.

“He’s also confused and hurting,” Arthur added.

“Isn’t he the man who hit you and your wife?”

Arthur nodded, then worry marred the fine features of his face once again. “My wife…I wish I could be with her.”

A light, warm baritone voice reached them from the doorway. “I came over to give you an update, Arthur.”

Mercy silently caught her breath and let the calm strength of that familiar voice settle over her like a blanket. She and Arthur both looked up at the same time to see Lukas Bower walking in to join them, his trauma shield in place over his gray framed glasses. His short brown hair was disheveled as usual. Lukas stood a couple of inches taller than Mercy’s five feet eight. In her eyes he had grown at least a foot since she had first met him last spring. Her gaze met his, and she smiled. The smile he returned was only for her, and the brilliance of it heated her cheeks. One of the nurses had told her once that when she entered the E.R., Dr. Bower’s face looked as if he’d just received a special gift.

He stepped up to the bed, his blue eyes calm and reassuring behind the glare of glasses and shield. “Arthur, your wife is awake and talking, and she’s worried about you. I told her you’d be fine.”

Arthur raised a hand toward him. “Will you let me see her before they take her away? Please. I want to talk to her a second. I just want to tell her I love her.”

Lukas looked at Mercy, then looked back at Arthur and nodded. “I think we can do that. They’ll be wheeling her out in just a moment, and we’ll roll you into the hallway and let you rendezvous with her there. No, don’t try to get up. We don’t want you bleeding on us again before Dr. Mercy can get you stitched and get that shoulder fixed.” He gestured to Mercy and laid a hand on her arm briefly. She released the brake on the exam bed, and together they rolled the bed out into the open space as the flight nurse and paramedic wheeled Alma past.

At the sight of Alma’s bandaged and IV-tubed body, Arthur’s eyes filled with tears once again. He reached out and touched her shoulder. “Hi, sweetheart. I love you. I’ll be with you as soon as I can.”

“Oh, Arthur,” she cried softly, “I can’t believe this is happenin’. I’m just so glad you’re alive. For a while, I thought…”

The flight nurse placed a gentle hand on Alma’s shoulder. “Mrs. Collins, we need to get you into the helicopter now.”

Alma nodded. Arthur drew his hand back, then kissed his fingertips and reached out and touched Alma’s cheek with his hand. “I’ll be praying with every breath.”

Mercy allowed Lukas to help her push Arthur’s bed back into the room. “Thanks, Lukas.” She laid a hand on his arm, as she had found herself doing often lately without even thinking about it, as if a physical connection to him might anchor their friendship more securely. “Lukas, Arthur doesn’t think the man who hit them is drunk. He also says the man’s in pain.”

Lukas turned his attention to Arthur. “What kind of pain? Where? We’re waiting for the interpreter to arrive, and we can’t communicate with him. My college Spanish died of disuse.”

Arthur wiped leftover tears from his face. “I speak Spanish. Why don’t you let me try to talk to him? I can—”

“We need to take care of you,” Mercy said. “We’ll get an interpreter.”

Arthur looked up at her and sighed. “Give him a chance, Dr. Mercy. What if he’s hurt worse than I am?” He raised his voice enough to be heard over the din of the E.R. and spoke a few phrases in Spanish, then winced, as if the extra exertion and sound hurt his head.

There was no reply.

He repeated the phrases, and seconds later he received an answer. He looked back at Mercy. “It’s his mouth.”

Mercy glanced sharply at Lukas. “A fracture from impact?”

Lukas shrugged, his attention focused on their patient. “Arthur, we aren’t going to hold you liable as an interpreter, but will you please ask him if he had the pain before the wreck?”

Arthur did so, and they all understood part of the answer. “ Sí .” Lukas and Mercy did not understand the remainder of the words, but the expression on Arthur’s face told them it was significant.

“Does toothache medicine make you drunk?” Arthur asked them.

“How much toothache medicine?” Mercy asked.

Arthur asked the man, then interpreted. “He’s used a bottle today.”

Mercy caught her breath and turned to Lukas. “That could be—”

“Dangerous.” Lukas spun out of the room. “Judy,” he called to the secretary, “I need a stat ABG in Three.” He rushed to the next room. “Lauren, would you help me?”

“Is the man in trouble, then?” Arthur asked Mercy. “Can’t you just push my bed into his room the way you took me out to see Alma?”

“No need.” Mercy stepped out the door, saw Claudia at the desk and motioned to her before turning back to her patient. “Dr. Bower knows what tests to give, what drugs to use.” She studied Arthur’s expression. He had shown no resentment toward the person who had injured him and his wife. “We need to take care of you now.” She pulled on some sterile gloves and a face shield. “Claudia,” she said as the nurse walked into the room, “I need 2 milligrams of Versed and 25 of Demerol, slow IV push. Then have X-ray bring over some wrist weights. Arthur, we’re going to try to reduce your shoulder dislocation with the prone method. We’ll give you some medication for the pain, then we’ll turn you over on your stomach and drop your right arm over the side of the bed with some weight on your wrist.” She unwrapped the elastic bandage while Claudia carried out her orders, collecting and administering drugs and ordering the weights.

The wound in Arthur’s scalp was deep and star-shaped with no active bleeding. Mercy cleaned it with some peroxide. “How did you get this, Arthur? Do you remember?”

“I think I hit the corner of a concrete balustrade, but I don’t remember actually doing that, just waking up beside it.”

She probed the wound with her gloved finger, felt him jerk. “Sorry, Arthur. I’m checking for any rough surfaces, making sure there are no obvious deformities. I don’t feel any, but I’ll get a CT later.” She cleaned it a little more, then stepped back to allow Claudia to prep the site.

Five minutes later the weights arrived and Claudia had the wound ready for stitching. Arthur was groggy, feeling a lot less pain than he had been before. He groaned a couple of times when Mercy and Claudia turned him over and placed the padded weights on his wrist as his arm hung down over the side of the bed.

Mercy watched his profile as she prepared to anesthetize the wound site. “How long have you and Alma been married?”

He barely winced when the needle first touched his flesh. “Twenty-seven years. We got married as soon as Alma graduated from high school.” His voice was only slightly muffled, since Mercy had taken the pillow out from under his head to keep his neck from stretching backward too far. “We knew what we wanted to do from the time we were in junior high, so we couldn’t see any reason to wait.”

“You mean to tell me you and your wife knew you wanted to be missionaries to Mexico from the time you were in junior high?” Mercy could tell when the local anesthesia began to work, because he no longer tensed when she touched him.

“Yes, we did. God was calling us there as surely as I’m lying here.”

Mercy took her first stitch. “I don’t suppose you could be involved in medical missions? Somehow you knew that man wasn’t drunk. That was a good call.”

“No, I’m not medical. Sadly, I’ve just seen a lot of drunks.”

“Yeah, so have I,” she murmured. “You obviously have some good friends out in the waiting room.”

“They’re from a group of churches in the state that support our work. We’re here on furlough for three months.” He grew silent for a moment. “Now I wonder if we’ll be returning.”

“Try not to think about that right now. How’s the pain?” Mercy asked. “Do you need more medication?”

“I’m fine. A little woozy. Makes it hard to keep my prayers in focus. It’s a good thing God knows my heart.”

“You and your wife seem to have a very good relationship.” Mercy had found that when she could keep her patients talking about something that really interested them, she didn’t have to use nearly as many pain meds, and everything went smoother.

“That’s because of Alma’s sweet nature. She still treats me with the same consideration and patience she’s always shown. It’s just the kind of person she is.”

“And you make it obvious you adore her.”

From the side of his face, she saw him smile. What a handsome man, even cut and bruised as he was.

And what a rare thing—a happy marriage. The only other person she knew with a happy marriage was her nurse, Josie. Funny, Josie had the same last name, but Collins was a common name. And Mercy knew it wasn’t a shared last name that made the difference. Josie, too, was a devoted Christian. So was Lukas. Lately, as Mercy grew to know him better, she wouldn’t try to deny the fact that there was a noticeable difference between him and every other male she had ever met. And she felt more of an attraction to him than to any other male she’d ever met. She found herself wanting to spend more and more time with him, and being more and more disappointed when their busy work schedules prevented that.

Arthur’s smile wavered and disappeared. “I wonder how Alma’s doing. How long does it take them to fly a helicopter to Springfield?”

“About thirty minutes when the weather’s good and the wind is right.” Mercy laid a hand on his uninjured shoulder. “Don’t worry, Arthur, she’s in good hands. I know the flight nurse, and she’s one of the best. She took care of my daughter this spring when we had to fly her out for emergency surgery.”

“Your daughter?” Arthur’s voice grew more slurred. “Sh-she okay now?”

“She’s fine.” Physically.

“How old is sh-she?”

“Eleven going on fifty. Sometimes I wonder which of us does the most mothering and worrying. Tell me about your mission in Mexico.”

He talked for several moments while Mercy finished her two-layer closure. He had thick, wavy red hair that was already showing a lot of gray, and the lines around his eyes revealed that he’d spent a lot of time in the sun and that he spent a lot of time smiling.

Mercy checked his arm, then rechecked the wound. “Arthur, we’re almost finished with your head except for the CT. I’m hoping your shoulder will slip into place without much pain.”

He paused for a moment, and Mercy could see his eyes tear up. He was thinking about Alma again.

“Would you pray with me?” The words were soft, but not hesitant.

Mercy blinked. This one hadn’t ever come up in medical school. It hadn’t come up afterward, either. “Well…I’m not sure….” How was she supposed to turn him down? And yet, how was she supposed to pray when most of the time she refused to even acknowledge the presence—

“I’ll do the talking,” he said.

She heard the pleading in his voice, and she thought about his love for his wife. What could it hurt? Mercy had watched Lukas pray and watched her mother pray. All she had to do was bow her head. The only time she’d actually prayed was when Tedi nearly died, and then it had only been a “Please, God, please, God, please, God” out of desperation.

She nodded and bowed her head.

“Thank you,” Arthur whispered to her. “Dear Lord, we can’t know what’s going to happen to us next, and we’re frightened and in pain. Please, God, please go with Alma. Give her comfort and peace that only You can give her. And help me depend on Your strength. Help us, through this tragedy, to keep our witness pure for You, and hold our hearts firmly in Your sheltering arms. We praise You for Your constant presence and for the assurance that we will go through nothing without You. Lay Your special blessing on Dr. Mercy today, and thank You for sending her to us as one of Your ministering angels. Fill her with Your special Spirit, dear Lord, in a way that will last. In our Lord Jesus’s name, amen.”

He opened his eyes and looked at Mercy. “Thank you.” He gave a relaxed sigh. They heard a gentle pop. The shoulder was back in place.

Lukas finished assessing the lady with the broken arm, looked in quickly on Cowboy, then checked on Mercy’s progress. He was relieved to find her and Arthur chattering about children and mission work and the beauty of the Missouri Ozarks while Claudia bandaged the wound and removed the weights from Arthur’s wrist.

The quiet alto tone of Mercy’s voice drew Lukas like a symphony. He allowed his gaze to rest, just for a moment, on the strong, feminine lines of her face. He felt himself drawn into the glowing depths of her coffee-colored eyes as she chuckled at something Arthur said. Her long black hair was drawn back in a clasp, and several tendrils had come loose, giving the impression that she was always too busy reaching out to others to check a mirror during the day.

Mercy had a talent for mothering patients. She was good at helping them through difficult and painful procedures with a minimum of panic or pain medication. Her self-deprecating sense of humor put everyone around her at ease, including the staff. Including Lukas. He found himself watching her when she worked in the same room, and he felt himself drawn to her in a way he’d never been before.

She looked up at him questioningly. He smiled and opened his mouth to speak, but the E.R. doors jerked open and in stumbled a trio of dirty firemen—two extremely young trainees carrying singed and blackened veteran fire fighter Buck Oppenheimer between them.

Actually, Buck wasn’t being carried, but was trying valiantly to wrestle out of the clutches of his overeager charges, his soot-covered face filled with annoyance.

“Doc!” he called out to Lukas in frustration. “Would you please tell these kids I’m not dying?”

Lukas stifled a relieved grin. Buck worked a few shifts a month with the ambulance service as an EMT, and he was a first responder with the fire department, which meant Lukas and Buck saw a lot of each other. Buck’s down-home hillbilly charm—complete with butch haircut and ears that could paddle a canoe—belied a sharp wit and a deep compassion for others. Unfortunately for him, his leadership abilities had landed him the added responsibility of overseeing two eighteen-year-old members of an Explorer group throughout their training period. He’d grumbled about it to Lukas ever since the kids had arrived the week before.

Lukas led the way into exam room six and instructed the young men to help Buck onto the bed. “Ease him down gently, guys. No telling what he’s gotten into this time.”

“An explosion, that’s what!” Skinny Kyle Alder, whose hair was as long and curly as Buck’s was short and straight, kept a death grip on Buck’s arm as he and his buddy eased their grubby, smoke-stained patient onto the clean sheet. “Saved a gal’s life and almost died. Threw himself on top of her!”

“Oh?” Lukas stepped out into the hallway and caught Lauren’s attention from her workstation at the central desk. He motioned for her to join him in the exam room, then returned to Buck’s side. “And where is the victim?”

Buck fought off his overeager charges at last and started unbuttoning his shirt, still sitting up. “Roxie refused to come in, and believe me, I fought to get her in the ambulance. Should’ve just wrapped her in a straitjacket and shoved her in the back. You know how cantankerous she can be sometimes.”

Lukas looked at Buck in alarm. “Wouldn’t she let you check her out?”

“Barely. I listened to her chest and took her vitals. She sounded okay. She said she’s fine except for the ribs I broke pouncing on her like that.”

“What?”

Buck shook his head and frowned. “I think she was kidding, although with her it’s hard to tell. After all I went through to get to her, she asked what took us so long, because she’d called ten minutes before I got there. That’s the thanks I get for risking my life to—” He winced and bent forward. “I wasn’t even on duty. I didn’t know about any call.”

“I told you that you oughta have that looked at,” Kyle said.

“I’m having it looked at now,” Buck snapped.

“It’s his chest, Dr. Bower,” Kyle explained. “It’s been hurting him since the explosion. He says it’s just a scrape, but…” His attention refocused with sudden interest as blond-haired, green-eyed Lauren walked into the room and began her assessment.

“Let’s get a c-collar on him before you start that, Lauren.” Lukas reached out and felt the back of Buck’s neck for any step-off deformity. “Does this hurt, Buck?”

The fireman did not move his head. “Nope.”

“Good. We’ll go ahead and do a collar until we get the X-rays, just to be safe.”

“Oh, come on, Dr. Bower, I’ll be good. My neck doesn’t hurt.”

“You know it’s protocol.” Lukas leaned forward to take a look at Buck’s exposed back and felt hot air hitting his own neck. He glanced around to find Kyle and his partner, Alex, hovering over him, eyes wide, jaws slack.

“Why don’t you two go out into the waiting room,” Lukas suggested. “The police are around somewhere, and they might want to question you about the fire.”

With a look of sudden eagerness, the young men left, and Buck exhaled with relief. “Thanks. You can lay that collar on me now. Those kids couldn’t find a fire hose with their—”

“Okay, here you go.” Lauren positioned the stiff neck collar with Velcro, fastened it firmly and resumed her assessment.

“They chattered like monkeys all the way here,” Buck complained. “They went on and on about how I was a hero, and they would pay better attention next time I tried to teach them something.”

“They’re just kids,” Lauren said. “Give them a chance.”

“I did the other day, and, boy, was I sorry.” Buck reached up and tugged at the collar. “Isn’t this a little tight?”

Lauren leaned over and checked it. “It’s perfect. What did you do the other day?”

“I got my model airplane stuff out of my locker and let the boys help me with it—or try to. Kyle spilled the glue, and Alex broke a wingtip, so it took us longer than I thought it would. My shift ended, but I couldn’t leave them there with everything spread out all over the table, so I stayed and worked with them a couple more hours.”

“Did you call Kendra?” Lauren asked, placing the blood pressure cuff around his thick upper arm.

“No, and I sure heard about it when I got home. She just about took my head off.”

“Would you have left if you’d gotten called out for a fire?” Lauren asked, pumping the blood pressure cuff.

“Well, sure, but…Hey, careful with that thing. Don’t squeeze my arm off. I apologized and told her I’d never do that again.”

Lauren let the pressure drop and watched the numbers, then wrote them down. “That’s what you said after you let yourself be talked into feeding Leonardo for Cowboy.”

Buck reached up as if to scratch at the small wound on his chest but stopped himself before he could touch it. “Hey, this was different…and worse. At least Leonardo couldn’t follow me out of his cage. I haven’t been able to get those kids off my tail ever since. Kyle, especially. I trip over him everywhere I go.”

“He seems nice enough to me,” Lauren said.

“So is a puppy, but I don’t want one making runs with me. I think it’s dangerous to take kids like that into a fire situation.”

“But how else will they learn?” Lauren asked. “You know, Buck, all of us had to get a break somewhere. You’ve got to be more patient. Maybe that’s why the chief put you in charge of these boys, so you could learn some mentoring skills.”

Buck scowled at her. “I don’t even know what that word means.”

“It means you have some finely honed instincts you could use to train others, and you can’t let all that go to waste just because you don’t want to spend time with those—”

“Uh, Lauren,” Lukas interrupted. “Quiet for a moment, please.” He saw the sudden relief in Buck’s expression and stifled a grin. Lauren was a great nurse, very caring, but when she slipped into chatterbox mode she could shut down traffic.

Lukas placed his stethoscope on Buck’s back and chest, listened to breath sounds and was satisfied. “Where’s the pain Kyle’s so concerned about?”

Buck gestured to the upper left area of his chest. “Just a little cut. I can’t understand why it hurt so much, but, boy, Kyle grabbed me there when they helped me get up, and I nearly tore his head off.”

Lukas found a very small wound just above Buck’s left nipple. With a peroxide-soaked 4x4, he wiped off some of the blood.

Buck jerked. “Ow! Watch it, Dr. Bower. I did get knocked around a little, you know.”

“Is that where your pain is located? Don’t tell me you weren’t wearing your jacket again.”

“Yes, I was. I grabbed it before I went back inside.”

Lukas frowned and checked the wound a little more closely. It wasn’t even a centimeter in length, but there was no telling how deep it might be. “Tell me about the explosion.”

“I was grabbing for Roxie when it hit. The manager keeps a barbecue grill back there in the storeroom to cook hot dogs and hamburgers to sell up front, and it runs on propane. It’s big enough to take out a wall if it explodes, and that’s what happened. Roxie told me she was cooking some stuff on it and had to go up front to answer the phone. When she hung up and turned around, she said she saw a lot of smoke coming in from the back. She says one of the new delivery guys placed some boxes too close to the fire, and Roxie couldn’t move them.”

“Did you feel anything hit you? How much smoke did you inhale?”

“I don’t really think I got much smoke, but I couldn’t tell you if anything hit me. I hit a lot of things, like Roxie, the wall, and then some shelves fell on top of us. I tried to brace myself on my elbows to keep from squashing Roxie. Do you think I could’ve pulled a muscle or something?”

“A pulled muscle doesn’t break the skin.” Lukas helped him lie down while he gave instructions to Lauren for routine trauma X-ray series with two-view chest. “What’s the O2 sat?”

“Good. Ninety-six,” Lauren said.

Judy stepped to the doorway. “Dr. Bower, we have a drunk three-year-old in room seven. It’s the Chapmans, who called you earlier.”

Lukas glanced at his watch. “They made great time. Get Claudia to meet me there and I’ll be right out.” He ordered serum alcohol and poison levels for the child. “I hate to do it, but get Respiratory to draw a blood gas on him.” Invasive procedures were a part of his job he had never enjoyed, especially when it involved causing pain for little children who were too young to even understand what was happening to them. Big needles that stuck deep and hurt were always traumatic, and this one needed an artery.

“Go on and see about the kid, Doc,” Buck said. “I’ll be fine as long as you can keep my young buddies from pestering me to death.”

Lukas grinned. “It comes with being a hero.”

“I don’t want to be a hero. I just want to do a good job. This mentoring is new for me.”

“It always helps to learn from the best.”

“I’m not the best. The chief just didn’t want to do it himself this time.” Buck lowered his voice and glanced toward the doorway. “I don’t want to be a jerk, but they’re not going to get a good review from me.”

“Come on, Buck, you were young once. In fact, you’re still young.”

Mercy walked into the room, greeted Buck as if she were used to seeing his burnt-to-a-crisp appearance every day and held the clipboards for two more patients for Lukas to see. “Want me to do these for you while I’m here? I called Josie, and she’s done a triage and sent some of my patients home.”

Lukas shot her a grateful smile. “Thank you, Mercy.”

“It’ll cost you a dinner.”

“Great. I’ll cook.”

“Hey! I’m doing you a favor here. Don’t threaten me.”

Lukas left Lauren to run his orders on Buck and walked out into the hallway with Mercy. He reached up instinctively to touch her shoulder, then hesitated and let his hand fall back to his side. He was already getting teased by the staff about his relationship with her.

“How’s Arthur doing?” he asked.

“I’m releasing him to his friends.” Mercy stopped outside the door, shook her head, frowned. “I didn’t want to do it, but he didn’t want to be so far from his wife. His CT’s fine.” She lowered her voice. “He’s something else. I don’t think I’ve met anybody quite like him.” She looked into Lukas’s eyes, then away. “Except maybe for you.” She turned and walked into another exam room.

Lukas was glad she didn’t see him blush.

The drunken child, three-year-old Jared Chapman, had a good serum alcohol level, which would counteract the effects of the antifreeze. The ethylene glycol and methanol levels were low enough that Jared wouldn’t need dialysis, so they could just watch him closely in the telemetry unit overnight on an alcohol drip. The parents were relieved and happy, and so was Lukas. Even with the needle for the blood gas, Jared was feeling a minimum amount of pain. The poor little boy would probably have treatment for a hangover in the morning.

The pharmacist was the only one who complained. When Lukas personally ordered the alcohol drip, the man replied, “You know you guys can’t be drinking on the job.”