Читать книгу Midnight, Moonlight & Miracles - Teresa Southwick - Страница 8

Trauma team to the ER. Code three—ETA. Five minutes.

Megan Brightwell read the message on her beeper. Adrenaline pumped through her even as she looked at the turkey sandwich she’d just purchased from the hospital cafeteria. Code three meant paramedics were bringing someone in with lights and sirens—a possible life-threatening emergency. She grabbed the sandwich and raced from the cafeteria, turning right toward the emergency room.

Five minutes gave her three to wolf down food and one for indigestion. That left her just enough time to put on her I’m-too-cool-to-be-excited-about-being-on-the-trauma-team face.

Right on time the paramedics wheeled the patient in.

“Put him in trauma two,” she said, glancing at the patient. A man. His eyes were closed, shirt torn and bloody, ditto the jeans.

The two EMTs did as instructed and, on her count, the three of them grabbed the sheet and transferred him to the hospital gurney.

“What have we got?” she asked.

“Motorcycle accident. Male. Mid-thirties. Normal vitals. Unconscious when we got to the scene. Witnesses said he tried to get up and his leg buckled. He woke up en route but keeps drifting in and out. Superficial scrapes, one nasty gash left shoulder. Bump on the head. Facial abrasions. We started an IV.”

“Did he have ID on him?” she asked.

The paramedic handed over a wallet. “Simon Reynolds.”

“Mr. Reynolds? Can you hear me?” She glanced at the man. His eyelids flickered and he groaned but didn’t look at her. “Where’s his helmet?”

“Wasn’t wearing one,” the EMT responded.

Shaking her head in disgust, she yanked her bandage scissors from her pocket. The blunt, angled end made it easier to cut away his tattered shirt and the bottom part of his pants. She grabbed a disposable razor and shaved five circular spots on his chest, then attached stickies for the leads that would hook him up to the heart monitor. The machine would take constant pulse, respiration and blood pressure.

“What have we got, Megan?” Dr. Sullivan hurried into the room and stood on the other side of the gurney, surveying the victim. He palpated the belly and then prodded, searching for evidence of internal injuries.

She filled him in on what the EMT had said.

“Take him to X-ray for a CT scan. We’ll see what shows up. His vitals are normal, and it doesn’t look like there’s any bleeding in the belly. He just looks like hamburger.”

“So he’s not toast,” she agreed, going with ER-speak for he looked a lot worse than he was.

“Probably not.”

“Mr. Reynolds, I’m taking you to X-ray.” His eyes flickered, but he didn’t say anything.

Megan tugged on the end of the gurney, wheeling it out of the room and through the double doors for the short trip to radiology. Looking down at him, she sighed. “His guardian angel was working overtime tonight.”

“Can you hear me, Mr. Reynolds? I want you to open your eyes now.”

Simon decided maybe he would open his eyes if only to silence that bossy female voice. He wanted to tell her not to waste any more time and energy on him. He’d been aware of her—and other people—moving around him, doing X rays and bloodwork, beeping and poking and prodding. All their efforts were wasted on him, and it was time to tell her so. But when he looked up, a blond, blue-eyed knockout of an angel was staring back at him.

If he was dead, she was slumming. He’d already been living in hell. Dying would only make it official.

“Welcome back, sleeping beauty,” she said.

“Isn’t that the one where the wake-up call is a kiss?” He forced the words past what felt like gravel in his throat.

“I’m a nurse, not the fairy-tale police.”

“Not an angel?” He remembered hearing something about a guardian angel.

She shook her head. “Not even close.”

“Then I’m not dead?” A purely rhetorical question. The pain knifing through him was clear evidence that he was alive.

“You’re still a member of the human race,” she confirmed.

Maybe a member of the race. He wasn’t so sure about the human part.

“Where am I?” He knew it was a hospital, but details were fuzzy.

“You’re in the ER at Saint Joseph’s. You’re on a heart monitor, standard procedure for trauma patients.” She glanced at the beeping machine beside him and the screen with lines spiking across it. “Next time you decide to give Evel Knievel a run for his money, I suggest you wear a helmet. Didn’t you get the memo that protective headgear is the law? And it’s designed for the purpose of preventing nasty goose eggs like the one you’ve got there.”

Pain roared through his head like an Amtrak train. But still he lifted his arm to touch his forehead, and winced when he found a good-sized lump that confirmed her words. He noticed thin, clear tubing connected to his arm. An IV?

“Who are you?” he asked.

“My name is Megan Brightwell. Do you know who you are?”

“Simon Reynolds.”

“Good. Do you know what day this is?”

He thought for a moment. When he remembered the date, consuming pain roared through him again, but this time it wasn’t physical.

“Yeah. I know.” He looked at her, wishing the protective haze hadn’t cleared so fast. “You’re a nurse? Then I guess goose egg is the correct medical terminology?”

“Actually, that would be contusion, but I didn’t want to get too technical with a man who just scrambled his brains.”

“What happened?”

“You don’t remember?”

“Nothing except riding the bike.” He shook his head, wincing as he instantly regretted the motion.

“I guess I don’t have to tell you to lie still.” In spite of her teasing words and tone, there was a sympathetic expression in her eyes.

The last thing he wanted, needed or deserved was her pity.

Metal scraped on metal as she dragged a privacy curtain halfway around the space where he was lying. Beyond it, he heard a phone ring and muted voices. Pretty quiet. The last time he’d been here all hell had broken loose. Must be a slow night. Good. Someone would look at him before his injuries had time to heal. He wanted the hell out of here.

“According to the paramedics who brought you in, one minute you were riding that motorcycle. The next you were playing slip and slide on the street—without the plastic mat.”

“The roads were slick.”

“Yeah,” she allowed. “Rain does that. And you just proved what everyone says—Southern Californians don’t know how to drive on wet roads.”

“You’re not going to cut me any slack, are you?”

“That’s not my plan. Do the words ‘slow down’ mean anything to you?”

“And miss slip and slide?”

“Silly me. What was I thinking?” she asked, her tone rife with sarcasm.

In spite of the stinging, throbbing and aching that encompassed every single cell and nerve ending of his body, he registered a flicker of respect for this woman’s shoot-from-the-hip, call-a-spade-a-spade style.

He shifted on the hard gurney, then wished he hadn’t. “I think I took a solid bounce or two.”

“You have some nasty yet colorful lacerations and abrasions,” she confirmed.

“Anything life threatening?”

“You almost sound like you’re hoping.” A frown puckered her smooth brow.

He shrugged and caught his breath at the pain that zinged him. “I just want to know when I can get out of here.”

Except for that spot of worry between her brows, her skin was smooth and creamy. She was pretty. He couldn’t be hurt too bad if he noticed.

“Is there someone we can call to let them know you’re here? Your wife maybe?”

His chest tightened. “No.”

“What about friends? Family?”

“My brother lives in Phoenix. Since I’m not dead, there’s no reason to call him—or anyone else. Except maybe the doc so I can split.”

“I’ll let him know you’re awake. He’ll be in to talk to you as soon as he can.”

“Can’t you tell me what’s up?”

“No. That’s the doctor’s job.”

“Where is he? Playing golf?”

“After evaluating your vital signs, he ordered labs and X rays. While waiting for those, he went to see the other patient.”

He remembered going through the tests. Then her words sank in.

“Other patient?” He frowned. “I didn’t hit—I mean when I went down—was it just me?”

“As far as I know,” she said, “that patient is medical as opposed to accident trauma. When we triaged the two of you, he drew the short straw. Doctor’s been working on him for a while.”

“If I came in second, I guess that means I’m going to live.”

“You sound disappointed.”

Maybe he was. She might look like an angel, but she didn’t act like one. But then, how would he know? No self-respecting angel would or should give him the time of day. Even if he believed in them, which he didn’t. Not anymore. Not since Marcus—

Suddenly exhausted, he closed his eyes.

“Stay with me, sleeping beauty.” Her voice was sharp. “Mr. Reynolds? Can you hear me?”

Megan gently patted her patient’s face and squeezed his hand, because it was one of the few places without abrasions. Probably because he’d worn leather gloves. What kind of idiot would protect his hands and not his head?

“An idiot with a death wish,” she whispered to no one in particular. She gently patted his face again. “Oh, no you don’t. Not on my watch.”

“I’m not asleep. Who’s an idiot?” he asked, opening his eyes.

She let out a relieved breath, grateful she’d easily roused him and he hadn’t slipped into unconsciousness. “So you were playing possum.”

“I don’t play anything—”

Anymore.

The word hung in the air between them as clearly as if he’d said it out loud. She studied him. He wasn’t hard on the eyes. In spite of the fact that he looked like the loser in a close encounter of the pavement kind, he was incredibly good-looking. But she couldn’t help thinking he was in pain.

Duh. Of course he was. The man probably had a concussion. But she couldn’t shake the feeling that she couldn’t see where he was hurting the most. And since when did psychoanalyzing become part of emergency room protocol?

“No more pretending to be asleep, Mr. Reynolds.”

“I wasn’t pretending. And the name’s Simon.”

“It’s going to be mud if you scare me like that again.”

He grinned unexpectedly, chasing the shadows from his face, making him even more attractive. Her heart skipped, and she thought it was a good thing she wasn’t hooked up to a monitor. With no evidence to the contrary, she could pretend she’d had no reaction to his smile.

Megan checked the machine and noted that his vital signs were all good. But the shadows in his eyes and the tension in his square jaw told her he was pretty uncomfortable. Unfortunately, because of the head injury, there wasn’t anything she could do about it. Until the doctor assessed his tests and the extent of the damage, she couldn’t give him pain meds.

But he was stoic. She couldn’t help admiring that. And he was edgy. The cc or two of humor he’d injected into their short conversation gave her hope that his tests would come back negative, proving what she’d already observed. Simon Reynolds was strong and healthy. And handsome in a rough-and-tumble, rugged sort of way.

That was not a professional observation. It was purely personal, and she couldn’t help it. She was a woman; she was breathing.

Short, wavy dark hair framed his face. His eyes were a vivid blue, a shade more intense than she’d ever seen before on anyone—man or woman. The thick, dark lashes were sinfully long and totally wasted on a man.

He looked like a fighter—lean and muscular. Now that he’d passed the golden hour, that precious sixty minutes when medical intervention made the difference between life and death, she could observe more details about him. Her haphazard surgery on his clothes had revealed a pretty impressive chest and strong legs dusted with a masculine covering of hair.

“So you think I’m an idiot, Nurse Nancy?”

She met his gaze, which, surprisingly, held humor. “I told you—my name is Megan. And while you weren’t supposed to hear what I said, yes, I think you’re an idiot. Kids know better than to ride a bike without a helmet. Unless you’re a superhero I have to conclude that you don’t have the common sense of a gnat.”

“I hate helmet hair.”

“Ah,” she said, nodding. “So you’re a vain idiot.”

“Is it part of your job to insult your patients?”

“Nope. Just one of the perks.”

“Are all the ER nurses like you?”

“Nope. They’re worse. But then I’m fresh out of school. A newbie just filling in. I do four or five shifts a month to keep up my emergency room certification.”

“Why’s that?”

“I work for a home health-care company while I’m getting experience and waiting for a full-time position to open up here in the ER.”

“Why?”

“I have a child. Emergency room nursing is highly skilled. The pay is better.”

He flinched, then his face froze into an expressionless mask. As she observed him, the feeling hit her again that, in addition to his physical pain, he was stoic about his emotions.

Why did she keep doing that? Emotions had no place in ER medicine. Feelings were part of long-term recovery. For that matter, why had she just shared so many details about herself? She usually chatted with patients when she could, but didn’t share personal information. What was so different about this particular patient?

“Megan?”

She looked over her shoulder and saw the ER unit secretary in the doorway. “Yes?”

“Dr. Sullivan said to show you this.” The tall, thin, mid-fortyish woman handed her a computer printout. “He said to put it in the chart,” she added before hurrying from the room.

Megan’s eyebrows went up as she scanned the information. “Well, this is interesting.”

“What’s that?” he asked.

“It’s procedure to check the computer for previous data on every admit.”

“So I’m an admit.” His gaze narrowed on her. “Would you like to share the information with me?”

“I suspect you already know what it says.” She met his gaze squarely. “We saw you the first time a year and a half ago.”

His forehead furrowed. “Broken ankle?”

“Skydiving,” she confirmed. “Next was a shoulder separation.”

“I think that was hang gliding. That tree came out of nowhere.”

“Last but not least,” she said, “a ruptured spleen—resulting in surgery.”

“Waterskiing. I took the jump, and I remember soaring through the air with the greatest of ease. After that it gets a little hazy. I think one of the skis torpedoed me.”

“It appears you’re something of a regular here.”

She studied his pupils, watching for classic signs of concussion. The heart monitor would tell her his vitals, but she touched two fingers to the pulse in his wrist. For some reason, she felt the need to touch him.

“You have some dangerous hobbies, Simon.” She met his gaze. “Motorcycles? Hang gliders? Water skis, oh my. I’d say that makes you one of those guys who lives on the edge.”

“It’s not a bad place to be.”

“Why?”

“It’s the only safe place to feel anything.”

The words stunned Megan, but before she could respond, the doctor shoved aside the privacy curtain. The tall, balding, bespectacled physician had X-ray films in his hand.

“I see you’re wide-awake now, Mr. Reynolds.” He stood on the other side of the gurney.

“Thanks to Megan. She’s keeping me on my toes—so to speak.”

Dr. Sullivan nodded knowingly. “Megan’s one of the good guys. I just wish she was full-time staff.” He flipped through the pages of the chart in his hands, then looked at the man in the bed. “Good news. Nothing’s broken. But the paramedics who brought you in said witnesses told them you tried to get up after the accident and had trouble walking.”

“Yeah.” His brow furrowed as he thought. “I stood up and felt pain rip through my leg.”

“Where specifically?”

“Calf and thigh.”

“Since there are no broken bones, that would indicate soft tissue damage.”

“You want to give it to me in English?”

“Sounds like muscles, ligaments or tendons. You’ll wish it was a broken bone.”

“What do you mean?”

“Bones knit fast. For everything else, recovery is painful and slow.”

The patient nodded his head and started to sit up. “Okay. Thanks, Doc. Now I’ll get the heck out of here so someone who really needs this bed can have it.”

“Whoa.” The doctor put a hand on Simon’s chest and applied gentle but firm pressure, urging him back onto the bed.

Dr. Sullivan moved from the side to the foot of the gurney. “You’re not seriously planning to walk out of here? And I use the term walk loosely, because if you’ve got the kind of damage I think you do, you’re not going anywhere without crutches for a while. And the CT scan shows a possible concussion.”

“Two-dimensional pictures of the goose egg,” Megan translated, in case he didn’t know the term from his other visits.

“You said possible concussion.” He ignored her and directed the question to the ER doc.

“Yes. We need to watch you for signs of deterioration.” The doctor looked at Megan. “Has he complained of nausea?”

“He hasn’t complained about anything,” she admitted.

Simon glanced back and forth between the two of them. “So we all agree I’m fine. It’s been fun. I appreciate everything.”

Megan slipped into a state of readiness when he sat up and swung his legs over the side of the gurney. He’d regained consciousness quickly, and his snappy verbal responses told her he was firing on all cylinders mentally. But the rest of him had taken a beating. At the very least, he had to be wobbly. If he started to go down, she wanted to be close enough to catch him.

She almost laughed out loud. At five feet two inches, a hundred and five pounds, her catching a big man like him was ridiculous. But at least she could break his fall, slow his descent so he wouldn’t do more damage. She noticed the bright array of bruises, scrapes and one nasty-looking wound on his shoulder.

“You’re in no condition to leave the hospital,” she said.

“If one of you could call me a cab, I’ll just be on my way.” He looked from the doctor back to her.

“You’ve still got abrasions that need cleaning up and the laceration on your shoulder needs a couple of stitches,” the doctor said. “If you’ll just lie back down—”

“Thanks but no thanks.”

Simon tore the leads off either side of his chest and the one in the center. Then he did the same thing to the ones on his legs. The sound of Velcro ripping followed as he forcefully removed the blood pressure cuff from his arm. Megan remembered that she’d had to find an adult large to accommodate his impressive biceps.

Inane thought. And one she didn’t have time to analyze, because the idiot was going to leave without treatment. Before she could decide how to stop him or if she should even try, he removed the medical tape and IV from his arm. Blood dripping down the inside of his forearm mobilized her in a hurry.

She grabbed some gauze squares and pressed them against his skin to stanch the flow. Simon Reynolds must really hate hospitals. But in his condition it was the best place for him. She had a feeling rational arguments wouldn’t get through to him.

“I say we let him go.” She directed her comment to the doctor.

“I knew I liked you,” Simon said with an approving smile.

Dr. Sullivan pushed his glasses farther up on his nose. “Megan, I don’t think—”

“How far can he get? Between the leg and head injuries, it’s just a matter of what takes him down first. The leg will probably buckle—if he can stand at all. He’s pretty alert, but that bump on the head is bound to make him dizzy. Then there’s the blood loss—” She shrugged and bent his arm up toward his chest to maintain pressure that would help stop the bleeding. “I have a dollar that says he bites the dust as soon as he puts weight on the leg.”

“A whole buck?” Amusement chased the traces of pain from Simon’s face. “You’re not very sure of your diagnosis.”

“If I had more money and a sucker around here who’d take the bet, I could clean up,” she retorted. She glanced at the doctor. “We can just stand here and watch him pass out. Or on the off chance he makes it out of here, we can follow the blood trail.”

“I thought nurses were supposed to be angels of mercy.”

She looked back at him. “I told you I’m no angel.”

“What about the mercy part?”

“Any moron who rides a motorcycle without a helmet, then tries to leave the hospital before he’s physically ready doesn’t deserve mercy.”

Simon lifted one dark eyebrow. “She’s tough as nails, Doc,” he said.

“I’m glad she got through to you. Now then, we’ll clean you up and admit you—”

“I didn’t say I’d changed my mind.”

Dr. Sullivan stared in disbelief. “You can’t be serious. A man in your condition—”

“I’m dead serious.” He started to slide off the gurney.

“No,” Megan cried. She hadn’t expected him to call her bluff.

She instantly moved forward, insinuating herself between his legs to keep him on the gurney. For all her bravado, she was afraid he would hurt himself, do more damage than he’d already done.

When he slid down nudging her backward, she wedged her shoulder beneath his armpit and encircled his waist with her arm. He was heavy. She knew muscle weighed more than fat, and he had an abundance of one and no discernible trace of the other.

“Listen to reason,” she ground out.

When he met her gaze, his own snapped with stubbornness. “So it was an act? You’re not going to let me fall or follow the blood trail?”

“Look, if you don’t get the medical attention you need, you’re going to be one gigantic infection and that will probably finish you off.”

“She’s right, Mr. Reynolds.” The doctor went to his other side and helped Megan get him back on the gurney.

“You can’t keep me here if I don’t choose to stay.”

“Of course we can,” Megan said, bluffing again.

“Liar.” Simon’s forehead beaded with perspiration. “I’m a regular. I know the rules.”

She looked at the ER doctor for help. “Do something.”

“You know as well as I do that he’s within his rights to refuse treatment. Is there anyone at home who can look after you?”

Simon shook his head. “I don’t need anyone.”

“You do need medical care.” Dr. Sullivan rubbed a hand across the back of his neck.

“What kind of care?” Simon asked.

She met his gaze. “Stitches on the shoulder or you’ll have the mother of all scars.”

“Chicks love scars.”

“Says who? And scars aren’t the issue. But a nasty infection could ruin your day. The rest of your boo-boos need debriding.”

“What’s that?” he asked.

“You don’t know? With all your experience, I assumed you’d be familiar with the procedure. But I see you’re an equal opportunity catastrophe. Debriding is where I pick the gravel out while you bite on a stick.”

One corner of his mouth lifted. “Way to make me want to stay,” he said wryly.

“We’ll give you a local anesthetic,” the doctor explained. “But it’s got to be done.”

“Here?”

“Unless you sign yourself out AMA,” Megan said. “Against medical advice,” she translated. Although he probably already knew. “If you leave and fall down, you could hurt yourself even worse. But you’ll have no legal recourse with the hospital.”

“I’ll risk it—”

“Why do you want to?” She put her hands on her hips. “Look, you gave us your insurance card, so I know you’re covered.”

“Money isn’t a problem.”

“Then what is the problem?” she demanded.

“I hate hospitals.”

“There’s a news flash.”

“This isn’t getting us anywhere.” The doctor rubbed a hand across his forehead. “Look, Mr. Reynolds, what if you let us clean you up, then you spend the night here? We’d like to keep you twenty-four hours for observation, but we’ll take what we can get. Tomorrow we’ll send you on your way with a home health-care professional.”

“A nurse?” he asked, looking at her.

“Definitely.” The doctor nodded. “You’ll need to have an IV, dressings changed, close observation in case of concussion. We don’t want you passing out all by your lonesome. You’re going to need general care because of the soreness. It’s going to be hard to get around.”

Simon was quiet for several moments. Megan could see he was thinking it over. Still, she wasn’t prepared for his answer.

“Can I have Megan?”