she thought, if he only knew how close his question struck. Well, she wouldn’t think of it. She would not. Instead, she inhaled slowly and checked the equipment tray readied by the scrub nurse. Interning is behind you. You’re a doctor now. With excellent surgical talent. You know what to do.
Her counselor’s mantra, calming her pounding heart and the jitters edging into her fingers. One more deep breath….
They wheeled Sumner in and she saw he was calm and slightly drowsy from the sedative administered twenty minutes before.
Shelly, the circulating nurse, went through the preoperative checklist again, ensuring he was the correct patient via his armband, X-rays, consent forms, lab results. Next Brad, Ella’s anesthesiologist, explained his role to her patient.
The pain will be gone soon, she told him mentally. On the monitor, she scanned Sumner’s vitals.
“Good to go,” Brad informed her. Patient was out.
“Let’s get started then.”
An hour later, Ella pulled off her soiled surgical gloves and tossed them in the disposable bin. She had repaired his damaged cartilage. He’d been lucky—the kneecap hadn’t shifted, and while the soft tissue had bruised, it hadn’t sustained severe injury. However, the fall had wreaked havoc on his right meniscus—torn the cartilage from its mooring—and after studying the X-rays last night and the MRI this morning, Ella had known J.D.’s repair would entail the arthroscopic surgery she had just performed.
Now he was on his way to recovery. She’d check on him in fifteen minutes, but first she needed a drink of water. Surgeries with their intense lights and stress always dehydrated her. In the small doctor’s lounge down the hall she found her internist brother, Peter, sitting at one of the two small tables reading several pages of a letter, a coffee at his right hand.
“Hey, Peter.” Ella reached into the fridge for the liter of Evian she’d brought that morning from home.
He gave her a glance. “El.”
She sat across from him, stretched her legs, took a long pull on the water and jutted her chin at the pages. “What’s up?”
“More crap from the state medical board. They’re claiming we’re unethical in our methods, that we’re focusing too much on coddling—their word—patients and not enough on speed of recovery and effectiveness of treatment.” He gathered the pages into the big brown folder marked Dr. P. Wilder, Chief of Staff. The word confidential had been typed above his name.
“Should you be telling me this?” she asked, hoping he would say no. She had no time or interest in crazy allegations, especially when they alluded to a political agenda. Having already heard the rumors and innuendos, she simply tried to focus on her work.
Undoubtedly some of those rumors had evolved from the tug-of-war between Peter and his fiancée, Bethany Holloway—before they’d fallen in love. As a newcomer to Walnut River and the hospital board, Bethany had initially advocated Northeastern HealthCare’s takeover of Walnut River General. Until Peter convinced her NHC’s financial “support” would disintegrate the heart of the hospital.
Now, he shrugged his big shoulders. “You know the most of it already,” he said.
“I don’t want to,” Ella said honestly. “I was never any good at political science.”
He gave her a smile. “Aw, El. You were the brains of the family. We all knew that the minute you turned two and told Mom she’d made an extra cookie for Anna.”
Their sister who had estranged herself from the family almost ten years ago. Ella rubbed her forehead. “I wish…”
“What?”
“That Anna believed in our love.”
“She’s got to work it out herself, Ella.”
Momentarily they remained silent, the hospital’s sounds drifting through the open door: a medicine cart’s squeaky wheels in the hallway, the beep of someone’s pager, the jingle of a maintenance staffer’s keys. Sounds that had soothed Ella since she’d first toddled down the wide, polished corridors with her daddy, Dr. James Wilder.
Oh! Sometimes missing him would hit her so hard she had to catch her breath.
She thought of the man whose knee she’d repaired. Of course she’d recognized him last night. J. D. Sumner, executive of Northeastern HealthCare had arrived two days ago from New York City to woo the hospital board. A man with an agenda that, according to Peter, would uproot her father’s legacy and the principles of Walnut River General.
A man who had the greenest eyes—like moss on a forest tree….
Moss on a tree? Sheesh, Ella. Have you lost it?
Shoving the silly analogy aside, she said, “Sumner’s surgery went well, although he’ll be using crutches for a few days.” Her lips twitched. “I wouldn’t put it past him to show up in the boardroom with his butt hanging out of a hospital gown.”
Peter flashed a grin. “I’ll tell Beth. She’s doing some digging on who’s feeding the wolves.” He tapped the folder.
“Speaking of which, I need to check the one in my recovery.”
With a last gulp of water, she deposited the empty bottle into the recycle bin and headed down the hallway. She still couldn’t believe she’d given Sumner that tidbit about her age and experience. Thank goodness, she hadn’t blurted out anything else—such as I have confidence issues in the O.R. and am seeing a psychologist in Springfield.
God forbid.
Walking into recovery, she saw that consciousness wove through her patient’s mind, a sunbeam eliminating shadows.
“Hey, Doc,” he mumbled, those green eyes braving the light before drifting closed again.
Wolf or not, J. D. Sumner was a patient whose knee had been carved into by her scalpel. Her compassionate heart—the same one Peter had inherited—softened.
She laid a cool hand across Sumner’s forehead; found his pulse on the big freckled wrist resting on the blanket. Good—regular and strong. Skin a little warm but that was expected fresh out of the O.R.
Thank God. Another win.
Stop thinking like an intern! Focus on your patient.
She did. And saw he was a big man, long and lean and honed in all the muscled regions. She knew the human anatomy inside and out. Eleven years of school, orthopedic studies and her residency had garnered her that knowledge. Sumner was the epitome of health.
“The surgery was a success,” she told him quietly, her hand slipping upward to stroke back his hair.
He had wonderfully thick hair, McDreamy-shaggy and a dark auburn hue she’d sell a kidney for. Rich was all she could think. The color was rich as a forest of oaks in autumn.
Forests again. What was the matter with her? She wasn’t even an outdoor kind of gal.
“Feels
