pain at some point in his life. But he was drowsy and he’d been through enough for one night. “You may need a medical alert bracelet for the Demerol.” Setting a palm against his forehead, she noted the coolness of his skin. He was okay.
“Get some rest, Mr. Sumner.”
“I wish…” His eyes drooped. “I wish you’d call me J.D.”
She ignored the request. J.D. was far too personal. It gave him an edge she wasn’t prepared to relinquish. “Sleep, sir. It’s best for your injury. Let the saline and the
medication do its job.”
“They gave me Tylenol 3.”
“It’ll help with the pain.” And the fever. “I’ll see you in the morning.”
“What time?”
“Around seven.”
“I pressed the call button right away,” he said, as if reluctant to let her go. “Was surprised someone attended so fast.”
“That’s how our hospital works. No calls go unnoticed or unattended. Here, patient care is first and foremost.”
“Good.” His breathing slowed, his eyes drifted closed. “Wish you were on call. I hate…hospitals.”
“Well,” she said softly, “I hope you won’t hate ours too much.”
“’Ni’, Doc.”
“Goodnight.”
She left his room, returned to the nurses’ station and wrote her observations on his chart. Several minutes later she was heading home, hands gripping the steering wheel. Would she ever get past the horrifying repercussions of that surgery in Boston?
One day at a time, the counselor had told her.
God help her if something had gone wrong with J. D. Sumner.
He’s already scared. The thought popped up like a weed.
Oh, he had a cocky attitude, but an underlying current of apprehension rode his voice from the moment Mike O’Rourke, one of the hospital’s paramedics, brought him into the E.R. Which, she supposed, was understandable, but still…
In her mind she backtracked the past two days. His constant questions, the hint of anxiety. His need for her at his side. And it was more than simple attraction. He saw her as his lifeline. Why?
Why was J. D. Sumner, executive of one of the largest health care corporations, leery of hospitals?
Or was it just her hospital?
J.D. woke in a cold and drenching sweat.
The hospital gown stuck to his clammy skin and for a moment his brain didn’t register his surroundings. And then his eyes focused.
He lay in the hospital, a place he had not spent one night—never mind two—since his birth. The clock radio read 12:03 a.m. He’d been asleep less than two hours. His mouth tasted of dryer lint. He reached for the water, took a sip. The ice had long since melted.
Someone had placed the call button within reach, tying it to the guardrail near his hand. He pressed the red glow light of the tiny plastic knob—one, two, three. Shudders rolled through his body.
Within ten seconds, a soft tread came down the corridor. A woman entered his room.
“Doc?” J.D. rasped, eyes blurry.
“It’s Lindsey,” the woman said. “The night nurse. Are you okay, Mr. Sumner?”
“I’m soaked.” His teeth rattled. He tried to focus, but she stood etched in the dim glow from the hallway. “Need the doc,” he slurred.
At his bedside, the nurse ran gentle fingers down his arms, took his cold hands between her palms. “I’ll get you a clean gown and some extra blankets,” she said, then disappeared.
J.D. shivered. He hadn’t been this cold since he’d been a kid and had to shovel his dad’s truck out of a ditch one bitter winter night when the old man hit an icy patch and plowed into the snowdrift along the shoulder of the road. I’m frozen, he’d told his dad.
You’re not shoveling hard enough, Pops had retorted.
Another shudder rushed through J.D.’s body.
Lindsey returned with blankets in her arms, a fresh water bottle in her hand and the male nurse on her heels.
“We’ll get you comfy in no time, Mr. Sumner,” she said.
Gently, they assisted him from bed to a chair. And while Lindsey changed the linens, the man changed J.D.’s nightshirt. Minutes later he lay snug and dry under the covers. His knee throbbed like a son of a bitch.
While he sipped water, Lindsey took his pulse and inserted an ear thermometer. She had calm hands and a soothing voice. He’d always imagined hospitals as semi drug-induced prisons where the injured were at the mercy of emotionless medical staff who pretty much wanted you out of the way and not holding up the assembly line.
The type of hospitals NHC praised. For some reason, tonight the standard felt false.
Checking his stats, Lindsey asked, “How’s the knee?”
“Feels like it’s been run over by a truck.”
“We’ll give you some more Tylenol.”
His breathing eased. “Is the doc coming?”
“We’ve called her, but it’s just the Demerol working itself out of your system.”
After he’d taken the pills, the nurse tucked him in as if he were a child. “You’ll sleep now,” she said kindly.
He damn near expected her to kiss him goodnight on his forehead, but she stepped back and drew up the guardrail. “Good night,” she whispered.
He was too tired to respond. Already the pills were spreading their smooth serenity into his raw knee and his last thought was that he couldn’t remember anyone ever tucking him in at night.
Definitely not his old man.
The wind had died down by the time Ella drove through the cold dawn to the hospital the next morning. All night, between bouts of sleep, she’d worried about Sumner. Considering Lindsey would have notified her if something had gone awry, forfeiting sleep had been silly and foolish. Sheesh. If she thought of the thousands of lost nights during her studies and internship….
Pulling into her parking spot, she inhaled hard. If she hadn’t been so driven, so fevered over getting her medical degree, maybe there would have been someone after Tyler….
Oh, God. The last thing she needed was to remember Tyler. Dear Tyler with his brilliant medical mind. His broken body after his skiing accident in their first year of internship. Tyler whom she had loved, but hadn’t been in love with. Until he was gone,
