him with her new car?
And then, in spite of the pain that still lingered in the room from Kendra’s tears and Buck’s stoic silence, he felt a glow of satisfaction that he hadn’t felt in a long, long time. For once, he was on the giving end.
Chapter Three
T ex blotted and held, blotted and held as Lukas finished the last of the twelve interrupted sutures on Catcher’s arm. The big biker hadn’t even grunted through the ordeal. In fact, Lukas was sure that he himself had been the only one who grimaced every time the needle pierced flesh. Even with alcohol to mask the pain, it had to hurt. This man was tough.
Company had begun to arrive halfway through the procedure, as the first of Catcher’s biker friends came clomping into the E.R. carrying plastic packs of pimento cheese sandwiches and chips and soda they’d purchased from the vending machine in the waiting room. After an irritable glance in their direction, Tex had shown no reaction to their arrival. Even when one of the buddies came in and handed half a sandwich to Catcher, Lukas didn’t make a remark. They weren’t supposed to have food in the E.R. and if OSHA found out about the infraction, there would be complaints and fines and forms filled out in quadruplicate, but Lukas wasn’t in the mood to play hall monitor to a bunch of aging tattoos this early on a Sunday morning. Most of them just came in for a minute to check on their buddies, then wandered out to the waiting room, which was separated from the treatment area by a door and a sliding window where the secretary sat.
One husky woman wearing tight denim jeans and a heavy gray sweater shoved through the dividing door, food and soda tucked against her side by her left arm, holding a pack of cigarettes and a lighter in her right hand.
“Hey, Catcher!” she blared. “They treatin’ you okay back here? I’ll bash heads if they’re not.” She took a deep whiff of air. “Phew, smells like medicine and puke back here. Don’t you guys have any air freshener?”
Lukas clipped the nylon thread. “Okay, two more and we’re finished poking you, Catcher.”
Someone else in leather and tattoos stepped into the E.R. doorway from the waiting room beyond. “Hey, look, they got a TV! Hey, nurse, you guys got cable here?” A blare of music screamed through the rooms.
Lukas heard Tex’s sharp intake of breath and caught a glimpse of her angry scowl, and he shook his head at her. “We’re almost finished here.” Lord, please just hold this all together a little longer. Give me patience and compassion.
A loud clank and clatter pierced his concentration. His hands almost jerked the final suture too tightly. Neither he nor Tex could look up from their work just now, but as soon as he’d snipped the last of the threads, Tex put her things down and snapped off her gloves.
“If you’ll finish up here, I’ll check out the crash,” she said.
Lukas could almost see her flexing her muscles as she metamorphosed from Tex the paramedic to Tex the bouncer. Uh-oh. Not only was she about to make a scene, but she was also about to make him look like a coward. He did have a little pride left.
“Um, Tex, why don’t—”
Catcher groaned. “Oh, Doc, I think I’m gonna hurl.”
With a final glance over his shoulder to see Tex strutting off to bash heads, Lukas grabbed an emesis basin. “Breathe in through your nose if you can, Catcher, then out through your mouth. There you go.” He took the ice pack from Catcher’s limp hand and placed it against the man’s forehead.
More voices shouted from the other room. Tex’s was the loudest. “I said put that chair back down where it belongs and give me that coffeepot!”
Lukas had Lauren McCaffrey to thank for all this. Sweet-faced, innocent-eyed Lauren. When her cousin Tex heard through the family grapevine that there was an E.R. physician temporarily without a job, she’d called Lauren, looking for a replacement for a doctor on suspension.
“Scenic views, right there on the Lake of the Ozarks,” Lauren had said. “Small-town E.R. probably a lot like Knolls. It’ll be like a vacation. How much trouble could a five-bed E.R. be?”
And so Lukas had signed on for three months—until the earliest estimated time of completion for the Knolls E.R.
More shouts rang out from the waiting room, and then Lukas heard the squall of a siren as an ambulance pulled up outside, lights flashing.
This place needed more staff on Saturday nights. It was time to call the police. And he would never trust Lauren McCaffrey again.
“No!” Kendra’s shoulders came up from the pillow, her hands grasping Buck’s shoulders in desperation. Her eyes widened in fear above the clear oxygen mask. “You’re gonna shut me away like I’m crazy!”
Mercy saw Buck’s expression freeze as he held his wife.
“No, Kendra,” she said firmly. “That’s not what this is.” She took the younger woman by the shoulders, eased her back down and readjusted the mask. “Listen to me for a moment.” She waited until she felt some of the tension release from Kendra’s arms, then took her by the hand and squeezed. “Honey, you’re in trouble. You have an illness that is causing you to behave the way you are, and we need to get you help.” She paused. How would she explain this to a child? “We need to protect you until we can get your illness under control with medication. We’re going to put you in the hospital for ninety-six hours, and the doctors and nurses up there will keep a close eye on you and make sure you’re safe.”
Kendra held Mercy’s gaze for a moment, focusing first on Mercy’s left eye, then on the right, with disconcerting intensity. Her whole body quivered, and again tears dripped down her cheeks. “Where?”
“Cox North in Springfield. They’re specially trained to take care of cases like this.”
“What kind of a case is this? What’re you talking about?”
Mercy tried to pick her words carefully, but she had to be honest. “From what I’ve heard and seen, and from what I know of you personally, I’d say you have bipolar disorder, but I’m not a psychiatrist, so…”
Kendra tightened her grip on Mercy’s hands. “Does that mean I’m crazy?”
“No,” Buck snapped in frustration. He closed his eyes and sighed, combing his fingers through his short hair. He stepped back from the bed and flexed his shoulders wearily. “What am I going to do with her, Dr. Mercy?”
“Stop talkin’ over my head like I’m a kid.”
“Then stop acting like one.”
The antipathy shot between them like an electric bolt as their gazes held for a long moment.
“This won’t help,” Mercy said softly. She gave them a few seconds to calm down as she watched the changing emotions play over Kendra’s face. She looked like a young Michelle Pfeiffer, with an exquisite beauty that could easily have transmitted itself onto the movie or television screen. But all she’d ever wanted was a husband and children. Lots of children. They’d discovered recently that she couldn’t have kids, just a few months after her fireman father was killed in the line of duty.
“I won’t go to any psychiatrist.” Kendra’s
