style="font-size:15px;"> Then she grabbed Toby’s hand and did the only thing she could think of.
She fled.
CHAPTER TWO
SAMMI pumped the inhaler twice and waited.
Toby, still half-asleep, lay on his back propped in a nest of pillows. The terrifying rattle in his chest slowly eased as the albuterol flooded his lungs, widening his breathing passages to allow more air flow.
As Community Health Aide for the island, she knew better than to panic, but when it was your own son… She closed her eyes. Who could maintain any kind of objectivity under those circumstances?
Not that she had much of that anyway. Molly had continually fussed at her for rushing from one house to another to check on patients she’d just seen the day before.
‘You’re going to wear yourself out this way’ had been the rebuke du jour.
Her friend was right, but she hadn’t been able to stop.
Now that Molly was gone and with only one other physician’s assistant on staff at the clinic, she wouldn’t have the luxury of taking off at any hour of day to check on her patients. And either she or the PA would now have to accompany any medevac flights headed to Anchorage. The good part was that she’d be able to meet up with Molly periodically. The bad part was that she was stuck flying with Mark—although Blake could still handle cases that weren’t life or death and who could wait the three hours it took him to reach Dutch Harbor.
‘Better?’ she asked her son, his breathing now almost back to normal.
He nodded sleepily, trying to squinch his way back into his cocoon of warm covers.
‘Not so fast, bud. Let’s just wait another minute or two.’
His impatient sigh made her smile. Okay, if he could do that, instead of gasping for each breath, she could afford to let him go back to sleep. She tucked him in and stood over his bed, watching him for a second. Before putting the inhaler back on the book-packed nightstand beside his bed, she shook it to see how much of the medicine remained.
Were they going through it faster than normal?
She couldn’t shake the feeling that Toby’s attacks were coming more frequently than in the past.
Checking the child monitor before she clicked the lights off, she headed back to her own room, hoping she could squeeze her eyelids shut long enough to turn off her brain. She needed the sleep, or tomorrow promised to be a long, exhausting day.
‘Mrs. Litchfield is in room one. One of her joints is swollen to almost twice its size.’ The receptionist handed Sammi a file folder.
She tossed her braid over her shoulder, catching a movement outside the front plate-glass window as she did.
Mark. He was striding by on his way to the airport, hands stuffed into the front pockets of his leather bomber jacket, long, loose limbs moving in a way that drew the eye. Not quite a swagger, his stride gave off an air of easy confidence that said he didn’t care what the world thought of him.
And unlike Sammi, who couldn’t seem to look away, the man didn’t spare a glance at the clinic, or at her. With a sigh, she forced herself to turn away and head to the exam room.
As soon as she arrived, all thoughts of Mark evaporated when Barbara Litchfield, a woman in her mid-fifties, climbed to her feet and greeted her.
‘Sorry to come back so soon,’ she said, the regret in her voice unmistakable.
‘What are you talking about? I told you to get back in here at the first hint of trouble. Arthritis is nothing to play around with. I know you need those fingers whole and strong.’
A retired orchestral pianist, Barbara had moved to the Aleutians with her husband when he’d retired from a corporate job a couple of years ago. At a time when most retirees sought refuge in the south, hoping for warm, sunny days of golfing and fun, the Litchfields had bucked the trend, fitting right into the harsh landscape of Dutch Harbor. Barbara taught piano lessons—free of charge—to a few of the local kids. It meant a lot to both the former pianist and the kids she worked with. Those fingers were important, and not just for her physical health.
Sammi snapped on a pair of gloves. ‘Let’s take a look, shall we?’
Taking the other woman’s hands in hers, she spotted the affected joint immediately. Swollen and angry red, her left ring finger didn’t look happy, and for good reason. Molly frowned when she noted the woman’s wedding band. ‘Why is that still on?’
‘I tried to get it off this morning when I realized how bad it was, but it wouldn’t budge, and when I tried to force it…’ Her voice trailed away.
‘It’s okay. The base of your finger isn’t swollen at the moment, but if it begins to swell, we may need to cut the ring off.’ She put a hand on the other woman’s shoulder. ‘We won’t unless it’s absolutely necessary, okay? In the meantime, I’m going to give you a shot of cortisone in the joint. Then I really want you to see a rheumatologist in Anchorage. I’ll make a phone call and get you in as soon as possible.’
‘I can’t just keep taking Advil?’
Sammy shook her head. ‘That used to be how we treated arthritis, thinking if we could get the inflammation under control, we could preserve the joint. But newer research suggests the real damage happens much earlier in the disease, even before it shows up on X-rays.’
Just like the damage to Sammi and Mark’s relationship. Just as their feelings for each other started to gain a foothold, unseen currents swirled around them, eating away at the foundation. By the time she’d realized just how deeply she’d fallen for him, the mysterious corrosive agent had done its job. The silver cord joining them had snapped and Mark had bolted.
So why did seeing him walk down the street this morning still tug at something inside her? And why had seeing her son’s hand enveloped in his at the wedding a week ago turned her heart inside out?
She shook off the questions. It didn’t matter. She’d gotten married, had a child with someone else. Mark had dated plenty of other women since his return.
There was nothing between them any more.
‘Let me make a quick phone call then I’ll give you the injection.’ Sammi scribbled a couple of notes down on the chart. ‘I’ll be right back.’
The phone call took less than five minutes. A bit of arm twisting on her end, the promise of a jar of home-made salmonberry jam when the season rolled around, and Barbara had her appointment. Two weeks from today, record time for that kind of specialist. But she and Chris Masters went way back. One of the few islanders who’d gone to medical school and left the Aleutians, he was now a highly sought-after rheumatologist. Appointments with him could take months.
Satisfied, she made a note to herself that her debt to fellow doctors was now up to ten pints of jam and a pie. Not to mention her son, who’d made her promise on her life not to give all their jelly away again this year.
Speaking of Toby…
She jogged back to the reception
