on Arthur, when a newly familiar sense of suffocating heat and slight nausea accosted her. She inhaled with sharp impatience, as if to will away the attack as it began its languid travel outward from the core of her body. She hated this feeling! There wasn’t time for it now.
She stepped into the private bathroom and splashed some cold water on her face and neck, then took deep breaths in through her nose and out through her mouth to try to relax. Stress. It had to be stress. Her life was so full right now that she constantly felt tense, even irritable. She wasn’t sleeping well at night, and she refused to try the sleeping pills she sometimes prescribed for her patients. She splashed water again on her face, then pulled off her lab coat and fanned herself with some paper towels. It would pass in a moment, as it had before. Some ice cubes would be nice, but—
“Mercy? You in there?” came Lukas Bower’s voice from the call room entrance.
Dabbing moisture from her face and neck, she stepped out of the bathroom and waved him through the open doorway, then slumped onto the side of the bed in the corner beside the desk. She had to get back to the clinic. People were waiting. Who knew what state the office was in. But she was still perspiring heavily, and she didn’t feel like getting up right now.
Lukas strolled in and sat down in the desk chair, releasing a sigh. “Thanks for coming in. I don’t know what I’d’ve done without you. And thanks for taking such good care of Arthur.” He quirked a brow at her, and his clear blue eyes filled with gentle humor. “He got to you, didn’t he? I heard him asking you to pray with him.”
Mercy took a couple more deep breaths. She knew her face was flushed. She probably looked as if she’d been running a race.
Finally Lukas noticed. “Mercy? Are you okay? You don’t look too hot.”
Mercy sighed and rolled her eyes. Wonderful choice of words. Typically Lukas. “I’ll be fine.” Sometimes, when she became especially irritable, his tenderness and concern could calm her like nothing else. He blurted whatever he thought, and you never had to worry about where you stood with him. His soft brown hair, bespectacled face and compact built disguised a powerhouse of character and intellect that she admired. In fact, she felt much more than admiration for him. But she wasn’t ready to discuss the hot flashes with him or anybody else.
“I saw Beverly in with Cowboy today,” she said, making a show of examining the few exposed parts of his flesh. “I don’t see any scratch marks, and I didn’t hear any raised voices. Did she see you?”
“She saw me.”
“You know she’s still feeling guilty.”
“Why would she feel guilty? She swears I was the one in the wrong.” Lukas shrugged, but Mercy knew him well enough to know the continued disagreement with Beverly bothered him.
Everyone knew the nurse was afraid she would lose her job if she filed the report to support Lukas. Bailey Little had a lot of power, and he used it to get what he wanted.
“She still tries to schedule her shifts to keep from working with me,” Lukas said. “She’s civil when she gets stuck with me, but it isn’t a comfortable situation. I’ve been praying about it. Lauren says she’s praying, too. She’s even tried to talk to Beverly about it.”
Mercy tensed against her will at the mention of Lauren’s name. “And did our little supernurse get anywhere with her?” She cringed at the sound of her own jealousy.
Lukas blinked at her, and his forehead wrinkled in concern. “No, but at least Beverly’s still speaking to her. Mercy? Are you sure you’re okay?”
This time the heat that flushed her face was shame, and she couldn’t hold his gaze. During all the time she’d spent with Lukas, she hadn’t been able to get out of her mind the fact that Lauren McCaffrey had a lot more in common with him. She was a Christian, as he was. She was his age and, like him, she had never been married. She was kind and outgoing to everyone. Her constant chatter sometimes got on Mercy’s nerves, but she had a good heart. Funny how jealousy could tinge someone’s outlook.
“I’ve got to dictate this chart and get back to my patients,” Mercy said at last, still not looking at him. “How about a date Thursday night? Jarvis George has a lady friend who is giving him a ‘getting well’ party at his house.”
Lukas frowned at her. “You’re kidding, right? Do you think that’s a good idea? Don’t you think my presence will be detrimental to his recovery?”
Mercy picked up the phone. “Don’t be paranoid. He was so out of his mind last spring he probably doesn’t even remember you—or the extent to which he went to get rid of you.” She knew Lukas wouldn’t buy that. Sixty-five-year-old Jarvis George, the Knolls Community E.R. director, had opposed Mrs. Pinkley when she first hired Lukas. It hadn’t helped the situation when Jarvis, distracted by Lukas in an exam room, had accidentally stuck himself with a suture needle. The needle had been infected by a patient with undiagnosed tuberculosis.
“He remembers,” Lukas said. “I bet he still blames me.”
“Oh, come on, Lukas, it wasn’t your—”
“Not to mention the fact that the TB encephalitis couldn’t have kicked in until at least a couple of weeks later, during which time he used all the influence he could muster—”
“He was being manipulated by Bailey Little,” Mercy said. Everyone knew about the E.R. visit when Lukas had refused to give morphine to Bailey’s drug-seeking son, Dwayne. “Both men have lost a lot of points in this community,” she continued. “Especially Jarvis.” He had not only given the requested morphine but had allowed Dwayne to drive away high on the drug. As a result, Dwayne had been in a fatal automobile accident.
“So how about it, Lukas?” Mercy asked. “You’re off Thursday. I checked the schedule.”
“I guess I could try, but if Jarvis starts shooting the moment I walk in the door, I refuse to stay past the obligatory thirty minutes.”
“Wear your bulletproof vest, just in case.” Mercy held his gaze a little longer than necessary, simply because she loved having that connection with him. Then she dragged her mind away from what could have been if they weren’t both so busy. She punched her entry buttons and started dictation.
Lukas stood watching Mercy dictate her additional comments about Arthur. They had incorporated the “T-system” charting now, which did away with extensive dictation or handwritten notes, but the T-sheets didn’t cover everything. Lukas liked the fact that Mercy didn’t try to pigeonhole or computerize human beings. She often added extra notes to her files. She always did the extras for her patients, making them feel more like human beings and less like parts on an assembly line.
Lukas knew she was that way with every relationship in her life. She made him feel as if he was important to her, that their friendship was something special. Up to now it had been just that—a sharing friendship. He enjoyed her company so much…maybe a little too much? They had a lot of interesting discussions about life and about their pasts, and about his faith in God. But that was the catch. It was only his faith, not Mercy’s. How could he enjoy her company so much when she couldn’t even understand the most important foundation of his life?
But he kept telling himself she was getting closer.
She reached up to catch a strand of her long dark hair that had fallen from its clasp and caught sight of him still standing there.
