The Doctor's Devotion

“How about next time we go fishing, you stay home?”

Stunned by the amount of scorch in her words, Mitch formulated his own retort but scaled back the rudeness. “Lem’s life will go on as normal. Period.”

She’d have to learn to live with it. Lem had reached out like a dad to Mitch growing up, and he wasn’t about to abandon Lem over mismanaged emotions and envy. Hopefully soon she’d see how irrational, abrasive and self-destructive her jealousy was.

Otherwise she was in for a miserable summer. So was he.

And so was Lem. Which is why Mitch needed to cool his jets and try. Attempt to reason with her instead of letting his sympathy wane every time she opened her mouth. Problem was, every third time she opened her mouth, acid spewed out.

He leaned in and softened his tone. “Look, if we don’t nip this tension between us now, Lem will get wind of it and worry.”

That seemed to snap her to her senses. Thankfully the anger didn’t make an ugly encore, and envy managed not to rear its head. Mitch doubled his efforts to listen more than he spoke. It worked. Slowly they began less caustic verbal exchanges, sparring at first then funny and sincere.

It was obvious they were both putting their best foot forward. For Lem’s sake, of course.

They had a second set of dishes done in no time flat, yet Mitch could have stood there talking easily with her all day.

Talking turned to laughing, which turned into total hilarity when Mitch kept pushing the plastic bowls down only to have them pop up again. She giggled every time it happened. He did, too. The shared humor drastically disintegrated the tension.

“Help me hold them down?” Mitch entreated after another bowl bobbed up and flung an airborne glob of soap in his eye.

“Think physics. You have to turn them sideways and fill them at an angle. See? The water and the air stop resisting one another and meet halfway.” As she showed him, their hands touched. Their motions startled then slowed at the pleasant but wholesome sensation. Not only that, her carefully exacted comment about meeting halfway held unmistakable emphasis.

He met her gaze. “Meeting halfway sounds better than fighting constantly.”

The depth of beauty and bravery in her smile plunged all rational thought into disarray. He had not expected it.

Seemed to him they took their time near the end of the butter bowl baptizing marathon.

Afterward Lauren washed the table. “Mitch, are you going to the trauma center today?”

“No. I’m going tomorrow after I come here and clear out Lem’s gutters. I’ve already rounded at the center today.”

“May I come with you tomorrow, to check on Mara?”

“The texting teen?” He hadn’t meant it to come out so abrupt. But seriously, what was Lauren’s draw? The girl killed someone with whatever string of words she’d felt too important to pull over for. Talk about a death sentence.

Mitch’s annoyance regained ground.

“Yes.” A wary expression accompanied Lauren’s answer. Perhaps his ire was a little overdosed. Yet hadn’t his dad’s life been snuffed out by an equally distracted driver?

Mitch scrubbed the opposite end of the table with fervor. “Suit yourself. But just to warn you, Mara’s still on a ventilator, unconscious. There’s also a possibility I’d get held up at the center because the other surgeon who’s been graciously covering for me is on call at Refuge Memorial, his primary hospital.”

Mitch really did not want Lauren getting attached to Mara. Nothing good could come of that. Right?

The stubborn set to her jaw resembled Lem’s when things—like tractors—didn’t go his way. “I’ll take my chances.”

Chapter Six

One hour into their trauma center visit the next day, Mitch guessed Lauren regretted saying that.

She took her chances coming in, all right.

A bus of summer-camp teens overturned shortly after Mitch and Lauren arrived, which filled the center with victims.

“Eighteen and counting,” Ian informed Mitch. “No way to divert.” Ian referred to the fact that the center was diverting low-risk patients to other hospitals until Mitch and Ian secured a second trauma team. Today that wasn’t possible.

Kate handed him a chart. “Want me to call help in?”

Mitch nodded then faced Ian. “I need to get on the ball putting together another full-time trauma crew.”

“Yeah. You’ve been tied up at Lem’s, though.”

“Not enough hours in a day to get everything accomplished that needs to be, this summer.”

“Let me know how I can help.”

“I will.” Yet he knew Ian was already strapped for time with his divorce, court hearings, housing and custody stuff.

“Where’s Lauren?” Mitch asked Kate, passing by with an armload of ice packs.

“Your new director assumed Lauren came to help. She assigned her to triage to treat non-emergent wounds which, thankfully, she did graciously. She’s doing awesome, Mitch.”

Still, he’d better go check. Mitch found Lauren and assessed her for signs of panic. None whatsoever, but he should ask anyway. “Are you okay?”

“Are you absurd?” She looked down the hall of writhing, wailing, wall-to-wall youth and laughed. “I’m not about to abandon you to the fate of all this teen angst. I’m the last person you should be worried about right now, Mitch. Your director, however, is having a total freak-out.”

“So I heard. She’s not used to trauma care.”

Lauren made the funniest face. “Uh, hello? Neither am I.”

Yet he didn’t see her screeching down halls and complaining in front of patients and their families, as he’d received reports of the director doing. His mistake. Some applicants looked good on paper, yet they had no people skills.

“Point well taken, Lauren. I trust you. Unequivocally. I just wanted to make sure you weren’t feeling overwhelmed.”

“I doubt there’s a staff member here who doesn’t feel overwhelmed. Twenty patients hit the floor in two hours’ time.”

He grinned, loving the fire in her eyes. “You’re made for this. You are.”

“What I am is annoyed at the prospect of being babysat over a busload of mostly bumps and bruises. Now shoo!” But she smiled when she said it.

Satisfied she was okay for now, Mitch viewed X-rays. Then casted an ankle, miraculously the only bus-wreck fracture.

Between patients, he went to check on Lauren again.

She waved him toward another incoming gurney. “I’m fine. Check on that one. He looks kind of critical.” She smirked then righted herself before anyone but Mitch could catch it.

When Mitch found nothing but a nosebleed on Gurney Guy, he realized two things: One, Lauren had a gift at triage. Two, she knew when it was okay to use humor to cope. Something he felt crucial to anyone in trauma care. Otherwise stress and burnout would run off the best ones.