Cedar Bluff's Most Eligible Bachelor

Accident prone? The hairs on the back of her neck lifted. She highly doubted it. The way the child was so afraid of his mother’s reaction didn’t sit well with her at all. “All right, Ben, I need to look at your arm for a minute.”

She gently palpated the extremity, reassured that there was a good pulse in his wrist. “I’m going to get the doctor to take a look at this arm, Ben. I think you’re going to need X-rays. Do you know what an X-ray is?”

“Yeah. I know. It doesn’t hurt.” The calm acceptance in the child’s eyes bothered her. No child should be that familiar with X-rays.

Hailey left Ben’s room and crossed over to the closest computer, intent on bringing up the child’s past medical history to look more closely at his most recent accidents.

“Where’s Ben?” a male voice demanded. She glanced up in time to see Dr. Seth Taylor standing near Dr. Carter. The expression on Dr. Taylor’s face looked grim. “Kylie told me to meet her here.”

Hailey glanced at her patient’s name. Sure enough, Ben Taylor. Was this the reason no one had looked closely at this child’s multiple injuries? Because he was the son of a doctor on staff?

“I don’t know, Seth. But calm down, we’ll find him.”

“Um, Dr. Taylor?” Hailey spoke up. “Ben was just placed over here in room seven.”

“Thanks.” Relief flared in his eyes as he headed straight for Ben’s room. Dr. Carter crossed over to where she was standing.

“What happened to Ben Taylor?” he asked.

“Dislocated shoulder and possible broken arm,” Hailey answered. “I’m worried about him. Hasn’t anyone considered getting Child Protective Services involved? “

“Child protective services?” Dr. Carter stared at her for a few seconds and then started to laugh. “For Seth and Kylie? No, Hailey, you’re way off base.”

She bristled at his casual dismissal. “Oh, really? Just because his father is a doctor here doesn’t mean this boy isn’t the subject of physical abuse.”

Simon’s laughter ended abruptly. “You’re serious!” he exclaimed, his eyes widening comically. “Come on, Hailey, I know Seth and Kylie. They’re not hurting Ben.”

“Then why is Ben so accident-prone?” She’d pulled up the boy’s medical record. Six months ago he’d had a gash to his leg that was deep enough to need stitches. And another six months before that he was admitted for hypothermia after falling into Lake Michigan. And before that he was hit by a car while riding his bike.

Accident prone was an understatement.

“Because he’s a mischievous kid who’s probably looking for attention now that his mother has another baby on the way,” he pointed out reasonably.

“Maybe.” She couldn’t deny his theory made sense, if Ben was telling the truth about climbing the tree against his mother’s wishes. She glanced at the boy’s history again. Falling into Lake Michigan couldn’t be construed as abuse. Neglect? Maybe. But his mother hadn’t been the one driving the car that had hit him. More neglect?

Or was she simply overreacting?

“Seriously, Hailey, you have to trust me on this. Seth and Kylie are good people. They love Ben. They would never hurt him.”

“If you’re sure,” she finally agreed. She didn’t need Dr. Carter’s approval to call Child Protective Services—anyone could make a referral. But Cedar Bluff was a small town and the more she thought about it, the more likely it seemed that if something like physical abuse was going on, others would know about it.

“Hey, don’t be so hard on yourself,” Dr. Carter said quietly. “Actually, you did the right thing by raising the question. Sometimes we see these people so often, here at work and out in the community, we don’t even think about the fact that something horrible could be happening behind closed doors. Having new people work here is a good way to keep us on our toes.”

He was being nice, trying to make her feel better. Surely someone with integrity, like Dr. Carter, wouldn’t ignore a case of child abuse. “Thanks,” she murmured. “You’d better go in there to see him. He’ll need X-rays for sure.”

“Will do.” He flashed a quick smile before disappearing into Ben’s room. She followed and halted in the doorway, watching as Dr. Taylor and his pregnant wife hovered over Ben with obvious concern.

A family united.

Feeling foolish about her original suspicions, and maybe a bit envious at their closeness, Hailey turned away to check on her other patients.

After the fiasco with Ben, the rest of her shift flew by. Several times she thought about calling upstairs to the intensive care unit to find out how Hank McLeod was doing, but other issues needing her attention prevented her from following through.

But after her shift was over, Hailey couldn’t leave without checking on him. She didn’t call the ICU but simply walked up the few flights of stairs until she reached the third-floor surgical ICU.

Worrying her bottom lip with her top teeth, she read through the names on the census board. She didn’t immediately find his name and her stomach clenched, fearing the worst. But then she found him at the bottom of the list in the very last room.

She went down the hall toward his room, only to discover he was in the middle of a sterile procedure, a central line placement from what she could tell. She glimpsed at his vital signs on the monitor, reassuring herself that he was relatively stable, before she backed away.

Not an appropriate time to check with his wife to see how things were going. Maybe tomorrow she’d stop up to see Mrs. McLeod. As Hailey walked back out of the unit, she came face to face with Dr. Carter, who was apparently on his way in.

“Hi, Dr. Carter. Guess we’re both here for the same reason,” she said with a sheepish grin. She was impressed he’d cared enough to come up to check on their patient. “You can go in, but they’re in the middle of placing a central line on Mr. McLeod.”

“Ah, then I won’t bother them.” He stood for a moment, his hands tucked in the pockets of his lab coat as if he wanted to say something. “Hailey, stop the Dr. Carter stuff. You need to call me Simon.”

Her eyes widened and she swallowed hard. “I’ll—uh—try,” she hedged, stepping to go around him. “I have to run. I’ll—uh—see you later.”

“Wait, this is important,” he called, halting her escape. “I’m not trying to come onto you or anything.”

She sucked in a quick breath at his bold statement. “I never thought you were!” she said hastily, her cheeks burning with embarrassment.

Good grief, this was awkward.

Now it was his turn to avoid her gaze. Still, he continued, as if needing to clear the air. “The administration here at Cedar Bluff is working on a new initiative where we all work together as a team, keeping the patient at the center of all we do.”

“Okay,” she agreed slowly, trying to figure out where he was going with all this. “I’m all for making our patients a priority—why else would we be here?” And what in the world did that have to do with calling him Simon? She could feel her cheeks reddening at the thought of being on a first-name basis with him.

“Of course, we all do. But I think you’re missing the point. The most important part of achieving the goal of patient-centered care is teamwork. Cedar Bluff doesn’t want us to view ourselves as a hierarchical organization. Instead, they want us to have a team approach, where everyone has an equal say in what we do for our patients.”

“Really?” She couldn’t help the sliver of doubt in her tone.

Now his expression seemed a bit exasperated. “Haven’t you noticed how big the first name is printed on our hospital ID badge? Or heard everyone calling everyone else by their first names?”

She nodded slowly. “Yes. But I’m used to calling doctors by their formal titles. It’s a sign of respect. And I figured you all knew each other well enough to use first names, but I’m still new here.”

He looked a little taken aback by that statement. “Not at all. I mean, I know some of the people really well but others I don’t. Regardless, it’s about being a team. Not a doctor versus a nurse, or a tech versus a nurse. A team. Got it?”

What he was saying made some sense. She reluctantly agreed, “Got it.”

He looked relieved. “Good.” There was another awkward silence and he cleared his throat and then glanced at his watch. “I have to get home, too. Goodnight, Hailey.”

His expectant gaze forced her to respond in kind. “Goodnight, Simon.”

His name sounded strange when she spoke it out loud and for a moment there was a simmering awareness hovering between them. After a few moments he deliberately turned and walked away, breaking the intangible connection.

When he headed for the elevators, she decided to slip down the stairs to go to the staff locker room.

In the privacy of the female locker room, she peeled off her scrubs and pulled on her skin-tight florescent striped biking gear, reliving those few tense moments when Simon had told her he wasn’t coming onto her.