Total Exposure

Natalie smiled and crossed her arms over the girl’s chart, hugging it to her, as she watched mother and daughter walk down the hall of the hospital. When they were out of sight, she glanced at her watch, trying to ignore the large numbers of the date at the left. She made a few notes on the chart, then slid it into the slot outside the examining room door for her assistant to pick up.

Today would have been her first wedding anniversary.

The thought snagged her attention, nearly causing the next chart she drew out to drop from her numb fingers.

She swallowed hard, seeking the solace she usually found in her work.

It wasn’t so much the fact that she and Charles would have celebrated their first year of marriage today. She’d been mentally preparing herself for that milestone over the past month. What made her heart ache was that the week before their wedding day, she’d lost Charles. Not to another woman. Not to a case of cold feet. No, the loss was even more decisive. Natalie had lost him to heart disease. Permanently.

She cleared her throat and flipped open the chart in her hands, grateful to be so busy. During the past year, the hospital and her patients were all that had stood between her and emotional collapse.

But nothing seemed capable of helping her through today.

Her gaze fell on the name at the top of the chart and she sighed, glancing around the waiting area without much hope of finding who she was looking for.

“He didn’t show,” her assistant, Manuela, said from her desk on the other side of the reception area. “Again.”

“What appointment is this?” Natalie asked. “His fourth?”

“Fifth.”

Natalie skimmed the contents of the chart. Fire Chief Dan Egan might be everything and more than his stellar reputation suggested when it came to his work, but keeping his appointments with her seemed to rank low on his list of priorities.

She leaned against the doorjamb, then turned the page of the file, although she really didn’t need to. She already knew what it would tell her. Namely that the fire chief had suffered a contact burn to his side in the warehouse explosion three months ago. The severe blistering and her inability to judge the depth of the wound had required a follow-up appointment for her to better evaluate the injury and make assessments for additional treatment. Only the handsome fire chief had canceled that appointment. And the next one he’d made for a week after that. Until she stood right where she was now—essentially without the information she needed in order to close the file.

“Should I call and reschedule?” Manuela asked, interrupting her thoughts.

“Hmm? Oh.” She flipped the chart closed. “No.”

“Are you going to leave the file open?”

Natalie stared over the young woman’s shoulder to the wall and the seascapes hanging there. But she didn’t see the warm pastel colors depicting what was visible through any window looking over Courage Bay. Instead her mind conjured up an image of Charles right before his death. A staff psychologist with the hospital, Charles had refused to follow up on symptoms that in retrospect had foreshadowed the fatal heart attack that took his life.

“Are you all right, Natalie?” Manuela asked quietly.

Natalie’s chest felt cramped and congested. Only she wasn’t coming down with a virus. At least not one that could be treated. Rather, it was raw emotion that choked off her breath and made her feel sick to her stomach.

Nothing she had said had made a difference with Charles. And there was no reason to believe that she’d have any more pull when it came to Dan Egan.

She shook her head. “It’s been three months since the warehouse incident. I’m going to close the file.”

The phone on Manuela’s desk rang as Natalie glanced at her watch again. Three-thirty. Since her last appointment for the day was a no-show, she had some unexpected time on her hands.

The last thing she wanted.

“Natalie?”

She looked at Manuela.

“It’s Debra Egan for you. Shall I take a message?”

Debra Egan. Dan Egan’s daughter. Natalie often forgot that little detail because her connection to them took different forms. While Dan was her no-show patient, Debra led an exercise class at a local gym. A class Natalie took whenever she could fit it into her busy schedule.

Maybe she could go over there now. Work off some of the energy burning her from the inside out.

She motioned down the corridor. “I’ll take the call in my office. Thanks, Manuela.”

Leaving her door open, she put Dan’s chart on her narrow desk, sat down and plucked up the telephone receiver.

She’d barely said hello before Debra asked, “Is he there?”

Natalie reached for the pile of folders in her in box. “If you’re referring to your father, no. Unless he’s running late, he stood me up again.” She shuffled through the files until she located the one she was looking for, on a grease-fire patient.

“So Nate lied to me…again.” Debra sighed. “I just called the station and he told me Dad was at the hospital.”

“Maybe he is here somewhere, just not with me.”

Silence reigned as Natalie reviewed the details on a patient who needed her help much more than the city’s stubborn fire chief. After a few moments, she realized Debra had still not replied. “Is everything all right, Deb?”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to zone out on you, Natalie. It’s just that…well, I’ve been taking on double classes here. And when I’m not working—heck, even when I am—I’m worrying about Dad. Just the other day I caught him wincing when he reached to pick up something. That burn is bothering him, but he won’t own up to it.”

“I can’t do anything about it if he won’t let me,” Natalie said quietly.

“I know. I was just thinking, you know, if you wouldn’t mind too much, you could go over to the station yourself to check him out.”

Natalie briefly closed her eyes. While she didn’t mind making the occasional house call, the thought of chasing Dan Egan around, trying to get a look at him without his shirt on, struck her as ridiculous.

“I mean, you were scheduled to see him right now, anyway, weren’t you? The fire station is only a couple blocks away from the hospital….”

Natalie propped her elbow on her desk. “Deb, I…”

“Please, Natalie. I’m really worried. I mean, after what happened with Mom…”

There was a plaintive tone in the nineteen-year-old’s voice. Sometimes Natalie found it hard to remember that Debra was almost twenty years younger than she was. But at times like these, when she was reminded that Dan Egan’s wife had died of breast cancer only two short years ago, she realized how young and still hurt Debra was.

“I’ll throw in a couple free exercise sessions,” the young woman said, her voice overly bright.

Natalie took a deep breath and told herself if she did this, she wouldn’t be doing it for Dan Egan, but as a favor to his daughter.

“Okay,” she said, smiling at the enormous sigh of relief filling her ear. “I’ll go to the station. But I can’t promise anything, Deb. I mean, if he doesn’t want me to examine him, I can’t exactly cut his shirt off him.”

The idea of peeling away Dan Egan’s shirt to reveal his muscular torso sent a mild shiver running through her—one unfamiliar and ultimately unwelcome.

“Oh, thank you, Natalie! You don’t know how much this means to me.”

“I think I do, Deb,” she said softly. “That’s why I’m doing it.”

“I’m going to call the station right now and tell him you’re coming.”