Critical Care (30 page)

Logan sucked in a breath, telling himself to let it go. But he
couldn't. Uncaring? How could she say that? Of course he cared.
He understood people had problems, knew full well it had to be
rough for Keeley Roberts to care for a dying relative. But you had
to leave that stuff at home. You had to buck up and get the job
done. It wasn't like they were dishing up soft-serve ice cream. Lives
were at stake every single day in the ER. As medical director, it was
Logan's job to keep things together. He was good at it. He'd done
that all his life, for his father and brothers when his mother left
and for Beckah after she lost the baby. He'd been strong and logical;
he'd had to. But to have Claire unjustly compare him to some jerk
doctor in Sacramento who'd hassled her and-

He eased the bike to the shoulder, then pulled off into the
gravel, braking to a stop. He slid his helmet off, recalling Claire's
anger and how she'd parroted his words when he'd talked about
weak links in his emergency team. Then she implied he didn't
have a heart. She was wrong. It killed Logan to know Claire was
there when her brother died, and it made him crazy to see her cry
again today. It tore a hole in the heart she didn't give him credit
for having.

But what was he supposed to do when everything around him tumbled into chaos? Pray? Let God handle it? Right. The way
God had handled the situation with Logan's alcoholic mother, the
way God had kept Beckah from leaving? What if Logan had stood
back and prayed for Sarah today instead of plunging that needle
through her chest wall? She'd be dead now. Logan clenched his jaw
and glared up at the blue Sierra sky. "I'm supposed to let go and let
you handle it, God?"

He shook his head and groaned, his gaze dropping to the
guardrail of the overpass ahead. Then winced at the memory of
that TV footage, the car dangling. Claire said Sarah was racing
to work because she didn't want to disappoint him. That she'd
taken those pills because she needed to sleep so she could keep
working all those long hours, all those extra shifts. Because Logan
expected that from his staff. Claire was implying Sarah was stressed
because of Logan, that the accident was somehow his fault. She
was wrong. Sarah was just like him-tough, strong, responsible.
The image of Sarah's face, bruised and beaten up and impossibly
fragile, intruded.

Logan's throat constricted as he recalled Claire's final words
today: "You know where Sarah is."

He put on his helmet, merged back into traffic, found the next
exit ... and turned around.

"Smokey?"

Claire squatted down, lifting prickly branches aside and peeking into the underbrush. "Smokey ... oh, please. Where are you?"
She scrambled forward on her hands and knees, snagging her
hair in the bushes, then dropped backward to sit in the red dirt,
exhausted body and soul.

She'd rushed home after an awful day, posted flyers with
Smokey's picture around the neighborhood, and searched for more
than two hours. Not a black whisker in sight anywhere. Tears that
had threatened all day slid down Claire's face. She wiped her nose
on the hem of her T-shirt, then stared at the sky, realizing that
absolutely everything was heading 180 degrees away from her
master plan. Merlene Hibbert had dropped the bombshell about
Renee Baxter's application for the job Claire needed, she'd ended
up having to work in the ER, she saw one of her coworkers critically injured, and afterward she was handed one of her own stress
pamphlets by the hospital chaplain. To top it off, she'd managed to
go completely berserk and leap down the throat of the man she'd
just discovered she deeply cared for.

Claire peered up through the trees to the barely visible deck
railing. Now it was getting dark, and her brother's cat-if still
alive-could be at the mercy of rogue raccoons for a second night.
He had only one ear left after his first tangle with them. The pitiful
thought brought on a second bout of tears as Claire pictured those
flyers with Smokey's lopsided face and realized she might never
have the chance to hear him purr. The thought made her unbearably sad and made her want to feel Logan's arms around her, to lose
herself in that sweet comfort she'd only begun to discover.

It also made her regret saying those awful things to him today
and wish that she could do it over again. But she couldn't and
she ... wouldn't. Because everything she'd said was true. She and
Logan were completely different in ways that were far too important
to ignore. He'd never understand the only way she'd functioned
in the trauma room today was as a result of prayer, a direct appeal
to God to help her save Sarah's life. And that she'd been praying
for Logan's skill as he maneuvered the lifesaving needle into their teammate's injured chest. He'd never buy that what happened in
the ER today had less to do with being tough and soldiering on and
all the other noble attributes he seemed to demand in himself and
his favorite nurses and far more to do with the grace of God.

Claire's brows drew together as she wondered once again if
she'd missed signs of stress in Sarah-way back, at the Little Nugget interviews-and if there might have been some way to prevent
today's tragedy. She had so many questions. Was what she'd told
Logan right? Had Sarah taken sleeping pills to cope with the stress
of her work? Had a desperate need to please Logan caused the nurse
to take risks that nearly took her life? Does Logan really care about
airy of that?

Claire stood, brushing the dirt from her jeans and knowing
there was another question eating at her as well. A big question.
How was she going to stop having feelings for a man so obviously
wrong for her and who figured nowhere in the plan?

Sarah laughed and gripped the edge of the dining table; she had
to hold on to keep from bobbing above it like those balloons ... a
rainbow of shiny colors. And look how the silver one reflected the
light from the candles. She laughed again, pinching the edge of the
big wooden table as the seat of her angel scrubs hovered above her
chair. She was an astronaut at a birthday party. So crazy. Floating
and laughing and ...

Emily had frosting in her hair and all over her sweet face, pink
and sticky and dotted with candy sprinkles. She tried to wipe it
away even though stretching her arm out made her side hurt. But
it only hurt a little and she didn't care. She was happy, so happy,
because ... there he was, sitting next to Emily at the table, smiling and still wearing that long bathrobe. A bathrobe at a birthday
party-too silly. His hair was long, but he looked familiar and so
very dear.

His eyes reflected the candlelight even more than the silver
balloon did, and somehow they stayed focused solely on Sarah.
No matter how far she drifted sideways, how many times she lost
her bearings and slid completely off the chair, and how foolish
and inept she must have seemed, he watched her every move with
a loving and gentle expression on his face. And with profound
patience. It made Sarah feel as if she were the special child at this
table somehow, that she would always be precious to him no matter what. It filled her with an unimaginable joy.

She smiled and reached toward him, ignoring the pain in her
side. "Daddy? Daddy?"

"It's me, Sarah. It's Logan."

Logan lifted himself from the lumpy vinyl chair, realizing he'd
dozed off. He rubbed his eyes and squinted at the clock on the
darkened wall. Nearly midnight? No wonder his back was sore.

He glanced out toward the nurses' station and saw at least three
heads turn hastily away. No doubt he'd be the subject of hospital
gossip over the next several shifts. "Did you hear how McSnarly spent
the night in ... ?" But he didn't care. He was here because he had
to know the truth.

Logan stepped close as Sarah finally opened her eyes. "Hi there,
sleepyhead."

"Umm . . . " Sarah turned toward him, blinking; one eye was
swollen closed and purple. "Sorry," she said after swallowing. "Hard
to talk ... mouth's ... so dry."

"Well then, I can fix that." Logan lifted a can of Diet Coke from
her bedside stand. "Got the official word from your surgeon that
your belly's good. So let's party."

He popped the pull tab and inserted a flex straw into the can.
Then held it while Sarah took a sip, reminding himself of the better
times when he'd seen her doing this same thing. Too many times
to count. In the ER, taking a quick swig of her cola and hustling to
keep things organized, coming in early and working through her
lunch break to make certain he had everything he needed. Was
Claire right? Am I the reason Sarah's here?

"There," he said, pushing the thoughts aside. He lifted the can
away. "Feel better now?"

"Better but still stoned," she said, lifting her arm to let the
IV tubing dangle. "Morphine. Enemy of caffeine. I can't stay
awake."

"You don't have to. Sleep is exactly what you need." Logan
nodded, trying to forget what Claire had said about that bottle
of sleeping pills, that Sarah had been trying to sleep so she could
work. All because he counted on her to be there. "Doctor's orders,"
he added. "And it's working. I saw the latest X-ray; your lung's
expanded nicely, and there was only minimal bleeding into the
tissues."

"I don't remember much, but the nurses said you did a needle
decompression."

"That's right. To relieve the pressure around your collapsed
lung. Then I inserted the chest tube."

"I had the needles in stock, the full-size range of chest tubes,
at least two water seal units, and ..." Sarah's voice drifted off, her
eyelids closing.

"Yes," he said, smiling with a growing sense of relief. This was proof positive that Claire was wrong. Because he and Sarah-absurd
as it might seem-were having the same sort of conversation they'd
be having if she weren't lying in that bed. About equipment, about
procedures, about getting the job done. Things they both believed
in. They were simply two teammates rehashing a tough shift, logically and unemotionally. Almost as if Sarah hadn't been the patient
and Logan hadn't had to-

"You saved my life," she said softly, gazing up at him again.
Her bruised chin trembled. "If you hadn't found the lung injury
so fast ..."

"No. Not me. Claire spotted it. We. . ." He hesitated, wondering if thinking of Claire in terms of we was a thing of the past.
"Claire and I handled it together. She was sharp to suspect the
tension pneumo so quickly and call me in there."

"She did great. And it was a good thing she was there." Her
puffy brows drew together under the edge of her bandage. "But she
was assigned to urgent care."

"Right. And we lucked out that she'd come in early. So when
we were short a nurse-" Logan stopped himself but not in time.
Idiot. I'm an idiot. For the first time Logan regretted that his favorite
nurse could always read his mind.

"Short a nurse because I was late. Because . . ." Tears filled her
eyes. "I set two alarms. I always do. Ten minutes apart, in case
one fails. So I can be there early. If I'm early enough, I can check
everything-all the stock, all the resuscitation equipment. Have
it exactly the way you want it. Ready. No foul-ups, no weak links
anywhere along the chain. Like you always say. But ..."