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“Trying to hide from me?” He was watching her closely.
“No, why would I do that?” She made a point of sounding as if what had happened between them last night meant nothing to her. She was sure it had meant nothing to him.
He gave her a direct look. “I don’t know. Maybe because there’s an attraction between us that you don’t want to admit.”
She put her feet on the floor. “I think it’s time for me to go to the cafeteria.”
Elijah put a hand up. “Stay. I’ll behave, I promise. You can have half my sandwich.”
“I don’t want to take your lunch but I would like to talk to you about the schedule.”
“What about it?” he asked offhandedly. “You want a drink?” He stood and headed toward the soda machine.
“I’m fine. I saw on the schedule that we’re working together all this week. Did you do that on purpose?”
Elijah got his can of drink and returned to his seat. Not making eye contact with her, he picked up the sandwich and started removing the clear covering. “Do you have a problem working with me?”
“Well, no, I haven’t, but now I’d rather we didn’t.”
He looked at her. “What if I wanted to spend some time with you and didn’t want us on opposite shifts?”
“I’m feeling manipulated, as if I’m a mouse that you’re playing with.”
He took a half of the sandwich and handed her the other half. “In truth, I might have made a few changes to Charles’s tentative schedule but when it came down to it that was the way it had to be. Charles and Grace aren’t here so we’re short of doctors and the others were due days off. So we ended up together. I wish I could do something about it but I’m afraid I can’t.”
Helena didn’t know if she believed that or not. Her stomach growled. Not wanting to appear petty, she took the half of the sandwich he offered.
After a long pull on his soda Elijah said, “You can try to trade with someone if you want to but you might find you’ll miss seeing me.”
“I can tell that your overactive ego hasn’t been injured.” Trading shifts would most likely be a waste of time. She’d work her week with him then stay out of his way as much as possible. Elijah wasn’t going to get the better of her.
He gave her a pointed look. “Maybe I’m just covering up my feelings with a little bravado.”
He’d implied she was doing that as well. This conversation was headed somewhere she didn’t want to go.
A nurse opened the door and stuck her head in. “Hey, you two. There’s been a two-car taxi accident. Rolling this way.”
Cramming the last of the sandwich in his mouth, Elijah stood and finished his drink on his way out the door. Helena was right behind him, dropping her half-eaten food in the trash can. He hurried to the unit desk. “What do we have?”
“A family of four. Thirty-one-year-old male, twenty-nine-year-old female, three- and two-year-old females. Sixty-four-year-old male, fifty-five-year-old male. Lacerations on the arm and leg of three-year-old. Labored breathing with decreased breaths in thirty-one-year-old male. Female with compound fracture to the tibia and fibula. Laceration to forehead of fifty-five-year-old and sixty-four-year-old is complaining of chest pressure. Two-year-old no obvious injuries. ETA fifteen.”
“Alice,” Elijah said to a nurse, “let the blood bank know that we may be calling on them. Also, notify X-Ray we’ll need the portables over here stat. Helena, I’d like to put the family in the exam room where we can partition it off yet the parents are close enough to see their children. We can easily get permission for care that way. The other two men can go in Trauma Six and Seven. Lauren, also call up to Patient Services and get someone down here to help us with the child, after we give her a look. She doesn’t sound hurt.”
“Yes, Elijah,” the unit secretary said, and picked up the phone.
* * *
Elijah and Helena were waiting at the large double doors when the ambulances rolled to a stop. They rushed out to meet the EMTs unloading the patients. “I’ll get this one. You see to them.”
His ambulance held the mother and the two-year-old who looked uninjured. “They go to Exam Four and Five,” he said to the EMT. As he walked beside the mother he said, “I’m Dr. Davenport. Dr. Tate and I’ll be taking care of your family.”
The woman gave him a weak smile.
Helena, along with the father and other child, was headed into the hospital as well. She was speaking softly to the scared little girl. Helena was good with the children. She had a sweet voice and manner that settled them, showing she’d make a great mother, something she had said she wanted. Parenting wasn’t something he’d ever planned on.
Less than a minute later he was getting a report from the EMT about what had been done to the woman’s leg and the latest list of vitals. He turned to the mother. “X-Ray should be here soon to take a picture of your leg then we’ll get you up to the OR and all patched up.”
“What about my husband?” The woman’s brow lowered with concern.
“I’ll check on him in a minute. He’s in good hands with Dr. Tate. He’s just next door. I’d like to give you a listen then I want to check out your little girl. Then we can maybe pull this curtain back and you can see your husband. Right now, I need you to remain calm, both for youself and your children.”
A nurse came in and helped get the woman situated as he listened to her chest.
Alarms started going off behind the curtain. Elijah left the woman in the nurse’s care and went to help Helena.
“Hemothorax,” she said to the nurses and techs working around the bed as he hurried in. “I need a sixteen-gauge angiocatheter and flutter valve. Stat.”
Elijah pulled his stethoscope off his neck. “I’ll listen while you do the procedure.”
The nurse handed Helena the requested supplies. After scrubbing the chest with Betadine, she slowly inserted the needle between the second intercostal space just above the third rib a couple of centimeters from the sternal edge. “Level of IV?”
The nurse answered and she nodded slightly.
Smart girl. Helena was watching for a pneumothorax.
Helena kept the needle in an upright position. Soon there was a hissing sound from the air escaping. She slowly removed the needle leaving the catheter in place.
“How does he sound?” she asked him. She continued to focus on her work.
“Breathing easier,” Elijah said.
With the help of the nurse she secured the catheter and added a valve. She told the
nurse, “Let them know in the OR we’re sending this patient up Stat. I also want another CBC draw.”
The nurse hurried to do as requested. Helena finally looked at him. “Thanks.”
Elijah nodded. “No problem.” He returned to the wife to reassure her that her husband would be fine. He was in the process of examining the child when a woman from Patient Services showed up to see about her. Soon after that the mother was on her way to surgery. After giving the little girl a thorough exam, he declared her fine.
He had to admit the little cherub was cute. No doubt Helena wanted a house-load of them. Not him. He loved Charles’s boys but children needed a father who would be there day in and day out. Elijah had no plans to get involved in a relationship like that. Why did that one short conversation with Helena even have him thinking about something like that?
On his way to see the other injured, he checked in with her. She was putting the last of the stitches in the other little girl’s leg. Her movements were efficient and she was talking reassuringly to the girl as she worked, yet when she glanced at him there was something in her eyes he couldn’t put a name to. Pain, fear, distance? None of those would he associate with Helena. Since when did he think after one kiss he knew her so well?
“I’m headed to see about the taxi drivers,” Elijah told her.
“I’m almost done here. I’ll be there in a moment,” she said as she tied a stitch.
Elijah entered Trauma Six. A heavy-set man lay on the gurney. “I’m Dr. Davenport. Do you hurt anywhere?”
“Just my head. What I really want to know is where that idiot is that put me in here. I’m losing money, sitting around here.” The man moved to sit up.
“I understand. I’ll have you patched up in a minute.” Elijah already didn’t like the guy. He hadn’t even asked about the family that had been in the accident.
A few minutes later Elijah finished putting a few stitches in the man’s forehead. A raised voice from the next-door cubicle drew his attention.
