1
Deacon
“Deacon! Just the man I was hoping to see.”
I turned in mid-stride, my professional smile already in place as I extended my hand. “Raul! Great to see you. What brings you to my neck of the woods?”
Raul Zamora gripped my hand and shook it firmly. “I had a check-up downstairs, and I thought as long as I was at the hospital, I’d come over and say hello. Maybe see how things are going on our shiny new wing.”
Checking up on me, I thought, but my expression didn’t change. It wouldn’t be a good idea for me to piss off the vice president of the board of directors. The hospital’s governing team had been supportive of my project from the beginning of my tenure here, but I was well aware that I’d tested the board’s tolerance when I’d abruptly left the country for a year. I was doing everything that I could to make up for that.
“Of course.” I regarded Mr. Zamora carefully. “I hope everything’s okay with you.”
“Oh, yes, yes.” He waved his hand. “Just my annual tune-up. Check the ticker, the blood, scold me about my weight and cholesterol . . . you know the drill.”
“I do.” I chuckled. “We doctors are so annoying, wanting to make sure our patients stay healthy.” I thumped Raul on the shoulder as we began to walk. “What would you like to see first?”
“How about those new projects that were funded by Noah Spencer’s donations?” Raul poked me in the ribs with his elbow. “I know that money came to us under some tragic circumstances, with his wife having died, but it’s pretty damn cool to have a big football player donating to us, right? We’re already talking about the party we’re planning to throw when the new rooms are ready.”
I did my best to keep my expression pleasant and bland. I wasn’t really in the mood to exchange enthusiastic stories about Noah Spencer, but since he’d donated money to our wing, I at least had to feign gratitude, even though I wasn’t so fond of him these days.
“The new transplant suite is in progress—actually, it’s nearly finished. I can definitely show you that. Work on the music therapy room isn’t underway yet, because Emma is part of that project, and she’s on vacation right now.”
“That’s right.” Raul nodded. “We talked about her time off at the last meeting. Not that there was any objection—this is the first extended break Dr. Carson has had since she started with us. Have you heard anything from her? I hope she’s enjoying her visit with her family.”
“I have not.” My face was beginning to hurt from holding onto this smile. “I gave her strict instructions before she leftnotto check in. I agree with you that she needs this vacation. And God knows that she held down the fort for me long enough. I owe her this.”
“Very true.” Raul’s agreement was just slightly too emphatic for my taste. “We all certainly appreciated that.”
I swallowed back the snarky rebuttal that was on the tip of my tongue. “The new suite is right over here. Let me give you a tour.”
* * *
The board vice president lingered on the floor longer than I expected. I didn’t mind schmoozing now and then; playing the politics game was a necessary if irritating part of medicine. But I wasn’t known for my patience on the best day. I was ready to get on with my day, working with patients and catching up with my team.
By the time Raul finished gushing over our new transplant suite and how incredible it was that Noah Spencer had been the one to fund it, and I’d seen him to the elevator, it was mid-afternoon. On the way back to my office, I passed by the nurses’ station in time to overhear Jenny Ward, one of our nurse practitioners, talking to Stephanie, a nurse who worked on the floor.
“She didn’t go into much detail. She just said that things between Noah and her are a little . . .” Jenny wiggled her hand back and forth. “You know. Uncertain.”
“How the hell did that happen? Those two were like peanut butter and jelly for over a year. They went almost everywhere together. They hung out on weekends. He helped build that cabin for her. And then they start dating, and suddenly things areuncertain?” Stephanie mimicked Jenny’s tone.
“I guess things just happen like that sometimes. You know, maybe friendship isn’t always supposed to grow into something else. It’s possible they only work as friends, not as lovers.” Jenny spotted me over Stephanie’s shoulder. To her credit, she didn’t even flinch. “Oh, hey, Deacon. Geez, I thought Mr. Zamora was never going to leave.”
“You and me both.” I rolled my eyes. “So . . . anything going on that I should be aware of?” I was referring to our patients, of course, but to say that I wasn’t curious about what Jenny had been saying would be an outright lie. The last I’d heard, Emma and Noah were together. I had even wondered at first if he’d gone up to Virginia with her, but my grandmother had mentioned that he was at training camp already.
“She’s up there by herself, getting some much-needed and well-deserved rest.” Gram had fastened me with one of her signature piercing glares. “Don’t you bother her with anything from the hospital, do you hear? Poor Emma’s exhausted. She needs to spend time with her mama and daddy. I don’t want you using some patient as an excuse to call her or text her.”
I’d briefly considered arguing with my grandmother, insisting that I’d never do that, but it wasn’t worth the tongue-lashing I’d get in response, so I’d only nodded. “Yes, ma’am. I hear.”
Still, I wouldn’t have minded if Jenny had decided to fill me in on anything that might be new with our naturopath. But she only shook her head.
“Nope, I don’t think so. Oh, actually, we just got a call from the ER. They’re sending up Elaine Dulinkski. She’s running a fever and complaining of shortness of breath. Cardiac cleared her, but Dr. Anderson seems to think she doesn’t need to go directly to ICU. She said she thought we could probably handle it here.” Jenny frowned at the computer screen and tapped a few keys on the keyboard. “We thought we’d put her in one of the isolation rooms, though, just in case.”
“Good plan. Let me know when she’s settled in her room, and I’ll swing by to see what’s going on. Meanwhile, I think I’ll call Dr. Anderson and get her report.”
I headed for my office, my mind focused on the patient. Elaine Dulinksky was not the most pleasant of women. She was stubborn and tended toward a snappish short-temper. She found a reason to complain about even the most comfortable accommodations. She had never warmed up to Emma and what Mrs. Dulinkski called herwoo woo new agey crap, which meant that I bore the lion’s share of her care when she was on the floor.
But on the other hand, she’d been battling an aggressive form of breast cancer for four years, so maybe she had cause to be a little unpleasant. I hoped that this fever was only a quickly passing viral situation, something we could monitor while addressing her symptoms. Too often, though, our cancer patients developed life-threatening infections. If this one was already ahead of us . . .
