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“Jamie Moss is here. I was locking up the office when she arrived. Her youngest daughter had a bicycle crash and is bleeding everywhere. At least two of the cuts are going to need stitches. I’ve got pressure on the one on her knee but haven’t been able to get the bleeding to stop.” Debbie’s sentences gushed out. “Jamie’s a wreck. Her car wouldn’t start and she had to run to a neighbor’s to get a ride to the office, but he couldn’t stay to drive her back home. What do you want me to do?”
Melissa closed her eyes. She could hear five-year-old Amanda screaming in the background, could hear Jamie’s efforts to soothe the little girl. Could feel Debbie’s frustration at having to call her tonight, knowing she planned to woo James.
Some things couldn’t be helped and she couldn’t send Amanda to an emergency room by ambulance when she knew the girl and her mother wouldn’t have a way to get home. Not if she could take care of the problem in her clinic.
“I’ll be there in two minutes.”
It took three, thanks to getting caught at one of Sawtooth’s four traffic lights.
Debbie had the girl in the procedure room and was applying pressure to a wound on her knee. Amanda screamed that she wanted her daddy and Jamie attempted to hug the girl, only to be pushed away.
Jamie burst into tears and Melissa went to her and placed her arms around the beaten-down woman.
“It’s going to be OK. We’ll get her sewn up and everything will be fine. She’s just scared.”
“I feel like such a failure. If I’d been watching her closer, she wouldn’t have had the crash.”
“Kids have bicycle crashes. It wasn’t your fault.”
“I want my daddy,” the little girl wailed even louder, not liking being ignored by her mother and Melissa.
Jamie glanced toward her screaming daughter, then at Melissa. Horror filled her moist eyes. “I’ve gotten blood all over your pretty dress.”
Despite the sinking feeling in her gut, Melissa held her expression in place. She hadn’t given her dress a thought when she’d hugged Jamie and she wouldn’t add to the woman’s guilt.
“It’s OK. It’ll wash.”
But not in time for her dinner with James.
She quickly assessed Amanda’s injuries and calculated how long it would take. No way would she have Amanda sewn up and out of the office in time to make it home by six. Probably not by seven.
She glanced at her watch. Only minutes till six.
“I’m going to change into scrubs and decent shoes.”
“Jamie, I need you to keep pressure on Amanda’s knee while Debbie sets up a suture tray. Debbie, I’ll need number four ethilon and, let’s go ahead and give Amanda five milligrams of Valium to calm her down a bit.”
Valium reminded her that she hadn’t called to check on Wilma that afternoon, as she’d promised. She made a mental note to do so from her cell phone while driving home.
Melissa slipped into her bathroom and changed from the stained dress into a pair of blue scrubs. She caught sight of her reflection in the mirror. Gone was the excitement that had shone in her eyes at Peggy Williams’s salon.
She loved her job, loved her patients, but she’d wanted to go home, to see desire flare in James’s eyes when he looked at her, for him to see her as she would have looked and to want her with a passion that couldn’t be subdued.
He’d be upset. She didn’t blame him. Why would a good man like James keep putting up with a woman who was never there for him? And the reality of it was that she wasn’t. Not that she’d realized it or meant it to happen, but James deserved better. And smart women like Dr Kristen Weaver were waiting to give it, and more, to him.
Knowing she didn’t have time to dwell on the emotions swirling in her stomach, not when a little girl was bleeding, Melissa left the bathroom and picked up her phone.
Time to let James know she’d be late.
James surveyed the scene he’d set and liked what he saw. Last night, he’d gone about things all wrong. He’d realized that today.
Actually, Kristen had helped him to see the truth of the matter. She’d gawked when he’d said that he’d gone from telling Melissa he was moving out to saying they were going to get married. She’d pointed out that no woman would accept a shotgun marriage proposal that came on the heels of being dumped.
It struck him that he really hadn’t proposed. He’d announced they were getting married. Melissa was way too independent for that to fly. Plus, she deserved the romance of him getting on his knees and asking her to share his life.
He hadn’t planned to marry, but under the right circumstances marriage to Melissa could be good. Sure, the thought of becoming a parent scared the hell out of him, but he’d deal with it. He had no choice.
He inspected the deck once again, mentally checking off each detail. Melissa’s favorite CD played low in the background. A dozen citronella candles burned in their various posts on the deck, but he’d placed a chunky beeswax candle in the center of the picnic table so the scent wouldn’t interfere with their dinner.
