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“Get some help in here!” He already had his hands full with the mangled leg and now he was short a nurse.
Another nurse in the room said, “At this time of night we’ll have to call someone in.”
“I need those hands now.” The case was tough enough without this issue.
The ill nurse hadn’t been gone a minute when the phone rang. No one could stop long enough to answer it. A few minutes later, with a mask over her mouth, Stacey stuck her head in the door.
“Dr. Brennan—”
“Scrub in. I need you in here,” he barked, not even taking the time to look at her.
The door closed and a short time later Stacey entered. “Where do you want me?”
“Stand beside me. I need you to resect and clean the blood away so I can see.” He had no more time to give directions. If any more tissue was lost then the boy would require skin grafts.
“Little to the left, Stacey. That’s right.”
As they worked he noted that he had to give her fewer instructions. Stacey anticipated his next move. “All right, let’s get these bone splinters out of here.”
His surgical nurse held a metal bowl as he picked bone pieces from the muscle.
“That looks like all of it.” Now he could start trying to repair the jumbled mess.
“Doctor, I think I saw one more.” Stacey pointed to a spot and dabbed it with gauze.
“Where?” He searched the area. “Ah, got it. Nice catch, Stacey.”
She cleared the area again while he used the tweezers to remove the sliver before blood covered it again. “Excellent. Now, let’s get this boy’s leg pieced together.”
Everyone worked patiently and efficiently over the next few hours arranging veins, ligaments and putting screws into bones as they put the human puzzle back together.
It was almost morning when he, Stacey and the other staff walked out of the OR. Cody pulled his surgical gown and hat off, dropping them into the cloth bin beside the door. He was acquainted with tough surgery but this one had definitely been in the top three he’d ever done. The boy had damaged his leg almost to the point of no return. He would have additional surgeries ahead of him, painful rehabilitation and a limp.
“Job well done, all.” He turned to Stacey. “Nice work in there. How much surgical training have you had?”
“Very little.”
She sounded exhausted but there had been no complaints from her. She’d done what needed doing without question. He couldn’t have been prouder of the work they’d accomplished.
Stacey stripped off her surgical clothes in record time and was headed out the door. “I need to speak to the parents. They must be crazy with worry since I just disappeared on them.”
Cody hadn’t thought of that. “Please tell them I’ll be right out.”
* * *
Hours later he and Stacey were standing at the ferry port, watching the vessel dock.
“I’m sorry the helicopter couldn’t come get us. It’s out, bringing one of Rafael’s patients in.” Cody watched the water froth as the ferry, its massive engines rumbling, eased beside the dock.
Stacey shrugged. “Part of the price of living on an island is living by the ferry schedule. It’s better than swimming.”
Cody chortled deep in his chest. “That I can agree with. Especially since the water isn’t all that warm here. And it’s too early and too far for a morning swim.”
“I like the beach but I’m too darned tired to enjoy it today. All I want is my bed.” She stepped onto the ferry.
“I couldn’t agree more.” He was by her side once more. “You were good in the OR and with the senator as well. What’s a nurse with those skills doing traipsing around the world?” As a general rule he didn’t ask women personal questions, but for some reason he wanted to know more about this one, who was such an enigma. The need to learn what made her tick was beyond his control.
“Much the same thing as here, nursing.”
Something in her tone, or lack of it, made him believe there was more to it than that. “But why the traveling part?”
Her slight frown suggested she was reluctant to answer yet she lifted a shoulder nonchalantly. “With a mother who has been married three times and is currently working on her fourth, I never really lived in one place very long. Being a traveling nurse was just an extension of that. It also gives me a chance to do all types of nursing in innumerable types of circumstances.”
She was about going from one place to another, whereas he was about staying put. He wanted stability and calm in his life. He already knew what it was like to live daily with the anxiety of uncertainty. He pressed his lips together. Was Stacey’s reluctance to settle down generated by fear as well?
