Susan Mallery: Only Yours

“I didn’t—”

“Think,” he interrupted. “Yes, that much is clear. I doubt you think much about anything. Now, get out.”

Embarrassment gripped her. She was aware of the other staff members hovering close by, listening.

Montana knew that Fluffy’s running through the hospital was a bad thing. But it wasn’t as if she’d planned the event.

“It was an accident,” she said, raising her chin.

“That’s not an excuse.”

“I suppose you’ve never made a mistake.”

His gray-green eyes flashed with derision. “Have you ever had a burn? Touched a hot pan or the burner on a stove? Do you remember what that felt like? Imagine that over a significant part of your body. The healing process is slow and what we do here to help it along is excruciating. On this ward, an infection kills. So any mistakes I’ve made have no bearing on this discussion.”

There was no point in telling him that the work she did was important. She often came to the hospital with therapy dogs. Those therapy dogs helped patients heal, especially children. But she suspected this particular man wouldn’t care about that.

“You’re right,” she said slowly. “There’s no excuse for what happened here today. I’m sorry.”

His mouth twisted. “Get out.”

His complete dismissal stunned her. “Excuse me?”

“Are you deaf? Get out. Go away. Take your damn dog with you and don’t come back.”

Montana was willing to admit fault and take the blame, but to have her apology ignored was just plain rude. Being a screwup didn’t mean she was a bad person.

“You’re a doctor?” she asked, even though she already knew the answer to the question.

The man’s eyes narrowed. “Yes.”

“You might want to take that stick out of your ass. It’ll make it easier to pretend to be human, which will probably help your patients.”

With that she grabbed Fluffy’s leash, ignored the fact that the dog was licking the doctor’s hand and walked out of the burn unit, her head held high.

On her way back to the kennel, she kept a firm grip on Fluffy, but no amount of holding could erase the fact that they’d both messed up big-time. Montana loved her job. It had taken her a long time to find out what she was supposed to do with her life. She loved training the dogs, and working with kids at the hospital and older folks at the nursing home. She’d started a reading program at all five local elementary schools.

She could lose everything because of what had happened today. If the administrator called Max and insisted Montana not be allowed back in the hospital, her boss would fire her. A fair amount of the therapy work took place there. If she couldn’t go to the hospital, she wasn’t much use to him. And then what?

She knew she only had herself to blame. Max had made it clear Fluffy wasn’t going to be successful in the program, but Montana had wanted to give the dog another chance.

All her life Montana had been different. On her good days, she told herself she was a little flaky. On her bad days, well, the words were a lot worse than that.

Regardless of the label, it appeared that nothing had changed. She was still incapable of getting anything right.

ORDER WAS RESTORED on the burn ward in a matter of minutes. Simon Bradley dismissed the intruder from his mind and continued his rounds. His last patient of the morning was the most worrisome. Nine-year-old Kalinda Riley had been brought in two days before when the family’s gas barbecue had exploded. Kalinda was the only one hurt.

She’d been burned over forty percent of her body. He’d performed surgery yesterday. If she survived, it would be the first operation of many. For the rest of her life, her existence would be defined by her burns. He should know.

Her parents were devastated and frightened. They wanted answers and he had none to give them. The next few weeks would decide if the little girl lived or died. He didn’t like to guess or assume, but he also couldn’t escape the heaviness in his chest. “Dr. Bradley.”

He smiled at Kalinda’s mother. Mrs. Riley was not yet thirty and probably pretty when she wasn’t pale with worry and fear. Kalinda was her only child.

“She’s been quiet,” the mother continued.

“We’re keeping her sedated as she heals.”

“There was a dog here before.”

Simon tensed. “It won’t happen again.”

Mrs. Riley touched his arm. “She opened her eyes when she heard the commotion. She asked to see the puppy.”

Simon turned toward Kalinda’s room. The child shouldn’t be that lucid. He would examine her, then look over her medications.

“Did she say if she was in pain?” he asked.

Later they would teach her ways to manage her discomfort. That’s what they called it. Discomfort. Not agony or torture or suffering. All the things a serious burn could be. Later she would learn about breathing and meditation and visualization. For now drugs would get her through.

“She said she wanted to hold the puppy.”

He drew in a breath. “It was an eighty-pound mutt that doesn’t belong in a hospital.”

“Oh.” Mrs. Riley’s eyes filled with tears. “We had a dog. A small Yorkie. She died a few months ago. I know Kalinda misses her terribly. I remember reading something about hospitals using therapy dogs. Do you think that would help?”

She was a mother who loved her child and would do anything to help her. To keep her from suffering. Simon had seen it hundreds of times. The greatness of a parent’s love never ceased to amaze him. Perhaps because he hadn’t experienced it himself.

Simon would rather eat glass than have a filthy animal in his burn unit, but he also understood that the healing powers of the human body could be triggered by unexpected sources. If Kalinda was to survive, she would need something close to a miracle.

“I’ll see what I can find out,” he said, and turned toward his patient’s room.

“Thank you,” Mrs. Riley said, smiling bravely through her tears. “You’ve been amazing.”

He’d done very little. Surgery was a learned skill. The gift he brought to those skills came at a price, but one he was willing to pay. He lived for his patients, to heal them as much as humanly possible and then move on. To the next tragedy. The next child whose life had changed in a single flash and the lick of a flame.

“YOU’RE NOT GOING TO PRISON,” Max Thurman said firmly.

“I should. He was right. What happened was criminal.”

Montana had had nearly an hour to beat herself up and she’d made use of every second. Her bravado when facing the angry doctor had faded and now she was left with little more than a sense of having messed up in the worst way possible.

“Dramatic much?” Max asked, his dark eyes bright with amusement. “You’re taking this way too seriously.”

“Fluffy was loose in a hospital. She ran around, knocked over a couple of carts, then got into the burn ward.”

“I’m not saying we want wild animals running through a sterile facility, but it was an accident and, according to the hospital administrator, no damage was done. You need a little perspective.”

They were in Max’s office, a bright room at the back of his house. The kennels were on his property, as was the training facility. Montana wasn’t a very good judge of how much land made up an acre, but she would guess Max owned more than a few of them. She knew she had to drive a good three minutes from the road to even get to the house. Which could be challenging in winter.

“If you’d seen that doctor…” she murmured, remembering his coldness most of all. “He was beyond furious.”

“So, apologize.”

“To him?” She never wanted to see him again. That would really work best for her. “Or you could call back the administrator and tell her I’m really sorry.”