Debrah Morris - When Lightning Strikes Twice

“Like I’ve been lightning-struck.”

She patted his arm. “I’m not surprised. Take it easy now, the doctor will be in to see you soon.”

“Is that Mol—er, Mallory?” The name didn’t feel as strange coming out of his mouth as he thought it would. “Is she here?”

“You mean Dr. Peterson? I don’t know. Would you like to see her?”

“Yes.” A rush of emotion tightened his damaged throat and threatened to cut off his breathing again. “Please.” He’d waited a hundred years for this moment. Mallory Peterson looked nothing like his former fiancée, midwife Molly Earnshaw. Nor did her appearance match any of the other mortal coils she’d inhabited over time. Still, he couldn’t wait to see her. From tribal bonesetter to medieval herbalist to village wise woman, she’d always been a healer. Now she was a doctor. She’d finally reached the goal she’d yearned after so long.

The nurse picked up his wrist, felt his hammering pulse, frowned and wrote something on a paper clamped to a board. “I don’t know if Dr. Peterson is still in the building, she may have gone home by now.”

“No!” Not seeing her would hurt more than the injuries he’d suffered.

“Okay, calm down. I’ll have her paged. Maybe she’s still around.”

“Thank you. Please, just find her.”

The woman tucked the sheet around him. “You rest, and I’ll see what I can do.”

“I have to see her,” he whispered tightly. He had to. He couldn’t wait another moment.

“It was the darnest thing I ever saw.” After changing into clean green surgical scrubs, Mallory sat in the doctor’s lounge with a cup of coffee. She related the evening’s events to Andrew “Mac” McKinley, the on-call physician who’d taken charge of Joe in the emergency room. “I’m telling you, that fork of lightning hit the pole like a heat-seeking missile. It was almost as though it had made a special trip down from heaven, specifically to strike him.”

Mac shook his head. “I’m surprised at you, Mal. That’s not a very scientific explanation for someone with an undergrad major in physics.”

“I know, but it was still pretty amazing.”

“What’s amazing is the fact he’s still alive. You saved his life, you know.”

“I did, didn’t I?” She grinned. “That’s what we’re here for, right? Mallory Peterson’s my name, saving lives is my game.”

“Are you planning to hang around until our patient wakes up?”

“I’m thinking about it.” Mac was an excellent physician. She had no reservations about handing off Joe’s care. Yet, she felt responsible for the man whose heart had resumed beating under her hands. She’d insisted on riding to Midland in the ambulance with him and had assisted in the initial assessment. She didn’t understand, and couldn’t explain to her colleague, the indefinable connection she felt for the man she’d brought back from death.

“Inconsiderate of him to get toasted on a Friday night,” Mac teased. “Don’t you have anything better to do?”

“No. I’ll just see how he’s doing before I go.”

“Suit yourself.”

Mallory was relieved when he didn’t chide her about her absentee social life. That would have to wait, until she’d proved to the town that their faith in her had not been misplaced. Too bad time was finite. A limited resource, it ran out. Got used up. Squandered. Every life was allotted a certain number of minutes, and they were too precious to waste. She’d already spent an inordinate amount of her allotted time pursuing her dream.

She hoped she’d made the right decision. Although becoming a physician had never felt like her decision to make. For reasons neither she nor her family understood, she had wanted to be a doctor even before she knew what a doctor was. When she was two and a half, her mother claimed she had grabbed the pediatrician’s stethoscope, cried, “Mine!” and refused to let go.

Her fate had been sealed when her parents had given her a toy doctor kit for her third birthday. She’d spent all her playtime clumsily bandaging imaginary injuries sustained by her dolls and dispensing invisible pills to her patients. At five, when her father bragged that she might grow up to be a nurse, she’d stamped her foot. “No,” she’d declared. “I’m gonna be a doctor.”

The story made an amusing family anecdote, but achieving her dream had not been easy. She came from a working-class home where money was tight and ambitions realistic. Her father drove a big rig back and forth across the country, and her mother waited tables. They knew their daughter was as smart as she was dedicated, but financing the education necessary to complete medical training seemed beyond their reach.

In typical driven fashion, Mallory had seized control of the situation. Even in junior high, she had willingly sacrificed her personal life on the altar of ambition, studying hard to make grades that would attract the attention of scholarship committees. She saved most of the money she made working at the Bag and Wag after school, weekends and summers, and still found time to volunteer and participate in extracurricular activities.

When she’d earned a scholarship to Thorndyke College, the people of Slapdown had banded together to raise money for additional expenses. Throughout her undergraduate years, and later at Baylor, they’d sent her a small monthly stipend. They said it was because they believed in her. Knowing folks who had never realized their own dreams wanted to be part of hers made all the work worthwhile.

She was lucky to have that kind of support, and she had made them a promise. When she received her medical license, she would return to her hometown and dedicate herself to caring for the people who had helped her. In its one hundred-and-twenty-year history, Slapdown had never had a full-time doctor. Now little Mallory Peterson was responsible for the health and well-being of its citizens.

She still couldn’t believe it.

As a further gesture of good faith, Brindon Tucker, another local boy who’d made good, had built Western Plains Medical Clinic with money won in the state lottery. She’d come home to run the state-of-the-art facility, hanging out her shingle as soon as the ink on her license had dried.

Under her management, the number of people served by the clinic had grown since the doors opened last fall. Once word got out, residents of neighboring towns and rural areas sought care at Western Plains. The staff included a nurse practitioner, an RN, a medical assistant and an office manager. Not bad for a town that had never had its own doctor before.

Mac was refilling their coffee cups when Mallory’s beeper chirped. She answered the page on the lounge phone. When she hung up, she turned to the other doctor. “Mitchum’s awake.”

Mac gulped down the lukewarm brew, and they hurried out into the corridor. “Did the nurse say anything?”

“Just that he asked to see me.”

“I’ll need to assess his cognitive function to determine whether he suffered brain damage,” Mac said as the elevator doors closed.

“Well, the guy was on a utility pole stealing electricity during a storm,” she reminded. “All things considered, I’m not sure you’ll be able to tell.”

The Ranger opened his eyes when the man with Mallory introduced himself. “I’m Dr. McKinley. I guess you know Dr. Peterson.”

“Yes, sir.” He’d known her so long, she seemed like an extension of his own being. She looked different, yet he knew her immediately. He would have recognized the spark in her warm sherry-colored eyes anywhere. For a hundred years, he’d longed to kiss her heart-shaped lips. “I owe you my thanks, Doc.”

“It’s a miracle I was there when it happened,” she said.