JoAnn Ross - No Regrets

Although it was a terrible pun, an involuntary giggle escaped her lips. “You’re making that up.”

“That’s the trouble with working with you, Sister Molly,” he said on an exaggerated sigh. “You make it impossible to lie. But it’s still pretty good, don’t you think?”

“I think I should have Dr. Bernstein come down for a consult.” Alan Bernstein was the psych resident. “No one should remain this upbeat at the twenty-fourth hour of a thirty-six-hour shift.” Before he could answer, she was off to meet another paramedic who was wheeling in a woman on a gurney.

The patient was dressed for a party in a thigh-high, formfitting red sequined dress and skyscraper heels, one of which had cracked in two. Her hair, the color of a new penny, had been fashioned in an elaborate upsweep and Christmas trees had been airbrushed onto each of her long, scarlet fingernails. Her dress had been torn up one side, and one sleeve had been cut open to allow for an IV drip.

“She was crossing Sunset and got hit by a car,” the paramedic began. The man, whose badge read Sam Browning, had earned the nickname Big E his first night on the job when he’d excitedly radioed that he and his partner were bringing in a twenty-year-old male who’d been “ejaculated” from his Corvette.

“It was my fault,” the patient interrupted, struggling to sit up. “I wasn’t watching where I was going.”

“Fault’s for the cops to decide,” Big E said. “Why don’t you just lie down, ma’am, and let me tell the nurse what she needs to know to treat you, okay?”

“I’m sorry.” The woman gave Molly an apologetic look through lashes coated with navy blue mascara. Molly was momentarily distracted by the thin row of rhinestones bordering her eyelids.

“That’s all right,” she soothed. “I can understand you’ve suffered a great deal of stress.”

“I just don’t want that poor driver to get in trouble. Especially on Christmas Eve.”

“The driver’s pretty shook up,” Big E told Molly. “He insisted on coming along. He’s out in the waiting room. You might want to talk to him after you’re finished.”

“I’ll do that.”

“You won’t be sorry. He’s very handsome,” the patient informed Molly, earning a glare from the paramedic who was obviously frustrated at having been interrupted again. “A girl could certainly do worse.”

“Anyway,” Big E doggedly continued, “according to witnesses, the patient suffered a brief period of unconsciousness—”

“I suppose that’s why I can’t remember what happened.”

“It’s possible you’ve suffered a slight concussion,” Molly said.

“She had some labored breathing in the vehicle coming over here, which suggests a cracked rib,” Big E said, grimly determined to finish his report. “We started her on glucose, thiamine and naloxone. As you can see, there’s no loss of verbal skills and her only other symptoms are retrograde amnesia and a few scrapes and bruises.”

“I skinned my leg when I landed,” the patient revealed as Molly took her blood pressure.

Molly observed the red-and-purple scrape along one firm thigh. The skin around it was darkly bruised. “Don’t worry, we’ll have the gravel cleaned out in no time.”

“But it won’t scar?”

“No.” Molly smiled reassuringly. “It shouldn’t.”

“I’m so relieved. I’m a dancer. My legs are my livelihood.”

“When I was a little girl, I wanted to be a ballerina.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“My family couldn’t afford the lessons.”

“Oh.” The woman pursed her vermilion lips and thought about that for a moment. “That’s too bad.”

“Not really.” Molly began swabbing the wound while she waited for Reece to arrive. “Because I know now I was meant to be a nurse.” She didn’t mention being a nun, since that always seemed to lead to questions, and this patient was already talkative enough.

“I’ve always admired caretaker personalities,” the woman said. “Unfortunately, there aren’t enough of them in the world. Especially these days.”

“I don’t know about the world, but we could use a few more in here tonight.”

“Amen,” Reece agreed as he joined them in the curtained cubicle. “I’m Dr. Longworth. Looks as if someone had a close encounter with Santa’s sleigh.”

The woman laughed, as Reece had intended. When the laugh deteriorated into a wheezing cough, he and Molly exchanged a look.

“I’m afraid we’re going to have to remove your dress, Ms....”

“Fuller. Dana Fuller,” the woman responded in a breathy voice that Molly suspected had little to do with a possible cracked rib.

Molly had seen this happen innumerable times. Reece Longworth was a devastatingly attractive man; whenever he appeared in the emergency room, women invariably took one look at his laughing emerald eyes, perpetually tousled chestnut hair, boyish smile and lean muscular body, and experienced an immediate increase in their heart rates.

“And I’ll be more than happy to take off anything you’d like, Doctor.”

The sexual invitation was unmistakable. Molly was amused by the flush rising from the collar of Reece’s white jacket.

As Molly helped Reece remove the sequined dress, he stared in momentary puzzlement at the flat brown nipples. As comprehension crashed down on him he lifted the sheet he and Molly were pulling up over the patient’s chest and viewed the penis nestled in the curly dark hair.

He’d learned in medical school never to make assumptions, and he assured himself that the only reason he hadn’t realized he was treating a man was because he’d already been working for twenty-four hours. Now, as he managed to keep a straight face and examine the patient’s breathing, Reece reminded himself again why he was hooked on the ER.

He enjoyed the action, the constant surprises. There was nothing worse, he reminded himself as he referred the patient to neurology for a CAT scan, than being bored. Fortunately, that damn sure wasn’t going to happen tonight.

The driver of the car that had struck the cross-dressing dancer was still pacing the waiting room when Molly came to assure him that the patient was going to survive with a minimum of injuries.

“Thank God.” He took both her hands in his. “I’ve been so worried.”

“I can certainly understand that.” Molly smiled her professional caretaker’s smile. “But you can go home now and sleep easy.”

“Sleep.” He thrust his hands through his hair. He was a good-looking man in his mid-thirties. “Lord, I doubt if I’ll sleep for a week, after this.”

“If you’d like, I can ask the physician on duty to prescribe a sleeping pill for you. Just for tonight.”

“No.” He shook his head. “I’ll be all right.” He took another deep breath. “I want to thank you, Nurse…” He glanced down at her name tag, which, due to security measures lobbied for by the female employees of the hospital, had only her first name along with the alphabet soup of initials representing her numerous professional credentials.

He tilted his head and studied her. “I hope you don’t take this the wrong way, but you don’t look much like a Margaret.”

“My friends call me Molly.”

“Molly.” He considered that a moment. “That’s much better. Do you have a last name?”

“McBride.”

“Ah.” He nodded. “I can see the emerald isle in your face, Molly McBride. My mother, Mary Keegan, was black Irish. I should have recognized those lovely blue eyes and dark hair right away.”

“You had other things on your mind.”

“True. But the day I fail to notice a beautiful woman is the day I need to reassess my priorities. My name is Patrick Nelson.”