Saving Forever - Part 5 (Saving Forever #5) (9 page)

“Dr. Thompson-Bennet?” A small nurse scurried over to Charity, Mandy and David, the other resident working with them that morning.

“Yes?” Charity pulled off her latex gloves and tossed them in the appropriate bin. She had just finished suturing a man’s leg. The three residents were in the Emergency room today. She checked her watch. She had her ultrasound in an hour. The past week had flown by. She smiled. Elijah’s mother hadn’t wasted any time in getting started at the house for the nursery.  She had everything out, the room primed and after today would let the painters back to finish. Had it only been a week?

The nurse cleared her throat. “I’ve admitted four new patients that need prompt care. I can’t get a hold of Dr. Thompson.”

“He’s not in today.” She remembered Elijah saying that her father had booked a lot of days off, leaving him to carry the extra work. He wasn’t complaining, in fact, he was quite amused at how much time her father wanted to spend with his mother. She had booked her trip for three weeks and was considering adding a few more to the holiday. “Dr. Bennet is in surgery right now. What do you need?”

“I need more doctors.” The nurse smiled, but the frustration on her face couldn’t be missed.

Charity didn’t recognize the nurse. She glanced at her name tag.
Nancy
. She figured she was kind of new. “You’ve got three right here. What do you want us to do?”

Nancy sighed with relief. “Follow me.”

“So much for a break,” Mandy teased as she walked beside Charity.

Nancy handed Mandy the first file. “This one needs sutures and is complaining about dizziness. I wasn’t sure how fast I could find help so I gave them all a bit of privacy.” The plaid curtains were closed around all the patients. She gave the next file to David. “This guy’s pretty big. He’s complaining about chest pain. He says it’s acid reflux, but his wife disagrees.” She stopped at the next curtain and then moved passed it when a scream of agony came out of the next patient. “Maybe you should go there first.” Nancy flipped to the bottom file. “Patient fell and hurt her shoulder.” She leaned close to Charity. “I think it might be broken.” She handed Charity the file and scampered away to the front desk where a phone started ringing.

Charity skimmed the file. “Alright, Miss Mary.” She slipped between the closed curtains. “I’m Doctor Thompson-Bennet.” She really did need to figure something out with her name.
Maybe TB?
“What happened today?” She set the file down on the table beside the bed and glanced down at the patient’s shoulder. She reached out to palpate the woman’s clavicle. “Oh shit!” she hissed and stepped back.

Miss Mary stared wide-eyed at Charity. “There is no way in hell you are touching me!” The woman’s hair had been dyed brown. The last time Charity had seen the woman her hair had been blonde, and before that red.

“Laura?” Charity grabbed the chart and double-checked the name.
Miss Mary Bernadette
. She frowned. There was a restraining order against this woman. She wasn’t supposed to come anywhere near Charity or Elijah. Charity pressed her hand against her ribcage, just below her heart. This was the woman who had shot her! Different hair but same damn woman! “You can’t be here!”

Laura glared and then scowled as she grabbed her shoulder near her neck. “Don’t you think I know that? It’s not like I drove myself. The paramedics brought me here.” Laura slumped forward and tried to swing her legs over the hospital bed. “When the hell did you become a doctor? I thought you did stupid-ass charity work,
Charity
Thompson
.”
Her eyes widened when Charity put her hands on her hips. “You’re pregnant!”

“Watch your language.” Charity frowned, ignoring Laura’s last comment. “Stay put. I’ll find someone else to help you.” She popped her head out of the curtain. “Nancy!” she called but didn’t see the nurse anywhere.

“You married him, didn’t you? And now you’re having his baby? Is that how you did it? You knocked yourself up just so he had to marry you?” Laura continued to ramble on incoherently, “Now you’re pretending to be a doctor. You’re going to try and kill me. That’s why I fell! The ghost pushed me and told the medics to bring me here to you.” She gasped. “You planned all of this, didn’t you? You’re the devil’s spawn! Witch!”

Charity stared at her, her feet frozen on the spot.

Laura lunged at her and cried out just before she fell off the bed. She dropped liked a ragdoll, having fainted from the pain.

Charity had no choice but to assist the woman. She checked her vitals and threw the curtain open.

A paramedic walking by heading back outside dropped beside Charity to help. “Need a little help?” he asked.

“Thanks.” The two of them managed to turn Laura over onto her back. Charity checked her airway and palpated her shoulder. “Clavicle’s broken.”

Nancy appeared with another nurse as if on cue. They both rushed to help as Laura came to, screaming in pain.

Charity instructed the nurses to administer pain meds and X-Rays. The paramedic stepped out of the way and Charity followed him. “Did you bring her in?”

He shook his head. “Three of us arrived at the same time. Sorry. She, uh, seems a bit, ah, how should I say this… Off her meds?”

Charity smiled. “Luckily, not your problem. Thanks so much for helping me.” She looked and saw David step out of his cubicle. “David!” She hurried over to him. “I need your help.”

“I need to get this guy in for some more tests.”

“We have to switch patients.”

David laughed. “I’m not taking the screaming woman. Dr. Thompson’s daughter or Dr. Bennet’s wife, either call is not going to work with me.”

She grabbed his sleeve. “That’s not why. The woman in there… I have a restraining order against her and is banned from this hospital. That is also by order of the court.”

That grabbed David’s attention. “Really?”

“Yeah.”

“Then why is she here?”

Charity threw her hands up. “I don’t know! She had a different name on her file. Maybe she lied to the paramedics. Maybe she changed her name. The woman is nuts. She probably broke her clavicle just to get brought in.”

“That seems a bit far-fetched.” David handed her his tablet. “I’ll get her sorted.”

“She can’t stay here.” Her father would have another heart attack if he found out. She reached for her phone to call Elijah’s cell. He needed to know. Her hand was shaking so bad she dropped her phone. She dropped down to pick it up. The woman knew she was pregnant! What if she tried to stab Charity with a needle in her belly? She couldn’t dismiss any possibility. “Where’s Nancy?” She hadn’t been paying attention if Nancy had left Laura. Security needed to be contacted.

“Who’s Nancy?” David asked, heading toward Laura’s cubicle.

“The head nurse in Emerg.” Charity swallowed and straightened. She was a doctor first, scared woman second. “She might be with Laura. The woman’s name is not Mary Bernadette.” She dialed Elijah’s number and moved toward an empty cubicle. “That’s the woman that tried to sue the hospital.”

David stopped walking. He spun around and whispered quietly. “The one that tried saying Dr. Bennet had sexually harassed her?”

Charity nodded.

“I’m not helping her. Let the woman suffer. My internship was delayed three months because of her.”

Charity chuckled. It wasn’t funny, but somehow, it was. “You’re a doctor, David! You have to put personal opinion aside.”

David’s eyebrows rose. “Then why aren’t you treating her?”

“’Cause she shot me.”

David took a step back. “What?”

Charity put her phone to her ear when she heard Elijah’s voice. “Hello?”

“I’m in surgery right now. My hands are inside some guy’s stomach. I didn’t mess up the ultrasound time?”

“No, you're fine.” She inhaled a shaky breath.

“Is everything alright?”

She pictured a nurse holding his phone to his ear and his hands buried deep inside someone, saving his life. “We’ve got a bit of a situation.”

“You okay?”

“Yeah. I’m down in Emerg.”

“What the hell happened? Is the baby alright?”

She slapped her forehead realizing how it sounded. “Baby is fine. We’re both fine. I’m working in Emerg. A patient with a broken clavicle came in. It’s Laura.”

“Pardon?”

“She came in under an assumed name. Paramedics dropped her off. The head nurse down in Emergency looks new so I don’t think she would have recognized Laura. Dad’s not working so I’m not sure what to do.”

“Has she seen you?”

“I was the first doctor to see her.”

“Shit!”

“I’m okay. She didn’t try anything. She’s in a lot of pain.” She didn’t bother to add that Laura realized she was pregnant.

“I don’t give a toss. She is banned from this hospital!”

“So what do we need to do?”

“Have the head nurse call General. Tell them you have a patient transfer.”

“That’s it? We don’t have to treat her?”

“Hell no! It’s not life threatening.”

“I ordered X-Rays to confirm it’s a break.”

“What? Charity! You should have walked away from her and contacted the police.”

“I’ll do that now.”

“Good, and get the hell out of the ER for the rest of the morning. If anyone has anything to say about it, tell them to talk to me.” He huffed. “Your father’s going to kill me.”

“I’m o
kay
,” she reassured him again.

“It’s not your safety that’s going to piss your father off; it’s the fact that Laura got in and was admitted. There are things in place to stop that from happening. They obviously don’t work.”

“She changed her name.” The woman was resourceful. It wouldn’t surprise Charity if she used someone else’s insurance information to get in.

“Just please stay away from her! Promise me that.”

“I will.”

A code warning came over the intercom system. “Paging Dr. Armstrong to the ER. Paging Dr. Armstrong to the ER.” There was no Dr. Armstrong in the hospital. It was code for security to come to the Emergency Room.

“Sounds like the cavalry is on its way.”

A sigh of relief echoed through the phone from Elijah. “I’ll see you in an hour for the ultrasound.”

“Okay.”

“Charity?”

“Yes?”

“I love you.”

She blinked, surprised he would say that in the middle of surgery around medical staff. “Me, too.”

“I’ll come find you as soon as I’m done.”

“Okay.” She didn’t know what else to say. She knew she was in shock and should probably grab a sugary drink or something.
David’s patient!
She couldn’t leave him unattended. She would just check in on him and then call the police.

She hesitated. She should probably call the cops first. Flipping David’s tablet on, she went to monitor the heart patient’s vitals as she headed to the Emergency desk station. She wanted to see how serious the patient’s condition was. His blood pressure was elevated and his heartbeat irregular, but the blood work hadn’t come back yet. She quickly looked up the security number for the hospital and explained the situation.

When she headed for the heart patient’s cubicle, four security guards marched past her. They wasted no time. Part of her wondered if Elijah had someone in surgery call too.

David came in right behind her. “I got this.” He took the tablet and smiled.

Screaming and cursing erupted from the cubicle where Laura was. Charity jumped and then ducked behind David. Her body did it automatically as if it was trying to protect itself from any chance of getting hurt again. David leaned close so only she would hear, “You should probably head into the doctor’s lounge until everything’s… cleared.”

Dazed, she nodded and backed up slowly. “Let me know if you need anything.”

He smiled and patted her shoulder. “We will. Definitely.” He turned his attention to the couple watching in front of him. “Now, shall we get back to work? There is never a dull moment in Emergency.”

Charity hurried out of the ER as fast as she could without running, trying to put as much distance between lunatic-Laura and herself. In the doctor’s lounge, she went to pour herself a coffee and changed her mind, heading to the vending machines and grabbing herself a coke instead. She popped the can open and took several long sips before leaning against the wall to relax.

She inhaled a long, deep breath and sighed. As she exhaled, an enormous belch erupted from inside of her. She covered her mouth and glanced around mortified. No one was around thankfully. She closed her eyes and rested her head against the cold wall.
So much for sounding professional.

Maybe if she stood there a little while longer she would open her eyes and it would just be a nightmare.

The tinkling of her half-finished can of Coke hitting the wall because of her shaking hands and jelly legs seems to solidify the inevitable.

Another crazy story to add to the list.