The Bride Wore Red Boots (2 page)

She frowned. “It wasn't necessary to bring him in yet. I think we have this well in hand. We need fewer bodies, not more.”

“I'll let him know.”

The epinephrine began to work slowly but surely, and most of the staff, at Mia's instruction, returned to the party to help the remaining kids. The older nurse and the male nurse remained.

Ten minutes after he'd first passed out, Rory opened his eyes, gasping as the adrenaline coursed through him and staring wild-eyed as if he didn't believe air was reaching his lungs.

“Slow breaths, Rory.” Mia placed her hand on his. “Don't be afraid. You have plenty of air now, I promise. Lots of medicine is helping it get better and better. Breathe out, nice and slow. I'm going to listen to your heart again, okay?”

Mia listened and found his heart rate slowing. A new automatic blood pressure cuff buzzed, and Rory winced as the cuff squeezed. Tears beaded in his eyes. Mia stared at the monitor, while the nurse calmed the boy again.

“That's a little better,” Mia said. “But, I think we need to keep you away from the party for a while. That was scary, huh?”

“Dr. Mia?” He finally recognized her.

“Hi,” she said. “This is a surprise, isn't it?”

“You saved me,” he whispered in a thick, hoarse rasp. “Nobody ever saves me.”

For the first time Mia truly looked at the two nurses who stood with her. Their eyes reflected the stunned surprise she felt.

“Of course I saved you,” she said. “Anybody would save you, Rory. You probably haven't needed saving very often, that's all.”

“Once. I ate some peanut butter when my mom wasn't at home. I couldn't breathe, but Mrs. Anderson next door didn't believe me. ” His voice strengthened as he spoke. “I can't eat peanut butter.”

“What did you eat today? Do you remember? Right before you couldn't breathe?”

He shook his head vehemently. “A cupcake. A chocolate one. I can eat chocolate.”

“Anything else?”

“I had one little Three Musketeer. Bitsy gave it to me. She said the nurses said it was okay to have one because my stomach feels better.”

Bitsy again. Rory looked solely at Mia and avoided the nurses' eyes, as if he feared they'd contradict his story.

“And you don't remember any other food?” Mia asked.

“I didn't eat nothing else. I swear.”

“It's all right. It really is. All I care about is finding what made you sick. Look, I'm going to go out and talk to some more nurses—”

“No! Stay here.” He stretched out his arm, his fingers spread beseechingly.

“All right.” She let him grab her hand and looked at him quizzically. “But you're fine now.”

“No.”

He was so certain of his answer. Mia couldn't bear to ignore his wishes, although it made no logical sense. At that moment a white-coated man with a Lincoln-esque figure appeared in the doorway.

“My, my, what's going on here? Is that you Rory?”

Rory clung to Mia's hand and didn't answer. Mia looked over the newcomer, not recognizing him, although his badge identified him as Frederick Wilson, MD.

His eyes brushed over Mia, and he dismissed her with a quick “Good afternoon.” No questions, no request for an update from her, the medical expert already on the case. She bristled but stayed quietly beside Rory, squeezing his hand.

“How's our man?” Dr. Wilson asked. You doing okay, Champ?” He oozed the schmoozy bedside manner she found obsequious, and the child who'd been talkative up to now merely stared at the ceiling.

Dr. Wilson chuckled. “That's our Rory. Not great talk show material, but he plays a mean game of chess from what I hear. A silent, brilliant kind of man. I'm Fred Wilson.” He held out a hand. “You must be one of the techs or NAs?”

She stared at him in disbelief. A nursing assistant? Who was this idiot? She looked down and remembered her badge was in her pocket. She fished it out and shoved it at him. “I'm
Dr
. Amelia Crockett, and I've been handling Rory's case since the incident about fifteen minutes ago.

“Crockett. Crockett.” He stared off as if accessing information in space somewhere. “The young general surgeon who's working now toward a second certification in pediatric surgery. Sorry, I've been here two weeks and have tried to brush up on all the staff resumes. I'm the new chief of staff here in peds. Up from Johns Hopkins.”

She had heard his name and that he was a mover and shaker.

“Dr. Wilson,” she acknowledged.

“So, since you're a surgeon and not familiar with Rory's whole case, maybe I'll trouble you to get me up to speed on the anaphylaxis, and then I'll take over so you can get back to what I'm sure is a busy schedule.” Dr. Wilson crossed his arms and smiled.

She glared at him again. He may as well have called her
just
a surgeon. And to presume she hadn't familiarized herself with Rory's case before prescribing any course of action . . .

“I'm sorry, Dr. Wilson,” she said. “But with all due respect, I happen to know this child, and I'm also well aware of the details of his case. I, too, can read a patient history. I believe I can follow up on this episode and make the report in his chart for you, his regular pediatrician, and the other docs on staff who will treat him.”

“It really isn't necessary,” he replied, and his smile left his eyes.

Unprofessional as it was, she disliked him on the spot, as if she'd met him somewhere else and hadn't liked him then either.

“I was here to help with the Halloween party,” she said. “My afternoon is free and clear.”

“That explains much. So that isn't your normal, everyday head ornamentation?”

For a moment she met his gaze, perplexed.
Oh, crap
. Her hand flew to her head, and in mortification she pulled off the tiara still stuck there with its little side combs.

“I didn't mean you needed to take it off. It was fetching.” Dr. Wilson said. He winked with a condescending kind of flirtatiousness—as if he were testing her.

She flicked an unobtrusive glance at his left hand. No band, but a bulky gold ring with a sizeable onyx set in the middle. She got the impression he was old school all the way, a little annoyed with female practitioners, and extremely cocky about his own abilities.

“Rory is improving rapidly since the administration of Benadryl and epinephrine. We are uncertain of the allergen. From what he's told us he has a suspected sensitivity to peanut butter, but as far as we know he hasn't eaten any nuts.”

Dr. Wilson nodded, patting Rory periodically on the shoulder. Rory continued his silence.

“Rory, do you mind if I do a little exam on your tummy?” Dr. Wilson asked.

“Dr. Mia already did it.” He turned his head just enough to look at her.

Again he smiled, ignoring Mia. “I'm sure she did, but I'm a different kind of doctor, and I'd like to help her make sure you're okay. Maybe if everyone left the room except you and me and Miss Arlene, it won't be so embarrassing if I check you out? Dr. Crockett and Darren can go and make sure there's nothing out at the party that will hurt you again.”

Arlene and Darren, she noted absently. She hadn't taken the time to look at their nametags.

Rory shook his head and squeezed Mia's hand again.

“As you can see,” she said, curtly, “the child is still fearful and a little traumatized. Perhaps in this case you and I could switch roles? I'll stay with my patient, and you'll make a better sleuth with Darren?”

Dr. Wilson's mouth tightened, and he drew his shoulders back as if prepping for a confrontation. In that instant, the sense of recognition—the confrontation if not the chauvinism—she'd had earlier flashed into unexpected clarity.

Gabriel Harrison.

Her stomach flipped crazily. Fiftyish Dr. Fred Wilson didn't look a bit like the arrogant, self-important, patient advocate she'd met six weeks before at the VA medical center in her old home city of Jackson, Wyoming. In truth, nobody who wasn't making seven figures as a big-screen heartthrob looked like Gabriel Harrison. The trouble was, just as Dr. Wilson knew he was good, Lieutenant—retired Lieutenant—Harrison knew he was gorgeous. Both men believed they had the only handle on expertise and information.

She'd met Harrison after a car accident in the middle of September had left her mother and one of her sisters seriously injured, and he'd been assigned as a liaison between them, their families, and the hospital. He'd made himself charming—like a medicine show snake oil salesman—and her sisters, all five of them, now adored him. Her mother considered him her personal guardian angel. However, he'd treated Mia like she'd gotten her degree from a Cracker Jack box, and he continued doing so in all their correspondence—which was frequent considering how he loved ignoring her requests for information.

Mia was glad that at her planned trip home for Christmas, her mother and sister would be home and Gabriel Harrison, patient advocate, would be long gone from their lives. Unfortunately, it wouldn't work quite so easily with Fred Wilson. She was stuck more-or-less permanently with him.

“I want Dr. Mia to stay.”

Rory's fingers tightened on her hand, and the last vestiges of memories from Wyoming slipped away.

“That settles it in my opinion,” she said. “At my patient's request, I'll stay with him. Darren, would you be willing to accompany Dr. Wilson to the lounge and ask some questions about the food? Arlene, would you please get Mr. Beltane here a glass of juice and maybe some ice?”

“Yes,” Darren said. “Sure.”

“Of course,” Arlene replied, with the first smile Mia had seen from her.

Fred Wilson, on the other hand, looked as if he might need the Heimlich maneuver. “If I might have a word with you outside, Dr. Crockett.”

She met his gaze coolly. “Rory, I need to help Dr. Wilson with some things, but I'll be right back. I promise.”

“No.”

“I promise, honey.” She smoothed the child's hair back and he nodded, his eyes shining.

Dr. Wilson patted Rory on the shoulder a final time. “I'll see you tomorrow, young man. You may even get to go home. Bet you'd like that.”

Rory gave an anemic shrug.

She slipped out of the room with Fred Wilson behind her, took several steps away from the door, and spun to face him.

“Would you care to explain what this is about?” she demanded.

“Dr. Crockett, I have heard your reputation as the wonder child of this medical community,” Wilson said. “But in this department you have no seniority, and a fast track to the top is not impressive. No matter how good you are technically, nothing can take the place of years of experience. And just because you wear a stethoscope and have been in this physical location longer than I have, doesn't mean you possess anywhere near the experience I do. You were insubordinate in front of the patient and my staff. I won't have that.”

She didn't blink or raise her voice. She put her hands in her lab coat pockets to keep from showing her flexing fingers. “In point of fact, Dr. Wilson, you treated
me
like a first-year intern in there, even though I am the lead medical staff member in this matter. I also have the trust of the patient, and you ignored that along with his wishes. I treated you with the respect you commanded. It's not my style to kiss up to anyone or brown nose a superior to make my way. Good medicine is all I care about. You or one of your hospital staff docs will handle his care in regard to his recent appendectomy, but at the moment, because he is still in a little bit of shock, that is secondary to aftercare from the anaphylaxis. I didn't appreciate you not bowing to my expertise or asking me to debrief you—even if I didn't just come from Johns Hopkins.”

“You take a pretty surly tone.”

“I apologize.”

For a long moment he assessed her, and finally he shook his head. “I don't like your style, Doctor. But the staff thinks highly of your skill. We'll let this slide because the child did request your presence.”

“I don't love your style either.” She smiled. “But I've heard the staff thinks highly of your bedside manner. I hope we can grow to understand each other better as we are required to work together.”

“I hope that's so.” He nodded curtly and left.

Why were older doctors so prejudiced when it came to believing surgeons knew their stuff? Mia was tired of dealing with the game playing and politics of staff. What was wrong with just being a damn-good physician?

She let herself back into Rory's room, and he smiled with relief. “How are you, kiddo?” she asked. “Do your stitches or anything inside your tummy hurt?”

“No.”

“You didn't want Dr. Wilson to stay and examine you. Do you not like him?”

“He's nice.”

That stymied her. “Then why—?”

“He didn't have nothin' to do with making me better.” Rory interrupted. “Only you and Dr. Thomas who took out my appendix. And . . . you . . . ” His huge, dark eyes brimmed with tears that clung to his lashes like diamonds but didn't spill.

“I what, Rory?”

“You saved me. And I want you to save Jack.”

“Jack?” A slice of new panic dove through her stomach. She knew Jack. “Your cat?”

“Yeah.”

“Why does Jack need saving?”

“Buster has him,” he said. “But Mrs. Murray, the foster lady, she said I couldn't bring him with me 'cause she's allergic to cats. And Buster said he'd keep him for a while, but he can't keep him forever because mostly the shelters won't let him have a cat neither.”

A slight dizziness started her head spinning. “Who's Buster?”

“I lived with him awhile after my mama got taken away.”

“Where does Buster live?”

“Everywhere,” he said, and Mia's stomach slowly started to sink. “He's my best friend. Sometimes he goes to the shelter by the church in Brownsville. Sometimes he lives under the bridge by the East River. Sometimes he stays in the camp with his friends.”