Hearts Afire Page 5

  “I’m glad you feel that way. It’s good to know we can count on you.”

  She glanced at him, but he wasn’t looking at her. Instead he was frowning at the cement block wall, as if he saw something unpleasant written there.

  “My responsibility,” he repeated. Then he focused on her, the frown deepening. “Look, it’s just as well you understand this. Anything that goes wrong at the clinic is going to reflect on me in the long run. And I don’t intend to have my position jeopardized by other people’s mistakes. Is that clear?”

  Crystal clear. She nodded.

  It really was a shame. Just when she began to think Jake was actually human, he had to turn around and prove he wasn’t.

  “Dr. Landsdowne, may I have a word, please?”

  The voice of the hospital administrator stopped Jake in his tracks. It felt as if William Morley had been dogging his steps ever since the migrant clinic program got off the ground. He turned, pinning a pleasant look on his face, and stepped out of the way of a linen cart being pushed down the hospital hallway.

  “I’m on my way down to the E.R., Mr. Morley. Can it wait until later?”

  Morley’s smile thinned. “I won’t take much of your time, Doctor. Have you read the memorandum I sent you regarding cutting costs in emergency services?”

  Every department in any hospital got periodic memos regarding cutting costs from the administrator—it was part of the administrator’s job. Morley did seem to be keeping an eagle eye on the E.R., though.

  “Yes, I’ve been giving it all due attention.” How did the man expect him to assess cutting costs when he’d only been in the department for a couple of weeks?

  Morley frowned. “In that case, I’d expected an answer from you by this time, detailing the ways in which you expect to save the hospital money in your department.”

  Jake held on to his temper with an effort. He couldn’t afford to antagonize the man. “It’s important to take the time to do the job right, don’t you agree? I’m still assessing the needs and the current staffing.”

  “Perhaps if that were your first priority, you’d be able to get to it more quickly.”

  He stiffened. “The first priority of the chief of emergency services is to provide proper care for the patients who come through our doors.”

  “Well, of course, I understand that.” Morley said the words mechanically and leaned a bit closer, as if what he had to say was a secret between the two of them. “However, the hospital has to make cuts if it’s going to remain solvent. We can’t afford to have money bleeding out of the E.R. every month. We need an E.R. chief who can make it run efficiently. I hope that’s you.”

  Money wasn’t the only thing bleeding in the E.R., but it seemed unlikely Morley was ever going to understand that. The threat was clear enough, though.

  “I’ll work on it. Now, if you’ll excuse me—”

  Morley caught his arm. “Another thing—I’m sure you’re spending more time than you’d like dealing with this migrant clinic.”

  Jake nodded. The need to approve every step taken by trained nurses and paramedics was tedious, but he couldn’t see any other way of dealing with the situation.

  “It occurs to me that something might come up—perhaps has already come up—that the board would find a logical reason to postpone this effort until another time.”

  The man was obviously fishing for any excuse to shut down the clinic. Jake’s mind flashed to the incident two nights earlier when Terry had gone to the migrant housing, clearly breaking his rules. If he told Morley about it, the daily hassle of supervising the clinic might be over.

  But he couldn’t do it, no matter how much the clinic worried him. He’d promised Terry another chance. His mind presented him with an image of Terry’s face, stricken and pale when he’d lit into her team, accusing them of negligence in failing to save Meredith.

  No. He owed her something for that.

  The wail of a siren was a welcome interruption. He gave Morley a perfunctory smile. “There haven’t been any problems there yet. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m on duty.”

  This time he escaped, pushing through the swinging door into the E.R.

  The paramedics wheeled the patient in just as he arrived. Terry and her partner. He’d just been thinking of her, and here she was.

  Terry gave him a cool nod as her partner reeled off the vital statistics—an elderly woman complaining of chest pain and difficulty breathing. He focused on the patient, who looked remarkably composed for someone brought in by paramedics.

  He nodded to the nurse. “We’ll take it from here.”

  Terry patted the elderly woman. “You listen to the doc now, Mrs. Jefferson. Everything will be fine.”

  “Thank you, dear. I don’t know what I’d do if I couldn’t count on you.” The woman beamed at the paramedics.

  He flashed a glance at Terry, who was fanning her flushed face. Her red curls were damp with perspiration and her neat navy shirt was wrinkled. “Stick around for a few minutes. I’d like to speak to you.”

  She nodded, and he helped push the stretcher back to an exam room.

  It didn’t take more than a few minutes to determine what he’d already suspected—there was nothing wrong with the woman that merited a trip to the emergency room. The fact that the nurse also knew Mrs. Jefferson well enough to know she’d like grape juice just confirmed it. He left the woman happily drinking her grape juice and went in search of the paramedics team.

  He caught up with Terry in the hallway. “Where’s your partner?”

  She swung toward him, resting a frosty water bottle against her temple. “Jeff’s restocking the unit. Do you want me to get him?”

  “Not necessary. I can say what I need to say to you.” And he shouldn’t be noticing how those damp red curls clung to her skin. Terry didn’t mean anything to him except an obstacle to be overcome. “That woman shouldn’t have been brought to the E.R. There’s nothing wrong with her.”

  “That decision isn’t really up to the paramedics, is it? We don’t practice medicine.”

  He glanced around, but no one was in earshot. “Are you throwing my words back at me?”

  Terry’s face crinkled into a sudden smile. “Sorry. It’s just that we all know Mrs. Jefferson is a frequent flyer.”

  “Frequent flyer?” He understood, all right, although he hadn’t heard them called that—those people who called the paramedics when they got lonely or needed attention.

  “Look, she lives alone in a third-floor walk-up and her air conditioner just broke. I suppose she got a little scared. Anybody might in this heat. It happens.”

  “I know it happens, but it shouldn’t.” This was exactly the sort of thing Morley had been talking about. “It wastes the hospital’s resources.”

  Terry looked unimpressed. “I don’t work for the hospital, I work for the city.”

  He planted his hands on his hips. It was probably a good thing, for Terry’s sake, that she didn’t work for the hospital.

  “That’s not the point. We have to cut costs in the E.R., and every patient that’s brought in here for no reason eats into our budget.”

  “She probably doesn’t need a thing except to rest in a cool place for a while. That’s not going to take any of your budget.”

  “She can find a cool place in a movie theater.” He stopped short, realizing he was letting himself get into an argument with a paramedic. “Take her home. Now.”

  Terry looked at him as if she could hardly believe her ears. “You can’t expect us to haul her back to that hot apartment now. Give me a few hours. I’ll call Brendan and see if he can’t get someone to donate a new air conditioner.”

  Brendan Flanagan, her minister cousin. The board member. Being caught between a board member and the hospital administrator was not a good place to be. For a moment longer he glared at Terry, annoyed at her ability to put him on the spot.

  But this was a no-win situation. “All right. But she’s not staying for supper.
You and your partner get back here for her before five, or I’ll call her a cab.”

  “Right. We’ll do that.” She spun, obviously not eager to spend any more time in his company.

  He stood for a moment, watching the trim, uniformed figure making for the door. At the last moment she stopped, turned and pulled something from her pocket.

  She came back to him and held out a folded slip of paper. “I nearly forgot to give you this.” She stuffed it in his hand and hurried out the door.

  Jake unfolded the paper. It was a carefully drawn map, designed to take him to the Flanagan picnic on Sunday.

  He didn’t suppose he could get out of that picnic without offending several people, including one who was on the hospital board. But he suspected that, if Terry had anything to say about it, he wasn’t going to enjoy himself.

  The hot day had given way to a sticky, humid evening, with clouds thickening. A shower would be nice, Terry thought hopefully as she slid out of the car. But if they did get one this time of year, it would be a thunderstorm. She walked toward the back door of the comfortable house that had sheltered three generations of Flanagans.

  Mom was in the kitchen, wiping cookie dough off the table. The aroma of chocolate chip cookies filled the air, and red geraniums rioted on the windowsills. She looked up, smiling as always. Mom always made you feel as if you were the best thing she’d seen all day.

  Terry put one arm around her mother’s waist while snagging a handful of still-warm cookies with the other hand.

  Mom kissed her cheek and gave a laughing swipe at her hand. “Someday you’re not going to be able to eat like that, Terry.”

  “Then I’d better take advantage of it while I can. Umm.” She slid onto the stool next to the pine table. “Which of your grandchildren do I have to thank for the cookie baking today?”

  “Mary Kate dropped the children off while she did some shopping. She’s insisting she has to look for a job, and she needs some interview clothes that make her look like a physical therapist instead of a mom.”

  Terry sank down on the kitchen stool. “That wasn’t the life she and Kenny had planned. They always felt it so important that she stay home with the children.”

  “Life changes when we least expect it.” Her mother took a package of chicken from the refrigerator and opened it. “Losing Kenny hit Mary Kate hard. She hasn’t discovered all her strength yet.”

  Terry blinked. “What do you mean? She always seems to keep her feelings under control.”

  “I’m not sure what I mean.” The admission was unusual for Mom, who’d always seemed the source of all answers to Terry. “At first I thought she was coping well with Kenny’s death. Now, I’m not so sure. She’s hiding something behind that cheerful face she puts on.”

  “Have you tried to talk to her?” That was a silly question. Of course Mom would have tried.

  Mom’s hand slowed on the piece of chicken she was breading, as if she’d forgotten what she was doing. “She’s not willing to let me in. Maybe you ought to talk to her.”

  “Me?” Terry nearly choked on her cookie. “Mary Kate treats me like I’m about eleven. She’d never confide in me. And I doubt that I could give her any good advice, especially since…”

  “Since what?”

  She shrugged, evading those wise eyes. “You know. Having Jake Landsdowne around hasn’t exactly done great things for my self-confidence.”

  “Terry, you know perfectly well that you’re very good at what you do. You shouldn’t let that man’s opinion matter so much to you.”

  “I know, I know. But he’s in charge—at least of the migrant clinic.” She stood, shrugging. “Well, no point in talking about it. I’ll set the table. Is it just the three of us tonight?”

  “Just us.”

  Time was, they’d been hard put to fit the whole family around the dining room table. With her three brothers and cousin Brendan married now, supper was a much quieter affair most of the time, although people still seemed to show up at suppertime with the flimsiest of excuses.

  She carried service for three through the swinging door into the dining room and began laying the table automatically.

  Her mother didn’t understand. Terry had been confident of her abilities before, when she’d gone off to Philadelphia to try her wings on her own, without the support of her big, loving, interfering family. That confidence had been shattered into a million pieces by what happened when Meredith Stanley died, and since then she’d struggled to put it back together, one patient at a time.

  Now Jake was here, and she had to see him nearly every time she went to the E.R., had to cope with his criticisms of the way she was running the clinic, too. Small wonder she kept second-guessing herself.

  Her mother pushed through the swinging door, a bowl of tossed salad in her hands. She set it down and gave Terry a searching look. “What is it? I can see something else has happened.”

  “I never could keep secrets from you, could I?” She managed a smile.

  Her mother clasped her hand warmly. “You have a warm, open, loving spirit. That’s not a bad thing, although maybe it opens you up to hurt sometimes. Now tell me.”

  “It’s not a big deal, I guess. We had a call from Mrs. Jefferson today.” She didn’t need to identify the woman further. Her mother had heard about all their regulars. “Her air conditioner had broken, and she was sweltering in that walk-up apartment.”

  “Poor thing. What did you do about it?” Of course Mom understood she’d had to do something.

  “We took her in to the E.R. And I called Brendan. He managed to get an air conditioner from somebody, and he was over there installing it by the time we took her home.”

  “What was the problem, then?”

  “Jake. Dr. Landsdowne. He knew there wasn’t anything wrong with her, and he wanted us to take her straight back home. Said the E.R. couldn’t afford to have people there who didn’t need the care.”

  Her mother gave her a shrewd look. “I take it you had words about it.”

  “We did.” She shook her head. “I keep trying to get along with him—honestly I do. I’ve prayed and prayed about it.” Although if truth be told, mostly she was praying not to run into him. “Anyway, he finally agreed to let her stay for the afternoon. You’d have thought I was asking him to give her free plastic surgery for the rest of her life.”

  “Now, Terry, I’m sure he wasn’t that bad. I heard about his service in Somalia. Surely that means his heart is in the right place.”

  “I guess so. But he’s doing a good job of hiding it from me.”

  “Then maybe that’s what we’d better take to the Lord.” She took both Terry’s hands in hers. “All right?”

  Terry nodded. Mom had always taught them that they could pray anytime, anyplace, and the more often, the better.

  “Lord, we want to bring this situation with Dr. Landsdowne to you.” Mom sounded so warm when she prayed, as if she were having an intimate conversation with a dear friend who already knew all her troubles. “We know he and Terry can find a way to get along, if only he’ll show us the spirit that took him to do Your work in such a difficult place. Please open his heart, and open ours to see who he really is. In Jesus’s precious name. Amen.”

  Mom’s warmth and faith surrounded her, and some of the tightness she’d been holding on to slipped away. Mom’s prayer hadn’t quite been what she’d have prayed, though. She wasn’t so sure she wanted to know Jake any better than she already did.

  Chapter Five

  “Hey, Aunt Terry, play football with us!” Terry’s niece Shawna punctuated the request by flinging the foam football straight at her. Terry grabbed it instinctively, nearly falling out of the lawn chair she’d positioned under the oak tree that shaded the yard at Gabe and Nolie’s farm.

  “C’mom, Shawna, it’s too hot for football.” In fact, lounging in a lawn chair watching the rest of the Flanagan clan scurry around getting the weekly picnic together sounded just right, if a little lazy.

/>   Shawna, Mary Kate’s eight-year-old, was the ringleader of the Flanagan grandchildren. She gathered the others around her, blue eyes sparkling, dimples flashing, and Terry knew her moments in the lawn chair were going to be short-lived.

  A moment later, the chair collapsed under the rush of small bodies, leaving Terry laughing helplessly, tickling or kissing any niece or nephew she could reach.

  “Is that your idea of helping?” Seth, her second-oldest brother, reached into the tangle of bodies and pulled out Davy, his son, giving him a kiss before setting him on his feet. “Getting the kids so riled up they won’t want to eat?”

  “Hey, I’m going to help them work up an appetite.” She scrambled up, tossing the football in the air. “You want to help?”

  Seth gave her the quick grin that had always made him everyone’s buddy. “Thanks anyway. I promised to help Gabe get the ice-cream maker ready.”

  Even his promotion to captain in the fire department hadn’t changed Seth’s easygoing, steady outlook. In fact, since he’d married Julie, providing himself and Davy with the person they needed to make their family complete, she’d seldom seen him without a smile on his face.

  She faked a punch at his midsection. “Looks like married life agrees with you. Next thing you know, you’ll be growing a paunch.”

  “No chance.” He patted his flat stomach. “Davy keeps me hopping, and when the new baby comes, I’ll probably be walking the floor at night.”

  He glanced toward the picnic table, where Julie was helping Mom spread the tablecloth. The soft yellow top Julie wore accentuated her rounded belly.

  The blaze of fierce love in his face startled Terry. Maybe Seth wasn’t so calm and collected as all that, at least where his love was concerned.

  He ruffled her curls, something her brothers had been doing to emphasize their height for years. “When are you going to take the plunge? Hasn’t Mom rounded up any likely prospects for you yet?”