Rebekah dashed across the floor and grabbed hold of one side of the gurney as Jeremy pushed it through the emergency room doors. Her heart had given a little thump when she realized it was him, but she’d immediately gone into work mode when her eyes landed on the patient. “What have we got?”
“Patient is unresponsive and her breath sounds are shallow,” Jeremy replied. “History of heart disease. Her husband found her on the kitchen floor.”
“How long ago?”
“About ten minutes.”
Rebekah glanced around, but didn’t see Dr. Hunsaker yet—it sometimes took a minute for him to reach the ER from his office, or he might have been dealing with a matter somewhere else in the hospital. She reached out and touched the patient’s windpipe, focusing on what Jeremy had said about her breath sounds. Oh, that was an easy fix.
She grabbed the woman and sat her up, then positioned herself to do the Heimlich maneuver. As she brought her hands in and up, a chunk of food flew out of the woman’s mouth and ricocheted off the opposite wall.
The patient took a huge gasping breath, then sagged into Rebekah’s arms again. This time, though, she was conscious.
“She was choking?” Jeremy sounded incredulous. “With her history, we thought for sure she’d had a heart attack.”
“That would make the most sense,” Rebekah replied. “Where’s her husband now?”
“Sitting in the chairs in the waiting room. He was pretty upset, so my partner stayed with him.”
Rebekah nodded. That was probably the best way to handle it—her patient was elderly, meaning that her husband likely was too, and his health had to be kept in consideration as well. She checked to make sure her patient was comfortable, then walked down the hall toward the waiting room.
“Hello there,” she said as she approached. “Mr. . . .?”
“Donaldson,” he replied, coming to his feet. “I’m Ian Donaldson. My wife is Marge.”
“Mr. Donaldson, your wife is going to be fine. She was choking on some food, and when you found her, she’d passed out from restricted oxygen. She was able to get just enough air to stay alive. I did the Heimlich maneuver, and the food has been ejected from her windpipe.”
“Oh, thank goodness,” Mr. Donaldson said. “Can I see her?”
“Of course,” Rebekah replied. “Come this way.”
Jeremy motioned to his partner, and they headed back out to their ambulance. Jeremy gave Rebekah a smile as they passed.
Mr. Donaldson took his wife’s hand in his. “You sure gave me a scare,” he told her, a tremble in his voice. “I thought I was losing you.”
“You won’t have such an easy time getting rid of me.” Her voice was a little scratchy, but her humor was obvious, and Rebekah smiled.
“Rest here for a little bit, and then we’ll send you home.” She stepped out of the cubicle and walked over to the nurses’ station to fill out the paperwork. Dr. Hunsaker was there waiting for her.
“A word, Nurse McClain?”
Without saying anything, she followed him to his office.
This time, he didn’t even wait until she was seated before he began. “I’ve been patient, probably a great deal more patient than I should have been, but now I need an explanation. I’m told that patient had a history of heart disease and came in unresponsive with shallow breath sounds, and you immediately did the Heimlich. How did you draw that conclusion? Why weren’t you following proper protocol for a suspected heart attack?”
He didn’t sound angry, but he did sound frustrated. Rebekah knew she’d pushed the boundaries of his goodwill a little too far by refusing to answer. Taking a deep breath and praying Marti was right, she said, “Dr. Hunsaker, I’d like to explain, but first, could you please sit down?”
He scowled. “No good conversation ever starts that way.”
“I know, but it can’t be helped.”
He sat down and laced his fingers on the desk in front of him. “I’m sitting. Please proceed.”
“All right.” Where to start . . . “So, you’ve noticed that I seem to know what’s wrong with our patients as soon as they come in.”
“Yes, I’ve noticed that. I want the how and the why.”
“I can’t give you a how or a why, but I’ll give you what I can.” She ignored his increasingly deepening scowl and continued. “Just over a year ago, I was at my parents’ house, and we experienced a lightning flash and a power outage. On that night, each of my sisters and myself were given some kind of gift. Mine is that I can diagnose illnesses. When I touch someone, I can feel heat radiating off the afflicted area, and a slight vibration. Then I have a sense of knowing what’s going on there. It’s hard to describe, but it’s like I’m suddenly absolutely confident in how to solve the problem. And sometimes I don’t have to touch them—sometimes I just know.”
Dr. Hunsaker’s face had gone completely slack as he listened. “You . . . have powers?” he said at last.
“Yes. But not like Superman powers—I’m not actually sure what to call it.”
Incredulity was all over his face. “I have no idea how to respond to that,” he said at last. “I’ve never encountered anything like this . . . Is it some kind of witchcraft?”
Rebekah shook her head emphatically. “No. None of us practice witchcraft, or want to. This just happened—we didn’t seek it out or anything.” She paused. “There is some history in our family of unusual talents that are passed from father to son, but we don’t have any idea how we got involved, since we’re all girls.”
Dr. Hunsaker took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. “I don’t think you’re lying to me,” he said after a long minute. “I’ve seen the evidence that something’s going on, and your explanation makes about as much sense as anything I could come up with. But I do need just a little more evidence, Nurse McClain.”
“What would you like me to do?”
“Come with me.” He stood up and made his way to the other wing of the hospital, where the surgical patients were being treated. “We’re going to play a little game, if you’ll indulge me. I’m going to introduce you to several people, and you’ll tell me what they’re being treated for.”
She nodded. “Yes, let’s do it. And thank you for being willing to hear me out.”
“Believe me, I’m as skeptical as the day is long, but I also can’t deny something when it’s happening right in front of my face. This first room belongs to Mr. Kowalski.”
They stepped inside, and Dr. Hunsaker approached the bed. “Mr. Kowalski, how are you feeling today?”
The man coughed into a tissue he had balled up in his hand. “I’m fine, Doc. Just waiting for my wife to come in—she’s usually here by now. Probably traffic.”
“Probably. You’ll let the nurse know if you need anything, right?”
“Sure will, Doc.”
They stepped back into the hall, and Rebekah said, “He has black spots on his lungs caused by years of smoking. Lung cancer, advanced.”
“And his prognosis?”
She blinked. She’d never stopped to consider that before—she’d always been focused on solving the problem in the here and now. “Three weeks,” she replied as the knowledge formed in her gut.
“That’s just remarkable,” Dr. Hunsaker said, almost to himself.
As they moved down the hall, Rebekah diagnosed a deviated septum, a badly inflamed hemorrhoid, a shattered tibia, and the need for a hysterectomy. After the hysterectomy patient, they returned to Dr. Hunsaker’s office, where he sank into his chair as though all the strength had gone out of him.
“I can’t deny it—what you have is a gift,” he said at length. “Now the question is, what is to be done about it. You don’t want people to know, I assume, especially since it took you this long to tell me.”
“That’s right, sir. I don’t want anyone to feel uncomfortable around me. I’m not crazy, I’m not a witch—I’m just using a gift I was given, and hopefully, I’ll be able to do some good in the world.”
“And this is why you’re leaving nursing to become a doctor.”
“That’s right. No one questions doctors like they do nurses, and being a doctor would give me access to more patients and broaden the ways I can do my job.”
“That’s admirable. It really is.” He leaned back in his chair and regarded her. “How can I help?”
Chills ran down her arms. He was taking this so much better than she’d even dared to imagine. “Just keep my secret,” she said.
He nodded. “I can do that. I hope you know that means I can’t give you any preferential treatment—you’ll have all the same duties as you did before, including the more unpleasant ones.”
“I understand that completely, sir. I don’t want to be treated any differently.”
He stood up and reached out to shake her hand. “I’m honored to have you on our team—but just so you’re aware, I was honored before I knew about your gift. You’ve always been an asset to this hospital.”
“Thank you, sir. Oh, and some milk of magnesia should help with that heartburn.”
She grinned as he looked at her in surprise, and then he chuckled. “Heartburn you caused, I’ll have you know.”
“Yes, sir. And I’m sorry about that.”
***
“And there you go.” Jeremy finished bandaging up the wound and fastened it with a strip of medical tape. “Make sure to change this dressing every day, all right? And you’d better check in with your doctor and let him know what happened.”
“All right. Thank you.” The woman who’d called had been chopping onions and somehow managed to slice her finger pretty deeply. It wasn’t bad enough for stitches, though it had bled quite a lot and scared her.
Jeremy put everything back in his kit and carried it out to the ambulance where Frank, his partner, had started up the engine. “Wish she’d just gone into her doctor’s office,” Frank said, grumbling a little. “We could have gotten a real call while we were here.”
Jeremy knew what Frank meant, but he replied, “No real harm done, and she was in shock—driving would have been a bad idea.”
“Yeah, I guess you’re right. I just don’t want to miss saving someone’s life because of an owie finger.”
Jeremy didn’t reply—again, he knew what Frank meant, and it also wasn’t his job to keep his partner ultra-positive all the time. They had to blow off steam somehow so their frustrations wouldn’t impact their patients.
“So, got anything going on tonight?” Frank asked. “Wanna go down to the bar with me and watch the game?”
“I’m hoping I’ll have a date,” Jeremy replied.
“You’re hoping?”
“Yeah. I need to go ask her.”
Frank laughed. “That’s usually how it’s done, right? Well, if she says no, come on down. They do half-price wings during games.”
“Will do.” Or maybe he wouldn’t—he wasn’t really into football, but he appreciated Frank’s invitation. It meant he was starting to fit in here.
After their shift ended, Frank and Jeremy went their separate ways, and Jeremy headed over to the hospital. He’d been lucky enough to catch Rebekah on her way home on Saturday—he wondered if that would happen again, but she wasn’t anywhere to be seen, and her car was gone too. He wished he’d asked for her address or her phone number, but he was trying to give her space . . . and space was overrated.
“Fine,” he muttered. He needed to pick up some groceries anyway—he’d been too busy to stock up in his new place.
As he pulled in to the grocery store, he noticed a familiar car sitting outside, and he started to laugh. It had to be destiny—there wasn’t another explanation for it.
“I swear, I’m not following you around,” he said when he caught up to Rebekah on the ice cream aisle. “Yes, I did go to the hospital to try to find you, but running into you here is a complete coincidence.”
“Sure. That’s what all the creepy stalkers say.” She looked into his basket. “You haven’t even gotten anything yet.”
“I just got here.”
“Very likely story.” She pointed to the display case. “Chocolate or vanilla? This is where we find out a lot about each other.”
“I’m more of a Rocky Road sort of person,” he replied.
“Very good choice. Do you know why it’s called Rocky Road?”
“I have no idea.”
“It was invented during the Depression, and they wanted a name that would cheer people up.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Then why didn’t they name it something like Fluffy Bunnies or Sparkling Unicorns?”
“I don’t know. I retain useless trivia, not the answers to random hypothetical questions.”
“I see.” He reached into the case and pulled out a quart of Rocky Road. “Either way, you talked me into it.”
“Then I’ve fulfilled my purpose.”
They continued to chat as they moved through the store, and Jeremy was surprised at how fun it was to shop with a friend. He hated going to the grocery store, but Rebekah made it much less painful. She questioned half the things he put in his cart, but that was part of what made it fun.
“Wait, wait, wait,” she said as he reached for a jar of Goober Grape. “What are you doing?”
“I’m buying Goober Grape,” he replied. “That’s why my hand is moving toward it.”
She shook her head impatiently. “Do you realize how much money you’re wasting? Look. Here’s a jar of peanut butter, and here’s a jar of grape jelly. When you compare them ounce for ounce to that horrible gimmicky concoction you’re trying to buy, you’ll realize just how much money you’d save mixing it together yourself. Pennies per sandwich! Pennies! And do you know what pennies add up to?”
He blinked. “Dollars?”
“Yes!”
“But you forgot something.” He picked up the jar of Goober Grape, glanced around to make sure no one was watching, and took off the lid. “Stripes,” he said, angling it so she could see.
“And stripes are worth the extra money to you?”
“Stripes are worth quite a bit in my world. You have to take your entertainment wherever you can get it.” He put the lid back on the jar, then put the jar in his cart.
“Things are starting to become clear to me now. You’ve just moved to town and you have no better entertainment than buying striped jam, so you’ve chosen to turn your attention to me to alleviate your boredom.”
“Well, it’s not as desperate as all that, but yes, I do enjoy striped jam.”
She laughed. “You’re kind of hopeless. Did you know that?”
“Sadly, yes.” He leaned on the handle of his cart. “Let me run home, put my food away, and then come over—we can bake a frozen pizza, and I’ll rent a movie on my way. I’d invite you to my place, but I’ve got some boxes stacked up in the living room that I need to get rid of before I’ll be fit for company.”
“That sounds reasonable,” Rebekah said. “Just one question. What kind of pizza?”
Oh, she really was testing him, wasn’t she? “Supreme,” he said after thinking it over. He didn’t know how traditional or untraditional she was, but he did think that she’d want more than just plain pepperoni.
“Good call,” she said with a grin. “All right, it’s a date.” She reached into her purse and pulled out a little notebook and pen. “Here’s my address. Give me about half an hour, all right? As you can tell from my lovely hospital attire, I’m here straight from work, and I want a quick shower.”
“No problem.”
They went through two different checkout lanes, and Jeremy paused to make sure the bagboy was helping Rebekah load up before he took off. He had a lot to do in that half hour, but he wasn’t going to make her deal with a whole cart of groceries by herself.