Chapter 16
Angelica opened her eyes only to discover that she was in the back of an ambulance. “What happened?” The words were no sooner out of her mouth than she remembered being knocked down by that lone snowboarder she’d seen just as she’d tried to get out of his path.
“We’re taking you to Angel of Mercy in Denver. You’re getting the best medical care in the state,” someone said to her.
“Why can’t I move my neck?”
“You’re secured to the backboard as a safety precaution. Once the doctor examines you, they’ll decide what to do.”
Angelica was not going to remain on this stupid board. Her feet were freezing off, and her hands felt like two blocks of ice. “Look, I am cold here. And what happened to my ski boots? My feet are cold.”
Low voices came from behind but she couldn’t make out what they were saying. “I want to know where my boots are! My toes are going to freeze off!”
“Here,” someone said as he began to rub her cold feet. “Does this help?”
She could feel a slight tingling sensation in her toes. “Yes, but I still want to know where those boots are.”
Laughter came from all those in the back of the ambulance.
“I don’t think this is funny, not even a little bit,” she said firmly and in a much louder voice than before.
“No, ma’am, it isn’t funny. We’re just happy to see that you’re getting back to normal,” the man who rubbed her feet said. “We’ll be arriving at the hospital any minute now. They’ll have heated blankets waiting for you.”
“I don’t hear a siren,” Angelica said out of the blue. “Why isn’t there a siren?”
“We turned it off as soon as you came around. Your vitals are good, and it appears, now mind you I am saying it appears, as though you have no trauma to the head, so we’re simply following protocol.”
It was then the vehicle came to a stop. The two rear doors opened, letting in a blast of bitterly cold air. Angelica had never been so cold in her life. Her insides shook with tremors as they removed her from the ambulance. Seconds later, she was whisked through automatic doors and, thankfully, was greeted by a gush of warm air. She smiled for the first time since she’d been plowed over.
“What is so funny?” Parker asked her.
“What are you doing here? If not for you, this wouldn’t have happened! Go away! I don’t want you near me!”
“Hey, calm down. I rode in the chopper and the ambulance because I didn’t want to leave you all alone.”
“You didn’t seem to have a problem leaving me alone on that mountain, now, did you?” she asked, as a nurse checked her blood pressure. She wouldn’t be surprised if it didn’t register. She was beyond pissed at this . . . idiot who’d forced her to chase him down a trail that was meant for experts only. She would never forgive him for that. Never.
Parker took her cold, limp hand in his. “I didn’t know you couldn’t keep up. I thought you said you were a good skier. I thought . . . Well, it doesn’t really matter what I think, does it?” he asked, more to himself than her.
Angelica jumped when the nurse placed the cold stethoscope under her clothing.
“Sorry, this is a little cold,” the nurse said, apologetically.
“Tell me now,” Angelica muttered between clenched teeth.
“Sorry,” the nurse said.
“No, it does not matter what you think,” Angelica said to Parker, “so please leave before I ask the nurse to call security.” What nerve he had! It was partially his fault she was here in the first place.
“Doctor?” the nurse asked.
“You can leave now. I’ll wait with her until the . . . doctor on call arrives,” Parker said in a hushed voice.
“No, you won’t! I asked you to leave. Now go away!” Angelica said as she tried to lift her head from the gurney.
“Please, don’t move. You might injure yourself more,” the nurse soothed. “Dr. Mahoney should be here any minute. One of our on-staff trauma doctors decided to take an indeterminate leave of absence, so we’re a bit shorthanded at the moment.”
Angelica would swear the nurse was upset and directing her words to Parker. “That’s not my problem,” she said. “Anyway, what kind of doctor takes an ‘indeterminate leave of absence’?”
“That’s what I would like to know,” the nurse replied. “You just try to remain still and relax. We’ll remove the tape and the backboard as soon as Dr. Mahoney examines you.”
“I hope he gets here soon. I need to go to the ladies’ room,” Angelica said, feeling a bit embarrassed by the call of nature that she soon would be unable to ignore.
“Let me call a nurse’s aide. They can assist you with a bedpan.”
“No!” Angelica shouted. “I don’t have to go that bad. I can wait.” She hoped. There was no way she would allow an aide to shove a cold bedpan under her. She was already half frozen as it was.
An attractive older man, probably in his mid to late fifties, entered the room then, saving her from further conversation about her bathroom habits with the nurse.
“A ski accident, I see,” he said as he punched a few keys on the computer keyboard next to the examining table where she lay freezing and pissed off.
“Yes, and it was his fault.” She tried to lift her arm to point at Parker, but it, too, was strapped to the board. She could barely move her hand.
“Parker North. Hmm. Yes, a lot of things are his fault,” Dr. Mahoney replied as he placed his cold hands on her neck.
“You know him?” she asked in amazement.
“Quite well, I must say. Or I thought I did,” he said to her.
“Either you do or you don’t.” The conversation was confusing her. Maybe I do have a brain injury, and it is just beginning to show.
“He works here,” Dr. Mahoney explained to her as he continued his examination. “Lori, let’s get this tape off her. Before we release her, I want an X-ray and an MRI done just to be on the safe side. I don’t think we’ll find anything, but I’d rather be safe than sorry.”
“Does this mean I’m okay? I can leave?” she asked.
“Provided the tests come back negative, you’re free to go. You’ve suffered a slight concussion, nothing more as far as I can see. But I want to make sure, so we’ll do an X-ray and MRI first.” He turned to the computer, where he clicked a few keys, then back to her. “Is there someone we can call? I don’t think you should drive or ski for a few days. You’re going to be one sore cookie tomorrow, and I can assure you that you’ll have a killer headache, but other than that, I think you will be just fine.”
“Some vacation this has turned out to be,” she said. “And no, there isn’t anyone to call. I’ll hire someone to drive me back to Telluride, then I’m going to catch the next flight back to New York City. I should have stayed where I belong.”
“Mahoney, I can drive her back to Maximum Glide,” Parker said, his voice firm and commanding.
“Yes, you can. You seem to have a lot of time on your hands now. So, there, Ms. Shepard, you won’t have to worry about hiring a driver. Mr. North has offered his services. For whatever that’s worth,” he added.
“He’s the reason I’m here in the first place. He doesn’t even have a decent vehicle to drive, even if I would let him take me back to the resort. And besides, that piece-of-junk truck he has is broken down on the side of the road. I’ll take my chances with a driver.”
“Parker, you mean to tell me you’re still driving that beat-up pickup truck?” Dr. Mahoney shook his head, then handed Angelica a piece of paper. “This is for a higher dose of ibuprofen if you need it; otherwise, you can take the over-the-counter stuff.”
She just nodded while the two men gave one another the evil eye. There was a story here, but right now all she wanted was to get these bindings off and make a quick trip to the ladies’ room. Whatever the two men had between them would wait.
Another nurse entered the small examination room with scissors and a bottle of something liquid. Probably alcohol.
“Now, Miss”—she looked at Angelica’s arm bracelet, which had been attached sometime during her visit—“Shepard, I’ll try not to pull or get your hair caught, but I can’t make any promises that this won’t hurt.”
“Just yank it off, I really want to get to the ladies’ room,” she said, as the nurse began to cut through the heavy layers of tape on her neck and head.
The nurse laughed. “Sorry, I can’t do that, but I’ll try to make this as quick and painless as possible.” She snipped, clipped, and tugged, and in under five minutes, Angelica was free from the binding tape.
Thankful that she was able to move freely, she pushed herself into a sitting position, then flopped back on the pillow. “I’m so dizzy!” she said, surprised.
“That’s why you can’t drive,” Parker stated from his position at the foot of her bed.
“No, I’m dizzy because you had to go skiing away from me, like that friend of yours, Max Jorgensen. If you hadn’t been in such a hurry, this wouldn’t have happened.”
“Okay, it’s my fault. Satisfied?” he asked as she tried to push herself up a second time.
Angelica knew when enough was enough, and that time had arrived. Slowly, so as not to jar her head in any way, she pushed herself up. So far, so good, she thought as she scooted to the edge of the examining table. From there, she swung her feet to the floor, careful to keep a firm hold on the bed.
“Dr. Mahoney said you worked here. What are you, an orderly or something?” she asked Parker when her feet found the cool tile floor.
“Something like that. Now, let me help you. The ladies’ room is just down the hall.”
If she hadn’t been so light-headed and unsure on her feet, she would have told him flat out NO! But she had a concussion, and she wasn’t going to risk falling flat on her face. She’d done that once already and did not want to damage anything else unnecessarily.
Parker North wrapped one arm around her waist, and with the other he held her hand firmly in his own. While he knew he wasn’t one hundred percent responsible for Angelica’s injuries, he did hold himself responsible for skiing off without really knowing her skills as a skier; for the rest, she could thank the jerk who didn’t know how to come to a complete stop.
“So, what do you do here?” Angelica asked as she baby-stepped down the hall.
“Does it really matter?” he asked.
That made her think about her own situation. Did people always define themselves by their profession? She wasn’t sure about Parker, but she knew that she’d lived her life for her profession. Not sure if that was good or bad, she was certain of one thing: she had never been this cold in her entire life. She’d pursue deeper thoughts when she was physically able. For the moment, the restroom was her goal.
Parker stopped when they reached the end of the hall. “You sure you don’t need assistance? I can ask one of the nurses to go inside with you. Just in case,” he said, a worried look on his handsome face.
“No, thanks. I’m fine. If you hear me fall, just call a doctor,” she said before entering the restroom.
“And that would be me,” he said to himself when she was out of earshot. That was him. Like his father and grandfather, he’d been destined to become a doctor. Why the realization came to him just then was beside the point. He was a trauma surgeon. He’d saved many lives, more than he could count. Yes, he had lost a young patient, but he knew the moment he’d laid eyes on her that it was too late. One child mattered, and he knew he would never forget her face, but he also knew that he had a job to do, and that was to save as many lives as possible for as long as he could.
The bathroom door opened, revealing a relieved-looking Angelica. “Okay, I want to see that doctor again. I need to ask him how long the tests are going to take. I don’t want to spend the rest of the day lingering in the halls like an unwanted virus.”
Parker laughed, deciding he’d kept her in the dark way too long even though he’d only known her for less than twenty-four hours. “It depends on how busy they are.”
“And you know this because . . . ?” she interrupted.
“Because I am a doctor. A trauma neurosurgeon, and I have asked for the same tests for patients of my own on many, many occasions.”
There, it was out in the open. He was not ashamed of himself or his chosen profession. He’d worked his ass off to get to this point, and he knew, just as any other doctor knew, that there would be times when you couldn’t save a patient. Those were the low times. Times he hoped he wouldn’t have to experience too often, but if anything, he was a realist. Though there would be more death and sadness, he wasn’t going to let that prevent him from practicing medicine.
Angelica had stopped in the middle of the hall. She stared at him as though he had three eyeballs. “Yeah right,” she said before turning around and heading back in the direction she’d come from.
Parker raced to her side. Curious, he asked, “Why did you say that?”
She rolled her large brown eyes and laughed. “Come on, give me a break. First of all, if you were a doctor, you wouldn’t be driving such a hunk of junk. Secondly, if you were really a doctor, you would have saved—”
“I did,” he said, her reaction suddenly amusing.
She flushed, but remained silent. “You . . . it was you! The angel I thought I saw!”
“Yes, it was me. When you opened your eyes, I can’t tell you how relieved I was.”
Angelica wasn’t so sure she didn’t have a brain injury. She did remember opening her eyes and seeing a bright burst of sun, a halolike glow hovering above and behind him as he bent over her. In her state of semiconsciousness, she’d mistaken him for an angel!
“You really are the angel,” she said, sounding like she’d just solved the biggest mystery on earth.
He led her back to the room. “I’ve been called a lot of names, but never an angel,” he teased as he helped her get back up on the table before continuing. A low, buzzing noise coming from his pocket stopped him dead in his tracks.
“Now it decides to work,” he said before answering the cell phone that he was going to replace as soon as possible. He was a doctor, and doctors needed to be contacted at all hours.
“Hello.” He held up a hand, indicating he needed a minute. “Max, what gives?” A smile as wide as the mountain spread across his face.
“I can do that. Sure. Okay if I bring a guest? Great, I’ll see you tonight. One more favor—could you send someone to check on Leon?” Parker turned to Angelica, his eyes filled with laughter. “Yeah, he’s the cat I told you about.” Parker spoke into the phone a few more seconds, then ended the call.
“That was Max Jorgensen—you remember him?”
Angelica rolled her eyes. “Yes, about like I recall you just said you were a doctor.”
Frustrated, Parker picked up the phone and dialed a number. Less than a minute later a nurse entered the room pushing a wheelchair. “Hi, Dr. North. I thought you’d taken a leave of absence.”
“I’m off for two weeks, skiing. My friend here, she needs an MRI and an X-ray, stat. Mahoney issued the order, but we’re kind of in a rush. It seems I’ve, rather we’ve, been invited to see Angels with Paper Wings.”
“Well, then, let’s not keep this girl waiting. Come on, honey, if Dr. North asks, we jump. He’s the best trauma neurosurgeon in the area. Of course, I’m sure you already knew that. We’ve been dying, well not literally if you know what I mean, but most of us nurses have had our eye on Dr. North for a long time. Oh, not like that, but we’ve been waiting for him to meet someone . . . nice, not in this profession. The hours are terrible, the money isn’t that good, or at least from what I hear. Me, personally, as an RN, I do just fine, but for a man of his caliber, well you would think he’d be a—”
“Ruthie, please take Ms. Shepard down for her X-rays. And please don’t annoy her with all the details of my private life.”
“Oh, Ruthie, I love details,” Angelica said with a wicked grin. “All the dirt and gore, too,” she added, as the nurse pushed her out of the room.
“Don’t you dare,” Parker said, his words nothing more than an echo before he remembered there really wasn’t anything in his private life worth repeating.