Critical Praise for
HANNAH ALEXANDER’S
Novels

SOLEMN OATH

“ Solemn Oath absolutely hit the ball out of the park. Hannah Alexander is going to have a hard time writing fast enough to keep up with reader demand.”

—Debi Stack

SACRED TRUST

“Alexander is great at drawing the reader into her story line and keeping them hooked until the resolution of the plot.”

— Christian Retailing

A KILLING FROST

“Running dialogue and a few twists will keep romantic suspense fans coming back for more.”

— Publishers Weekly

DOUBLE BLIND

“Native American culture clashes with Christian principles in the freshly original plot.”

— Romantic Times BOOKreviews

GRAVE RISK

“The latest in Alexander’s Hideaway series is filled with mystery and intrigue. Readers familiar with the series will appreciate how the author keeps the characters fresh and appealing.”

— Romantic Times BOOKreviews

FAIR WARNING

“The plot is interesting and the resolution filled with action.”

— Romantic Times BOOKreviews

Solemn Oath
Hannah Alexander

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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Contents

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Epilogue

Questions for Discussion

SOLEMN OATH

Prologue

L eonardo the lion lay cold in his cage. Splotches of rusty red-brown stained his coat around a bullet wound in his right side, and a grown man’s sobs echoed against the concrete wall that protected Leonardo’s inner sanctum.

Cowboy Casey knelt beside his pet, forehead pressed against the stained velvet shoulder, tears dampening the tawny fur. “My friend…why?”

With callused fingers he tested the stiffness of the lion’s well-fed ribs. Rigor mortis. The killer had probably struck before dawn, when Cowboy was taking his autumn load of exotic animals to the station for shipment.

“Who would do a thing like this? What kind of a cruel…” Cowboy knew the answer before the question completely formed in his mind. The muscles in his jaw hardened, and his teeth ground together as he fought against a sudden, overwhelming rage. “Berring!”

He exhaled an angry gush of air and jerked to his feet to pace across the cage. Of course Berring. Two weeks after that madman had moved into the neighboring farm this summer, a gaping hole mysteriously appeared in the bison pasture fence. Thank goodness for three brave buddies with herding skills.

Berring had also called the sheriff out twice in the past month with some wild-haired story about Leonardo roaming the woods at night. The sheriff knew better, and so did every farmer in Knolls County. Cowboy had never put his neighbors in danger from the powerful animals he raised on his ranch.

He pivoted and walked across to hunker down once more beside the big cat. Leonardo had been his most faithful pal for the past four years, in spite of the roughhousing that had gone too far and sent him to the E.R. a few times. It wasn’t Leonardo’s fault he had jaws with the impact of a backhoe.

And it wasn’t his fault a crazy man had been turned loose with a gun.

“He won’t get away with it, my friend,” Cowboy said as he grabbed up his hat and strode from the cage.

Off-duty fireman Buck Oppenheimer stepped through the front entrance of his favorite convenience store, the Pride of Knolls. He unfolded a ten-dollar bill to pay for his gasoline, looking around for Roxie, the regular weekday clerk. The place was deserted.

“Hey, Rox!” His voice carried over the tops of tightly packed shelves toward the back of the store. “Put your cigarette out and get back to work. Break’s over!”

He grinned to himself, waiting for her usual sharp comeback. He and Roxie had an ongoing rivalry about who could give the best insult. Roxie usually won, because Buck had been raised to treat all women like ladies. And Roxie was no lady.

There was no reply, but sure enough, he did smell smoke. He always smelled smoke in here. All the old farmers ignored the signs plastered by management on the windows and the front of the counter, and Roxie was the worst offender of the bunch. She always stated proudly that she’d been smoking two packs a day for fifty years, and management could fire her if they wanted. She’d been here for the past ten years. Truth was, management was scared of her.

But sixty-year-old Roxie didn’t come plunging through the squeaky swinging doors from the back the way she always did. Buck listened for the sound of a toilet flushing or of Roxie shuffling boxes around in the back. Could be she hadn’t heard him come in.

“Roxie?” He sniffed again and noticed that the smoke was stronger.

And different…sharper.

“Roxie!”

A faint popping, rushing, cracking sound reached him, then a heavy thump…and a muffled cry that sounded like a tomcat meowing.

A wisp of smoke slithered into the shopping area between the twin stockroom doors.

“Help!” came the tomcat’s voice again. It was Roxie.

Buck ran out the door and the few feet back to his truck. He radioed for backup, then grabbed his fire-resistant jacket and his ax and raced back in through the swinging doors into the storage area. Bright tongues of flame raced along a stack of cardboard boxes that surrounded a smoking barbecue grill in the far corner.

“Roxie, where are you?” he shouted, covering the lower part of his face with his arm to protect his lungs from the heat and smoke.

“Help me! I’m in here with the fire extinguisher!” The thumps came from his right, on the other side of a solid wooden door that led to a smaller storage room. “This door’s stuck again, and it’s getting smoky in here! Hurry!”

“Stand back, Rox, I’m going to force it open.”

“Who’s out there?” she demanded. “Buck, that you?”

“Yes, stand back!”

He knew there wasn’t a whole lot of room in there to move around, much less stand back. He rammed his shoulder against the door and bounced hard against it. “Is it unlocked?”

“Of course!”

He shoved again, this time putting his full muscle-builder’s weight against it, but he bounced from the wood once more as a slice of pain streaked down his right arm. He coughed at the thickening smoke.

The fire quickened with sudden life. Snapping heat puckered his flesh, and the smoke twisted and bunched around him as if it were alive. He struggled not to breathe too much of the dark thickness. He stood back from the door, raised his ax and slammed the blade into the wood above the knob. Roxie squealed. When he plunged forward with his shoulder this time, the door splintered and gave way with him and he tumbled in.

“Hurry!” Roxie shouted. “There’s a barbecue grill that could—”

A loud sound like the boom of a cannon reached them, and the wall beside them imploded. Sudden, sharp pain pierced Buck’s chest just before he grabbed Roxie, threw her beneath him, and fell over her. A shelf of paper towels toppled onto them as another blast hit.

Through the blackness and heat and smothering smoke, he heard the welcome sound of a siren. His friends would come through.

Downtown Knolls, Missouri, held the picturesque quality of one of those postcards they sold in the ancient Ben Franklin store on the northeast corner of the square. Early autumn barely touched the lush growth of maple and oak trees with kisses of gold and rust. The three-story brick courthouse in the center of the square rose up from its broad landscape of green grass and evergreen hedge like a graceful sculpture. Across the street Arthur and Alma Collins stepped out of Little Mary’s Barbecue with their sandwiches and home fries.

“I never could figure out how they can say the food is homemade when the café isn’t home to anybody,” Alma chattered to Arthur, her dark gold, naturally wavy hair reflecting the sun’s warm rays. Her eyes held the same golden glow, highlighted by a gleam of anticipation as they ambled across the street toward the courthouse lawn. Their destination was a group of picnic tables settled deeply beneath the shade of the trees, where the rest of their tour group gathered.

“I mean, they make the buns at the café, don’t they?” Alma stepped over the curb, taking care to walk on the sidewalk and not the grass. “Not at home in their own kitchens. They should say ‘made from scratch’ or somethin’. I tried to explain that to a waitress while you were orderin’, but I don’t think she appreciated it.” The deep, warm tones of Alma’s voice betrayed the Southern heritage of her parents and mingled in an interesting way with the Spanish accent she and Arthur had both picked up during their years of missionary service in Mexico.

Arthur couldn’t suppress a grin at his wife. This tour was a rare treat for both of them, but especially for Alma. Where they lived there were no antiques stores, no modern grocery stores, no medical care. They didn’t even have electricity in the small village where they’d been building a new church for the past year. Alma had worked hard alongside him, loving the people who struggled just to feed their children, teaching them safer cooking habits and hygiene as she told them about the new life they could find in Christ.

“Where do you want to go after we eat?” he asked. “We have a whole afternoon to explore before we load onto the vans again.”

Alma’s smile broadened. She laid a hand on Arthur’s arm. “There’s an antiques shop down a block from the secondhand bookstore, and I know Phyllis and Shirley wanted to see if they—”

A squeal of tires from the street behind her cut off her words. Her eyes widened in alarm as she spun around, instinctively reaching for her husband.

Arthur gasped at the sight of a big black Plymouth careening around the corner of the square, going clockwise on the one-way, counterclockwise street. The car hit the curb and jumped it with a squeal of springs, rumbling toward them with evil intent.

“Oh my goodness…Arthur, look out!”

Arthur grabbed Alma’s shoulders and jerked her toward him.

He caught sight of a dark head slumped over the steering wheel just before the front tires dug into the lawn. Alma screamed as the heavy bumper slammed into the backs of her legs and thrust her against Arthur. A confusion of tearing pain and terrified cries collided with jumbled bits of sky and ground. Picnic tables and people scattered across the broad lawn.

Everything ended abruptly with the crash of metal against concrete.

Cowboy saw the gleam of dark steel from the barrel of the .22 rifle just before it exploded with fire and sound, ripping into his right upper arm and shoving him sideways with the force of its blast. He cried out with pain and surprise as his body slammed against the front porch railing.

Berring, greasy haired and scowling, slung the screen door wide open and followed the gun out onto the porch. “Get off my property or I’ll blow that arm off next time!” he growled in a voice that could cut tin cans in two with its gritty depth.

Blood oozed out between Cowboy’s fingers as he gripped the bullet wound. He gaped at the man. Cold shock washed through him as he stared at Leonardo’s murderer—and maybe his own.

Sharp, angry pain raced through his arm and shoulder. He stumbled backward down the steps of the porch. Berring raised his gun, took aim again and fired a booming shot that sent a bullet whizzing past Cowboy’s left ear.

Cowboy pivoted and plunged into the thicket of woods beside the littered front yard. This was crazy! Things like this didn’t happen in Knolls. He stumbled over roots and limbs, twisted his foot in a hole but caught himself and kept running.

Berring’s voice came closer. “How does it feel, zookeeper?” The machine-gun fire of laughter followed. “How does it feel to be afraid? Why don’t you turn around and face me like a man?”

Another shot rang out, along with the wicked thud of tearing wood and the crackle of footsteps through briars and poison ivy. Cowboy tripped through a thicket of gooseberry bushes and danced across oak tree roots to keep from falling on his face. A bullet whisked barely an inch over his head before he could straighten again. For a desperate second he considered turning and facing his attacker and trying to wrestle the rifle from him, but the sudden sound of a John Deere tractor echoed through the trees.

Yes! He remembered! Old Mr. Gibson was plowing his south twenty today.

Cowboy plunged from the protective stand of forest and ran across the unbroken ground, waving his good arm. Mr. Gibson caught sight of him and casually waved back, then frowned and stopped his tractor as Cowboy drew nearer.

“What happened this time, Jacob?” the old farmer called out. “That lion try to eat you again, or did one of those ostriches finally get a kick at you?”

“Berring shot me.” Barely breaking stride, Cowboy leaped onto the tow bar behind the big back wheels of the small farm tractor. “Can you get me to the hospital? And we’d better call the sheriff. That man’s dangerous!”

Mr. Gibson blinked at Cowboy, then something caught his attention from the edge of the woods. Cowboy cast a panicked glance over his shoulder and saw the maniac run out of the forest shadow and stop to stand at the edge of the field, glaring at them, rifle tucked beneath his left arm.

Mr. Gibson didn’t ask any questions, just pulled back the clutch and steered the tractor out of the field. “Guess the plowin’ can wait.”

Chapter One

K nolls Community Hospital, settled within the autumn-dusted elegance of a Knolls residential section, gave new arrivals the impression of serenity with its pink granite two-story structure and thick evergreen landscaping. The emergency and outpatient areas formed a wing jutting out from the building westward, looking like an arm reaching out to welcome patients in. Two hundred fifty health-care personnel, food service and housekeeping providers and office workers earned their living here. They gave quality care to up to sixty patients on the floor. Family physicians’ offices clustered close, circling the main structure in a large section of acreage. The hospital administrator, Mrs. Estelle Pinkley, ruled with the firm hand of a hardheaded, hard-nosed grandmother, whom almost everyone in the county knew and loved.

Dr. Lukas Bower, the unwilling temporary director of Knolls Emergency Department, depended on Mrs. Pinkley to help him handle staff and make executive decisions. In the meantime he took every opportunity to convince her that he was a doctor, not an administrator. If the future of Knolls Community Hospital depended on his interdepartmental skills, the jobs of two hundred fifty people stood in the shadow of death.

Today, however, the third Monday in September, Lukas gave even less thought than usual to paperwork and verbal sparring. The ambulance radio had just blared out the news of a bad accident involving a car and a tour group down on the square. At least five people, including the driver of the car, were being brought in, several of them serious.

Lukas released the switch that had sent his voice over the radio to the paramedic on scene and turned with growing restlessness to locate his staff. Judy, the slender secretary with short salt-and-pepper hair, sat at the computer and spoke on the telephone to a patient who had been treated and released last night.

Lukas picked up his own phone at his workstation at the large oblong central E.R. control counter and dialed Surgery. He told the nurse to keep a surgery suite open until he knew for sure if it would be needed. He hung up and turned around to find Lauren McCaffrey, RN, stepping back into the E.R. from an early lunch break. Good. He needed her.

Lauren stopped to joke with one of the housekeepers, peered over Judy’s shoulder to see what was on the computer screen, then glanced over at Lukas. She caught sight of his expression, and her characteristic smile disappeared.

“What’s up, Dr. Bower?” She hurriedly stashed her purse beneath the desk and tied her long blond hair back into the ponytail she wore for work.

“Accident coming in,” he said. “Several injuries. Apparently a group of pedestrians took on a car with a drunk driver.”

She nodded. “Why does stuff like this always happen at lunchtime? I’ll go make sure the trauma rooms are ready, and I’ll break out the gear for the staff.”

“Thanks, Lauren. Has Claudia gone to lunch?”

“Yes, but she may be back in the break room. I think she brought her lunch today.” Lauren shook her head as she turned and walked toward the trauma rooms. “Mrs. Pinkley’s a smart lady,” she called over her shoulder. “I bet she knew double nursing coverage would increase business.”

Lukas looked over to find the secretary off the phone. “Judy, would you please call upstairs for an extra nurse, and then contact Dr. Richmond. She’s medical backup for today, and I need her.”

“You sure?” Judy asked, peering at him over her reading glasses. “I talked to her secretary a few minutes ago, and they’re up to their eyeballs in walk-ins over there at the clinic.”

“Tell her I’m sorry, but it looks like we have some bad ones coming in.” He turned toward the trauma rooms to make sure Lauren had all the gear the staff would need.

He knew Mercy Richmond’s practice was doing well, and he was glad for her. She had worked hard for it, she was a caring doctor and she deserved a break after long years of struggle. He hated to overwhelm her today. A busy Monday could keep her occupied long after clinic hours were over.

Times like this were why Lukas needed to hire more help, and he needed to do it as soon as possible. The growth of this progressive Ozark town of ten thousand would be reflected in the use of the hospital. They had to be prepared, and like it or not, the E.R. was his responsibility. The problem was, he’d never hired anyone before. Thanks to Mrs. Pinkley’s erroneous faith in him, he was jumping into the directorship with both feet. He might drown.

So far Lukas was the first and only full-time physician in this department. The family practice docs affiliated with the hospital picked up hours on nights and weekends, but they were getting tired of the extra load, especially as the opportunities dwindled for sleep during night shifts. Lukas knew that firsthand, because when someone didn’t come in, he usually got stuck with the extra shift. Last night was a case in point, and today was a bad day to be sleep deprived.

“Dr. Bower, I have a call for you,” yelled Judy from the central desk.

When he turned to look at her, she pointed toward his workstation and motioned for him to pick up his phone. He groaned. It was probably Dorothy Wild again. She got a power rush as director of the quality assurance program, and she flaunted it at every opportunity. Once, she had even gone so far as to coordinate a disaster drill just to test Lukas. This time she was probably calling to complain because he hadn’t okayed the stack of charts she’d given him last week. Or maybe Medical Records was calling to scream at him because he hadn’t written a diagnosis on a patient before ordering lab tests.

Medicare and Medicaid and health plans were making it harder to practice medicine with the good of the patient in mind instead of the glorified buck. Health-care providers often found themselves in a Catch-22 situation. Doctors and hospitals were under increasing pressure to eliminate “unnecessary” tests, yet were provided no protection from litigation if omission of one of these “unnecessary” tests resulted in a missed diagnosis. It was crazy. And medical costs were still on the rise. If Lukas were in charge of the insurance programs, he wasn’t sure what he would do about it.

He picked up the receiver. “Yes.” His voice was clipped as he imagined Dorothy Wild on the other end of the line.

“Doctor?” It was an unfamiliar woman’s voice, shaky with tears, and Lukas immediately regretted his curt tone. “You’ve got to help us. Our little boy just swallowed some stuff, and I don’t know how much—” her words tumbled over themselves, threatening to spiral out of control “—and we don’t know what to do, and we’re too far away to—”

“Hold it, wait, calm down.” Lukas kept his own voice soft. He glanced toward the entrance to see if the ambulance had arrived yet. The bay was still clear. He turned back. “What did your little boy swallow?”

He heard the muffled sound of a hand over the receiver, heard the woman’s panicky voice, and then the sound cleared as the hand was removed.

A man’s voice, high-pitched with near panic, as well, came across the line. “Hello? This is Craig Chapman. My wife’s not doing too well right now.” He stopped and took a breath. “I was winterizing the car out in the garage, and our three-year-old drank some of the antifreeze while my back was turned. It was dripping from his chin when I caught him.”

Some of Mr. Chapman’s tension transferred itself to Lukas. This could be bad. “Do you have any idea about how much he swallowed?”

“No. I hadn’t used the stuff for a few months, and I didn’t pay any attention. I tried to get him to throw it up, but nothing worked.”

“Where do you live?” Lukas asked.

“We’re out by Old Well. You’re the closest hospital.”

Lukas grimaced. Old Well was almost an hour’s drive into the hills over rocky dirt roads.

“What can we do?” Mr. Chapman asked, panic once more filling his voice. “Will this stuff hurt him?”

“It depends on how much he drank, Mr. Chapman. I need you and your wife to stay calm so we can discuss this and help your son as quickly as possible.” Old Well…what was it Lukas remembered about that place? “Do you have any liquor in the house?”

“No, we don’t drink.”

“How about your neighbors? Are you close to a liquor store?”

“We don’t know our neighbors around here yet. We just moved in from Kansas.” The man’s voice grew tighter and higher. “Tell me what to do!”

“Do you have any cooking extracts? Any vanilla?” If there was enough, vanilla extract could save the child’s eyesight due to the high percentage of alcohol. It could even save his life.

He heard the man put the phone down and ask his wife, heard her frantic reply and a small clatter of bottles, and then suddenly remembered who else lived near Old Well. Yes!

Chapman came back on the line. “We’ve got half of a little bottle of vanilla, Doctor. Is that enough? Will that help?”

“Give it to him, but you’ll need more.”

“He’s not showing any symptoms yet. He isn’t acting sick.”

“The symptoms won’t show up for twelve to twenty-four hours.” And then it would be too late. “Mr. Chapman, do you know Emmet and Ruby Taylor? They live out in the hills near you at the edge of Mark Twain National Forest, about two miles from the cemetery by the church at Old Well.” He should know. Ruby Taylor had almost died of lead poisoning from her still a few months ago. The still had been destroyed since then, but Lukas knew Ruby. “Take your son over to their place. Tell them I sent you, and ask for a bottle of their best. They’ll have liquor somewhere.” He prayed that the Taylors were there. They usually were, with their teenage boys and dairy farm, pigs and chickens and rusted-out tireless cars sitting in the front yard.

“You want me to get my little boy drunk?” Chapman asked, a hint of indignation in his voice, as if it had suddenly dawned on him what Lukas was saying.

“I want you to get enough grain alcohol down him to counteract the effects of the antifreeze,” Lukas said. “About three tablespoons of Ruby’s stuff ought to do it, but you don’t want to overdose him, especially since we don’t know how much he’s ingested. Mix some orange juice or something with it so he’ll drink it. Maybe some sugar will kill the taste. Then get him here as fast as you can.”

“Won’t the alcohol interfere with the antidote?”

“In this case, the alcohol is the antidote. Mr. Chapman, the effects can kill him if you don’t treat.” He didn’t want to be cruel, but the man needed to be aware of the serious risks. The sound of a siren echoed through the doors, then the reflection of ambulance lights bounced against the bay entrance. “Are you okay with that?”

“Yeah, Doctor. We’ll get him there.”

“Good. I’ll see you then.”

Lukas hung up and got up to walk out to the ambulance bay just as the EMT threw open the back doors of the van. He stepped over to the foot of the first cot that was pulled out.

The patient was a female in a nonrebreather mask, fully immobilized on a long spine backboard with head blocks. She had a large bore IV in her right arm, and blood splattered her clothing. Blood also concentrated in a dark, thick stain that had seeped through a bandage over her right lower leg, where her jeans had been cut free, and a Harris long traction splint held firm.

“Is this the worst?” Lukas asked.

“Sure is. She looks pretty bad.” The EMT gestured to the other patient, who was still inside the van. “That’s her husband in there.”

Lukas didn’t like the looks of the patient’s right foot—almost white from lack of circulation. She moaned, but her eyes remained closed.

The paramedic stepped out of the back of the van. Connie was a muscular, seasoned professional with short boy-cut blond hair and a chronically serious expression. “Hi, Dr. Bower. This is Alma Collins, forty-five years old. First responders had to free her from between the car and the concrete balustrade of the courthouse.” Her voice remained monotone, a habit she practiced when she worked with patients to keep from alarming them. “She was unconscious on scene, but she’s been coming around since we’ve been en route, and she’s in a lot of pain. She has an obvious open tib-fib fracture, badly mangled leg, no pulse on the foot. Vitals initially on scene, heart rate 115, BP 90 over 60, respiratory rate rapid, with slight improvement following a liter bag of normal saline wide open. She’s received 700 cc’s so far. A lot of bleeding on scene from right lower extremity, but we managed to control it some after we placed the splint.”

“What about the other patient?” Lukas gestured toward the cot still in the van.

“That’s Arthur Collins, the husband,” Connie said. “He has a deep scalp laceration, and it looks like he may have a dislocated or broken right shoulder. He lost a lot of blood from the scalp, but it’s been controlled by direct pressure.”

Lukas reached forward to check Alma more thoroughly while he continued to talk to Connie. “What else is coming?”

“Two more are on their way in the BLS ambulance, and one’s coming in by private car.”

Lukas placed his hands over the sides of Alma’s hips and gave a gentle but firm squeeze. There was no reaction of pain. Good. He would get a film on it, but if she didn’t have a pelvic fracture, it would be a lot easier for her. As Connie continued with the report, Lukas helped her rush the patient through the doors and into the first trauma room, leaving the EMT and E.R. tech to handle Alma’s injured husband.

“Judy, get a chopper on standby,” he called over his shoulder as he and Connie transferred Alma to the exam bed. “And let Lab know we’ve got stat blood work for them.” He turned to Lauren, who had come in behind them. “Start another IV, and draw blood for a stat trauma panel.”

Alma’s pupils reacted briskly, and her breathing, though a little fast, was even. Her eyes remained open after he checked them. She moaned again, and Lukas bent toward her. “Mrs. Collins, I’m Dr. Bower, the E.R. physician here.” Because Connie’s businesslike manner could sometimes make a patient feel cut off from human support, he injected even more tenderness than usual into his own voice. “Can you hear me?”

Physical pain etched itself in the lines of the woman’s face. Her eyes filled with tears. “Yes…Hurts bad…Can you help me?”

“Yes. I’m sorry, but I need to do a quick check and ask you some questions. Do you have any drug allergies?”

She attempted to shake her head.

“Please don’t move your head or neck until we know how badly you’re hurt. Just tell me yes or no.”

“No.” Her voice shook with the effort to control her reactions.

“Good. I know your right leg hurts. Do you have pain anywhere else?”

“My head.” Her chin quivered. “I think I hit my head.”

“Were you knocked out?”

“I think so. Arthur?” She stretched out the fingers of her right hand as if to free herself, but she was constricted by the backboard. “Where’s Arthur? Is he okay?”

“I haven’t checked him, but he seems to be doing okay. Do you hurt anywhere else?”

“I can’t tell.” She grimaced. “My leg hurts so bad. Please!”

Lukas turned to find Lauren securing the second IV tube with tape. “Get me a pressure, and if that’s okay, give Mrs. Collins 2 milligrams of morphine, slow IV push. And add 12.5 milligrams of Phenergan. I don’t want to risk the morphine nauseating her.” He looked at the open tib-fib fracture just below the knee, then moved down to look at Alma’s right foot. He still didn’t like what he saw. It was cool to the touch, white, and when he checked for a pulse on top of the foot, he found none. The capillary refill was very sluggish. He had to get this woman to a vascular surgeon fast if he wanted to save her leg.

Lord, guide me. Touch her through me. Give her the comfort I can’t.

He stepped to the hallway and called, “Judy, launch that chopper, then order me a c-spine, chest, pelvis and right tib-fib and ankle X-rays. Have you heard from Dr. Richmond yet?”

“Yes, she’ll be here shortly. She said she had to finish with a really sick patient.”

Lauren straightened from Alma’s bedside. “Dr. Bower, the pressure’s good. Want me to do the morphine?”

“Yes. Run the second IV at 200 cc’s per hour. I want her kidneys well hydrated to prevent damage. I’ll be back in a moment. I need to go check on her husband.” He called out to Claudia to help him and stepped into the next room, where the techs and Connie were transferring Arthur from cot to bed.

Arthur, too, was on a long spine board, with a c-collar and head blocks to keep him as immobile as possible. Blood had seeped through the gauze and Ace bandage the attendants had used to stop the bleeding from an obvious scalp laceration.

Claudia, chunky and motherly and expert with patients, stepped into the room behind Lukas and immediately began her assessment while Lukas talked to the attendants.

“Connie, you said there was a lot of blood loss. How much would you estimate?”

“At least a unit, maybe two,” came the paramedic’s monotone again. “The first responders said he wasn’t answering their questions, but when we arrived he was alert and oriented and asking about his wife. He grew very agitated when he saw her leg. His pressure was a little low, but it came up with a fluid bolus.”

Claudia turned from her assessment and nodded. “BP’s 122 over 79, heart rate’s 110.”

Lukas nodded. Not bad. “Okay, get me a second IV.” He stepped to the head of the bed and introduced himself to Arthur Collins.

“How’s Alma?” the man asked. “My wife…she looks so bad. She’s—”

“She’s very worried about you,” Lukas said. “We’ve given her morphine to help control her pain, and we’re running tests now to assess her injuries. How about you, Mr. Collins? Where do you hurt?”

The man closed his eyes for a moment, as if trying to focus for a few seconds on his own symptoms. “Call me Arthur. We’re Arthur and Alma. My right shoulder and my scalp took a beating, but please take care of Alma first. Her leg looks so bad, Dr. Bower. Can you help her?”

“We’re going to fly her to Springfield for vascular and orthopedic surgeons to take care of her. I’ve already ordered an Air Care helicopter.” Lukas took out his penlight. “I’m going to check your pupils right now.” He shone the light into the man’s worried eyes. “Are you having any trouble with blurred vision?”

“No.”

“Nausea or vomiting?”

“No. When will the helicopter be here?”

Lukas turned off the light and put it in his pocket. “Shouldn’t be too long, less than thirty minutes. Arthur, it’s very important that I know if you’re having any nausea. We have you strapped down and on your back, and that can spell trouble if you’re sick. We don’t want to risk letting you develop aspiration pneumonia.”

“I had a little trouble before I got here, but I’m fine now.”

Lukas studied the man’s expression for a moment, trying to decide if he was just trying to divert help and attention back to his wife. “Have you eaten?”

“No, Alma and I didn’t get a chance. Where are you taking her in Springfield?”

“Cox South, unless you have a preference.”

“Cox is fine. Is there room for me in that helicopter?”

“I’m sorry, Arthur, but we’ll need to keep you here for a while.”

Lukas turned to Claudia and ordered blood work and X-rays. “Are the other patients here yet?”

“Yes, they came in just a couple of minutes ago. Lauren didn’t want to leave Alma, so a nurse from upstairs is doing the new assessments. They don’t look too bad.” She leaned toward the patient and placed a hand on his uninjured shoulder. “Mr. Collins, the people from your tour group are here, and they asked us to tell you they’re holding a prayer service out in the waiting room.”

Some of the tension left Arthur’s face, and he sent her a grateful half smile. “Thank you. Will you tell Alma? And, Dr. Bower, will you let her know I’m fine? She worries about me so much.”

“Apparently the feeling is mutual. I’ll reassure her.” Lukas squeezed Arthur’s arm, then went back into Trauma One to find the X-ray tech setting up films, and Lauren taking Alma’s blood pressure again.

“She’s doing better, Dr. Bower.” Lauren glanced at the clear plastic bag hanging from the IV pole. “But she’s still in a lot of pain. Her blood pressure is okay, and she’s responsive. The liter of fluid is almost in.”

“Cut her rate down to 50 cc’s per hour—just enough to keep the IV open. That’ll hold her until she gets to Springfield. Keep the second IV at 200 cc’s per hour.”

The X-ray tech slid a cartridge into the Stryker bed, which was a newly purchased, state-of-the-art setup for the trauma room. “Dr. Bower, I’m ready to shoot.”

Lukas and Lauren stepped out of the room while the tech shot the films, and from the hallway they could see the bustle and activity of a suddenly full waiting room and ambulance bay. As Claudia had said, a group of casually dressed people stood in a circle in the corner of the waiting room and held hands, heads bowed.

The EMT from the Collinses’ ambulance passed by them in the broad hallway, saw Lukas and stopped. “They brought in the drunk driver who hit everybody, Dr. Bower. He’s crying, talking to everybody who walks by, but nobody knows what he’s saying. Sounds like he’s speaking Spanish. The police are here, and they’re itching to haul him in. They’re really ticked.”

Lukas shook his head. “They can’t have him until we’ve checked him out, and that’ll be a few minutes. We’ll need an interpreter. I’ll ask Judy to call one in.” He turned to Lauren. “Repeat Alma’s morphine dose, two milligrams every five minutes, and let me know if her pressure drops or if she develops depressed respirations. And tell her Arthur is okay.”

Lauren nodded. “I’ll reassure her.”

The tech left the room, pushing the portable X-ray machine.

As Lauren went back in to recheck Alma, Lukas walked to the central desk. “Judy, would you please call a Spanish interpreter?”

“Did it already,” Judy said without looking up from her keyboard.

He reached into a drawer and drew out a consent form for Arthur to sign so they could transfer Alma. “Has the chopper called yet?’

Judy’s fingers still didn’t break stride. “No, but I should hear from them any time.”

“When they call, let them know her vitals are stable, but she has a class-one limb threat to her right lower extremity.”

No answer. The sound of the clattering keyboard stilled suddenly.

He glanced up to find the secretary staring toward the entrance, and when he looked, he saw Jacob Casey—Cowboy to most of the citizens of Knolls—come stumbling through the glass doors, aided by an older man in bib overalls. Somewhere, Cowboy had lost his hat.

“Oh no, not again,” Judy said softly.

Lanky, weathered Cowboy was such a frequent visitor in this E.R., Lukas wondered how the forty-three-year-old man had survived his occupation. He’d been kicked, gouged, bitten and knocked senseless on that exotic animal ranch of his—he believed in personal contact with his bison, zebras, lions and whatever else he raised on his three hundred acres of reinforced paddocks. Scars on several areas of his hard-bodied frame attested to his dedication.

Today blood covered Cowboy’s upper right arm and splattered his chest and back. The left arm of his long-sleeved denim shirt had been ripped off and tied over his upper right arm in a crude attempt at a pressure dressing.

Lukas pushed back from the desk and got up to help. “Cowboy, what happened this time?” He took a closer look at what appeared, surprisingly, to be a bullet wound. “Has Leonardo started bearing arms?” Everybody knew the rancher wouldn’t touch a gun.

Cowboy shook his head as he allowed his helper to transfer his leaning weight to Lukas.

“The neighbor shot him,” the farmer said. “He chased Cowboy clear out of the woods into my field with a rifle. I saw it myself. Didn’t take the time to call the sheriff. Guess we oughta call him now, huh, Doc?”

“No need, the police are already here doing an accident report. Would you please go tell them about this? They’ll want to check it out and take your statement.”

The man nodded, then patted Cowboy on his bare good arm. “Don’t you worry, Jake, I’ll take care of it.”

Lukas helped Cowboy to exam room five. “How many times did the guy shoot you?”

“Once.” Cowboy grunted as Lukas lowered him to sit on the bed. “Lost some blood. The guy’s crazy.”

“Is that the one who moved onto that farm next to yours, then started complaining about the smell of the animals? I heard about him.” Lukas removed his patient’s shirt and then helped him lie back. “How much blood do you think you lost?”

“Maybe a pint.” Cowboy’s deep voice thickened with pain as the shirt came off. “No time to measure.”

Lukas stepped out into the hallway and called for a nurse, then returned to the bedside. He made a quick check of airway, breathing and circulation, then listened to Cowboy’s heart. Not bad, a little fast, but understandable under the circumstances. The left wrist had a strong pulse, and the fingers were warm and healthy.

When the relief nurse from upstairs stepped into the room, Lukas gave immediate orders for an IV and a trauma panel, then repeated his check on Cowboy, this time on the arm that had been shot. To his relief, it looked good. “Okay, Jake, I’ll regret this, but give my hand a firm squeeze.” He braced himself for the man’s well-known iron grip, but it didn’t come.

Cowboy grimaced again, the lines of his face deepening as his color faded. “Hurts to squeeze. Is it bad?”

“Not as bad as it could have been.” Lukas pulled on a pair of sterile gloves and reached for a packet of 4x4s. He removed the makeshift bandage and saw no active bleeding. He found the entrance and exit wounds. “What did he shoot you with?”

“Looked like a .22 rifle, almost point-blank. Just up and shot me in cold blood, the same way he did—”

A young steel-faced policeman pulled back the curtain and stepped into the room. “Dr. Bower? Do you mind if we interrupt? The sooner we talk to Cowboy, the faster we’ll be on the guy’s trail.”

Judy came in behind the policeman. “Dr. Bower, we just got a call from the fire department. They’re bringing in two more patients.”

Lukas shook his head in frustration. The day was exploding like popcorn in a microwave. Why did everything have to happen at once?

The secretary continued, “The nurse with Air Care just radioed us, and they’ll be here in a few minutes to pick up Mrs. Collins.”

“Thanks, Judy.” Lukas ripped open one of the sterile packs of 4x4s and a roll of elastic gauze, then regloved and dressed the wound. He looked over at the policeman. “Officer, you can do your interview now. Looks like I’ll have my hands full.” He turned and followed the secretary out of the room. “Judy, I need a right shoulder X-ray in five, and he’s going to need a surgical consult. Is Dr. Wong on call? He usually is when Cowboy gets hurt.”

“Yes, Dr. Wong’s the lucky guy today.” Judy grinned at him. “Cowboy won’t want a surgeon, he never does. Dr. Mercy will be here soon.” Her expression turned serious. “One of the patients they’re bringing in is our part-time EMT, Buck Oppenheimer. He got hurt in a fire.”

“Buck! How bad?”

“Haven’t heard yet. There was an explosion at the Pride of Knolls out by P Highway, and his buddies are bringing him in so he won’t have to wait for an ambulance. I sure hope he’s okay, and I hope his wife doesn’t kill him when she finds out he played hero again.”

Lukas nodded, then went in to check on Alma again and read her X-rays. There were no pneumothorax or rib or pelvic fractures, but the X-ray of her right tib-fib confirmed his worst fears. Both bones of the lower leg were shattered. If the blood vessels and nerves were as badly damaged as the bone, they would be doing an amputation in Springfield instead of a vascular and orthopedic repair.

Someone cried out in Spanish in one of the rooms, and Lukas hoped the interpreter would arrive soon. That patient was the one who reportedly had driven the car into Arthur and Alma’s tour group.

One of the most frustrating things in emergency medicine was treating those responsible for the pain and suffering of others—and one of the most difficult things to do was to have compassion for everyone involved.

Lord, give me strength and wisdom. Give Alma and Arthur Your peace, and use me as a vessel of healing. And, Lord, would You please slow things down a little?

Chapter Two

I f this was another disaster drill, Mercy Richmond was going to make someone pay dearly. She kept her white lab coat on to protect the pink-and-blue bunny scrubs she wore underneath—her family practice consisted mostly of women and children. After apologizing to the six long-suffering patients in her waiting room, she marched out the front door and down the block toward the hospital.

Mercy’s stomach growled. Monday afternoon was the worst time to get called out. There’d been no time for lunch. Everyone in this town of ten thousand must have developed strep, flu or pneumonia over the weekend. She shouldn’t have agreed to be E.R. backup today. Her patient volume had increased to the point that she was going to have to stop seeing new patients or start keeping the office open an extra day a week.

This spring she might have considered that possibility, but she’d won custody of her eleven-year-old daughter a few months ago, and she wanted to spend more time at home with Tedi. Since she no longer had to make two house payments, two car payments, and cover the bills her ex-husband had run up, she didn’t need the income she made from E.R. shifts. She hoped Theo never got out of that detox unit in Springfield. Her life was going so well with him out of the way…and with Dr. Lukas Bower taking more of an interest in her and in Tedi. Everything was looking good.

As she stepped across the parking-lot curb and strode toward the E.R. entrance, the distant, thrusting rhythm of a helicopter in flight reached her for the first time. She noticed that the landing pad on the parking lot had been cleared of cars.

Okay, so this time it probably wasn’t a drill.

She looked down. That probably wasn’t fake blood on the concrete, either. In the back rooms of her clinic, she had never been able to hear the ambulances when they pulled into the E.R. Always before, she had considered that to be a good thing. Today, though, she could have used a little warning.

She rushed through the sliding glass doors to find the waiting room filled with people in various stages of fluster. A patient with a splinted arm was being helped inside by a friend. The buzz of voices and the aura of worry greeted her like a familiar coworker. A group of three middle-aged women and two elderly men stood in the west corner by the vending machines with their hands clasped, praying.

That happened a lot around here. It didn’t matter what you thought about God the rest of the time, when you faced life and death in the emergency room, you begged Him to give you another chance. Mercy had done it herself when her own daughter nearly died from a life-threatening allergic reaction to a bee sting—she who had always prided herself on her self-reliance. She’d even considered herself an agnostic until Lukas Bower exploded into her life last spring with his gentle humor, strong compassion for others and his vibrant faith. Nothing in her life had been the same since.

A moan and a tormented shout reached her from one of the exam rooms, but she couldn’t understand the words. The mingled scents of antiseptic, body odor and diesel exhaust from the ambulance bay drifted through the room.

“Thank goodness, Dr. Mercy,” Judy called from the emergency desk. She pulled off her reading glasses and picked up a clipboard with a T-sheet already attached. Her short salt-and-pepper hair spiked out on the right side, where she’d been keeping her ink pen tucked behind her ear. “Dr. Bower’s in Trauma One trying to save the leg of a lady who got hit by a car. Her husband’s in Trauma Two in stable condition, and the guy who hit everybody is in exam room three.” She shoved the clipboard across the desk. “There’s lots more, but Dr. Bower wanted you to see about the man in Two. Name’s Arthur Collins, and he’s really upset about his wife. They just took him off the backboard. Nice guy. Never complains about his own pain. Wish my husband treated me like that.”

Mercy took the chart, then paused as the patient in Three—or so she presumed—shouted something again. The words were slurred, and they sounded Spanish. She raised a brow at Judy. “Who did you say that was?”

Judy waved a dismissive hand. “That’s the drunk driver who hit them. He drove right up onto the courthouse lawn and mowed over a bunch of people from a tour group. He doesn’t even speak English.”

“Has he been checked?”

“Dr. Bower ordered some tests and a trauma panel, but they’ve been busy with the other patients, and nobody’s gotten to him yet except to put him on oxygen.”

“Get to him.”

Judy shrugged. “Okay, but I hope we can find somebody who can speak Spanish. So far the translator hasn’t come in.”

The thumping of the helicopter rotors grew louder as the Air Care helicopter descended to the landing spot outside, the loud whomp-whomp-whomp of the rotors vibrating the windows.

“Oh, good, they’re here for Alma Collins,” Judy said.

“How many patients do we have, and how many more are coming?” Mercy asked, glancing at the T-sheet.

“We’ve got six in and two more coming that I know about, but Dr. Wong’s on his way over to take care of our favorite exotic-animal rancher.”

“Cowboy’s hurt again?”

“He sure is. His neighbor shot him.”

Mercy wasn’t sure she’d heard the secretary correctly. “ Shot him! ”

Judy shook her head. “Nobody’s going to tell me human beings aren’t meaner than any other mammal. Looks like we’ll all be busy for a while.”

Mercy suppressed a sigh. “Call my office, then. Tell Josie to do a triage and find out who really needs to see me today. Let her know what’s going on here. She’ll have to send some people home.”

“Don’t worry, Dr. Mercy. They’ll come in here looking for you if they have to.”

Mercy carried her clipboard into Trauma Room two, where Claudia Zebert, a stout fifty-year-old RN with twenty-five years of E.R. experience, took the blood pressure of a slender forty-seven-year-old man in a pressure turban. The view box on the wall held two shots of a dislocated right shoulder. Not broken. That made things a lot easier.

Mercy stepped up to the exam bed. “Mr. Collins? I’m Dr. Mercy Richmond. My patients call me Dr. Mercy, and you just became one of my patients.”

He looked up at her with troubled hazel eyes. “Dr. Mercy…that’s a good name for a doctor.”

“My father was a physician, and he named me. When I got my license, our shared last name confused patients, so we both started using our first names. We were Dr. Cliff and Dr. Mercy.” Were . Dad was dead now.

“You can call me Arthur. You’ll have to excuse me. I’m so worried about my wife that I’m not very good company.”

“I understand, Arthur. Your wife is in good hands. Dr. Bower is one of the best.”

Claudia reached down and squeezed his left arm. “See there, Arthur, I told you Dr. Bower will take good care of Alma.” The nurse’s brisk, familiar manner almost always calmed frightened patients. She gestured toward the turban. “We need to get this fixed up and get that shoulder back in shape so you can be there for Alma. The helicopter’s here now to pick her up and take her to the trauma center in Springfield.”

Arthur caught his breath and reached up toward the side of the bed, as if he might try to get out. “I don’t want her to go alone.”

“There’s no room in the helicopter for any passengers, but she won’t be alone once she gets up there,” Claudia soothed. “I saw half your tour group climbing into one of the vans to drive up and meet her there. The rest are staying here to pray for you. They seem like good people.” She squeezed his arm once more before leaving the room to check another patient.

Mercy read Claudia’s notes on Arthur, then did her own assessment. He was a little tachycardic from blood loss, but IV fluids were already running into his uninjured left arm, and his pressure was already rising. Good sign. His heart would slow down naturally.

Another shout reached them from the next room, and Arthur laid his head back against his pillow and sighed. “That poor man’s sure hurting. Can you do something for him?”

Mercy frowned. She had heard the drunk driver had no obvious injuries. “Someone will be getting to him as soon as possible.”

“He’s not drunk, you know.”

Mercy looked up from her chart and studied Arthur’s green-gold eyes. “How can you tell?”

“I speak Spanish. Alma and I are missionaries in Mexico. He’s making some sense. He’s saying over and over again how sorry he is, and that he doesn’t drink, doesn’t do drugs.”

Mercy didn’t comment. She heard that a lot.

“He’s also confused and hurting,” Arthur added.

“Isn’t he the man who hit you and your wife?”

Arthur nodded, then worry marred the fine features of his face once again. “My wife…I wish I could be with her.”

A light, warm baritone voice reached them from the doorway. “I came over to give you an update, Arthur.”

Mercy silently caught her breath and let the calm strength of that familiar voice settle over her like a blanket. She and Arthur both looked up at the same time to see Lukas Bower walking in to join them, his trauma shield in place over his gray framed glasses. His short brown hair was disheveled as usual. Lukas stood a couple of inches taller than Mercy’s five feet eight. In her eyes he had grown at least a foot since she had first met him last spring. Her gaze met his, and she smiled. The smile he returned was only for her, and the brilliance of it heated her cheeks. One of the nurses had told her once that when she entered the E.R., Dr. Bower’s face looked as if he’d just received a special gift.

He stepped up to the bed, his blue eyes calm and reassuring behind the glare of glasses and shield. “Arthur, your wife is awake and talking, and she’s worried about you. I told her you’d be fine.”

Arthur raised a hand toward him. “Will you let me see her before they take her away? Please. I want to talk to her a second. I just want to tell her I love her.”

Lukas looked at Mercy, then looked back at Arthur and nodded. “I think we can do that. They’ll be wheeling her out in just a moment, and we’ll roll you into the hallway and let you rendezvous with her there. No, don’t try to get up. We don’t want you bleeding on us again before Dr. Mercy can get you stitched and get that shoulder fixed.” He gestured to Mercy and laid a hand on her arm briefly. She released the brake on the exam bed, and together they rolled the bed out into the open space as the flight nurse and paramedic wheeled Alma past.

At the sight of Alma’s bandaged and IV-tubed body, Arthur’s eyes filled with tears once again. He reached out and touched her shoulder. “Hi, sweetheart. I love you. I’ll be with you as soon as I can.”

“Oh, Arthur,” she cried softly, “I can’t believe this is happenin’. I’m just so glad you’re alive. For a while, I thought…”

The flight nurse placed a gentle hand on Alma’s shoulder. “Mrs. Collins, we need to get you into the helicopter now.”

Alma nodded. Arthur drew his hand back, then kissed his fingertips and reached out and touched Alma’s cheek with his hand. “I’ll be praying with every breath.”

Mercy allowed Lukas to help her push Arthur’s bed back into the room. “Thanks, Lukas.” She laid a hand on his arm, as she had found herself doing often lately without even thinking about it, as if a physical connection to him might anchor their friendship more securely. “Lukas, Arthur doesn’t think the man who hit them is drunk. He also says the man’s in pain.”

Lukas turned his attention to Arthur. “What kind of pain? Where? We’re waiting for the interpreter to arrive, and we can’t communicate with him. My college Spanish died of disuse.”

Arthur wiped leftover tears from his face. “I speak Spanish. Why don’t you let me try to talk to him? I can—”

“We need to take care of you,” Mercy said. “We’ll get an interpreter.”

Arthur looked up at her and sighed. “Give him a chance, Dr. Mercy. What if he’s hurt worse than I am?” He raised his voice enough to be heard over the din of the E.R. and spoke a few phrases in Spanish, then winced, as if the extra exertion and sound hurt his head.

There was no reply.

He repeated the phrases, and seconds later he received an answer. He looked back at Mercy. “It’s his mouth.”

Mercy glanced sharply at Lukas. “A fracture from impact?”

Lukas shrugged, his attention focused on their patient. “Arthur, we aren’t going to hold you liable as an interpreter, but will you please ask him if he had the pain before the wreck?”

Arthur did so, and they all understood part of the answer. “ Sí .” Lukas and Mercy did not understand the remainder of the words, but the expression on Arthur’s face told them it was significant.

“Does toothache medicine make you drunk?” Arthur asked them.

“How much toothache medicine?” Mercy asked.

Arthur asked the man, then interpreted. “He’s used a bottle today.”

Mercy caught her breath and turned to Lukas. “That could be—”

“Dangerous.” Lukas spun out of the room. “Judy,” he called to the secretary, “I need a stat ABG in Three.” He rushed to the next room. “Lauren, would you help me?”

“Is the man in trouble, then?” Arthur asked Mercy. “Can’t you just push my bed into his room the way you took me out to see Alma?”

“No need.” Mercy stepped out the door, saw Claudia at the desk and motioned to her before turning back to her patient. “Dr. Bower knows what tests to give, what drugs to use.” She studied Arthur’s expression. He had shown no resentment toward the person who had injured him and his wife. “We need to take care of you now.” She pulled on some sterile gloves and a face shield. “Claudia,” she said as the nurse walked into the room, “I need 2 milligrams of Versed and 25 of Demerol, slow IV push. Then have X-ray bring over some wrist weights. Arthur, we’re going to try to reduce your shoulder dislocation with the prone method. We’ll give you some medication for the pain, then we’ll turn you over on your stomach and drop your right arm over the side of the bed with some weight on your wrist.” She unwrapped the elastic bandage while Claudia carried out her orders, collecting and administering drugs and ordering the weights.

The wound in Arthur’s scalp was deep and star-shaped with no active bleeding. Mercy cleaned it with some peroxide. “How did you get this, Arthur? Do you remember?”

“I think I hit the corner of a concrete balustrade, but I don’t remember actually doing that, just waking up beside it.”

She probed the wound with her gloved finger, felt him jerk. “Sorry, Arthur. I’m checking for any rough surfaces, making sure there are no obvious deformities. I don’t feel any, but I’ll get a CT later.” She cleaned it a little more, then stepped back to allow Claudia to prep the site.

Five minutes later the weights arrived and Claudia had the wound ready for stitching. Arthur was groggy, feeling a lot less pain than he had been before. He groaned a couple of times when Mercy and Claudia turned him over and placed the padded weights on his wrist as his arm hung down over the side of the bed.

Mercy watched his profile as she prepared to anesthetize the wound site. “How long have you and Alma been married?”

He barely winced when the needle first touched his flesh. “Twenty-seven years. We got married as soon as Alma graduated from high school.” His voice was only slightly muffled, since Mercy had taken the pillow out from under his head to keep his neck from stretching backward too far. “We knew what we wanted to do from the time we were in junior high, so we couldn’t see any reason to wait.”

“You mean to tell me you and your wife knew you wanted to be missionaries to Mexico from the time you were in junior high?” Mercy could tell when the local anesthesia began to work, because he no longer tensed when she touched him.

“Yes, we did. God was calling us there as surely as I’m lying here.”

Mercy took her first stitch. “I don’t suppose you could be involved in medical missions? Somehow you knew that man wasn’t drunk. That was a good call.”

“No, I’m not medical. Sadly, I’ve just seen a lot of drunks.”

“Yeah, so have I,” she murmured. “You obviously have some good friends out in the waiting room.”

“They’re from a group of churches in the state that support our work. We’re here on furlough for three months.” He grew silent for a moment. “Now I wonder if we’ll be returning.”

“Try not to think about that right now. How’s the pain?” Mercy asked. “Do you need more medication?”

“I’m fine. A little woozy. Makes it hard to keep my prayers in focus. It’s a good thing God knows my heart.”

“You and your wife seem to have a very good relationship.” Mercy had found that when she could keep her patients talking about something that really interested them, she didn’t have to use nearly as many pain meds, and everything went smoother.

“That’s because of Alma’s sweet nature. She still treats me with the same consideration and patience she’s always shown. It’s just the kind of person she is.”

“And you make it obvious you adore her.”

From the side of his face, she saw him smile. What a handsome man, even cut and bruised as he was.

And what a rare thing—a happy marriage. The only other person she knew with a happy marriage was her nurse, Josie. Funny, Josie had the same last name, but Collins was a common name. And Mercy knew it wasn’t a shared last name that made the difference. Josie, too, was a devoted Christian. So was Lukas. Lately, as Mercy grew to know him better, she wouldn’t try to deny the fact that there was a noticeable difference between him and every other male she had ever met. And she felt more of an attraction to him than to any other male she’d ever met. She found herself wanting to spend more and more time with him, and being more and more disappointed when their busy work schedules prevented that.

Arthur’s smile wavered and disappeared. “I wonder how Alma’s doing. How long does it take them to fly a helicopter to Springfield?”

“About thirty minutes when the weather’s good and the wind is right.” Mercy laid a hand on his uninjured shoulder. “Don’t worry, Arthur, she’s in good hands. I know the flight nurse, and she’s one of the best. She took care of my daughter this spring when we had to fly her out for emergency surgery.”

“Your daughter?” Arthur’s voice grew more slurred. “Sh-she okay now?”

“She’s fine.” Physically.

“How old is sh-she?”

“Eleven going on fifty. Sometimes I wonder which of us does the most mothering and worrying. Tell me about your mission in Mexico.”

He talked for several moments while Mercy finished her two-layer closure. He had thick, wavy red hair that was already showing a lot of gray, and the lines around his eyes revealed that he’d spent a lot of time in the sun and that he spent a lot of time smiling.

Mercy checked his arm, then rechecked the wound. “Arthur, we’re almost finished with your head except for the CT. I’m hoping your shoulder will slip into place without much pain.”

He paused for a moment, and Mercy could see his eyes tear up. He was thinking about Alma again.

“Would you pray with me?” The words were soft, but not hesitant.

Mercy blinked. This one hadn’t ever come up in medical school. It hadn’t come up afterward, either. “Well…I’m not sure….” How was she supposed to turn him down? And yet, how was she supposed to pray when most of the time she refused to even acknowledge the presence—

“I’ll do the talking,” he said.

She heard the pleading in his voice, and she thought about his love for his wife. What could it hurt? Mercy had watched Lukas pray and watched her mother pray. All she had to do was bow her head. The only time she’d actually prayed was when Tedi nearly died, and then it had only been a “Please, God, please, God, please, God” out of desperation.

She nodded and bowed her head.

“Thank you,” Arthur whispered to her. “Dear Lord, we can’t know what’s going to happen to us next, and we’re frightened and in pain. Please, God, please go with Alma. Give her comfort and peace that only You can give her. And help me depend on Your strength. Help us, through this tragedy, to keep our witness pure for You, and hold our hearts firmly in Your sheltering arms. We praise You for Your constant presence and for the assurance that we will go through nothing without You. Lay Your special blessing on Dr. Mercy today, and thank You for sending her to us as one of Your ministering angels. Fill her with Your special Spirit, dear Lord, in a way that will last. In our Lord Jesus’s name, amen.”

He opened his eyes and looked at Mercy. “Thank you.” He gave a relaxed sigh. They heard a gentle pop. The shoulder was back in place.

Lukas finished assessing the lady with the broken arm, looked in quickly on Cowboy, then checked on Mercy’s progress. He was relieved to find her and Arthur chattering about children and mission work and the beauty of the Missouri Ozarks while Claudia bandaged the wound and removed the weights from Arthur’s wrist.

The quiet alto tone of Mercy’s voice drew Lukas like a symphony. He allowed his gaze to rest, just for a moment, on the strong, feminine lines of her face. He felt himself drawn into the glowing depths of her coffee-colored eyes as she chuckled at something Arthur said. Her long black hair was drawn back in a clasp, and several tendrils had come loose, giving the impression that she was always too busy reaching out to others to check a mirror during the day.

Mercy had a talent for mothering patients. She was good at helping them through difficult and painful procedures with a minimum of panic or pain medication. Her self-deprecating sense of humor put everyone around her at ease, including the staff. Including Lukas. He found himself watching her when she worked in the same room, and he felt himself drawn to her in a way he’d never been before.

She looked up at him questioningly. He smiled and opened his mouth to speak, but the E.R. doors jerked open and in stumbled a trio of dirty firemen—two extremely young trainees carrying singed and blackened veteran fire fighter Buck Oppenheimer between them.

Actually, Buck wasn’t being carried, but was trying valiantly to wrestle out of the clutches of his overeager charges, his soot-covered face filled with annoyance.

“Doc!” he called out to Lukas in frustration. “Would you please tell these kids I’m not dying?”

Lukas stifled a relieved grin. Buck worked a few shifts a month with the ambulance service as an EMT, and he was a first responder with the fire department, which meant Lukas and Buck saw a lot of each other. Buck’s down-home hillbilly charm—complete with butch haircut and ears that could paddle a canoe—belied a sharp wit and a deep compassion for others. Unfortunately for him, his leadership abilities had landed him the added responsibility of overseeing two eighteen-year-old members of an Explorer group throughout their training period. He’d grumbled about it to Lukas ever since the kids had arrived the week before.

Lukas led the way into exam room six and instructed the young men to help Buck onto the bed. “Ease him down gently, guys. No telling what he’s gotten into this time.”

“An explosion, that’s what!” Skinny Kyle Alder, whose hair was as long and curly as Buck’s was short and straight, kept a death grip on Buck’s arm as he and his buddy eased their grubby, smoke-stained patient onto the clean sheet. “Saved a gal’s life and almost died. Threw himself on top of her!”

“Oh?” Lukas stepped out into the hallway and caught Lauren’s attention from her workstation at the central desk. He motioned for her to join him in the exam room, then returned to Buck’s side. “And where is the victim?”

Buck fought off his overeager charges at last and started unbuttoning his shirt, still sitting up. “Roxie refused to come in, and believe me, I fought to get her in the ambulance. Should’ve just wrapped her in a straitjacket and shoved her in the back. You know how cantankerous she can be sometimes.”

Lukas looked at Buck in alarm. “Wouldn’t she let you check her out?”

“Barely. I listened to her chest and took her vitals. She sounded okay. She said she’s fine except for the ribs I broke pouncing on her like that.”

“What?”

Buck shook his head and frowned. “I think she was kidding, although with her it’s hard to tell. After all I went through to get to her, she asked what took us so long, because she’d called ten minutes before I got there. That’s the thanks I get for risking my life to—” He winced and bent forward. “I wasn’t even on duty. I didn’t know about any call.”

“I told you that you oughta have that looked at,” Kyle said.

“I’m having it looked at now,” Buck snapped.

“It’s his chest, Dr. Bower,” Kyle explained. “It’s been hurting him since the explosion. He says it’s just a scrape, but…” His attention refocused with sudden interest as blond-haired, green-eyed Lauren walked into the room and began her assessment.

“Let’s get a c-collar on him before you start that, Lauren.” Lukas reached out and felt the back of Buck’s neck for any step-off deformity. “Does this hurt, Buck?”

The fireman did not move his head. “Nope.”

“Good. We’ll go ahead and do a collar until we get the X-rays, just to be safe.”

“Oh, come on, Dr. Bower, I’ll be good. My neck doesn’t hurt.”

“You know it’s protocol.” Lukas leaned forward to take a look at Buck’s exposed back and felt hot air hitting his own neck. He glanced around to find Kyle and his partner, Alex, hovering over him, eyes wide, jaws slack.

“Why don’t you two go out into the waiting room,” Lukas suggested. “The police are around somewhere, and they might want to question you about the fire.”

With a look of sudden eagerness, the young men left, and Buck exhaled with relief. “Thanks. You can lay that collar on me now. Those kids couldn’t find a fire hose with their—”

“Okay, here you go.” Lauren positioned the stiff neck collar with Velcro, fastened it firmly and resumed her assessment.

“They chattered like monkeys all the way here,” Buck complained. “They went on and on about how I was a hero, and they would pay better attention next time I tried to teach them something.”

“They’re just kids,” Lauren said. “Give them a chance.”

“I did the other day, and, boy, was I sorry.” Buck reached up and tugged at the collar. “Isn’t this a little tight?”

Lauren leaned over and checked it. “It’s perfect. What did you do the other day?”

“I got my model airplane stuff out of my locker and let the boys help me with it—or try to. Kyle spilled the glue, and Alex broke a wingtip, so it took us longer than I thought it would. My shift ended, but I couldn’t leave them there with everything spread out all over the table, so I stayed and worked with them a couple more hours.”

“Did you call Kendra?” Lauren asked, placing the blood pressure cuff around his thick upper arm.

“No, and I sure heard about it when I got home. She just about took my head off.”

“Would you have left if you’d gotten called out for a fire?” Lauren asked, pumping the blood pressure cuff.

“Well, sure, but…Hey, careful with that thing. Don’t squeeze my arm off. I apologized and told her I’d never do that again.”

Lauren let the pressure drop and watched the numbers, then wrote them down. “That’s what you said after you let yourself be talked into feeding Leonardo for Cowboy.”

Buck reached up as if to scratch at the small wound on his chest but stopped himself before he could touch it. “Hey, this was different…and worse. At least Leonardo couldn’t follow me out of his cage. I haven’t been able to get those kids off my tail ever since. Kyle, especially. I trip over him everywhere I go.”

“He seems nice enough to me,” Lauren said.

“So is a puppy, but I don’t want one making runs with me. I think it’s dangerous to take kids like that into a fire situation.”

“But how else will they learn?” Lauren asked. “You know, Buck, all of us had to get a break somewhere. You’ve got to be more patient. Maybe that’s why the chief put you in charge of these boys, so you could learn some mentoring skills.”

Buck scowled at her. “I don’t even know what that word means.”

“It means you have some finely honed instincts you could use to train others, and you can’t let all that go to waste just because you don’t want to spend time with those—”

“Uh, Lauren,” Lukas interrupted. “Quiet for a moment, please.” He saw the sudden relief in Buck’s expression and stifled a grin. Lauren was a great nurse, very caring, but when she slipped into chatterbox mode she could shut down traffic.

Lukas placed his stethoscope on Buck’s back and chest, listened to breath sounds and was satisfied. “Where’s the pain Kyle’s so concerned about?”

Buck gestured to the upper left area of his chest. “Just a little cut. I can’t understand why it hurt so much, but, boy, Kyle grabbed me there when they helped me get up, and I nearly tore his head off.”

Lukas found a very small wound just above Buck’s left nipple. With a peroxide-soaked 4x4, he wiped off some of the blood.

Buck jerked. “Ow! Watch it, Dr. Bower. I did get knocked around a little, you know.”

“Is that where your pain is located? Don’t tell me you weren’t wearing your jacket again.”

“Yes, I was. I grabbed it before I went back inside.”

Lukas frowned and checked the wound a little more closely. It wasn’t even a centimeter in length, but there was no telling how deep it might be. “Tell me about the explosion.”

“I was grabbing for Roxie when it hit. The manager keeps a barbecue grill back there in the storeroom to cook hot dogs and hamburgers to sell up front, and it runs on propane. It’s big enough to take out a wall if it explodes, and that’s what happened. Roxie told me she was cooking some stuff on it and had to go up front to answer the phone. When she hung up and turned around, she said she saw a lot of smoke coming in from the back. She says one of the new delivery guys placed some boxes too close to the fire, and Roxie couldn’t move them.”

“Did you feel anything hit you? How much smoke did you inhale?”

“I don’t really think I got much smoke, but I couldn’t tell you if anything hit me. I hit a lot of things, like Roxie, the wall, and then some shelves fell on top of us. I tried to brace myself on my elbows to keep from squashing Roxie. Do you think I could’ve pulled a muscle or something?”

“A pulled muscle doesn’t break the skin.” Lukas helped him lie down while he gave instructions to Lauren for routine trauma X-ray series with two-view chest. “What’s the O2 sat?”

“Good. Ninety-six,” Lauren said.

Judy stepped to the doorway. “Dr. Bower, we have a drunk three-year-old in room seven. It’s the Chapmans, who called you earlier.”

Lukas glanced at his watch. “They made great time. Get Claudia to meet me there and I’ll be right out.” He ordered serum alcohol and poison levels for the child. “I hate to do it, but get Respiratory to draw a blood gas on him.” Invasive procedures were a part of his job he had never enjoyed, especially when it involved causing pain for little children who were too young to even understand what was happening to them. Big needles that stuck deep and hurt were always traumatic, and this one needed an artery.

“Go on and see about the kid, Doc,” Buck said. “I’ll be fine as long as you can keep my young buddies from pestering me to death.”

Lukas grinned. “It comes with being a hero.”

“I don’t want to be a hero. I just want to do a good job. This mentoring is new for me.”

“It always helps to learn from the best.”

“I’m not the best. The chief just didn’t want to do it himself this time.” Buck lowered his voice and glanced toward the doorway. “I don’t want to be a jerk, but they’re not going to get a good review from me.”

“Come on, Buck, you were young once. In fact, you’re still young.”

Mercy walked into the room, greeted Buck as if she were used to seeing his burnt-to-a-crisp appearance every day and held the clipboards for two more patients for Lukas to see. “Want me to do these for you while I’m here? I called Josie, and she’s done a triage and sent some of my patients home.”

Lukas shot her a grateful smile. “Thank you, Mercy.”

“It’ll cost you a dinner.”

“Great. I’ll cook.”

“Hey! I’m doing you a favor here. Don’t threaten me.”

Lukas left Lauren to run his orders on Buck and walked out into the hallway with Mercy. He reached up instinctively to touch her shoulder, then hesitated and let his hand fall back to his side. He was already getting teased by the staff about his relationship with her.

“How’s Arthur doing?” he asked.

“I’m releasing him to his friends.” Mercy stopped outside the door, shook her head, frowned. “I didn’t want to do it, but he didn’t want to be so far from his wife. His CT’s fine.” She lowered her voice. “He’s something else. I don’t think I’ve met anybody quite like him.” She looked into Lukas’s eyes, then away. “Except maybe for you.” She turned and walked into another exam room.

Lukas was glad she didn’t see him blush.

The drunken child, three-year-old Jared Chapman, had a good serum alcohol level, which would counteract the effects of the antifreeze. The ethylene glycol and methanol levels were low enough that Jared wouldn’t need dialysis, so they could just watch him closely in the telemetry unit overnight on an alcohol drip. The parents were relieved and happy, and so was Lukas. Even with the needle for the blood gas, Jared was feeling a minimum amount of pain. The poor little boy would probably have treatment for a hangover in the morning.

The pharmacist was the only one who complained. When Lukas personally ordered the alcohol drip, the man replied, “You know you guys can’t be drinking on the job.”

Chapter Three

E leven-year-old Tedi Zimmerman answered the final question on her test paper as the bell rang for afternoon recess. Yes! She pushed the page to the top of her desk and looked up at Mr. Walters to see if he noticed. He nodded and smiled. He’d been watching.

She got up and started toward the door, but Abby Cuendet—her worst enemy last year, her best friend this year—grabbed her arm and stopped her.

Tedi turned back around. “Hey, what’re you doing?”

Abby pushed straight brown bangs out of her eyes, glanced out the window, then back at Tedi. “I thought you said your dad was locked up.”

“He is. He’s in detox up in Springfield.”

Abby scrunched up her face, pushed her glasses back up onto the bridge of her nose and turned to point out the window. “That sure looks like him to me.”

Tedi caught her breath and stiffened, refusing to look. “That’s not funny.” Mom and Grandma had both said Dad was supposed to be locked up for a long time.

“So who’s that?”

Feeling the darkness of an old nightmare, Tedi turned slowly and looked in the direction Abby pointed. A man stood in the shade beneath the trees that surrounded the playground. His hands were in his pockets. Looking down with his shoulders slumped, he didn’t look as tall as Dad, and his clothes weren’t silk and wool with ties and dress shoes. But the shape of his head and the line of his face, even at this distance, were too familiar. Abby’s mom said Dad looked like a blond Pierce Brosnan, but Tedi had seen pictures of Pierce Brosnan, and he looked a lot nicer. He didn’t look like the kind of man who would try to kill his own daughter.

For a minute Tedi thought she was going to throw up. She tightened her hands into fists and took some deep breaths. It couldn’t be. Was she having another bad dream? She couldn’t take her gaze from the intruder as he watched the kids spill out of the school building onto the grass. When they quit coming, he turned and looked directly toward the windows of Tedi’s classroom, as if he knew she was there.

She gasped and stepped back. “What’s he doing here?” Her voice shook. Her whole body shook. “He’s not supposed to be out of—”

“Girls?” Mr. Walters called. “Aren’t you finished with your papers?”

Tedi turned and looked hard at her teacher, at his wide middle and thick shoulders. “Yes, we’re finished.” He looked safe and calm as he gathered up papers and stacked them and turned to erase something from the chalkboard. One time he had stepped between a kid and an attacking dog and saved the kid from being bitten. He wasn’t going to let anyone hurt his students. “Go out and enjoy the sunshine while you can,” he called over his shoulder. “The rest of the week is supposed to be cloudy.” Which was another way of saying he wanted some time to de-stress and straighten the room. He’d told Tedi that once when she stayed behind to help him collect papers.

Tedi almost asked if she could stay and help him with papers again, but Abby nudged her. “Why don’t you just go and find out what your dad wants, dummy?”

Tedi shoved her friend’s arm away. “Why should I? If he wants to talk to me he can go see the principal first. He’s not even supposed to be here. No strangers on the playground, remember?”

“He’s not a stranger. He’s your dad. Come on, let’s at least get out of here.” She nudged Tedi again.

Tedi allowed herself to be pushed out the door and into the wide hallway. Together they walked to the side exit, where both of the double doors stood open to let in the cool late-September air. Maybe he would be gone when they got outside…or maybe it wasn’t even him. It just looked like him.

But when they stepped around the corner of the building in view of the broad, grassy playground, he was still in the same place in the shadows, hands in his pockets, head bowed.

Tedi felt her heart pound, the way it had that night when he shouted at her and raised his hand and hit her so hard it knocked her out.

“Don’t you want to find out what he’s doing here?” Abby demanded, nudging Tedi again with her elbow.

Tedi jerked away. “Stop it!”

“Gosh, Tedi, it’s no big deal. Just go talk to him.”

“You don’t know anything about it. You never saw him drunk.”

“He’s been in detox, hasn’t he? He won’t be drunk.” Eyes flashing with curiosity behind shiny lenses, Abby nudged her again. “Go on and find out what he wants. I’ll watch from here, and if he looks like he’s going to get close to you, I’ll run back in and get Mr. Walters.”

“Oh sure, and what’s Mr. Walters going to do, sit on him and crush him to death?”

Abby fell silent, giving Tedi her most stern look of reproach. Tedi stared back, hands on hips.

“Chicken,” Abby muttered.

“Shut up. I am not. I’m just not stupid.”

“Don’t you trust me, Tedi? I won’t let him hurt you.”

Tedi snorted. “Oh yeah? What are you going to do if he grabs me and runs?”

“Chase him down and kick his rear. Maybe throw a rock and hit him in the head, and you know I can do it, too.”

Tedi held her friend’s steady gaze for another few seconds. Abby had given Graham Kutz a black eye the other day for picking on her little brother and sister. She could also throw a ball better than anybody in the school. And she was a loyal friend, even if she was pushy and had a big mouth.

Tedi sighed, and Abby grinned triumphantly. “Knew you’d go. I’ll watch from here. Don’t worry.”

For a moment, Tedi couldn’t get her feet to work. She did not want to go talk to her father. She didn’t even want to think of him as her father. But she wanted to know what he was up to. It would be better to do it now, with Abby standing by, ready to conk him in the head with a rock, than to wait for him to catch her when she wasn’t expecting him.

When Abby pushed her again, she went, walking slowly, as if sneaking up on a dangerous animal. And he was dangerous. Tedi reached up and fingered the fading scar on her neck where the surgeon had cut into her throat to save her life after Dad had damaged an artery in his drunken rage. He’d also embezzled money where he worked. Everybody in town knew about him. Tedi knew the kids at school talked about her behind her back, and she hated it. She hated what he did to Mom and the way he’d threatened to ruin Mom’s practice again if she tried to get custody. And the only reason he wanted custody was because Mom had to pay so much child support. Tedi would never go back to live with him. She would rather die first.

Her heart was beating so fast now she could barely hear the sound of wind flipping the leaves around on the trees. Breathing hard, yet trying not to make noise, she stopped about ten feet from where he stood, and she studied him.

He looked different. Of course, he wasn’t drunk now, but he looked different from the way he had this spring even when he was sober. He looked smaller somehow. His blond hair looked more gray. He had more creases in his face.

“What are you doing here?” She said it, then held her breath, arms straight at her sides, anger and fear mingling within her. If he moved toward her, she would turn and run.

He swung around, and his pale blue eyes widened, his lips parted slightly in surprise. “Tedi.” He breathed the name. He did not move a muscle, but stood staring at her as if she were a bird he was afraid would fly away.

Her gaze darted toward the kids on the playground, and at the teachers refereeing, and at Abby watching from the door of the school building, hands clenched at her sides, gaze fierce, as though she were getting ready to thwack a baseball.

“I’m sorry, Tedi. I didn’t come here to scare you.” Dad’s voice drew Tedi’s attention back to him, and his blue gaze held her, roving over her face, as if he was studying it. “I wasn’t even going to let you know I was here. I just wanted to see you again. I thought you’d be out on the playground with the rest of the kids.” He sounded hoarse, as if he hadn’t been talking much lately and wasn’t used to it.

He wouldn’t stop looking at her.

“But why are you out?” she demanded.

“The judge released me.”

Tedi felt a fresh surge of anger and fear. What kind of a judge would release a man who’d almost killed his own kid? “Why?”

“I dried out, no booze since…None all summer.”

“Oh, sure. How can you get to the booze when you’re locked up? That doesn’t prove anything.”

“That’s what I asked them. I was afraid to leave. I didn’t trust myself because I can’t forget what I did to you.” He slowly took his hands out of his pockets and spread them, taking care not to get close to her. “The judge assigned a new, young attorney to my case, and the guy got me out on bail because I had a good record at the detox center, and I’d never been in trouble with the police before, and—”

“But I almost died!” Tedi crossed her arms over her chest. How could they just let him go like that? “Mom said you couldn’t get out to hurt me again.”

He winced as if someone had slugged him. A muscle tightened in his jaw. “I won’t hurt you again.” Now he seemed to study the ground as closely as he had been studying her. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have come here. I just wanted to see you, see for myself how you were doing…. I guess I had to make sure you were really okay. I was so scared that night…so sure that…And the police took me in while you were being flown out for surgery.” He looked up then, and his gaze pinpointed the scar at her throat. “I did that and so many other things. All these months in detox I’ve realized how much I did to destroy what I had with you, and…and I was the one who destroyed the relationship I had with your mother. I’ve been forced to admit so much this summer, so much I didn’t want to see, but that I can’t afford to forget.”

Tedi watched his face and listened to his voice. He’d apologized before. Maybe he’d meant it when he said it, but what good had it done?

His gaze drifted again to her throat, and she knew he was looking at the scar, then he closed his eyes for a moment, squeezing them tightly shut, as if he were afraid they would burn out if he kept them open any longer. He looked old. He was the same age as Mom, but he looked a lot older than she did. His eyes looked wrinkled, and they turned down at the corners, the way his mouth did.

“I’m sorry,” he said softly, and he raised his head and gazed into her eyes again. “I can’t ever make it up to you, Tedi, and I’m so sorry.” He took a deep breath. “But I’m going to try anyway. Tedi, I’m not supposed to be here, but I want to get permission to try to see you again. Before I do that, though, I want to know if it’s okay with you. If not, I’ll wait.”

She didn’t move, didn’t speak. She was too shocked, not by his words, but by the fact that she realized she didn’t hate him totally. Mostly, but not totally.

“I’d like a chance to talk with you, Tedi. Your mother would have to be there with us.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “You’re talking to me now .”

“What I mean is that I want to start seeing you again, regularly, like the kind of visitation you had with your mom when you lived with me.”

She took a step forward, feeling braver. “Mom would never let you take me away from her again. Never! And I will never go back.”

He sighed and held her gaze steadily. “I wouldn’t try to get you back. If I got to visit with you, I wouldn’t even touch you. I promise. I just want to find out if it would be okay with you before I ask for permission from your mother.’ His light blue eyes filled with tears, and he looked away for a moment. “It’s going to take a long time to become friends again, but I have to try.”

Friends? Ha! A friend didn’t try to kill a friend. And a friend didn’t try to keep a friend from her mother or try to ruin her mother’s name in town just out of spite. “I don’t want to be your friend.”

He reached up with the back of his hand and brushed his tears away. “Of course you don’t. I’ve been talking with my counselor about it, and he said it would be unreasonable for me to expect that. I just felt like I had to make contact.”

So now he’d made contact. What else would he want? When Dad was nice, it was always because he wanted something. Why was she even listening to him? Why was she talking to him and thinking about what it might be like to see him again? She should hate him for what he had done to her and Mom. She shouldn’t’ve even come out here.

But what if he’d really changed?

“You’ll have to ask Mom yourself,” she said at last. “I’m not going to be your messenger this time.”

Dad blinked a couple of times and looked back at her. “You’d meet with me?” Some of the sadness left his face. The bell rang, and he stiffened. He reached out as if to touch her and then drew his hand back. “Tedi, I want to prove to you—and maybe to myself—that people can change, that they don’t have to be stuck in the rut they dig for themselves.”

For a moment, she couldn’t help hoping. Then she thought of something Grandma always said, and she knew Dad needed to hear it. “Grandma Ivy says nobody can do that without God’s help.”

Instead of sneering at her and laughing the way he used to do when she quoted Grandma, he cocked his head to the side. “How’s your grandma doing?”

Tedi heard her name being called and glanced toward the building to find Abby gesturing for her to hurry. “I’ve got to go.” She turned to leave.

“Okay. I’ll talk to your mom, Tedi. Today. I’m going to walk to her office right now.”

She paused and looked back and felt suddenly angry again. “Don’t you hurt her. Don’t scare her, and don’t fight with her.”

“I won’t.”

“If you do, I’ll never talk to you again.”

He closed his eyes and sighed, and the muscle flexed at the side of his jaw again. “I won’t hurt her, Tedi. I promise.”

Lukas slipped past the curtain in exam room five and greeted Jacob Casey, who lay on the bed beneath a thin sheet, his wounded upper arm covered in a sterile dressing. “Well, Cowboy, I’ve got a lot of good news and a little bad news. The good news is that I see no vital damage to your arm, and you won’t have to leave Knolls to have the wound repaired. The bullet exited with no bone involvement. The bad news is that I want a surgeon to have a look at you, and he’ll probably want to keep you overnight.”

He expected an argument but got no reaction. Cowboy lay watching him listlessly.

Lukas frowned. “It won’t leave as much of a scar as the lion bite did this spring.” He waited for one of the quick, witty replies Cowboy was known for during his many trips to the E.R., but to his amazement the rugged forty-three-year-old man’s eyes filled with sudden tears. For a moment Lukas wondered if maybe he should recheck Cowboy’s vitals and see if someone had slipped him some pain medication by mistake, then the man cleared his throat and wiped his eyes.

“The police didn’t tell you, did they?” Cowboy said, his voice husky. “The man who shot me also shot and killed Leonardo.”

Lukas stared at Cowboy and felt his jaw go slack. “Oh no.” Not Leonardo. That cat had become a legend around Knolls, and everybody knew Cowboy loved him fiercely. “I’m sorry, Jake. I didn’t know. I had to see about some other patients when the police showed up to get your statement, and since you were stable—”

“Did you ever lose somebody you depended on, Doc?” Cowboy kept his voice low, obviously unwilling for anyone outside the exam room to hear him.

Lukas nodded. “My mother died three years ago.”

Cowboy shook his head and grunted in shared sympathy. He was silent for a moment, then he said, “That lion was my best friend, and Berring just walked onto my ranch and shot him while I was gone. Killed him! I call it murder. How could he get away with that? He’s crazy!”

“Nobody really gets away with anything,” Lukas said. “Not in the end. But I came to tell you something about that, Cowboy. We received word that Berring has been picked up by the police, and they checked his records. He was released from state prison about six months ago after a fifteen-year stint for armed robbery and attempted murder. He’s being held.”

Cowboy stared at him for a moment, then shook his head and lay back. “I’m glad they got him. It doesn’t bring Leonardo back, though.”

“No, it doesn’t. I’m sorry.”

Someone knocked at the threshold, then swept inside the curtain without waiting. In stepped tall, redheaded Beverly, off-duty E.R. nurse and Cowboy’s girlfriend for the past four months. In fact, the two had met right here in the emergency department when Cowboy came in with a “love bite” from Leonardo.

“Hey, pardner,” Cowboy greeted Beverly, his voice suddenly back to its usual bass depth, all evidence of grief gone except for the telltale redness in his eyes. “Come to see if I’d died and left that Mustang to you in my will?”

Beverly did not smile. Her usually pale skin flushed with anger as she crossed her arms over her chest. Beverly’s quick temper was even hotter than the color of her hair, which was no surprise to Lukas. He’d borne the brunt of her anger a few months ago. He wondered if he should leave and allow Cowboy to handle it alone.

“You didn’t even call me!” she snapped at Cowboy. “I had to hear about it through the grapevine.” She glanced at Lukas, then lowered her gaze, as if embarrassed. “Hello, Dr. Bower.”

“Hello, Beverly.”

She was silent for a moment, as if wishing Lukas would leave. Or maybe she was too acutely aware of the fact that legally she should not have been called unless Cowboy had requested it, and Cowboy was not the type to ask for emotional support. Someone—probably softhearted, bigmouthed Lauren—had called out of consideration for Beverly, breaking patient confidentiality.

“Jacob Casey,” Beverly said, “do you know what the word macho means? It’s not flattering. I don’t appreciate it that half the town knew about this thing—” she gestured toward the gauze-covered wound “—before I did.”

“Oh, don’t go and get all worked up.” Cowboy reached up with his left hand and patted her arm. “I’ve been hurt worse than this lots of times.”

“What happened to Leonardo?”

Cowboy froze for a moment, clenching and unclenching the muscles in his jaw. “He didn’t fare too well.”

Beverly studied his face, her forest-colored eyes showing compassion and just a hint of frustration. Some of the high color eased from her face. “I’m sorry, Jake.” She glanced at her watch. “The kids will be home in about an hour. I’ll get them and go out to the ranch—”

“Nope.”

She paused. “There you go again. You’re not going to stop me this ti—”

“I don’t want the kids to see him like that, Bev. Call the vet. You know his number.” His voice wobbled just a little. He stopped, swallowed, took a breath. “They’ve got a key to the cage. They’ll take care of him.”

“But I can meet them out there. Let me help—”

Lukas quietly slipped out of the room as their voices continued in gentle argument. Cowboy needed to realize he had other friends besides Leonardo. In the short time they had known each other, Beverly already seemed to be a staunch supporter. Funny how some men could inspire loyalty and some could not, even in the workplace. Maybe that was why, at thirty-five, Lukas remained unmarried.

But could Beverly be trusted to continue her loyalty during Cowboy’s grieving period? She had refused to support Lukas last spring with the treatment of one of their E.R. patients. All he’d wanted her to do was follow accepted hospital protocol when he refused to give narcotics to a drug-seeking patient.

She was supposed to fill out an AMA form stating that the patient, Dwayne Little, had left against medical advice when he realized he wasn’t going to get the narcotic he wanted. Her refusal resulted in a pending lawsuit against Lukas by Dwayne’s father, Bailey Little, president of the hospital board. If not for Mrs. Pinkley, the hospital administrator, Lukas would no longer be working here.

Lukas sighed and went in to check on his other patients.

With the sound of mechanical beeps filling the room behind her, Mercy stood blocking the entrance, her arms crossed over her chest as she glared at a policeman trying to get past her to Ramón Martínez, who was on a nonrebreather oxygen mask and a cardiac monitor.

“This man is not drunk, Bill,” she said. “We’ve proven that. The alcohol you smelled on his breath came from the toothache medicine he was taking. He accidentally overdosed. He’s sick and he’s in pain. How can you do this to him right now?”

“Dr. Mercy, you know I still have to give him a ticket. People were hurt. I’m required—”

“If you give it to him now, he won’t even understand what’s going on. The interpreter called and canceled on us.”

Bill sighed, tugging at the too-tight collar of his uniform. “I know enough Spanish to explain it to him.”

Mercy felt the tingle of anger work its way up her spine. “You know Spanish, and you didn’t volunteer to interpret when we needed help with him?”

Bill shifted uncomfortably. “Come on, Dr. Mercy. I don’t know that much. Look, I’m not the bad guy here. I’m just trying to do my job. I’m not gonna beat him up or anything. I’ll just give him the ticket and leave you alone.”

Mercy wanted to argue further, but she knew it wouldn’t do any good. It would probably make things worse for Ramón. If Bill didn’t give the ticket now, someone else might do it later, and there were a couple of people on the Knolls police force that Mercy wouldn’t trust to haul a dead dog to the pound. Bill was a good guy, just a little too legalistic.

Mercy nodded her consent, gestured for Claudia to stay in the room and stepped down the hallway to Arthur’s room, where she found Lukas and Lauren assisting Arthur into a wheelchair.

“Going somewhere?” she asked, ignoring the sight of Lukas and Lauren with their heads so close together.

“Your walls aren’t soundproof,” Arthur said. “I heard you need an interpreter.”

“But your friends are getting ready to take you to Springfield,” Mercy protested. “I know how badly you want to be with Alma.”

“I’m going soon. Alma would want me to help Mr. Martínez.” He settled back into the chair with a groan. His head was cleanly bandaged, and his arm was in a sling. His voice was still just a little slurred from the effects of the Demerol as he asked Lukas questions about Mr. Martínez.

“I admire your ability to forgive, Arthur,” Mercy said softly.

He looked up at her in surprise. “Forgiveness has nothing to do with it, Dr. Mercy. What happened to us was an accident. There’s no one to blame.”

Mercy shook her head and stood back to let Lukas wheel Arthur out of the room. Was this guy for real? As if unable to help herself, she followed the entourage from the exam room into the hallway.

“I know a man near here who speaks Spanish,” Arthur was telling Lauren. “If you’ll ask my friends to call him, he can come in and interpret when I leave.” When he entered Ramón’s room, he spoke without hesitation, interpreting for the policeman giving the ticket, then more softly, with words of comfort, when Ramón buried his face in his hands.

Mercy stood beside Lukas at the doorway watching the scene. Even high on drugs and obviously still in some pain when he moved too fast, Arthur seemed to have an aura of compassion that surrounded him. She only knew one other person with that kind of presence. She looked at Lukas and found him watching her.

She did not want to look away. What she saw in his gaze as he looked at her was a combination of concern and admiration and something warmer, deeper, an emotion she didn’t dare try to identify.

He touched her shoulder. “Thanks for coming over, Mercy,” he said softly. “I don’t know what I’d have done without you. I know other docs who wouldn’t have come.”

“You’re welcome. Now, why don’t you let me finish taking care of this one? You’re still swamped.”

He smiled and nodded. “I do have a date with a broken arm.”

Mercy watched Lukas and Lauren leave, along with the policeman, then she pulled her stethoscope from around her neck and listened to Ramón’s labored breathing. Through Arthur, she explained to Ramón that he had overdosed on the pain medication for his tooth, and that kept the oxygen from carrying well through his body.

“Tell him this is serious, Arthur, and the drug they are giving him will take care of that, but I need to keep him overnight in the hospital on the telemetry unit.”

She checked the monitor, and it looked good. Ramón still had some shortness of breath, but no chest pain. She checked his painful tooth and had Claudia begin the dosage of methylene blue through an IV to counteract the effects of the drug overdose.

While Arthur translated, Mercy checked Ramón’s neck, belly, squeezed his hips and legs, listened again to his breathing. It could have been a lot worse, but he had a strong constitution. He also seemed to have a strong sense of guilt, and Mercy was glad for Arthur’s attitude of compassion.

She looked at Arthur once more, who continued to talk in soothing tones while she worked. Alma Collins was a lucky woman.

Chapter Four

L ukas studied the small image of shrapnel that showed clearly on Buck’s chest X-ray, then looked back at Buck. “Sorry, pal, it’s surgeon’s territory.”

Buck groaned and laid his head back. “Surgery? I have a shift tomorrow.”

“Get a replacement.”

“I can’t. We’ve got the competition for the Explorers. I have to be there. Can’t you just fish in there and pull it out?”

Lukas held the X-ray out and showed him, pointing to the image of metal. “It’s deep in the muscle, Buck. I don’t have any concerns about it being in the heart or lung, but I’m not going to go slicing through all that thick bodybuilder’s muscle and tissue of yours to find something that’s going to play hide-and-seek with a scalpel. Don’t worry. You won’t even have to leave Knolls. In fact, Dr. Wong is in the E.R. right now treating another patient, and I can have him give you a look while he’s here.”

“Will he do it here in the E.R.?”

“Probably.”

“Then I’ll get out today?”

“Barring complications.”

Buck motioned for Lukas to lean closer. “Will you tell Kyle and Alex to go on back to the station? I’m not on duty today, and they’re not my responsibility. And don’t tell Lauren I said that, or she’ll give me another lecture.”

Lukas grinned. “I’ll head everybody off except your wife. She should be here any time.”

Buck’s expression relaxed into a smile at last. “Kendra’s the only one I want to see.”

Mercy had been gone from her office for over two hours, and it was time to get back, if she had anybody left to treat. She felt bad for leaving them for so long. They depended on her. She knew they were loyal, but that wasn’t what concerned her about this.

A little over five years ago she’d lost custody of her daughter, and she’d lost the majority of her practice, all because of rumors and public opinion—and the fact that she’d been forcibly committed to a psych ward for a ninety-six-hour stay. Her ex-husband, Theodore Zimmerman, had coerced a physician buddy of his to pull the double cross on her during a very high-profile custody case for their daughter, Tedi.

Those patients who came to her now most likely knew about her past, about the rumors, and they came to her anyway. They’d given her their loyalty, and she hated to let them down.

She stepped into the nearest call room, prepared to do dictation on Arthur, when a newly familiar sense of suffocating heat and slight nausea accosted her. She inhaled with sharp impatience, as if to will away the attack as it began its languid travel outward from the core of her body. She hated this feeling! There wasn’t time for it now.

She stepped into the private bathroom and splashed some cold water on her face and neck, then took deep breaths in through her nose and out through her mouth to try to relax. Stress. It had to be stress. Her life was so full right now that she constantly felt tense, even irritable. She wasn’t sleeping well at night, and she refused to try the sleeping pills she sometimes prescribed for her patients. She splashed water again on her face, then pulled off her lab coat and fanned herself with some paper towels. It would pass in a moment, as it had before. Some ice cubes would be nice, but—

“Mercy? You in there?” came Lukas Bower’s voice from the call room entrance.

Dabbing moisture from her face and neck, she stepped out of the bathroom and waved him through the open doorway, then slumped onto the side of the bed in the corner beside the desk. She had to get back to the clinic. People were waiting. Who knew what state the office was in. But she was still perspiring heavily, and she didn’t feel like getting up right now.

Lukas strolled in and sat down in the desk chair, releasing a sigh. “Thanks for coming in. I don’t know what I’d’ve done without you. And thanks for taking such good care of Arthur.” He quirked a brow at her, and his clear blue eyes filled with gentle humor. “He got to you, didn’t he? I heard him asking you to pray with him.”

Mercy took a couple more deep breaths. She knew her face was flushed. She probably looked as if she’d been running a race.

Finally Lukas noticed. “Mercy? Are you okay? You don’t look too hot.”

Mercy sighed and rolled her eyes. Wonderful choice of words. Typically Lukas. “I’ll be fine.” Sometimes, when she became especially irritable, his tenderness and concern could calm her like nothing else. He blurted whatever he thought, and you never had to worry about where you stood with him. His soft brown hair, bespectacled face and compact built disguised a powerhouse of character and intellect that she admired. In fact, she felt much more than admiration for him. But she wasn’t ready to discuss the hot flashes with him or anybody else.

“I saw Beverly in with Cowboy today,” she said, making a show of examining the few exposed parts of his flesh. “I don’t see any scratch marks, and I didn’t hear any raised voices. Did she see you?”

“She saw me.”

“You know she’s still feeling guilty.”

“Why would she feel guilty? She swears I was the one in the wrong.” Lukas shrugged, but Mercy knew him well enough to know the continued disagreement with Beverly bothered him.

Everyone knew the nurse was afraid she would lose her job if she filed the report to support Lukas. Bailey Little had a lot of power, and he used it to get what he wanted.

“She still tries to schedule her shifts to keep from working with me,” Lukas said. “She’s civil when she gets stuck with me, but it isn’t a comfortable situation. I’ve been praying about it. Lauren says she’s praying, too. She’s even tried to talk to Beverly about it.”

Mercy tensed against her will at the mention of Lauren’s name. “And did our little supernurse get anywhere with her?” She cringed at the sound of her own jealousy.

Lukas blinked at her, and his forehead wrinkled in concern. “No, but at least Beverly’s still speaking to her. Mercy? Are you sure you’re okay?”

This time the heat that flushed her face was shame, and she couldn’t hold his gaze. During all the time she’d spent with Lukas, she hadn’t been able to get out of her mind the fact that Lauren McCaffrey had a lot more in common with him. She was a Christian, as he was. She was his age and, like him, she had never been married. She was kind and outgoing to everyone. Her constant chatter sometimes got on Mercy’s nerves, but she had a good heart. Funny how jealousy could tinge someone’s outlook.

“I’ve got to dictate this chart and get back to my patients,” Mercy said at last, still not looking at him. “How about a date Thursday night? Jarvis George has a lady friend who is giving him a ‘getting well’ party at his house.”

Lukas frowned at her. “You’re kidding, right? Do you think that’s a good idea? Don’t you think my presence will be detrimental to his recovery?”

Mercy picked up the phone. “Don’t be paranoid. He was so out of his mind last spring he probably doesn’t even remember you—or the extent to which he went to get rid of you.” She knew Lukas wouldn’t buy that. Sixty-five-year-old Jarvis George, the Knolls Community E.R. director, had opposed Mrs. Pinkley when she first hired Lukas. It hadn’t helped the situation when Jarvis, distracted by Lukas in an exam room, had accidentally stuck himself with a suture needle. The needle had been infected by a patient with undiagnosed tuberculosis.

“He remembers,” Lukas said. “I bet he still blames me.”

“Oh, come on, Lukas, it wasn’t your—”

“Not to mention the fact that the TB encephalitis couldn’t have kicked in until at least a couple of weeks later, during which time he used all the influence he could muster—”

“He was being manipulated by Bailey Little,” Mercy said. Everyone knew about the E.R. visit when Lukas had refused to give morphine to Bailey’s drug-seeking son, Dwayne. “Both men have lost a lot of points in this community,” she continued. “Especially Jarvis.” He had not only given the requested morphine but had allowed Dwayne to drive away high on the drug. As a result, Dwayne had been in a fatal automobile accident.

“So how about it, Lukas?” Mercy asked. “You’re off Thursday. I checked the schedule.”

“I guess I could try, but if Jarvis starts shooting the moment I walk in the door, I refuse to stay past the obligatory thirty minutes.”

“Wear your bulletproof vest, just in case.” Mercy held his gaze a little longer than necessary, simply because she loved having that connection with him. Then she dragged her mind away from what could have been if they weren’t both so busy. She punched her entry buttons and started dictation.

Lukas stood watching Mercy dictate her additional comments about Arthur. They had incorporated the “T-system” charting now, which did away with extensive dictation or handwritten notes, but the T-sheets didn’t cover everything. Lukas liked the fact that Mercy didn’t try to pigeonhole or computerize human beings. She often added extra notes to her files. She always did the extras for her patients, making them feel more like human beings and less like parts on an assembly line.

Lukas knew she was that way with every relationship in her life. She made him feel as if he was important to her, that their friendship was something special. Up to now it had been just that—a sharing friendship. He enjoyed her company so much…maybe a little too much? They had a lot of interesting discussions about life and about their pasts, and about his faith in God. But that was the catch. It was only his faith, not Mercy’s. How could he enjoy her company so much when she couldn’t even understand the most important foundation of his life?

But he kept telling himself she was getting closer.

She reached up to catch a strand of her long dark hair that had fallen from its clasp and caught sight of him still standing there. She gave him a questioning “do you need something?” glance.

He shook his head, waved and turned to walk out of the room, and nearly bulldozed into Mrs. Estelle Pinkley, hospital administrator. He caught himself just in time, with the aid of a few spur-of-the-moment dance steps.

“Oh, good, Dr. Bower, I’m glad I found you.” The tall silver-haired lady took his arm as if to steady him. “Are you too busy to step into the break room with me for a moment?”

“Uh, no, not at all. Is something wrong?” By habit he studied her features and gave her regal seventy-year-old frame a cursory glance up and down as they walked the few feet into the empty E.R. staff break room. Those slender shoulders held a lot of responsibility, and sometimes, when the E.R. was slow and she was having back problems, she would “impose” upon him for a spinal adjustment. As a doctor of osteopathy, Lukas was knowledgeable about spinal manipulation.

“You could say that.” She eased down onto the chair at the far west end of the circular table, massaging her fingers. “We’re being investigated by COBRA.”

She said it too calmly, and for a moment the words didn’t register. Lukas stared at her.

“We could be in for a rough ride, Lukas.”

The impact hit him. “COBRA?” He caught his breath, then pulled back a chair beside her and sank down into it, stunned. The federal watchdog agency had the power, if they searched enough records and found enough infractions, to shut down any hospital or medical center in the country. Every hospital had infractions. Nobody was perfect all of the time, especially when they were the victims of a witch hunt.

“Have you spoken with Beverly lately?” Mrs. Pinkley asked.

“She avoids me as much as possible.”

“She needs to fill out that AMA form, Lukas. It’s been over three months.” She leaned forward and spread her hands across the table. “This is ridiculous! One conniving man should not have this much power over this many people. He’s got Beverly so browbeaten she’s terrified to tell the truth.”

“That conniving man is a grieving father,” Lukas reminded her. “He’s still reacting.” Attorney Bailey Little was also president of the hospital board, a dangerous situation for a doctor employed by that hospital. Bailey had promised vengeance several months ago when Lukas had refused to give morphine to Dwayne. Bailey had furthermore used his influence to sway public and patient opinion against Lukas. The plan had failed miserably upon Dwayne’s tragic death, but Bailey’s influence still beleaguered Mrs. Pinkley and her plans for the hospital.

“I find it outrageous that you’re the one being investigated.” Mrs. Pinkley’s voice dropped even deeper than usual in an unaccustomed show of anger. “You know Bailey’s behind this.”

“When does the investigation start?”

She fixed him with her cool gray gaze, all traces of anger suddenly gone, as if she were slipping into her attorney mode. “The investigator is scheduled to arrive in two weeks. Don’t worry, we’ll handle this together.” She placed her hands on the table to push herself up, then shook her head and sighed. “I wish Bailey didn’t hold such a strategic position.” She stood with a suppressed groan. “The weather’s changing. We’re in for a big storm.”

“Is your back bothering you again?”

She smiled at Lukas, patted his arm and straightened her spine. “Nothing a little exercise and a couple of aspirin won’t take care of. Oh, by the way, I do have some good news. That doctor you wanted to have checked out, Cherra Garcias? She’s got good references. I set her up for an interview Thursday. I hope you don’t mind. You were too busy to talk when she called.”

“No, that’s great.”

“You’ll have trouble if you hire her, you know. She’s obviously Hispanic. The folks around here might be slightly skeptical.”

“Are you saying I should allow public prejudice to sway my decision?”

“No, I just want you to be prepared for ungrounded complaints about her, just as I received complaints about you, and you’re from right here in Missouri.”

“I’m glad you ignored them.”

“You had good references. Of course, I get lots of complaints about your directorship, mostly from you, so the sooner you can hire someone to help you out with shifts, the happier we’ll both be.”

Lukas grinned. “No one will be happier than I will. I don’t suppose you’d consider looking for a new director?”

She smiled and patted his arm. “Hang in there, and I’ll make an administrative person out of you yet.”

“But I don’t—”

“Lukas, I can’t in good conscience replace Jarvis George while he’s still suffering from the effects of tuberculin encephalitis.” She lowered her voice. “Just between us, I’m hoping he’ll retire and I won’t have to make the decision, because I don’t want him back here causing me trouble and complaining about every tiny decision I make for this hospital. Still, I want to be fair to him. You are the perfect choice as interim director because you’re the only full-time E.R. physician, and you don’t want the directorship, which means I won’t have a fight on my hands if he comes back.”

“What if he tries to fire me again?”

Her smile returned, and it held a hint of mischief in the fine, powdered lines of her face. “Then I’ll have a valid reason to get rid of him for good.”

After she left, Lukas couldn’t help glancing into the call room where Mercy had been. She was gone. When he stepped into the exam room where Cowboy had been, he found that he had already been taken into surgery. A couple of rooms down, where Buck also awaited a surgeon’s check, Buck’s raised voice burst from behind the trauma room curtain.

“No! Kendra, you can’t do this. Not now. Not here!”

Lukas frowned and stepped forward, but something stopped him from pulling the curtain back. Buck’s voice wasn’t betraying physical pain.

Then came Kendra’s light soprano voice. “I warned you before about this, but did you ever listen? No. You were always too busy playin’ hero, always bargin’ in to save the day, whether it’s a dangerous pet or a woman in a burnin’ buildin’, no matter whether you needed to or not. I’m sick of it, Buck, I mean it.” In the silence, Lukas heard soft sniffles. “I’m sorry, but I can’t take it no more.”

Buck’s deep voice came more gently. “Kendra, honey, this is about your father, not me. Don’t—”

“And everybody loves Buck Oppenheimer. The good ol’ boys slap you on the back when we go out anywhere and tell you what a great guy you are. Do they ever look at me? Do they ever think about what I go through when I’m at home, wonderin’ if my husband’s going to live through the next fire? I’m no hero. To them I’m just a whinin’ female.”

“Nobody’s ever said that about you. They know what you’ve been through.”

“No, they don’t. They don’t care! I can tell what they’re thinkin’ by the look in their eyes. How dare I gripe when my husband comes home late from savin’ people from their own fires? You’re just a fireman, Buck, not a husband.” There was a quiet sob. “I can’t take it no more. I’m sorry, but I’m done with this marriage. I’m just not hero material.”

Lukas stood out in the hallway in shocked silence while Kendra continued to sniff.

“Honey, you’re worked up right now because of this scare,” Buck said with an unsteady voice, “but I’m going to be okay, really. You can ask Dr. Bower. Kendra, don’t leave me, please! Not like—”

The curtain swished back, and a very pretty woman who looked like a young Michelle Pfeiffer swept out, her face contorted with tears. She didn’t glance up, didn’t even notice Lukas standing there, staring in stunned disbelief.

Before Lukas could do anything, however, the human chatterbox, Lauren McCaffrey, swept past him as if she’d been hovering nearby, eavesdropping on every word as shamelessly as Lukas had been. She walked up to the bedside of the shocked man and laid a hand on his muscled arm, her kind green eyes sympathetic.

“Now, don’t you worry, Buck. You know why Kendra’s upset. She’ll come out of this in a while and be begging you to forgive her and forget what she just said, and you two will be all giggles and kisses again in no time. I’ve seen it too many times before. She’s got her head on straight most of the time. She’ll come out of it. Come on, I’ve got to take your blood pressure again, especially after that little display.”

Now both Buck and Lukas stared at Lauren. She ignored them and continued with her job. Buck turned dazed eyes toward Lukas.

“You heard that, Doc?”

“Yes, Buck. I’m sorry.”

“But what am I supposed to do? I’m no hero. I’m just a fireman. And now she’s saying she doesn’t want to be married to me? I don’t take risks, not like—”

“Settle down,” Lauren warned. “I can’t get a good reading if you get all worked up, and it’s not going to help your recovery any, either. Come on, Buck, you’re a fireman. You can handle a stressful situation. You know your wife better than that, and you know she’s going to be fine. You two have had your spats before, and it just makes your marriage stronger. She knows better than to let go of a hunk like you.” She checked his arm to take another reading.

“Lauren, do you have to get a reading right now?” Buck asked, jerking his arm away. “This is my marriage we’re talking about.” He looked at Lukas. “What am I supposed to do?”

Lauren, as always, was the one who answered. “Well, Buck, you pray about it, and you wait a while, then you call Kendra on the telephone and tell her how much you love her. Then arrange for her to pick you up when you’re released, and she will have gotten over it. Isn’t that right, Dr. Bower?”

Lukas quirked an eyebrow at her. “Why are you asking me? I’ve never been married. And neither have you. What makes you think—”

“Ever been dumped, Doc?” Buck asked.

“You haven’t been dumped,” Lauren insisted. “You know she’s just scared. She’s still—”

“Yeah, well, I’ll feel better when I’m back home in my own bed, and I don’t feel Kendra’s foot shoving me out the door.”

Mercy walked into a surprisingly calm waiting room. Josie had sent home most of the patients who could reschedule, and there were only a few scattered around in comfortable chairs, reading the well-stocked library of periodicals with resigned expressions. They perked up when they saw her walk through. She waved and greeted them and apologized without breaking stride as she marched toward her office.

Josie saw her first and scrambled over to her side. “Dr. Mercy, before you go into your office you need—”

“I know, I’ll hurry. I’m sorry—”

“No, you don’t understand—”

“Just let me change lab coats. I got some blood on this one, and it’s all—” She threw open the door to her office, then gasped aloud at the sight of her ex-husband, Theodore Zimmerman, sitting in the straight-backed chair in front of her desk.

“Dr. Mercy, I tried to tell you,” Josie said, stumbling in to stand behind her. “He insisted he had to see you today because he’d made a promise, and I didn’t want to leave him sitting out in the waiting room so you’d have witnesses when you killed him.”

Mercy stared at the man with five years’ worth of loathing. “Get out of this office. How dare you come in here like this?” She turned to Josie. “Start showing the patients to the exam rooms. This won’t take long. I’m going to call the police and let them know he’s here.” She picked up the telephone, almost expecting him to jump up and knock the receiver from her grasp and start shouting obscenities at her—his usual conduct.

He didn’t move. “Please don’t, not yet,” he said quietly. “They released me.”

“I’m supposed to believe that?” She stood staring at the man she had hated for so long she couldn’t remember feeling any other way about him. At times she’d dreamed of killing him—actually dreamed it. And they had been good dreams. Mom would be horrified at some of the thoughts that went through her mind. So would Lukas. So would Tedi. “What are you doing here?”

“I came to tell you how sorry I am.” He said the words quickly, as if afraid she would shut him up before he could get them all out.

Mercy had heard that one lots of times before. Her hand tightened on the telephone receiver. What if he was lying about being released? What if he’d escaped?

“And I want to find out what it would take for me to see Tedi again.”

A stab of fear chilled the anger momentarily. One of Mercy’s worst nightmares was that he would be able to come back into their lives and take Tedi away from her again. She would die before that would happen.

“I don’t mean I want to see her alone,” he said quickly. “I wouldn’t ask that. You would be there, and Ivy, and anybody else you wanted. I’d be willing to talk to her through the bars of a jail cell if I could just talk to her.”

“Which reminds me, why aren’t you in jail?” She still could not believe she was standing here talking to him and actually listening to anything he had to say.

Strangely, however, he had said nothing accusatory or threatening, and he hadn’t even tried to twist her words around to use them against her—a favorite of his. She couldn’t smell any alcohol on his breath, and the whites of his eyes were actually clear, giving good definition to the light blue of the irises. His blond hair was short and neat. He wore jeans and a gray plaid flannel shirt—not his usual style. People who met Theo Zimmerman for the first time had commented—occasionally within Mercy’s disgusted hearing—that he was the handsomest man in Knolls. At six feet tall he didn’t exactly tower over other men, but he stood out, and he knew how to do it to his best advantage. He’d used his physical attractiveness like a tool when he worked as a real estate agent—before he was fired for embezzlement.

His eyes held hers steadily. “I did everything they told me to do.” He leaned forward, elbows on knees. “The day I hit Tedi I wanted to die. I wanted the police to stick me back in the darkest and farthest cell and throw away the key.”

Mercy still did, yet she was aware of the fact that Theo had been the one to call the police on himself.

“I can never make it up to you or to Tedi,” he continued. “Or to anybody else who’s suffered because of me.” He frowned, still watching her. “They appointed an attorney to my case, and he convinced me I could make amends a lot better outside of prison than inside. But he told me something surprising, Mercy. Somebody paid my debts. The embezzlement charges were all dropped because the money was returned.”

She replaced the receiver on its base. “I’ve got patients who need me.”

“Why did you do it? You didn’t have to. You could’ve sold the house and car and kept the money.”

“Don’t flatter yourself that I did it for you, Theo,” she snapped.

He frowned, and his eyes narrowed slightly. “Oh, don’t worry. I wouldn’t be that stupid. You never—” he began, then caught his words, closed his mouth, shook his head.

“And don’t expect me to do it again,” she said. “I was your meal ticket for too many years, and I’ve run out of meals.”

“I’m not after a free meal, either. Can’t you just listen to me for once?” That old blue blaze flickered in his eyes, then was forcibly doused. “No, Mercy, that’s not what I’m here for.”

“Good. Tedi didn’t deserve to have an alcoholic father who not only tried to kill her, but was being dragged through the courts on embezzlement charges. She’s had a hard enough time because of you.”

He exhaled sharply, then inhaled again, as if to curb a quickly rising temper. “Look, I know that, okay? I’ve been locked up for it, the courts know it, everybody knows it! Why do you have to rub my nose in it, too? Can’t you see I’m trying to change?”

Mercy held his glare until the fire in his eyes once more died, then she turned her back on him. “Get out.”

Chapter Five

T edi Zimmerman always felt the darkness before she saw it. It wasn’t really a feeling, though. It was more just a sudden discovery that something was watching her, waiting for her to close her eyes, to fall asleep, to forget for just one night. That was when it pounced like a monster.

And so she lay awake with her light on, staring at the lumps and bumps of texture on the white ceiling and fighting the sleep that weighed down her eyelids when she wasn’t paying attention. She’d finished her homework hours ago. She’d come to bed hours ago, too, but she mustn’t sleep, because tonight was one of those nights when she knew what was out there. Sometimes it caught her before she could brace herself.

Should she go climb into bed with Mom? The monster could never get her there, and she always slept so well then. Mom didn’t, but she’d told Tedi to wake her up when the shadows got too close. Tonight they were lurking everywhere.

She reached up to pull the blankets back when she saw it, actually saw it! Darkness puddled in the closet corner, seeping across the wall in slow motion, trying to creep up on her. She pulled the covers back up over her chest and tried to breathe quietly. It wasn’t supposed to come this close, not in the light!

Surely it couldn’t come any closer than the corner. It was kind of dark in that spot—the darkest place in the room. It would have to wait there until she turned the light off, and she wasn’t going to do that.

She lay frozen for a long time, watching the blackness as her eyelids grew heavier and heavier. Then the blackness moved. It crept a few inches from the corner, then slowly inched across toward the door along the white glow of the wall. A small tendril poked out from the rest of it like a huge bony finger. It nearly reached the light switch before she realized what it was doing.

“No! You can’t do that! Stop it!” Her voice wouldn’t reach across the room. The tendril snatched off the light, then grew to fill the room with its evil. It tried to suffocate her.

“No! Mom, stop the monster! Mom!” She couldn’t make any sound. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t even move her hands from her sides. The monster filled her mouth and nose and ears and slid over her face.

And then something changed. A warmth spread down her legs, wet and heavy, and the scream she had been trying to make finally broke through, loud and—

She woke up to find the light still on in the bedroom. The light snatched the monster away before she could see it. The door swung open, and Mom rushed in, her long hair tumbling across her face.

“Honey? Tedi, what is it?” Mom’s voice sounded strong. It sounded wonderful. She sat down on the edge of the bed and reached forward.

Tedi’s face contorted in tears, and she scooted forward into her mother’s embrace, hating the sharp smell that rose from the covers. She was too embarrassed to admit what she’d done, but still too scared to let go.

“It came again, Mom. He tried to get me again.”

“It’s okay. I’m here and he can’t get you now.” Mom’s grip was firm. She held Tedi and let her cry for a moment. “Come back to bed with me. I’ll keep that ol’ monster away from you.” She released Tedi and leaned back to look at her. “Okay with you?”

Tedi wiped her eyes and nose with the back of her hand and tried to keep the tears from falling, but her chin still trembled. “I can’t.” This was the third time since she’d been living with Mom that this…kind of accident had happened. She was sitting in a puddle of pee, and it was seeping everywhere. It felt awful, but how could she admit—

“Of course you can.” Mom straightened and stood from the bed, then reached down and pulled the comforter back. “Get your pajamas off and go clean up while I throw this bedding in the washer.”

The relief came strong and fast. Tedi looked down and grimaced. “How’d you know?”

“You never cry this hard over a bad dream.”

Tedi thought about that for a few seconds and realized that was right. Usually the dreams went away soon after she woke up.

“Besides,” Mom continued, “I know what urine smells like.” She sighed and shook her head, her dark eyes resting on Tedi’s face with sympathy and love. “It hurts worse when your whole body lets you down, doesn’t it?”

Tedi nodded.

“I know. It happened to me when I was eleven, too.”

“Does it still happen?”

Mom grinned. “Well, I don’t wet the bed anymore, but our bodies will always let us down. That’s why I decided to be a doctor. It’s a part of life.”

Tedi climbed out of the soggy sheets, taking care not to drip on the floor. “Does it have to be so embarrassing?”

“I always wondered that myself.” Mercy bent down and kissed Tedi’s forehead. “Come on. If we hurry we can catch a couple more hours of sleep before we have to get up and get you to school.”

Tedi grimaced as she peeled off her stinky pajamas. Today was Thursday, and Mr. Walters always gave tests on Thursday. She had to go to school. Mr. Walters constantly told her what a good job she did, not just on test days, but lots of times. He liked her, she could tell.

She ran into the bathroom and turned on the shower. Mom liked her, too. Parents were supposed to love their kids, but they didn’t always seem to like them or want to spend time with them. Tedi knew some kids at school whose parents didn’t seem to like them very much, and she felt sorry for them. That was what she’d felt like when she’d lived with Dad.

By the time Tedi was clean and dry and in fresh pajamas, she wasn’t scared anymore.

Mercy shoved the sheets into the washer with a little extra force, glad she’d decided to buy the protective mattress pad this summer. Tedi’s brilliant, wonderful, little-girl mind was working out some nightmare issues that nobody should ever have to face—issues Theodore Zimmerman had caused. And how would he have reacted to tonight’s mishap? With ridicule.

She slammed the lid on the washer. And now he thought he could just dance back into Tedi’s life and turn it upside down again. He was the most selfish, thoughtless—

“Mom?”

Mercy turned to find Tedi watching her from the laundry room door. “What, honey?”

“Are you mad at me for wetting the bed again?”

Mercy realized her jaws were set and she was gritting her teeth. “You’ve got to be kidding.” She made an attempt to relax her facial features into a smile and went over to put her arm around her daughter. “When have I ever been mad at you? You’re the most important person in my life.” She buried her face in Tedi’s hair and squeezed her close for a long moment. If only she could make the nightmares go away. “I hate to see you going through this. Come on. Let’s get to bed.” She walked with her arm around Tedi to the master bedroom.

Tedi was silent for a moment, then said, “You’re mad at Dad again, aren’t you?”

Oh boy. There was no hiding anything from this child. Mercy motioned for Tedi to crawl into the queen-size bed—a newly purchased luxury. “You’re far too discerning for an eleven-year-old.” She switched off the bedside lamp and reached over instinctively to tuck the covers around Tedi’s shoulders.

“Will you always be mad at him?” Tedi asked into the darkness.

Mercy was tempted to tell Tedi to just go to sleep and stop worrying so much. But Tedi would keep worrying, and Mercy knew how that felt. Her own mom had done the same thing to her. Of course, Ivy had not only been a mother but a shield for Mercy when Dad got drunk, and sometimes a punching bag.

And after all that, Mercy had married a guy just like him.

“So will you, Mom? Always be mad at Dad?”

She had to be honest. “I don’t know.”

There was a long silence, and Mercy had just decided Tedi had fallen asleep, when the small voice came again.

“Will I?”

Mercy winced at the quivering sound of her daughter’s voice. “I don’t know, honey. For your sake, I hope not.”

“Me, too. Grandma says we should always be able to forgive people who hurt us, or we’ll just be hurt worse. I don’t know what she means by that.”

“Well, medically speaking, when we harbor anger within ourselves it hurts us physically. It makes us sick, gives us ulcers, and scientists are discovering a lot of other things it can do.” And why was she lying here filling Tedi’s head with more things to worry about? She glanced at the lighted numbers of her clock. It was four-thirty in the morning. She didn’t feel up to a deep philosophical discussion.

“I asked Grandma how you’re supposed to forgive someone.” Apparently Tedi was in a philosophical mood.

“What did she say?” Mercy asked.

“She said it’s a hard thing to do without God’s help. Grandma uses God’s help a lot.”

Three months ago Mercy would have been irritated by her mother’s attempts to indoctrinate Tedi into her spiritual thought processes. Funny how things could change in such a short time. Mom had been a Christian for the past five years, and there seemed to be a peace about her that wasn’t there when Mercy was growing up. The peace seemed to increase with time, and Mom seemed to grow stronger, even through Grandma’s horrible cancer and death this spring, and Mom’s own heart problems, and the horror and helplessness of seeing Theodore mistreat Tedi.

Mom’s God was also Lukas’s God. After many talks with Lukas about it, Mercy had recently begun to consider the possibility that she might be interested in getting to know more about Him. But why would He want to get to know her? Her skepticism still ran deep.

Still, there was something about Christianity—not with every person who claimed the belief, but with enough people that she couldn’t help noticing the difference. And lately she felt surrounded by those people. Even Arthur Collins, in the midst of all his pain the other day, had prayed for her. She’d thought about it often….

“Mom?”

Mercy’s eyes flew open in the darkness, and she realized she’d dozed off. “Mmm-hmm?”

“Has Dad talked to you yet?”

Okay, that was a powerful wake-up. “Yes, Tedi.” And how did Tedi know about that? What was going on here? Remain calm. “Did he talk to you?”

“Yes. He came to the school the other day to spy on me. Abby saw him standing in the trees, and she made me go talk to him.”

“She made you?”

“Well, you know, she talked me into it.”

Mercy kept her breathing even, rehearsing the speech she would give Tedi and Abby on peer pressure later. What was Theodore up to?

“He asked if he could see me.”

Tedi didn’t say anything else for a moment, probably trying to determine how much more she could safely share. Mercy knew she had been far too indiscreet in the past about her bitterness toward Theo.

Mercy waited until she felt she could control her voice sufficiently, then asked, “How do you feel about that, honey?”

“I don’t know. He apologized.” Tedi paused for a moment. “He’s done that a lot of times before, hasn’t he, Mom?”

“Yes.”

“But Grandma’s always talking about how we should be willing to forgive over and over again. I forget how many times, but it’s a lot.” She hesitated. “Do you want me to see him?”

No! Never again! Why couldn’t he just cease to exist? If he truly realized the damage he had done to Tedi, why didn’t he leave the state and never come back? The truth as Mercy saw it was that he still didn’t care who else he hurt. He just wanted to charm his way back into their lives.

“Do you, Mom?”

Mercy sighed. It was far too early in the morning for this discussion. “I want to do what’s right for you. Unfortunately, I don’t know what that is right now. I think I’ll hold off on a decision until you and I can make it together and be more sure about how we feel.”

Tedi let out a little sigh, and Mercy could tell she’d given the right answer for the moment. Minutes later, the deep, even breathing of a somnolent child whispered through the room. Mercy relaxed.

But she did not sleep. Fear and anger filled her mind. If not for Tedi, this hatred wouldn’t have such a stranglehold. Mom kept talking to Tedi about the concept of forgiveness, but that was such a foreign concept when it came to her embittered relationship with Theo. Would it ever be possible? Was it even advisable?

At six o’clock Thursday morning Lukas finally awoke to an intermittent alarm and reached out toward the bedside table to slap the off button. The shutoff didn’t work. He hit it again, but it kept ringing. He opened nearsighted eyes, put on his glasses and realized he’d been abusing the call room telephone. He picked up the receiver.

Claudia, the RN on duty, didn’t wait for him to say anything. “Good morning, Dr. Bower.” Her mellow alto voice was pleasant and soothing, as it always was with patients. She knew how to tread lightly with a deadhead in the morning. “You’ve had at least four good hours of uninterrupted sleep, and it’s time for you to get to work.”

He slowly pushed the blankets back with his free hand. “Yes, Mother.”

“Don’t get smart with me, young man.” Lukas could hear the matronly nurse smiling through her words. “We’ve got an eleven-year-old girl in exam room three who is covered in blood and needs your attention. Looks like she’s been playing jump rope with barbed wire. Her parents are in worse emotional shape than she is.”

“I’ll be right there.” Lukas replaced the receiver and climbed out of bed, combing his hair with his fingers as he stumbled out of the room. Maybe Claudia had gotten really smart and brewed some of that typical E.R. coffee that took fifteen cubes of sugar to kill the taste.

After reading Claudia’s initial assessment, he entered the exam room to discover that, as usual, the nurse had not exaggerated her description. The eleven-year-old girl, Abby Cuendet, lay on the exam bed in pink pajamas with bloody rips in both legs. Lots of blood. Lukas frowned.

Abby tensed when she saw Lukas come in, and her dark eyes, behind thick-framed glasses, did not leave his face. Her parents, a young couple looking tear-streaked and shaky, hovered at her left side, and they, too, had blood on their clothes. Claudia worked on the other side of the bed, taking vitals and gently removing the pajama bottoms.

“Hello, I’m Dr. Bower.” Lukas stepped over to the parents and held out his hand.

They introduced themselves, separately, as Jason Cuendet and Lindy Cuendet. Not Mr. and Mrs. Cuendet.

“I’ll be checking Abby out this morning,” he said, noting as they shook his hand that they avoided getting close to each other. “Can you tell me what happened?”

Lindy shot her husband a sharp glance before she answered. “Abby got up earlier than usual this morning, and we didn’t know she was awake. She went out to feed the dog, and she got caught in a broken roll of barbed wire we had out back.” Her eyes narrowed at her husband. “Jason just had to bring it home because it was such a good bargain.”

Her husband didn’t reply, but his chin jutted out and his face flushed with barely restrained anger.

Lukas smiled at Abby. “You’re Tedi’s best friend from school.”

Abby’s face brightened and she nodded. “You recognized me.”

“Of course. Tedi talks about you all the time, and I remember you from the school picnic a couple of weeks ago.”

“Tedi’s supposed to spend the night with me tonight,” Abby informed him.

“Well, we’ll just have to get you all fixed up so you can do that.” He watched Claudia set up the suture tray, and he saw Abby’s eyes widen with fear.

He bent over the wounds. “Now, don’t worry, Abby. I’m just going to see what these look like right now.” She had three gashes on her left leg below her knee and one on her right ankle. They didn’t look as bad as Lukas had expected from all the blood. They weren’t deep puncture wounds, which was good, but they were fairly gapped, and a couple of them would need two-layer closures.

He bent to examine one of the gashes more closely, and Abby winced.

Her mother inhaled sharply, then let out a low moan. “I can’t do this,” she muttered and rushed out of the room with her hand over her mouth.

Lukas let her go. It was easier on the child for the parent to leave the room than to pass out or become sick right there by the bed. He returned to the wounds, noting with concern that there was still some active bleeding, but since there was no involvement of the muscle, he didn’t worry too much about it.

“Jason, when was Abby’s last tetanus shot?” he asked. “Does she have any drug allergies that you know of?”

The man glanced at the wounds, then at Lukas, looking helpless. “I’ll have to go ask Lindy.” He left to find his wife.

Lukas gave Claudia instructions for skin prep and topical anesthetic, then left to get more information from the parents. He had just reached the central desk when he heard low, angry voices in the entrance to the first trauma room.

“You have to blame me for everything, don’t you?” Jason Cuendet spat. “But you can’t even be there for your own daughter when she needs you most.”

“You know how I hate the sight of blood. I just can’t stand to see her like this.”

“It’s always about you, isn’t it? Why don’t you think of somebody besides yourself for once?”

“That’s precious, coming from you. When do you ever think of—”

Lukas cleared his throat. “Um, excuse me, I’m sorry to interrupt. Is Abby’s tetanus up to date?”

In a voice still filled with anger, Lindy replied that it was.

“Good,” Lukas said. “And how about drug or antibiotic allergies?”

Lindy shook her head, glaring at her husband.

Lukas took a couple of cautious steps closer to the couple. He hated interfering in what appeared to be a deep-rooted family dispute, but he often saw parents blame each other when a child was injured, and it always made the situation worse.

“Your daughter is going to be fine. We’ll stitch her up and have her out of here in good time. Has Abby had other accidents like this?”

Jason switched his brooding gaze from his wife to Lukas. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Oh, stop it, Jason,” Lindy snapped. “You’re always trying to start something with somebody.” She turned to Lukas. “She fell and cut her knee at school last year. That’s when she had the tetanus shot.”

“When was the last time her eyes were checked?” Lukas asked. “I had to have my glasses changed frequently when I was her age, and I was always tripping over things.” He saw Jason relax. The suspicion of child abuse never seemed to be far from anyone’s mind lately.

As they talked about that, he slowly led them back toward Abby’s room, where Claudia had everything ready to go.

“It’ll be okay,” he assured Abby and her parents as he washed his hands and gloved.

But when he turned back to Abby, Lindy walked out into the hallway again.

Her husband’s loud, disgusted sigh filled the exam room. “I don’t believe this,” he muttered.

Abby tensed, and Lukas repressed a strong urge to ask him to leave, as well. At times like this he had to remind himself that he needed to learn more patience. Looked like Jason Cuendet could use some, too.

He picked up the anesthesia syringe. “Claudia says I’m not too bad with stitches, and she wouldn’t say anything nice about me if she didn’t have to.” He shot the nurse a teasing glance, then redirected his focus to Abby. “If the sight of blood bothers you, why don’t you just look the other way?”

Abby shook her head. “I’m used to it. I’ve had some nosebleeds.”

“Why don’t we play my favorite Popsicle game?” Ordinarily Lukas didn’t use this tactic with a child as old as Abby, but she could be a little less secure than others her age. Her parents were behaving quite immaturely, and he found himself wondering if they acted like this all the time. “If these shots hurt after the first little sting, you let me know and you get a Popsicle. What flavor do you like?”

Abby looked from him to the nurse, her lips pressed together, eyes narrowed, as if making a monumental decision. “Grape.”

“I think we have that, don’t we, Claudia?”

Claudia grinned at the girl. “Sure do.”

“Good.” He raised the syringe once more. “Now, we’ll numb you up, and everything will go smoothly. Abby, you can’t watch me when I do it, because that would be cheating.”

She turned her head and looked away, but her father hovered in an almost-threatening stance, watching every move Lukas made.

Lukas slid the point of the needle just underneath the edge of the skin cut.

“What’re you doing it like that for?” Cuendet snapped. “Trying to kill the kid?”

Abby whimpered and drew back.

Lukas shot an irritated glance at the father, fighting the urge to plunge the needle into the wrong person. “Due to the nerve endings on the noninjured skin,” he snapped, then took a breath and tried to slow his words and his annoyance, “it’s actually more painful to inject through the skin surface. As long as the wound is not grossly contaminated, I prefer to do this so it won’t hurt the child.” He looked more closely at the man’s pale, moist skin. “We have a water cooler and some paper towels out in the waiting room. Would you want to step outside for a moment?”

The man shook his head, but he didn’t hover so close to his daughter. Lukas had barely stitched the first cut when Jason took a deep breath, released it and walked out of the room.

With both parents gone, Claudia managed to divert Abby’s attention from the procedure. She asked about Abby’s brother and sister and encouraged her to talk about her favorite sport, baseball. Then Abby’s attention caught and held on something past the open threshold of the exam room. Her eyes widened, and she stared for a long moment.

“I don’t need that grape Popsicle now,” she said at last, her voice soft, almost reverent.

Lukas finished tying off a stitch. “I’m that good, huh?” He winked at Claudia.

“That’s not it.”

Claudia laughed.

Abby looked back at the sutures Lukas had placed, then looked up at him. “I’m too old for stuff like that. You won’t tell Tedi how scared I was, will you?”

“Of course not. You don’t act scared now.”

“Nope. Mom and Dad are more scared than I am.”

“I noticed.”

“At least I didn’t get in trouble for making them miss work. I guess all that blood got to them. Wait’ll I show Tedi my stitches. Are you going to marry Dr. Mercy?”

Lukas nearly dropped the needle driver he was using. “What?”

“She likes you. She always talks about you, and so does Tedi. You’d sure be a better father than Tedi’s real father was.”

He glanced at Claudia, who was at least keeping her laughter to herself.

“Are you sure you don’t want a Popsicle?” he urged. Children were growing up too fast these days. “Aren’t sixth-graders supposed to still like Popsicles?”

Abby shrugged. “Nah, I’m not hungry.” She glanced again out the exam room entrance.

Lukas looked up to see what she was watching and caught sight of Abby’s parents standing side by side, and Jason had his arm around Lindy’s shoulders.

“I should get stitches more often,” Abby murmured.

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