LITMIR.BIZ

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expert.”

      Rikki sputtered a laugh. “Can’t your wife help?” She glanced at his empty ring finger, but that didn’t necessarily mean anything these days. What if she’d said the wrong thing?

      His casual expression changed along with the tone of his voice. No longer jovial, he spoke softly. “I’m a single father.”

      She’d gone and done it again, taken a friendly conversation and ruined it, just like her last foster-mother had told her. “You always ruin things, Rachel Johansen. Learn to keep your mouth shut. You’re lucky to have a place to live.”

      She restarted the movie and wished she could disappear.

      “What are we watching?” Dr. Hendricks sounded like himself again. Was he giving her a second chance to put her Mary Jane clad foot into her mouth? Well, if he thought her style of dress was strange, he was bound to make fun of her quirky choice in movies.

      “Monty Python,” she mumbled.

      He grinned. “Good choice. I see we’re members of the same cult.”

      She looked at him with surprise. He winked, and a quick flutter burst across her chest. Positive the simple gesture hadn’t meant anything to him, she wished she could resist his charm half as easily.

      Nurse Sheila came by and checked both of their arms. “Are these IVs OK for you two?”

      Rikki nodded and smiled.

      Dr. Hendricks glanced at one of his arms. “’Tis but a flesh wound,” he said with a poor excuse for a British accent.

      Rikki’s quiet laugh drew his attention. She saw that spark in his gaze again, and it jolted her. Thick dark lashes that any woman would die for lined the green of his eyes. If it weren’t for the fact that he wore small wire-framed glasses, he’d be flawless. But wasn’t that part of what she liked so much about him, the fact that he wasn’t quite perfect?

      The next time he made her feel nervous at work, she’d just imagine him sitting on the floor, legs crossed, playing dolls with two little pixies. Her mouth twitched at the corners.

      Rikki relaxed. And if he enjoyed the humor of Monty Python, he just might understand her quirky personality. Something about that possibility made her break into a smile.

      He caught her. They grinned at each other, and her heart broke into another tap dance. The quick rush made her mildly giddy, and she liked it. And there was that look again.

      “I believe,” he said, removing his glasses and looking steadily into her eyes, “I owe you an apology.”

      CHAPTER TWO

      AFTER a day off on Friday when Rikki rested, rehydrated herself, and spent quality time with Brenden, she arrived at work on Saturday morning invigorated and ready for duty. It was a hell of a way to spend her birthday, but she didn’t have any other plans. The call light in 408 was already on at the nurses’ station—the fractured pelvis lady.

      Rikki flopped her clipboard on the counter and headed for the room. Her hunch was right and she discovered the usual suspect on the call light. But the woman wore a worried expression, and pointed towards her roommate, the fractured femur in bed B.

      She rushed to the restless and coughing patient.

      “What’s up, Mrs. Turner?”

      The woman squirmed and pulled at her hospital gown. Her left leg, suspended by traction and a splint, had been healing beautifully, considering the hardware sticking out of it. She hadn’t complained of pain the day before yesterday when Rikki had last taken care of her.

      No one had mentioned any complications with her condition in report, yet here she was, clearly in distress. Rikki needed to figure out what to do.

      “Are you all right?”

      The woman nodded her head and fussed with the sheets on her bed, trying to adjust her position but unable to move much with the traction holding her in place.

      As it was the beginning of the shift, Rikki took vital signs. Mrs. Turner had an elevated temp and her pulse rate was close to one hundred. She breathed as though she was anxious, short and shallow. There was no obvious sign of infection at the surgical site.

      Something caught Rikki’s attention when the woman tugged on the neck of her hospital gown. A sprinkling of small purplish spots dotted the surface of her chest. Rikki peeked inside the loose short sleeve of the gown, where more spots could be seen under her arm and on the side of her breast. It wasn’t a rash. A mental red flag went up.

      “May I look in your eyes, Mrs. Turner?”

      The agitated woman nodded.

      Rikki gently pulled down the lower lid and discovered a few more of the same sort of spots inside the eye membrane. Another red flag.

      “I need to call your doctor, but in the meantime I’m giving you some oxygen.” She pulled the two-pronged plastic tubing out of the bedside bag and connected it to the wall oxygen, then fitted it inside the patient’s nose. “I’ll be right back.”

      She rushed past the roommate, thanking her on her way out while dredging up well-learned data from nursing school.

      Fat embolism was a complication that sometimes occurred with severe multiple fractures, especially of long bones. Mrs. Turner had a fractured femur. Fat globules could be released from the fracture into the bloodstream and act the same as blood clots, which could migrate to the lungs, heart, or brain. If not dealt with immediately, they could prove lethal.

      Rikki grabbed the patient’s chart, remembering Dr. Hendricks was her doctor. Flipping quickly through the hospital phone book, she found his private line and dialed. She’d try calling him before the on-call doctor.

      “Dr. Hendricks,” he answered gruffly on the first ring.

      “Doctor?” She was surprised he was in his office on a Saturday instead of in surgery. “Mrs. Turner in 408B has developed petechiae across her chest and inside her eyes. She’s restless and her temperature and respirations are elevated. I’m worried it might be fat embolism. Can you take a look at her or shall I call your on-call resident?”

      “I’ll be right there.” He hung up before Rikki could explain why she hadn’t thought to call the doctor on duty—because she’d become flustered and her mind had gone blank when she’d seen whose patient Mrs. Turner was. Rikki rushed back to the patient’s room to check the oxygen saturation, which to her relief was in the normal range.

      Dr. Hendricks appeared out of nowhere, winded and ready for business, as though he’d taken the stairs from his first-floor office rather than wait for the notoriously slow elevator. His sandy dark blond hair looked disheveled, and his white doctor’s coat wasn’t buttoned.

      “Mrs. Turner.” He slowed his pace and had a calm smile on his face, though his breathlessness gave his sprint away. “How are you feeling today?”

      “OK, I guess.”

      As he casually questioned his patient, he looked under her lids and peered down the neck of her gown, confirming what Rikki had told him. “Are you having any chest pain or trouble breathing?”

      Mrs. Turner shook her head. “I’m just antsy. You know, anxious, because I’ve been stuck in this bed too long.”

      “I’d go a little stir-crazy, too, if I were you.” He nodded at Rikki while he listened to Mrs. Turner’s lungs through his stethoscope. “Take a deep breath,” he told the patient. “Does it hurt when you breathe?”

      “No, I just feel like I need to cough.”

      “Let’s get a blood gas, stat,” he said to Rikki. “How is her urine output?”

      “Um…” Rikki hadn’t thought to check her intake and output, and Mrs. Turner hadn’t asked to use a fracture pan yet that morning.

      He didn’t wait

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