Her Mistletoe Miracle. Roz Fox Denny
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this patient was just admitted.” He gave Hana’s name. As he did so, he remembered Kari. It wouldn’t be right to buy flowers for one and not the other. In a case behind the counter he saw a vase full of fall foliage and red flowers. “Uh, that bouquet, could you send it upstairs, too?” Mick supplied Kari’s name, hoping he’d spelled Dombroski right.
The clerk lifted an eyebrow. “What a shame that two of your lady friends were hospitalized at the same time.” She wrote instructions on a delivery tag, but watched Mick from under her lashes. Apparently he’d interested her.
He could’ve put an end to her curiosity, but didn’t. He swiped his credit card, signed the bill and pocketed the receipt. Mick walked out and went straight to the elevator.
He’d spent a week on this same ward, he realized when he stepped off the car. He hated confinement, and hadn’t been the most cheerful patient, even though he’d received plenty of extra attention from several nurses. Especially Tammy Skidmore, who had slipped him her home phone number the day he’d checked out. Marlee had met Tammy several times. His sister liked the nurse and still bugged him periodically to ask Tammy for a date. Which Mick had not done.
Tonight, he found himself hoping she wasn’t on duty. She was nice enough, but she hadn’t shot up his interest antennae. Not like Hana did.
Mick scanned the nurses’ station. Four of them sat at the L-shaped desk in the glassed enclosure. Mick recognized one. Rosemary Dubuque. Privately, Mick had dubbed her Rosie the Riveter, because she was the one who most often delivered his nightly pain medication, and popped him with a needle in his butt none too gently. And all too gleefully, it seemed to Mick.
She looked up when Mick strolled to the counter. “Well, if it isn’t our pretty boy pilot. Don’t tell me you’ve finally come hunting for Tammy after going off and breaking her heart?”
That comment had the other nurses giving Mick the once-over.
“Actually, Rosemary, I flew two fallen climbers off a Glacier peak. I’d like to see how they’re getting along. I want to be sure they’ve been able to reach their relatives.” Mick wrote their names on the visitors’ sign-in sheet. “Frankly, I doubt my not calling Tammy broke her up all that much.”
“You’re right. In fact, if you’re interested,” she said, getting out of her chair to turn the clipboard around so she could read the names, “our Tammy no longer works here. She met a long-haul trucker and quit her job a month ago. They’re traveling the States in his eighteen-wheeler.”
That surprised Mick, but he was relieved. “Good for her. If you talk to her sometime, give her my best.”
“Humph! These two you’re asking about are still with doctors. Nothing’s come down to us yet except their admitting forms. No way to tell how long they’ll be tied up.” That was a broad hint for Mick to leave.
A delivery man from the gift shop strode up to the desk and plunked down the two vases of flowers Mick had purchased. Rosemary broke off, taking time out to sign for the bouquets. She inspected the cards stuck on plastic posts. “Well, aren’t you the Casanova? I must say, you do spread your charm around.” She set the vases behind the counter. “Someone will see that your ladies get these as soon as they’re assigned rooms. As I was about to say, if I were you, I wouldn’t hang around and wait.”
“You aren’t me. I’ll be in the waiting room. Please have someone notify me when Hana gets to a room. And Kari,” he added a half beat later.
Nurse Rosie might not have responded except that Mick didn’t budge from his spot until she nodded her assent.
He made his way to the visitor’s lounge at the end of the hall and chose a seat in full view of any comings and goings. Mick knew Rosemary had never approved of the younger nurses like Tammy smuggling in forbidden food during his sojourn. Since there was no love lost between him and the night supervisor, he intended to look out for his own interests and keep watch.
He picked up an outdated magazine, and though he read a lot and usually enjoyed catching up on world news, he couldn’t concentrate. The slightest noise in the hall drew his attention away from the article. Then his thoughts would stray to Hana, and he would wonder what was taking so long. Mick didn’t want to consider all that could go wrong with her slender back. She was small-boned and probably not more than five-two in hiking boots. She was a natural strawberry blond who never seemed to fuss over her looks. For her coloring, she tanned well, he’d noticed. Spunky, she was quick to debate without holding a grudge. He also knew she listened well, and he loved her bell-like laugh. Hana just came in a great package.
What kept Mick glued to the uncomfortable chair in the waiting room was the clear memory of pain turning her whiskey-gold eyes to a shadowy amber. Pain he’d made worse by rolling her over.
Mick heard the squeak of a wheelchair, and rose when he saw an orderly wheeling Kari Dombroski down the hall. Two nurses joined them, and the four disappeared into a room directly across from the nursing station. He set aside the magazine and paced, knowing the staff wouldn’t like it if he barged into the room before they got Kari settled.
He saw the orderly back out with the wheelchair. Mick prepared to leave the waiting area, but a door on the side wall of the waiting room swished open and a gray-haired doctor wearing surgical scrubs approached Mick with purpose.
“I’m Dr. Black. Royce Black.” He consulted a chart clipped to a board. “A nurse said you were waiting, Mr.…Egan.” He went on before Mick could raise an objection. “I won’t mince words. It may be weeks before your wife will walk again. Between my assistant and myself, we managed to relieve the pressure on her spinal cord, and we pieced her pelvis together. She suffered lateral compression and minimal vertical shear injuries to the entire pelvic ring.”
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