The Doctor's Devotion. Cheryl Wyatt
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Same attraction that had jolted them earlier. Mitch hadn’t counted on this distraction.
Therefore his inner guard better be on its best behavior.
Lauren was profoundly attractive in pictures Lem so proudly displayed, but exponentially more beautiful in person. Her eyes were so unique he could barely look away. Mitch diverted attention to Lem, who watched him studying Lauren with peculiar interest. Lem’s grin heated Mitch’s neck.
He shifted uncomfortably at the podium, unable to recall the last time he’d blushed.
“To-day, Dr. Wellington.” Kate gave a dramatic sigh.
Though the sash-cutting delay was staged by request of news camera crews, Mitch’s team joined the crowd in genuine laughter.
Getting cues from reporters to continue the stall, Mitch pivoted. “If I had a scalpel rather than these turn-of-the-century scissors, I’d be set.”
Kate’s eyebrow cocked. Having worked with her in Afghanistan performing combat surgeries, he knew the look.
Mitch turned his palm up. “Scalpel?” He used his official surgeon voice. Kate produced the stainless-steel instrument.
The crowd went wild. Cheers and clapping abounded. Jubilation escalated when Kate raised the blade and saluted the building’s flag with it. The curved edge glinted in sunlight.
“Scalpel,” she repeated per surgery protocol and gently smacked its handle into Mitch’s palm.
How he loved that feeling. Only, this was epic. The moment turned surreal. Mitch hardly believed they were standing at the newly built trauma center, set to open part-time the first of next month. Seventeen days, and his team’s battlefield dream would become reality.
Next the mayor started a speech about how the center would bring their town economy-reviving revenue.
Mitch’s gaze drifted to the building, an undeniable answer to prayer. Awe for God engulfed him as he studied the magnificent steel-and-glass structure. It took his breath away, because despite titanium faith, he was a frontline fighter who’d wondered if he’d ever live to see this day.
Thank You, God, for bringing us through and to.
His eyes caressed a scripture etched above the Eagle Point Emergency entrance logo. A battlefield promise he’d clung to and prayed over every service member his scalpel came in contact with. His architect cousin had engraved it on the building: “The Lord turn his face toward you and give you peace. Numbers 6:26”
Speech ended, the mayor left the podium.
Ian Shupe, Mitch’s best friend and head anesthesiologist on his trauma team, stepped up and pulled the ribbon taut. “Ready?”
Mitch drew an elated breath and inhaled pure joy. “Ready.”
“Don’t amputate your fingers.” Ian slid his hands farther apart and grinned, evoking more crowd laughter. “Or mine.”
Mitch chuckled and set scalpel to ribbon, camouflage to celebrate the team’s war-veteran status.
He opened his mouth to utter the dedication, but sounds of distantly approaching helicopters ripped wings from his words. Probably news choppers.
Mitch didn’t look because he really didn’t fancy the notion of slicing or suturing his best friend’s finger.
That instant, Ian’s hands went lax. The uncut ribbon fluttered like a feather to the ground. Mitch looked up at Ian.
But Ian wasn’t looking at the fallen ribbon.
He stared at the sky. And he definitely wasn’t smiling.
Mitch turned, saw what Ian saw and straightened. Sheathed the scalpel and handed it to Kate, who said, “Hey, are those…?”
“Trauma choppers,” Mitch finished for her.
“What a show!” a crowd member yelled. Mitch and Ian stared at the two incoming helicopters. Medical, not news.
If this was part of the show, Mitch had missed the memo. He faced Ian. “You set this up?”
“No, you?” Ian followed Mitch, who stepped off the stage. They headed toward an adjacent field where the choppers seemed destined to land within minutes.
“What, have mock trauma teams come?” Mitch shook his head, adrenaline surging. “No. This is no drill. This is the real deal.”
Chapter Two
Mitch and his sparse trauma crew sprinted toward the field. Reporters and onlookers chased.
“Stay back!” Mitch commanded the engulfing crowd. Lauren skidded in her steps. Did she think he meant her?
He waved her to follow, but she froze in place. Her wind-tousled fiery hair rose up from her face like a crown of silken flames. Remarkable emerald eyes darted awkwardly between him and the landing choppers. Abject terror wrestled other emotions on her face. She was concerned. Conflicted. Stricken.
His heart was full of compassion for her as it had been in the car when she’d mentioned the tragic way her parents had died.
Lem once told him that she’d been traumatized by not knowing how to help her parents she’d found barely breathing. That tragedy birthed her dream to become a nurse who had moonlighted as a CPR coach so other families wouldn’t have to live her nightmare.
Mitch didn’t make a habit of questioning God, but what a terrible twist of fate it had been for sweet Lauren to lose her first patient off her obstetrics orientation a year ago.
Lem said the subsequent lawsuit also raked Lauren over the coals. Mitch knew because Lem, in his love of telling stories concerning Lauren, had left nothing out.
According to Lem, the ordeal had so devastated her, she had not only bolted from nursing, she had pulled away from God, faith, friends and family. Then wrapped herself up in her only other skill—sewing. Something Lauren’s mom had taught her and was their special mother-daughter connection before her mom died.
Mitch’s heart broke for Lauren now, seeing in person the unleashed emotion on her face. The unshackled fight-or-flight reaction in her eyes. He knew it.
That instant a veil lifted, allowing Mitch to see the huge gaping wounds Lauren’s own trauma had left her with. Hurts she had yet to be healed from.
The moment suspended Mitch in time and made him wish for words that would heal and not harm.
For Lem, Mitch wanted like crazy to comfort her but he’d have others to focus on soon. He couldn’t be everywhere at once.
But Someone could.
Jesus, rescue her. Show her the truth. Draw her back.
No idea what the last phrase encompassed, but that’s the prayer that pressed out of him so he let it fly.
He maintained eye contact with Lauren as long as possible to keep stride and still send visual cues that she was not only welcome to help, but worthy and needed.
Apparently misinterpreting his directive gaze, she whirled toward the encroaching crowd. “Cameras off!” Lauren yelled above chopper noise to reporters. “They may have real victims here.”
They? By that word, Mitch knew Lauren no longer thought of herself as part of the medical community, which saddened him.
Nevertheless, the authority in her voice impressed him because even the most aggressive reporters complied instantly.
The crowd stopped as one unit and fell back in silence. Concern infiltrated faces. Mass murmurs rose.
Mitch trudged forward. “I hope this is someone’s idea of a very bad joke,” he told Ian. Ian’s jaw clenched as he nodded.
But when a crew medic jumped from the chopper before it fully landed, Mitch knew with