I pursed my lips. “Well, Curtis can mind his own damned business, and you…” I pointed my finger at him. “You do not make me smile.”
His grin grew larger. “So, you like me?”
I opened the door and walked past the nurse’s station. Thank goodness it was only Curtis.
“Ma’am.” His eyes were the size of saucers.
“Curtis.” Embarrassed, I walked past him without making eye contact, out through the lobby, and to my car.
I drove home, wide awake now. No sense in going back to bed. When I reached the cabin, I put on a pot of coffee and took Todd out for a walk. It wouldn’t be light out for another five hours. I sighed.
Falling asleep at the clinic last night was dumb. I needed to apologize to Brett. Visiting him had been highly inappropriate and nothing I had ever done. Or should have even done.
I took my time getting ready for work. I sat at my loft desk, pulled up my calendar for the day, and saw that I only had two patients. One at ten, and the other at one. The ER doctor would check on Brett this morning. That gave me time to catch up on a white paper I’d been working on.
By the time I got to work at 9:30, morning twilight had turned the sky into a kaleidoscope of blue and pink and orange. The sun had yet to crest over the top of the mountain. The town was shaded in gray, the snow was quiet tones of blue before the brightening white of the day. Porch lights shone through the trees along the road.
After my first patient, I sat at my desk, looking up at the snow-covered mountains, daydreaming.
I’d spent the last few years being so controlled. I was a rational person. I followed rules, for the most part. I was logical and predictable. My life was safe here. I didn’t like the irrational way I was behaving. Kissing a man I’d spoken to for only a few hours. Spending the night at the hospital with a patient. And wanting to touch him. To kiss him. To just let go. But I didn’t know him well enough to trust him. A part of me was cracking open and I didn’t like not knowing how it would end. Would he break my heart, too? Or would he catch me?
Not liking the swirling direction of my thoughts, I stood abruptly from my office chair and went downstairs to the emergency room to check on Brett.
A young boy had been brought in for a cut to his chin. Apparently, he’d tripped on the driveway at the lodge. The day nurse was getting him stitched up.
The patient screen above the nurse’s station was empty except for the boy.
“Where is Mr.Barringer?” I asked the nurse on duty.
“He left this morning. Just walked out.”
I stared at her in surprise. “He just left?”
She shrugged. “He was packing his things when I went in for rounds this morning. I asked him to wait for you, that you would want to make sure he was ok. But he said he felt fine and didn’t need an official discharge. I couldn’t really stop him. He just walked out.”
“Did someone pick him up?”
She shrugged again.
“You didn’t help him?”
She flushed. “He didn’t seem to need any.”
“He’s a patient.” I said, a little more loudly than I should have.
“I’m sorry, Dr.Cain. He just kind of ignored me.”
I sighed and reached my hand over the counter. “His chart, please?”
She handed me his folder. I opened it and read the last entry from Curtis: blood pressure 110/74, oxygen 98. The chart notes stated the patient felt fine; vision was fine; sternum pain minimal. There was nothing that would have caused me to keep him here.
I snapped the folder shut and handed it back to the her. “Thank you. You can officially discharge him and send the updates to his team doctor.”
My second patient cancelled. They wanted to get ready for the winter solstice party. Even my receptionist could hardly sit still. Every time I walked by her desk, she was on the phone with someone, either making plans, giving instructions or talking about her outfit.
In Colorado, the winter solstice simply meant that Christmas was four days away. In Alaska, it meant there would be more daylight every day from then on. Only a minute or two every day until June, but in this land of what felt like eternal darkness, a minute was everything.
Eventually, I just sent her home.