His back teeth snapped together. “The reason for her breakdown didn’t matter then,” he uttered slowly and concisely. “Nor does it have any bearing on the issue now.”
The way in which the older nurse was eyeing him, Luke got the impression she’d like to spit a few salty words at him. Instead, she turned back to the desk as though to say her job was far more important than dealing with his demands.
Picking up a clipboard and pen, she said crisply, “Naturally you would have that attitude. You’re a man. You wouldn’t understand the deep pull of a woman’s maternal instincts.”
Maternal! Before he’d caught Paige crying, there hadn’t been any children visit the emergency unit. She couldn’t have been crying over a sick baby or an adolescent. Unless Helen was implying in a roundabout way that Paige was pregnant! No! Surely that couldn’t be!
“Helen, it might be helpful if you would explain that cryptic remark.”
“I think you should be having this conversation with Nurse Winters. Not me.”
He wasn’t going to have any more conversations with Paige, he thought crossly. She’d clearly made her choice to move on. Away from him. Away from the ER. If she’d gotten involved with some man and gotten herself pregnant, then he didn’t want to know about it. And he definitely didn’t want to think about it.
“Can you kindly explain if you have another nurse lined up to take Nurse Winters’s place? The unit was already short-handed on nurses.”
“I’m working on that, Dr. Sherman. Just give me a bit more time. Filling Paige’s shoes isn’t going to be easy, you know.”
Before he could make a retort, the telephone rang and Helen excused herself to answer it. Luke didn’t wait around to see if her conversation was going to be brief. He figured Helen had already spoken her piece on the matter.
Determined to put Paige and the whole incident out of his mind, he turned on his heel and started back to the treatment area. Yet as he passed the elevator used exclusively for ER patients, he suddenly wondered what Paige would think if he did show up on the third floor.
Would she tell him to go jump in the lake? Or apologize for calling him a bastard?
The nagging questions were rolling through his thoughts when the corner of his eye caught a flash of movement and he looked around to see Nurse Honanie motioning to him.
“Dr. Sherman, the paramedics are bringing in a patient with stroke symptoms,” she called to him.
Hurrying forward, he promised himself he’d think about Paige Winters later. Right now saving a life was his only priority.
Friday morning after Paige had finished her night shift, she was walking across the parking lot to her car when she heard a familiar voice calling to her.
Pausing, she glanced over her shoulder to see Chavella hurrying to catch up to her. The young woman had changed out of her scrubs and into a pair of jeans and a shirt. Her coal-black hair bounced against her back as she trotted across the asphalt. She was so very young and beautiful, yet tragedy had wiped away too much of her youthful spirit when her fiancé had been killed in a freak construction accident. Paige had often wished Chavella would meet a man who would fill the emptiness in her life, but so far she’d shown no interest in forgetting her late fiancé.
“Hey, sweetie!” Paige called to her. “On your way home?”
Chavella nodded as she came to a stop at Paige’s side. “Yes, what about you?”
“Me, too. In fact, I have the next two nights off. I’m still pinching myself to make sure I’m not dreaming.”
The young nurse’s dark eyes widened. “Two nights off? Are you kidding?”
“No. Seems the internal-medicine floor has plenty of nurses to rotate. And my break just happened to fall this weekend.”
Chavella shrugged. “Lucky you. We’re still short-handed, so none of us are expecting days off.”
“Oh. You mean Helen hasn’t replaced me yet?”
“Three different nurses have come in for the past three nights. All of them are just temps.”
Confused by this news, Paige shook her head. “What is the woman thinking? She knows the ER always has a demanding load of patients!”
Chavella glanced away as she pulled the strap of her tote higher onto her shoulder. “I think she expects you to return.”
The hollow feeling in Paige’s stomach spread until it culminated in a dull ache in the middle of her chest.
“I’ll have a talk with her. She needs to understand that I’m not coming back. Not for any reason.”
Disappointment clouded Chavella’s pretty features. “Oh. So you like the internal floor?”
“I like anywhere I’m needed,” she said evasively. She wasn’t going to come right out and admit that she’d been bored out of her mind for the past three nights. The morbidly quiet hallways of the third floor were nothing like the hustle and bustle of trauma patients rolling through the ER. And never in a million years would she reveal to Chavella, or anyone else, that she missed Dr. Sherman and his acid tongue. Even more, Paige missed his confident manner in treating the patients and his knack for being able to make a rapid diagnosis when every second counted. Most of all she missed having the solid strength of his presence and knowing he was only a few steps away if she needed him. “And the IM doctors only show up when they’re making rounds. Makes for a peaceful shift.”
Chavella smiled wanly. “I’m glad your transfer has turned out so well. You must be very happy.”
She’d never been more miserable in her life, but she gave the other nurse the brightest smile she could manage. “Thanks, Chavella. I think—yes, even though I miss you and the other nurses, this move was best for me. Tell everyone hello for me, won’t you?”
“What about Dr. Sherman? Do you have a message for him?”
Paige glanced around the parking lot as though she expected to see the man suddenly walking toward her. Which was a ridiculous reaction. Dr. Luke Sherman always remained at the hospital long after his shift ended. She didn’t know if that stemmed from dedication to his job, or because being a physician was the only thing he had going in his life.
“Chavella, you’re far too nice a person to repeat the words I’d have to say to Dr. Sherman,” she said ruefully.
The young nurse studied Paige with dark eyes that held far more wisdom than most women her age. “None of us nurses ever understood why he was always so hard on you, Paige. Most of us thought it was because he was...well, sweet on you. But now, I guess we were wrong.”
“Dead wrong,” Paige said bluntly.
Chavella cleared her throat. “I think he misses you. He’s not seemed the same since you left.”
In spite of his hateful words lingering at the edges of her thoughts, a bereft feeling shot through her. “Of course he isn’t the same,” she argued. “His whipping post is gone. So who is he yelling at now? Dear Lord, I hope it’s not you.”
“That’s what none of us nurses can figure out, Paige. He’s not yelling at anyone. He’s quiet. Scary quiet. We’ve all been tiptoeing around him, expecting him to explode at any moment. So far it hasn’t happened.”
Chavella’s news was like a knife to Paige’s chest. All this time she’d been telling herself that Dr. Luke Sherman was the type of man who would always need someone to browbeat, someone he could spew his bitterness at. She’d believed that once she was gone, he would move his insufferable treatment to another nurse. But apparently she’d been all wrong.