Children's Doctor, Shy Nurse

Stacks of files lay on every conceivable surface; some hung precariously from their perches, and a few had landed on the floor. Ellie hurried around the room picking up trash, putting away files, writing notes on other files. Her frantic pace nearly made him dizzy. He’d had enough of that sort of thing for a while. The change in his life over the past few years had made him much more aware of how he spent his time. He wasn’t going to waste his, and he didn’t want to see Ellie use up hers on mundane things that could wait. Especially when there was a bonfire waiting. With s’mores.

“I guess it’s time to head to the lodge,” Mark said and motioned for Ellie to join him by the door. Mark paused at the look of panic in her eyes as she surveyed the mess. There was something definitely going on with her and it wasn’t files or organization. Getting out of a hospital environment was going to be good for her, too. That was obvious. He knew nothing about her personal life, but the signs of stress she displayed were enough to make him want to reach out to her, want to help her. “Are you ready?” he asked, knowing there could be an explosive answer at the end of that question, but he was ready for it. He hadn’t grown up with three sisters without learning a few things about women.

“Uh, no.” Ellie shook her head and moved back to the first pile of charts. “I can’t go until all of this is taken care of. You go ahead, and I’ll join you later.” She picked up a stack of files and their contents slid onto the floor. “Probably much later.”

He caught a glimpse of tears in her eyes before she hid her face behind the files in her arms. “Ellie, this stuff isn’t going anywhere. Let’s go meet the kids and let them get to know us a little. We’re going to be here all summer, and the charts can wait.”

“I just can’t leave things undone, you know? I’m not built that way.” A sigh flowed out of her. “If I leave things for later, I’ll never catch up. You go ahead.” She grabbed another stack of charts and began going through them. “It’s practically a sin in the nursing world to leave something for the next person to do when you could have done it yourself.” She clucked her tongue.

“You’re not the only one here. I can help you. I helped create the mess—I can certainly help clean it up.” That was logical, wasn’t it?

“But that’s not a physician’s job. This is a mundane task that I should do.”

“Ellie, we’re not going to be in a hospital setting for eight entire weeks. I won’t tell if you don’t.” Offering her an encouraging smile, he wanted her to respond, but she didn’t.

She eyed the piles, but gave another heavy sigh. “I don’t know. It’s a lot of work. I’ve always had the philosophy of ‘do it now so you don’t have to do it later.’”

“My philosophy is ‘don’t waste the now,’ and I outrank you. Let’s go enjoy ourselves. Before last night I hadn’t been to a bonfire for years, and my stomach is growling in anticipation of more campfire food.” He paused when she looked as if she were going to resist more. “Please don’t make me give you a real doctor’s order.”

“What?”

Startled brown eyes caught his gaze, and he knew he’d surprised her. Good. “When we come back, we can do it together and get it done in half the time. It’s not like it’s an urgent matter, and there’s no one from Medical Records breathing down our necks.”

At that she gave a sideways smile, and her brown eyes lit up for the first time since they’d met. “You’re right. I can deal with all this later.”

“We’ll deal with it. Promise. Let’s just go enjoy ourselves.” This was good. One small step forward.

“Okay. Let me grab a sweatshirt and my special bug spray. They ate me alive last night so I’m not taking any chances tonight.”

“Sounds good.”

She hurried to her room at the opposite end of the hall from his and returned in minutes. She carried a dark blue sweatshirt with an embroidered loon on it and a white spray bottle in the other hand.

Mark waited by the door, then walked with her to the lodge, wondering what could be special about bug spray. But if it worked, who cared?

The evening was pure delight. Kids ran wild through the camp, and he laughed more than he had in years. Tension began to simply unwind out of him with each passing moment. This was a good change for him, and one he hadn’t realized he’d needed. Thank God for good friends who made excellent recommendations. Get out of the hospital for a while. That was the ticket. Oh, what a pleasure it was to be here and simply to be alive.

Tapping his foot to the guitar music, he wasn’t watching as one small camper tried to sneak by, but tripped and landed nearly in Mark’s lap. The little boy with bright red hair squealed, and Mark helped him to stand.

“I gotta use the bathroom,” he said and his blue eyes expressed his urgency.

“Come on, it’s this way,” Mark said and helped the young boy find the restroom. This was something he knew he might never be able to do otherwise. Not necessarily help a kid to the bathroom, but help his own child—get up in the middle of the night with his own children, help them with whatever they needed. For a moment, despair hit Mark; the realization of what he might never have was reflected in the face of each and every camper present. He simply couldn’t allow himself to indulge in a relationship when he might not live through the next few years. It wasn’t fair to the woman or any children that could come of the relationship. Minutes later, the boy emerged from the bathroom and, for a moment, Mark forgot about his own needs that wouldn’t be met so simply.

CHAPTER THREE

ELLIE stirred in her bed the next morning, awakening slowly as the sun crept over the windowsill to invade her room. She hadn’t slept so well in such a long time; she’d almost forgotten what it was like. Events of the past few years had disturbed her wakeful time as well as her sleeping time. Maybe fresh air and the quiet Maine woods had helped. A lovely breeze had stirred the pines surrounding the infirmary most of the night, bringing with it the lonesome call of the loons that she loved. The soothing sounds must have lulled her into a state of bliss.

Living in a large city for so long had numbed her senses to what nature had to offer. Cement and skyscrapers and bright lights, and the never-ending roster of critically ill patients, had taken the place of activities she had once enjoyed, and she mourned that loss. Work, and the lengthy illness of her father, had just about worn her out, the breakup with her fiancé only compounding her exhaustion. Mourning had unfortunately become a way of life and one she was determined to shake off during the summer. She knew she would. She just had to figure out how to get started.

The framed photo on the table beside her bed had been taken when her father had been happy and healthy and that’s how she wanted to remember him. Memories of his illness had finally begun to fade.

After a quick glance at the clock beside the photo, she bolted upright, panicked. She was late! Tearing off her sleep shirt and quickly dragging on shorts and a T-shirt, she raced out the door, then came to a halt.

Mark sat quietly with about ten kids who waited in a semi-organized line for their morning meds.

“Why didn’t you wake me?” she whispered and patted her short, rumpled hair into place, supposing she looked like a porcupine with it sticking out all over.

“No worries. I’ve got things under control.” He gave her a quick assessing glance and his eyes warmed, lingering on her longer than they had yesterday. The flush of heat that rushed through her wasn’t entirely from embarrassment. Though she had said she wasn’t going to be interested in men during the summer, Mark was intriguing her from the get-go.

“I’m supposed to pull the charts, and the meds, and have things ready before clinic. You didn’t need to take clinic this morning. I should have done it.” Her heart raced uncomfortably in her chest. This was her job, and the first day here she was already behind.

“Ellie, calm down.” Mark handed a camper two pills in a paper medicine cup and a small glass of water. “Down the hatch, buddy.” The camper dutifully swallowed the medicine. “Why don’t you wake up and get something to eat? It’s not a crisis that I take the morning clinic. You can have the one after lunch and the evening one if that will make you feel better. There are a few kids with allergy shots that are due, so you can set them up for the lunch clinic.” He gave her a quick glance and adjusted the baseball cap on his head. So far she’d never seen him without it. If he was anything like her brothers, they had to have a favorite team cap on almost before they got out of bed.

“Thank you. I’ll do that.” Face burning, she headed to the bathroom and closed the door. She splashed cold water on her face, combed her hair and glanced in the mirror over the small ceramic sink. Already, on the first day of camp, she’d succeeded in embarrassing herself in front of the physician and a number of the kids. Determined not to let this setback get the better of her, she pulled herself together. One little problem shouldn’t ruin, or set the tone for, the rest of her day. Think positive. Think positive. Wasn’t that what she told her patients all the time? Maybe she ought to listen to her own words of advice. If it worked for her patients, it ought to work for her, right? She’d simply make it up to Mark somehow. She’d find a way. Opening the door to the shared bathroom, she re-entered the front, feeling a little better.

“Bear is the man you want to see at the lodge. He said he’d put a few things back for you if you’re hungry.”

“I can wait. Why don’t I take over here?” she said, but as she looked for more campers, she saw that the line had dwindled down to just a few. Mark had handled the task without her help, and no one looked as if they were distressed, so she relaxed a little more. Positive thoughts. Positive energy. If she kept telling herself that, she’d really believe in it one day, wouldn’t she?

“Seriously, Ellie. Go ahead and get something to eat. I’m good for a while.” He winked at her. “After this I think I might take a run around the camp, get my exercise for the day.”

“Yes, Doctor,” she said and, with a frown, turned to the door, but paused as she felt a hand on her arm. Turning back, she glanced at him. They were going to be working together for the entire summer, so she should make a better attempt to be friends. Making friends with a handsome man was always a good thing.

“Ellie, my name is Mark, not Doctor. Can you just call me Mark? Please?” he asked and paused, then removed his hand.

“I can do that,” she said, then nodded and liked the sound of his name rolling around in her head. “Where I work not too many physicians like being addressed by their first names, so it’s just habit.”

“A good habit to break, if you ask me. We’re all on the same team, right? And if Bear has any of those Boston cream doughnuts left, snag me one for later, will you?” He smiled and the effect made her hold his gaze a second or two longer than she normally would have. Though thin, he was a handsome man. Intense, but handsome.

“Sure.” The tension in her flashed away as his vibrant energy seemed to move into her. Energy she seemed to need right now, but didn’t know how to find.

“Maybe two if he has them.”

That made her laugh and the sensation was warm in her chest. Laughter had been bountiful in her home as she’d grown up, and she realized now that it was somehow missing in her life. She’d become too serious and that was something she’d never wanted to be. “I’ll see what he has. You might have to do an extra lap around the camp to work it off though.” The man had a sweet tooth. She’d have to remember that. He was too thin by far, so if she could grab him a doughnut now and then, she’d do it. He’d been nothing but nice to her, so she could do something nice back. Perhaps her payback to him could come in the form of confiscated pastries now and then.

The lodge, a great lumbering building made of rough-hewn timber, was the hub of the compound, and she reached the front porch in minutes. The screen door squeaked as she opened and closed it, and she entered the cool interior to find the place empty. Last night, they had stuffed nearly three hundred people in here, and the din had been overwhelming. Now, every foot-step echoed off the log walls. Just as she entered the lodge, a crashing clatter of pans and shattering of glass made her jump. Loud cursing and yelling followed, and she hurried over to the galley.

“Hello? Is everything okay?” She gasped as the biggest, brawniest bearded man she’d ever seen turned to face her, anger blazing in his deep-set brown eyes.

“No, dammit! I’m burned half to death.” He held his right hand under the water in the sink and continued to grumble. A thin man covered by a white apron hovered a few feet away, his hands nearly choking the handle of a broom.

“I’m Ellie, the nurse. We haven’t met yet.”

“I’m Bear, the chief fried cook.” He shook his head and continued to mutter under his breath.

“Why don’t I look at your injury? Are you hurt anywhere else?”

“No, thanks. I’ll be fine.”

Now, she remembered something Vicki had said, that Bear took a while to warm up to people. “Vicki Walker said you make a great clam chowder,” she said, hoping to distract him a little.

“She did, did she?” Bear cast her another glance. “We’ll be missing her around here this year.”

“She and Sam and their little girl will be up for a visit or two during the summer, so you’ll get to see her.”

Nodding at that, Bear turned to face her more fully, though he kept his hand and forearm under the running water. “Think you got anything in the infirmary to help a grease burn as big as this?” he asked.

“Sure. Getting it under the cold water is the first thing, for sure. Let me call Dr.…Mark to come over and see you, too. I also have some aromatherapy oils that will take the sting right out of the burn and probably minimize scar tissue.”

“I don’t care about scars. Got enough of them already, so a few more won’t make much difference.” He sniffed. “Aroma-what? What’s that?” Bear asked, a puzzled expression on his face.

“Plant extracts that have healing properties.” She’d studied aromatherapy and used it on her father when he’d been ill, and she was now thinking of becoming a practitioner in addition to her nursing career. Complementary therapies were helpful to standard treatments, and she was a believer in them.

“Like folk medicine?” he asked and his fierce expression eased a little.

“Something like that.” That was probably the simplest way to describe the therapy that didn’t sound too out-there for most people.

“Okay. Phone’s on the wall there.” Bear nodded to the wall beside the mess of a desk scattered with magazines and paperwork.

“Thanks.” Ellie looked at the numbers scrawled on a piece of paper beside the phone. Dialing the number, she waited for Mark to answer. She quickly explained the situation and hung up. “He’ll be here in a minute. Only one camper left for the morning clinic.”

A single nod was the only response from Bear. She noticed that he had reverted back to his tight-lipped expression again and suspected the burn hurt a lot more than he was letting on. “Can I ask you a few questions, Bear?”

“As long as they’re not about my clam chowder recipe,” he said.

“No,” Ellie said and hid a grin, knowing that Vicki had worked long and hard to get that recipe out of him. “They’re medical questions. Are you on any medications or do you have any medication allergies?”

Bear answered her questions and a few minutes later Mark charged through the door of the lodge, carrying two medical supply packs. “I wasn’t sure what we were going to need. I brought a few things, then we’ll get you to the infirmary to do a full exam.”

“I don’t need no full exam. I just need my burn looked at.” He held his hand and forearm out to them.

Ellie winced inwardly at the sight of the red, inflamed skin and took a pair of exam gloves from Mark. “Do you think it will blister?”

“Not sure. Might,” Mark said and applied exam gloves before touching the wound that ran from Bear’s thick fingers all the way to midforearm. “You said he put the injury in cold water right away, correct?”

“Yes. And to my knowledge, the sooner a heat injury is cooled, the better.” Burns weren’t her specialty, but that much she remembered and the advice made complete sense. Sometimes common sense was the best medicine in the world.

“Should I put ice on it?” Bear asked and winced as Mark touched a particularly tender spot that could have been the initial contact site.

“No. You don’t want to apply ice to skin that’s already delicate.”

“Delicate? There’s nothing delicate about Bear,” the thin assistant cook said with a snort. “He’s as tough as they come.”

“You’re right about that, Skinny,” Mark said. “The injured skin is the only thing delicate here, and we don’t want to add anything too cold to it, because skin damaged by heat could then be damaged by cold.”

“Makes sense,” Bear said and gave a nod.

“If you have no objection, Mark, I’d like to try some aromatherapy oils on the injury, too.” She chewed her lip, not sure how he would react to that request. Many doctors didn’t understand, or agree with, the benefit of treatments that weren’t created in a chemistry lab.

“Aromatherapy?” Mark asked with a quick glance at her, brows raised, silently asking for more information.

Clenching her hands together, she prepared to support her case. “Yes. I know it’s considered an alternative treatment, but I like to think of it as complementary. I’ve used it successfully on a variety of ailments. No adverse reactions, either.” Mostly she’d treated her dad and a few friends, but she truly believed in it. Heart racing, she hoped he would agree. She might even be able to document the use of oils on a burn for others to follow.

“Any objections from you, Bear?” Mark asked and turned the man’s wrist slightly, looking at the wound that ran all the way around his wrist. “Otherwise, we’ll just send you off to the ER in town.”

“Nope. She said it’s kind of like folk medicine, and I’m okay with that. Anything to take the sting out of it is okay with me, and I don’t want to go to the ER. I got stuff to do.”

“Aromatherapy is widely used in Europe, and I’ve used it before on burns, though not one as large as this.” In the kitchen she was a klutz and had succeeded in burning herself in myriad ways, so she kept a bottle of lavender essential oil handy to treat herself with.

“Okay, Nurse Ellie. Do your thing.”

Mark issued the order, and she was suddenly energized by his open-minded nature. Working with him might not be so bad after all.

“I’ll be right back.” She raced to her room, grabbed her kit of aromatherapy vials and quickly returned to the lodge. Unzipping the protective neoprene case, she pulled one bottle out and clenched it in her hand. “Keep holding your arm over the sink, will you? In case anything drips off,” she said.

“I think you did a good job of cooling the injury right away, Bear,” Mark said and stood to observe Ellie’s treatment.

“Hurts like hell though,” he said, grumbling, but allowed Ellie to minister to him. The first few drops of oil hit his skin and the fragrance permeated the kitchen. “You didn’t tell me it was perfume!” Bear cried and tried to pull away from her.

Grabbing him by the apron front, she kept him in position. “It’s not perfume. Now live up to your reputation and hold still, will you?”

“Oh, man. The guys will never let me live this one down. My wife, neither.” He bowed his head and shook it in disgust, certain his fierce reputation had just been torn to shreds.

Beside them, Skinny snickered, but quieted after a glare from Bear.

“It’s better than being in pain, and it’s certainly better than a burn that could scar badly and prevent you from cooking for all these campers.” Gently, she used her fingers to rub the oil over all areas of the burn. “There are wonderful healing properties in this oil, as I said. Who cares what it smells like, right?”

Bear gave a sniff of lingering disapproval, but relented. “I guess.”

“If it will make you feel better, you can tell people I held you down while Ellie poured it on you,” Mark said.

Bear gave Mark’s thin frame a glance and snorted. “Now, no one’s gonna believe that one.”

“I’m stronger than I look,” Mark said and flexed his left bicep.

Bear barked out a laugh and shook his head. “I make biscuits bigger than that, Mark.” Bear relaxed, and Ellie knew that had been Mark’s intention.

The tension between the three of them eased. “Did Ellie get her doughnuts?”

“No. I burned myself just as she walked in. They’re still in the cooler.” He nodded to indicate which one.

Mark rubbed his hands together at that information. “Any others that you want to get rid of, like Boston cream? Breakfast was a long time ago.”

“Yeah, help yourself. There’s a couple left.” Bear held still while Ellie wrapped a light gauze dressing to his injury.

“That ought to do it.” She applied one strip of tape to keep the end of the gauze secure.

“I can’t cook wearing this thing. I look like a mummy.”

“Leave it on through the afternoon. Step back and just supervise for a meal, then come see me before dinner. We’ll take it off then and see how it’s doing. You might not even blister,” Ellie said, pleased that she’d been able to help him right away with her essential oils. The more she used them, the more uses she found for them.

“I’ll see you in a couple of hours, then. Get your doughnuts, and I’ll clean up this damned mess I made.”

Skinny stepped forward with a grin. “I can help you, Bear, since you have a sore paw.”

Bear turned quickly with a growl. “Now, don’t be making cracks about me bein’ lame…” Bear said and grabbed a towel with his left hand and snapped it at Skinny, but he missed by a long measure. “Put that broom to good use and help me clean this mess up.”

The two engaged in what appeared to be a long-standing, good-natured argument. Thus dismissed, Mark and Ellie gathered their medical supplies and returned to the infirmary.

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