Sophie's Path

Sophie wiped the tears off her cheeks with her fingertips. She wasn’t just crying for this young woman. She was crying for herself. She believed she’d done all she could as part of the team tonight. These were tears of self-pity. They came from a deep and lonely place inside of her. A place she seldom visited and barely acknowledged. She guessed these tears had been trying to form for a long time, but she’d told herself that crying was for weaklings. She was strong. She was able to handle just about anything, including injury, illness and death.

But happiness? That was really tough.

Sophie’s twenties were nearly behind her and she’d done little to grab happiness for herself.

She couldn’t afford to wait any longer. Tonight had shown her how lives could be snatched away in an instant. Oh, she’d begun her self-evaluations and internal makeover, but she’d only stuck the spade into the first few inches of her psyche. She had a lot of digging to do before she’d find treasure.

For the first time, though, she thought she knew what she was looking for.

Happiness.

She just hoped she recognized it when she uncovered it.

CHAPTER FOUR

JACK WAITED ON teetering legs for some definitive word about Aleah. He’d heard the commotion. He’d heard the second round of instructions for a defibrillator. He’d heard the second heart monitor announce the dreaded flatline bleep, but he couldn’t see around the heads of the doctors and nurses. He watched people going in and racing out. Then suddenly, they all stopped moving and became still.

Aleah was dead.

Jack’s mouth had gone dry and his blood had turned cold. It had been a long time since he’d experienced death that was close to him. Not since his father died. He’d mourned him deeply, but his father had battled cancer for over two years. The family had expected him to die. He’d been prepared.

Jack battled the biting tears and thunder in his chest. He’d liked being a mentor to Aleah. She and Owen were only a decade or so younger than he, but right now, he felt ancient.

All his concerns from earlier in the day came back to him suddenly: his banter with his sister and brother-in-law, his anxiety over the White Sox’s loss to the Yankees. Even the ambitions he’d been mulling over after the seminar seemed trivial compared to what he was facing now. He would give everything he had to save his sweet, unsuspecting assistant from death.

He pinched the bridge of his nose. This shouldn’t have happened. It was a mistake. Some cruel trick of the universe. And it was hitting Jack hard.

He wished he felt stronger because he wanted to do something. He was so confused, and Jack was seldom confused. He prided himself on his ability to stay focused. Responsible. That’s what everyone in his family had called him. He was their rock. He was the leader.

If only he could remember the accident. Maybe he could have prevented it, but the pieces of his memory were as vague as the fog he’d been driving through.

Jack watched as Nate Barzonni shuffled down the hall with a somber face, his hands shoved into the pockets of his surgical scrubs. He moved like a man carrying a cross. Jack knew Nate and Maddie Barzonni both. He was almost a daily customer at Cupcakes and Coffee. Maddie’s brew was legendary and her made-to-order cupcakes and icings were his must-have indulgence.

Jack hobbled to the entry of his bay. A sharp pain made a jagged path up his calf.

His ankle hurt more than he’d anticipated. “Nate, please. What happened?” He had so many questions.

Nate barely glanced at him, giving him a dismissive nod. Then Jack saw the raw pain in Nate’s eyes. He understood.

“Jack, I’m sorry about your assistant. Real sorry. But I have to see her parents. Is that okay?” Nate choked out the words and shook his head sorrowfully. “I can’t...not right now.”

“It’s okay,” Jack replied empathetically.

Nate gave Jack a slight wave and then practically jogged to the ER exit doors.

Jack had never seen Nate like this. How often did a doctor lose a patient? Once a year? Once a month? And Nate had lost two in a matter of minutes. How did a doctor, with years of training and the most up-to-date studies and research, handle something like this? Did they take it personally? Even if there was nothing more they could do, this had to feel like a failure. Did it affect them emotionally?

As far as Jack could tell the rest of the staff went about their work as if nothing had happened. Except for Nate, Jack hadn’t seen one iota of remorse from the other doctor or the nurses. He told himself they had work to do. Serious work. But it still stung.

Jack felt hollow. He glanced at the bed and wondered how he’d make it back under his own steam.

“Mr. Carter,” Sophie addressed him professionally as she rushed toward him. “What are you doing? You’re not supposed to be walking around yet. It’s dangerous. You have to stay in bed.”

She put her hands on his shoulders, and with more strength and force than he’d thought possible, she led him to the bed and pressed him into it. He sat on the edge, refusing to lie down.

“What happened to Aleah?” he asked.

“Cardiac arrest.”

Jack felt as if he’d been punched in the gut. Aleah’s heart was young, but that wasn’t enough to keep her alive. He lifted his eyes to Sophie.

She was composed and self-assured. Yeah, she was good. He had to give her that.

He felt hollow, yet his insides burned with the unfairness of it all.

He balled his fist. Flexed it. Balled it again.

She bent over and grabbed his ankles, favoring his sprain, and spun his legs up and onto the cot. “We have to get that CT scan. Dr. Hill is concerned...”

Jack pounded the gurney with his fist.

“Concerned? About me? He should have been concerned—” Jack nearly spit the word out “—when he had a chance to save Aleah. Maybe you should have been, too. You left her to go to that monster...that addict who killed her.”

Sophie’s jaw dropped. “How did you know he was an addict?”

Jack jerked his head toward the ER entry doors where two policemen stood talking to Dr. Hill. “Cops. They said they have to get a statement from me.”

“Not yet. You have to rest.”

“I’m not taking orders from you—”

She placed three fingers over his lips. “Shh. Don’t say something you’ll regret,” she whispered.

“Regret? I’m not the one with regrets. You let Aleah die,” he growled.

Sophie’s eyes widened with shock. “That man, that patient—” She stumbled.

Jack could see her ire rising as she continued. “He’d gone into cardiac arrest. At that very same moment, Aleah was holding on. My colleagues were stabilizing her. My judgment was that we had a chance to save them both.”

“Well, your judgment was incorrect. Your judgment was skewed.” Now that Jack’s anger was ignited, he couldn’t stop himself. “Frankly, I don’t know where your priorities are. An addict who nearly killed all three of us and did kill Aleah, made the choice to drive high. He didn’t deserve your concern, or Dr. Hill’s.” Jack was so filled with rage that he felt light-headed. He wasn’t sure if he’d made his point, so he balled his fist again and slammed it against the bed. The plastic beneath him crackled.

Jack felt woozy as he stared at his hand. How practical of hospitals to put plastic under the thin sheets. Plastic. So that the blood wouldn’t ooze through when a person bled out. Plastic protected the mattress but did nothing to save the patient. Plastic, like the black bags they used to take bodies to the morgue.

“Plastic,” Jack mumbled as he dropped his head back onto the pillow.

“Mr. Carter? Jack? Can you hear me?”

He knew his eyes were rolling around because the room was spinning.

He heard Sophie dash over to the nurse’s station.

“Doctor Hill. Stat!” she yelled into the intercom.

Jack hated that his head injury was getting in the way of his tirade. That’s exactly what it was, he realized. He was accusing the hospital and its staff of bad practice. He didn’t know if it was malpractice, but he blamed them all the same.

Aleah was dead. A terrifying fact that he knew he still hadn’t come to grips with.

“Doctor Hill, I think he’s in shock,” Sophie said, though he couldn’t see her anymore. Where did she go? She was just here a minute ago. Now the room was dark. Vacant. Like that drainage tunnel he’d been in before. That was it. He’d gone back to the place where it all started.

Maybe he’d find some answers there. Perhaps even solace.

* * *

SOPHIE TOOK JACK’S blood pressure while Dr. Hill examined him.

“He’s asleep. I would be out cold myself if I’d been through all that he has tonight. Take him down for the CT scan. He’ll wake up once he’s there.”

Sophie chewed her bottom lip as Dr. Hill straightened. “What?”

“Jack—er, Mr. Carter thinks we were negligent with Aleah. He thinks we should have let the other patient die in order to treat her.”

“Good thing Mr. Carter doesn’t run this hospital. We used our best judgment. We’re not divine. We do the best we can.” Dr. Hill touched Sophie’s shoulder. “Besides, Mr. Carter here should be singing your praises. If it hadn’t been for you getting that glass out of his eyes, he could have been severely impaired.”

“He doesn’t know that. He thinks I was simply cleaning him up.”

Dr. Hill raised his chin and peered at her. “I don’t mind setting him straight. Be glad to do it, especially if he’s accusing us—”

She put up her hand to interrupt. “Not us. He’s questioning me.”

Dr. Hill squeezed her shoulder gently and smiled. “Don’t take it so hard. He’s had a very rough night. You know as well as I do that irritability is a sign of concussion. He’s confused and has complained to Bart Greyson of both double vision and sensitivity to light. Oh, by the way, I’ll order an EEG, as well.”

Sophie was surprised because an EEG was only required when the patient had been having seizures. “Yes, Doctor.”

“I realize it’s overly cautious, but just in case this fellow is more than simply irritable and decides to follow through with a malpractice suit, I want our examination to be as thorough as possible.”

Sophie hated how the medical world had been forced to adapt to the tort wars. Extraneous tests were performed as a standard course of action in even the simplest cases. A broken toe, if not properly x-rayed and treated, followed up on, double-checked and documented could cost the hospital hundreds of thousands of dollars in lawsuits. Sophie despised the whole system. The paperwork and extra steps she had to perform for the administration, which, rightfully, was trying to keep the entire hospital safe, took time away from her patients.

Her eyes dropped to Jack. Patients like Jack.

When she’d been tending him, she’d felt a pleasant and approachable energy that instantly caused her to like him. He’d looked at her with the anguish and wariness she often saw in patients. She’d sensed she was his link to the world in that moment. It wasn’t the first time Sophie had seen that deep pleading, felt the clutch of fingers around her wrist or witnessed a tear slide down a lonely cheek. But there was something else...

When she’d placed her fingers over his lips, she’d intuited his tenderness. She didn’t actually know anything about him except his blood type, blood pressure, height and weight, but she believed he was a gentle man.

That was why she’d been quite shocked when he’d turned on her. He was an enigma and that fascinated her.

“You’re right, Doctor. It’s best to be safe.”

“Cover our butts,” he replied, moving toward the curtain. “Page me when you’re back down from Radiology. And don’t let him sleep any more than two hours at a time.”

She chuckled. “That won’t be a problem. This is a hospital.”

* * *

BY SATURDAY MORNING, Sophie was wired on too many cups of bitter break-room coffee and a late-night cafeteria meal that didn’t sit well. The ER had been calm after the turmoil of the car accident. That alone was a blessing, she thought. Most of the staff went about their paperwork and duties with solemn faces, their thoughts easily readable in their anguished eyes. Sophie wasn’t sure how many people died on ER tables typically. She’d only been working in the ER for a little over six months, but in a small town where everyone knew everyone else, or at least their business, death touched them all

Bart, who had just come back on duty, scurried from bay to bay, reviewing Donna and Bob’s documentation in patient charts and checking in with the pharmacy about orders he’d placed. Though Bart appeared to have put the tragedies behind him, Sophie suspected his actions were all a cover-up.

She’d spent nearly the entire night with Jack Carter. She took his vitals every hour. Woke him up and forced him to drink water. She helped him to the bathroom and helped him back to bed. Jack shirked off her assistance at first, but when he realized he was dizzy and his legs were still wobbly, he insisted Sophie get him another nurse. Sophie tried to grant his wish, but she was told they were short-staffed. He was stuck with her.

Now Sophie was bringing Jack his dismissal papers, a list of follow-up appointments and home-care instructions, prescription Tylenol for the headaches he complained about and fresh gauze and bandages for his lacerations.

He was sitting up with two pillows behind his back. “Who put me in this gown?” he demanded roughly.

Sophie smiled. “Good morning to you, too.”

“Was it you?”

“Yes.” She wouldn’t let him intimidate her with his sour expression. His dark stubble enhanced his good looks, even though his eyes were still so swollen and bruised he could easily be mistaken for a boxer who’d lost a match. She stopped abruptly.

She thought he was handsome? Where had that thought come from?

Don’t go there, Sophie.

Jack Carter was her patient. That was all. He was certainly not the type of guy she would have had a fling with in the past. He was very, very different. For one, he despised her right now. And two, it was unethical to date patients. And she was done with flings, anyway.

Jack bristled. “Where’d you put my clothes?”

“In the closet. What’s left of them, that is. I didn’t have time to send them out to the laundry if that’s what you want to know. But I did go down to the gift shop to buy you a T-shirt.”

She opened the plastic bag and pulled out a pink breast cancer T-shirt with the looped ribbon logo on the front. “It was all they had. I got a large.”

“It’s pink.” He reached out and snatched it from her hand, his lips twitching. “My mother says I look good in pink.”

“I’m sure you do.” Sophie smiled. “I’ll help you get dressed.”

Jack threw his hands up. “No thanks! I think you’ve seen enough. Who knows what you checked out while I was sleeping.”

“Mr. Carter, I’m a nurse. It’s my job. I stayed with you most of the night to make sure you didn’t slip into a coma.”

“Coma?” His eyes widened as much as they could with stitches and swelling. “You guys were afraid I would fall into a coma?”

“We had to take precautions, yes. Several times you, er, fell asleep on us.”

“Passed out. I remember,” he said, touching his forehead and wincing. He patted the dressings around his eyes then made a face. “I bit my cheeks, as well.” He hugged himself, his muscular arms flexing.

Sophie dragged her eyes off his battered face. She was drawn to his vulnerability. She’d always prided herself on her professional yet empathetic care, but something about this man made her heart ache more than usual. She glanced at the papers in her hand. “You’ll need plenty of rest once you get home. You should tell your wife—”

“I’m not married,” he interrupted.

She looked at him. She knew that. Nate had told Sophie who Jack was. When Sophie had asked him earlier if he wanted her to call Katia, he’d refused. Katia and Austin were out of town for the weekend. No girlfriend had come to see him last night. His emergency contact was his sister, Ava, but she lived in Illinois and Jack told Sophie he’d make his own phone calls when he was up to it. He hadn’t asked for anyone but Aleah. Jack had been so confused and out of it, and Sophie knew from experience that victims sometimes couldn’t even remember their own names. She had to be sure.

But why, Sophie?

Habit. That’s all it was. Her reaction to Jack was habit. She’d been a man magnet for so long, she didn’t know how to meet an attractive man on any other basis.

Ugh. She had a real problem.

“Well, someone needs to see you through the next twenty-four hours to make absolutely certain there are no complications from the concussion. You’ll need to see Dr. Hill in his regular hours to have the stitches removed. And we suggest that you see an ophthalmologist immediately about your eyes. You were asleep, but we had Dr. Mason come in and give you an exam. He’ll see you Monday afternoon. The rest of your instructions are the usual. Hydrate. Eat properly. Get rest and no sports for two weeks.”

“What? No sports?”

Was he serious? Sophie cocked her head. “Is there a problem? Are you on a summer baseball league or something?”

“No, but I run. A lot. Every day. I can’t live without running.”

She put her hands on her hips. “You have a sprained ankle. It won’t let you run for at least ten days.”

“I can handle that. A week or so. Fine,” he harrumphed.

“So,” she probed, unable to stop herself. “Where do you run?”

“Around the lake. That’s where I live. Running is my life.”

She shook her head emphatically. “You’ll have to live without it for two weeks. In addition to the sprain, you could risk a second concussion. If you aren’t fully healed from this first one, a second could increase the chances of swelling in the brain. Most concussions are not terribly dangerous, but a second one could be fatal.”

“Fatal?”

Sophie cringed, realizing the word would remind him of Aleah’s death. But since she couldn’t take it back, this was as good a time as any to test Dr. Hill’s theory that it had been shock and irritability alone that had made Jack accuse Sophie of abandoning Aleah in favor of another—and in his opinion, less deserving—patient.

“A concussion sometimes takes months to heal. Our advice is that you take it easy the next few weeks to a month. Don’t push. There will be plenty of time for running in the fall.”

Jack’s eyes fell away from Sophie’s face as he turned his head to the window. She followed his gaze to the fully leafed maple trees outside.

“A month would be torture,” he said quietly, as if accepting his defeat. “But I’ll try.”

“Excellent.” She went to the closet and pulled out his ripped but wearable pants, shoes, socks and underwear. His tattered shirt she’d put in a plastic bag.

“Where’s my sport jacket?” he asked.

“You didn’t come in with it,” she replied.

His brows knit together and she could tell it was an effort for him to think and remember. “I put it in the backseat with Owen.”

“Mr. Carter, I need to make arrangements for your dismissal. You’re not allowed to drive for the next week. Who should I call to come get you?”

Jack’s eyelids drooped and he lowered his chin to his chest. “Don’t tell me I can’t drive. I have to drive. I have to work. I have to go to Aleah’s funeral...”

Sophie let Jack take a moment with his thoughts before interrupting him. He was being forced by the circumstances to take a lot in. She truly felt for trauma victims and their families. One minute their lives were normal and made sense. In the flash of an exploding gas main, a head-on collision, a tornado, a drive-by shooting, an accidental overdose of prescription medication, a drowning... Their lives would never be the same. Jack Carter was still able to walk and talk and function. He hadn’t lost a limb. He hadn’t lost his eyesight. He hadn’t lost his mind. He had to give up running and driving for a short time, but even though he groused, she knew that he’d be just fine. He’d cope. He had to.

But she knew he didn’t see it that way. What harangued Jack was that Aleah had died. His young assistant wouldn’t be in his office on Monday. He would meet with her family and he would go to the visitation. Then the funeral and burial.

Sophie understood that even though he’d have a full physical recovery, Jack’s world would be forever altered.

She placed his shoes on the floor, turning them so he could slip his feet in more easily. Even this simple thing would be hard for the next little while.

It was her way of trying to say she was sorry about Aleah without admitting any guilt. The hospital was not at fault. Dr. Hill and Dr. Barzonni had both told her that no one was.

But Sophie knew that some part of Jack would always believe she had committed the gravest of errors.

He met her eyes as she straightened up. There was no spark, no hint of the flirtation she often found with men. There was only anger and blame.

“If you have no one to take you home, I’ll drive you,” she said.

“I’ll get a cab,” he huffed.

She ground her jaw and could feel her heels digging into the linoleum. “I’ll drive you home and I will make sure you are inside the door safe and sound.”

“Forget it,” he said.

“Fine. Then I’ll tell the staff you’ll be staying here through the rest of the weekend.”

“You can’t do that!”

“I can do anything I feel I need to do for the well-being of my patient,” she retorted.

Jack snorted and punched the bed. “Fine. But I’ll dress myself.”

“Absolutely,” she chimed in. “I wouldn’t want to do anything that made you uncomfortable.” She went to the curtains and pulled them around the track to give him privacy.

As she walked out, she heard Jack growl, “After this, I hope I never lay eyes on you again.”

CHAPTER FIVE

“THIS IS WHERE you live?” Sophie peered through her windshield at the white three-story condo building tucked into a mass of oak, pine and maple trees on the northwest shore of Indian Lake. “I didn’t know these were here. Looks like only four units,” she mused, thinking how much she’d love to live by the water. Wouldn’t everybody? She leaned over the steering wheel to see the second-floor deck. Instead of a typical railing, twisted steel designed to resemble nautical ropes ran between white posts. “When you said the condos on the lake, I thought you meant those ugly brown monstrosities that look like a federal penitentiary. This is absolutely beautiful.”

“Thanks. Cate Sullivan found it and worked the deal for me.”

“Wow,” Sophie gushed, inspecting the private outdoor staircase that led down to the beach, a drive-in first-floor garage. The second story obviously held the main living space and on the third story were the bedrooms. She’d seen these floor plans all over the south end of Lake Michigan. She smiled as she saw a chimney wall, which could only mean a wood-burning fireplace.

She heard the seat belt alarm ping as Jack undid his belt.

“Well, thanks for the ride,” he said with a perfunctory nod.

Sophie spun to face him. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“Leaving,” he replied, his tone so brittle she snapped her head back.

“Not without me.”

He glared at her. “I think I can make it on my own.”

She gave him a daring look. “Think so? Go for it.”

Jack snickered, got out and slammed the door. He stood perfectly still for a long moment and then leaned against the car.

Sophie had already unhooked her seat belt and opened her door in the time it took him to shut his. Before he could say a word, she raced over and wrapped her arm around his waist.

“I’ve got this,” he said.

“I see that.”

She walked him up to the garage door and he punched in his security code.

“Am I having a second concussion?” he asked.