Page 2 of Saving Texas

Jeffers looked around, then stepped closer, his voice lowered.

“Are you still shipping out tomorrow?”

“Yeah.”

I’d been here ten days now, and tomorrow they’d send our team back to our home states and send in a fresh team of medical personnel to help.

“Can I take you out to dinner?” he asked, looking suddenly bashful. “Alone.”

This was new. I’d seen many sides of Jeffers: teasing, serious, flirty, focused, coldly angry, but I’d never seen him look anything but completely confident. I wondered if I’d done a better job of hiding my attraction to him than I’d thought.

Impulsively, I placed my hand on his forearm and gave him a squeeze.

“I’d love to have dinner,” I smiled. “The restaurant in my hotel is open, and they have a good selection. Or we could hang out in my room and...,” I lowered my voice to suggestive whisper, “order room service instead.”

I was no shy virgin, but I’d never been this bold in my entire life. I’d had a couple of relationships in college and medical school, nothing too serious, and the occasional hook-up, but I wasn’t generally the one to make the first move. With Jeffers, I suspected I should.

His eyes widened slightly as he caught my meaning, then darkened as his gaze fixed on my lips. Reflexively I licked them, and he groaned softly.

“Does six o’clock work?”

Clara

Present day...

“We’re so glad to have you on the team, Doctor. I understand you’re a Texas native?”

“Thank you, Adie. Yes, I was raised about an hour outside of Dallas, and it’s good to be home in the Lone Star state.”

After all these years traveling around the globe, moving from disaster to disaster, no place really felt like home, but there was no sense in saying all that. I hadn’t been away from the south so long that I’d forgotten how to be polite.

During my nearly twenty years working with Doctors in Disasters, I never figured that I’d want to settle down anywhere for too long, but after my time in Ukraine, I was done. I’d finally seen too much. At forty-four years old, I was tired.

My home base had been in Portland, Oregon ever since I’d graduated medical school. That’s where I’d done both my internship and residency, and it’s where the home office of Doctors in Disasters was located so I’d just stayed there, picking up shifts at the local hospitals between deployments. I could have gotten a regular job there pretty easily, but the truth was, Portland had never felt like home.

When a colleague told me about the opening as head of the Emergency Department here at Houston United Hospital, it seemed like the right move. I didn’t have any family left in Texas anymore, but I’d spent some time in Houston and really liked it. Working in one place would be good for me, I told myself.

A few weeks later, I wasn’t so sure if I’d made the right decision. I looked around at the expectant faces of my new team, took a deep breath and gave them the words they needed to hear. I reminded them about my experience, told them about my style as a leader, and then set out my expectations.

“You’ll find that I’m firm but fair,” I said, giving them all my best stern boss face.

The truth was, that face came more natural to me now than it had all those years ago when I’d been an idealistic sunshine-filled resident. If younger Clara could see me now, she’d think I was a grumpy old fuddy-duddy who’d forgotten how to have fun. She wouldn’t be wrong.

“This is hard work, and I know we all need to let off some steam here and there, but I want to be clear that I don’t tolerate shenanigans,” I continued my speech. “I expect you all to take your jobs as seriously as your patients want you to. Some of y’all have worked with me on disaster response, and I’m grateful to have the opportunity to work with you again. For those I haven’t met before, I’m looking forward to getting to know you and your work.”

I sent them off to their posts, glad to get that first hurdle past me. Adie followed me back to my small office on the far end of the row of on-call sleeping rooms. She worked as the administrative assistant for all the department heads and seemed nice enough.

“Is there anything you want me to order for your space, Dr. Bownton? Some new furniture? I could ask maintenance to repaint and brighten this space up for you if you’d like. It’s darker than a pocket in here.”

“It’s fine Adie, I don’t really care about my office.”

While I knew there’d be a substantial amount of administrative work associated with my position, I still expected to be on the floor more often than not. That’s where the action was.

I’d never had an office before, I realized. I’d always just worked wherever I could find a flat surface. This office was larger than my living room at the apartment I rented in Portland for many years. It would do just fine.

“Okay Doctor, well you just give me a holler if you need me then.”

As Adie left the office, my personal phone chimed with a text from my good friend Joy, a doctor I’d worked with a lot in Portland.