A man clearing his throat scared us both out of our huddle. Heads and hair went flying up to see none other than the hot doctor smirking at us. At least I assumed he was the hot doctor.
He had brown eyes and chocolate-brown hair trimmed and styled neatly. He was good-looking, likely in his mid to late thirties, though not really my type. His look was a bit too put together for my tastes, but I could see why Maisy was interested.
And he definitely knew we were talking about him.
Maisy’s face turned a brilliant shade of red. Luckily, she was saved from the impending awkward conversation when the phone rang and she ducked away.
“Uh . . . hi. I’m Gigi Ellars.” My own cheeks were turning pink. This was how I made my first impression on one of Prescott’s few doctors?
One corner of his mouth twitched as he shook my hand. “Everett Carlson. Nice to meet you.”
Before I had to think of something else to say, Maisy called out to us in a loud, panicked voice.
“The EMT crew is on their way. They’ll be here in about three minutes. A man was nearly beaten to death last night! They’ve revived him twice on the way here but he’s got a very weak pulse and has lost a lot of blood.” Her face started to pale.
Dr. Carlson started issuing orders. “I’ll meet the ambulance outside and get the report from the EMTs. If he needs surgery, I’ll be the doctor in the operating room. You two will need to get him prepped while I get scrubbed.”
“Okay,” I said.
Maisy didn’t move or say a word.
“Maisy, get ahold of Dr. Peterson and tell him to come in and cover my other patients. Ida is here today. Make sure she’s the one in the OR with me if we need to do surgery,” he said before jogging to the ER doors.
Maisy was standing still, frozen in her spot. Normally I would let her take the lead because she had tenure at the hospital, b
ut we didn’t have time for her to freak out and from the looks of it, she wasn’t going to be taking that lead anytime soon. We needed to get going.
“Maisy, do you want to meet the ambulance with Dr. Carlson?”
She shook her head as her eyes widened.
“Okay, how about you get the cart ready? Then get ahold of Dr. Peterson and Ida.”
After she nodded, I turned and followed Dr. Carlson outside to wait for the ambulance.
The next hour went by in a hurried blur.
After doing a quick scan of the patient’s internal injuries, Dr. Carlson decided he would indeed need surgery. Maisy managed to pull herself together and we worked side by side to prep the patient for surgery.
The man had been so badly beaten I could barely make out his facial features. His swollen body was covered in cuts and bruises, and there were glass shards in one leg from what appeared to be a broken beer bottle. Maisy and I cut off his bloody clothes and removed the dried blood caked on his body. When the bulk of the blood was cleaned away, we rushed him to the operating room.
I said a silent prayer that my first patient in Prescott would make it through.
Standing in the ER bay, I was in the middle of bagging what was left of the patient’s bloody clothes when I glanced over at Maisy. She was supposed to be disposing of the bloody bedding before the cleaning crew came in to sanitize the room, but instead, she was just standing by the bed, clutching a white pillow streaked with dark red stains.
“Maisy, are you okay?” I asked softly.
When she didn’t answer, I walked to her side.
“Maisy? I asked if you were okay.” I touched her shoulder.
She flinched and then turned to me, her beautiful eyes flooded with tears. The next thing I knew, she was sobbing into my shoulder while I hugged her.
My heart went out to her. She’d probably never seen such a violent case before. It had taken me years of working in the ER to build up a strong enough stomach to handle seeing such things on a regular basis.
“You okay?”
“Yeah.” She sniffled.
