“Let the anesthetist make sure Sommer’s all the way awake and stabilized. A few minutes,” Allen said.
A congratulatory huddle formed in the corridor-Iker, Shari, Broker, Brecht, and Mike, the very comforted- looking administrator. After a moment, Broker stepped away and poked his head into the recovery room and listened to the medical chat.
“He’s breathing well, sats good, rhythm stable,” Nancy said.
“Okay,” Amy said as she scanned the monitors. “Let’s rouse him, get him to raise his head, squeeze a finger, swallow.” Amy leaned over Sommer. “And wait for the eyelids, the littlest muscles are always the last to come back. Who’s got the Narc keys?”
“Got them right here. I’ve got everything today.”
“Get twenty-five milligrams of Demerol and give it IV.”
Nancy went to a closet next to the oxygen outlet, opened the locked door, and went in. Amy moved the tray from the foot of Sommer’s bed, looked around, and then placed it on a corner of the crash cart. Nancy returned with a slender syringe.
“Wait a sec. Let me get him talking,” Amy said, propping her elbow next to Sommer’s head. She leaned down and dangled her index finger in the loose fingers of his right hand. “Can you blink? Can you squeeze my finger?” she asked.
Sommer’s eyes swam around, fluttered. He pressed her finger and tried to move.
“Take it easy,” Amy said, patting his arm. “You’ve got a few stitches in your abdomen.”
Sommer pursed dry lips. “ ’peration.”
“That’s right. You’ve had an emergency operation that went just fine and now you’re in the recovery room.”
He blinked, focused, blinked again. “High,” he said slowly.
“Hello, yourself.”
“No. Stone. .” He took a breath, wheezed. “Grog. .”
“Yep. We gave you something. We’re about to give you some more of the good stuff.”
“Hi,” Sommer said.
“Right, you’re stoned, huh,” she said.
Sommer raised his head and attempted to look around. “No,” he said more distinctly. “Hello.” He studied her. “You’re pretty,” he said in a halting voice. Then he squinted at the badge on the front of her blue tunic that read: amy skoda, crna. “You’re pretty, Amy,” he said, a little surer.
Amy executed a modified curtsey and said, “Thank you, and you’re lucky to be alive.”
Sommer blinked, the electric beep speeded up, and his voice sank. “Where?” he struggled to raise his up on elbows. Fell back.
“It’s all right,” Amy reassured him. “You’re in a hospital.”
His eyes turned to dark tunnels, remembering. “Storm.”
Amy nodded. “Mister, you’ve had quite an adventure.”
“Others?” he whispered, almost inaudible.
That’s when Amy saw Broker edging through the door. She backed away from the bed, signaling to Nancy, hooking two fingers, squeezing her thumb in a squirting gesture. Nancy injected the Demerol into Sommer’s IV, then discarded the used syringe in the Sharpes Box.
“Sorry, Mr. Broker, if observers are a hindrance, they will be removed,” Amy announced as she put her palms on Broker’s chest and backed him out into the hall. Then her stern expression relaxed into a smile. “Let him rest a few more minutes.” Her hands lingered a beat longer than necessary and then she poked the logo on Broker’s garish yellow sweatshirt with a straight finger. “Oh my,” she said. A crawly drawing of a plump wood tick with a grinning cartoon-bug face bannered the shirt, with the caption:
“If I didn’t have a sense of humor, that might offend me,” she said, maintaining direct eye contact.
Broker, never good at small talk-and wondering how she knew his name-asked, “Do I know you?”
Her face went from warmly inviting to snappy attention as her eyes shifted past Broker. “Dr. Falken.”
Allen, gray with fatigue, shambled up and gestured with an upturned palm. “How’s he doing?”
“He’s out of the woods,” Amy said with a straight face. “Vitals are normal. He roused, raised his head, squeezed my finger, swallowed, and told me I was pretty.”
“Are you treating for pain?”
“Nancy gave him twenty-five milligrams of Demerol. I’m going to get him something cool for his throat.”
Amy breezed past and Broker watched her model the possibilities of baggy blue trousers as she walked down the hall. “She’s pleased with herself,” he said.
“Yes, nice, ah, glutes. Nordic skiing, diagonal stride, would be my guess,” Allen yawned. He blinked and continued in a more serious voice, “She was extra careful extubating him and bringing him out of anesthesia. He has a tricky throat to work in. She’s as good as or better than anyone I’ve worked with in Level One, so she’s earned some strutting rights.” As an afterthought, he said, “She’s wasted on this place.”
Then he patted Broker on the shoulder and drifted back down the hall and sat heavily on a folding chair. At the other end of the corridor Amy Skoda stopped to chat with Iker. They both looked up at Broker at the same time, and Amy batted her eyelashes, then lowered her gaze, walked away from Iker, and turned out of sight down the hall.
Then Broker nodded out on his feet and came back when he started to lose his balance. Dead-tired, he saw some movement. Iker and Shari started toward the dispatch room across from the ER cubbyhole and the yells started.
“Heads up, gang! We got another one!”
“What now?”
“No problem, relax, a broken arm, lacerations,” called Brecht. “A drunk tried to drive a snowmobile through a birch tree. Thing is, that Tahoe they’re using as an ambulance got stuck on the street, so we’re going to have to manhandle the stretcher in.”
Broker went to the garage, slipped back into his wet boots, and went to the street in front of the hospital, where deputy Sam had mired the Tahoe in a drift. Amid much yelling, they hauled another man lashed to a Stokes stretcher into the garage. Lumps of frozen blood the size of jelly beans stuck to the new patient’s face and he smelled of alcohol and gasoline. A bloody pressure bandage was wrapped on his head.
Tracking snow, they stomped in through the garage and transferred the guy to a treatment table in the vacant emergency cubbyhole. Milt had been moved deeper into the building.
“This one’s mine,” Brecht said and he commenced the call for tests and service. Amy appeared at Broker’s side, handed him a Dixie cup full of chipped ice, and said, “Hold this a sec.” Up close, in addition to the gray eyes, she had long lashes. And she smelled good. Neither medicinal nor cosmetic.
But clean. And just so. .
Broker kicked off his snowy boots and put his dry slippers back on as Amy joined the ER doc and bantered for a moment. Then she broke away and returned down the hall. “No big deal, a broken leg,” she said, taking back her Dixie cup.
Whoa!
Broker came up sharp on the balls of his feet, his eyes darted. Heard something. .
“You all right?” Amy asked.
Broker held up his hand.
Broker, who could hear his daughter cough across a crowded auditorium, detected it through the medical chatter. Cued by his hard eyes, Amy and the other nurse caught it one beat later. Allen, sitting zombielike in the corridor, lurched up in his chair, raised his head, and turned.
The once rhythmic beep-beep-beep of Sommer’s monitor was improvising in a minor key.
Booop. . booop. . booop. .
