Jess clenched her teeth and swallowed a groan as another contraction tore through her. No, not a contraction. Braxton Hicks. Damn inconvenient, but nothing she couldn’t handle. She’d been handling it all day.
“And that’s why I called you.” When the emergency medicine resident finished prattling on about the EKG and handed her the printout, she beamed like a preschooler who had painted her first rainbow. With her perky blonde ponytail, she looked not much older and not much smarter.
With one glance, Jess recognized the EKG pattern as a harmless atrial fibrillation with no sign of an acute heart attack. What a waste of time. She should have trusted her own resident to take this case, but she had always preferred her own judgment. Especially now since she had been banned from the cath lab for the last five months of her pregnancy—an eternity for an interventional cardiologist.
Jess addressed the patient. “Ever had an irregular heartbeat?”
“All the time. That’s why I take those yellow and white pills. Doesn’t bother me much.” The wrinkles in the woman’s face deepened. “What does this have to do with my pain?”
“Pain? Where?” Maybe this was getting interesting.
The woman pointed toward her lower abdomen. “Whenever I pee. Burns like hell.”
Not interesting at all for a cardiologist. “Your irregular heartbeat has nothing to do with it.” Jess smiled at the patient, but it probably seemed more as if she bared her teeth because in that moment, another wave of pain ripped through her.
The resident paled, and one of her eyelids twitched.
Jess could almost smell the fear. Good. She wouldn’t dare to call the cardiology department for more of this nonsense without checking with her attending first. “Anything to add?” The question was rhetorical, but the resident didn’t seem to know that.
It was comical to see her gather every ounce of courage she’d lost. She stood straighter, raised her chin, and balled her hands into fists until her knuckles whitened. “Um, Diana said she read a study that women were underdiagnosed because of atypical pain, and I thought—”
Okay. She had a point there, but Jess wasn’t in the mood for a lecture from someone a dozen years younger who thought herself too smart to play by the rules. And besides, she had looked at the EKG. Her trip to the ED had been a waste of time. “Have you even been to med school? What is the most important rule? Horses! Look it up!” Another wave of pain robbed her breath. Jess shut her mouth with a snap.
The kid’s upper lip trembled, and Jess regretted her words, especially in front of the patient.
She could only hope that the nice old woman wouldn’t log a completely justifiable complaint about her.
Since when had she turned into one of those yelling types who intimidated residents with the same old sayings? If you hear hoofbeats it’s always horses not zebras might have some truth in it, but that was no reason to attack the young doctor like this. Jess had been in the same position more than once during her residency, and the feeling of helplessness while someone undermined your authority was the worst.
But she couldn’t handle an overly emotional resident on top of her pain at the moment. She would apologize or teach her something or do whatever to make it up to her—later. Much later.
Jess turned on her heel as fast as she could with the grace of a beached whale. She had to get out of here and find a spot to calm down, to breathe. She flung the door open and stormed out of the room.
And promptly collided with an obstacle. A living obstacle who touched her belly and arm.
“Keep your hands off me. What are you doing here, standing in the way?” Jess stared at the dark-haired woman in scrubs. She seemed vaguely familiar.
Whoever she was, she was clever enough to raise her hands in a peace offering and step out of the way.
Jess hurried past her but didn’t go far before more pain stopped her. She pressed her hands to her middle as if that would help and panted until it was over.
“Dr. Riley, are you okay? Can I help you?” The woman had followed her.
“Okay? I haven’t been okay for nine fucking months.” Not since she’d had the clever idea of having a baby before she was too old. Her voice shook, and she clutched her belly again. “I don’t have time for this today.”
“Do you want to lie down? Should I call your obstetrician?” The woman looked around as if she expected someone from ob/gyn to come around the corner.
Jess shrugged in an effort to appear nonchalant. “Just Braxton Hicks. No need to call anyone. I’ve still got work to do.” She fought to steady her voice. No one needed to know about the pain. She was in control and knew what she was doing.
The other woman studied her for a moment, then attempted a professional smile. “We could check you out real quick without signing you in. If you’re right, you can return to work anytime.”
That smile sparked a memory. Kayla had shown her pictures when she’d told Jess about the scandal in the emergency department. One of their residents was a former rock star, a drummer, which had drawn publicity when it all had come out. “You’re the rock chick, right?” Jess pointed a finger at her. “What do you know?”
That seemed to shut her up. She looked as if she’d swallowed a lemon and didn’t protest as Jess walked away.
Jess knew she should return to her department, lay her feet up in the staff lounge, and drink one of those terrible herbal teas her mom was so fond of. But she needed ten minutes for herself and some fresh air. So she detoured to the back entrance and the small yard.
She’d almost reached the bench when hurried footsteps caught up to her. “Dr. Riley, I’m sorry to disturb you out here, but I don’t think you should be alone
