“I'm Dr. Thorne from County General in Minneapolis,” Matt announced in a voice that rang with authority. “We've got a boy here with an appendix that's just about ready to blow. I want him prepped for surgery stat. Where can I scrub?”
“Down that hall on the left, Doctor,” Nurse Johansen answered efficiently, pointing with one hand and yanking a gurney away from the wall with the other. “I'll call the nurse-anesthetist. Well have him ready for you as soon as possible.”
“Make it sooner,” Matt barked, bolting down the hall.
He nearly collided with Dr. Coswell as the older man stepped out of an office to see what all the shouting was about. Coswell hefted his bulk out of the way at the last instant, jerking his cigarette out of his mouth.
“Dr. Thome! What brings you here?”
“I don't have time to chat, Coswell,” Matt said, shrugging out of his jacket. “I've got an emergency appendectomy to perform.”
“You can't just come in here and take over my hospital!” Coswell bellowed, incredulous.
Matt gave him a cool look. “Watch me.”
“This is completely irregular!” Coswell exclaimed, his face turning an unhealthy shade of purple. “I won't stand for it!” he said, his smoker's cough choking off the end of his sentence.
“Yeah, well, I'll cut that kid open with a pocketknife before I let you get near him with a scalpel, so you'd better get used to the idea,” Matt said. He left Coswell sputtering and went to ready himself to save Jacob Maust s life.
The wait seemed interminable. Sarahs parents sat on a low couch, huddling together under the glow of the fluorescent lights, offering one another quiet support. Sarah felt too frantic to sit and paced along the end of the waiting room with one arm wrapped around her midsection and her other hand pressed to her mouth to keep from crying out or screaming in frustration. Her hair still hung loose and she had made no effort to comb it, letting it dry in a wild tangle of waves that fell past her waist.
Ingrid got up to pace with her, putting an arm around Sarah's waist and leaning her head against the taller woman's shoulder. “Matt's a great doctor,” she said softly. “And he's not just talented, he's as stubborn as a two-headed mule, to boot. Hell take care of Jacob.”
“I know,” Sarah murmured, hugging her friend. “I would trust him with my life.”
Ingrid gave her a long, speculative look. “Would you?” she asked, and Sarah knew they were no longer speaking of Matt's abilities as a physician.
The question stopped her cold but just as she started to ask Ingrid what she had meant, Matt emerged from a door at the end of the hall. He limped toward them looking tired and rumpled in baggy surgical greens. Lines of worry and concentration had etched themselves across his forehead and around his mouth, making him look ten years older. As he neared the waiting area he pulled his surgeon's cap off and mussed his hair with his hand. He stopped first to say a few words to Anna and Isaac, who listened intently, then bowed their heads in prayer, then he turned toward Sarah, his dark eyes fastening on hers.
“He's going to be fine,” he said softly.
Her whole body shuddered with relief. She closed her eyes and said a quick prayer of thanks, then the tears started to flow. Without hesitating, she sought the refuge of Matt s embrace, pressing her cheek to his chest. He wrapped his arms around her and kissed her temple.
“It's all right, sweetheart,” he whispered tenderly. “It's all right. Everything's going to be just fine.”
He held her that way for a long while, not caring in the least that her parents were watching. If he couldn't have her forever, at least he could have her for now, and he could give her comfort if she wouldn't take his love.
“It's all right,' he murmured, brushing his lips against her hair.
Sarah looked up at him and sniffed. “Thank you for saving him, Matt. I love him so much.”
“I know.”
“And I love you,” Sarah whispered, lifting a hand to stroke her fingertips down his cheek.
But not as much, he thought sadly. Not enough.
Eventually he took them to see a groggy Jacob. While Sarah was busy fussing over her brother, Isaac drew Matt out into the dark hall.
“I've done you a disservice, Matt Thome,” Isaac said humbly. “You saved my son's life. For this I thank you.”
“And for Sarah?” Matt asked, meeting the old man's gaze head-on.
“Let her go,” Isaac said. There was no anger in his eyes now, only sadness and pleading. “She belongs with her people. You know nothing of our ways, nor she of your world.”
“I love her.”
“How can you love in so short a time? I think you cannot even know her.”
“That's funny.” Matt's mouth twisted into an ironic little smile that held no humor as he thought of Sarah with her hunger to learn and the inner fire she had yet to release. “I was just thinking the same thing about you. You've had her with you her whole life, and I don't think you know her at all.”
“I know that she is Amish, as is her family,'
Matt said nothing. He turned and looked into the room to see Sarah bent over her brother Jacob whom she loved like a son. She was smiling and teasing him, her face glowing. I would have given her sons, he thought, pain tightening its fist inside him. I would have given her a family. I would have given her anything.
But she hadn't asked.
He turned slowly then and walked away, wondering if the town of Jesse had a bar.
A shooting victim, an assault victim, a botched suicide, a bleeding ulcer, a dozen cases of the latest Asian flu strain, and a motorcyclist who hadn't had the foresight to put a helmet on before hurling himself into the side of a garbage truck. Just another day on the job.
Matt slumped onto the orange vinyl couch in the doctors' lounge, dropping his head down on the squeaky tufted arm. He was tired, but his fatigue didn't have anything to do with the hours he'd been working. This was a weariness that went deeper than his muscles and sank into the essence of his being. He'd been back in Minneapolis a week and on the job for four days. The chief of staff had protested his early return, but not with much sincerity. His life as Matt Thorne, head honcho of County General ER, had fallen quickly back into the routine he remembered.
Only he didn't remember it being so emotionally empty. He had never before met the flirtatious teasing of the female members of the staff with a complete lack of enthusiasm. He didn't remember ever dreading going home to his apartment at night. He vaguely remembered charging at his job headfirst, but the man in those memories was a stranger to him. These days he operated on a kind of automatic pilot system—efficient and more than competent, but detached.
The city he had always loved and partaken of had lost some of its shine for him, as well. He found himself missing the rustle of cornstalks and the quiet of the country night. More than anything, he missed Sarah. Every time he thought of her riding on a bus full of strangers to Ohio his heart ached.
He had let her go and returned to “his world” only to find it wasn't the world he wanted to live in anymore. He had returned to his job because he was dedicated to helping and healing people, but this was no longer the way he wanted to go about it.
“Are you just resting or should I call the morgue?”
Julia flopped down into a chair of the same eye-burning orange vinyl as the couch and propped her big feet on a batde-scarred coffee table cluttered with old magazines and abandoned coffee cups. She wore the most relaxed version of “nursing whites” she could get away with—a lab jacket over an oversize T-shirt and baggy white sweatpants. Her wild red mane was more or less contained in a single long braid that hung over her shoulder like a length of rope.