The Doctor’s Simple Life (Love Heals All Wounds #3)

6. Sienna

CHAPTER 6

SIENNA

T he end of the week crawls around. I’m exhausted. I knew that the managerial role was going to come with more responsibilities and more work to do, but I never expected those responsibilities to include babysitting a guy who sulks the second anything doesn’t go his way.

I’ve never met anyone so childish. I’ve never met anyone so unaware of other people and uncaring towards their feelings.

“And then he was so rude!” I sigh before taking another big mouthful of Gramma’s lasagna.

She’s the greatest cook on earth. She has the patience of a saint. She’s the best.

If she told me to stop complaining about Reece again, I’d get it. She’d be well within her rights. But she hasn’t. Instead, she just lets me get it all off my chest.

“I’ve told him so many times this week that he has to be polite to our patients, that they expect a different level of care, different than anything he’s used to, but it’s like I’m talking to a brick wall. He just won’t listen.”

“There just ain’t telling some people nothing,” says Gramma, smiling sympathetically at me. “It sounds like he’s a real piece of work.”

“I don’t know why I agreed to babysit him. I’ve never felt like I hated my job more.”

“Now, don’t say things like that. You don’t really hate it, do you?”

I sigh a long, hard sigh. “No, I love nursing. I just don’t love his attitude.”

“You get rotten apples in every barrel. Looks like you’ve found yours. Sometimes, you just have to endure the challenges. You’re being tested, honey, but I have faith you’ll come out of it stronger than ever.”

“I hope so.” I close my eyes, taking a deep, steadying breath. She’s right. I can endure this. I have no choice but to. “I love you, Gramma.”

“And I love you, sweetie, forever and always.”

Every time I talk to her, a renewed sense of calm washes over me. I’m sure she’s glad to see me, but I feel like I’ve been bothering her every day this week with this relentless complaining about my job. I hate sounding so negative, but Reece is making my life hell.

She says she never has a problem making dinner for her favorite granddaughter, but sometimes I feel so guilty about imposing on her. She’s got her own life to consider without me forcing myself upon her all the time. Gramma raised me, after all. She’s done more than enough.

On Tuesday, I came up for dinner and ended up eating with the entire bridge club. Not that that was a problem. I’ve known those women since I was a baby, too. My grandmother has always been a champion bridge player. She tried to teach me the game when I was younger, but I never quite picked it up like she did.

Sometimes I feel like I’m in the way.

“Are you done with this, sweetheart?” she asks, standing up to collect my plate.

“Yes, thank you. It was delicious, as always.”

“Always the best for my little girl.”

“I’m not that little anymore, Gramma,” I say with a chuckle.

She fixes me with a blazing look, one that could be mistaken for something negative if I knew her less well. “You’ll always be my little girl to me.”

She picks up my plate, stacks it on hers, and takes it over to the sink. I pull up my phone to check my messages.

And that’s when I hear the biggest shattering noise I’ve ever heard.

I drop my phone to the table and gasp, my hand flying to my mouth. “Gramma?” I scramble to my feet, the chair tipping backward as I rush to her, dropping to my knees beside her.

Broken ceramic and tomato sauce lie like a halo around her head, and her arms twitch, her eyes rolled back in her skull. “Oh, God,” I whisper to myself. “Oh, God, Gramma, please be okay.”

Quickly, I roll her into the recovery position, trying my best not to panic. This is the kind of thing I’ve been trained for, emergency response. It looks to me like she’s having a seizure, so I quickly grab a bunch of kitchen towels from the drawer and bundle them under her head.

Then count the agonizingly slow seconds.

The facts. I have to focus on facts right now.

First fact: the longer a seizure goes on, the more dangerous it is. That’s why I’m counting.

Second fact: make sure that the area around a person having a seizure is clear. This is to make sure there’s nothing they can hurt themselves on. If Gramma hurts herself and it’s my fault, I’ll never forgive myself.

Third fact: you’re not supposed to restrain someone mid-seizure. You have to make sure they’re safe, but even if they start rolling around on the floor, you have to let them. You don’t want them to get hurt.

Watching is the worst part.

I want to reach down and hold her, shake her, take her hand, make sure everything’s okay. But I don’t. I just sit with her, watching the clock on the oven, tick, tick, tick. The whole thing only lasts a few seconds, but it feels like an eternity.

I can keep calm in a crisis. It’s part of my job. But keeping calm doesn’t mean that I haven’t been sitting here thinking the whole time. What if this is when I finally lose her? What if this is the moment when I’m never going to see her again?

When she comes round, I almost cry with relief. “Gramma, are you okay?” I ask.

She mumbles something in response, and I take her hand. “Squeeze once for yes if you can’t talk. Do you know where you are?”

Squeeze.

“Do you know what your name is?”

Squeeze.

“Do you know what happened?”

“I think so,” she croaks. “I was standing here one second, and the next I was on the floor.”

“Are you still dizzy?” I ask.

“A little. But not as much.”

“All right.” I breathe a sigh of relief.

She shuffles as if she’s about to get up, and I shake my head firmly. “I need you to promise me you’re not going to move. I don’t want you to stand up and then fall over and hurt yourself even more, okay? For a change, just listen to me as your doctor, not as your granddaughter.”

She squeezes my hand hard. “Yes, doctor. But where are you going?”

I lean down and kiss her forehead. “I’ll be ten minutes, max. I’m getting help.”

I shouldn’t leave her. But she’s awake and talking, and I know exactly where to go to get help.

Part of my job is keeping updated with what’s going on in the medical world, to read papers and keep informed. I have to know what I’m talking about. And when I was doing research into Reece this week, one of the things I found, to my surprise, was a paper on seizures in older people.

For a plastic surgeon, he has a surprising number of other interests. I would have assumed that he would be dedicated only to his niche, but as I dug deeper, I found all sorts of interesting things. Research on epilepsy, some studies about vaccinations, about infectious diseases.

The more I went digging, the more I found that he knows a hell of a lot.

And I know exactly where he lives.

If I run, I can make it there and back in less than five minutes. He’s just around the corner. But I don’t want to leave Gramma totally unprepared. I grab my phone, dial 911 into the keypad, and place it near her. “If you feel like something’s going wrong, you press call, okay? I don’t care if it’s just a scare. If anything changes at all, you press call. Got it?”

“Yes, love,” she croaks.

I stroke her face and say, “Do not move. If I get back and I find you’re not lying exactly here, I’m going to be furious.”

“You’re just like your mother,” she scoffs quietly, then closes her eyes.

I kiss her forehead again, get up, scramble into the corridor, pull on some shoes and sprint out into the night.

I’m not much of a runner, but I’d do anything for Gramma. My feet pound on the road as I sprint down the street, and I turn the corner. My heart sinks to see that all the houses on Reece’s street are dark. Maybe nobody is home.

Maybe this was a terrible idea. Maybe I should have just called an ambulance to begin with. I guess I wasn’t thinking straight. I shouldn’t have left her.

My chest heaving, I stop in front of Reece’s house. A small lamp is on in the living room. It’s maybe not totally dark enough for lights to be on yet, and this has the look of a light that could be left on all the time or could be an indication of someone being home.

But I’ve come here now. I have to try.

Steeling myself, I thump on the door so hard it hurts. There’s a silence, and my heart sinks even lower.

Then I hear some grumbling behind the door and the latch being unlocked. “Dr. Westbrook,” I gasp. “Please, can you help me? It’s my grandmother. She’s had a seizure. I need help.”

His eyes grow wide, and I clench my fist, getting ready for the smug comment, for the unbearable one up this is going to give him.

But to my surprise, he doesn’t say anything. “Hold on,” is all I get.

He darts back into his house, grabs his doctor’s bag, then rushes back to the door, closing it behind him. “Where does she live?”

“This way,” I say, then draw as much air in my lungs as I can and set off running again.

We don’t say anything as we run back around the corner, and my whole chest is burning so much that I don’t think I could.

I let Reece into the house, and we rush into the kitchen to find Gramma lying on the floor. She’s staring at the wall, and her face splits into a smile when she sees us.

“Took you long enough,” she says.

“Gramma, this is Dr. Westbrook.”

“He’s the new recruit,” she says, raising an eyebrow.

“Yeah…” That’s the only reply I have because all week, she’s heard me going on and on about what a horrible person he is and yet, here he is on his knees with my Gramma, treating her more gently than I’ve seen him treat anyone all week.

“Mrs. Hale,” he says. “Do you have a history of seizures at all?”

“No. I’ve had a few dizzy spells in my life, but I’ve never fallen to the floor like this before.”

“I’m glad to see you so lucid. That’s a good sign.” He helps her to sit up, his eyes sharp on her as he observes her every move. “You might be feeling a little shaky for a while, so I would recommend not doing anything strenuous until tomorrow. But for now, let’s get you somewhere more comfortable. Let me help you up.”

He holds out his hand, and my Gramma takes it, her eyes sparkling with the kind of look that says, Now, Sienna, just what have you got against this fine young man here?

I don’t comment. I’m still too breathless from running to form a full sentence. This is probably the first time I’ve ever seen him be nice. And even though his alter ego is making me seem like a bad person for complaining about him so much all week, I can’t think of a single word to say.

He leads Gramma through to the living room and gets her settled on the sofa. “You’ll be comfortable here.”

“Not too hot, not too cold. I’m just right. Thank you.”

He spends a little longer with her, and then when he’s sure she’s settled, he comes over to where I’m standing in the corner, an utterly indecipherable look on his face. “You did the right thing, coming to get me.”

“I shouldn’t have left her alone,” I say, keeping my voice low to try and stop Gramma from overhearing.

“No, probably not. But you were worried. You needed the support.”

“I guess I did.”

“So then, it was right. And plus, I know a thing or two about seizures.” He rubs the back of his head almost shyly, like he’s making a confession. “Almost anything can trigger this kind of event. Brains are set up in the most ridiculous way possible. You wouldn’t believe the kind of electrical chaos that goes on in there.”

I bite my tongue to stop myself from saying I’m actually a medical professional too. I probably would. I’m too intrigued by his human side to interrupt the flow.

“The chances are,” he continues, “that this is just a freak, one-off incident. She doesn’t seem to have any history of seizures, and she’s bounced right back. I wouldn’t worry too much. Though, if it happens again, I would get her checked out by a doctor.”

“By a different doctor, I say, unable to help myself from sniping at him.

But he barely reacts to my bait. “As long as I’m here, I’m all yours.”

Then a strange look comes into his eye and I have to look away from him, because that look makes my heart flutter in a way I don’t want it to.

Something is happening here in my Gramma’s kitchen. This is just a little too raw. Tomorrow, I’ll go back to hating him. But for now, even if I wanted to, I can’t.

He helped Gramma. I couldn’t hate him if I tried.