14. Another Call for More Help
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Another Call for More Help
W hoever rapped at the door wasn’t getting the message that Paige either wasn’t home or was sleeping in. She needed it, after being out most of the night taking care of her family, half of whom were waking up as new patients of Caldwell Hospital. They knocked for the third time, which was somehow more jarring than her bell had been before it had died. She had to get her dad to fix the bell when he was back on his feet.
Then, like some Twilight Zone -esque plot, the doorbell that hadn’t worked since she was home last somehow rang. And not in a light, airy way, either. It sounded like nails on a chalkboard. Whoever the hell fixed it for her had her eternal gratitude as well as a thing or two to learn about subtlety.
Jesus. I’m coming. Hold your horses.
Checking her phone for the time—wow, it was already after eleven—she saw she had three missed calls from Aury. She’d call her back in a sec. Triage—the human at her door before the one on her phone. She exhaled slowly as she walked down the stairs, still wiped from the hospital the night before. At least her ribs felt better.
She opened the door to a woman she’d gone to high school with. This had to be a mistake, right? The wrong house, maybe. What was her name again? Carly something. Nevarro, she remembered. Carly Nevarro.
She’d been shy back then, a bit Gothic with black hair and makeup that was all the rage in the nineties. Paige almost didn’t recognize her now, with light brown hair, pale, neutral shades of blush and lipstick, and a trim, fit body that belied an athletic pursuit of some sort.
Paige smiled, surprised to say the least. She wasn’t sure Carly and she had ever talked outside of high school, but she knew Carly hadn’t left town. That much she could keep tabs on with a trip to the local hair salon and Connie’s insatiable gossip. What was harder to suss out, though, is what she was doing on Paige’s doorstep.
“Hi, Paige. I’m not sure you remember me,” Carly started, wringing her hands.
“Carly Nevarro, right?” Paige asked, glad the name had come to her. Paige’d been the outcast in high school, the desperation to leave town taking over the space other students reserved for friendships, dating, parties. She’d been singularly focused on getting good grades so she could get into medical school and leave Banberry forever.
A lot of good that had done her.
“Right. Except it’s Carly Waters now.”
“Congratulations. You married Bill, huh?”
“Yes, and we have a daughter, three. She’s actually why I’m here.” Carly broke down, then, choking out small sobs that shook her petite frame.
“Come in.” Paige ushered Carly in the landing then guided her up the stairs to Paige’s small apartment.
Carly composed herself by the time she and Paige got to the quaint living room. Paige cleared dishes from the small table that sat at the window, motioning for Carly to join her. Had it really only been a day and a half since she’d shared a drink with Owen there? She glanced out the window to see if she could spot him, but all she saw was his open barn door and some equipment piled outside it. No Owen. Her heart sank ever so slightly.
“Can I make you some tea? Or coffee if that’s your thing?”
“No, thank you.” Carly’s gaze darted around the apartment.
“What’s going on?” Paige jumped right into it. Whatever bothered Carly bubbled at the surface, desperate to get out.
“Elizabeth, my daughter, has been coughing for three weeks, and in the beginning I thought it was just a cold.” Paige reached beside the window to the table her brother and Owen had hoisted up the sixteen stairs for her and found a pen and paper to take notes.
“And now?” Paige asked when Carly paused.
“Now she’s coughing up small amounts of blood with her phlegm, her cough is worse, and I don’t know what to do.”
“How much blood, Carly?” Paige scribbled notes.
“Not much, but enough that I’m worried.”
“I agree. I don’t think it warrants a trip to the ER, but why didn’t you go see Dr. Webber? He can order some X-rays, make sure it’s just pneumonia like it sounds.”
Carly shook her head, her eyes brimming with tears.
“He’s selling his practice. Retiring part time to Helena, I guess?”
Paige was confused.
“Did he send you here?” She didn’t mind helping, but it would be pretty poor form for the local pediatrician to send patients to Paige’s private residence. Especially when she didn’t live full time in Banberry.
“No, he didn’t. I tried getting in touch with him while I was at the grocery store getting Pedialyte for Lizzy and Connie overheard my end of the conversation.”
Paige guessed how the conversation had gone from there, but she let Carly finish.
“Anyway, she told me you were home for a while, said you still had privileges here?”
Paige nodded. “I am. I do.”
Paige kept up her right to practice in the state in case her family needed anything. She could call in scripts and set them up with labs if it looked like they needed it.
“Do you think you can help?”
Paige closed her eyes and sighed. She wanted to, God knew that’s why she got her license in the first place. But that could open up a whole can of worms around an existing practice in limbo. She didn’t want to give the town any reason to think she’d be there full time and could be their provider indefinitely. What happened if she helped Elizabeth and she needed follow-up appointments? Would Carly have to take her to Helena? Wait for a physician to come into Banberry and buy out Doc Webber’s practice?
A flash of movement caught Paige’s eye. Owen emerged from his barn, his strong arms steadying the bags of seed he carried on his shoulders. He wore a tight white T-shirt that she could see from there was stained with dirt and handprints where he’d wiped his hands clean.
His muscles ripped against the fabric, and a ripple of lust coursed through her as she remembered what those muscles were capable of. She hadn’t been apart from him for two days even, but damn if his hands and arms hadn’t held her in all the ways she never knew she wanted.
And she missed it. Would miss it even more if she left. When she left, she corrected herself, but that version of her internal monologue didn’t ring as true in the light of the new day.
Without giving much thought to her answer before the words stumbled out of her mouth, Paige turned back to Carly.
“I’d love to help.”
Carly gasped, tears falling again, and she bent over to hug Paige.
“Listen, why don’t you leave your number here,” she told Carly, handing her the pen and paper, “and I’ll get in touch with Dr. Webber, see if I can’t use his facilities for a few days. If he agrees, let’s get Lizzy in for a few tests, including a blood panel and X-ray, and we’ll go from there. Right now, it sounds like pneumonia, but we can’t be sure until we run some tests. Sound good?”
Carly nodded, a smile on her face for the first time since Paige had been reintroduced to her. She was actually quite pretty. She’d aged well and seemed to be a devoted parent. Maybe hanging around Banberry hadn’t been all that bad for her.
“Thank you,” she said, emphatically pressing her hand to her heart. “You have no idea how much this means to me, to my family.”
“I still need Dr. Webber to sign off and the hospital to grant me temporary privileges, but I’m happy to help. I’ll be in touch by tomorrow morning either way, okay? But promise me this—if Lizzy coughs up any more blood, take her to the ER immediately. Okay?”
“I promise. Thank you again.”
Paige said goodbye from the doorway and watched as Owen lugged more bags of seed over his shoulder. He glanced up, caught her watching him, and frowned. Her pulse raced, partly because of what he did to her—physically, emotionally, and mentally—but also because that was a lost cause at this point.
It did feel good to know she might be practicing again, even if it was just temporary.
Walking with purpose to the small metal filing cabinet she kept at the back of the apartment since she started her career, Paige dug around until she found what she was looking for—her license to practice in the state of Montana and medical board paperwork. She would need both to convince the hospital between Banberry and Butte she was worth taking a risk on. She’d done her residency in London, at the Royal London Hospital, so hopefully that—not to mention the rest of her CV afterwards, including her time with DWB—would act as enough of a credential to get her in.
She stowed the files in a leather satchel she slung over her good shoulder, taking care not to aggravate the still-healing ribs on her right side. Picking up her phone, she googled the hospital and found the head of HR, as well as the chief of pediatrics. She decided to start with the chief, figuring she’d do better with someone she could relate to on a professional level.
Dr. Miranda Roberts. Why did that name sound familiar? Paige wracked her brain but couldn’t come up with how she recognized it. She chalked it up to the small world of pediatrics and pediatric research. Dr. Roberts had probably written something for The New England Journal of Medicine , or The Journal of Pediatrics that Paige had read recently. She was about to dial the number of Dr. Roberts’s office at the hospital when an incoming call chimed in.
It was a local number, but not one she recognized. She swiped right and answered. “Dr. Connors.”
“Is there a reason you made me find this tiny little gem all by myself? I mean, it’s pretty and all, but I was hoping to have you show me around.”
“Aury?”
“Yes, who else did you have coming all the way from the islands?”
“Oh my God, Aury !”
“Yes, yes, yes. I am glad to hear you didn’t completely forget about me.”
“I’m so sorry, my dad got hurt, he’s in the hospital, and… You weren’t supposed to be in until next Friday!” Paige drifted, scrambling to get on shoes, trying to find a hat.
“Yes, Friday. And it’s Friday, no? It’s okay, I’ll see you soon. I needed to be sure you would be home, and you are home, yes?”
Next Friday to Aury apparently meant the next Friday to arrive. Crap.
“I’m home. Do you want me to come get you? Where are you?”
“At the cutest café. Something about Jules and Verne. I’m absolutely starved, so I will eat, let you shower, and then I will come to you.”
Paige exhaled for the first time since she picked up the phone, letting out a long sigh.
“Aury, I’m so sorry.” She found shoes, threw them on, dug a little deeper in her suitcase for a hat. Why hadn’t she unpacked? It was a little obnoxious, even for her.
“You can have a drink ready for me when I get there. Ciao .”
“ Ciao .” She stifled a small laugh. Leave it to Aury to let one small English language slip up make a difference of a week.
Paige hung up the phone, rushing around to clean up the place. As she did, she snuck a last look out the window towards Owen’s property.
Her gaze landed on the path they’d made in the tall grasses between their homes in such a short time. At the end of it he bent over, shirtless now in the fall sun. She let her eyes wander down his body since he’d already caught her staring, and when she got to his tool belt and saw the strand of wires dangling from it, her breath hitched.
It was suddenly clear who’d fixed her doorbell, and also why it was as loud as a horn announcing the start of a drag race.
Owen.
He couldn’t not help her, but he’d done it with a “screw you” attached. Ha.
Well, she’d tell him a thing or two, that was for certain.
Not caring that her outfit was mismatched, that she hadn’t brushed her teeth yet, that her hair was wild, she stormed out the door, determined to give Owen a piece of her mind.
After she thanked him, of course. She might be pissed, but she wasn’t rude.
One thing was for certain, though.
The pie was off the table.