Chapter 9
Chapter Nine
JOSH
“Who is it?” I took the phone from Erika.
She waved the phone at me. “Talk to her. That’s Sarah—my work wife.
She’s the only reason I survive situations like this at the hospital.
I’ve got to—” She stopped, suddenly turning in a slow circle like she’d been dropped into a foreign country.
“Do you even have sterile gloves in a size close to mine? Size seven.”
“Maybe in the back,” I said.
“You do have sterilized gowns, right?” Erika asked, already judging the shelf of surgical supplies like it had personally disappointed her.
“Up on the right.” I waved.
She drifted off, scavenging stuff off the shelves.
I heard a voice in the phone screaming when I put it to my ear. “Dr. Hurst? Are you there, Dr. Hurst? Answer me, damn it! I don’t have all day and neither does the patient.”
“I’m here. And you are?”
“This is Sarah Wells. I’m the best goddamned ER tech you’ll ever meet.
You need to listen very carefully, Dr. Hurst. For starters, I don’t know what kind of history you have with my girl, but that’s shit you’ll have to work out some other time.
I don’t know your skills which means I’m going to assume you’re as good as a noob out of school. ”
I opened my mouth to tell her what I could do but she didn’t let me speak.
“I don’t care what you think you can do.
I’m going to lay down some facts. Then we’re going to discuss the patient.
I’ll talk you through this surgery. Dr. Chomping is the most incredible emergency surgeon I’ve ever worked with.
I’ve worked with a lot. She can do things that are impossible.
Like, beyond comprehension mind-blowing.
I need you to understand that. You still with me? ”
“Yes.”
“Can you confirm she’s gathering supplies and doing some weird breathing exercises, please?”
I pushed my glasses up into my hair. They were more for reading than long-distance vision. She’d pulled her hair up and was putting on a surgical bonnet.
“Yes.”
“Good. She has to calm down before she starts. Did you get a catheter in the dog?”
“Yes. We started fluids.”
“I need the patient’s stats.”
“Two-year-old neutered male hound mix. Ninety-three pounds. Lateral. Pain relief with buprenorphine.”
“I need you to take a video so I can see what we’re dealing with. Show me this arrow.”
I took a video and sent it.
Sarah proceeded to bark orders at a steady pace until the patient was fully prepped and under anesthesia.
Then she ordered, “Put me on speaker for a sec.” I changed it to speaker.
Sarah yelled, “We got the dog, Dr. Chomping. Get that arrow out. I’ll be with Dr. Hurst on anesthesia.
We got you, girl. Put me off speaker, Dr. Hurst.”
I put the phone to my ear. “Here’s the most important part.
Your job is to keep the patient under anesthesia and alive while she does what she has to do.
If the dog’s stats start crashing, unless the dog is dead, don’t say a word to her.
You will put the monitoring machine warning bells on silent mode. Do you understand me?”
“Got it.”
“It will freak her out and then all hell will break loose. It’s like she has this crazy rein on the energy around her during these procedures but if the patient is crapping out and she gets wind of it, she freaks out, and everything goes south.
You will not say oops, oh shit, fuck, or even give her a wow during the procedure.
If you think things are off, I want you to say to me, stats update.
Then send me a video of the stats. Okay?
Again, you say stats update. Then you will take a video of what’s going on. ”
“Got it. You seem to know her well.”
“We’ve gotten through things that’d make your butthole pucker.
I want her back up here, Dr. Hurst. You can’t have her.
There’s just no one like her. She will do what needs doing for this patient and be back next week.
I can’t do another overnight without her.
These other doctors suck. Now, take a picture of the dog’s stats on the monitoring machine and send it to me. ”
I did and sent it. “First bag of fluids is in.”
“Start another, slower rate.” She rattled off a drip rate and a few things to add to the bag. “You need to do IV antibiotic.”
“I need you to scrub in, Dr. Hurst,” Erika said.
“Okay.” In my ear Sarah asked me to hand the phone to my tech. I handed it to Bonnie and scrubbed in.
I held stuff and handed items to Erika when needed.
It was hard not to make small talk or even offer her praise.
With her hands buried in the dog’s chest, Erika removed the arrow with calm, methodical confidence .
This wasn’t the Erika I remembered. The one I recalled was exactly the one Sarah mentioned would appear if things started to go to crap with the patient. This Erika was badass.
There was no universe where I’d have the guts to do this. I could handle abdominal surgery. A chest was a whole different beast. She repaired shredded lung within millimeters of a steadily beating heart.
Damn. That was terrifying—and impressive.
An hour into the procedure, a man, not gowned or masked, marched into the surgery room and yelled, “Why weren’t you back at my place three hours ago?”
I blinked at my brother and glanced back at the patient on the table as if this answered everything.
“Timothy Hurst, is that you?” Erika pinned him with a displeased glare. “Please, get out of the surgery room.”
“Who the hell are you?” Closing in on thirty-five, Timothy’s newly bearded face and mildly rounding belly made him look like Glen Powell after a buffet bender at the Bob Evans.
Erika gritted out, “In case you didn’t notice, I’m in the middle of open-chest surgery. Get. Out.”
He puffed up as if about to yell. “You can’t talk to me that way.”
“We can talk later,” I said in my most placating tone. “You can wait in the office.”
“No, we’ll talk now.” He took another step into the room.
Erika slammed a pair of hemostats onto the sterile tray, the metal clattering like a warning shot. She snatched up her scalpel and pointed it toward him, the blade gleaming under the surgical lights.
“Get. Out.” Her voice cut sharper than the instrument in her hand.
“Take one more step in here and I’ll wedge this thing somewhere the sun don’t shine.
You barging in here straight from the barn without even changing clothes puts my patient at risk for infection.
” She didn’t lower the scalpel. “Dr. Hurst will deal with you when we’re finished. ”
Timothy’s face flushed red. “I paid enough to own this building. Hell, I think I’ve replaced every HVAC element here and done so at a loss. I’ll talk to him wherever the hell I want.”
She took a step toward him; scalpel still poised like a threat that shimmered under the lights.
“Listen carefully,” she said, her voice low and trembling with fury.
“My father is dead. Which means Dr. Hurst owns half this practice—and I own the other half. You’re not storming into a barn right now.
You’re standing in my clinic. You are a client. ”
She pointed the blade at his chest. “If you don’t walk out this second, not only will you lose whatever ridiculous discount you’ve been mooching, but we will never treat any of your animals again.
And if you end up with a stab wound?” She shrugged, eyes hard as steel.
“I can’t be responsible for someone who refuses to follow simple directions. ”
“You couldn’t survive without my business.”
She rolled her eyes. “Of course we could. It’s you who need us.”
I swear my balls retracted straight into my abdomen.
No one—no one—talked to Timothy like that.
A wave of nausea rolled through me. My brother could be mean when he wanted to be, the kind of man who held grudges so long they fossilized.
And the worst part? We needed him. He ran the only HVAC business in town.
He’d either bought out or bullied every competitor into oblivion.
Crossing him wasn’t just risky. It was dangerous.
When he didn’t budge, Erika drew her arm back, scalpel still in her hand like she was preparing to launch it. And God help me, I believed she would.
“I’m in the middle of repairing a dog’s chest!” she screamed. “That’s his heart right there.” She pointed into the open, bloody cavity, where a tiny heart pulsed like a frantic drum. “Get. The. Hell. Out.”
Timothy paled. He held up his hands and backed out. I’d never seen him cave like this. “I’ll be in the office.”
“Close the door, Bonnie,” I asked in as even a tone as I could manage.
Bonnie shut the surgery door.
Erika took a deep breath and returned to her work. “Sorry. I get a little nuts when people bother me with petty shit when I’m in the middle of something important.”
“No,” I said, my voice tighter than I intended, a knot of guilt twisting in my chest. “I’m the one who should apologize.
Timothy hasn’t been himself since his divorce last year.
She left him for some chiropractor in Durham.
It really tore him up. He’s been angry at everything ever since. I’ll talk to him. I promise.”
“Fire him as a client until he gets counselling. That kind of disrespect needs to be handled right away, even if he’s your brother.”
“He gives us a lot of business, and he fixes the AC when it’s out.”
“He could ask another vet to help him, but does he?” She looked up at me over her mask.
I shook my head.
She focused for a few moments on tying something off in the chest. Then said, “He knows quality care. What he doesn’t know is how to respect it. Does he pay on time?”
“No.” That was a compliment. Quality care. A freaking compliment from Erika? Warmth flooded my chest.
“Fire him. Or at least suspend him. Tell him he doesn’t respect you enough to continue as a client for right now. I guarantee it’ll feel good to say it.”
“I don’t know—