Page 5 of New River Gorge(ous)
“Oh.” There’s murmured conversation on the other end of the line, and then, “Who is this?”
“Dr. Whistler. Miss MacCord’s … emergency contact.”
“Oh. Dr. Whistler. Sorry about that. Let me check with the charge nurse about Miss MacCord. Can I call you back?”
“No,” I grumble. “I’m on my way.”
“Oh. But it’s late.”
“Mmhmm.”
“But…”
I hang up.
Twelve minutes and three hairpin mountain road turns later, I pull into the parking lot. I mutter a silent plea that June will be on her best behavior and everything will have been a mistake before killing the engine. Even as I hold out the tiny thread of hope that it was nothing more than an accidental pocket dial, I know it wasn’t. There’s always more to the story when June’s involved.
Still, I’ve seen enough in my years of medicine to know that I need to check on her in person.
The door to the reception area slides open, and the woman at the front desk doesn’t bother looking up. “Visiting hours are over,” she says stiffly.
I fix her with a stern glare. “I’m Doctor Whistler. And I need to talk to the charge nurse and see Miss June MacCord before I leave.”
“You’re Doctor Whistler?” Her eyes rove over my body in appraisal. She leans forward, and I hate the not-so-subtle signals she’s sending.
I force her gaze back to my face. “Yes.” I’m curt. “The charge nurse, now.”
She frowns before she steps away from the desk and through a door. I hear her, because she is clearly not trying to hide her words. “Dr. Whistler insists on seeing the charge nurse. And by the way, he’d be hot if he wasn’t so … grumpy.”
“Difficult patients, difficult doctors, is there anything beneath a charge nurse?”
“I’m not talking to him anymore. I mean if he’d apologize, I would go home with him in a heartbeat, but not with that attitude.”
I roll my eyes. The desperation of this woman is something I would not touch while wearing a hazmat suit.
A half moment later, the charge nurse walks behind the desk. She’s probably close to forty, and has the look of someone who’s worn out from how taxing her job is.
“Dr. Whistler?”
I cross my arms over my chest and nod.
“Can I see some ID?”
I hand over my license and hospital ID.
She holds a blue file folder in her left hand and flips it open. “You are Miss MacCord’s…”
“Emergency contact.”
“Right.” The charge nurse quirks a brow at me. “And you’re here because…?”
“Miss MacCord called me half an hour ago. It’s unusual to receive a phone call from a person in the middle of the night when they’re in an in-patient facility after surgery.”
“Well…” The charge nurse grimaces. “There was a small incident with Miss MacCord and two of our nurses not that long ago.”
“An incident?” My eyes narrow. “What kind of incident? Did she reinjure her ankle? Her surgery was less than forty-eight hours ago.”
The charge nurse levels me with a stern glare. “Miss MacCord does not want to be here. She attempted to leave the facility by way of an emergency exit. She was found before she caused any damage to her ankle or the facility.”
