Page 8 of Code Love
“You shouldn’t have,” Jade said, turning those intense dark eyes on Lillian.
“I’m going to get some coffee,” Lillian said and turned on her heel. When Jade had looked at her, Lillian’s heart had started topound, and she wasn’t entirely sure why that was. She’d never had a problem with authority figures questioning her decisions, and Jade wasn’t really an authority figure. Lillianwasthe Chief of Surgery, so why did she feel like she had been chastised like a child?
Lillian was almost jogging to get away from Jade by the time she made it to the break room. Her skin was tingling with… something. Rage? Annoyance? She couldn’t quite put the word to it. She went over to the coffee machine and started a cup brewing. She glanced out the window. The rain was lashing against the glass, and she could see the palm trees bending in the heavy winds. She shook her head. She really needed to focus, it was barely ten o’clock and there were likely several hours left of the storm to endure.
She took her coffee from the machine and added copious amounts of sugar and creamer. She needed something to take the edge off; she almost wished she could get a nice glass of wine, but she could be called back into surgery any second now. The room should be reset any time now, so she just had to wait for another page.
She sat down on the couch, opting to give herself a few moments rest before heading back down to the ER to see if anyone needed her. She desperately needed to calm down anyway. Lillian just could not reconcile that Jade could so easily get under her skin. A warmth spread through her stomach as she sipped her coffee and thought about Jade. She took another deep breath and rolled her shoulders against the back of the couch. She could drink her coffee before heading back down. Pressing her lips together, she decided to just put Jade and anything she had to say out of her mind.
4
Jade
Jade watched Lillian walk away and just shook her head. She was a really amazing doctor, but sometimes she just didn’t make sense. The surgery they had performed was impressive to say the least—it truly was. Jade firmly believed that if it had been any other surgeons in that operating room, then Stephanie likely would not have survived. It wasn’t luck; it was skill. Lillian had skill and plenty of it. Yet, she just left Stephanie’s family out here for almost an hour scared and unknowing of whether or not she was going to survive. For what? Credit? Who cares who gets the credit?
Jade shook her head again. She knew better than that. In the medical field, credit was the highest honor. It’s what was fought for, but that’s not why Jade became a doctor, and it definitely isn’t why she became Chief of Medicine, she didn’t care about who gets the accolades or pats on the back; she wanted to do what she did in that operating room. She wanted to look death in the eye and tell it to wait.
She thought about Lillian and how she reacted in that OR. Her specialty was neurology, and to be fair, once the pressure had been relieved on Stephanie’s brain, her work was done. Still, she jumped in when Jade needed help to get the bleeding under control. She was fast and precise. Those bright green eyes behind the mask were intense. Jade pressed her lips as she pictured Lillian in her mind, and her heart sped up.
Just then one of the nurses called her over, her face was lined with worry.
“What is it?” Jade asked, but her eyes trailed up to where she had lost sight of Lillian.
“We are running out of space,” the nurse said. She was young, likely newly hired, and Jade had to glance at her tag to remember her name, Jennifer.
“Space for what?” Jade asked, schooling her features back to neutral.
“Well, for families and discharged patients,” Jennifer said, shooting glances around the crowded waiting room. “Should we start sending them home?”
“No,” Jade answered quickly, “not unless we want them right back in here.” She looked around. The hospital’s gift and coffee shop was dark, closed for the night, several empty tables sat with upturned chairs on them. “Didn’t you work in the gift shop while you were in nursing school?”
The nurse’s eyes narrowed, but she nodded.
“Do you know if any of the other employees are here?”
The poor girl’s eyes went wide, unable to answer the question. Jade pulled in a deep breath, fighting annoyance; there was no reason for this woman to be frightened of her.
“See if you can find any of the current employees, if not then I may have you stay in there until the storm is over. If nothing else, we can offer some more space. If you can get some coffee oranything else that will help comfort the people, then that would be even better.”
The woman nodded and took off. Jade quickly called the head of maintenance, to come down and open the door and get the lights on, then several others came in and assisted with getting the chairs onto the ground. Within a few minutes, Jennifer returned with one of the other employees and they started up the coffee machines.
“Without the manager, we won’t be able to open the registers,” the employee told Jade.
“Don’t worry about that,” Jade said. “Just try to keep a total of what we use, and I will make up for it later.”
“I don’t think Jess is going to like that,” the kid said. He didn’t look to be more than eighteen.
“Leave Jess to me,” Jade said with a wink. The manager of the contract company that ran the store was abrasive, to say the least. Jade didn’t mind, however, taking one for the hospital in this case. “Just try to keep it simple.”
Jennifer and the employee nodded and set to work making space for people to come in and sit, even order coffee or drinks while they waited out the storm. Jade took a deep breath as people quickly filled in the space but didn’t dwell on it long. A few more hours and the storm would be past. Then they could start letting people head to their homes.
She quickly checked her phone for any notifications, things still seemed to be running smoothly despite the crowds, and Jade couldn’t help but smile. She had a knack for hiring the best people and the hospital ran like a machine. She turned and headed for the stairs, determined to catch Lillian before she left the breakroom.
She went up the stairs and just as she swung open the door, she was face to face with Lillian, clearly on her way out.
“We need to talk,” Jade said quickly and gestured for Lillian to go back into the breakroom.
“About?” Lillian said, moving just enough to let Jade into the room.
