2. Prescription For Love

Flann finished her sixth case of the night at five in the morning. They’d commandeered a couple of floor nurses to work in the recovery room until the regular staff could get in, hopefully sometime in the next few hours. Presley had sent word into the OR that she’d been in contact with local police and county sheriffs’ offices, and reports were that many roads were closed due to downed trees and mudslides. With so few roads connecting the outlying communities, many of the staff members would not be able to get into work for at least another twentyfour hours. Those who lived close enough to the hospital to make it in or who were on duty when the storm hit would be eating and sleeping at the hospital until relief arrived. Sometime during the night one of the old-timers Presley had once referred to as a dinosaur had shown up in the OR in scrubs. Franklin Thomas had spent his life as a general practitioner, but when he’d started practicing, around the time Flann had been born, he’d delivered babies, set bones, and on occasion removed an appendix or two. He’d pitched in and put on casts, washed out wounds, and performed other minor surgical procedures to give Flann a chance to concentrate on the most serious repairs.

“Jeannie,” Flann said as she stretched some of the kinks out of her back, “if there’s no one on deck,

I’ll head to the ER and see what else might be down there.”

“Hopefully, not much.” Jeannie’s shoulders sagged with weariness. She and the few OR nurses they’d been able to assemble had been working flat-out for over twelve hours.

“I think Glenn would’ve called up if she’d had anything, but I want to be sure before we let people start taking breaks.”

“Right. We’ll be waiting.”

Flann changed out of her sweat-soaked scrubs into clean ones, grabbed a white coat from a peg by the door, and took the stairs down to the first floor. The almost empty ER waiting room was a relief. The big board across from the nurses’ station indicated eight of the dozen rooms were occupied, but the emergency receiving bay was unoccupied. No pending traumas. The exhaustion she’d been keeping at bay seeped in, and she rubbed her forearm across her eyes.

“Hey.”

Abby’s voice cut through Flann’s fatigue like a sharp scalpel, energizing her. Flann straightened, and there she was. A few feet away, a chart tucked under her arm, her hair held back with a tie at the base of her neck. Faint circles smudged the pale flesh beneath her eyes, but that was the only sign she’d been up all night working. Her gaze was bright and focused and her smile—Flann hadn’t realized until just that moment how precisely like sunrise Abby’s smile was. “What are you doing down here?” Abby asked.

“I escaped.”

Abby laughed. “You’ve also missed several checkins.”

“I know, I’m sorry. They were stacked up like firewood there for a while. I couldn’t get away.”

“I know. We were sending them up to you. How’s everybody doing?”

Flann leaned against the wall, moving out of the way of a nurse pushing a stretcher toward the elevator at the end of the hall. The aches in her muscles disappeared as pleasure lightened the heaviness in her chest. Abby stirred a surge of energy, like a breeze chasing away the clouds after a summer squall. “Fortunately, most of the fractures were straightforward and they’ll be able to go home in a day or two. The guy from the car accident is in the ICU being monitored. His CAT scan shows contusions, but nothing that looks surgical. Last I heard, the nurses were waiting for neurosurg to evaluate.”

“We really need our own neurosurgeons on call.”

“We need a lot of things,” Flann said with an edge. “But we’re not a level one, Abs.”

Abby’s eyebrows rose. “Abs?”

“Okay then. What do people call you for short?”

“Abby.”

“Right.” Flann grinned. “Have you heard from the kids?”

“Not yet. But they have to be okay, right?”

“They’ll be fine. Margie has a good head on her shoulders—she won’t do anything too crazy.” “Now, that’s reassuring,” Abby said dryly. “How are you feeling?” “Fine.”

“Uh-huh. And now for the real answer.”

Flann shrugged. “I wouldn’t mind sitting down for a while.”

“I’ll bet. Are you hungry?”

Flann gave that some thought. She’d wolfed down the sandwich Abby had made between cases a few hours ago. When she was operating, she forgot about everything except what she needed to do to get through the case. “I think I will be before too long. What about down here? Need a hand?”

“Between Glenn and Andy Bucknell, who got here a few hours ago, we’ve been able to clear the board more or less. We’re waiting to transfer an acute asthmatic up to a telemetry floor, and a couple more are waiting for X-rays and test results, but I think everyone is pretty much squared away.”

“Are you going to be able to get out of here for a while?”

“Maybe. At least long enough to check in on Blake. What about Harper?”