The Baby Doctor's Bride. Jessica Matthews

      He hesitated, as if hating to leave Tommy’s side.

      “I’ll stay,” Nancy offered. “His vital signs haven’t changed in the last fifteen minutes. I’ll let you know if they do.”

      Ivy accompanied Ethan to the nurses’ station, where the Weathers were still waiting. From the worry on their faces, they obviously expected to hear the worst.

      “How is Tommy?” his father asked. “Can we see him?”

      “In just a minute,” Ethan said, before he introduced himself. “Tommy’s suffered abdominal trauma and I believe he has a ruptured spleen.”

      At Mrs. Weathers’s gasp, he continued, “He’s stable for the moment, but he’s going to need surgery and soon.”

      “How soon?”

      “Within hours, I’d say,” Ethan admitted. “Dr. Harris has called for an air ambulance. It should be here any minute now to fly him to Wichita, where a surgeon is already waiting for him.”

      “Is that the only thing wrong?” Mrs. Weathers’s voice and mouth trembled. “His spleen?”

      “As far as I can tell. His X-rays didn’t show any problems with his spine, although we’ll have a radiologist read them to be absolutely certain. He can also wiggle his fingers and toes, so I think it’s safe to say he’ll be running around before long. As for other conditions—his liver and kidney function tests all look good, but the surgeon will know more after he takes a look inside. Afterward they’ll continue to monitor him closely. Sometimes problems crop up a day or two after the accident. For now, the immediate problem is to stop the internal bleeding.”

      “Won’t it stop on its own?” Mr. Weathers asked.

      “The spleen is a highly vascular organ, which means it’s full of blood vessels. Its function is to filter all the blood as it enters the circulation. The only way to stop Tommy’s bleeding is to remove the organ.”

      His parents’ faces blanched. “If his spleen is a filter, won’t he need it?”

      “As important as it is,” Ethan explained, “one can live without it.”

      “Can we see him, Doctor?”

      “For a few minutes—until the air crew gets here. Don’t worry, they’ll send a nurse and an E.M.T., so Tommy will have excellent care while he’s flying. Mind you, though, when you see him he’ll be groggy, and may not make much sense,” he warned. “And don’t be alarmed by the tubes and monitors.” He smiled. “Your son has been a real trooper. He’s a tough little character.”

      Throughout Ethan’s conversation Ivy had hung in the background. She gave him high marks for his bedside manner. Once again she wondered why a physician of his apparent caliber had been so reluctant to answer her first call for help. She was equally curious as to why he’d changed his mind. But, whatever his reasons, she was glad that he had. Considering how Tommy was the only one who’d been critically injured, she probably could have managed on her own while Walt’s nurse practitioner dealt with the twins and the two older girls. However, it was nice having another physician available. As Jed had said, it was nothing short of miraculous how Walt had managed singlehandedly.

      Idly, she wondered if she could talk Ethan into sticking around to help them as long as he remained in the area. It certainly wouldn’t hurt to ask, or at least to plant that seed of an idea and see what germinated. After all, what did she have to lose?

      CHAPTER THREE

      ALTHOUGH Tommy’s case was textbook, and Ethan didn’t harbor any doubts about his treatment decisions, he didn’t breathe easier until the flight crew arrived and hauled the seven-year-old away with conscientious precision. So much could have gone wrong, and without a local surgeon to intervene, the consequences could have been dire.

      To his relief, everything had run smoothly, and by the time his part in tonight’s drama had ended, pride and a sense of accomplishment that he hadn’t experienced in a long time stirred inside of him. A shrink would probably psychoanalyze his response and suggest some nonsense about how it signaled he was ready to return to medicine full-time, but Ethan didn’t believe in signs or hidden meanings. Wearing a stethoscope again was due to a fluke, not a conscious decision to return to the profession he’d walked away from without a backward glance. No, he was here in Danton’s hospital because he was simply trying to prevent another load of guilt from settling on his overburdened shoulders.

      Surprisingly enough, though, for a few hours his first foray back into medicine had held his personal demons at bay, but he knew better than to believe they would be gone forever. After his son had died, he’d carried on as usual, believing that long hours and hard work were the best way to cope with his grief and feelings of inadequacy.

      He’d been wrong. His relief had come when he’d walked out of the neonatal ICU for the last time.

      Demons or not, though, he had to admit the Danton hospital staff’s efficiency in assembling all of Tommy’s X-rays, lab reports, and the temperature-controlled box containing extra units of cross-matched blood were impressive. Shipping critically ill patients might be a routine situation for them, but, routine or not, the staff had been as organized as any he’d seen in a major hospital.

      They’d done the same less than hour later, when another helicopter had arrived to take Marybeth Ellerbe.

      He planned to comment to Ivy about the group’s performance, but when she appeared with one of the twins tucked against her shoulder, his good intentions fled as he concentrated on ignoring the baby.

      “How did it go?” he asked, referring to her conversation with Marybeth Ellerbe’s husband, Allen.

      “He’s numb,” she admitted. “I’m not certain anything we said soaked in. After Jed and I told him we’d sent her on because of a dislocated hip, broken femur and perforated lung, he got this dazed look in his eyes.”

      “He surely knows he needs to pull himself together for his daughters’ sake?”

      “Barely,” she said on a sigh. “For a minute there I wondered if he even remembered he had twins, but he finally phoned his mother. She’s on her way to get them as we speak.”

      He glanced around. “So where is he?”

      She rubbed the baby’s back. “He’s on his way to Wichita. I only hope he doesn’t do something stupid, like try to break speed records.” She paused. “Still charting?”

      “Just finishing.” He scrawled his name, then tucked the pen in the pencil cup with the others. “What about you?”

      “Mine’s done, too. Or it will be as soon as I discharge the twins into their grandmother’s care.” She swayed a little to rock the baby. “Thanks again for helping out. Things went rather well, if I say so myself. We stabilized both of our critical patients and no one died. I still can’t believe the guy in the truck walked away without a scratch.”

      “It happens more often than not.” He leaned back in his chair and stretched to ease the ache between his shoulder blades. “I wish we would have had a surgeon on staff, though.”

      “Someday we will. Walt’s been working on bringing in more doctors for years. He’s got a lead on a young internist who’s interested in getting away from the city to raise his family, and he’s actively looking for an OB-GYN to either move here or at least establish prenatal clinics. If all goes well, before long we’ll be able to deliver more than basic medical care.”

      “Optimistic, are you?”

      She laughed. “I am, so I’ll take that as a compliment.” She turned slightly away from him. “Is she asleep?” she whispered.

      He had no choice but to look, to notice the downy-soft skin, the rosebud mouth, and the little fingers that were just large enough to wrap trustingly around a finger. This little one seemed like a giant when he compared her to the