Critical Care by Candace Calvert Read Free Book Online

making her stomach churn. Despite all her hard work and
after endorphins by the quart, none of her troubles had faded away.
Not a one. She'd simply run full circle. Back to the ER and smack
into new turmoil with Logan Caldwell.
    At 10:30 p.m., Claire picked up the phone, touched the first three
numbers, then hit the End button and set the phone down. It was
the second time she'd done that in half an hour. She took a sip of
her chai tea and swung her legs up onto the bed. It was far too late
to page the social worker again. The staff debriefing was scheduled,
and it was best to leave things the way they'd been arranged.
    "Right, Smokester?" Claire nodded at the lanky cat stretched
across the foot of the double bed.
    He raised his head and quit his silent kneading of the snowy
comforter. His yellow eyes fixed on her big toe, and Claire gave
it a risky wiggle, proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that she'd
traded endorphins for insanity. Which would explain the continuous intruding thoughts of Logan Caldwell.
    She groaned. She was acting like she was ... what exactly?
Attracted to him? Claire pressed her palms against her eyes. No. The last thing she needed was any more confusion in her life,
any risk of losing the equilibrium she was fighting to maintain.
And-

    "Hey!" Claire jerked her foot away as she felt the dangerous
brush of Smokey's whiskers against her toe.
    She shook her head, and her just-washed hair trailed across the
shoulders of the pink pajama top. Close call-she'd almost been
bitten. Good point: she needed to be just as careful about the medical director. Logan did nothing but dredge up painful reminders
of Kevin, her humiliating last days as an ER nurse, and even her
pitiful track record with men. It was best to avoid him, and that
would be easy now that Social Services was taking over.
    She reached for her shell-embossed teacup, and her gaze
dropped to the business card next to her open Bible. It was for the
social worker who would lead the debriefing tomorrow afternoon.
Claire would take a minor role this time, letting Social Services
and the hospital chaplain handle the real guts of the process. The
nagging doubt resurfaced and Claire glanced at the phone again.
She swallowed a sip of the creamy sweet tea, waiting for the feeling
to pass. It had been pestering her for the last several hours. Am I
making a mistake?
    No. Absolutely not. Logan didn't have to be at the debriefing. Wasn't that what she'd told the social worker earlier? She'd
been right. The people most affected by the injured children-the
ones at risk for post-traumatic stress-were the nonphysician staff,
nurses, aides, and technicians. And Inez Vega.
    Claire rested the warm cup against her cheek. Her breath
escaped in a soft sigh. As much as she'd tried not to, she kept seeing
the image of that poor woman crying in the dim light of the temporary morgue. She wondered about the kind of person who cared enough to leave her normal world, the safety of an office cubicle,
to venture into a place so full of chaos and pain. About the risk it
was, the heart it took, to wrap a blanket around a dead child.

    Then she thought of Logan Caldwell riding his motorcycle as
fast as he could away from all that. And the way he'd talked about
"shrink-to-fit," touchy-feely counseling, about being tough and
priding himself on not crumbling. But mostly Claire kept replaying
over and over in her mind what he'd said about ... weak links.
    It had taken guts for Erin Quinn to defy him and call for peer
counseling to help her staff. The same kind of dedication prompted
the already exhausted Sarah Burke to volunteer for an extra shift,
and Claire knew in her heart that Inez Vega was no weak link.
    She swallowed the last of her tea and picked up the phone. Her
foot tapped nervously against the down comforter as her call was
transferred to voice mail.
    "I'm sorry to be calling again so late," she said, her stomach
sinking faster than