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  “You got it, Doc,” he told her with enthusiasm—and then took off, intent on following her instructions.

  Brett reappeared with a blanket in tow and had returned just in time to hear Alisha issue her order in no uncertain terms, dispatching Warren Tate to go get Nathan’s wife. There was no question about it. He liked what he had heard.

  He grinned, offering the blanket to Alisha. “You can be pretty tough when you want to be,” he said. The admiration in his voice would have been impossible to miss.

  “Must be all this clean air I’ve been breathing. Goes straight to my head,” she quipped drily.

  After shaking out the blanket, Alisha proceeded to spread it out on the floor right next to Nathan’s very large form.

  She straightened out one end and stepped back. “Okay, I need four very strong men to each grab a limb and, as gently as possible, place Mr. McLane onto that blanket. Then we have to carry him very gingerly to the street and load him onto Gabe’s flatbed.”

  This was so not going to be easy, she thought, even as she said the words. The plan sounded simple enough to execute, but her unexpected patient was beyond huge, and they were dealing with a medical emergency that was on the delicate side. If Nathan’s appendix ruptured during the transport, she would have only a limited amount of time to clean out the area and keep Nathan from succumbing to peritonitis.

  Definitely not ideal conditions.

  Crossing her fingers both literally and mentally, Alisha moved completely out of the way and allowed Brett, Gabe and two other men, both huskier than the first two, to lift Nathan and place him as gently as humanly possible onto the blanket.

  With Brett taking charge, the four men moved in concert and practically in slow motion. Though unconscious, Nathan still cried out in pain when they finally set him down on the blanket.

  The noise shot right through her.

  Alisha could have sworn she actually felt Nathan McLane’s pain.

  There was such a thing as being too in sync with her patient.

  The silent lecture didn’t help. Her empathy continued flowing until her supply of the emotion was all but gone.

  When the men each picked up a corner of the blanket, Alisha felt an overwhelming desire to join in and take a corner or a section of blanket herself. She wanted to join the effort to help get Nathan into the flatbed, but she knew that rather than help, she’d undoubtedly just be in the way.

  So she held her breath and followed at a decent distance away, watching as Brett gave out orders, reminding everyone to exercise extreme caution when they carefully got the big man into the back of Gabe’s truck.

  He was a leader, she thought in silent admiration—and, inexplicably, with pride. He wasn’t the kind of man who hung back. He only gave that impression at the bar because it suited him.

  Gabe drove his flatbed to the clinic.

  To her surprise, Brett presented himself at the driver’s side of her car just as she was about to get in herself. “I’ll drive you to the clinic if you’re too tired,” he offered.

  The offer had that strange, warm feeling materializing again, the one that only he seemed capable of re-creating for her.

  This wasn’t the time, she told herself. She had a patient—possibly a life to save.

  “No, I’m fine, thanks.”

  Adrenaline had taken care of her fatigue, immediately kicking in the moment she saw Nathan on the floor. She suspected, as she put her key into the ignition, that she was going to be running on adrenaline for a good long time.

  When Brett rounded the front hood of her car and slid into the shotgun seat beside her, she was certain of it.

  “You didn’t think I wasn’t going to come along, did you?” he asked. “Nathan’s a longtime customer—and a friend. Sometimes, it feels like I’m his only friend,” he added. “I’m not leaving him alone at a time like this.”

  “You don’t think his wife’s going to come?” she asked, starting the car.

  “I’m not a betting man,” Brett told her. “But if I were...” For a second, his voice trailed off, and then he said, “The odds are less than fifty-fifty that she’ll come.”

  She’d never met the woman, but Alisha decided that she didn’t like Henrietta McLane.

  And she was finding reasons—even though she wasn’t looking for them—to like Brett Murphy more and more.

  Chapter Twelve

  Parking at an angle in front of the clinic, Alisha quickly jumped out of her vehicle less than ten minutes later.

  “Hold up!” she shouted to Gabe. The latter was already out of the cab of his truck and on his way to the back of the flatbed. The men appeared ready to carry Nathan into the darkened clinic.

  “Why?” Gabe called back to her.

  Alisha didn’t waste time with an explanation. Instead, she turned toward Brett and instructed, “Make sure he doesn’t move Nathan.”

  Confused, Brett looked over to the flatbed, where Nathan lay, unconscious, on the blanket. “You’re not planning on operating out here, are you?” he asked her incredulously. “Hell, my saloon’s cleaner than his flatbed.”

  But Alisha wasn’t heading back to the truck; she was going in the opposite direction. “Just wait,” she shouted over her shoulder as she unlocked the door and disappeared into the clinic.

  Brett stood where he was, wondering what she was up to. He watched as first one light, then another went on in the clinic, marking her progress through the building. Since there’d been no light in the building when they’d arrived, he assumed that Finn hadn’t gotten back with Dan yet and wondered what the holdup was. The fact that Warren Tate, the man Alisha had dispatched to bring Nathan’s wife, hadn’t returned with the woman was far less of a surprise. Henrietta McLane was not a woman to be coerced into doing anything she didn’t want to do.

  The next minute, he forgot about Finn and Dan as well as whether anyone could manage to get Nathan’s wife to show any concern for her husband. Alisha had returned, and she was pushing the clinic’s one hospital bed in front of her. The bed was used primarily for patients who needed to remain under observation overnight at the clinic.

  Brett was quick to join her. “Here, let me,” he said, taking over. It was obvious to him that she was having some difficulty getting the bed to go where she wanted it to, despite the fact that it had wheels.

  Alisha gladly stepped back. “It’s not a gurney,” she explained, “but at least it’s mobile, and I figured it would be easier getting Nathan in on this than trying to carry him in on the blanket.”

  Brett grinned as he maneuvered the bed until it was parallel to the flatbed opening. “Hell of a lot better than risking dropping Nathan on the ground,” he agreed. The others looked relieved not to have to carry the big man into the building.

  It was still a tricky proposition, lifting and carrying Nathan from the back of the flatbed onto the hospital bed. Even with the blanket beneath the man and the fact that there were four of them doing the maneuvering, it was still by no means an easy transfer. All four were gasping for air by the time they got the man onto the bed.

  Alisha released the breath she’d been holding during the short, taxing ordeal. “Get him into the last exam room.”

  She was grateful that Liam had elected to come along with them. The youngest of the brothers had walked into Murphy’s just in time to see Brett, Gabe and two other men struggling to get Nathan into the flatbed. Wanting to help, he’d gotten into Gabe’s truck.

  Brett paused for a second before following Alisha’s request. Turning toward Liam, he decided that his youngest brother, with his boyish appeal, might just be able to succeed where the previous man sent on the errand had failed. “Why don’t you go and see if you can get Mrs. McLane to come here. Lady Doc sent Warren Tate to get her, but he obviously didn’t have any luck.”

 
Liam seemed torn for a moment between doing what his older brother asked and wanting to see what happened next. But in the end, he nodded.

  “Sure,” he agreed. “I’ll bring her back.” It didn’t seem to occur to Liam as he hurried out that Nathan’s wife would refuse to come. Liam, Brett knew, still believed that when push came to shove, people always did the right thing, and he approached everything he did in that light.

  Let’s hope you’re right, Liam, Brett thought, getting back to the job at hand.

  When Brett and Gabe finally pushed the hospital bed back into the last exam room, he saw that Alisha was already there. She’d donned blue scrubs over her T-shirt and jean shorts and was busy scrubbing her hands.

  “Blue’s a nice color on you,” Brett noted wryly.

  “It’ll be an even nicer color when Dr. Davenport gets here,” she told him. Dan didn’t live that far from the clinic; he should have been here by now, she thought. “What do you think is keeping him?”

  Brett’s shoulders rose and fell in a vague shrug. “Your guess is as good as mine,” he replied. “Maybe he thinks that now that you’re here, he can ease up a little bit, not hurry as much.”

  She supposed there was a validity to Brett’s thinking, but she wasn’t altogether sure if that reasoning really fit the man she’d come to know these past few weeks. He seemed far too dedicated to her to be blasé when one of his patients needed him.

  “Still doesn’t explain why he’s not here,” she replied. “He’s the most dedicated physician I’ve ever met.”

  “I can go see what the holdup is,” Gabe volunteered.

  Alisha flashed a grateful smile at the rancher. “Would you?”

  Gabe was already on his way out. “Sure thing.”

  As Gabe crossed the threshold, Nathan groaned loudly, seeming to rouse himself. His eyelids fluttered as if he was trying to struggle back to consciousness and having a really hard time of it.

  “Where—where am I?” Nathan moaned, slurring his words.

  About to dry her hands, Alisha was at her patient’s side in a heartbeat. “Mr. McLane, it’s Dr. Cordell. Are you in much pain?” she asked, bending over the man so that they could make eye contact.

  Nathan attempted to take in a breath and groaned even louder. “It feels...like someone’s...ripping...open my...gut with a...rusty can opener!” he cried.

  Brett was right beside her, ready to help any way he could. “I think you can take that as a yes,” he told her. There was concern in his eyes as he asked, “Do you think you’re going to be able to do what’s necessary if Dan doesn’t show up?”

  Squaring her shoulders as if mentally preparing herself for that eventuality, she answered, “I guess I’ll have to.” She’d operated before, but not since she’d arrived in Forever and never on a man this size. Nathan’s girth presented a unique set of circumstances that added to the seriousness of the operation. The nearest full-service hospital was an hour away.

  Bending over Nathan again, she told the man in a calm, soft voice, “It’s going to be all right, Nathan. We’re going to make you better.”

  Nathan was clutching the sides of the bed, his knuckles all but white as he twisted in pain. “Just shoot me.”

  “Can’t do that, Nathan. It’s against the doctor code,” Alisha quipped to cover the nervousness she felt right now. Where was the doctor? “I’m only allowed to shoot patients as a very last resort—and then only at the end of the month.” She heard the clinic door open and close again, and she exhaled a huge sigh of relief. “Oh, thank God. Dan’s here,” she declared happily to her patient.

  The next moment, as she took one look at Dan when he walked in, her obvious relief turned to confusion and real concern.

  “What happened to you?” she cried in palpable distress.

  Dan had walked in ahead of Finn. The first thing the other people in the room noticed was the fact that the doctor’s right arm was immobilized in a sling.

  Forever’s first resident physician in thirty years appeared almost sheepish as he answered her question. “I tripped on a tree root and put my hand out to break my fall—which, as it turned out, was the wrong thing to do in this case.”

  Alisha glared at the man she’d been counting on to take over in stricken horror. “You broke your arm?” she cried, appalled.

  Dan shook his head. “Not exactly. I tore my rotator cuff. Problem is, right now it hurts like hell just to move my hand,” he told her. “I’m going to have Tina drive me to the hospital in Pine Ridge tomorrow so I can have this thing x-rayed. Maybe I didn’t tear any muscles. Maybe it just feels that way,” he said hopefully.

  But even as Dan said that to her, they both knew he was just trying to deny the obvious.

  There was only one thing that mattered right now. “This means you can’t operate,” Alisha concluded. She could almost feel the lead weight on her chest.

  “Can’t hold a scalpel, I take it?” Brett asked the man.

  Dan’s frustration was evident in his eyes. “Can’t even wiggle my fingers right now. Don’t worry,” he told Alisha when he saw the disheartened look on her face. “It’ll get better.”

  She had no doubt that it would—but that didn’t do either of them any good right now. “Not in time to save Nathan,” she replied.

  Dan made his way to the hospital bed, which was now positioned in the center of the room so that Nathan was accessible from any point. “Finn told me that you think it’s appendicitis.”

  Alisha inclined her head. “That’s the most logical conclusion, but we won’t know until you open him up. I mean—”

  “You’re going to have to be the one to open him up,” Dan said matter-of-factly. Turning from Nathan, who had once again lapsed into unconsciousness from the sheer pain he was experiencing, Dan faced his new associate. “Ever perform an appendectomy before?”

  “Yes, but in a hospital with staff, and this person is particularly...large,” she finally said for lack of a better term.

  “Don’t worry,” he told her, sounding extremely confident in her estimation. “You’ll do fine. I’ll talk you through it.” Dan looked around the room. “Holly’s not here?”

  “I didn’t think to get her,” Alisha confessed. Her main focus, other than getting Nathan to the clinic, had been getting Dan to take over. Now that wasn’t going to happen.

  “I can call her for you,” Gabe volunteered.

  But Dan had taken a closer look at the patient and he now shook his head. “No time.” He eyed the two men and then made his choice. “Looks like you’re going to have to play nurse, Brett.”

  Rather than balk at the suggestion, Brett nodded. His life had prepared him for stepping up whenever the occasion demanded it. “Sure. Whatever you need.”

  “Scrub in, Brett.” Dan pointed toward the small sink on the far side of the wall. “You’re going to be handing Alisha her instruments.”

  Brett was game to do whatever they needed him to do. “As long as you point them out,” he qualified, “since I can’t tell one thing from another.”

  “No problem,” Dan assured him with a smile. “Luckily, I didn’t tear anything in my mouth.”

  * * *

  IN THE END, the surgery wound up taking longer than any of them had expected.

  The operation itself had been going along well—until Alisha, after cutting through the layers of skin, tissue and fat, just barely touched Nathan’s swollen appendix with the tip of her scalpel. The small organ immediately ruptured, sending toxic fluid throughout Nathan’s abdominal cavity.

  Alisha had to go into double time, frantically mopping up the mess inside her patient as quickly as she could in an attempt to contain the infection to the best of her ability.

  A one-hour simple procedure, encumbered by Nathan’s girth and the state of his appendix, wound up turning
into an operation that took upward of two and a half hours to complete.

  All of her efforts proved fruitful. The end result was that Nathan had survived and gave every sign of being on the road to recovery. Even so, Dan made a judgment call and decided that the man needed to remain in the clinic overnight.

  “Why don’t you go home?” he suggested to Alisha as they sat in a room away from where Nathan was recovering. “You’ve more than proven yourself tonight. My contribution will be to stay and watch over him.”

  As tempting as that was, she knew she couldn’t take Dan up on it. “Because you need your rest,” she told the man. “You’re going to Pine Ridge in the morning to get that shoulder of yours x-rayed, remember?”

  Dan tried to shrug off her words, but the action cost him dearly.

  “It can wait,” he told her, wincing with pain.

  “No,” Alisha insisted, “it can’t.” Hands on her hips, she leveled a glare at the other doctor. “We’re not having this argument, Doctor. The town needs you, and you need to have your shoulder fixed up. You’re going home. I’m staying. End of discussion,” she declared with finality.

  Dan shook his head. It was obvious he was amused at her feistiness.

  “You are one very stubborn woman,” he told her.

  If he thought he was going to flatter her into going along with him, he was in for a surprise. “You have no idea,” she warned Dan.

  “I’d do as she says if I were you, Dan. And don’t worry about her,” Brett told his friend. “I’ll stick around until morning to make sure everything’s all right—with her and with Nathan.”

  Alisha noted that Dan took the other man at his word and that Brett’s taking over the way he proposed all seemed perfectly natural to the other doctor. There was obviously a lot of trust going around, and she found that both unusual—so different from the atmosphere she’d just come from—and incredibly heartening, as well.

  “If you’re sure,” Dan said, already backing out of the room.

  “You really don’t have to stay here,” she told Brett once Dan was out of the room and out of earshot. “I know you said what you did to put Dan’s mind at ease, but you really don’t have to play babysitter here. I can handle the situation.”