Not that he had such a great apartment himself: top floor, contemporary furnishings, but a view of Buffalo's city hall, a stumpy thirty-story building lined with narrow, pointy windows intended as a tribute to Art Deco. Too bad it resembled a circumcised penis covered with shiny scales. "Obviously this neighborhood's well beyond my meager budget, thank God," she frequently teased him. Good thing he found her jokes about it as funny as she did.
But none of that had to do with why she'd been hesitant to invite him over. Since they'd first become lovers, their desire for each other blatantly mutual, the nights she spent with him had always been on his turf, at his invitation. Changing the equation worried her. Would he feel pushed now that she could ask him? Since they were still new enough to each other that reading his moods sometimes proved a challenge, she let things stay the way they were for the first few weeks. Until yesterday. By then she reached a so-what-if-he-feels-pressure state of mind, fed up playing Daisy Mae to his Li'l Abner. He might be a hotshot in ER and a rescuer ready to snatch her from abject poverty, but when it came to romance, did all Tennessee men need women to take the lead? The good thing about Thomas in that department, once she pointed him in the right direction, was that he made it well worth her while.
"Why so quiet?" she asked, flipping the eggs.
He looked up from where he'd been sitting cross-legged on the floor and leafing through the Sunday New York Herald. Having often seen it lying around his place, she'd bought a copy on the way home from the hospital, fantasizing about them reading it together afterward, lounging in bathrobes, sharing interesting articles, comfortable with each other's company. She'd had it waiting for him when he arrived, along with a glass of freshly squeezed orange juice, and herself, fresh out of the shower. As she hoped, the paper ended up tossed in a corner, the drink remained untouched, and he'd quenched his thirst for her.
But as attentive as he'd been in bed, and as passionately as he swore to protect Dr. G., he seemed distracted afterward.
"Sorry, Jane, but I still can't get what happened this morning out of my head- that Yablonsky, accusing Dr. Garnet out loud the way she did. And why would he be up on Palliative Care giving out morphine in the first place? Whatever the reason, I think she may be making big trouble for him."
He echoed her own fears. "Yeah, I found her really out of line too. She must have known the others would spread the word." And boy, did they. By the time she'd come off duty, the whole hospital had been nattering about how Dr. Earl Garnet overdosed a patient. She angrily threw a handful of grated cheese on top of the half-cooked eggs and folded it in. "In fact, maybe someone should ask her why she acted so quickly to shift blame onto him. What's she got to hide?"
"Nothing, probably. Just doesn't want to be tagged for bad stuff on her watch and isn't above causing a good man a truckful of trouble in the process. At least that's my guess."
"But to insinuate he'd overdosed her like she did- that totally sucks. It can't be true!"
"You'd think not." He got up from where he sat, found her cutlery drawer, and began to lay out the appropriate utensils. "But I'm afraid that won't stop the gossip from causing him a lot of grief, especially because he's so good."
She knew what he meant. Even the few years she'd been there, it had become obvious to her there were two camps at St. Paul's when it came to Dr. G.: the ones who loved him- generally the deep end of the talent pool- and the lesser lights, who bitterly resented his competence. Unfortunately, the latter outnumbered the former. Not that he helped his own cause with them. Though he struggled to deal with fools diplomatically, anyone whose stupidity endangered a patient quickly felt the lash of his temper. Those who had would all too gladly see him fall on his face; some might even line up behind Yablonsky to make sure he got blamed for whatever had happened to Elizabeth Matthews. "Can you help him?" she asked Thomas.
He removed a pair of coffee mugs from their hooks on the underside of the cupboard and poured them each a cup from the the old-fashioned percolator she'd brought from her mother's kitchen in Grand Forks. "How?"
"I don't know. Point out that the patient would have died anyway?"
As they sat down to breakfast, continuing to share ideas about ways to protect Earl Garnet, Jane observed how Thomas appeared to be making himself at home. Her concerns about his coming here vanished, and she felt silly over having been worried in the first place. Like a friggin' schoolgirl, she chided herself again, happy to be in love.
But they came up blank again as far as a remedy for Dr. G.'s problem.
When she'd arrived fresh out of nursing school, Earl Garnet had told Jane on her first shift with him that she had the nerve and steady hands to be a great ER nurse. Tough as she'd found her rookie year, those words had kept her going. She sensed his pride in her, and under his protective wing Emergency eventually became a place where she felt not only fully confident but also as if she'd found her forte in life, that one special, exciting, worthwhile pursuit where she could excel over all else. So she'd come to care about him as much as she would her own father, were he still alive. "You can't think of anything we can do for him?" she asked, watching Thomas dig enthusiastically into the breakfast she'd prepared. The sight pleased her. "How about the fact there've been other patients without DNR orders who arrested in Palliative Care?"
He paused, his fork halfway to his mouth. "How do you mean?"
"It's not the first time the arrest team's been called up there during night shift."
"So?"
"So maybe this patient's death that Yablonsky is trying to blame on Dr. G. is simply part of the normal pattern."
"Pattern?"
"Yeah. That sometimes people die before they're expected to. And come to think of it, haven't there been more codes than usual up there lately?"
"I don't know. I haven't counted," said Thomas.
"Just seems to me there has."
"How can you tell? With this crazy backup system we have, I'm chasing all over the hospital some nights. All the R-threes do- whenever a junior resident gets scared and feels out of his or her depth."
"I know. But a run up there with the cart, even when I don't go myself- that's the kind of thing you notice. Every time it happens, I groan and wonder which doctor it was who didn't have the guts to discuss DNR orders with whoever the luckless patient is. Know what I mean?"
Thomas nodded, his fork remaining in midair. "Yeah… Maybe there is something I can do after all."
"What?"
His bearded face broke into that easy grin of his. "I can't tell you yet, not until I check something out." He gave her a mischievous wink and took another mouthful.
"Thomas!" She put down her utensils, having barely touched her own food. "Quit being so mysterious." His teasing ways had attracted her from the beginning as well. He had the confident air of a man with an inside track on how life worked, and in particular he possessed a knack for rooting out the juicier aspects of hospital life. She slid off her stool onto his lap, allowing her robe to fall open. "Now you 'fess up what you know," she said, slipping her arms around his neck.