Healing Tides. Lois Richer

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СКАЧАТЬ Jared, ku’u lei.” My child.

      At least Kahlia had remembered his request not to enter the room without gowning up. She grasped his shoulders, enveloped him in a hearty hug, something he’d never grown used to from Diana’s big Hawaiian family.

      “You don’t return my calls. How are you?”

      “I’m fine. Busy,” he added, hoping she got the message.

      “You’re always busy. Too busy for family.” She shook her gray head. “Pono and I are holding a birthday party for Grandma tomorrow evening. You will be there?”

      There was no point in arguing with Kahlia, she would only keep nagging him. Diana and Nicholas had been her whole life. She and Pono had doted on their daughter and lavished affection on their tiny grandson. Jared couldn’t blame her for needing someone to fill the gap in her heart. He just wished she’d chosen someone else so he didn’t have to keep struggling through the reminders of what they’d all lost.

      “Grandma’s birthday, Jared?” she prodded.

      “I’ll try.”

      “Who’s that?” Kahlia inclined her head toward the woman now bent over the bed playing some kind of finger game that coaxed a smile from Joseph’s parched lips.

      “Our new doctor. GloryAnn Cranbrook. She arrived yesterday.”

      “Lovely. Will you bring her along?”

      “I don’t think so, Kahlia. She has work to do.” Jared took another tack. “Or she could go in my place.”

      Kahlia’s dark eyes scolded. “Always you try to avoid us. We are your family, Jared. We are here for you.”

      I lost my family.

      He clamped his teeth together to stifle the words. Kahlia had mourned enough. They all had. Sooner or later she would accept that he had to get on with his life. Away from here.

      “Excuse me, I’ve been paged.” GloryAnn eased past, strode down the hall, hair flying behind her like a silken kite.

      “She looks so young, a mere child.”

      “She’s extremely well qualified.” Jared barely recalled the list of credentials he’d scanned earlier. “Elizabeth Wisdom sent her to fill in for six months.”

      “Elizabeth is a good friend to Agapé. Where does this woman go after six months?”

      “I have no idea.” Jared suddenly realized he knew little about his new coworker. Thankfully he was paged next. “Excuse me, Kahlia. I’ve got to go. Leave me a note about the party. I’ll come if I can.”

      “But I wanted to—oh, never mind.”

      Ashamed of his rudeness, Jared bent and brushed her cheek with his lips. “Bye.”

      By the time he’d dealt with their newest patient and completed two debrading procedures, Jared was more than ready for lunch. He picked up a tray from the cafeteria and moved outside, drawing in deep cleansing breaths and exhaling fully to purify his lungs.

      GloryAnn sat on one end of the patio, watching sailboats cruise past their tiny cove. He could hardly ignore her, though at the moment Jared craved nothing more than silence, respite from the weeping children he’d had to hurt to help.

      “May I join you?”

      “Certainly.” She blinked as if awakening from a dream, her smile inviting. “I’m enjoying this weather.”

      “You’ll want to watch your skin. Even though it seems temperate, the sun is strong. A tropical burn is painful, Dr. Cranbrook.”

      Clearly irritated, she set down her bottle of juice hard enough that a few droplets decorated her fingers. “Why do you always talk to me like that, Dr. Steele?”

      “Like what?” Unused to being challenged, Jared froze, his sandwich halfway to his mouth.

      “Like I’m a silly child who can’t look after herself, let alone anyone else. ‘Don’t get too close to the patients, watch the sun, don’t get the patients too excited with silly games.’ It’s insulting.”

      Though neither her voice nor her demeanor changed, anger darkened her green irises.

      “I’m sorry if I offended you. I merely wanted to point out that this climate is different than the one you’re used to. Sunburn is unpleasant and can be dangerous.”

      “And you think I don’t know that?” GloryAnn put the lid back on her bottle and tightened it so much her fingertips turned white. “I put on sunscreen this morning, SPF 70, and I’ve been out here—” she checked her watch “—ten minutes. Hardly long enough, don’t you agree?”

      Jared decided it was better not to answer, so he concentrated on chewing the roast beef he’d selected.

      “I assure you I am qualified to be here, Dr. Steele. If you feel that isn’t so, or if you would prefer someone else, I suggest you contact Elizabeth Wisdom, because until I hear otherwise I intend to do the job she sent me to do, and I’ll keep doing it for the next six months.”

      She stabbed a piece of lettuce so hard it tore apart.

      “Now, since you’re here, I’d like to ask you some questions about your procedures this morning.”

      A new respect filled him. “Fire away.”

      “I know you like to remove the burned tissue as quickly as possible because that’s where infection likes to grow.”

      “Yes.”

      “But I’ve never seen debrading done the way you did this morning. Can you explain it to me?”

      Jared explained the process he preferred.

      “I’m sure you know that with current procedures it’s difficult for surgeons to tell which tissue is dead and needs to be removed and which is still alive and can heal on its own.”

      “Yes.”

      “If you’ve removed more than you need to, that makes it harder for the graft to take. It doesn’t heal as well.”

      “So that machine you were using…?” She lifted an eyebrow.

      “It combines laser and radar systems—hence the name lidar. It’s something we’ve been working with for a medical research company—trying to perfect.” He babbled on about his work, fascinated by the bloom of color on her cheeks. She was lovely.

      “Amazing,” she enthused, her smile flashing.

      “It is,” he admitted. “But it could be even better.” He went on to explain the alterations needed. “If they could perfect it, the agony of debrading would become a thing of the past.”

      “Which would be a blessing for all of us,” she muttered, making a face. Her head lifted. “But you can’t do that yet.”

      “No.” СКАЧАТЬ