“Paging Dr. Little to Dr. Roberts’s office.”
Doug Little refrained from bouncing his head off his desk at the hospital-wide announcement. The bruise had finally faded from the last time he gave in to his frustration. Besides, if he hit his desk too hard, he would knock the coaster loose from under the leg, and it would start wobbling again.
The only reason he was being paged to the office across the hall was because Hopewell Hospital’s senior doctor on staff was showing off for his patient. Doug checked his wall calendar—twenty-two months and three days of servitude left in his hometown before he could return to his life in the city.
It was past noon. So technically, two and a half days.
He stepped into the hall and was almost taken out by a four-year-old chasing a runaway dinosaur on wheels. “Whoa, there, Crash.”
“Hi, Dr. Doug. I get my arm back today. See?” A battered fibreglass cast barely missed Doug’s nose.
“Let’s try to keep from breaking anything else before that happens.” Doug captured the little boy’s hand in his and led him back to the waiting room. “I’ve caught a Toddosaur. Who would like to take this slightly dented specimen home with them?”
A pregnant redhead heaved herself to her feet. “Todd, what did we say about running away?”
“I didn’t do it. Dino ran away. I was trying to bring him back,” Todd whined.
“How about we get you to Jackie for another X-ray, and then we can see about taking your cast off,” Doug suggested.
Todd led the way, and Doug trailed behind with Barb Poulin leaning on his arm. “Is it medically possible for a woman to be pregnant for fourteen months? Because I’m pretty sure it’s been that long,” she asked.
“I assure you that all medical science says it’s only been seven months. You can’t double it because you are carrying twins. You’re doing great.” He wished all his patients were like Barb. Unlike almost everyone else in town, she’d moved to Hopewell after he left, so she knew him first as a doctor. Not as…
“Paging Dr. Little to Dr. Roberts’ office. Again.”
“You’re popular today,” Barb said. She patted his arm. “I can find Jackie and Radiology on my own. You’d better go see what he wants.”
He waited until she was holding onto the handrail that ran the length of the hall and then he backtracked along the worn tile. The hospital had been built in the sixties, and the late-eighties facelift it had received had worn off long ago. It was more than the tiles, the dilapidated desk, and the peeling paint in the corner of the patient day room. It was everything in the building. It was the building itself.
And he was stuck here.
Doug knocked on Dr. Roberts’s door and waited for the call to enter.
“Dr. Little, how good of you to join us.” Dr. Roberts shared a grin with his patient, who sat in the chair opposite him.
“Barb Poulin caught me in the hall,” Doug offered in explanation.
“Is she okay?”
“She’s fine. She and Todd are here to get his cast off, and she had a question.” Knowing he hadn’t been called in to chat, he turned his attention to the waiting patient. “Good afternoon, Mr. Sawchuk.”
“Are you sure we didn’t interrupt your coffee break? I know you drive over to Virden for those frappe-lattes. I don’t know why, when you can get a large coffee for half the price at Ruth’s Place.” Doug remembered the old man being cranky in his mandatory shop class, but he hadn’t realized how close his teacher had been to retirement at the time. Nothing had changed. Simon Sawchuk hadn’t liked him when Doug had been his student. Things hadn’t improved since his return to Hopewell.
“No offense to Heidi, but her coffee is horrible.”
“It’s supposed to be horrible. It keeps you regular. You’re never too young to start worrying about your colon, Dougie.”
Doug smiled and jammed his fists into his white coat pockets. “What brings you in today, Mr. Sawchuk?” He crossed his fingers, hoping it wasn’t colon related.
It wasn’t, which put Doug in a much better mood.
He worked his way through the rest of his own afternoon patients. Barb knocked on his door on her way out. Her son was ecstatic about his newly regained freedom. “I’m going swimming this afternoon. Hayley Kent has a pool at her house.”
“Have fun, Crash. Just remember that your arm will be stiff, so don’t get too frustrated if you are a little clumsy and slow, okay? You haven’t used it in a while. It’s out of practice. That’s normal. But if it hurts, you should tell your mom or dad.” He’d already given Barb the entire checklist for post-cast treatment.
He enjoyed a whole two minutes of quiet before there was another knock at his door. “It’s open,” Doug called.
His favourite face in the hospital appeared. “I have Henry Ronald’s foot X-rays loaded for you. He’s in the waiting room with Andie,” Jackie Dunn reported. “Do you need a minute?”
She smiled, her brown eyes crinkling at the corners. The pretty radiologist was his only real friend at the hospital. He was at least a decade younger than the other doctors on staff, and the nurses still had him on unofficial probation until they decided if they liked him or not. He and Jackie had hit it off immediately.
“I’m good, thanks.”
He walked with Jackie to the waiting room and watched her head back to her lab. When he turned to call his patient, he saw Mr. Ronald and Andie already on their feet. Andie lent her grandfather her arm and they limped together down the corridor. Once she had him settled in the office, she rejoined Doug in the hall.
“Have you asked her out yet?” his former classmate asked.
“Who?”
“Jackie!” Andie hadn’t changed a bit since high school. She still had the biggest, broadest smile he’d ever seen, and her blonde hair was in its perpetual ponytail that he’d never seen her without.
“I can’t ask her out. She works for me.” That’s what he kept telling himself.
“She works for the hospital, same as you, but she doesn’t report to you. Come on, Doug, you know you want to.” Andie Ronald was a pain in the way only an old friend could be. Ten years of being in the same grade, and a lifetime of growing up in the same small town didn’t leave a lot of secrets between them.
“Your knee is bad today,” he said in a desperate attempt to change the subject.
“The pain comes and goes.”
As a professional hockey player, Andie might be used to working through an injury, but it didn’t mean she had to suffer with it. “Do you want me to take a look at it?”
“No, thanks. I have an appointment in the city next week anyway.” She shrugged. “We’re here for my pops. He’s been looking forward to this.”
He had too. Mr. Ronald had specifically requested a consultation, although he’d been Dr. Roberts’s patient for years. It felt good to be a choice, rather than the doctor people had to be forced to see.
Fifteen minutes later, he was done. “It may take a couple days to kick in, Mr. Ronald. Your toe could be very sore in the meantime.” Doug dropped the used needle in the sharps’ container. “But if it works, you should be walking, pain-free, for several months.”
The old man on the examination table smiled. “My toe is already sore. If this works, I’ll take another day or two of pain.” He grunted while he pulled on his sock. “I didn’t know you could treat arthritis with a shot. Doc Roberts never said anything.”
Doug was afraid of that. He was a new guy bringing new treatment options into the hospital. The last thing he needed to do was turn the town’s established physician against him. “Different doctors use different methods. Some people prefer topical ointments.” That sounded diplomatic enough. But Doug’s way was better.
“Six hours of relief versus six months? Not an option I’d choose. Do you need me to come in for a follow-up?” The senior winced as he flexed his foot, but he didn’t stop wiggling it around.
“Only if you haven’t noticed any improvement, Mr. Ronald.”
“Will do, Dougie. Doctor Doug. Doctor Little.”
At least he was trying. “You can stick with “Doc” if you like.”
Mr. Ronald shook his head. “That’s not respectful. You earned your title. And what did I say about calling me Mr. Ronald?”
“Back at you with the respect thing, Mr. R.”
“Okay, we’ll go with that, Doctor Doug.” Andie’s grandfather eased over the edge of the table until he was standing solidly on both feet. “I’m going to send Andie in. Can you do anything about her knee?”
“I already asked. She’s seeing a specialist next week.”
“Ask her again for me, would you?”
Andie pushed his door back open a second after her grandfather closed it. “Hi, Doug. Pops said you wanted to see me. Is something wrong with him? Did he have a problem with the cortisone shot?”
“Not at all. He wanted me to talk to you about you. He’s worried.”
“I’m fine.”
“He cares about you. Do you want to talk about it?”
She shook her head, her blonde ponytail swinging wildly. “Absolutely not.”
“If you change your mind, I’m here,” Doug said.
“If you change your mind about Jackie, she’s just down the hall. For now. Don’t wait too long, Doug. I’d hate to see you miss out on a good thing.”
“I’ll see you later, Andie.”
“You bet. I can’t wait!”
He could. Tonight was his high school class’s ten-year reunion. All his fellow graduates were coming home.
It was going to be terrible.
Doug had been the little guy in high school. A little, studious guy who never quite fit in after skipping a grade. He’d left Hopewell the week he graduated, and aside from visits to his family, had never returned. He’d reconnected with a handful of old friends since he’d returned, but most were still relative strangers.
On the plus side…
“Doug, I’m off. Have you scheduled anything I need to know about for next week?” Jackie asked. She fixed her ponytail while he checked his calendar.
“Not so far.”
“Great. Then I’ll see you later tonight.”
“Right. See you then.” Jackie wasn’t part of his graduating class; she’d been a year behind them. He wondered who she was going with.
“By the way, you have a walk-in.”
Doug groaned.
“I think he walked in all the way from California,” she added with a grin.
His frustration vanished. He’d see that walk-in any time. “Did you get his autograph?”
“No.” She smiled bigger. “I got a selfie. I’ll send him down to you.”
“Yes, fantastic, thanks. I’ll see you later.”
“Hello, Dr. Little.”
“Wow, it’s Dr. Angel Eight-pack,” Doug gasped. “It’s a huge honour to have such a famous surgeon in my office.”
“Really, Doug? Are you going to do that every time?”
“I am, as long as you’re playing Dr. Michelangelo Aiken on Santa Monica E.R.”
Cameron Irvine leaned against the door frame. At four inches taller than Doug’s five-foot-ten, he filled the entire space. “You’re just jealous because I’m Chief of Thoracic Surgery after three years of drama classes, and you needed eight years of med school to get your licence.”
“Totally jealous,” Doug agreed.
Cameron had played Dr. Aiken for two seasons, and the show had just been renewed for a third. The Hopewell native had moved to Toronto as soon has he’d finished high school. He and Doug roomed together briefly when Doug arrived there for medical school before Cameron left for Los Angeles. After a couple years of bit parts and a vampire movie, Cameron hit the big time with his role on Santa Monica E.R. as a hunky doctor.
Doug liked to mock his on-screen surgical techniques, but he was proud of his friend’s success.
“Who was that?” Cameron asked.
“Who was who?”
“The pretty brunette. Braces.”
That was an extremely poor description of Jackie, but Doug didn’t correct him. “Jackie Dunn. Radiologist. She went to school with us.”
“That was Jackie?” He leaned into the hall and looked down the corridor again. “Wow.”
Cameron should not be wow-ing over Jackie. He had an entire city of actresses to wow over. He didn’t need to expose his light California tan and sun-bleached hair all over the place, especially when Doug’s daily bike ride to work still hadn’t provided much of a tan to his winter-white skin.
Besides, it wasn’t like Cameron was going to be in town long enough to do anything about it.
The thought prompted Doug to check his watch. “Do you want to see Dr. Roberts before we head out? We have time to get changed before we need to be at the school for the dinner Scarlett arranged.”
“Why not?”
Mr. Sawchuk was gone, leaving the grey-haired man alone in his office. They knocked on the open door twice before he looked up. “Dr. Little. Cameron Irvine. Do you two need stitches again?”
“That was one time, Dr. Roberts. Besides, Cameron has his own plastic surgeon on speed dial these days.” Doug jumped out of the way of Cameron’s swat.
“Are you in town for the reunion?”
“Yes, sir,” Cameron said.
“It’s good of you to come home to see your old friends. Scarlett and Tyler have been working hard on it.”
“I thought Jason was on the committee too?”
Dr. Roberts scoffed at the idea that particular classmate of theirs would help.
“It’s been almost entirely Scarlett and Tyler,” Doug said to Cameron. “We need to get going.” He could show off his rented apartment and still be ready to go in half an hour, but it was better than hanging around the hospital.
“Yes. Go. Reminisce. Rub your success in the faces of everybody who said you were too big for your britches when you swore you were going to get out of here and be a hotshot actor.” Dr. Roberts looked at both of them. “I’m glad to see you didn’t forget where you came from. Although I hear Colleen won’t be attending,” he added pointedly.
“That has nothing to do with being too big for her britches. She’s in the middle of a two-month shoot in New Zealand. She couldn’t get away without shutting down production,” Cameron said, a hint of pride in his voice. According to Cameron, his sister was always either filming a new movie or on a tour to promote one that was coming out.
“And you aren’t?”
“I’m on hiatus. We start season three next month. It was good to see you, Dr. Roberts.”
“You too, Cameron. Now go have some fun.”
Cameron waited till they were in the parking lot. “Man, some things never change. He never liked that Colleen and I were into acting. He suggested my parents put us in therapy to, and I quote, straighten out our heads. My mom and dad were not impressed. It was the first time I ever heard him apologize.”
Doug grinned. “Just so you know, he never misses an episode. He’s the first one at the water cooler the next morning giving the staff a full recap, so I wouldn’t take his disapproval too seriously.”
“Please tell me he doesn’t refer to me as Dr. Eight-pack.”
He didn’t, but Doug wasn’t ready to let Cameron off the hook yet, not after his comment about Jackie. “I didn’t say that.”