His Strength to Stand

Chapter 2

Chapter Two

Madison Gray’s Manolo Blahnicks smacked down against the pavement. The pavement smacked back. A cloud of dirt à la Pig Pen from the Charlie Brown comic strip swirled up, fairly licking at her expensive shoes. Madison hopped away from the cloud, but she wasn’t quick enough. The dark dirt settled on her pastel pumps.

“You gotta pay your fare, ma’am,” called the taxi driver from the front of the orange sedan.

Madison balked at the three-digit number on the meter. It cost half that to go from JFK to anywhere in New York City. But she wasn’t in the Big Apple any longer. She had flown from JFK out into the middle of nowhere. She’d known that leaving would come at a cost, and she would have to pay it.

The driver frowned at the piece of plastic she handed him. “Cash only.”

Cash? As in dollar bills? Who carried actual currency around these days?

Actually, she did. She’d grabbed a few hundred from the ATM before she’d boarded the plane. She’d pocketed the money for such emergencies as tipping porters at the airport, tipping handlers at the hotel she would be staying at, and tipping drivers to give her lifts until she got a car of her own. Madison handed over the entire wad of cash. She was sure there was an ATM inside the hospital.

The taxi pulled off in another plume of Pig Pen dirt tornado. Madison hopped out of the way, tugging her purse behind her back so that it wouldn’t collect any dust in its now empty confines. When the soil and sediment settled, she turned and looked at her new place of business; Mercy General Hospital out in the middle of nowhere, Montana.

It was a long way away from the emergency rooms of New York City, where she’d cut her teeth on elite clientele, state-of-the-art technology, and cases worthy of medical journals. Mercy was also a VA Hospital, so there wasn’t the latest tech available. Which was a shame. The government should be funneling in as many tax dollars as possible to care for the men and women who served this country.

Well, today, at least, they were getting the best orthopedic surgeon on staff.

Madison walked up to the reception area. She offered the haggard-looking nurse her most winning smile. Which the woman didn’t see as she cradled two phones in one hand and scribbled on a pad with the other.

Madison waited patiently while she looked around. There was a woman who sat in a wheelchair. Both her legs were lost, but there was no frown on her face. She looked out the window at the flower patch bordering the walkway.

Across from her sat a man. He had all his limbs. But his features contorted in a grimace of chronic pain. Beside him sat a child who clutched at a stuffed animal.

Madison’s gaze held on the child. Pain she knew how to mitigate. Loneliness and abandonment whether a parent was there or far away, she had no cure for. Solitude had been a constant friend of hers growing up with a four-star general for a father. Tutors and private schools and, finally, boarding schools did not fill that void.

“Yes, can I help you?”

Madison turned back to the nurse. She inhaled, pulling her winning smile back on, the smile that she was Doctor Madison Gray, and nothing fazed her. “I’m Dr. Madison Gray and—”

“Right.” The nurse turned from her, shifting the phones into the opposite hand. She grabbed a manilla envelope and shoved it toward Madison. “The chief said you’d be coming today. He’s in a meeting with another candidate for Chief of Orthopedics.”

Another candidate for Chief of Orthopedics? There was no other candidate for Chief of Orthopedics. She was the candidate for Chief of Orthopedics.

“There must be a mistake,” Madison started. “You see, I’m Madison Gray-”

“If you’ll just take a seat, Dr. Gray, I’ll call you when he’s ready for you.”

The nurse placed one of the phones to her ear and began another conversation, summarily dismissing Madison. Though Madison stood bewildered long enough for the nurse to place the other phone to her ear and embark on yet another conversation.

Finally, Madison was able to regain her wits. She turned to the chairs in the waiting room. The father and son had vacated the chairs. Madison walked over and took the kid’s empty seat.

What was going on?

She felt like she did when she’d earned the Valedictorian spot at her boarding school, and her father had failed to show to hear her speech. Or the time when she’d earned the Valedictorian spot after her bachelor’s and her father had failed to show to see her walk across the stage. No, no, this was definitely more like that time she’d earned the Valedictorian spot in medical school, and her father had shown, but he’d spent the time on his cell phone talking to the Pentagon.

Steve Pena was the Chief of Medicine at Mercy. He’d been her teacher in med school. She’d been his star student. Only ever falling second a couple of times to He Who Shall Not Be Named. Pena had fairly groomed her for this job. And yet, she wasn’t his first pick. She wasn’t even his only pick.

Who could it possibly be? Likely some hometown boy who’d moved up the ranks of Mercy General.

The sound of two men laughing filled Madison’s ears. Both laughs were familiar to her. One was the chief. The other she wouldn’t name.

The man whose name she wanted to forget came around the corner first. Doug Lamb’s golden locks shone brighter than the sun. But his blond was harsh and hard for her to look at. He still had those sharp blue eyes that pierced into any woman’s soul.

That was the problem. Doug’s clear blue gaze wasn’t discriminating. It would latch onto any woman in the vicinity, regardless of whether it was his girlfriend or not.

Those blue eyes latched onto Madison now. That grin grew impossibly bigger, brighter. All the more to eat you with, my pretty. But Madison was no longer naïve enough to follow a wolf into the woods.

“Madison, you made it,” said Pena.

Madison rose to greet him, allowing him to kiss both her cheeks. The country seemed to be doing the old man well. He’d lost the pudgy belly he’d had back during his tenure in medical school. He looked lean and happy and at least ten years younger.

“Give me one second to check my messages, and then we’ll chat,” he said, turning to talk to the nurse behind the reception desk.

When Doug came in for a kiss, Madison took a step back. She’d sworn he would never kiss her again, and Madison was a woman of her word. Unlike him.

Doug’s grin didn’t falter. “You look surprised I’m here, Madison.”

“I was looking forward to never seeing you again, actually,” she said brightly, with a harsh glare in her eyes.

“Sorry to disappoint,” said Doug. He wasn’t.

“Aren’t you supposed to be in California moving your way up the ranks of some Beverly Hills boutique hospital?”

“California has a lot of great doctors. But I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to work with Doctor Pena again. Besides, you don’t mind a little friendly competition?”

Friendly? She was going to tell him what he could do with his friendliness when the doors to the front entrance swung open with a gust of hot air. The sound of boots on the ground reminded Madison of standing beside her dad during a military demonstration. Looking up, she was sure those men marching into the door were all soldiers. So was the man they carried in as though he was a warrior fallen in some great battle.

“We need help,” one of the soldiers barked out the order.

Madison didn’t think. She jolted into action, grabbing a wheelchair. She pushed it over to the man. But once she got close, Doug tugged it from her grasp.

Was he serious right now? He was already trying to poach her job. Now he was going to poach this patient. Not today, Satan.

Madison didn’t loosen her grip on the wheelchair. Doug didn’t let go. A small tug of war ensued as the patient’s eyes opened.

“I’ll let you two fight it out,” said the man. “I can just crawl to the intake desk.”