her from her racing thoughts. She hadn’t seen him rise and step closer to her.
“What?” She looked up at him. He was so close and tall that she felt small in comparison. Until now she hadn’t realized how different they were in height. He just kept going up.
The calm smile on his face didn’t detract from the sharp assessing look in his green eyes. “Don’t have a panic attack the first day. We’ll be fine.”
Sweat broke out on her back. Being so nervous about everything wasn’t how she wanted to be, but she didn’t seem to know how to change. After so many years of being dedicated to helping others and more recently helping her parents through her father’s illness and death, something had broken inside of her that she didn’t know how to fix. She didn’t know if it could be fixed. The last man she had been intimately involved with certainly hadn’t thought so. “But the kids will be late, and then—”
“So? It’s not like they’re going anywhere for the next eight weeks. They can be a little late for the first meeting in the lodge, or we can do the remainder of the assessments tomorrow. Won’t hurt anything.”
Ellie simply stared at Mark. “Are you serious? Things need to be done on time, not when we feel like doing them or get around to it.” How could he be a physician and say that?
“Ellie. We’re not slacking. There are simply a few kids I want to take an extra look at right now. There are some campers with chronic illnesses that we need to follow closely over the summer, and if I document well now, it will save me a lot of brain strain later.”
Looking away from him, she lowered her eyes. “I see. Sorry, Dr. Collins.”
“No sorry about it, and please call me Mark.” He squeezed her shoulder once in a gesture that was meant to soothe her frazzled nerves, then turned away. “Let’s just get finished with what we can reasonably do, and then we’ll go to the lodge with the kids.” He called the next camper over. After a quick, assessing glance at Ellie, he carried on with the exams.
Before Mark finished with the next set of eyes, ears and tonsils, the paging system called the campers to the lodge. Without preamble, the kids scattered in a mob of gangly legs and arms and choruses of cheers. “Guess that settles it. Off to the lodge with the bunch of them.” He popped off the cover of the otoscope into the trash bin that nearly overflowed beside him. With a look at Ellie, he bundled up the trash and placed a clean liner in the bin.
Stacks of files lay on every conceivable surface; some hung precariously from their perches, and a few had landed on the floor. Ellie hurried around the room picking up trash, putting away files, writing notes on other files. Her frantic pace nearly made him dizzy. He’d had enough of that sort of thing for a while. The change in his life over the past few years had made him much more aware of how he spent his time. He wasn’t going to waste his, and he didn’t want to see Ellie use up hers on mundane things that could wait. Especially when there was a bonfire waiting. With s’mores.
“I guess it’s time to head to the lodge,” Mark said and motioned for Ellie to join him by the door. Mark paused at the look of panic in her eyes as she surveyed the mess. There was something definitely going on with her and it wasn’t files or organization. Getting out of a hospital environment was going to be good for her, too. That was obvious. He knew nothing about her personal life, but the signs of stress she displayed were enough to make him want to reach out to her, want to help her. “Are you ready?” he asked, knowing there could be an explosive answer at the end of that question, but he was ready for it. He hadn’t grown up with three sisters without learning a few things about women.
“Uh, no.” Ellie shook her head and moved back to the first pile of charts. “I can’t go until all of this is taken care of. You go ahead, and I’ll join you later.” She picked up a stack of files and their contents slid onto the floor. “Probably much later.”
He caught a glimpse of tears in her eyes before she hid her face behind the files in her arms. “Ellie, this stuff isn’t going anywhere. Let’s go meet the kids and let them get to know us a little. We’re going to be here all summer, and the charts can wait.”
“I just can’t leave things undone, you know? I’m not built that way.” A sigh flowed out of her. “If I leave things for later, I’ll never catch up. You go ahead.” She grabbed another stack of charts and began going through them. “It’s practically a sin in the nursing world to leave something for the next person to do when you could have done it yourself.” She clucked her tongue.
“You’re not the only one here. I can help you. I helped create the mess—I can certainly help clean it up.” That was logical, wasn’t it?
“But that’s not a physician’s job. This is a mundane task that I should do.”
“Ellie, we’re not going to be in a hospital setting for eight entire weeks. I won’t tell if you don’t.” Offering her an encouraging smile, he wanted her to respond, but she didn’t.
She eyed the piles, but gave another heavy sigh. “I don’t know. It’s a lot of work. I’ve always had the philosophy of ‘do it now so you don’t have to do it later.’”
“My philosophy is ‘don’t waste the now,’ and I outrank you. Let’s go enjoy ourselves. Before last night I hadn’t been to a bonfire for years, and my stomach is growling in anticipation of more campfire food.” He paused when she looked as if she were going to resist more. “Please don’t make me give you a real doctor’s order.”
“What?”
Startled brown eyes caught his gaze, and he knew he’d surprised her. Good. “When we come back, we can do it together and get it done in half the time. It’s not like it’s an urgent matter, and there’s no one from Medical Records breathing down our necks.”
At that she gave a sideways smile, and her brown eyes lit up for the first time since they’d met. “You’re right. I can deal with all this later.”
“We’ll deal with it. Promise. Let’s just go enjoy ourselves.” This was good. One small step forward.
“Okay. Let me grab a sweatshirt and my special bug spray. They ate me alive last night so I’m not taking any chances tonight.”
“Sounds good.”
She hurried to her room at the opposite end of the hall from his and returned in minutes. She carried a dark blue sweatshirt with an embroidered loon on it and a white spray bottle in the other hand.
Mark waited by the door, then walked with her to the lodge, wondering what could be special about bug spray. But if it worked, who cared?
The evening was pure delight. Kids ran wild through the camp, and he laughed more than he had in years. Tension began to simply unwind out of him with each passing moment. This was a good change for him, and one he hadn’t realized he’d needed. Thank God for good friends who made excellent recommendations. Get out of the hospital for a while. That was the ticket. Oh, what a pleasure it was to be here and simply to be alive.
Tapping his foot to the guitar music, he wasn’t watching as one small camper tried to sneak by, but tripped and landed nearly in Mark’s lap. The little boy with bright red hair squealed, and Mark helped him to stand.
“I gotta use the bathroom,” he said and his blue eyes expressed his urgency.
“Come on, it’s this way,” Mark said and helped the young boy find the restroom. This was something he knew he might never be able to do otherwise. Not necessarily help a kid to the bathroom, but help his own child—get up in the middle of the night with his own children, help them with whatever they needed. For a moment, despair hit Mark; the realization of what he might never have was reflected in the face of each and every camper present. He simply couldn’t allow himself to indulge in a relationship when he might not live through the next few years. It wasn’t fair to the woman or any children that could come of the relationship. Minutes later, the boy emerged from the bathroom and, for a moment, Mark forgot