truth. “I’m tired, Amanda. I don’t have it in me to try to be someplace new right now. And with the shape my hand is in…I can’t be a doctor right now. I can’t—”
“Bullshit.”
“Excuse me?” He wouldn’t have been as shocked if she’d punched him. Amanda had been circling around him for weeks.
“I said, you’re spouting bullshit.” She grabbed his arm and yanked him into a small supply closet that he assumed—from the desk and diplomas on the wall—was serving double-duty as her office. “You aren’t tired. You’re scared and you’re drowning in self-pity.”
“You’re one to talk.” The words were out before he could stop them. He saw them hit her, saw their impact, and wished he could take them back. Angry as he was, he had no right to take it out on Amanda. Not when she’d already suffered so much.
But she was nodding, eyes clear and shoulders straight. “Exactly. I am one to talk. Because I was where you are not too long ago.” Her voice was harsh and direct now, containing none of the sweetness he’d been hearing from her for weeks. It was almost a relief to have her back to normal—somehow it made him feel more like a functioning member of society.
“You did your tough love thing for me not that long ago. Now it’s time for me to return the favor.”
“It’s not the same thing. I’m going to be fine. I just need…” He didn’t know what he needed, besides the full use of his hand back. Without that, he had nothing.
“You need a change of scenery.”
“I’ve already got that. Boston is a far cry from Somalia.”
“You’ve never been able to breathe in Boston. We both know that. Your dad has probably already got you signed up to interview at some prestigious family practice—” She broke off when she saw his face. “Are you kidding me, Jack? You really want to take care of women who spend more on plastic surgery in a year than it would take to run this clinic?”
“You’re over-simplifying things.”
“And you’re making them too complicated. Come to Atlanta for a few months, hang out with Simon and me. Do your physical therapy here, and then, when you’re ready, when you’re healed, you can make a better decision.”
“I can do all that in Boston.” Admittedly, Amanda wasn’t in Boston, but that wasn’t exactly a deterrent. He totally accepted that she was married to Simon—was happy, in fact, that things had worked out so well for her. That didn’t mean he was dying to spend every day with what he couldn’t have right in front of him.
“Yeah, but here you won’t have your family making you nuts all the time.”
“No, I’ll have you poking and prodding at me.”
“Someone needs to—”
“Doctor Jacobs!” The shout sounded from the hallway outside Amanda’s closed door and was followed quickly by the slap of footsteps against the linoleum floor.
Jack threw open the door to see the triage nurse from the waiting room. “Dr. Zilker said to get you,” she said breathlessly. “There’s been a shooting. It’s bad.”
“Which room?” demanded Amanda, already running to the front of the clinic.
“We’ve got him in exam-room one.”
Jack followed her, adrenaline pumping through his system despite himself. “Who’s Zilker?”
“One of our residents. He’s good, but he’s still new—” She broke off as they entered the exam room and Jack knew why. There was blood everywhere.
For a second, he flashed back to that operating room in Somalia. The one where he’d lost both his patient and his ability to perform surgery. His bum leg shook and he was almost certain he was going to land on his ass.
But then Amanda took control, demanding vitals as she slipped on a pair of gloves before diving right into the mess. Somehow the normalcy of being in the middle of an emergency with Amanda steadied him, had him striding forward and pulling on a pair of gloves, as well. He struggled a little with the right one, but refused to let it back him off.
“What have we got?” he demanded of the resident, who was standing at the front of the bed, his face as white as the sheets on the bed.
His voice must have carried enough authority to make up for the fact that he was a stranger because Zilker didn’t hesitate as he stuttered out, “Male, age eighteen to twenty. Multiple gunshot wounds to the chest, pelvis, upper thigh. Blood pressure is seventy over forty and falling…”
The world narrowed the way it always did for him in situations like these. “Do you have blood?” he asked Amanda.
“Yeah. Type him. And call 911,” Amanda said, as she went for the wound in the kid’s pelvis.
Which left the chest wound to him. It shouldn’t come as such a surprise—after all, that was how they always worked, but it did. He looked at the gaping hole in the kid’s chest, and wished for his old dexterity. For his ability to get in there and stitch things up.
So great was the longing that he almost walked away, had actually taken a step back when Amanda looked up and pinned him with silver eyes made steely with determination. “Do you think he cares about your hand, Jack?” she snapped at him. “Get in there, get the bleeding stopped enough that the ambulance can transport him to County for surgery or he’s going to die. I’ve got a mess down here. If I try to leave it, he’s going to bleed out.”
Her words, and the absolute lack of doubt she conveyed, snapped him out of it. Had him moving forward despite his fear and anger, barking out orders to the resident and two nurses standing next to him.
The next twenty minutes passed in a blur of concentration and pain as he forced his stiff hand into positions it hadn’t attempted in two very long months. Amanda worked beside him, dealing with the wounds on the kid’s lower body as he struggled to stop the bleeding in his chest long enough for the paramedics to be able to take over.
In the old days, he would have said to hell with it and started stitching the boy up, but he didn’t have the small motor skills necessary to do that anymore. So he concentrated on basic emergency triage, doing what any other family practitioner or internist would do in the same situation. It wasn’t clean, and it wasn’t pretty, but eventually the patient was stable enough to be rushed to the nearest O.R.
Before he knew it, paramedics were at the door. Stepping back, he gestured for them to take over. He and Amanda had done all they could.
Stripping off his gloves, he looked down at himself. He was covered in blood, as neither he nor Amanda had taken time to gown up. Which was fine for her, as she probably kept a spare set of clothes around here somewhere, but he looked like he’d just gotten out of a war zone. Not the best look for someone who had to walk through a hotel lobby before getting to his room to clean up.
“We have a few pairs of scrubs in the back that will probably fit you,” Amanda told him, having read his mind. “You and Lucas are about the same size.”
“Lucas?” he asked.
“My boss. Our boss, if you decide to take the job. This clinic is his baby.”
“Oh. Right.” This wasn’t Amanda’s clinic. Wouldn’t be his clinic if he decided to take a chance on Atlanta, to take a chance on this job. Which was one more strike against the idea, in his opinion. He hadn’t had to answer to anyone in a long time. After running clinics in some of the most remote places on earth for almost his entire career, the idea that he would have to step back and let someone else be in charge, grated. Big time. If he was being honest, he wasn’t sure he could work that way.
He didn’t give voice to any of his doubts, but then he didn’t have to. He and Amanda had known each other a long time.
“You’ll be fine,” she told