Page 5 of The Seal's Promise
CHAPTER THREE
Dalton
Seeing Red
“Was that BrookeGarcia?” Dalton asked Dr. Tommy, who didn’t even look old enough to have graduated medical school.
“Yes,” the young doc said as he took Dalton’s grandmother’s blood pressure and checked all her vitals. “Or Brooke Banks, technically.”
The air whooshed out of Dalton’s lungs. His Brooke married a Banks brother?
“This is so unnecessary, Dr. Thompson. My overprotective grandson thought he saw me faint when I was simply trying to fix a ripple in the carpet. I bent down to smooth it out and got a little light-headed.”
“Your blood pressure is high, and you seem dehydrated, so why not let me run a few tests and make sure there isn’t anything else that may have contributed to you feeling light-headed? Just to be safe,” Dr. Tommy assured her. “You can boss Nurse Steph around, and then your grandson will stop looking at me like he’s going to rip my head off.”
His grandmother had the nerve to laugh at that, and they both looked at him.
“Oh, Dalton, you do look like a sight with your muscles flexing, and that scowl. Fine, I’ll have the tests, but I want one of those cherry ices I know you save for the children who come in here.”
Dr. Tommy laughed. “You got it. Sit tight and I’ll be back with one then we’ll get the tests started.”
“Thank you, Doctor,” Dalton said. “Gran, you’re going to need to help me fill out these forms, and please be honest about everything.”
She sighed, “Alright, ask away.”
Thirty minutes later Dalton was worried to hear that his grandmother was having dizzy spells once a week, had a low appetite, and on at least one occasion she’d fallen and sprained her wrist but hadn’t seen a doctor for it. Dr. Tommy brought her a cherry ice, took some blood, and ordered several tests. Although the town hospital was small, they did have a lab for basic tests.
“I’m going to get you some real food to eat while we wait,” Dalton said.
“I wouldn’t turn away a chicken salad sandwich with chips from the diner, that’s for sure. With a sweet tea.”
“If this was some ploy to get me to take you out to dinner, you just needed to ask,” he teased, knowing his grandmother’s independence was likely feeling very threatened. “I’ll be right back.”
She nodded, but he knew he wouldn’t be surprised if she tried to escape that hospital gurney during the time it would take him to turn in her paperwork and grab her food. The hospital seemed busier than he would expect in a small-town. He walked over to the intake desk, paperwork in hand.
“Hello, these are for the patient in bay five, Barbara Hart.”
The woman accepted the forms and smiled up at him from her perch behind the desk. The placard on her desk said Nora. “You sound like you know your way around a hospital.”
“I have some knowledge of the floor plans,” he said, looking around.
“It says here you’re Dr. Dalton Hart. What kind of a doctor are you? If you don’t mind me asking.”
“Emergency room” was all he offered as Dr. Tommy arrived.
“Mr. Hart, these tests are going to take some time. Typically we don’t encourage patients to bring food into the hospital, but if you have time to get your grandmother a meal, I think that would be good for her.”
“Already on it, Doc, she’s ordered her favorite from the diner. Can I get either of you anything? It looks like you’re going to have a busy night.”
“Oh, that is awfully thoughtful of you, Dr. Hart, but we definitely can’t take any offers of those homemade cookies they serve over there,” Nora said.
Dalton laughed. “Good, copy. I’ll be right back—please don’t let my gran leave before I get back. I’m not sure if she’ll run, but she’s the type to.”
“Oh, she won’t get past me, Doctor,” Nora said.
With one more look around for Brooke, he exited the ER and made his way across the street over to the diner. He didn’t know that she’d gone into medicine too. How had he not known that, and why did he get the feeling that she recognized him but wanted to pretend that she didn’t?
When he walked back into the ER only twenty minutes later, it was like a madhouse. Nurse Nora was no longer at the intake desk, patients were crowding out of the small waiting room, and a man was trying to convince his child to stop looking at his broken arm and quit crying. With no one else in sight, Dalton set the food bags behind the desk and grabbed a pair of gloves.
