Temptation Ridge (Virgin River #6)(58)

“I’m not busy, Paul. Bring the baby over to the office and let’s have a look,” Cameron said. “I’ll be there in half an hour to unlock the door.”

“Hey, man, you don’t know how much I appreciate this. I think Vanni’s getting herself worked up. Hell, what am I saying—I’m getting worked up.”

Cameron beat them to the peds office and when Vanni and Paul arrived with the baby, Vanni was tearing up from worry. “Hey now,” Cameron said, dropping an arm around her shoulders. “Let’s not get all upset until we know what to get upset about, huh? Hey, big fella,” he said, taking the baby out of her arms. “Wow, you’ve just about doubled in size!”

“Cameron, I don’t know how to thank you,” she said. “I was doing fine until he started coughing.” Right on cue, Mattie let go with a large, deep, gravelly cough that turned him red in the face.

Cameron put the baby on the exam table and listened to his chest first. He took his temperature, looked in his ears and throat, and palpated his chubby little body. “Is he still on the breast?” Cameron asked.

“A couple of times a day. Maybe three—morning, afternoon nap, bedtime.”

“Okay, here’s what we’re going to do—he’s not going to love this. This could be croup. At least bronchitis. His color is still good and he isn’t having trouble breathing, but that crowlike barking cough is a dead giveaway. I’ll need an X-ray, but I’ll call ahead for you—I don’t want him sitting around a roomful of sick people, or infecting a roomful of people with sprained ankles. I’m going to give him antibiotics and a little oxygen before you leave here, and a nice big dose of baby Tylenol for the fever. You’re going to have to keep him on clear liquids—Pediolyte works. No breast milk, no formula, no juice, no food. Antibiotics tend to cause diarrhea and you’ve already got some of that going on—we don’t want to aggravate it. When you get home, I want you to spend a lot of time in a steamy shower to loosen up his chest. Do that as often as you can stand it.”

“Okay,” she said.

“Watch him closely. If he has trouble breathing at all or if his color takes on a bluish tint, call me to meet you in the E.R.—I’ll give you my cell number. But I think we caught it in time. Lots of clear liquids, Vanni. Tylenol every four hours. Do you know what to do if he spikes a high fever?”

“Cool bath?” she asked.

“Not cold, not warm. Tepid,” he said. “Don’t leave him in there long, just give him a nice dunk, run a cloth over his little body and dry him off. He’s only 101.4 now, before the Tylenol—not scary high for his age. If he gets close to 103, call me immediately. You should be able to keep it under control with regular Tylenol.”

Cameron dosed the baby from his drug cabinet. Then he hooked up the oxygen and, holding the baby on his lap, managed to get the cannulas in the baby’s nostrils despite his squirming. He held him while the oxygen drifted in and the baby calmed in his experienced hands. “When are you planning to head back to Virgin River?”

“We were going to go tomorrow afternoon,” Paul said.

“I’d like you to stick close until it’s clear he’s recovering. You don’t want to be out on the road and have this thing rear its ugly head. I can’t think of anything more likely to bring that on than hours on his back in a car seat. Attacks of croup tend to come in the night—you might not get much rest tonight or tomorrow night. Can you shoot for Tuesday for going back?”

“We’ll do whatever you say,” Paul said, slipping an arm around Vanni’s waist.

“Okay, if you don’t have to bring him back to me before, let me take a look at him, listen to his chest, on Tuesday morning. If it sounds good, you can hit the road. You should probably have Doc Mullins take a look when you get back to Virgin River. He’s probably treated a bucketful of croup in his years there.”

Paul and Vanni exchanged shocked looks, then turned those very expressions back to Cameron. “Jesus, Cameron, I’m sorry,” Paul said. “I guess you’d have no way of knowing—Doc Mullins died a little over a month ago.”

“What?” Cameron asked, surprised. “What happened?”

Paul shrugged. “Not entirely sure. Mel found him facedown on the clinic floor and tried to revive him with CPR, but he never came around. The new baby, little Emma, was lying on the floor right next to him, like maybe he’d been holding her when he had a heart attack or something.”

“Aw, Jesus,” Cameron said. “That’s awful. Emma?”

“Fine. Thank God.”

“How’s the town holding up?”

“Kinda shaky,” Paul said. “Mel’s doing her best at the clinic. Vanni’s cousin Shelby has been visiting for a while now and she’s going in to the clinic every day to help out with the kids, patients and paperwork. Docs Stone and Hudson from Grace Valley are taking the patients Mel can’t cover. But just going through Doc’s stuff—over forty years’ worth—has really taken its toll on Mel. She’s grieving and overworked—and little Emma is barely six months.”

“At least she’s got Shelby. For now,” Vanessa said. “But Shelby is just visiting. She was planning to leave after the holidays. God, Cameron, I’m sorry we didn’t think to call you.”