Not Quite Enough(13)

Past the room where he’d witnessed Monica help fix the boy’s fracture the day before, he moved into the next room. There lay two dozen patients. Some with IV bags of fluid hanging over them giving some semblance of normalcy of a hospital. Trent knew better. There was nothing normal about people stacked this high or thick in what used to be a waiting room.
He glanced around and found a nurse he recognized from the flight over slumped against the wall. She’d fallen asleep. He considered waking her, but realized that no one in the room was screaming for assistance, so he moved on. Up the stairs he found a smaller room with an attendant… or maybe it was a nurse… with a half dozen patients.
Trent swallowed. The patients rested on gurneys in a line. Used to seeing the dark umber skin tone of the residents, it shocked him to see so many gray faces.
Pushing past his unease, Trent stepped up next to the attendant. “Excuse me. I’m looking for the American, Dr. Klein?”
The woman behind the workstation nodded toward the closed door beyond the patients. “He’s in surgery.”
Trent ran a hand over his neck and glanced around the room. “I’m supposed to be escorting a nurse to Port Lucia.”
The woman shrugged and returned to the work.
Disturbing the doctor didn’t seem wise so Trent twisted around and moved back through the hospital. He found the sleeping nurse and stood over her.
As he debated waking the woman, someone behind him beat him to it.
Hearing a patient’s groan, the nurse shot to attention, her gaze disconnected from the world. Her eyes moved around the room, panic clouded her face before she realized he stood over her.
“Oh, God… I fell asleep.”
He couldn’t imagine the exhaustion she must be experiencing. “It was quiet when I walked through a moment ago.”
She moved to her feet and the clipboard in her lap fell to the floor. Trent moved to pick it up for her. A coy smile passed her lips.
“Thanks.”
“S’OK. Listen. I’m supposed to pick up a nurse to take to Port Lucia. Do you know who she is?”
The brunette shook her head. “Not me. Monica ducked out a few hours ago. Said she was being moved somewhere east.”
Trent felt his lips pulling into a smile. “Where will I find her?”
The nurse pointed in the opposite direction. “They set up a small room for us to rest. Go through four sets of doors, up a stairway one flight, and take a left. There’s a doctors’ lounge. Girls on the right, boys on the left.”
“Thanks,” Trent uttered as he turned and walked away.
Four sets of doors opened to rooms filled with misery. He kept his sunglasses on, though the sun wasn’t out and it certainly didn’t filter into the rooms. If he could block out all the images around him he would.
The stairway up to the lounge was quiet and void of anyone. He stood outside the door and wondered if he should knock. If there were nurses sleeping, he might wake all of them instead of the only one. He took a gamble, inched the door open, and peeked inside.
Sure enough, there were a few cots in the small space, all of them filled. A quick assessment brought his gaze to Monica. She’d fallen asleep fully clothed with a hand tossed over her head. Her blonde hair hung loose around her shoulders, the tight lines in her face from the day before were erased while she slept.
Trent stepped over a duffel bag and avoided a cot before he stood over his passenger. He had no idea how long she’d slept and felt awful for waking her.
He knelt down to her level and whispered her name. “Monica?”
Nothing.
“Monica?” he said a little louder.
Her hand drifted off her forehead.
The other women in the room hadn’t stirred.
“Monica?” He placed his hand on her shoulder and gave a gentle shake.
She shot up so fast Trent didn’t have time to move back. Her head collided with his bringing gasps from both of them.
“Ouch!” she yelled, waking everyone in the room. She blinked several times while staring at him. “What the…”
Trent stood and rubbed his head. “I was trying to wake you without disturbing everyone.”
“Too late,” someone said before rolling over and going back to sleep.
“Sorry,” he mumbled.
“What time is it?” Her voice was rough with sleep.
“Almost seven.”
Monica flopped back down to her cot. “You’re driving me to Port Lucia?”
“Yeah.”
She rubbed both hands over her face and pushed her legs off the bed. “I’ll be ready in a minute.”
Trent took her words as his cue to leave the room. His wait in the hall took less than ten minutes. Monica emerged with her hair pulled back in the same ponytail he’d seen the day before. He liked her hair down, he decided. Why his mind would travel to how this woman wore her hair, he didn’t know.
But he did. He was attracted. The curling in his gut wasn’t something he could ignore.
She hid a yawn behind her hand and closed the door quietly behind her.
As she started to hike her bag onto her shoulder, Trent moved forward and reached for it. “Let me,” he said.
“I got it.” She pulled the strap higher on her arm.
He reached for her bag again. “I wasn’t raised to let a woman carry a bag while I’m empty-handed.”
She cocked her head to the side as if she’d argue with him. Instead, she shrugged the bag down her arm and handed it to him.
“I wouldn’t want to be responsible for blowing your mother’s good intentions.”
The memory of his mother repeatedly telling him to grab a bag or hold a door for a woman filtered past his mind. “My mother would thank you.”