When We Meet Again

Chapter 3

Meaghan was on the phone with her mother when they brought him in. She was just promising to make it home for Christmas when she heard the page.

Paging Dr. Leonard to the ER.

The message repeated constantly until she reached a phone and let the ER know she was on her way. She hurried to the ER where a nurse was waiting for her. She led her to a cubicle where a Caucasian man was lying unconscious, his leg lying at such an awkward angle it was obvious that it was broken in at least two places. Meaghan reached for the gloves and pulled his cover aside. She could see the white shiny cast of his muscle surrounded by bloody red, the sharp edges of his snapped bone sticking out in two different places.

“Ouch,” she said as someone handed her his file.

“Dean Wesson holidaying at the St. Regis hotel went skiing and had some sort of accident. Wrapped himself round a tree. He’s lucky to be alive according to the EMTs,” the nurse said to her. Meaghan had frozen at the name, hardly heard anything the nurse had said after Dean’s name. She looked up at his face; he was still tall in spite of the broken legs, and he still had a full head of dark hair. There were little lines fanning the sides of his eyes that hadn’t been there in high school and his lips looked like he did not smile much. Or that could be the pain he must be in due to his injuries. Meaghan stepped forward as the nurse told him about Dean’s vitals and the extent of his injuries. The leg looked nasty but there was a possibility that one of his ribs was broken and that was the major emergency. If it pierced his lung, he could bleed to death. Meaghan ordered an X-ray to begin with.

*****

Dean had needed to get away for a while. His father had just suffered a stroke and the pressure had grown for him to step up and take over the family businesses. Also the pressure for him to settle down and get married that accompanied any talk of taking over the family business had ratcheted up to the nth degree. He had taken off in the middle of the night for Aspen figuring that the adrenaline rush of skiing down steep cliffs would clear his head sufficiently to come to some life decisions.

He was distracted on that last run after a prolonged argument on the phone with his mother about when exactly he was coming home and more importantly when he would give Samantha a ring. When he woke up in the hospital, stiff with pain and bandages he was disoriented enough not to remember where he was and his vision was blurred. He fixed his gaze on a tall dark outline dressed in white. It seemed to be writing something and Dean blinked several times to try to clear his vision. The figure slowly came into focus; long black hair held in a pony tail in the middle of her head with the tied hair poufed around her head. Her big brown eyes were suddenly slanted at the corners and her cheekbones were so sharp she could probably cut glass with them. Her soft warm chocolate complexion and her cupid’s bow mouth took him back all the way to high school.

“Meaghan?” he said in shock. She glanced up from her writings to look at him and then back down at her notes.

“You recognize me,” she said. It was a statement, not a question. So it really was her.

“Yeah. You haven’t changed much,” he said thinking that she really hadn’t.

“Gee thanks,” Meaghan said dryly.

“So what are you doing here anyway?” he asked noting her white lab coat, and also the fact that her hands were ringless.

“Saving your life,” she said putting down the folder.

“You work here?” he asked.

“No I’m masquerading as a doctor to get my dastardly revenge on you by setting your leg crooked,” she said sarcastically.

“Oh ha ha. So you’re a doctor huh? Figures.” Dean said. Meaghan gave him a look.

“Mr. Wesson you have suffered very severe injuries and you should rest now. You need sleep in order to heal,” she said.

Dean tried to look down at himself but found to his mortification that he was too weak to lift his head. “What happened to me?” he asked.

“You had an argument with a tree. You lost,” she replied. Dean smiled.

“It’s nice to see you again Meaghan. What are you reading now?” he asked.

Meaghan gave him the thousand yard stare. “I should go now so you can rest,” she said and left the room abruptly. Dean watched her go. She had filled out quite a bit; not so willowy now, much more curvaceous. The glasses were still cute though as was the hair. Her…nether regions were a little wider than he remembered. Nice child bearing hips. Dean smiled to imagine what she’d say if he told her that. He knew that Samantha and her friends had given her a hard time in school but it wasn’t like there was anything he could do about that – not without raising too many eyebrows. He’d felt bad for her but he guessed them were the breaks. She must have expected that, she was a flamingo in a sea of penguins she was bound to stand out. Dean was struck by the poetism of that statement and wanted to write it down but both of his hands were in bandages. He reached out tentatively and rung for a nurse.

*****

Meaghan walked quickly to her office, curiously out of breath considering she hadn’t done anything very exerting. She fished out her phone and speed dialed two. Bain picked up on the first ring.

“Guess who washed up on my shores,” she said without preamble.

“Is this a sexual metaphor?” Bain asked. She could hear the background noise of a construction site at his end. Bain was an architect.

“Am I disturbing you at work?” she asked.

“Nah, I’m just taking in the view. The advantage of working in sunny California is a lot of guys taking their shirts off coz it’s too hot,” he said confidentially to her. Meaghan laughed softly. She really enjoyed Bain’s unapologetic objectification of the male form. For one thing it tended to be very educational.

“So are you going to explain your Freudian metaphors or what?” he asked.

“I’m at my locum in Aspen medical center and guess who was brought in as a patient,” she tried again.

“Are you supposed to be telling me stuff about your patients?” Bain asked.

“Probably not,” she replied.

“Okay spill, who?” he asked making her laugh again.

“You won’t believe it,” she said building up the suspense.

“Just tell me already girl!” he exclaimed.

“Dean Wesson,” she said after a pause for dramatic effect.

“What?” he almost screamed in her ear making her stretch out the hand holding the phone a full length away from her ear.

“Yep. Skiing accident. I had to patch him up.” She said.

“And then what? What did he say when he saw it was you? Did he remember you?” Bain asked all breathless curiosity.

“Yeah he remembered me; called me by name before I had a chance to introduce myself. I think he was even flirting a little bit,” she said.

“You think?” Bain asked just as she knew he would, “Tell me everything.”