He jumped off the table and headed back down the corridor.
The room was quieter now, the shouting had stopped. Her legs were trembling and she grabbed hold of a hand offered to her as she climbed down off the table. Heads were down, people working away, going about their business. One of the security guards was helping one of the nursing aides carry linen through to another room to help set up some beds.
Callie knew she couldn’t leave this. She knew she had to talk to him. Even though he was trying to put some space between them.
“Sawyer.” She was breathless, running down the corridor after him. “I just wanted to say thank you. For back there.”
His green eyes fixed on hers, just for a second, before they flitted away and he ran his fingers through that hair again. Her heart clenched, even though she couldn’t understand why. He was exasperated with her. “That was a one-off, Callie. Don’t count on me to help you again.” He turned and strode back down the corridor, leaving her standing there.
Alone.
CHAPTER THREE
“YOU NEED TO manage things better.” He couldn’t help it. There were probably a million other ways to put this more delicately, but Sawyer didn’t have time to think about nicer words.
Her head shot upwards. There it was—that rabbit-in-the-headlights look again from her.
He hated it. Because it made his stomach churn. He didn’t know whether to be irritated by it or whether he really wanted to go over and give her a quick hug.
“What on earth do you mean, ‘manage things better’?” She made quote marks in the air with her fingers as she repeated his words back to him. He could see the lines across her brow. She was tired and she was stressed. And he understood that. It was part and parcel of the job at the DPA.
He could feel his lips turn upwards. She looked even prettier when she was cross.
“What are you smirking at?” She stood up from behind the desk. A desk lost under a multitude of piles of papers—no doubt more copies of plans and protocols. A few sheets scattered as she stood.
His smile broadened. He could tell she really wanted to stop and pick them up.
She was in front of him now, her hands on her hips. “What?”
He liked that. Sometimes she just got straight to the point. No skirting around the edge of things.
He gestured to the door behind him. “You need to clarify some things about the vaccination. There are still a lot of questions out there.”
She sighed and ran her fingers through the short side of her hair. “I know. I’ll get to it. I’ve got a million and one things to deal with.” Her eyes flickered in the direction of the hidden desk.
“Then delegate.”
She started, as if the thought of actually delegating horrified her.
“But I’m responsible—”
“And you need to be visible. You need to be seen. You have to be on the floor—not stuck in some office. You can make your decisions out there, not from behind a desk.”
He could see her brain ticking, thinking over his suggestions. Truth be told, she’d been delegating from the minute she’d walked in the door—just not the important stuff.
“And you need to do something about Alison.”
Her eyes narrowed. “I thought you wanted to deal with Alison.”
“And I have—we’ve had the discussion about the vaccine. She hasn’t decided what to do yet, but I think she’ll opt on the side of caution and say no.”
“So what’s the problem?” She’d started to walk back over to the desk.
“The problem is she’s a nurse. She’s stuck in a room at the bottom of the corridor. Isolated. Quarantined—”
“You know that’s not the case.”
He touched her shoulder. “But she doesn’t. You need to tell people, explain to them what the difference is. You explained that to the masses—but you need didn’t explain it to her. She’s in there frightened and alone. You need to communicate better.” He could feel her bristle under his touch. “Alison needs to do something. I understand you think she might have been exposed but you can’t leave her sitting there for hours on end.” He picked up a pile of papers from the desk. “Give her a list of phone calls to make for you. Let her do some of the specialized phone contact tracing.”
“She can’t do that. That’s a special skill. You need of hours of training to do that properly,” she snapped.
He could feel the frustration rising in his chest. “It’s only a list of questions! She’s an intelligent human being. Give her something to do. Something to take her mind off things.”
He grabbed the first random thought that entered his head. “Let her organize the food, then! Something—anything—to stop her thinking that if she hadn’t come to work this morning she wouldn’t have risked the life of her baby.”
He could see the realization fall on her face. And suddenly he understood.
She was a big-picture girl. The perfect person for public health. She didn’t individualize, or personalize, the other side of the job. The things that affected normal people.
He took a deep breath. He wasn’t trying to make this harder for her. He knew she’d been thrown in at the deep end.
Part of him wanted to offer to take over, even though he knew that would never be allowed to. And part of him still wanted to run for the hills.
He hated this. Everything about this situation grated on him. He’d thought he’d be safe.
He’d thought he’d distanced himself enough to never to be in a situation like this again. How often did an E.R. notify an outbreak on this scale? Rarely.
And this type of disease? Well, let’s face it, not in the last thirty or forty years.
No matter what his brain told him, he would not allow himself to be dragged in. Even though he was right in the middle of everything he needed to keep some distance. He needed not to have responsibility for this outbreak.
She was hesitating. He could see it written all over her face. Then the decision was made. It was almost as if he could see a little light go on behind her eyes.
She looked him square in the eye. “You’re right. I can give her something to do. Something that means she’s not at risk to herself or anyone else around her.” She picked up a list fro
m her desk. “She can order the food supplies, linen supplies and any extra medical supplies that we might need. The food’s turned into a bit of a nightmare in the last few hours.” She picked up a hefty manual from her desk, ripped out a few sheets and attached them to a red clipboard. “This will tell her everything she needs to know about how to arrange the delivery of supplies that keeps all parties safe.”
Her eyes swept around the room.
It was almost as if once she’d made a decision, that was it. She was ready. She was organized. The courage of her convictions took her forward. She could be great at this job, if only she had confidence in her abilities. And she would get that. It would just take a few years.
A few years that she would normally have had in the DPA, working with their most experienced doctors.
His thoughts went back to Callum and he glanced at his watch. “I need to make a phone call.”
Her hand rested on his arm. The warmth of her fingers stopped him dead.
“I need you to do one more thing for me before you go.”
She was looking at him with those big eyes. The ones he preferred not to have contact with. This was where his gut twisted and he wanted to say no. Say no to anything that would drag him further into this mess.
There was a new edge to her voice, a new determination. She handed him a file from the desk. “I need you to look over this with an independent eye. You’ve been out of the DPA long enough to make an assessment.”
He was confused now. What was she talking about? Instinctively, his hand reached out for the file.
“You told me to delegate. Everyone thought the next smallpox outbreak would be deliberate—a terrorist act. Nothing we’ve seen here supports that. All the information from the parents and contacts would lead me to suggest this was a natural outbreak—however impossible or improbable that may be.”