Some Things Never Change (WIP) Chapter 1

Chapter One

Dr. Jake Callahan ducked behind the nurse’s station desk breathless and wide-eyed. He glanced up at the two nurses, sitting in their chairs, glaring down at him with frowns. He put a finger to his lips in a silent message to pretend like he wasn’t there.

The women exchanged looks and then rolled their eyes in unison. He didn’t care what the nurses thought of him. He was preoccupied listening to the sound of high-heeled shoes quickly approaching the desk that he was cowering under.

Please, don’t let it be her. It couldn’t be her. Last he heard, she was married and living in Chicago.

The quick, purposeful footsteps stopped just on the other side of the desk. That was when he heard it. The sweet Oklahoma twang, tingeing the soft, familiar voice.

“Hi. Can you tell me what room Ben Monroe is in?” The voice asked the nurse.
It was her.

He knew he shouldn’t have taken this job. He had been offered jobs across the country, and he now realized that he should have taken any of them, except this one.

He hadn’t been here a month, yet, and already he was about to be face to face with her again. Why had he come home?

The nurse clacked at the keys on her computer, paused, and then looked up at the woman. “He’s in 304, bed 2.”

“Thank you.” She said right before he heard her walk away.

When he was sure that there was sufficient distance between her retreating footsteps and his current position, he climbed out from under the desk. Ever so slowly, he inched up, between the two nurses, to glance over the top of the desk.

Her back was to him as she walked down the long hallway, but it was definitely her. The long brown hair hanging over her back bounced with each step, and her long slender legs were exposed by what he thought was an extremely short skirt. And as pathetic as it was, he would have recognized that cute little butt anywhere.

He stayed crouched behind the desk until he saw her turn and enter one of the patient rooms. Letting out a heavy sigh of relief, he suddenly became aware that all the nurses were staring at him with amused grins and raised eyebrows.

Jake stood, straightened his tie, and nonchalantly walked around to the front of the desk. The nurse sitting in the chair directly in front of him put her elbows on the desk, but kept her sharp eye on him.

“Is there a problem, Dr. Callahan?” She asked, stifling a giggle.

Jake looked up at the woman wearing pink scrubs. She was a middle-aged woman, and slightly on the heavy side, but she was a great nurse and ran the oncology department very efficiently. It had taken him only a day here at St. Francis’s Hospital to realize that as interim Chief of Oncology, she was either going to be his greatest asset or his worst enemy.

His display of immaturity, just a moment ago, probably didn’t win him any brownie points. In fact, it may have cost him some. He didn’t think that he should even try to explain the past that he had with the woman that had just been here, so he plastered a fake smile on his face and shook his head.

“No problem.” He said. “Just stopped by to pick up my charts for rounds.”

“Did you think that we kept them under the desk?” She asked with the tiniest hint of sarcasm in her voice.

“No, no. I dropped my pen.” He blurted out, producing a ballpoint pen from his pocket. “I got it.”

Though she was looking at him like he’d lost his mind, she nodded and handed him a stack of metal clipboards. He smiled and took them.

He looked down at the first chart. Stage 1-colon cancer. The patient presented two days ago with severe cramping and a fever. Hospitalized for an infection. Easy enough. He glanced up to the top of the chart to see what the patients name was and froze.

He thought he heard a quiet giggle coming from the nurse’s station behind him, but he was still too shocked to move. He read the name again just in case his eyes were playing tricks on him.

Monroe, Benjamin R. Room 304 Bed 2.

Damn it.

Could he not catch a break?




Elizabeth Monroe sat next to her grandfather’s hospital bed flipping through a magazine. One leg thrown over her knee, she leaned back and idly twisted a strand of her hair around her finger as she waited for her grandfather to wake.
She glanced at her watch. It was almost two-thirty. Rounds on the oncology floor usually started at two, she knew that from his previous hospital stays, and she wanted to be here to hear what the doctor said.

She had asked her grandmother what exactly the doctor had said, but she got an incomplete answer with fuzzy details. She wasn’t surprised. Her grandmother had never been good at listening to doctors, so she had decided to take a late lunch today, that way she could hear it for herself.

Tossing the magazine on the nightstand she stood and stretched her legs. She walked over to the window and stared out at the scenery. There wasn’t much to look at. St. Francis was located on the south end of Tulsa, far from downtown. There was a church and a park. Other than that she was just looking at endless rooftops of houses.

“Lizzie?” A raspy voice from behind said quietly.

She spun around and smiled. “Hi, Pops. How you feeling?”

“I feel like horse manure. What the hell are they pumping into me?” He asked tugging at the IV in his arm.

Elizabeth placed a calm hand on his, stopping his pulls at the plastic tubing. “It’s just a little anti-biotic to fight the infection. That’s all.” She assured him.

“How do you know it’s not that poison stuff?”

“I just do. You said you didn’t want chemo. They know that. This is just for the infection.”

Her grandfather grunted his disapproval and frowned. “What are you doing here, anyway?” He asked.

“Well,” she started, sitting on the edge of his bed and leaning over him. “You said that I needed a husband, and I thought that if I hung out at the hospital enough, I could catch myself a rich doctor.”

Ben wanted to laugh at her snide joke, but it seemed to take all of his energy just to smile at her. He patted her cheek and then let his hand fall back to his side, exhausted.

She was still looking at her grandfather when she heard the doctor walk into the room behind her.

Jake was thankful that her back was to him again. It gave him just a little more courage than he expected to have once she landed her icy stare on him. He cleared his throat and opened his mouth to speak.

“Hello, Ben. How are you feeling this afternoon?” He asked, keeping his eye on the woman sitting next to him. He held out hope that she wouldn’t immediately recognize his voice, but that hope was crushed just a second later when her head spun around and her clear blue eyes locked with his.

She didn’t say anything. She just blinked. Then she blinked again. Her eyes studied his face and her mouth was hanging open.

It took a power of will, but he was finally able to break her eye contact and look at his patient. Ben was lying against the pillow smiling at him.

“Jake Callahan.” He rasped. “Your momma told me you were home. I didn’t know you were working at this hospital, though.”

“Just started a few weeks ago.” Jake said, stealing a quick glance at Elizabeth. She was still staring at him, but she had managed to close her mouth. “It’s not permanent, just interim, but I couldn’t resist the opportunity to head my own department. So, I moved back to Oklahoma.”

“That’s great.” Ben said.

Jake lifted the chart he was holding at his side and read over the papers attached to the clipboard. “So, you got yourself a little infection, huh?”

“That’s what they tell me.” Ben answered.

Jake turned to Elizabeth. She seemed breathless but more relaxed than she had been when he first walked in.

He cleared his throat. “I’m going to examine your grandfather, now. You can wait outside. It’ll only take a minute.”

She nodded and tore her eyes away from him. She flashed a quick smile at her grandfather. She was still breathtaking when she smiled, Jake thought to himself.
Elizabeth was very near hyperventilating by the time the door closed behind her. She gulped for air as she made a desperate attempt to calm her heart. What in the hell was he doing here?

He hadn’t even seemed surprised to see her. He just strolled into the room, like he owned the whole hospital. And the way he shot her those sly looks made her furious. Who did he think he was?

Running into an ex-boyfriend was a way of life in Sperry, the very small town she had grown up in. The same town that Jake had grown up in. But this wasn’t Sperry, this was Tulsa. Besides, he had been gone for years. She had fully expected to live the rest of her life without laying eyes on Jake Callahan ever again, and it was perfectly fine with her.

She was leaning against the wall, gnawing on her thumbnail, when the door to her grandfather’s hospital room opened.

She looked up and saw Jake walking out with the chart tucked under his arm. His white coat hung open revealing his professional attire of a white shirt, red tie and khaki slacks but Elizabeth couldn’t help but notice the black cowboy boots on his feet. They could take the doctor out of the country but they couldn't take the country out of this doctor.

He turned to her and cocked an eyebrow up. If he had any idea how much she wanted to punch that very eyebrow, she was sure that he would keep his distance. He obviously didn’t know, because he walked right up to her. He stood less than two feet away, and she had to tilt her head back just to look at his face.

“Elizabeth.” He said in a short, curt manner. As if she was some acquaintance of his that he was greeting in an impersonal manner. All right, if he wanted to play like that, she could, too.

“Jake.” She replied in her sweetest, most feminine voice. She even managed to bat her eyelashes at him. “How is he?”

Jake raised his eyebrow even higher on his forehead and smirked at her. “He has a nasty infection, but the antibiotics seem to be taking effect. He should only need to be hospitalized for another day or two.”

She nodded quickly, and then started to walk around him so that she could say good-bye to her grandfather before going back to work.

Walking off in the middle of a conversation was a habit this woman has had since she was a little girl. It was no less annoying now that she was a woman. It also wasn’t the first time that she had tried to walk away from Jake, so his response of reaching out a grabbing her arm as she passed seemed almost like a reflex rather than a purposeful act.

The warning glare that he shot at her was also extremely easy to do. As though he had been doing it his whole life. When her mahogany colored hair flew over her shoulder and her bright blue eyes snapped up to his face, he had a moment of pause. This seemed entirely too familiar for his liking. He thought that it would probably be very easy to fall into other old behaviors with her as well. That was not an option, he told himself.

“I’m not finished talking to you.” He bit.

“Unless it’s about my grandfather’s health, then I don’t have anything to talk to you about.” She said, matching his tone.

“It is about your grandfather.”

“Oh.” She murmured, yanking her arm from his grasp and taking a step back. She straightened her jacket, tossed her hair over her shoulder and faked a smile. “Well, what is it?”

He had been in her company thirty seconds and already he was feeling his temper rise in his chest. Nobody on God’s green Earth had ever made him as angry as this woman could make him.

Gathering all the patience he had, he told himself that she was the family of a patient. That was it.

“I’m concerned about his treatment plan.” Jake said.

“What treatment plan?” She asked. “The antibiotics?”

“No. The chemo. Why is he refusing the chemo?”

Elizabeth suddenly softened. For a moment she looked exactly like the young woman that he had fallen for all those years ago. Her eyes transformed from the icy blue that pierced through him to a deeper blue that reminded him of the hours that he had gazed into them. The frown that she had been wearing faded and she lifted one corner of her mouth. She even looked a little sad.

“I don’t know why he won’t take the medicine.” She admitted with a shrug.

“Is it because of the side effects?” He asked.

Once again she morphed. It was amazing how fast Elizabeth’s mood could change. She pursed her lips together, and tilted her head to one side.

“I just said that I don’t know why.” She stated, very matter-of-fact.

Jake had to fight the temptation to roll his eyes. He reminded himself that he would never treat any other patient’s family member with even a hint of disrespect. She was no different. She was fighting a battle against cancer, and she was in danger of losing a loved one. He was the doctor that could save her grandfather, and he planned to do just that.

“I was only asking, because there is a new drug. It has fewer side effects than the chemotherapy.” He explained in a calm voice. “and it’s just as effective.”

She shook her head adamantly. “I’ve tried.” She said. “I’ve done so much research on different treatment plans that I could be a doctor. He won’t hear of it.”

“I just want to make sure that he knows what his options are.” He said.

“He knows. He also knows that he’s going to die if he doesn’t do anything.” She shrugged.

“But, Elizabeth, he could beat this.” Jake said. “If he doesn’t do anything to fight the cancer, he has less than a year, probably closer to only a few more months.”

Again she looked saddened. “I know.” She said looking down at her feet. “He’s already given up, Jake. He’s lived a good life, and he doesn’t want to spend his last days hooked up to machines and being pumped full of poison.”

Jake shook his head. This was unacceptable. It wasn’t uncommon for cancer patients to have this view, especially if they were elderly, but those were patients that were already too sick to heal. This wasn’t the case for Ben Monroe. Jake was absolutely certain that with a few rounds of meds and maybe a surgery or two, Ben could live another ten years.

“Lizzie—“ he started, but her repulsed groan interrupted him.

“Ugh, I can’t believe you just called me that.” She said, turning away from him.
The list of all the other names he would like to call her came racing through his mind as he watched her walk to the door of Ben’s room.

“Elizabeth,” he called out through gritted teeth. “I plan to discuss this further with your grandfather.”

She shrugged, indifferently. “Suit yourself.” And with that she walked into the room and let the door close behind her.

Jake stood for several seconds, gaining control of his emotions. It was only because he had a past with her, he told himself. Because she had broken his heart. That was the only reason that he was getting so worked up.

He spun around and headed back to the nurse’s station, where he planned to finish his paperwork and then he could go home and relax for the rest of the afternoon. He glanced at his watch. He’d been at the hospital for fourteen hours, now. He just needed to get out of there.

He slammed the charts down on the desk and pulled his pen from his shirt pocket. As he signed his name on each chart, he noticed Bill, another doctor at the hospital, come and stand next to him.

Bill leaned against the counter and bent his head to see Jake’s face.

“Problems with the patient’s family?” Bill asked.

“With that family.” Jake confirmed. “Everyone in the whole family is stubborn, hard-headed and ill mannered. Each generation is worse than the last.”

“So, that’s why you were man-handling and yelling at the granddaughter?” Bill asked.

Jake was suddenly a little embarrassed. He glanced around to see if anybody else had seen his loss of decorum with Elizabeth. “You saw that?”

“How could I miss it?” Bill chuckled. “Did you not see that woman? She’s just plain hot.”

“I’ve seen her.” Jake muttered with a roll of his eyes and a frown.

A smile lit up Bill’s dark face. “Oh, I detect a story here. You got something with the brunette?”

“I did.” Jake admitted. “I damn near married her.”

“The one with the legs?” Bill burst with a mixture of surprise, intrigue, and even a little envy. “Why the hell didn’t you marry her?”

“I just told you, she’s stubborn, hard-headed and ill mannered.”

“And headed this way.” Bill added with a nod of his head.

Jake swung around. She was walking straight toward them. Her purse hung from her shoulder, a coat draped over her arm, and her eyes locked on Jake. She stopped just a few feet in front of him.

“What is it, Elizabeth?” Jake asked forcing himself not to look at her by turning back to his charts.

A tiny smile curled on her lips. “It’s good to see you again, Jake.”

His head snapped up, but he didn’t turn around.

“You look good.” She added. “Welcome home.”

Slowly, he turned to look at her. He smiled at her, which she returned and then walked past the nurse’s station. Jake watched her go. He even leaned over to look around the corner once she had passed it.

He straightened when she was completely out of sight and looked at Bill, whom was grinning like a schoolboy.

“You’re right.” Bill chuckled. “She’s a real bitch.”

“Oh, shut the hell up.” Jake snapped to Bill’s extreme amusement.