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Dani felt icy fingers of foreboding skittering up her spine as she reached for the cold metal handle of the break room door. She shivered. Shake it off girl! Everyone’s stable, that’s the only reason you’re able to grab a few minutes! She whipped the mask off her face as she dropped into a chair. She was eight hours into her twelve-hour shift in the CCU and had been running non-stop. Her feet were throbbing, and she had an ache building behind her eyes. She smiled thankfully at her friend, Kim, who pushed a 44 oz Diet Dr. Pepper in her direction across the table. “You’re a lifesaver!” Dani said, taking a large gulp of the icy drink. Since she didn’t drink coffee, Diet Dr. Pepper was her main vice. To her ongoing dismay, the break room soda machine didn’t carry them, so she went without unless she was able to sneak downstairs to the cafeteria. “This is the first time I’ve been able to take a break all day. How did you know I’d be here dying for one right now?”

Kim chuckled. “Brandon said you texted him a few minutes ago that you were going on break. His case is running long so he let me go on break early and asked me to bring it to you.” Kim was Dr. Brandon Walker III’s scheduling nurse and, Dani often thought, knew more about Dani’s boyfriend than she did.

“That man does have his moments.” Dani took another large gulp of soda. She did wish those moments were more frequent.

“Just four more hours to go.” Dani slid off her clogs and propped her feet up on an open chair. “I’m hoping Bed 5 stays stable until tomorrow. It’s been touch and go all day but his vitals are looking better now and we haven’t had to put him back on the vent.”

“We’ve been pretty smooth all day,” Kim said, taking her popcorn out of the microwave, “until this guy Brandon has on the table now. The guy’s vessels are pretty friable so he’s had to go slower than he normally does.” She took a sip of her coffee. “He was about to finish when he let me go though. I’m sure he’ll have his fellow close up and be out shortly.”

Dani thought again how she seemed to spend much more time with Brandon’s scheduler than with Brandon. Kim had fallen into running interference between them more and more lately as Brandon had less and less time to spend with her himself. They really needed to get away. Maybe she could finally get him out to Gladewater for Memorial Day since they’d had to cancel Easter at the last minute for that quadruple bypass. He did have partners after all.

“Too bad I’m going to miss him again. We can’t seem…” Dani was interrupted by her cell playing Tanya Tucker’s Texas When I Die. Dani smiled ruefully. The tone was her Aunt Lu’s designated one. Unfortunately, she wasn’t going to have time to hear her aunt’s always entertaining updates on Gladewater life before she was due back on the floor.

“Hi, Aunt Lu! Sorry I can’t visit right…” Dani was interrupted not by her aunt’s chatty soprano but her uncle’s slow, deep bass.

“We need you, baby girl. The doctors say it’s real bad.” She could hear the agony in Uncle Eustace’s voice behind that slow, Texas drawl.

Dani straightened and her feet hit the floor. “What happened?” Kim’s hand froze inside the popcorn bag as she heard the fear in her friend’s voice.

“Lu’s had a stroke,” her uncle said with a catch in his voice. He paused and she heard him take a strangled breath trying to cut off a sob. “They don’t know if she’s gonna make it.”

Dani had never heard her uncle break down. The man who had raised her since she was eight, and her parents were killed by a drunk driver, was a rock. Stoic and steady. Always there for her and anyone who needed him. For his stoic nature to be broken, her Aunt Lu's condition must really be bad.

“Oh my God!” Time slowed. Her breath caught in her chest, and she heard her heart pounding loudly in her ears. She clutched at the small, silver caduceus necklace that Aunt Lu and Uncle Eustace had given her for her graduation from nursing school. It was the only jewelry she ever wore at work. Stroking the charm, she pulled herself back into nurse mode by sheer force of will. She didn’t have time to fall apart.

“I’m on my way! I’ll find someone to cover the rest of my shift and leave asap. You hold on, Uncle E. I’ll call you when I’m on the road.”

“Hurry,” was his only response.

“Kim, my aunt’s had a stroke.” Dani’s voice was steady, but her friend could see the terror in her bright green eyes. “Can you please let Brandon know I have to go to Gladewater? I’ll call him when I know something.”

“Of course, Dani, anything! Do you need me to help with anything else?”

Dani tried to think of what she had to get done before she could get on the road. “Not right now but thanks. I’ve got to go tell Margarite I’ve got to leave early. She’s not going to be happy since we’ve been so short staffed lately but she’s going to have to make it work.” She hated to leave her team in a lurch, but she couldn’t feel guilty about it right now. Her aunt and uncle were too important to her.

“I can call Janice and see if she can come in,” Kim suggested. “She’s been cross trained in the CCU.”

“That would be fabulous, Kim! Thanks so much.”

Dani quickly slipped on her shoes and ran out the door to get back to the unit. Between giving report to one of her cow