LITMIR.BIZ

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a nod to the rescuers in the truck, who were awaiting his direction, Beau stepped away from the trousers to allow the rescuers a clear path then turned to watch them cut away the steering-wheel and dashboard, almost in the blink of an eye.

      In that same blink of an eye his patient ripped out the most blood-curdling scream imaginable. Beau drew in a shuddering breath and felt the squeeze of Deanna’s hand on his arm. “I hate this,” he whispered. “Damn, I hate this.”

      “I’ve got morphine ready.”

      Another awful scream and her squeeze tightened. “If he lives that long.”

      “He’ll live that long.” Deanna dropped to her knees as the firefighters ran forward and laid the driver directly atop the open trousers. Immediately she began to pull one of the legs over Mack’s left leg, while Beau did the same with the right, and in a fraction of a second, they were both closing the fasteners.

      There was another scream from Mack but this one weaker, and at the end of it he passed out. “Stay with us,” Beau said, as he pumped pressure into the trousers. “You’ve got birthday cake to eat.”

      “Birthday cake?” Deanna asked, without diverting her attention from the site she was cleaning on Mack’s arm for an IV.

      “His granddaughter’s birthday. You’re not bad for a writer, by the way. Pretty good skill sets in the field.”

      “Not bad for a writer who’s putting an IV in someone who doesn’t have a blood pressure,” Deanna corrected, then smiled as she slid the needle into the vein near the crook of Mack’s left arm.

      “Do you like working trauma?” he asked, still astounded by her efficiency.

      After she had taped the IV in place, she glanced over at Beau, who was listening to heart and breath sounds. “Don’t dislike it. Not sure I’d want a steady diet of it, though.” Returning her attention to her patient, she attached the IV tubing then hooked that to a bag of Ringer’s, which would help replace fluid volume lost through bleeding. “And you?”

      “Surgeon, by training. Country GP … by obligation. Maybe by choice, but I haven’t made up my mind yet.”

      “Ah, two diverse worlds with just as diverse appeals.” She signaled for the medic to hand her an oxygen mask then placed it on Mack’s face.

      “Maybe too diverse,” he said, leaning over Mack to check his eyes for pupillary response. “Not sure where I fit yet.”

      “Which is why you’re here?”

      “I’m here because my grandfather isn’t able to manage his practice any longer, and there’s no one else to take care of his patients until I decide if I want to stay or bring somebody else in. He needed me, even though the old coot isn’t about to admit it.”

      “Am I sensing family discord?”

      “More like family stubbornness.” He pushed himself away from Mack, then stood up and waved for the medics to take the man. “Not such an endearing trait, I’ve been told.”

      “So now what?” she asked, as she also stood, then stepped back. “An hour or so to the hospital? Will he be able to do that in his condition”

      “Less, by helicopter.”

      “If you can get one. Airlift in areas such as this isn’t always convenient when you need it.”

      “Unless you own a helicopter.”

      She arched her eyebrows. “I’m impressed.”

      “I was too when my grandfather bought it. Not so much now that I have to fly it.”

      “You fly?”

      He shrugged. “Somebody has to. But normally I sit in the back with the patient and let Joey do the flying. He manages the ranch, tends the horses and my grandfather, flies the chopper.” Something about her made him lose all caution, and just when he thought he’d perfected the fine art of keeping his privacy at all costs. Another pretty face, he decided. Like Mack had said—watch out!

      “So we’ll transport Mack to your helicopter, and …”

      “And hope the people they’re going to bring up from over the edge can make do with an hour’s ride in the back of an ambulance.”

      “You really are deprived out here, aren’t you?”

      “Not deprived,” he said, not so much offended by her remark as curious about it. “Slowed down, forced to be inventive.”

      “My mistake,” she said, following Beau, who was running along behind the medics who were ready to load Mack into the back of an ambulance that would transport him to the Alexander landing strip.

      “Logical conclusion. Look, you handle the rest of it. I’ve got to go.” Which was exactly what he did. He climbed into the ambulance with Mack then watched Deanna until the doors shut on him. Even then, he stared through the tiny window until she was but a speck in the distance.

      Deanna Lambert … Their paths had been meant to cross, he decided. He didn’t know why, didn’t even know what kind of medical writing she did. But it didn’t matter. Something had just started, and while he didn’t know what it was, he was anxious to find out.

      CHAPTER THREE

      “NICE VIEW OF my grandfather’s ranch,” Beau said, settling into the porch chair next to Deanna. He stretched out his long legs. “He used to hate it that someone up here could sit and watch what he was doing. But then he discovered the beauty of a good pair of binoculars and while I haven’t seen him actually watching anybody up here, I think it gives him a certain sense of satisfaction knowing he can look up as well as they—or you—can look down.”

      “I don’t blame him. I don’t like being watched either. I spent a lot of my youth having people looking at me, trying to figure out what to do with me, and now I like to keep to myself.”

      “And yet you’re a nurse?”

      “Not in the sense most people would think of it but, yes, I’m a nurse.” They were seated on the north porch this morning, watching the emerging new day and trying to forget all the haunting, hideous memories from yesterday.

      Her parents had died in a car wreck. Then Emily had asked, “Deanna, can I come stay with you for a few days? Alex and I had a fight and I may leave him for good.” Rainy day, emotions overpowering rational thought, horrible outcome. Deanna cringed, reliving it, not sure she ever wanted to get into another car. So she fixed her attention on the vast forest she could see from her porch. Concentrated on something pleasant, for herself but mostly for the baby. “This is lovely, though, isn’t it? So many trees. Nature everywhere you look.”

      Beau chuckled. “Sounds like you’ve been cooped up too much.”

      “I get out, it’s always about work, though. Never really have much time to relax and when I do, my view at home is the rooftop next door. From just the right position, which is my left shoulder pressed to the wall with my neck cranked to a forty-five-degree angle, I can look out of one of my windows and see part of the city skyline. But I usually come away with sore muscles if I do that so I keep my curtains closed.”

      Of course, when she returned, she would have a new apartment, something a little farther away from the city. Maybe in a suburb, with nice playgrounds and lots of children.

      Beau chuckled. “I lived in a place like that once. In medical school. One room, with a bathroom so small you had to sidestep into the shower. There were two windows, total—one with a view of the street and one with a view of a flashing red neon sign: ‘Ralph’s Packaged Liquors’. During the day, though, when it was turned off, from the right angle you could see a little park at the end of the block, with some trees. Sometimes I’d catch myself standing there, just staring at trees. I had all the trees in the world right here, never even saw them.”

      It

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