LITMIR.BIZ

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close as County General and it was the better of the two hospitals. It was also the hospital where he put in his hours.

      “Don’t call 911,” he told her, then rattled off the number she should call before he breathed into her grandfather’s mouth.

      The blonde looked at him, confused. “Why should I call that number?”

      “Because that number will get you the ambulance attendants from Blair Memorial hospital and they have the better emergency room staff,” he told her with no hesitation. He spared her a quick glance. “You want the best for him, don’t you?”

      She didn’t bother answering. As far as she was concerned, that was a rhetorical question. So instead, she pressed the buttons on the keypad. Two rings into the call, the receiver was being picked up.

      “Blair Memorial, E.R.,” a calm, soothing voice said.

      Visibly struggling to remain coherent, the blonde clutched the cell phone with both hands as she gave the man on the other end of the line all the necessary details. Finished, she followed up the information with one more instruction.

      “Please hurry.” With that, she let out a shaky breath and closed the cell phone again.

      “I think that’s a given,” Georges told her.

      Her eyes darted back toward the man administering CPR to her larger-than-life grandfather.

      Breathe, damn it, Grandpa, breathe! I’m not ready to live in a world without you in it yet. You promised me that you’d never leave me alone. Don’t break your promise, Grandpa. Don’t break your promise.

      Shaking herself free of the terror that threatened to swallow her up whole, she forced herself to look at the man kneeling beside her grandfather. The savior who had come to their rescue.

      Replaying his last words, she blinked, trying to focus. “What is?”

      “That they’ll hurry.”

      He was sitting back on his heels. A fresh wave of terror drenched her, leaving her shivering. “Why did you stop giving him CPR?” she demanded, an audible tremor in her voice as it rose. The words rushed out of her mouth. “Why aren’t you trying to get his heart going?”

      He curved his mouth into a slight smile. Triumph at this point, he knew, could be tenuous and very short-lived. By no means was the man on the ground out of the woods. “Because it is going,” he told her.

      Her eyes darted back to her grandfather, searching for proof. Staring at his chest. Was that movement? “On its own?”

      Georges nodded. “On its own.”

      Tears suddenly formed in her eyes. He became aware of them half a beat before the blonde threw her arms around his neck.

      Half a beat before she kissed him.

      Hard.

      Like the oncoming tide, she pulled back as quickly as she had rushed forward. Georges realized that he had tasted not only something sweet when her lips had pressed against his, but something moist, as well. Tears. He’d tasted her tears on her lips. They must have fallen there just as she’d impetuously made contact with his.

      They tasted salty and yet, somehow they were oddly sweet, as well.

      “Thank you,” she cried breathlessly. “Thank you.” And then, just like that, her complete attention was focused back on her grandfather. She took the old man’s hand in both of hers and held it next to her cheek. With effort, she controlled the tremor in her voice. “Now you just hang on, Grandpa, you hear me? Help’s on the way.” For a split second, her eyes shifted back to the man who had saved them both.

      Georges felt himself getting lost in her smile as she murmured, “Some of it’s already here.”

      Forcing himself to look back at his patient, Georges thought he saw the old man’s eyelids flutter, struggling unsuccessfully to open. He took the man’s other hand in his and once again felt for a pulse. He found it, albeit a weak one. Mentally, Georges counted off the beats.

      The blonde looked at him quizzically, obviously waiting for positive reaffirmation.

      “It’s still a little reedy,” he told her. “When they get him to the hospital, I think your grandfather should stay overnight for observation. They’ll take some films, do an angiogram.” Georges looked at the man’s face. It was remarkably unlined, but he would still place him somewhere in his late sixties, possibly early seventies. Other than the gash on his forehead and the episode he’d just experienced, the man seemed to be in rather good condition. But appearances could be deceiving. “Does your grandfather have any medical conditions that you’re aware of?”

      The blonde laced her fingers through her grandfather’s hand, as if her mere presence could ward off any serious complications. “I’m aware of everything about my grandfather,” she told him. There was no defensiveness in her voice, it was simply the way things were. She took an active interest in this man who was very much the center of her world. “He has a minor heart condition—angina,” she specified. “And he’s also diabetic. Other than that, he’s always been healthy.”

      Georges focused only on what he considered to be liabilities. “Those are complicating factors.”

      The blonde pushed back a strand of hair that had fallen into her face. She continued holding her grandfather’s hand. “Are you a doctor?”

      He smiled. “I’m a fourth-year resident.” He thought of John LaSalle, the attending physician that he was currently working under. LaSalle regarded residents as lower life forms only slightly higher than lab rats. “In some eyes, that makes me an ‘almost’ doctor.”

      The blonde looked back at her grandfather and, for a moment, watched the way the man’s chest rose and fell in grateful silence. She was aware that she might not be watching that if it hadn’t been for the efforts of the man beside her.

      “There’s nothing ‘almost’ about you,” she replied softly.

      It took Georges a second to realize that those were not bells he was hearing in his head but the sound of an approaching siren.

      Chapter Two

      One of the paramedics, Nathan Dooley, a tall, black, muscular attendant who seemed capable of carrying the patient with one hand tied behind his back, recognized Georges the minute the man climbed out of the passenger side of the ambulance’s cab. He flashed a wide, infectious grin at him, even as he and his partner, a somber-faced man in his thirties named Howard, swiftly worked in tandem to stabilize the old man.

      Doubling back to retrieve the gurney from the back of the vehicle, Nathan returned and raised a quizzical eyebrow in Georges’ direction. “What, you don’t work enough hours in the E.R., Doc? Going out and trolling the hills for business now?”

      “Coincidence,” Georges told him, carefully watching the other EMT work. The other man knew it, too, Georges thought, noting the all-but-rigid tension in Howard’s shoulders.

      “Destiny,” Nathan corrected. He was still grinning, but it sounded to Georges as if the paramedic was deadly serious. He moved back as the two attendants transferred the old man onto the gurney and then snapped its legs into place.

      His mother believed in destiny. In serendipity and fate, as well as savoring the fruits of all three. As for him, Georges still didn’t know what he believed in. Other than luck, of course.

      He supposed maybe that was it. Luck. At least, it had been the old man’s luck in this case. Georges was fairly certain that if he hadn’t been on this road, right at this time, traveling to see his latest—for lack of a better word—love interest, if he’d given in to the weary entreaty of his body, he would have been home in bed right now. Most likely sleeping.

      And the old man on the gurney would have been dead. He and his granddaughter would have been trapped in a fiery coffin.

      It was satisfying,

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