LITMIR.BIZ

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Edith! Stay with me. Help is on the way.”

      Those eyes opened again. “S…cool…” Her voice barely reached Jill, and her mouth worked as if with great effort. “Re…cords…jet…”

      “Edith, just hold on. We’ll take good care of you.”

      Edith shook her head, obviously agitated. “Jet…bomber.”

      Jet bomber? “I’m sorry, I don’t understand what you’re trying to say. Just hold on and concentrate—”

      Edith’s hand relaxed from Jill’s grip. Her eyes closed. She stopped breathing.

      “No. Edith! Don’t give up now. Edith!”

      Chapter Two

      Dr. Rex Fairfield seldom felt ill at ease with colleagues, whether they were strangers, friends or even antagonists. He felt perfectly comfortable presiding over large meetings, which was good, considering the requirements of his present career choice.

      Today was different, however, as he sat in the tastefully decorated conference room of the Hideaway Clinic, deep in conversation with two other doctors.

      His tension didn’t stem from the suspicious glint in Dr. Karah Lee Fletcher’s gaze or from the quiet expectancy in Dr. Cheyenne Gideon’s dark eyes.

      “If we can bring the clinic up to code in, say, three weeks, the timing would be perfect for an announcement at Hideaway’s September festival,” he said. “You’ve already done a lot more than I’d have expected.”

      “So why all the secrecy?” Dr. Fletcher asked him.

      He frowned at her. “Secrecy?”

      The statuesque redhead, second in command of this clinic, leaned forward, spreading her hands. “Yeah, the secrecy. The whole town supports what we’re doing here. They want the clinic to become a hospital. The community’s growing, we need these improvements. There’s no reason to keep it a secret.”

      “Maybe not everyone wants it,” corrected Dr. Gideon, the clinic director, “but the detractors are few in number, and they aren’t adamant, they just want to have something to complain about.”

      “I didn’t ask for complete secrecy,” Rex told them, “I only asked for discretion.”

      “You asked us to keep your name out of our discussions with everyone, including our own staff,” Dr. Fletcher reminded him.

      He nodded. Aha. That was the reason for the small flicker of wariness he had detected in the demeanor of this tall woman with the commanding presence. “Please understand I’m not calling your staff’s integrity into question, but there is one particular person with whom I’ve had…um…previous experience.” He hesitated, unwilling to share all to these virtual strangers. This was intensely personal.

      “I assure you, Rex, that you can trust all of our staff members,” the director said. “I have found them to have the utmost integrity.”

      “I wouldn’t dream of calling any of your staff’s integrity into question, Dr. Gideon.”

      The dark-haired, dark-eyed woman rolled her eyes. “Please, I asked you to call me Cheyenne. We keep everything very casual around here.” The woman reached up and tucked a strand of her short, shaggy black hair behind her ear. She did, indeed, appear to have some Native American blood in her lineage.

      “I’m sorry—Cheyenne.”

      “And I’m Karah Lee,” insisted the tall redhead. “Now, are you going to tell us why all the mystery?”

      Rex had become acquainted with Cheyenne, the clinic’s founder and director, and he felt confident in the abilities and good conscience of both the clinic’s doctors. But he had never been inclined to share personal confessions with those he did not know extremely well. In fact, he had learned that even with those he thought he knew well, he must be cautious. His faith in his own judgment wasn’t what it used to be. Perhaps that was a good thing, perhaps not.

      “May I ask who it is you’re concerned about?” The expression in Cheyenne’s dark brown eyes was direct.

      He hesitated, feeling foolish. His request had been impulsive, which was uncharacteristic of him. He wasn’t sure how he was going to get out of this situation without looking unprofessional, even silly, to these two serious, obviously dedicated physicians. Karah Lee Fletcher’s frown deepened.

      He cleared his throat. “I simply wished to speak with this particular person in private before any—”

      There was a clatter beyond the closed conference room door. Someone had come running into the waiting room of the clinic.

      “Hello? Is anyone here?” came an urgent, feminine voice—a voice familiar to Rex, even after all these years, and even with the sharp edge of urgency that carried it down the hallway.

      Cheyenne frowned at Karah Lee, who rose quickly, opened the door and stuck her head out into the hallway. “Noelle? What are you doing here? It’s Saturday.”

      “Oh, thank goodness! I didn’t expect anyone to be here, or I’d have called. Jill and Sheena are doing CPR on Edith Potts at the spa. Not sure what happened. I came to get—”

      “She’s unresponsive?” Cheyenne shoved away from the table and came out of her chair, yanking the door open wide.

      Through the doorway, Rex caught sight of a beautiful woman with thick brown hair and small, exquisitely feminine features. She would be in her midthirties now. The only thing that marred her beauty were those blue eyes filled with dark concern. She was very obviously pregnant. Jill’s younger sister.

      “She stopped breathing,” Noelle said. “Jill is—”

      “Karah Lee,” Cheyenne said over her shoulder, “grab the crash cart. Make sure there’s a cric kit on it. We may have to do a cricothyroidotomy.”

      “There is a cric kit,” Noelle said. “I checked it myself yesterday.”

      “Let’s get it to the spa,” Cheyenne said. Without a backward glance, both doctors followed Noelle from the clinic, pushing a fully loaded crash cart in front of them.

      Rex rushed out behind them. It had been three years since his last official stint in an emergency department, but he would be there if he was needed.

      And besides, he, too, needed to know what was wrong with dear old Edith Potts.

      

      In frustration and despair, Jill forced her own breath into Edith’s lungs through the protective pocket mask Noelle kept in each massage room, while the young massage therapist pumped rhythmically on Edith’s chest. The soothing background music was a stark contrast to the sound of hard breathing. This spacious room suddenly felt far too confining.

      Sheena’s face was red from exertion and anxiety. Though she obviously knew the procedure, it was just as obvious she had never handled an emergency like this before.

      “She isn’t responding, Jill. It isn’t working!” The young woman’s blond hair had darkened around her neck with perspiration. “What are we going to do?”

      “Stop a second.”

      “No, it’s okay. I’m not tired, I’m just—”

      “Stop, Sheena! I need to check her.”

      The masseuse withdrew her trembling hands from their locked position over Edith’s chest.

      Jill knelt close to Edith’s mouth and listened for air movement. None. She pressed her fingers against the carotid artery and checked for a pulse. Nothing. Lord, please don’t take Edith!

      “Come and do rescue breathing, and I’ll take over the chest compressions,” she told Sheena.

      “No, I can do the compressions. I’m not tired.”

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