Hannah Alexander - A Killing Frost

How well he knew what they had to think about. He reached across the console and touched her arm, felt the smooth silk of her skin. He felt goose bumps form beneath his touch, and he enjoyed that connection.

Maybe he was being selfish-he needed the comfort of her touch as much as he needed her presence right now. He couldn’t help believing his presence-his touch-might also lend her comfort. Encouragement. A reassurance of his love.

“You’ll call me if I can be of help at the clinic?” he asked as she turned onto River Dance Road.

“I’ll call. Promise.”

Jama dropped Tyrell off at the grocery store to pick up Fran’s car, her senses still tingling from the touch of his hand. He had no idea what he did to her.

Did he?

The moment she walked into the clinic, she regretted dismissing his help so quickly. The smell of smoke hung in the air. Eight people huddled in the waiting room, where it seemed everyone was talking at once.

Down the hallway, Zelda Benedict rushed from one treatment room to another, still in her jogging clothes.

Ruth Lawrence stepped out of a room and caught sight of Jama. “You’re here in time to suture a wrist. We’ve got a smoke inhalation in three.” She pointed across the hallway to the room Zelda had just entered. “There are more to be seen, and more are probably on their way.”

“Any that are life threatening?”

Ruth shook her head.

“If we need more help, I know a good paramedic.”

Ruth’s eyebrows rose. “In this town?” She said it as if she couldn’t imagine such a thing.

“Tyrell Mercer supported himself through school as a paramedic, and he still takes a shift from time to time to keep his skills sharp.”

“Good. We’ll call him if we need him.” Ruth nodded toward the four men and two women hunched together near the unmanned reception desk. All six pairs of eyes watched Jama.

She recognized several former classmates, including Jim Hammersmith, who’d been a couple of years ahead of her in school. She nodded to him, and he stood up. “Did you hear about the fire, Jama? A little gas heater we had in the storeroom exploded. Caught a couple of crates on fire, spread to a bunch of wrapping paper, and whoosh! It was an inferno in that place.”

“Everybody’s coming here, though, right?” she asked. “No one was sent on to a hospital by ambulance?”

“Naw, everybody’s coming to the clinic. I’m a little worried about Scotty. He fell into a stack of bottles trying to get out, and cut his wrist pretty badly.”

Scott Hammersmith. Jim’s little brother. Jama frowned. He’d been in her class at school, and he’d had a crush on her forever-at least it had felt that way.

“Don’t worry, I’ll take good care of him,” Jama said.

Jim’s eyebrows reached for his hairline. The others seemed to grow more interested.

“You’re the one who’s gonna sew on him?” Jim asked.

“My handiwork’s pretty good, and we’ll have him numbed up so he won’t feel a thing.” She’d expected to encounter these misgivings from a few of the people who’d known her in school. It had to be a little uncomfortable to think that the girl who’d been sent to the principal’s office more than once for sassing a teacher might now have a sharp needle in her hand.

Merilee Jacobs, who’d grown a bit more chunky, with lank brown hair, cleared her throat. “You know, Jama Sue, you weren’t the best at sewing in school.”

And then, of course, there was that. “I wasn’t sewing on people then, Merilee, and I’m not using one of the old sewing machines. I’ve learned a few things since high school.” Jama shot a glance at the others on her way to the treatment room, and felt as if she’d stepped back into a time warp.

It happened whenever she came to town. She tried not to imagine two years of this kind of scrutiny. She couldn’t escape the stares, and her self-consciousness dredged up memories of the people who had known her.

She glanced at Ruth as she passed the director’s office. “The folks here might prefer you to do the suturing.”

“We don’t always get what we want in life, do we?”

Jama stopped and blinked.

“You were in a surgical residency before you switched to family practice.” Ruth looked up from a stack of paperwork on her desk.

“The mayor tell you that?”

“Zelda did. Someone might have given me more information about you. I’d like to know what other skills you might have that can be utilized.”

“I can do the sutures.”

“Do you know how to operate the new monitors, the phone system, the Pixus dispenser and all the other brand-new, state-of-the-art equipment around here?”

“Of course. You’re not going to have to break me in from scratch.”

Ruth leaned back with a sigh of exasperation. “Not good enough. I told Eric we needed time, but no one seems interested in giving it to us. What difference would a couple of extra days make?”

“My fault,” Jama said. “I opened the barn door when I treated Monty this morning. You may not come from a small town, but word spreads fast in River Dance. Why are you so concerned that I be familiar with the equipment? Don’t you know how to operate these things?”

Ruth rolled her eyes. “Where I come from, everything is secondhand ancient. Let’s get with it. Don’t forget we may have more patients coming from the winery. I have applicants to be interviewed, and some have waited more than an hour.”

Jama glanced down the hallway to an older woman and a young man, both seated at the far corner from the winery workers. “Tyrell has already offered to help us if we need him.”

“How can I reach him?”

Jama jotted Tyrell’s cell number on a sticky note. “There’s something else you need to be aware of.”

Ruth looked up, her expression plain on her face. What is it this time?

Jama drew the office door shut behind her and placed Tyrell’s number on Ruth’s desk. “You know that man I flew out this morning? It is feared that his eleven-year-old granddaughter, Doriann Streeter, has been kidnapped.”

Ruth closed her eyes and took a heavy breath as an expression of distress flashed over her face. “So that would be Tyrell’s niece.”

“Yes. I think he would welcome the distraction of working with patients.”

Ruth nodded. “Zelda’s been running herself ragged today. She needs a break. Get the suturing done, then send her home. If more patients come in, we’ll call Tyrell. Meanwhile, since we seem to be up and running in spite of our lack of staff, I’ll see if I can’t interview someone with X-ray training. Maybe I can check out those skills with practical testing.”

Doriann stared at the barn siding three inches from her nose. One day a couple of years ago, Aunt Renee had brought a real-live private detective to the house to speak to a group of homeschool kids about his job.

What Doriann had always thought would be fun and exciting turned out to sound like the boringest job in the world. The detective told the kids that he had to sit for hours in his car, or in some other hidden location, waiting for someone to make a move. Then there would be a rush of adrenaline when he hurried to make sure the person didn’t get away.

Then he told them that he usually didn’t chase convicted criminals. The police did. He checked out people who might be pulling an insurance scam, or having an affair.

Unfortunately, just when his speech got interesting, Aunt Renee quickly cut him off, thanked him for his time and assured the kids that there were all kinds of opportunities for them in their future. Criminal justice was only one career option.

Doriann didn’t want to be a private detective. But now it seemed she was doing it, like it or not. Clancy and Deb needed to fall asleep before she could get her cell phone, and even then, she wasn’t sure if she’d have the guts to go into that barn.