Kate James - When The Right One Comes Along

Jessica turned to her next and apparently last patient, the man leaning heavily on the firefighter who’d helped him to the triage area. At first she’d wondered if he might have been Kayla’s father, but she’d quickly dismissed that thought. If he was, he would’ve said so. He was injured, but she sensed that wasn’t all that contributed to his surliness. A hard day all around, she supposed.

She took in his tall, muscular frame, his brown hair, ocean-green eyes, the jeans and absence of a shirt, the strong face with the slightly crooked nose, the frowning mouth. She noticed the dog by his side for the first time. She loved dogs and knew them well, having grown up with them. This one was a beauty. A near-black shepherd, although his coat was covered in dust. From the size of him, probably a king shepherd, with large paws and alert, intelligent, appraising eyes. He had to be a police dog.

“You’re next.” Jessica gestured to the cop to sit on her exam table.

The firefighter helped Cal shuffle over. “I guess I’ll be seeing you later over that...matter that’ll need to be addressed,” he said.

Jessica saw the cop’s expression soften again as he patted the firefighter on the back. “Don’t worry about it, Adam. I’ll take care of it.” He held out his hand. “Thanks,” he said as they shook hands.

The moment the cop turned his attention back to her, Jessica felt uncharacteristically self-conscious in her baggy scrubs. The anger was back in his eyes, but Jessica had no idea why she seemed to elicit hostility from him. It had to be her, though, since there’d been no sign of it when he’d interacted with the girl or the firefighter.

Her only concern with the cop, she reminded herself, was dealing with his leg wound and getting him to the hospital. She snapped on a new pair of thin blue gloves. “How did this happen?” she asked briskly. If he could have an attitude, so could she.

“As I said, I’m a cop.” He pointed to the dog. “Scout and I were part of the rescue team.”

Jessica checked Cal’s vitals, as Marcia hadn’t had a chance to do it, and focused on his injury. The wound looked bad. He had every right to be angry, she decided. Tired, too. She wasn’t feeling much friendlier herself. She’d been at it for hours now, all through the night, and the number of injured was significant. That could excuse his surliness, but it didn’t explain why it seemed to be directed at her.

“You rescued Kayla?”

He nodded.

Jessica turned to the tray behind her for a pair of scissors. “Kayla’s mother died in the quake, didn’t she?” She turned back in time and knew the answer before he vocalized it. She saw the sorrow flash across his face, cloud his eyes. Jessica met a lot of cops as a trauma unit doctor and while taking shifts in the emergency room. She knew it was a hard job and they saw unimaginable horrors, and yet she worried most about the ones who seemed to have become hardened against it. This one didn’t look like a rookie, but he wasn’t calloused, either.

“And the father?” she asked as she removed the makeshift tourniquet around his thigh and began to cut away the soiled denim. She tried to sound casual, all the while berating herself. Here she was, still worried about Kayla, and she knew too well what that could lead to.

Cal shrugged. “No idea.”

“Okay.” Jessica tried to force Kayla out of her mind. The little girl would probably be gone by the time she got to the hospital and she’d never see her again. That was the way she wanted it. “How did this happen?” She repeated her earlier question as she continued to cut away the jeans, noting the dirt and rust stains on the denim. “Exactly?”

Cal gave her a short account.

Jessica paused, glanced at the beautiful German shepherd sitting quietly next to the table, completely focused, not missing a thing. She found herself reassessing her opinion of the cop. “You went back into the building following the aftershock to get your dog?”

Cal leaned over to drop a hand possessively on Scout’s head. “I needed to ascertain Kayla’s mother’s condition, too, but yeah. Scout’s my partner. I couldn’t leave him. By the way, do you have any water I can give him?”

“Sure.” Jess considered the tough exterior of the cop as she poured some water into a plastic container. He came across as harsh and surly, but he clearly cared about kids and dogs.

She’d worked with enough cops to know that police dogs were considered a tool by the department, and she’d never understood how their handlers could spend so much time with their dogs and think of them that way. Obviously this cop didn’t. There had to be a soft center under that hard shell.

She expected she’d have done the same thing. Gone after the dog, if he was hers. But then again, she tended to lead with her heart. That had been her downfall as a pediatric surgeon, and likely would’ve made her a lousy cop, too.

With the full shift she’d put in at the hospital before she was called out to the field, she was worn out. It was hardly surprising that her mind kept wandering; still, she needed to focus.

She had to clean the wound and apply a temporary dressing for pressure before she sent the cop off to the hospital. He’d probably gotten dirt and rust deep in the wound, and that concerned her. She’d clean it the best she could, but he’d have to be looked at. They were out of local anesthetic in the field because they’d treated so many people. As nasty as the wound was, she had to clean it. She knew it would hurt, but she couldn’t wait until fresh supplies arrived.

“How’d you break your nose?” she asked, trying to distract him as she peeled back more of the denim that was stuck to his leg.

“It happened when I was a kid,” he responded tersely.

“How?” she persisted.

“I was teaching my brother karate.”

“Yeah?” She wanted to keep him talking.

“I was showing him how to split a board. Frankly, he sucked at it. Drew was always a geek.” She detected the smile in his voice, but the affection, too. “I was holding the board for him when our mother called us for lunch.” He chuckled. “I lowered my arms. Drew took his shot. For once his aim was right on, and he connected with my nose, where the board would have been.”

When she glanced up at him, he was grinning. There wasn’t any resentment, which surprised her. The hard, angular lines of his face were transformed by the appealing, almost boyish smile. She was tempted to shake her head. She must really be exhausted if she was thinking how attractive one of her patients was. “You’re kidding?”

“No. It’s true.”

Jess raised an eyebrow, but went back to her task. “This is going to hurt,” she cautioned. “There’s not much I can do about it. We’re out of anesthetic.” She looked up again. His smile had faded, and he nodded. He knew what was coming and seemed ready for it.

Even so, as soon as she started to clean the wound with the iodine-based cleanser, he threw his head back and groaned loudly.

At Cal’s obvious agony, the big dog sprang up and let out a throaty, menacing growl directed at her. It all happened so fast. Cal was still absorbed by the pain and hadn’t noticed, but Jess was well aware that most police dogs were trained to protect their handlers. That was obviously what the shepherd was intent on doing. If she showed fear or appeared to be a threat, she suspected the dog would attack her. She only had an instant to consider. She took a step toward the dog, drawing her shoulders back. The dog bristled, growled and stood his ground but didn’t advance.

Calm, assertive , she reminded herself. “Sit,” she ordered in a no-nonsense voice, using her hand to reinforce the command. The dog glanced over at Cal, who was still preoccupied with his pain. The dog cocked his head and hesitated, but Jessica didn’t back down. He made an oddly human huffing sound. Still alert, still on guard, he nonetheless obeyed her command and plopped down. His eyes remained watchful and trained on Jess.