Marisa Carroll - Winter Soldier

“I’ll hand them out to you. This thing is filling up with muck.”

“I’m ready,” Leah said.

“Come on, put your arms around my neck, honey,” she heard Adam croon. “Thatta girl. Here we go.” Adam shifted his weight and leaned out the door to hand a child to Leah. “Abrasions, contusions and possible broken ankle,” he said. The van settled deeper into the mud. “This stuff’s goddamned quicksand.”

Leah held the little girl close, murmuring soothing nothings. The child’s clothes were covered with mud. So were her face and arms. Marsh water dripped from her long black hair. She was conscious and whimpering with pain. “What about the other one?”

Adam’s face closed down, and it was as though Leah were confronting a machine. “It’s bad. She’s unconscious and trapped under the seat. I’ll stay with her until the others get here. We’ll need a backboard and we’ll need an OR. She has a compound fracture of the left tibia and, God help us, I think she may have a broken neck.”

CHAPTER FIVE

“LEAH, WAKE UP.”

“I’m not asleep,” Leah murmured. “I was just resting my eyes.” She straightened from her slumped position in the unforgivingly hard chair, every muscle screaming in protest, to find Kaylene standing over her.

“I know, dear. I’m here to relieve you. I’ll sit with the little sweetie while you go clean up and get some rest.”

“What time is it?” The only light in the room came from the hallway and the pale green glow of the portable monitor by the bed. Automatically Leah checked the display. All the readouts looked good. Their patient was sleeping comfortably.

“Almost three.”

The last time she’d noticed, it had been just a little past two. “I did fall asleep,” she said ruefully. “I’m sorry.”

“Nothing to be sorry for. It’s been a very long day.”

In unison they moved toward the child’s bedside. The little girl slept quietly, her shattered left leg held immobile by a metal traction bar. Leah leaned over the bed rail and smoothed her straight, night-dark hair back from her forehead. She looked very small and helpless with her neck also immobilized, by a wide cervical collar. “Do you know her name?” There hadn’t been time before to ask.

“Ahn Lyn. Isn’t it pretty?”

“Very pretty. I wonder what it means.” Leah touched the little girl’s cheek in a gentle caress. “She moved her arms and wiggled her toes.” Leah’s voice was not quite steady. “Almost as soon as she woke from the anesthetic. There was no damage to her spinal cord.”

“I know. Isn’t it wonderful?”

“How are the others?” Sister Grace, the little girl with the broken ankle and the boy with the broken wrist were also in the hospital.

“We’re still monitoring the sister, but her vitals are good. She had one heck of a knock on the head. The children are sound asleep. So, you go get some rest. I’ll stay with her.”

“You’re as tired as I am,” Leah protested.

“No, I’m not. I slept while you and Dr. Sauder were standing vigil. Now go.”

Adam. Where was he? Two hours ago when the little girl woke up, moved her arms and wiggled her toes, he’d simply walked out of the room and not returned.

“I’ll be back at 0600.”

“No, you won’t. We’re not operating today, remember? It’s Thanksgiving. Father Gerard and the regular staff will look after the children. Now go. Sleep till noon. All afternoon if you want. I’ll save a drumstick for you.”

Leah crossed the darkened compound with the aid of a pocket-size flashlight. In her room she lit a candle, grabbed a towel and a clean set of scrubs and headed for the showers. The water was cool, so she didn’t linger beneath the spray. She dressed hurriedly and wrapped a towel around her head, then headed back to her room. She was so tired she could barely stand, and no wonder; she’d been awake for more than twenty hours. But even though she was exhausted she knew she wouldn’t sleep. Not until she found Adam and assured herself he was all right.

He had barely let Ahn Lyn out of his sight from the moment she was lifted from the overturned van until the moment she’d opened her eyes in the tiny, ill-lit hospital room. Tests had determined that the injury to her neck was less severe than Adam had first feared. Surgery on her spinal column wouldn’t be required, but he had remained in the OR to assist the orthopedic surgeon in the repair of her shattered left leg. He’d stayed by her bedside with Leah until she’d awakened, and then he’d disappeared.

She opened the door to the screened porch fronting the women’s lodgings and stepped inside. The dim circle of light from her flashlight picked out the toe of a man’s running shoe. She sucked in her breath.

“Don’t scream, Leah. It’s me.” The voice was low and rough and male, the words quietly spoken.

She let her breath out in a rush. “Adam?”

He lifted his hand to shield his eyes from the beam of her flashlight. Leah switched it off. The moon was riding low among the clouds, but the candlelight spilling from the window outlined Adam sitting with his back against the wall, his legs drawn up to his chest. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to frighten you.”

She dropped to her knees beside him. “Where have you been?”

“Walking. I saw the light in your window, but you weren’t here.”

“I was in the shower.”

“I can smell your soap.” He touched her cheek. “Lemon. You always smell of lemons.”

“Adam, are you all right?”

He dropped his hand to his knee, but not before she felt the faint tremor in his fingers. “I’m fine.”

“I don’t think so. If you were fine you’d be in your bed asleep, not sitting here in the dark.”

“I hate to sleep.” His words were clear but unutterably weary. He was still wearing the scrubs he’d worn in the OR. He smelled of hospital soap and warm skin.

“Why, Adam?” she asked softly. She covered his hand with hers. He had strong hands, with long blunt fingers, a surgeon’s hands. She hadn’t imagined the trembling when he’d touched her. He was shaking all over.

“It all comes back when I sleep,” he said simply. “They’re always in my dreams. Twenty-five years of nightmares. Back home I can deal with it. Here, they’re too close. I hate this place.”

So coming back to Vietnam hadn’t been the healing time for him that it was for some vets. She had suspected as much, and now she was sure. “Did you hope coming back here would make the nightmares go away?”

“I came for B.J. I knew it wouldn’t help. Nothing has helped.”

“A therapist?”

“I’ve talked to the best of them. No one had a clue.”

“Did you tell them the truth? Did you tell them you’re suffering from post-traumatic stress dis—”

His words were like rapier thrusts. “What makes you think it’s post-traumatic stress disorder I’m describing? I wasn’t in combat, Leah. Not like the guys who went before me. I was only here at the end. One hundred and seventeen days to be exact. I never set foot outside Saigon. It wasn’t war then—it was only cleaning up the mess.” He didn’t shake off her touch, but his hand had balled into a fist beneath hers. “Maybe I’m just losing my mind.”

“Are you on medication?”

He gave a harsh bark of laughter. “Pills give me the shakes. I don’t take them. No one wants a surgeon with the shakes mucking around in his brain.”

“You’re shaking now,” she said.

“I know. For hours. It won’t go away this time.” He lifted his left hand, the one she wasn’t holding and held it in front of him. “Children should never die.”

The statement confused her, but she answered the desperation in his tone as much as his words. “All the children are going to be fine—all of them.”