Radclyffe - Crossroads

Sammie pushed the Kelly through the thin muscles connecting the ribs and into the chest, spreading as she went to make room for the tube. “Okay, I’m in.”

“Here you go—number thirty,” Linda said.

Sammie twisted the tube through the hole she’d made in the chest wall and a minute later blood poured out onto the ground. While Sammie sutured in the chest tube and Dave hand-ventilated the patient, Linda ran back to the chopper to get a Pleur-evac drainage container from the storage bin. She sprinted back, the cramp in her back escalating with every step. The nausea worsened and she had to drop onto her knees next to Sammie to fight the light-headedness.

“Linds? What’s wrong?”

“Not sure,” Linda gasped, panting for breath. “Pulled something in my back.”

Sammie connected the sucking chest tube to the vacuum container. “Head back to the chopper. We’re about ready to transport.”

“I’ll sta—” Pain shot through Linda’s lower abdomen. “Oh God. That felt like a contraction.”

“That’s it,” Sammie said. “Go lie down, Linda. We’re all right here.”

Carefully, Linda stood, pressing her hand to her belly. She couldn’t be in labor now. It was way too soon. Heart racing, she walked carefully back toward the chopper, afraid any sudden movement might make things worse. She signaled to Jett, who jogged toward her.

“What is it?” Jett asked.

“They’re about ready to transport and they might need help.” Linda grasped Jett’s arm as another wave of pain rolled through her abdomen. “God. I’m having contractions.”

“I’ve got you.” Jett gently slid an arm around Linda’s waist. “Let’s get you inside. I’ll radio ahead and tell them we’re coming in. You’ll be fine. We’ll be back there in just a few minutes.”

Linda glanced over her shoulder. Dave and Sammie were loading the trauma patient onto a litter. “She’s in bad shape, Jett.”

“Don’t worry about her, that’s Sammie’s job. She’s got it.” Jett lifted Linda into the chopper and climbed aboard after her. “What do you need me to do?”

“I just need to lie down right now.”

Jett guided Linda to one of the fold-down stretchers along the wall. “Okay, here you go. Sammie will be here in a second. Don’t worry.”

“Call Robin,” Linda said as Jett strapped her in. She tried to keep the rising panic at bay. She wasn’t going to lose this baby.

Chapter Thirteen

“You can go right in,” Sybil said. “She’s waiting for you.”

“Thanks.” Annie suppressed the urge to glance at her watch. She knew she wasn’t late. She’d been in the hospital lobby for fifteen minutes, drinking a cappuccino she didn’t need to kill time until her appointment. She didn’t want Hollis to think she was eager to see her by arriving early, but she’d been too agitated to wait at the clinic any longer, and she hadn’t been able to concentrate enough to fill out the ever-present insurance forms she should have been doing. Even a walk around the pond didn’t calm her nerves the way it usually did. Her secret paradise was filled with lingering images of Hollis now, and the warmth that flooded her as she pictured Hollis waking from sleep on a park bench, soft and tousled, was more disconcerting than the unwanted urge to see her again.

She stared at the plain wooden door, wondering what waited for her on the other side, wishing it was as simple as a business meeting with a doctor she didn’t care about offending or hurting. Somehow she’d wandered far away from the safe paths she always traveled, where nothing but Callie and her patients mattered. Where the longing for comfort from someone who truly knew her was rare and quickly brushed aside. Well. It was up to her to get things back on the right road. Nothing new there. She’d forged this life out of necessity and the desperate drive to survive when everyone she’d trusted had turned away. She’d been right then and she was right now. Business only. She took a breath, grasped the handle, and pushed open the door.

Hollis was behind her desk in hospital greens. Her eyes were shadowed, and the faint line of her surgical mask still creased her cheeks. The desk was neat, although piled high with work—much like Hollis herself, who always seemed in control even when she was obviously exhausted. Like now.

“You look tired,” Annie said, unable to stop the rush of concern. “Were you up all night again?”

Hollis stood as Annie closed the door and leaned on her desk, both palms flat on its plain brown surface. A smile flickered over her generous mouth. “Not quite. How have you been? No more storms?”

“No.” Annie took the chair she’d occupied the first time she’d been in the office. “Nice and peaceful.”

An awkward silence filled the space between them, space that had been anything but quiet the last time they’d been together. Annie struggled not to think of the moments they’d huddled together in the small shed with Callie between them, thunder and rain obliterating the universe. God, the things she’d told Hollis. How had she managed to reveal so much of herself without meaning to? Why was it so easy to talk to Hollis about things she rarely thought of herself? And why was she thinking of them now? Annie took a breath. “I realize we got off to a bad start the last time, and that was my fault. I apol—”

“Annie,” Hollis said quietly. “We’re past apologies now, aren’t we?”

“I don’t know,” Annie said, hearing the brusqueness in her voice and the overture toward accord in Hollis’s and not knowing how to change it. She wasn’t certain she could deal with this Hollis—the one with kindness in her eyes and a hint of confusion swimming in their deep blue depths—today. “I suspect you and I are going to disagree, and we ought to find that out, shouldn’t we? Isn’t that why we’re both here?”

“Why don’t we both say what we have to say and then see where we are.” Hollis dropped into her chair and pushed back a few inches from the desk. She crossed one leg over the other, her ankle resting on her knee. Her surgical clogs were dark brown, and Annie wondered if that was intentional, to hide the bloodstains.

“All right,” Annie said, although she thought it might be anything but all right. Once they’d said aloud what was likely to divide them, once their differences—ethical, personal, fundamental—were irrevocably etched in the air, they wouldn’t be able to pretend there was a middle ground where those differences wouldn’t matter. They wouldn’t be able to pretend friendship was possible—that something else might be possible…but then, there couldn’t be anything else. So perhaps it was all for the best. She ought to go first before she changed her mind. “I told my boss—the regional director—that I didn’t agree with establishing a joint working relationship with your group, even for high-risk patients. We already have a system in place to deal with emergencies, and the statistics have shown those methods are effective. To be blunt, Dr. Monroe, we don’t need your permission or your support to practice a profession as old and well-established as yours.”

“The state disagrees,” Hollis said quietly.

“The state,” Annie said, unable to keep the heat from her voice, “decides in favor of those with the money to buy opinions, and we both know which group has the advantage there.”

Hollis didn’t move except to steeple her fingers on her thigh. Her gaze never wavered, her expression never changed. Thoughtful. Remote. The distance between them was so vast Annie felt as if she were standing on the edge of a chasm and one misstep would plummet her into its endless depths. If she reached out her hand, she’d find no one to grasp it, no one to stop her fall. Unlike that weekend, when the ever-present solitude had disappeared for a few hours in the middle of a rainy afternoon, she’d be all alone again. The ache of loss was familiar—she remembered feeling the same hollow sadness after she’d delivered Callie and her world had imploded. The urge to get up and run from her past was so powerful she trembled. She grasped the arms of her chair to keep from bolting.