Miracles. Part 8

"But-"

"I'll stay out of your way. Let's go."

She wasn't about to waste time arguing. She hopped into the truck and turned the key waiting in the ignition. The wide truck tires sent gravel spraying in all directions as she made a U-turn in the middle of the street, hung a left at the intersection onto Bourner's Mill Road, and tore out of town, headed east. It was eight o'clock and dark and, when the road pa.s.sed into the woods outside of town, darker still. In the shadowed interior of the pickup's cab, she cast Sam a quick glance.

"You know, this man's going to be in awful shape," she said.

"I got that idea," he replied.

"The chopper's probably coming from Ashland, Wisconsin and isn't going to get there for a while. I'm going to be busy until it does."

"Katie, what's your point?"

She spared him another look to find him staring intently at the road ahead. What was her point? She remembered that seeing someone in pain bothered him, but she also remembered that he moved quickly and confidently when something needed doing fast. He might not know a thing about emergency medicine, but his pilot's training would give him an edge over most people in controlling the urge to panic. The more she thought about it, the more she realized, if she needed help, she couldn't think of anyone she'd rather have with her than Sam.

"I'm sorry the evening got ruined this way," she answered finally. "But I'm glad you're here."

And she was glad. It felt strange, but in a good way, racing off on an emergency with someone riding beside her. The next few hours had the potential for being a nightmare come to life, and no matter how the story ended, it would be nice, for once, not to have to face it all alone.

Sam's heart pounded, the adrenaline pumping through his veins at a furious pace, as he rode beside Katie. It was a jarring ride, and he kept one hand braced on the door and the other along the back of the seat. His respect for Katie's driving grew with each pa.s.sing mile, though it never surpa.s.sed his respect for her composure.

He wondered what it would take for him to feel the way she looked. But then, if she had his problem, would she be so calm? She only had to worry about whether her training, time, and luck would be enough to save the man's life. If they weren't, she'd feel terrible, but she wouldn't be called upon to violate the laws of nature to s.n.a.t.c.h the guy back from the grave. He'd try to get through this without giving himself away. But if he couldn't, well . . . it wouldn't take long to pack his things and leave.

Yet as Katie spun the pickup onto a rutted dirt road, where a wooden sign read WANAGAN CREEK C AMPGROUNDS, Sam had the craziest moment of wishing that she did know the truth about him. He didn't have any choice in this business, no more than he'd had in California. But maybe, he thought briefly, it would be easier to live with that reality if he didn't always have to go into these situations feeling so d.a.m.ned alone.

Seven.

Kate dropped to her knees in the blood-soaked dirt beside the unconscious man. He was covered with a blanket, his lower body elevated by a board, and in the light cast by the Coleman lantern someone had lit, she quickly observed her patient's cold, white skin and his shallow, rapid breathing. His pulse was barely palpable, and she didn't have to take his blood pressure to know it was dangerously low. He was in shock from loss of blood, close to death.

Clenching her jaw in rebellion against the voice that said she was too late, she did a quick check of the man's upper body, noting abrasions and bruises, none of which were life-threatening, before turning to focus on the one wound that was. Across from her, Bob Bradley swore, his hands slipping on ragged flesh as he tried to staunch the flow of blood from the man's left thigh.

"He was on his face," Bob rasped. "I turned him over and tried to get the dirt out of his nose. But I can 't stop the bleeding!"

"Lift his leg," Kate said, her steady voice giving away none of her anxiety.

Bob complied as she opened the lid of her emergency kit and grabbed her last pair of surgical gloves and a bandage that would serve as a tourniquet. Pulling on the gloves with a practiced snap, she slipped the strip of cloth under the injured man's thigh, securing the tourniquet in seconds flat. Then, with a sinking feeling, she reached for the only bag of IV solution she had- 250 cc of Ringer's. It wouldn't be nearly enough. Yet if she thought now about her frustrations over getting medical supplies, she'd go nuts. So she set up the IV, telling herself it would have to do.

The man's shirt, like his jeans, was in tatters, and it was easy to rip off the sleeve, but when she tried to find a vein for the IV needle, she was hindered by the growing darkness. She started to call for more light, but the sudden brightness of a high-power flashlight beam, focused directly on her patient's arm, made the request unnecessary.

Kate looked and saw Sam, crouched next to Bob, holding the flashlight for her. Offering a quick thanks, she finished setting up the IV, then, with a wad of gauze bandages in hand, turned to have a closer look at the leg wound. What she saw, after she'd mopped up the pooled blood, made her stomach lurch.

"Oh, my G.o.d," Bob muttered, then quickly turned away.

The chunk of flesh the bear had ripped from its victim's leg went down to the bone. He wasn't a big man-probably five foot seven or eight and less than a hundred and sixty pounds-and he'd already lost a tremendous amount of blood.

With a worried glance at her patient's pale face, Kate's gaze dropped to his chest as she picked up his wrist to check his pulse. She had done all she could do, and it wasn't working. He was getting worse.

"What's the ETA on the chopper?" she asked.

The man standing behind her answered. "Thirty minutes. I've got a CB in my truck, and I checked the time just before you got here."

"Are you this man's friend?"

"Yes. I'm Jeff Lindstrom. His name's Ray c.o.o.ney. We're up from Chicago on a fishing trip. Is he . . . ? Well, should I call his wife?"

She held c.o.o.ney's wrist with one hand as her other moved in an unconsciously soothing gesture across the blanket that covered his chest. "You'll have to fly with him to Marquette," she replied. "You can call her from there." And pray it isn't to tell her that her husband's dead. But with every pa.s.sing second, she grew more certain it would be.

Time. She needed more time. She needed an emergency room ten minutes away. She needed an ambulance that didn't take an hour to arrive on the scene. She needed more Ringer's, because the 250 cc was almost gone. And what she needed most was a miracle.

"Kate, I've got to set up flares in the meadow for the chopper."

She acknowledged Bob's statement with a nod, then, with a glance at Lindstrom, said, "Could you try to get an update on the chopper? Maybe you could hurry them along."

Looking grateful for something to do, Lindstrom took off toward the pickup parked on the far side of the clearing. That left Sam, kneeling across from her, the dying man between them.

His voice was low and rough. "Katie, is this guy going to make it?"

"Not if the chopper doesn't get here in the next five minutes with more Ringer's," she muttered. "He's in severe shock and-"

"Move your hand a little."

"-he's barely- What?"

She broke off when Sam reached out to nudge her hand holding the blood-drenched gauze away from the tourniquet. Flicking the gauze aside, he placed his own hand directly over the gaping leg wound, while his other hand rested on the unconscious man's chest. Then, with a long, shuddering sigh, he closed his eyes, and his head dropped forward.

At first, his actions merely baffled her. Then she wondered, somewhat doubtfully, if he could be praying. But when he lifted his head and she saw the expression on his face, her thought was not that he was praying but that he was fighting the devil himself. He was covered with sweat, and the sharp angles of his features were drawn in lines of pain.

Casting a quick glance around to see that Lindstrom was still in his truck, fifty yards away, and that no one was witnessing this bizarre scene, she whispered, "What on earth are you doing?"

"Watch," Sam whispered back. "Just keep acting busy and . . . watch."

Her mouth dropped open. "Sam, what are you talking about? You can't-"

"Shh. Quiet."

She might have gotten angry then, but at that moment his face contorted in a grimace of agony, and he threw his head back, his breath rushing out in a hoa.r.s.e groan.

"Katie, it's okay," he rasped. "You'll see . . . I can't- I've got to-"

"I'll see what?" she demanded, her voice breaking with panic. It was bad enough that she was facing the loss of a patient. It was more than she could handle to discover that Sam had lost his mind.

Reaching out, she grabbed his hand to pull it off the wound, but the instant she touched him, she jerked back, gasping. His skin was hot-burning hot.

"Katie . . ." His whisper was barely audible. "Trust me. It's going to be all right now."

His words didn't register. Her mind was in a state of terrible confusion as she stared, speechless, at his blood-drenched hand. Telling herself she must be wrong, she reached out to touch him again, but before she could, something happened that drove all other thoughts from her mind.

Her fingers, pressed to the chilled flesh of c.o.o.ney's wrist, had been keeping tabs on the deteriorating pulse, and it suddenly penetrated her awareness that it wasn't deteriorating anymore. In fact, it was a little stronger than it had been a few moments ago.

Her gaze fell to the injured man's chest, and she was stunned to see it rising and falling as he drew deeper and deeper breaths; they were ragged breaths, to be sure, but far stronger than any she'd expected him ever to draw again. A glance at his face made her eyes widen, and she dropped his wrist in order to lay her palm against his cheek, unable to account for his improving color-or the fact that he was no longer so cold.

"Sam . . ." she began brokenly.

"Shh."

"Sam, he's breathing better, but what-"

"Shh," he repeated softly.

Her gaze flickered upward to see that his eyes were still tightly closed. As she watched, though, his countenance underwent a dramatic transformation. The marks of pain and suffering began to fade. His jaw relaxed, and his lips, which had been pressed together, slowly a.s.sumed their sensual contours. His brow smoothed, and a few seconds later, his eyes opened.

When he met her gaze, she uttered a soft, startled cry. Compa.s.sion, tenderness, and a kind of vulnerability that took her breath away: not the defenselessness that came from innocence, but the fearlessness that came from having faced the worst and won. His very soul lay open for her to see in the almost ethereal light shining from his eyes. This was what she'd glimpsed all those other times. This was the thing he tried so hard to hide from her. Yet even as she realized that he was hiding nothing at that moment, she balked at naming what she saw.

"Loosen the tourniquet," Sam said quietly, urging her with a nod when she merely continued to stare at him.

Kate's heart was pounding as she let her gaze drop to the blood-soaked bandage. Rationally, she knew what would happen if she loosened it; not nearly enough time had pa.s.sed for the torn veins and arteries to close off. And yet . . . She reached for the bandage hesitantly, then pulled back, filled with an unaccountable fear-not that the man would bleed to death but, absurdly enough, that he wouldn't.

"Go on," Sam coaxed. "It's okay. I promise."

He sounded so certain. And so calm. Still, her insides churned as she reached for the tourniquet. Her cold fingers shook, making her clumsy, and she let the pressure off in slow increments, not trusting her intuition. Finally, though, the ends of the cloth were untied, and she dropped them, pressing a clenched fist to her middle as she whimpered in shock.

The bleeding had stopped-completely. And for several long seconds, she stared at the open wound in Ray c.o.o.ney's leg, her common sense trying to account for what her eyes beheld, at the same time a quiet voice inside her insisted that she accept the impossible.

"Katie, don't be scared. It's all right."

Sam's gentle rea.s.surance sank in slowly, and her gaze rose to his. He met her numbed look unwaveringly, his stark features awash with tenderness and concern. She couldn't help being afraid-afraid of what she didn't rationally understand and couldn't accept. Yet she also couldn't deny what she had seen or the conviction growing within her that, somehow, against all odds and biological laws, he had saved Ray c.o.o.ney's life.

She tried to speak but couldn't, and an instant later, Bob came racing toward them along the path that ran through the woods. Following him were two state troopers, carrying a stretcher. She hadn't even heard the helicopter arrive.

Abruptly, Sam pulled his hands off c.o.o.ney's unconscious body and shoved himself to his feet, taking a couple of steps backward. His eyes continued to hold hers, but before she could think of anything to say, the others were there.

"They sent a police chopper," Bob announced breathlessly. "No medics."

"Sorry, Miss . . . ?"

"Morgan." She offered her name tonelessly.

As the men went into action, strapping c.o.o.ney to the stretcher, the trooper told her about the interstate accident that had tied up all the medevac crews. She didn't hear a word he said. Her eyes were glued to Sam's as he gave her a long, piercing look; she knew he was asking her not to tell anyone what had happened.

How could she? She didn't know.

At that moment, though, it didn't matter whether or not the past twenty minutes made a sc.r.a.p of sense. It only mattered that a man she had expected to be dead by now wasn't. And she wasn't responsible for his being alive. Sam was. She didn't know how, but she knew it was true, just as she knew that, should it become necessary, he could do whatever he'd done again.

With a strange sense of calm stealing through her, Kate turned her attention to helping the others get her patient ready for air travel.

In less than a minute the rescue crew was hurrying through the woods, the troopers carrying the stretcher as she trotted beside it; Sam, who was carrying her emergency kit, followed with the other men. The helicopter awaited them in a meadow, inside a ring of glowing flares. The wind created by its whirling blades. .h.i.t her full force, and she ducked, gathering her hair in her fist to keep it from blinding her. There was no protection from the deafening noise. She ran with the others under the blades, grabbing for a hold to step aboard as Bob and the state troopers loaded the stretcher. With an instant's hesitation, Jeff Lindstrom climbed in after her.

Then, crouching in the doorway, Kate pivoted on her toes to take her emergency kit from Sam. He slid it in beside her, and she pushed it out of the way to make room for him in the confined s.p.a.ce. When he hung back, making no move to climb aboard, she blinked in confusion. He must not understand, she thought, that it was okay for him to come. It wasn't really, but she would make it okay if anybody said anything. She held out a hand, beckoning him to get in.

Instead, he hesitated, looking at her, then casting his gaze over the helicopter. When he took a step back and shook his head, her heart thudded into high gear.

"You're coming, too!" she shouted over the noise.

He took another step in the wrong direction as he yelled, "He'll be all right! You don't need me!"

But she did need him. He'd become indispensable to her. Didn't he realize that? What if c.o.o.ney started bleeding again? What if he wasn't really as improved as her mere clinical a.s.sessment indicated? Would Sam save a man's life, then let him go on, to the hospital, without him?

Would he let her go on without him?

He answered the question with another backward step. And when a trooper closed one of the double doors, he turned and ran out of the way. The other door closed as the chopper prepared to take off, and Kate was left staring at solid metal. It made no more sense than anything else that had transpired in the past half hour, but she felt, in that instant, as if she'd been abandoned. It was a bleak and wretchedly familiar feeling.

Sam trudged across the dark field and through the woods to Katie's pickup, fighting nausea every step of the way. He had a knot in his stomach the size of a football, and it didn't go away during the drive to Bourner's Crossing to get his Jeep, or during the drive to the cabin. When he stripped off his bloodied clothes and climbed into the shower, it was still there, and it kept him awake long into the night, as he sprawled naked across the bed, staring through the darkness at the beams above him.

There was no avoiding it. No way to deny or rationalize it. He'd been lying to himself long enough, pa.s.sing off the couple of minor incidents since the crash as residual effects of a bad experience. He'd been sure they were no big deal, just a temporary thing that would take care of itself. But he couldn't pa.s.s this one off. It had hit him smack in the face, standing there next to that chopper, when he'd wanted to climb in and go with Katie-and couldn't.

He had a problem. A bad problem. Far worse than anything he'd imagined. Sure, the other things he'd had to put up with lately were annoying and a little embarra.s.sing. He didn't like not being able to eat a steak or to drink a cold beer on a hot afternoon. He missed the smell of brewing coffee and the rush that first cup in the morning gave him. He missed smoking, too, as bad a habit as it might be. In the long run, though, those things weren't all that important, and he could accept having to give them up.

But this? No. He'd never be able to accept it.

And he'd never forgive himself, either. For the first time in his life that he could remember, he'd truly let a woman down. Worse, she was maybe the only woman he'd ever been aware of wanting not to disappoint. He'd seen the look of confused panic on Katie's face when she'd realized he wasn't going with her to the hospital, and if that look hadn't been enough to make him grit his teeth and climb into that d.a.m.ned chopper, he wasn't sure anything ever would be.

He rolled over in bed, exhausted but unable to sleep, and he thought about the woman he'd deserted that night, and about the way she'd handled herself in the face of imminent tragedy. He thought about the wholehearted manner in which she'd given herself to an unconscious stranger, who would have died on her. And he thought about the others to whom she gave so much.

He'd healed a man tonight who'd been more dead than alive-something he'd have done whether or not Katie had been there-and he had a gut-level knowledge, however recently he'd acquired it, of the things that went through a person's mind when faced with another human being's suffering. He knew how Katie had felt, kneeling there, watching that guy die, and he wondered how she stood it: the pain of knowing that, sometimes, what she gave wouldn't be enough, the fear that there would never be enough of her to go around to all the people in need.

Which was why he felt so G.o.d-awful about deserting her. He'd known how she felt. He'd wanted to help her. But it would have meant flying with her to Marquette. And that he hadn't been able to do.

Staring out the window at the three-quarter moon rising above the trees, Sam let out a ragged sigh. Face it, Reese, you're not a man anymore. You're a coward. And the last thing Katie needs is a gutless b.a.s.t.a.r.d like you to add to her list of burdens.

Eight.

In the light of day, things didn't look much different. If anything, the slate-gray sky heightened Kate's sense that she'd been s.n.a.t.c.hed out of the real world and plunged into a world of illusion. All night long she' d managed to behave as though everything were normal, following the hospital's routines, filling out forms for the chopper crew. Meanwhile, a voice inside her kept asking, Don't they know? Don't they realize something strange is going on here? Why aren't we talking about that instead of filling out these silly forms?

If she could have believed that what she'd seen Sam do was an illusion-merely a misunderstanding on her part-it would have been easier, but the facts refused to allow it: Ray c.o.o.ney was alive and in astonishingly good condition. Indeed, she'd had a heck of a time explaining his condition to the trauma unit's attending physician. The doctor simply couldn't understand how c.o.o.ney had survived so long, and so well, with so little body fluids. Well, she didn't understand it, either.

Something incredible had happened. Something she couldn't describe or name. Something that made her insides tremble. And she desperately needed to know what it was.