A Doctor's Trust (Lifeline Air Rescue Book 4) Read online

  A DOCTOR’S TRUST

  LAURA SCOTT

  READSCAPE PUBLISHING, LLC

  Copyright © 2019 by Readscape Publishing, LLC

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Created with Vellum

  CONTENTS

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Dear Reader

  A Soldier’s Promise

  1

  Her seventeen-year-old sister was late. Again.

  Jenna Reed pried open one eye and looked at the illuminated dials of her clock. Yup, almost midnight. Rae’s curfew was twenty-two thirty on school nights. Where in the world was she?

  Exhaling a long breath, Jenna flopped onto her back and untwisted her ratty T-shirt from the sheet. Outside, ribald shouts coalesced with the heavy beat of rap music. Not that the noise was unusual for a Thursday night—this area, dubbed Barclay Park, located in the heart of Milwaukee, was rarely quiet. Her house was packed like a sardine beside her neighbors’, and the walls were paper thin.

  She used to sleep like a rock.

  Until she’d become solely responsible for her sister. And when Rae happened to be out with Nelson, her numbskull boyfriend, then sleep was next to impossible. Rae didn’t care if Jenna had to be up at 0600 to make it to work at Lifeline Air Rescue by seven.

  Or maybe her sly sister was actually banking on that fact, hoping to sneak in without waking her.

  Ha! Fat chance.

  Squealing tires and the thunderous crash jolted her from bed. What in the world?

  “Help! Someone help!”

  Jenna rushed outside, sparing no more than two seconds to jam her feet into the flip-flop sandals lying on the rug next to the front door. Her eyes widened when she saw what all the fuss was about. A car had smashed headfirst into the light pole not far from the abandoned lot across the street. Instantly, her paramedic training kicked in.

  She hurried to the crash site, pushing her way through the small crowd. “How many people are inside?” Jenna peered through the windows. “Two?”

  “Three. Two adults in front and baby in the back seat,” one teen pointed out.

  “Anyone hurt?” She tried to open the driver’s door, but it was seriously dented and wouldn’t budge. Through the window, she could see the driver was slumped over, his face covered in blood. The airbag had deployed, but his face had still been cut from the force of the blow.

  “Call nine-one-one and tell them we have two adults and one infant involved in a single car crash. Let them know the driver is seriously injured.”

  A familiar pierced, purple-haired teenager, about the same age as her sister, used her cell phone for something more useful than text messaging. Jenna didn’t pay attention to the teen’s side of the 911 call, working instead on finding a way into the car. All the doors were locked, so she made her way around to the passenger side where the back window happened to be open a few inches.

  “They’re sending the Lifeline helicopter,” the breathless purple-haired teen informed her.

  “They are?” Jenna lifted a brow in surprise. Normally they didn’t send the chopper into the city unless the crew just happened to be close by. Especially since there weren’t often available spots to land.

  “How are we gonna get them out?” The teen—what was her name? Luanne?—peered anxiously inside the car.

  “Very carefully.” Jenna stepped around the broken glass from the windshield shattered by the airbag deployment. Sneaking her arm through the tiny opening, she reached down. It wasn’t easy, but she managed to hit the unlock button with the tip of her finger.

  “There.” With the back doors unlocked, they could at least get to the wailing infant. Thank heavens the baby was protected in a car seat.

  There wasn’t time for Jenna to run back inside the house for her stethoscope. She could tell the difference between seriously injured and stable without the aid of medical equipment. In examining the baby, there wasn’t a speck of blood to be seen. He looked fine, with a healthy set of lungs.

  “Here, keep an eye on him for me.” She handed the crying infant to Luanne, who was standing with a group of the other kids Jenna recognized from MCCT, the Milwaukee Community Center for Teens program. Apparently, Rae wasn’t the only one out late.

  Back inside the car, she crawled up between the seats. The woman in the passenger seat groaned, moving restlessly. Jenna zeroed in on the still silent driver. She pressed two fingers along his neck, searching for a carotid pulse.

  For a moment she feared the worst, and then she felt a slight, thready beat. Relief washed over her. He was still alive, although the distinctive scent of alcohol made her wrinkle her nose. “Hey, mister, can you hear me?”

  No response. She stared at the driver’s chest. He was breathing, but the motion was shallow. He’d need medical attention pretty quick. She glanced around the interior of the car. How could she get him out without causing potentially more damage?

  She turned her attention to the passenger. ”Ma’am? Can you hear me?”

  “Yes.” Her voice was faint, and Jenna figured she was only slightly better off than the driver. The airbags had deployed, which was probably the only reason they were still alive.

  “What hurts?”

  “Everything, but mostly my chest.” The woman grimaced, then asked, “Where’s Matthew? My baby?”

  “Matthew is fine. Not hurt a bit. Just don’t move. Help will be here soon.” Jenna took note that neither the driver nor the passenger had been wearing seatbelts, despite the seatbelt law in Wisconsin.

  Thank goodness they at least followed the car seat law. It had likely saved Matthew’s life.

  The whirling beat of the Lifeline chopper overhead, along with the distinctive wail of sirens, echoed through the night. She didn’t dare move the driver without further assistance, so she backed out of the car and pried open the passenger door to gain better access to the woman. The helicopter landed in the vacant lot. Two people dressed in flight suits pulled a gurney from the back of the chopper and headed across the litter-strewn blacktop to meet them.

  She recognized the taller of the two and inwardly groaned. Of all the crew members on staff, why did Zane Taylor have to be the flight doctor on duty tonight?

  “Jenna?” His eyes widened with recognition, and she was surprised he remembered her name. He stared for a long moment at her bare legs, and she resisted the urge to tug at the hem of her T-shirt. She was wearing boxer shorts, but she still felt completely underdressed. “You live around here?” His tone was laced with incredulous concern.

  Hoping the darkness hid her scarlet cheeks, she chose to ignore his question. “We have a young woman with a blunt chest trauma, complaining of chest pain.” Concentrating on work helped overcome her mortification. “The driver is also suffering blunt trauma, including an apparent head injury. The airbags did deploy, but neither were wearing their seatbelts. The driver is in bad shape, has smells of alcohol, and is not responding to verbal commands. He did have a pulse, but the rate is fast and his breathing shallow.”

  “Let’s take a look.” Zane oozed a smooth confidence she envied.

>   Overly conscious of how she must look in her threadbare sleep shirt, without a bra or shoes, Jenna would’ve given her entire life savings, earmarked for Rae’s college, to slither away through the gathering crowd.

  Kate, the flight nurse on duty, knelt beside the passenger, examining her. Zane went straight for the driver.

  “Jenna, give me hand with this guy.” Zane gestured for her to come over to the other side of the car.

  Her chance to escape vanished.

  Reluctantly, she joined him. Zane had managed to get the dented driver’s side door open. Between them, she and Zane helped get the driver out of his seat, protecting his spine as much as possible in case there were fractures they weren’t aware of. Once they’d gotten him supine, they could begin taking care of him.

  “Let’s put a C-collar on him, then get him on the gurney so we can get him transported to the chopper.”

  Jenna pulled equipment out of the flight bag as he spoke, anticipating what they’d need. Her long straight unbound dark hair was a nuisance, and she shoved it aside with the back of her forearm to keep the strands out of her way. Once they had the driver safely transferred onto the gurney, Zane continued to dictate orders.

  “I need to place an IV. Set up a normal saline infusion.”

  Jenna had only worked for Lifeline for the past few months, and she could count on one hand the number of times she’d been paired to fly with Zane, and that had been mostly during her training when a third person had been around as a diversion. For whatever reason, their schedules always differed—either they were on different shifts or he was working on her off days and vice versa. The simple bit of fate had suited her just fine.

  Until tonight’s curveball.

  Zane threaded the catheter into the driver’s vein, then she took over, connecting the tubing and regulating his fluids. She already had him hooked up to the heart monitor, the beat was fast but sinus rhythm, a good sign. From there, it didn’t take long to have him ready to go.

  Strange, but working with Zane was easier than she’d anticipated, as if they’d been partners for years.

  “The first liter of fluid has been infused, Dr. Taylor.”

  “Thanks.” Zane flashed a quick, lethal smile. Her stomach clenched, and she fought the wave of awareness, knowing full well he smiled like that at everyone. It didn’t mean a thing. Zane Taylor was so far out of her stratosphere she wasn’t even on the same planet. He was as unreachable as Pluto, while she was stuck on mere planet Earth.

  Jenna took a hasty step back and winced at the sharp biting pain in her foot. Glancing down, she noticed her left foot was covered in blood. Whether it was hers or the driver’s, she wasn’t quite sure.

  “What happened?” Zane must’ve noticed the direction of her gaze because he stared at her foot with concern while still clutching the edge of the gurney. “Sit down. We need to get one of the paramedics from the ambulance crew to take a look.”

  She forced a smile. “I am a paramedic, remember? Go on, take care the trauma patient. I’m fine.”

  “Let them examine your feet.” He sent her a no-nonsense glare, then pushed the gurney toward the chopper. Kate had the female passenger on an ambulance gurney and gestured for the paramedics to take care of the infant and the mother. Within moments, Kate had joined Zane and stowed the driver in the back of the chopper, then went airborne. Soon the other paramedics prepared to leave as well.

  She didn’t bother asking one of them to look at her foot, they had better things to do. More important medical needs to address. She’d take care of it herself.

  “Jenna?”

  She turned and found Rae standing behind her, dressed in a tight miniskirt and a midriff-baring tank top. She hoped her sister and her goofy boyfriend weren’t having unprotected sex. An unexpected pregnancy was the last thing she wanted to think about. Sex, drugs, and rap music were the norm in Barclay Park. Raising a teenager in this environment was far from easy.

  “What happened here?” Rae gazed at the crash scene with morbid fascination.

  “You’re late,” Jenna snapped. “Where have you been?”

  Rae shrugged one bare shoulder. “Chill. We lost track of time. It’s no big deal. I’ll start cramming for finals. Get off my back, sis.” The sharp emphasis of the last word rankled. It was an old argument: Jenna was Rae’s sister, not her mother.

  But their mother was gone, and Jenna was all Rae had.

  She stepped close and wrapped her arms around Rae in a big hug, a nice way of getting into her sister’s face. No strong scent of alcohol or pot, thank heavens. That didn’t rule out other drugs, but she decided for once it didn’t pay to think the worst. Just ten days until Rae graduated from high school, then another few months until she started college. Jenna’s goal wouldn’t be complete until Rae graduated from college, but finishing high school was proving to be the first hurdle.

  Rae didn’t tolerate the embrace for more than a split second. She broke away and rolled her eyes, then spun on her heel and stalked inside the house as if she always came home well after midnight on a school night.

  Jenna sighed and followed more slowly, wincing with every painful step. Her own high school years were a blur. She couldn’t remember going out to have fun, and sometimes it was hard not to resent Rae for her easy dismissal of the rules. Still, Jenna was grateful there was only one person dependent on her now.

  With any luck and a lot of hard work, she’d pull herself out of debt soon.

  As she doused her injured foot in the bathtub, looking for signs of embedded glass, Jenna tried not to remember Zane’s reaction at finding her at the crash scene or the incredulous tone in his voice when he asked if she lived there.

  She closed her eyes and leaned her overheated forehead against the cool tile. Good thing they didn’t fly together often because she didn’t think she could ever look him in the eye again. Now that he knew the truth, she planned to continue to avoid Zane Taylor in every way possible.

  JENNA HEADED STRAIGHT for the coffee when she entered Lifeline’s lounge at ten minutes before 0700 hours.

  “Good morning.” Zane’s voice startled her when she was about to take a sip, and she sloshed coffee down the front of her flight suit.

  “Morning,” she mumbled as she picked up a napkin and dabbed at the stain. Why was she such a klutz around him? Taking a deep, fortifying breath, she tossed the napkin into the garbage, then turned toward him. Lifting her chin, she focused on a spot just behind his head. “So, how was the rest of your night?”

  “Uneventful.” To her chagrin, he stepped closer. The scent of his woodsy aftershave teased her senses. “How is your foot? Did you get the glass out?”

  “It’s fine,” she hedged. She hadn’t found all the glass, and she could still feel a hidden shard with every step, but there was no way she was going to admit the truth. Besides, she’d learned in her training that foreign objects tended to work their way out on their own, eventually. After taking a careful sip of her coffee, she glanced over his shoulder toward the debriefing room. “Guess we should go.”

  Zane didn’t answer but walked behind her as they made their way across to the debriefing area. Walking normally had never been so difficult.

  The day shift pilot, Reese Jarvis, was there, but there was still no sign of Jenna’s crewmate. Jenna grabbed the schedule to see who was supposed to fly with her.

  “Samantha needed the day off, so I’m covering the first four hours of her shift,” Zane answered as if reading her mind. “After that, Dr. Charles Simons will be into work.”

  Jenna glanced at Reese in concern. “Is Sam all right?”

  Dr. Samantha Jarvis was Reese’s wife. He nodded, although his smile was feeble. “Yeah, but she scared the life out of me the way she was throwing up nonstop. Why is it called morning sickness if it doesn’t happen only in the morning?” A frown furrowed his brow. “Shouldn’t they just call it pregnancy sickness instead?”

  Jenna lifted her shoulder in a helpless shrug. She was
the last person to ask about birthing babies, unless you counted what she’d learned through her paramedic training. Thankfully, she hadn’t been in a position to put her limited knowledge to use. “Hey, it sounds logical to me.”

  “Anyway, she’s hoping to be back to work soon—if she can stop throwing up long enough to leave the house,” Reese added. “I appreciate you covering for her, Taylor.”

  “No problem.” Zane’s drawl sent shivers of awareness zipping down her spine.

  Distance. She needed distance. Then she remembered Zane was staying over for part of her shift. The news hadn’t fully registered in her brain until that moment. So much for her plan to avoid him. Four hours. Not very long in the big scheme of things. She should be able to maintain a professional relationship for four lousy hours.

  Stealing her resolve, she glanced at Zane. “I was surprised to see the Lifeline chopper at the scene last night. How’s the driver? Did you hear any news?”

  “He’s holding his own in the trauma ICU at Trinity Medical Center,” Zane confirmed. “The female passenger was admitted to a cardiac step-down unit for observation, and she seems to be doing well, too. It just so happened we were on our way back from refueling and were close to the scene, so that’s how we made it so fast. It was a good thing you were on hand to help.”

  She preferred not to remember the details of their bizarre meeting last night. “Any potential calls?”

  “Yes, there was a call earlier this morning about a possible ICU transfer from Green Bay, but they were still waiting to get permission from the family. We are on standby for the time being.”