Crazy for You

by Susan May Warren

  “We’ll get you your support. I promise.”

  Seb nodded, then stood and held out his hand. Peter met it across the table.

  “You’ve got two weeks before the vote. Let’s see what you can come up with.”

  Last week was quiet. Not one call went off. But apparently it was the lull before the storm because so far this week Ronnie’s alarm had gone off multiple times a day—and this one might be the worst call yet just to get to the patient. Especially with the rain soaking everyone and everything.

  Ronnie leaned over the edge of the Superior Hiking Trail and looked down into the forest ravine where a hiker had fallen. The thick trunks of pine, maple, and spruce trees blocked the view of the creek or river that was down there according to the map. A streak of mud in the carpet of pine needles and leaves showed where the forty-six-year-old man had slid down.

  Someone tugged on her jacket sleeve. A little girl with soggy brown braids and teary blue eyes looked up at her. “Are you going to save my daddy?”

  Ronnie knelt down by her. “Yup. We’re going to go down and get him. But I need you to be really brave. Can you wait here with my friend Peter?”

  The little girl nodded. “You promise you’ll save him?”

  “I promise we’re going to do everything we can for your daddy.”

  Now it was time to see if this team had learned anything from all the training they’d been doing over the last six weeks—and she’d have to rely heavily on the rookies with Seb and Pastor Dan gone.

  Cole helped Peter finish setting up a belay system and turned to her. “Ronnie, who’s going down with you?”

  Ronnie brought the little girl to Peter and scanned the members who had shown up. Dean Wilson stood tall, the desire unmistakable in his posture. The man had come a long way since the Hagborg fire. He’d even lost some weight and started exercising. She met him on her runs in the morning as he biked. He was now the first to raise his hand in the classes and always had a good answer.

  He’d earned the chance to prove himself. Charlie Zimmerman could take some lessons from him.

  “Dean, strap in and you’ll go down with me. Jensen and Seth, we’re probably going to need the basket stretcher. Have it ready and I’ll let you know what else we’ll need when I’m down there. We’ll have you come down when it’s time to load the patient and bring him up.”

  Everyone got to work. Other first responders were already working with the hiker’s teenage son who had gone down into the ravine after his father and scraped his hands and knees pretty good and twisted an ankle. Peter held the little girl. Ronnie strapped the jump bag onto her back and hooked onto the belay. She and Dean carefully climbed down the slick ravine, using the rope for balance. The incline was rather steep, but not a straight drop. As they approached the bottom, they heard moaning over the rushing of the nearby river.

  They skirted around brush and knelt by the man on the ground. His dark brown hair was plastered down his face, a contusion already forming on his forehead.

  “What’s your name?” Ronnie asked, leaning in to listen to his breathing.

  “Jason. Jason McCray.”

  “I’m Ronnie and this is Dean. We’re with the Crisis Response Team. Can you tell us what happened, Jason?”

  “I tripped. I don’t even know how it happened. I just remember—” He grunted and tried to sit up. “I just remember falling.”

  Breathing was fine, a little fast, but understandable with the pain he was experiencing. “Lie back down. Tell me where it hurts.”

  Dean pulled on gloves and started taking his pulse and then blood pressure. “Pulse stable. BP is 108/70.”

  The numbers were normal. But when asked, he ranked his pain at a level nine out of ten.

  The hiker grunted again, sweat and rain pouring down his forehead and his eyes pinched shut. “It’s my leg. I hurt my leg. I can’t move it.”

  “We’re going to cut away your pants so I can see it. Dean, why don’t you get some oxygen for Mr. McCray? Maybe a blanket too.”

  Dean got the oxygen ready while Ronnie cut the light fabric of the hiking pants. The large bump in the middle of Jason’s thigh was not good. She felt the skin around the bulge as softly as she could. Jason screamed. The thigh was hard to the touch. She checked his hip and the rest of the leg and had him wiggle his toes, but didn’t like that his toes were starting to feel cold.

  “Jason, you broke your leg when you fell. Not just any bone either. Your femur. Looks like your hips and lower leg are fine, but we need to get you to a hospital. And I promised your daughter up there we would do everything we can for you.”

  He opened his eyes for a second. “Emily. Is she okay? And Bryce?”

  “The rest of the team is watching over them. Just try to stay calm.”

  “Do what you need to.”

  “We’re looking at a femur fracture, Dean. Keep him as comfortable as possible and take a pedal pulse. I’m going to radio up for help.” She laid a gentle hand on Jason’s arm. “We’re going to get you out of here as soon as we can.”

  She moved away a few paces and radioed up to the rest of the team. “Jensen, Kirby, I’m going to need you to bring down a Sager traction splint with the basket stretcher. We have a femur fracture, possible compartment syndrome. Radio for the chopper.”

  Within minutes, Jensen, Kirby, and two more first responders—Sheila Chase and her husband—descended. They were all dripping wet, but the light drizzle couldn’t dampen their determination. Everyone helped board the patient, but with Jason’s symptoms time was critical. Even once he was loaded, they’d have a thirty-minute ride to the hospital. They needed to splint his leg here before moving him to the chopper. Dean and Ronnie set up the traction splint just like they had in practice.

  “Now, Jason, I need you to take a deep breath. This is going to hurt, but we’re going to get those bones lined back up. You should feel some relief when that happens.”

  Sheila held Jason’s hand as he gritted his teeth. “Do it,” he said.

  Ronnie applied the necessary pressure to the splint. Jason’s back stiffened. He bit down on his lips, grunted through clamped teeth, but then sagged in relief. She stopped. The bones were realigned. They finished securing the splint and strapped Jason to the basket stretcher.

  Dean checked pedal pulse and circulation. “Ronnie, his pulse is racing. Signs of shock.”

  “Take his blood pressure again.”

  Cole radioed down that the helicopter was on its way and would land at a nearby campsite on the trail.

  “BP has dropped. Pulse is 150.”

  Not good. “Let’s get this man up to the trail, folks. He’s got a daughter, son, and a chopper ride waiting for him.” And probably emergency surgery as soon as they got him to Duluth. Shock indicated internal bleeding. He needed to get out of here fast.

  Together, with help from the team above and the ropes, they carried Jason up the incline to the trail. That’s when the poor guy passed out. Ronnie pushed what meds she could, but his blood pressure stayed dangerously low.

  They loaded him onto an off-road vehicle and drove him to the new chopper just as the sun came out. After loading Jason into the chopper through the aft clam doors, Ronnie chose Kirby to assist the temporary flight medic Cole had hired. A crying Emily and limping Bryce crawled in after him.

  The rest of the crew watched the helicopter lift up into the sky and fly away. There was a patch of blue sky that broke through the clouds. Chirping birds hopped around the campsite, but a somber mood permeated the group. They worked quietly as they cleaned up the scene, then drove back to the fire hall to restock.

  Even though Ronnie was the one to write the report, the others lingered, claiming they were waiting for their jackets to dry out. There was nothing more they could do, but they waited around. Hoping. The Chases were about to leave when the call came in to Cole. He turned to the team. “That was Kirby. Jason arrived at the hospital and is in surgery. Looks like he’ll be all right.”

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bsp; Seth whooped. Everyone cheered and clapped. Ronnie breathed a sigh of relief as Peter pulled her into his chest and squeezed. They’d done it.

  Dean walked over and shook Ronnie’s hand. “Thanks for giving me a chance out there. It’s an honor to work with you.”

  Ronnie smiled through the tears that hovered on her lashes. “It’s an honor to be here, Dean.”

  Even if she had to leave, she could go knowing she would leave behind a well-equipped rescue crew. They had certainly proven themselves today.

  Peter moved the folding chairs from the sanctuary of Deep Haven Community Church to their original spot in the Sunday school rooms. Aunt Bea and Uncle Al were the last ones to leave, and they did so in a huff.

  His two-week countdown was almost up. Seb came back tomorrow, just in time for the city council meeting, and Peter hadn’t come close to convincing his family about the youth center.

  Or anyone else for that matter. He’d been so busy meeting with first the Dahlquists and then the Zimmermans that he hadn’t had time to talk to anyone else. He’d hoped meeting with the clans in smaller groups here at the church would make it easier to keep the peace. But no.

  So much for thinking the location might inspire some open-minded discussion.

  Now he was out of time.

  Peter moved the last chair and returned to the sanctuary.

  “How did your meetings go?” Pastor Dan asked as he walked down the aisle.

  “You really have to ask? I thought you’d be able to hear the yelling all the way from your office.” Peter tried to inject a little humor into his voice but failed. “But thanks for letting me use the church for all these meetings. It was helpful to have them all in one place.”

  “I take it they didn’t go well then.” It wasn’t a question.

  “Not really. I had hoped…” Peter shrugged. “But that’s okay.”

  Dan’s direct gaze showed a mix of empathy and invitation to go further. He sat in the last pew, ready to listen. And something about the quiet surroundings made it seem like it was okay to be honest.

  Peter sank into the seat next to him and stared at the cross on the back wall of the altar. “I had hoped being here we could avoid the fighting. You know, have an actual discussion where people listen to each other and come to a peaceful resolution. But that’s not what happened.”

  “If you thought coming to a church building would remove the element of conflict, you were bound to be disappointed, Peter.”

  “But church is supposed to be about peace and love. There shouldn’t be conflict and fighting here.”

  “True, we want the church to be a place where people come together. But conflict is part of life, even in the church. To struggle, to wrestle is not always bad. Look at Jacob in the Bible. He wrestled with God and received a blessing for it.”

  “And he limped for the rest of his life too. I’d like to avoid that if I can.”

  “True.” Pastor Dan smiled. “Gust taught you well.”

  “He was a good teacher.” Peter remembered how he would bribe their class of squirrely third- through sixth-grade boys with Smarties to learn their memory verses. And when they had a hard time sitting still for too long, he would keep them busy with little fix-it projects around the church. “He always told us that to be a believer was to be a servant of Christ.”

  “And Gust owes you his life because you have a servant’s heart. But, Peter, there’s a warrior inside you too. And that’s a good thing, because sometimes we have to take a stand. Sometimes we have to fight.”

  “I thought we were supposed to live at peace with one another.”

  “Jesus Himself is called both the Lamb of God and the Lion of Judah. He was gentle enough to have children seek Him. Humble enough to wash the feet of his disciples. But He also rebuked the Pharisees and had some pretty strong words for those same disciples when needed.”

  “So how do I know when to wash feet and when to roar?”

  “Roar when you find something worth fighting for.” Dan stood and placed a fatherly hand on Peter’s shoulder. “I think you’ll know when the time is right.” He left the sanctuary, and Peter sat in the silence for a minute more.

  Pastor Dan made it sound simple.

  But there was nothing simple about engaging in battle. People got hurt that way. Still, maybe…

  Lord, if there’s a time I need to take a stand, show me.

  Peter’s phone beeped.

  Uh oh. He was late. He was supposed to be helping Ronnie with the last of the sets.

  He sent her a quick text saying he was running a little late as he left the church parking lot. He had one more stop before seeing her.

  Peter picked up his order and drove to the school. The auditorium was empty for the moment, but Ronnie’s music could be heard from the backstage area. He slipped behind the curtain and watched her from the shadows.

  She wore a light pink top and running shorts as she stood on a stepstool. Her slender fingers held a small paintbrush. Among the dark curtains and shadows, she was the bright spot as she painted reflections of light in the city backdrop.

  But her ponytail didn’t sway to the beat of the music. She didn’t hum or even smile like she usually did when she painted.

  She must still be disappointed to see that little bungalow on 2nd Avenue East sold. She’d had her eye on it as soon as they’d driven past it last week. Even though she knew she couldn’t buy or make an offer on it, she’d talked about how nice the exterior would look painted a dark gray and the peaks of the gables a lighter shade of gray. She wanted a bright yellow door too, which sounded a bit out there. But what did he know about colors?

  Not that it mattered. Nathan Dekker already had a buyer. She’d sent a picture of it with the sold sign in the yard and a sad face emoji during one of the Zimmerman meetings today. Peter loved that she wanted to stay, even to the point of daydreaming about how she would buy and remodel a house, but he hated that she was disappointed. Hopefully, he could cheer her up with his surprise.

  He set it down and quietly sneaked behind her. He cleared his throat.

  Ronnie screamed and spun around, falling off the stool right into his arms just as he’d hoped.

  But his brilliant plan didn’t account for the brush in her hands and the paint that now dripped down the front of his shirt.

  The look of shock on her face switched to laughter. “That’s what you get for scaring me.”

  He set her down on her feet and grabbed a wide brush resting in a can of blue paint. “Oh really?” He wielded the brush like a sword, lunged, and painted a swath of aqua blue down her whole arm.

  “Peter!” She dashed behind a backdrop and came out on the other side to face him double handed with the small brush of yellow and a roller of pink paint. She parried with a soldier’s yell.

  He advanced and deflected her stroke. “Skol!”

  Ronnie lunged again, streaking pink paint across his chest. “Give it up, Dahlquist. You are going down.”

  “Never!” His wet brush lightly swiped her cheek before she batted it away.

  “What’s going on back here—” Vivien pushed aside the curtains and stuck her head through. “Oh. It’s you two.” She grinned. “Carry on with the flirtation, but don’t ruin my stage. I need those backdrops done for dress rehearsals next week.” She winked before disappearing again behind the curtain.

  “Truce?” Peter smiled and slowly crouched down to drop his brush back in the can.

  Ronnie dropped her brush and roller too. “I guess. Since you concede.”

  “I concede nothing!” He rushed at her, swung her around in a big circle, and planted a soft kiss on her lips. She melted against him and kissed him back with a passion that was all Ronnie.

  Now that was more like it.

  She could probably feel his wild heartbeat beneath her hands, his pulse racing out of control. She had a way of undoing him. Whether it was the scent of her shampoo, the softness of her full lips, or the silkiness of her hair that did i
t, he didn’t know, but he wanted to spend a lifetime trying to figure it out.

  The chatter and laughter of the kids in the auditorium broke the enchantment and Ronnie pulled away. Gripped his shirt. “We should get back to work.”

  “First, I have something for you.” Peter pulled her over to the side of the stage. “It might’ve melted a little. I got distracted for a bit there by a beautiful woman. But I brought you some contraband.” He handed her a Java Cup iced mocha.

  She smiled, her amber eyes shining. “Is there anybody in town who doesn’t know about that?”

  “Honey, everybody heard about you getting kicked out of the Java Cup. Word to the wise, go apologize and keep your Packers Cheesehead at home. You smoothed things over with Megan, so we know you can kiss and make up when you want to.”

  “I tried a few times, but Kathy wasn’t there. Or maybe she just didn’t want to talk to me. I hope she forgives me someday.” Ronnie took a sip and sighed. “I can’t make coffee taste this good. I’d take this over money any day. But don’t tell Seb that. I still want him to sign my paycheck.”

  “Seb won’t have anything to hold against you when he hears about the call yesterday.”

  “The team did well with that hiker, didn’t they?”

  “Ronnie, you led the team and taught them how to do well. Jason McCray’s wife sent a huge gift basket to the fire hall and her note with it is singing your praises. The card included a picture that Emily drew. She wants to be a paramedic just like you when she grows up. Wait until Seb reads that.”

  “It feels good to make a difference somewhere.” Ronnie’s smile faltered as she set down her drink and picked up the brush again.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Sure, I helped the McCrays, but the people I care the most about? What about them? I mean, Tiago is still saying he wants to move at the end of summer, and I’ve single-handedly turned your whole family against you.”

  “Give Tiago time. He’s starting to loosen up a little bit more with me. The last fishing trip I even caught him smiling when he reeled in a bass all by himself.”