Where There's Smoke

by Sandra Brown

  He turned and shouted back at her, “I found their frequency and am talking to the trauma team. They want to know her vital signs.”

  “Blood pressure fifty over thirty and falling. Pulse one forty and thready. Tell them to alert a vascular surgeon and an orthopedic specialist. She’ll eventually need both. I’ve started an IV.”

  “Did you give her an anticoagulant?”

  She’d debated that but had decided against it. “She’s too young. The bleeding is temporarily under control.”

  Key transmitted the information. Lara continued to check Letty’s blood pressure, breathing, and pulse. She strove for objectivity but it was difficult when the patient was this young, this helpless, and this seriously injured.

  Occasionally Marion would reach over and touch her unconscious daughter’s hair or stroke her cheek. Once she ran her thumb across Letty’s plump toes. That distinct maternal gesture wrenched Lara’s heart.

  As the outskirts of the city slid beneath them, Key spoke again. “The trauma unit is standing by. They’ve given us permission for a hot landing.”

  Letty’s shallow breathing stopped suddenly. Lara dug her fingers deep into the child’s neck but couldn’t feel a pulse.

  Jack Leonard cried out in alarm. “What is it? Doctor? Doctor!”

  “She’s arrested.”

  “My baby! Oh, God, my baby!” Marion screamed hysterically.

  Lara bent over the girl and placed the heels of her hands just beneath her sternum. She pushed hard several times, trying to stimulate the heart with chest compressions. “No, Letty, no. Fight. Please. How much farther, Key?”

  “I can see the hospital.”

  She sealed her mouth over Letty’s nostrils and mouth and blew air into them. “Don’t die. Don’t die, Letty,” she whispered fervently.

  “Oh, Christ!” Jack cried hoarsely. “She’s gone.”

  “Letty!” Marion screamed. “Ah, God, please. No!”

  Lara didn’t even hear their hysterical cries. Her attention was focused on the small body as she pushed rhythmically on the narrow chest and alternately rendered mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.

  When she felt a blip of a pulse, she gave a shout of relief. The child’s chest rose and fell as her breathing resumed. Lara continued to render CPR. The pulse was feeble but her heart was beating again.

  “We’ve got her back!”

  Key set the chopper down.

  The trauma team approached, ducking the rotor blades. Lara relinquished her patient and helped hold Marion back as they hustled the child onto a gurney and into the emergency room. They followed, but a nurse intercepted them and directed them into a waiting area.

  “I want to be with my baby.” Marion strained toward the disappearing gurney.

  “I’m sorry, ma’am, you have to wait out here. She’s getting the best medical attention possible.”

  Lara nodded understanding to the nurse. “I’ll see to her. Thank you.”

  Together, she and Jack got Marion into the waiting area. He spoke to her soothingly. “I’ve got to go call our folks, Marion.”

  “Go ahead. I’ll stay with her.”

  “No,” Marion said, firmly shaking her head. “I want to be with Jack.” She couldn’t be dissuaded. Supporting each other, the couple shuffled off to locate the public telephones.

  “Is the kid going to make it?”

  At the sound of Key’s voice close behind her, Lara turned. He was watching the Leonards as they moved down the corridor.

  “It’ll be touch and go.”

  “You almost lost her, didn’t you?” His gaze shifted to her. “And you fought like hell to get her back.”

  “That’s my job.”

  After a moment he asked, “What about her arm?”

  “I don’t know. She may lose it.”

  “Shit.” He slipped his sunglasses into the breast pocket of his shirt, which he’d taken time to button before following them into the hospital. “I need some coffee. Want some?”

  “No, thank you.”

  “Whenever you’re ready to go back to Eden Pass—”

  Lara was shaking her head. “I’ll wait here with them. At least until she’s out of surgery. Feel free to leave whenever you like. I’ll find a way back.”

  He gave her a hard look, then said curtly, “I’m going for coffee.”

  Lara watched him as he moved down the sterile corridor, his gait straight and steady except for a slight limp that favored his right ankle. In spite of his dishevelment, one would never guess she had roused him from a drunken stupor a short while ago.

  He’d set the chopper down between a multilevel parking garage and the hospital building. It was tricky piloting. His boast of being able to fly anywhere at any time wasn’t an empty one.

  The Leonards returned from making their telephone calls and began their long vigil. When Key returned, he brought with him several cups of coffee and vending machine snacks. Lara introduced him to the anxious couple.

  “We can never thank you enough,” Marion told him tearfully. “No matter how it turns out, if you hadn’t gotten us here, Letty… she…”

  He squeezed her shoulder reassuringly, rather than diminish the gravity of the situation with empty platitudes. “I’ll be back in a while.” With no further explanation, he left.

  Reports from the operating room were agonizingly slow in coming. Each time the OR nurse approached the waiting area, the three of them tensed. But her message on these brief and periodic visits was that the surgeons were doing all they could to stabilize Letty and save her arm from amputation.

  It was busy in the ER that morning. Several people had sustained serious injuries in the wreck on the interstate. It had involved three vehicles, including a van filled with senior citizens on a field trip. The staff was harried, but from what Lara could see they were competent.

  Key returned about an hour later, bringing with him a large shopping bag from Walmart. He extended it to Lara and Marion. “I thought y’all’d be more comfortable if you got out of those clothes.”

  Inside the sack they found slacks and T-shirts. Their clothes had grown stiff with Letty’s blood. They used the nearest restroom to wash up and change. When Jack tried to reimburse Key, he wouldn’t hear of it.

  “You’re Barney Leonard’s son, aren’t you? You run the laundry and dry cleaners for your daddy now, don’t you?”

  “That’s right, Mr. Tackett. I didn’t figure you knew me.”

  “You’re doing a hell of a job on my shirts. Just the right amount of starch,” Key told him. “That’s repayment enough.”

  Jack solemnly shook his hand.

  Their kinfolk arrived about an hour later, along with the Leonards’ pastor. The subdued group huddled together and prayed for Letty’s life. During her medical career Lara had witnessed many such scenes and no longer felt uncomfortable in the face of personal tragedy.

  But Key obviously felt out of place. He paced the hallway and frequently disappeared. Each time he left, Lara figured he had flown the borrowed helicopter back to Eden Pass, but he always returned and asked if there had been any news on Letty’s condition. During one of these unspecified absences, he had shaved and tucked in his shirttail. The improvements made him look marginally respectable.

  Almost seven hours after Letty was wheeled into surgery, a paunchy, middle-aged man in blue scrubs entered the waiting room and called their name. The Leonards stood and grasped each other’s hands, bracing themselves for what they were about to hear.

  “I’m Dr. Rupert.” He introduced himself as the vascular surgeon. “Your little girl is going to be fine. Unless there are unexpected complications, she should pull through.”

  Marion would have collapsed if her husband hadn’t been there to support her. She began weeping in hard, dry sobs. “Thank you. Thank you.”

  “What about her arm?” Jack asked.

  “We managed to save it, but at this point I can’t tell you how much use it will be to her. Full circulation has been r
estored, but there might have been nerve and muscle damage that won’t show up until later. Dr. Callahan, the orthopedic surgeon, will be out shortly to speak with you. He’ll talk to you about physical therapy. The important thing now is that she’s alive and her vital signs are good.”

  “When can I see her?” Marion asked.

  “She’ll be kept in an ICU for several days, but you can see her at intervals. The nursing staff will let you know. Dr. Callahan’ll be right out.”

  When their relatives swarmed forward to embrace Jack and Marion, the surgeon turned to Key. “Dr. Mallory?”

  “Not me.”

  “I’m Dr. Mallory.” Lara extended her hand. “I’m a GP in Eden Pass.”

  “You did some fine work considering what you were dealing with. Got her here in the nick of time.”

  “I’m glad,” she said with a weary smile. Lowering her voice, she asked, “Any professional guesses on how much use she’ll have of her arm?”

  “If I were a betting man, I’d say better than fifty percent recovery. She’s young enough to learn to compensate for any disability. If use is fully restored, she won’t remember when this happened.” He smiled wanly, the strain of the grueling surgery showing in his face. “But I bet she won’t be poking her arm through any more open car windows.”

  They shook hands again. After exchanging a few final words with the Leonards, he retreated down the hallway. The Leonards hugged Lara, then left to phone other relatives and friends with the good news that the crisis had passed.

  Awkwardly Lara looked over at Key. “I guess I’m finished here.”

  “Ready when you are, Doc.”

  Once they were airborne, Lara’s stress evolved into profound fatigue. The day’s events had taken their toll. Her body ached from muscle strain. She rolled her head, trying to work out the knots in her neck.

  Viewed from above, the deepening twilight was beautiful, but she couldn’t enjoy it for thinking about how close she had come to losing Letty Leonard.

  Life’s fragility was fully realized when a child died. Any death affected her, but a child’s death made a shattering impact because she always equated it with the tragic way in which Ashley had been snatched from her. One moment her sweet daughter had been cooing and gurgling happy baby sounds, the next she lay bloody and limp.

  Tears filled Lara’s eyes. Her throat felt achy and tight. Had it not been for Key Tackett sitting beside her in the close confines of the cockpit, she would have wept bitterly.

  Instead she forced herself to retain control. She remained stoic until he set the helicopter down at the Dabbert County landing field. The mechanic greeted them.

  “How’s the little girl?” he asked as Lara alighted.

  “She’s alive, and they saved her arm.”

  “Praise be. I’d’ve thought she was a goner. Hey, Key. It’s a beauty of a chopper, ain’t it?”

  “First class, Balky,” he conceded, passing the mechanic the keys.

  Lara pointed at the Leonards’ station wagon. “Would you please see that their car is cleaned up before they come to retrieve it?”

  “Already did,” the mechanic told her. “Bo done sent a boy from his garage to wash out the blood.”

  “That was very kind of you, uh… Balky, is it?”

  He nodded. “Balky Willis. Pleasure, ma’am.” He extended his hand to Lara.

  She shook it. “Dr. Lara Mallory.”

  “Yes, ma’am, I figured you was her.”

  “I’m sure the Leonards will appreciate your thoughtfulness about their car.”

  “Weren’t my idea. Key called from Tyler and suggested it.”

  Surprised, Lara looked at him. He shrugged indifferently. “Either way it went, I figured they didn’t need any unpleasant reminders. Ready to go?”

  “Go?” Only then did she realize she was without transportation. “Oh, would it be an imposition—”

  He indicated the yellow Lincoln parked on the far side of the hangar.

  Lara asked Balky to thank the golfer who had lent them the helicopter. “Tell him to send me a bill for any expense that was incurred.”

  “Sure thing.” He saluted her and bade goodbye to Key.

  “I’ll expect a bill from you, too, Mr. Tackett,” she said as they approached the Lincoln. “How much do you charge?”

  He pulled open the wide passenger door and held it for her. “Depends on what service I’ve rendered.”

  Unsmiling, she slid into the car and sat staring straight ahead through the windshield.

  Once they were on the highway headed toward town, Key remarked, “You know, your sense of humor ain’t for shit. Don’t you ever laugh?”

  “When I hear something funny.”

  “Oh, I get it. I don’t amuse you.”

  “Sexual innuendoes have lost their charm for me. I’ve been the subject of too many to find any humor in them.”

  He stretched his long body, adjusting his bottom more comfortably in the seat. The leather squeaked agreeably. “I guess that’s the price one pays when she’s caught up in a sex scandal.”

  “That’s only one price she pays.”

  He gave her a frankly appraising stare, then returned his attention to the road. They drove in silence, the car gliding along the two-lane stretch of highway through the deepening dusk.

  “Are you hungry?”

  She hadn’t thought about it, but now that he’d asked, she realized she was famished. All she’d had that morning before going out to weed her flower bed was some yogurt and two cups of black coffee.

  “Yes,” she admitted.

  “Do you like ribs?”

  “Why?”

  “I know where you can find the best in the world. Thought we’d stop for some.”

  She glanced down at the clothes he’d brought to the hospital. “Much as I appreciate the change of clothing, I’m not really dressed for going out.”

  He barked a laugh. “You’re almost overdressed for Barbecue Bobby’s.”

  “He’s aptly named.”

  “He didn’t get his name from barbecuing, but for being barbecued.” She looked at him quizzically. “See, one night Bobby Sims got on the wrong side of a bull rider named Little Pete Pauley. They were at a postrodeo dance and got in a fight over a woman. Bobby came out on top and humiliated Little Pete—who always was real touchy about being only five feet four standing in his boots.

  “Later that night, Little Pete got revenge by setting fire to Bobby’s house. Bobby made it out okay, except that most of his hair got singed off. Went around for six months as hairless as a lizard and smelling faintly of wood smoke. Everybody started calling him Barbecue. From there on, his life’s work just naturally evolved.”

  Lara suspected he was spinning a yarn, but before she could express her doubts, he pulled into the parking lot of a tavern. “Hmm. Crowded tonight.”

  “This is a beer joint,” she protested. A single strand of yellow lights, many of them burned out, had been strung along the roofline. They were the building’s only decoration. “I’m not going in there.”

  “How come?” He turned to her. “Are you too prissy for us?”

  He had backed her into a corner. If she refused to go in with him, he would once again accuse her of being a hypocrite, a holier-than-thou snob who couldn’t rightfully throw stones when she herself had been caught transgressing.

  On the other hand, she didn’t want the rumor mill to grind out that she was being squired around town by Key Tackett. How tongues would wag! The lady doctor had corrupted Senator Clark Tackett, people would say, and now she had her hooks in his younger brother.

  But facing down the gossip was a future possibility. Key’s scorn was a sure thing in the here and now. She opened her door and got out. He was wearing an insufferably smug grin when he joined her at the entrance and pulled open the door.

  The interior of the honky-tonk was no sightlier than the exterior. A pall of tobacco smoke clung to the ceiling, making the dim lighting dimmer. The smel
l of beer was almost as strong as the bass being pumped from the gaudy jukebox in the corner. Several couples were two-stepping around a tiny dance floor. A long bar comprised one entire wall, and tables were scattered around the murky fringes of the room.

  Every head turned toward the door when they walked in. The women inspected Key; Lara was a target for the men. Self-consciously she let him lead her to a table.

  “Do you drink beer?”

  She rose to meet the challenge in his voice. This was another test. “With barbecue? Of course.”

  He placed two fingers in his mouth and whistled shrilly. “Hey, Bobby, two beers.”

  “Well, I’ll be a cross-eyed billy goat!” the bartender boomed. “Two beers coming up for the long-lost Key Tackett.”

  Key sat down across from Lara and pushed aside the condiments in the center of the table. “Saving a kid’s life and drinking beer with me all in the same day. You really enjoy living on the edge, don’t you, Doc?”

  He didn’t expect an answer, and she didn’t have time to offer one before a rotund man wearing a white apron stained with meat juices and barbecue sauce sauntered over carrying two longneck beer bottles in one hand. With the other, he whacked Key between the shoulder blades.

  “Long time no see.” He set the beer bottles on the table. Lara quickly reached out to catch hers before it toppled over. Bobby didn’t notice. He was still greeting Key.

  “Heard you just got back from one of them A-rab countries. Heard if you look sideways at their women, they cut off your dick. That true? Wondered how a horny bastard like you could survive over there. Wondered when you were going to get out here to see me, you asshole.”

  “The place looks great, Bobby. Still doing a land office business.”

  “Hell, yes. As long as folks eat, drink, and screw, they know the best place to come to find all three. One-stop shopping. That’s my business philosophy! Who’s this?” He jabbed a finger in Lara’s direction.

  Key introduced her. The tavern owner didn’t even attempt to hide his surprise. “So you’re the shady lady I’ve heard so much about. Son of a bitch.” He looked her over with a candor she appreciated after being eyed covertly by so many others.