by Dianne Drake
“Then we’ll do it again sometime, when I’ve had more time to teach you.”
“I’d like that, and next time I won’t be such a baby.” She hoped.
“Trial by fire isn’t the easiest way to learn. But you did a good job, Dinah.”
Trial by fire…that’s all her life had been since she’d been in White Elk. And she’d plunged into some very dangerous fires lately. “Trial by fire might not be the easiest way to learn, but it sure does make you move forward, like it or not.”
After their quick embrace he went right back to work, gathering in his ropes. Once he’d wound them over his shoulder, he pointed in the direction of the river. She could hear rushing waters from where she was. In a way, it reminded her of the unexpected power she found in Eric. On the surface he was tranquil, but when she got close she sensed the currents rippling in him, the ones she didn’t expect, like the currents that surprised her now, in the sounds of the river.
She hoped they would find Troy’s brother and father once they reached the river’s edge, but the chances of that happening weren’t too good. And the real test was going to be figuring out which way to go—upriver, or down. The real test of this rescue, the real test of her life. Which way to go?
They hiked for several minutes, Eric in the lead, Dinah following, flanking him off to the left by about twenty yards. Not close, but not so far from him that she couldn’t see him. She kept her eyes darting back and forth, looking for signs of life, signs that someone had been there recently. Imitating Eric in her actions. But since this was not a blazed trail, she didn’t expect to find much. And once again she didn’t speak, barely dared breathe for fear that, even at this distance away from him, if she broke Eric’s concentration, he might miss something.
Then suddenly, something caught her attention. It was still another few feet off to her left, but she darted off course and dropped to her knees when she came upon it. A shoe. A single shoe, size eight, boys’. Fairly new. “Eric!” she called. “Over here!”
Eric barely looked at the shoe. Rather, he rushed on by her. “Shawn!” he called, then listened for a moment. “William! Can you hear me?”
To her ears there was no response, but something propelled Eric to a spot another hundred feet away. “Shawn, can you hear me?” he called. “Shawn!”
Again, she heard nothing…but she listened, dear God she listened hard. “Shawn!” she yelled, standing back up and turning in circles. “Shawn, William! We’re here to help you! Can you hear us?”
She knew children, knew how they responded. When they were frightened, they hid. Shawn would be scared to death. But the question was, if his father couldn’t respond, would Shawn be able to respond to them if he could hear them? If that was his shoe…
“Dinah, over here!” Eric yelled, motioning her over to an outcropping of rocks. They were practically at the river’s edge now. And that’s where they found the second shoe. It was on the foot of a young boy. Eric was already making the initial assessment—taking a pulse. Dinah flew into action, pulling her flashlight from her backpack and looking for pupillary reaction. Normal. His respirations were weak, though. And his skin was chilled to the touch. Even though Troy had obviously wrapped his own jacket over his brother before he’d gone for help, Shawn was suffering mild hypothermia.
“Shawn,” Eric said, patting his cheeks, trying to awaken him.
“Shock?” she asked.
“And mild exposure.” He picked up the totally full bottle of water Troy had obviously left with his brother. It was still full. “Dehydration’s setting in.”
“Broken leg.” Dinah ran her hands lightly over the boy’s extremities, frowned then grimaced. “Both legs, I think.”
“No distension in his abdomen,” Eric responded. “But he could still have internal injuries.” He looked up at the rocks, expelling a frustrated sigh. “Wish we knew what happened to him.”
“Shawn, can you hear us? Can you wake up and tell us what happened to you?”
In response his eyelids fluttered, but his eyes didn’t fully open.
“I think Troy must have carried him this far, then left him where he thought it was safe. Probably because he couldn’t carry him any further.” Eric grabbed the walkie-talkie and clicked it on. “We have one victim, twelve-year-old male, unconscious, possible broken legs, possible internal injuries. I’m going to splint his legs and leave Dinah here while I go and look for his father, unless the other crew gets in here before then. What’s their estimated time?”
“Not going to make it before dark,” Neil said.
“Well, have them keep to the river. And get a helicopter in here, because I’d rather evacuate the boy as soon as possible, while we still have a little light, and deal with the father when we find him.” Eric and Neil discussed arrangements while Dinah snipped the fabric back from Shawn’s legs to get a better look. What she saw made her cringe. Both were definitely broken, so badly that the angles of the breaks were obvious even though the skin itself wasn’t broken. This poor child would require numerous surgeries and months and months of physical therapy.
But he was alive, and while she wrapped Eric’s thermal rescue blanket around him and placed her little travel pillow under his head, the familiar pang hit her. This was what she needed to do—take care of children. “Shawn, you’re safe now. Just stay with us, and we’re going to take you to a hospital not too far from here. Your mother is already there, with Troy. She’s waiting for you.”
For the next few minutes, sitting and talking to Shawn the way she was, taking his vitals and cleaning various scrapes and cuts on his arms and face, she thought about where her heart truly was. No matter what she’d told Eric, no matter how much she wanted to believe she had no heart for this, she did. There was no denying it. “Can a helicopter land here?” She asked Eric, after he’d clicked off from Neil.
“There’s a place, downriver, about half a mile. We’ll have to get him ready to travel then get him down to the pick-up point. Neil’s going to fly in and take him from there.”
“Have they called his mother?” she asked Eric.
“I’m sure someone will.”
“But she needs to know. Right now. Someone who loves this child needs to know he’s alive!”
Eric studied her for a moment then smiled. “Right away,” he said gently. “We’ll let her know right away.” He clicked his radio back on to Neil. “You think of the things no one else does,” he said to Dinah. Then he gave her a curious look, but said nothing.
“What?” she finally asked him.
“You’d make a wonderful mother.”
She looked down at Shawn, and automatically took hold of his wrist, feeling for a pulse. “I need to be stable in my own life before I can be responsible for another person. And in case you haven’t noticed, my life isn’t too stable these days.”
“You underestimate yourself, Dinah.”
“Or maybe you overestimate me.”
“Actually, I think I estimate you just right. And what I’ve estimated so far is about perfect.”
“Don’t,” she whispered to him raggedly. “Please, don’t have expectations of me.”
It took approximately thirty minutes to get Shawn stabilized and down to the rescue spot on a makeshift stretcher Eric lashed together from tree limbs. It was an amazing thing, watching him. He was so resourceful in the woods, not a moment of hesitation. Born to do this, she thought as she fashioned splints to the boy’s legs. “He’s warming up,” she called, as Eric was cutting the last of the tree limbs. “Pulse is evening out, blood pressure’s up.”
“I just heard from Neil and they’ll be en route as soon as we signal. Also, the second crew found William Dawson and they’re taking him out right now. He’s about a mile upriver, conscious, extreme hypothermia, back injury, possible internal injuries. The raft got caught in river debris, they got tossed around pretty badly on the rocks. He was trapped in the water, leg caught between a couple of rocks, couldn’t get loose, so Troy
tried to carry Shawn out…”
Not a great ending, but not a horrible one, either. For that, she was relieved. “Your father and brother are fine,” she told Shawn, as Eric came back with the last of the tree limbs.
“We’re going to take you to the hospital, and you’ll be fine in no time. Just a little while longer…” She glanced up at Eric, his rugged form stunning, even though the only light on him now came from their flashlights. “We did it. I mean, we actually did it.”
“You’ve got good instincts out here.”
“I was so afraid I’d slow you down, or do something wrong, something that could have been dangerous.”
He bent, took Shawn’s pulse then steadied the boy’s neck as they lifted him onto the makeshift stretcher. “This is what you need to do, Dinah. Rescue, nursing…either one, or both. You’re wasting your time in that kitchen.”
“And my ex-fiancé, Charles, said I was wasting my time as a nurse.”
“Then he’s an idiot on two counts. One, for letting you go. Two, for not recognizing how extraordinarily talented you are.”
Together, they carried Shawn to the rendezvous point, where Neil met them and took over from there. The night had finally dropped down on them, and Dinah felt a huge sense of relief once she saw the stretcher being lifted into the helicopter, with Shawn strapped in. She didn’t glance away until the chopper had made a wide turn and was headed away from the river, its lights a shining beacon of success against the black sky. That’s when the true feeling of relief washed over her that all three of the Dawsons would be safe. That’s also when her knees gave out and she sat down, cross-legged, on a boulder near the river.
Eric propped himself against the rock, but didn’t sit. Rather, he leaned, arms folded casually across his chest. “From here, winding our way back along the river, it’s going to take about three hours.”
Dinah’s reply was a groan.
“We could cut back through the woods and save some time, but I’m not especially interested in a tough hike at this point, which is what that would be. So…”
“So, let me rest for a few minutes,” she said, every ounce of tiredness creaking its way into her voice.
“Do you like camping?” he asked.
“You mean, staying here tonight?”
“Get a good night’s sleep, head back in the morning.”
“I’m not much of a camper,” she said. “But I wasn’t much of a climber either, and that turned out pretty well, considering how I was scared to death.”
“Well, there’s nothing to be afraid of out here. We’ll build a campfire…”
If it weren’t for the fact that she was weary to the bone, that could have sounded romantic.
“I could camp.”
“You could do anything you set your mind to. I’m not sure you believe that, but I believe in you out here, Dinah. Depended on you as much as I depend on any one of my rescue team.”
“You shouldn’t have,” she whispered. “In the end, it just doesn’t work out. I know we had a good outcome today, but maybe it could have been better if you’d put your trust in someone else.”
Eric expelled an impatient breath. “See, that’s how you always react. You pull back. Don’t want anybody to trust you. It’s damn frustrating, Dinah, because I see how good you are. Everybody sees that but you, and I don’t know what it would take to make you see the same thing we all see in you.”
“What you see in me isn’t real,” she said, her voice totally flat.
“Why, Dinah? Tell me what this is about? Let me understand.”
“There’s nothing to understand.”
“That’s you pulling back, Dinah. Or pushing me away. And I want to know why. We’ve worked together, saved lives together…I need to know why the things you do so well are the things that make you so sad.”
“Because I lost a little girl once, Eric. A patient. Her name was Molly, and nobody loved her enough to stay with her. She was abandoned, and forgotten because she wasn’t lucky enough to have been bestowed with anything that could be construed as a good quality of life.”
“What was wrong with her?” he asked, his voice going from agitated to gentle.
“Anencephalic. On life support for her few short weeks.”
“I’m sorry,” he whispered.
“So was I. And in the end it broke my heart. She trusted me. I mean, I know that most people would say she didn’t even know I was there, but I think she knew, and I couldn’t…” She drew in a deep, ragged breath. “After it was over, I just sat there for hours, holding on. I wouldn’t let her go…couldn’t. They tried to take her away from me and I couldn’t…wouldn’t let go. I mean, I knew she’d died. Knew all along she couldn’t survive. But in the end, I just…” Tears broke free from her eyes, and she swiped at them with the cuff of her sleeve. “They had to physically remove me from the room. They took her away from me and sedated me. Afterwards, Charles recommended I take a long leave of absence, or reconsider whether or not I should even be a nurse because he thought I might not be emotionally fit to care for patients, getting involved the way I did. And he might be right. I…I don’t know. But Molly’s the reason I couldn’t walk away from this rescue. It’s not in me to leave a child who needs my help. And she’s also the reason I can’t get involved…because I’m afraid my emotions might cloud my judgment. In a kitchen, the worst I can do is burn my sauce. But in a hospital…”
“I’m so sorry for your loss,” he said, his voice so controlled it was barely audible against the night sounds beginning to start up from the bushes and trees.
“I expect you’ve had your share of patient losses. And I know it’s not easy. But for me, I’ve never gotten past the place where it’s personal. Taking care of every one of my patients…my children…is so personal. I can’t detach myself the way some of my colleagues did.”
“Which is what makes you better than just about any nurse I’ve ever seen. Which is why your little Molly knew you, Dinah. She felt your heart, felt your love. Charles was wrong. Getting involved is what makes you so good.”
“But getting involved broke my heart.”
“Because you had no one there to support you. And I’m sorry you didn’t. You deserved better, Dinah.” He lowered himself to the ground and pulled her down with him. Then sitting there, at the base of the rock at the river’s edge, he pulled her into his arms. “You really deserved better.”
“Why do you believe in me so much?” she whispered.
“Because until you came along, I was still a married man. In my heart, I’d never seen the need to be any other way. It worked. I got along. Then you…”
“You took off your wedding band for me?”
“No, I took it off for me. And for my girls. They need me to move on with my life, because they’re growing up, becoming individuals who need more than a father who stopped his life years ago. And I need me to get past this because it’s time. That one I give you the credit for. You’ve made me get involved again, made me aware of my girls in new ways.”
“I thought it must have been very difficult for you. Especially since you have the girls there every day to remind you of the things you wanted in your life, things that you’ll never have.”
He took hold of her hand, but not to hold it so much as to caress it. To rub his thumb over the sensitive mound beneath her thumb and massage the areas above with his forefinger. Slow, gentle swirls tracing from side to side, moving up to her knuckles, exploring each one with delicacy and such skill…surgeon’s hands. Then he explored her fingers, one by one, starting at the base and with his thumb and first two fingers, moving to the tip, stroking gently, over and over. Each finger. Again and again.
By the time Eric finally took hold of her whole hand, she was as seduced as if he’d made passionate love to her, as sated as she’d ever known she could be. All that from only a touch. The jolt of it sizzling all the way down to her toes. As he took a firmer grip, her toes curled, and the muscles in her legs tightened. S
he wanted to be seduced. Oh, how she wanted to be seduced. But she wasn’t sure that was Eric’s intent. “If we do spend the night here I have candy bars,” she said, her voice in a wobbly whisper. Of all the silly things anyone could possibly say at a moment like that, here she was, babbling on about candy bars. “And crackers with peanut butter. Bottles of water, a flashlight, a lighter, which I have to take good care of because it belongs to—”
“You’d flunk my course,” he said, his voice in low harmony with the night sounds of the forest. Seductive, full of suggestion. Primal.
“Your course?”
“Wilderness survival.” He leaned over and kissed her on the jaw. “I’m a very good instructor.”
“Are you sure about this?” she asked as ribbons of moonlight flowing played wickedly with him…casting him in a half-hidden aura that was so seductive she had to force herself to breathe. Was she ready for this? Was Eric ready? Last time they’d saved a patient together they’d come together in a kiss. But this time a kiss wouldn’t be enough.
“I have rules, Dinah. They’ve governed everything I am, everything I do, for such a long time.”
“Do you want to break them?” It was a hopeful question, but she feared the answer, because even if he did want to break his rules, she still wasn’t sure she could, or would, break her own. It was a dangerous line they were walking now, skirting the obvious, so close to toppling over. Afraid of what would happen when they did. Or if they didn’t.
“I loved my wife, Dinah. It was a good marriage. No problems. Patricia was everything I’d ever wanted and she made me happy beyond belief. Sometimes, when I go home from work, I still expect to find her there. Except I’ve had as many years without her now as I had with her. And I wonder if I want to be stuck where I am, if it’s a subconscious choice or if something else is stopping me from moving forward. I mean, right now we should be naked together. Wrapped up in your blanket, getting warm from each other’s body heat. But here I am, talking about my wife. Make no mistake, though, I really want to get naked with you.”
“Maybe it’s not the right time for us. It happens. The right people meet at the wrong time. I mean, I came to White Elk set on spending this part of my life being alone and trying to figure out all the mistakes I’ve made in the other parts of my life so I don’t make them again. Getting naked in the forest with a handsome doctor was nowhere in those plans, not even at the bottom of the list.” Although had there been a real list, being naked with Eric anywhere would have been climbing its way to the top at this very moment.