by Debra Holt
“Everyone else is okay? The little boy?”
The doctor was not deterred. “What’s your full name?”
“Mercy Ann Smith. I am thirty years old. I work here at this hospital. Now how is the little boy we were transporting?” She’d had enough of his testing her memory and faculties for concussive aftermath.
“He’s in serious condition from his original injuries in the auto accident, but he should make a recovery. You and Paul did a good job in keeping him as steady as possible even through that abrupt and unscheduled landing.”
“My crew … how are they? When can I get out of here?”
He smiled at her, shaking his head. “Not so fast. Your pilot earned his paycheck and then some. He’ll have a cast on his arm for a wee bit. Paul walked away with some cuts and bruises. You’re staying put for another day, as you’re the one who was tossed out of the chopper. Then rest at home after that. You’re going to be very sore, and we need to watch out for any problems with your head. We don’t expect any, but we’re going to be cautious while we have you at our mercy.” He chuckled at his humor. “So just lay back and enjoy the food and ambiance here.”
Mercy would have smiled, but that required more effort than she could muster. The doctor and nurse soon left the room, with a reminder to her mother and Larry that the patient needed her rest.
“We’ll let you get some sleep, sweetheart,” her mother said, moving back to the side of the bed, relief evident in her eyes. “We’re going to make Josh come with us. He hasn’t left since they brought you in.”
“Josh? He was here?” She hadn’t dreamed it.
“He’s still here.” Larry’s head nodded in a direction just out of her line of sight.
She noticed his tall form moving to the end of the bed. He had evidently been waiting in the far corner of the room while the doctor barked his orders.
Josh looked as worn as she felt. He needed a shave; his hair looked like he’d been running his hands through it; his sapphire eyes were dark and solemn.
“We’ll wait out in the hall for you, Josh,” Larry spoke. Her mom bent to kiss Mercy’s forehead. Larry gave her hand a squeeze, and a hint of moisture glimmered in the corner of his eye as he looked at her. “You get some rest. We’ll be back later.”
The door swished closed behind them. Mercy tried hard to concentrate on keeping her eyes open and her mind awake. It wasn’t as hard to do as before, especially since her pulse rate seemed to speed up under the intense gaze leveled on her. Several seconds passed before Josh finally moved to stand beside the head of her bed. She must look a sight. Mercy grimaced as that thought flickered through her mind.
“Looks like our positions are reversed. You scared us all. I don’t think any of us wants to go through that again.”
“I don’t want to go through it again, either.” She tried for humor, but it fell flat. “I thought I was hallucinating. Were you at the crash?”
“I heard the call on my truck radio. I was able to get there just ahead of the ambulances.”
“Everything was just a jumble of blurs and sounds, but I saw you. You were yelling at me.”
His eyes darkened even more as he looked down at her. She felt his hand cover hers as it lay at her side, on top of the blanket. “Sorry about that. When I saw the chopper lying in the field, its tail crumpled up … my mind went on overload. I only knew I had to find you. I was afraid and let my emotions get the best of me.”
“Afraid? You?”
“I don’t ever want to experience that feeling again. Things could have been a lot worse. It was a very close call.”
Her head ached, and so did her heart. His expression made her want to wrap her arms around him. But she couldn’t do that.
“You heard the doctor. I’m going to be okay.”
“This time. What about next time? Will you stop flying now?”
Her eyes tried to focus on his. “This could happen to anyone. I’m not going to stop doing my job because of it.”
His expression changed, closing off the warmth from her. She could feel him moving away from her even though he didn’t physically step away. “I see. I’m glad you’re going to be okay. Take care, Mercy.”
She watched him turn and walk out the door, nothing she could do to stop him. Mercy knew it as well as she knew her name—he would not be back. The pain in her heart tormented greater than any pain in her head. Tears slid from the corners of her eyes as she squeezed them shut. A soft sob escaped her.
Mercy was dismissed from the hospital twenty-four hours later. Her mother seemed intent on Mercy staying with her while she recuperated, but Mercy knew she wouldn’t be comfortable there. Too many recent memories of Josh and a chance that he might stop by their house made it impossible. In the back of her mind, she knew that was probably wishful thinking on her part. If he knew she were there, he would make certain to stay away. His goodbye had been final. Still, she would not go to Lawson.
Jan finally gave in and took Mercy to her own home. Once settled inside with Peanut on the foot of the bed, Mercy allowed herself to relax into the pillows. She heard pots and pans rattling in the kitchen. Her mother soon returned to the bedroom with a bowl of chicken noodle soup, some peach slices, and a glass of milk. It was better than the bland diet she’d endured the last couple of days. Mercy found her appetite returning and finished everything off under the watchful eyes of both the cat and her mother.
When she glanced up and caught her reflection in the mirror, she slowly used the tip of her tongue to wipe the slight milk mustache from her mouth. The memory that came along with the gesture proved harder to erase.
“I’ll clean up the kitchen and then get your meds. You should try to take a nap.”
“You need to get on the road before it gets dark, Mom.”
“I’m not going anyplace. I’m staying right here for the next few days.”
“No, Mom, I’m fine. The doctor said so. I’ll take it easy, take the meds, and then when he releases me, I’m going back to work. There’s no need for you to stay with me. You have a husband waiting for you at home.”
Her mother stopped in the doorway and threw a look over the rim of her glasses. “You are still my child, Mercy Ann Smith. I will do what I think is best. You go to sleep. I’ve brought enough yarn to keep me occupied for quite a while.”
Great.
Mercy closed her eyes. If her mother mentioned yarn, then she was ready to settle in for the winter with her crochet hook if need be. She counted it useless to argue once she’d received the look from her mother. She and each of her siblings had received it many times over the years while growing up—and often, even now, they still felt it on them. Arguing proved pointless, so she didn’t bother.
The one thing about people wanting someone to sleep was that they often left them alone. She could close her eyes, and people would go away. Unfortunately, when she closed her eyes, the only person who would not go away was Josh. He remained there in her dreams. Those vivid blue eyes challenging her with a fiery passion, then silent longing, ending in solemn farewell. Her bruises hurt, and her body ached, but her heart ached the most. No drugs could fix that ailment. When the doctor asked her if she had any remaining pain, she certainly couldn’t tell him yes, pointing to the center of her chest where her heart lay in broken pieces. He had no medicine for that.
By the third day, Mercy felt ready to climb the walls. She walked around the townhouse and ventured out into the neighborhood to put miles on her pedometer. The doctor had given her permission during her appointment that morning to return to light duty the following Monday. That meant the time had come for her mother to go home. She stood on the sidewalk next to the car as her mother placed her last bag inside and closed the trunk. They exchanged yet another hug just before she slid into the driver’s seat.
“I’ll call and check on you later this evening.”
“Mom, go home. I’m fine. Go out to dinner with Larry and think of something else besides me.”
&n
bsp; “Larry and I are having dinner out, but I’ll still be thinking of you. I’ll give you a call before I go to bed.” She shut her door before Mercy could reply. With a wave of her hand, she was gone.
Mercy walked back into her house and felt the silence lengthen. She turned on the television and flipped through several channels but found nothing that held her interest. The restlessness within her would not go away. It had appeared more and more over the last couple of weeks. If she didn’t get back to work soon, she would go crazy.
Chapter Eighteen
“So … you ready to get back in the saddle again?” Paul smiled and asked the question as he picked up his helmet.
“Ready as I’ll ever be. How about you?” She fell into step beside him.
“I was born ready,” he replied with his trademark cocky smile. “But you know we’ll have to break in another pilot.”
She stopped in her tracks and looked at him. “Where’s Jorge?”
“Once the cast comes off his arm, he’ll be on duty in the ER. He requested the transfer. His wife gave him a choice—the ground or else. He said it was a no-brainer. He wanted to be around for his kids awhile longer. Can you imagine that? His wings are clipped.”
“Well, he does have a family to consider.” Mercy continued walking.
“Yeah, he isn’t footloose and fancy free like you and me. No reason for us to stay on terra firma. No one is nagging us about staying safe and clipping our wings.”
“Right.” Mercy nodded in response because Paul expected it. His words kept coming back to her though as she did the preflight check in the cabin of the craft.
Fancy free. That should make her happy, but something about it made her feel so empty. That wasn’t the only thing that was different either.
Mercy had never questioned her devotion to her job before. She’d always loved what she did and being part of the team. However, more and more lately, she’d become aware that she didn’t greet the beginning of her shift with as much enthusiasm. She now found herself envying Jorge’s decision to make the change in order to ease his family’s worry. He’d still be helping people, just in the emergency room and not at a few thousand feet off the ground.
The new pilot, Mitch Crawford, joined them, and game faces were on as they headed west toward the New Mexico/Texas border. A farmer had been caught in a piece of farm machinery and needed to be transported quickly to the trauma surgeons. As they lifted off, Mercy felt a jolt in the pit of her stomach. That had never happened before. She chalked it up to being her first time in the air after the crash. It would take a little while to get back into the groove. She had made prerequisite visits with the crisis team and been cleared to return to flight duty. There shouldn’t have been any residual problems. She’d just need time.
Time healed everything … right?
They loaded the farmer and headed back to the hospital. Mercy and Paul went through the steps they had completed hundreds of times. Once on the ground, they handed off the patient to the emergency team. As she headed to the crew lounge, Mercy could ignore it no longer. Something was missing. The rush of adrenaline that usually coursed through her during and after each flight was gone. She felt flat with an odd, unpleasant sensation. Maybe this was just another side effect of the crash. It would surely pass as soon as they got back into a steady routine.
The feelings didn’t pass. Several more flights and another week, and Mercy knew something had changed. She couldn’t blame that change solely on the crash landing.
One evening, Mercy took her sandwich and found a bench in the hospital garden where she could enjoy the weather … and the solitude. She needed to examine her thoughts away from the chatter of the cafeteria. Flying had always been cathartic for her. She enjoyed it, and she loved working with her team and beating the odds for their patients. They flew to the rescue and regularly made a difference in people’s lives. Until a few weeks ago, it had been her whole life. She had allowed it to become the be-all and end-all of her existence.
Maybe it was just another way for her to run away from the pain that she didn’t want to deal with on the ground. Except that the pain followed her no matter where she went. It wasn’t so much real pain anymore as it was a feeling of hollowness inside her, emptiness where there had once been a beating heart.
Things had changed. The crash had only been the catalyst that brought things to a head, and the time had come for Mercy to face reality. Her heart missed a lot more than the exhilaration of the job. She missed Josh. He had come into her life in the blink of an eye, and nothing had been the same since. Her mother had been right. Life had come, and she had let it pass her by. It was true. She had made the biggest mistake of her life, and she would regret it the rest of her days.
For so long, she had tried to block so much from her heart. Even her faith.
Mercy remembered the day she asked her father what faith was. They’d been sitting together on the end of a fishing dock on a perfect, quiet, late summer day.
“Daddy, what’s faith? The preacher keeps talking about it. He says we all need to have it, but how do you know if you have it if you don’t know what it is and you can’t see it?”
He didn’t answer right away. Instead, he gave some hefty consideration to the end of the fishing line where it disappeared into the water, the red cork bobbing gently. “That’s a weighty question for an eight-year-old mind, but it’s a good one. Let me ask you a question. Do you believe the sun comes up in the sky every morning?”
She nodded her head without pause. “Yes, sir.”
“Do you believe that the stars and the moon will come out in the night sky?”
Once more, she nodded. “Yes, sir.”
“Sometimes clouds keep the sun from shining or the moon from being seen in the night sky. But they’re still there, even if you can’t see them. Right?”
“Yes, they are.”
He grinned and nodded his head at her. “Then, my girl, you have faith. It’s invisible, but it lives inside you—inside your heart. It’s a gift from God.”
Mercy had accepted on faith the simple explanation her father had given her that day. Faith was the belief in things unseen yet believed in, not something she could hold in her hand and examine. Faith was only seen and felt in the heart.
Such was love. You couldn’t always see it, but you could feel it. And the greatest love took the greatest amount of faith. Josh knew that. She’d tried to ignore them both, but faith and love had not deserted her. She had turned her back on them. She knew it might be time to realize that God had closed one door, yet He’d kept his promise, and another door had opened. Josh had appeared.
And as she looked deeper, Mercy knew she had to realize that bad things happened all the time for no apparent human reason. Good people were hurt … good people were taken away. It was not for her to understand God’s plan for the things that had happened to her father and David. She recognized now God had held her in the darkest night, had given her the strength to carry on through the days that had followed. And, still, He waited patiently on her.
She didn’t have time to think much more than that because her beeper reminded her she was still on duty. Once she’d met that responsibility, she would need to have a talk with her supervisor. Mercy’s life was about to change.
Sunday dawned, breezy and cloudless. She pulled her car into a parking space in the already crowded lot. Stepping out, she smoothed the skirt of her two-piece gray and black outfit. She heard someone walking across the gravel parking area and looked up with a smile on her face. She hadn’t expected to see Josh, and it was clear she was the last person he’d expected to see also. But there he was, looking so good in his brown suit and cream Stetson. She didn’t stop the smile that came automatically. Her heart did a tap dance.
“Hello, Mercy,” he said, a half-smile creasing his face while his eyes remained watchful. She wished the warmth of prior days would return to them. One step at a time. “ This is a surprise. I didn’t realize you attended service
s here.”
“It’s been a while—too long a while. How are you?” It seemed odd having such a stilted conversation with him. They both tiptoed as if walking on eggshells.
“I should ask you that. You look like your old self.”
“I may look it, but I don’t think my old self survived the crash.” Her cryptic reply caused his eyes to narrow on her as she realized he’d been walking away from the building. “Are you not staying for services?”
“I made it for the men’s breakfast and Sunday School. I promised I would meet my senior deputy at the station and go over some cases with him. We’re trying to make the transfer as seamless as possible.”
“Are you still certain about taking the judge position?”
“Yes, I am. You seem to have a problem believing my decision.”
“It’s not that. It’s just … I remember what you said about being in law enforcement and being a sheriff. Then it all changed so quickly. I guess I just want to make certain you want this change.”
“Life can alter in the blink of an eye. Choices and opportunities come our way when least expected. A few months ago, I would have agreed with you—I couldn’t imagine not being a sheriff. But my perspective changed when I realized there was something I wanted more.” He seemed about to say something else, but didn’t.
Take a chance. “What changed for you?”