“Time to quit,” he said, after the sun had set to the point where it was growing difficult to see.
“Ah-h-h,” Nate complained. “Just one more.”
Jared smiled. The youngster’s comment had sounded so much like his own brothers’. Now, like then, he gave in.
“One more, but that’s it,” he told them. “I can’t see and it’s not a good thing if the pitcher can’t find the plate.”
Nate’s final swing sent the ball arcing high to center field. Annie raced after it, then caught it handily.
“And he’s out!” Jared called.
After saying their good-nights, Jared accompanied Annie home. “That was fun,” he said, as they stepped into the elevator and he pushed their floor’s button.
“It was,” she agreed. “Admit it, though. At first you didn’t want to play.”
“No,” he said honestly, still not quite sure how it had happened. “But I enjoyed myself.”
“You realize you’ve just made four little friends for life. They’ll be knocking on your door every time they want to practice.”
“Speaking from experience?” he teased.
Annie chuckled. “Definitely.”
He wondered about a woman who gave so much of herself to anyone who asked. How had he ever thought that Erica was the epitome of what he wanted? Something in his well-thought-out plan had gone haywire and all he could do was hope that a few days away would help him straighten things out in his head.
Fate was clearly having a joke at his expense.
Annie raced up the three flights of stairs in the firehouse and tried to ignore the ache in her calves. She’d already run up and down four times and was on her last trip. Her gray T-shirt and shorts were soaked with perspiration, like the rest of her colleagues’ clothing, and the staircases had started to smell like a locker room after a football game.
“Come on, McCall,” one of the guys yelled at her as he passed her going down. “Get the lead out. We’re on a time schedule and you’re slowing us down.”
“Says you,” she huffed, summoning an extra burst of speed to pass Mic on her way to the top. She hurried down, ignoring the pain in her legs in her determination to avoid being the last one on the finish line.
At the bottom she struggled to catch her breath while three more men descended. Fortunately, this was the final event of the day in preparation for their upcoming semiannual physical fitness testing next month. If she had to move Rescue Randy, the one-hundred seventy-five pound mannequin, after running the stairs, she’d fail.
Her weight training came in handy when moving Randy, although she wasn’t able to use the typical fireman’s carry. It didn’t matter. To pass the test, she only had to move the mannequin out of an unsafe environment in any way possible, which meant she could drag him out if necessary.
John clicked his stopwatch as soon as the last man’s feet touched bottom. “You’re twenty seconds slower, people. Not good. Not good at all.”
Bill stood with his hands on his hips and struggled for air. “It’s Annie’s fault.”
She stared at the fifty-year-old with horror. “Me? I didn’t bring up the rear.”
“You’re the one who keeps fixing pies, cakes, and brownies. You’re trying to sabotage us by making us gain weight.”
She chuckled. “How did you guess?”
“Yeah, Bill.” Someone else jostled him. “You’re the only one with extra padding.”
He patted his slight paunch. “I’m definitely going to lose a few pounds and we’ll see if you fellows beat me on the stairs next time.”
“It’s a deal.”
Annie showered and dressed, glad to be back at work among friends. She’d enjoyed her time off, but her apartment got lonely at times and it had seemed even more so with Jared gone. She’d cleaned her apartment, caught up her laundry and had logged a lot of bagpipe practice hours.
He would return today and although she wouldn’t see him until tomorrow evening, knowing he would be in town bolstered her spirits. Her floor was far too quiet for someone who liked noise and believed that one could never have enough company.
She’d been tempted to mix some of her mail in with his to ensure that he’d drop by, but she’d convinced herself that doing so would only make her a glutton for punishment. She knew he wasn’t the man for her, so why prolong her agony or pretend otherwise? He had his life and she had hers, and while the two had intermingled for a few days, she was foolish to let herself dream of anything more.
She hurriedly brushed her hair and fashioned it into her usual braid moments before the horn signaling a major call blasted.
Annie rushed out of the shower room as the dispatcher’s announcement came over the speakers.
“A small plane has crashed in a field three miles south and one mile west of town. There are reportedly four people on board, status unknown. Time is eleven fifty-eight.”
Fear tugged at Annie’s heartstrings as she hopped into the ambulance. Jared had told her that Walt’s plane was due in around noon. Was this his flight?
CHAPTER EIGHT
“DOES anyone know who owns the plane?” Annie asked Mic as he buckled his seat belt.
“If they do, they aren’t saying,” he replied as he allowed the fire truck to leave the station’s driveway first.
“Following them will slow us down,” she fretted.
“We can’t get close until they secure the crash site,” he reminded her practically. “So why get there before they do?”
She knew he was right, but her impatience was too strong for her to be content with being the last vehicle on the scene.
“Why the rush?” Mic asked, glancing sideways at her. “You don’t normally act like a horse champing to leave the starting gate.”
“Jared, er, Dr Tremaine might be on that plane.”
Mic’s eyes widened. “Are you sure?”
“Yeah. He and a couple of other doctors went to Missouri for a weekend getaway. Dr Whittaker flew them to his friend’s cabin and they were scheduled to return today. Around noon.”
“If this is his plane, let’s hope they had a soft landing,” he said grimly. “I’d hate to think of losing those guys.”
Annie had only worked one other plane crash for real, although she’d trained quite often on how to respond. From the stories she’d heard from more experienced emergency crews, they’d reported everything from bits of wreckage and body parts strewn across fields and tarmac to instances of the passengers walking away with only a few bumps and bruises.
If Jared and his colleagues were on that aircraft, she hoped it would be a case of the latter.
She stared ahead, watching the huge fire engine turn onto a dirt road. Dust swirled around them, making it difficult to see. The county obviously didn’t spend a lot of money maintaining this rural thoroughfare if the washboard ruts were any indication.
The fire engine ahead of them slowed and Mic did the same. When they turned down another road, Annie chafed at their slow progress.
“Do they know where they’re going?” she asked impatiently.
“I hope so, because I don’t,” he said.
“Oh, that’s just great,” she muttered under her breath. To her, the directions had been clear…three miles south and one mile west. So why all the turns?
“Just relax,” Mic soothed. “We’ll be waiting even after we pull in.”
She drew a deep breath and nodded. If she was going to be of any use to whoever was on that plane, she had to pull herself together.
A short time later they reached their destination. Several county sheriff patrol cars had blocked off the road, their lights flashing. Another vehicle, the sheriff’s four-wheel-drive SUV, guarded the field’s entrance. Men in uniform milled around, some peering through binoculars, others talking on their radios.
Annie paid them little attention. Her gaze refused to leave the plane that lay on its belly in the middle of a freshly plowed field, looking like a beached whale. Even from this dis
tance she could see the furrow the plane had made upon landing before it had come to a stop under a tree windbreak. Now it tilted drunkenly on one wing.
The plane was intact, which she hoped was a good sign, although several branches had splintered the windshield.
As they waited on the side of the road, Annie’s impatience grew. “I’m going to see why we’re waiting here.” She hopped out of the vehicle and hurried to join the sheriff’s deputy who stood beside the driver’s side of the fire engine, talking to Bill.
“I don’t know if you can drive across. The ground is really soft. The farmer just plowed it yesterday.”
“We’re probably close enough from here,” Bill said as he jumped onto the ground.
“Wind’s coming from the south,” the deputy supplied.
“OK.” Within minutes the men on board were hauling hoses across, which would carry the foam necessary to douse any spark.
“Any word about the passengers?” Annie asked the deputy.
The sandy-haired fellow shook his head. “According to the airport, it’s Doc Whittaker’s plane.”
Annie swallowed her fear. Let Jared be safe.
“We haven’t been able to get too close but, as near as we can tell, the pilot hasn’t budged. We’ve seen some movement inside the plane, though. It’s anyone’s guess what shape they’re in.”
Annie hurried back to the ambulance and began loading herself down with medical supplies. As soon as the rest of the crew deemed the aircraft safe to board, she and Mic would triage their patients.
“Don’t forget to stay upwind,” Mic warned as she pulled on her gloves and slipped on her protective goggles.
“I won’t.”
She hung back until John and Bill declared the area safe and pried open the door. Annie climbed aboard first and was relieved when she didn’t notice the smell of fuel. She stepped carefully over the debris that littered the floor as her gaze quickly searched the scene.
The pilot lay slumped over the stick, his head at an unnatural angle, his forehead smeared with blood.
“Check him,” she told Mic, certain that Dr Whittaker was beyond hope. Mic moved past to obey while Annie focused on the other passengers.
Don’t let anyone else be dead.
Annie’s gaze homed in on the man in the nearest seat. It was Jared, and his head rested on the window’s metal casement, eyes closed. Immediately, she felt for his carotid pulse, praying to feel the telltale thump and afraid she wouldn’t.
It was there.
She let out the breath she’d been holding.
“How is he?” the man in the seat behind Jared asked.
“Alive,” she answered, still trying to catalog Jared’s injuries. “He banged his head pretty good if the knot is any indication. I’ll know more once we get him out.” Jared’s foot was twisted, but she couldn’t get to it to assess the full damage.
“What about you?” she asked the man, whom she’d recognized as Mark Cameron.
“Broken collarbone. I wanted to help them but, with my shoulder like it is, I can’t get out of my seat belt.”
“What about your head?”
“I’m fine. Look after everyone else first. I tried to rouse them, but they didn’t answer me.”
Mic rejoined her. The slight shake of his head told her everything. “Check him.” She pointed to Justin St James, who was in the rear seat next to Mark Cameron and starting to regain consciousness.
“Wh-what happened?” he asked in a slurred voice.
“Your plane crashed in a field,” she told him. “We’ll get you out of here in a few minutes.”
He mumbled something she couldn’t make out but she left him in Mic’s capable hands. Before long, several firemen carried St James off on a stretcher. After Mic had immobilized Cameron’s upper body, he, too, was removed for a more thorough evaluation.
“Jared?” Annie asked, as she quickly ran through her primary assessment routines. She was concerned because he hadn’t responded, but he’d clearly taken a hard knock on his head.
“Come on,” she coaxed. “Talk to me.” She tried to sound objectively professional, but she knew the complications. Everything from a concussion to a subdural hematoma ran through her mind and she forced herself to remain calm. Yet one thought repeated itself in her mind.
She couldn’t lose him.
Jared fought his way through the fog, trying to understand what had happened and why Annie’s scent surrounded him. He heard her, too, which didn’t make sense. She hadn’t gone on their trip. She shouldn’t be here.
He struggled to open his eyes, feeling a piercing pain as the light hit them.
“Jared? Talk to me.”
“Annie?” he croaked, drinking in the sight of her and feeling remarkably pleased by her presence. “Is that you?”
“In the flesh.”
“What are…you…doing…?”
“Rescuing you,” she replied.
He reached up with his left hand to touch her face. “You’re…crying.”
She sniffled. “No, I’m not. I have dust in my eyes. Now, just relax and let me do my job.”
“Bossy.”
“You bet. It’s payback time.”
As she touched his right wrist he flinched and nearly rose off his seat. He would have, too, if not for the fact that his foot didn’t seem to work.
“Looks like you broke your wrist,” she said cheerfully.
“You don’t…have to sound…so happy about it,” he complained.
“Considering what else could be wrong, you’re lucky,” she told him. “What about the rest of you?”
His entire body ached, but he tried to focus on those areas where the pain attacked with a vengeance. “My lower leg.”
“Any place else?”
“Other than my head. No.” He was pleased to hear his voice sounding stronger.
“Well, don’t worry. We’ll have you tucked in a nice hospital bed before you know it.”
“What about everyone else?”
“Cameron and St James are already on their way to the ER.”
“Walt?”
He watched her bite her lower lip. Although he suspected the worst, he wanted it confirmed. “What about Walt?” he asked again.
Annie shook her head. “No.”
He closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the wall. Their weekend wasn’t supposed to end on such a devastating note. “Damn!”
Caught up in the misery of losing a man who’d become a friend, he hardly paid attention to Annie’s ministrations or the prick in his arm until she and Mic tried to pull him out of his seat.
The pain, which had started to fade, suddenly escalated to the point where he couldn’t fight it any longer and he drifted back into the darkness.
Leaving Jared in the ER was the hardest thing Annie had ever done. She wanted to stay with him indefinitely, but she had her own job responsibilities. Spending the rest of her shift at Hope City was impossible.
Stalling for time, she and Mic didn’t rush as they cleaned and restocked the ambulance. Finally, when she was certain John would drag her away by her hair if she kept their vehicle out of service for another minute, she tracked down Galen to ask for the latest report.
“Jared has a concussion,” he said bluntly. “A broken ankle and a broken wrist. Unfortunately, the ankle will require surgery but that has to wait until he recovers from his head injury.”
“Then he’ll be in the hospital for a few days?” she asked.
“At least.”
“But he’ll be OK?”
Galen smiled, and Annie was certain that he saw more than she wanted him to see. To his credit, he didn’t say anything. “He’ll be fine. I’m sure he won’t be happy to be out of commission for several weeks but, considering the possibilities, he’s a lucky man.”
“What about the other two doctors?”
“Minor stuff. Dr St James also has a concussion, but it’s mild. We doctors are known to have hard heads.”
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br /> “Tell me about it,” she mumbled.
“And Dr Cameron has a broken collarbone. All in all, those three were extremely lucky.”
Neither mentioned the obvious—that Walt Whittaker’s luck had run out.
“How is Dr Whittaker’s wife?”
“Shocked. Angry. Horrified.” He shrugged, his face lined with the shock of losing a colleague and having to break the news to the man’s spouse. “She’s in for a rough road.”
“Will you get in touch with Jared’s family?” she asked.
“He won’t let me call them.”
“He won’t? Why not?”
“According to him, he doesn’t want to bother them.”
“But they’re his family,” she protested. “They’ll want to know. They need to know.”
“Don’t tell me, tell him.”
“I intend to.” How could he reject his family during a time when family should be so important?
“I know he doesn’t want to be a burden to anyone, but once he leaves here he won’t be able to take care of himself. With his broken wrist he can’t use crutches, so he can’t be left alone for any length of time. Someone will need to be with him for a few weeks until his wrist heals.”
“Surely you’ve explained this.”
“I have, but Jared is adamant.” His gaze turned speculative. “Perhaps you can change his mind.”
“I’ll try.”
Annie returned to the station, determined to show Jared the error of his ways. For a man who liked to believe that he knew best in every situation, he’d missed the mark in this one. Whether he wanted his sisters notified or not, it would happen. She wasn’t going to let him endure the next few weeks without the support of his family, no matter how loudly he protested that he could manage without them.
Suddenly the stresses of the afternoon caught up with her and she slipped into the rest room for privacy. As soon as the door closed, tears began streaming down her face. She didn’t know if they were tears of suppressed worry or tears of relief over his excellent prognosis but, whatever their source, she simply had to release them.
Saving Dr. Tremaine Page 12