“What was the vibe?”
“Can you ever really tell? They were all super nice to me, said I was well qualified, and the kids loved me.”
“I hope you get it.”
Her stomach roiled, and she fumbled for a piece of minty gum from her purse. The damn ginger lozenges did nothing for the nausea clawing up her throat.
“You think I should leave Barrett Ridge,” Sam said.
“I’m selfish enough to love the idea of having you live so close to me, and I’d babysit. I’m not above bribery.”
Sam laughed as she was supposed to, but her stomach roiled again. Nerves or baby hormones. It didn’t matter. She was too close to hurling. “Moving away from Barrett Ridge is a big step.”
“Don’t take this wrong, but you may not have too many choices if Caitlynne convinces the board to fire you. You need income and insurance.”
They both kept mute on the topic of Ethan. He was the elephant in the room. Sam shook her head. She was an independent woman. Self-reliant. Ethan was going to do whatever it was he going to do. For whatever set of reasons. She could argue with him until the cows came home that he was a big old chicken and just needed to go with the flow and trust that love might work. But she couldn’t make him do it.
She patted her belly. It was up to her to look after her new little family of two.
“I’ll keep you posted on whatever they decide,” Sam said. “I should hear by the end of the week. I think they have a solid group of candidates so I won’t get my hopes up. There’s probably a substitute teacher who already has the inside lane to the permanent job.”
“I think you’re fabulous, and they’d be fools not to pick you.”
“I love you, Jo.”
“I know. I’m your favorite.” They both laughed.
“My favorite whose name starts with J and O.”
They chatted for a few more minutes about Jo’s weekend plans and when the next obstetrics visit was before ending the conversation.
Sam turned off the interstate and headed down the two-lane highway toward Barrett Ridge. She breathed a sigh of relief. Her shoulders eased down an inch or two as if she’d been hunching. Home was close.
Interviews were exhausting. Decision making was taxing. All she wanted was to hug Nana, pour some tea, and snuggle on the couch.
She sighed again. This was no time for hiding. If the Portland school district didn’t offer her a job, what was her next step? If they did ask her to join the staff, was she going to accept?
Dammit. Her current job was perfect. She loved the academy and adored her kids. Barrett Ridge was the only home she’d known. The only problems were Caitlynne and her father. Two bad eggs. She could skip a few Sunday dinners, and that would minimize her contact with that dose of negativity and nastiness. She loved her father, but his selfish decisions and behaviors didn’t have to rule her life. Was she going to let them spoil her good life?
Sam pulled the stale gum out of her mouth and took a quick swig of her water. And, of course, there was Ethan.
It was always Ethan. She couldn’t seem to shake him. His formal greetings if he caught her walking to her car or taking out the garbage. If she stayed, she’d have to figure out how to keep her heart from shattering. Each time he’d shift his gaze away, the foolish hope died that he’d realize he could trust in love and give them a chance.
Was that it? Perhaps she needed to be the one to wake up and accept that they weren’t perfect for each other.
She deserved someone who loved her unreservedly. With all his heart and soul. She wanted her partner to make it his mission to make her smile and laugh. Who whispered sweet nothings in her ear, just because.
Perhaps Ethan didn’t have any more love to give. He adored his son, and that was all he wanted.
Should she fight for him? Was she giving up too easily and hightailing it out of town before she’d battled to a victory?
A part of her wanted to keep up the fight. But no, Ethan had been crystal clear. He donned his cold, precise tone and demeanor. Like he cloaked himself in his white physician’s jacket. He was armored against her. Against emotions. Against hurt.
She slumped into the car seat. Not all the answers were unfolding today. Patience. That’s what she needed. That and a game plan. She was sick of reacting to each new curveball being hurled at her. A baby. A threatened firing. A rejected love.
It was time that she protected herself. She sat straighter, with her fingers clutching the steering wheel.
She loved Ethan, but he didn’t want any part of her. That was that. She assumed he’d be part of the baby’s life. Weekend visitations and all that. She must build an iron wall around her heart to keep Ethan out.
She pressed her lips into a narrow line. Determination flooded through her. Life was dandy before Ethan Cordero, and it would be brilliant without him. Someday soon. Right?
A small white pickup truck behind her nosed into the opposing lane of traffic and gunned it past her. She eased up on the accelerator to give him time to pass. He zoomed by and dove back in front of her with inches to spare. She tapped on her brakes and muttered under her breath. Twit.
Within seconds, he was riding the bumper of a cream-colored sedan five car lengths in front of her. The pickup poked its nose out again but dove back into line as a compact car rounded a curve in the road and came into sight.
She eased up on the gas. The pickup sat inches from the creamy sedan, and then it lunged into the other lane, heading into the bend in the road.
Horns blared. An oncoming delivery truck swerved onto the shoulder. The cream sedan dove into the gravel and weeds on the right. The pickup threaded the needle between them. The lumbering truck slid through a crazy S pattern. Only the driver side wheels touched the pavement.
The towering load shifted. A strap fell slack. The load crumbled down.
Brake and wait for the crushing lumber and pipe? Punch it and ram the cream sedan? Or a hard right into the thicket of trees and the roaring creek? The options seared through her brain.
Taillights glared ahead. The shoulder disappeared into a guardrail as the creek flowed under the road.
The delivery truck tipped. She stomped on the brakes. Thank god no one was behind her. The creamy sedan spun and launched toward the creek.
A sheet of golden wood and dark pipes poured down. Screeching metal. Pop. Pop. Crunching glass. Smack. She lost her breath.
A taste of blood on her tongue. Pressure on her legs. Pain ratcheted up. Excruciating.
Blackness.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
ETHAN POUNDED HIS fist against the steering wheel. A single time. The light flipped from red to green, and he accelerated. His father was right. He tried too hard to control his life. The harder he gripped, the more it seemed to spin out of control.
He did everything by the book. Except for his medical practice. There he allowed himself the freedom to make intuitive jumps. He trusted that he was grounded enough in the intricacies of the human body and the barrage of environmental toxins, bacteria, viruses, and human-made dangers like bullets and knives, to take calculated risks and allow his intuition to take charge.
He’d never gone with the flow in his personal life. He’d worked a plan, and whenever he deviated from it, crap happened. He’d let his head be turned by Felicia. She’d been vivacious, flirtatious, and all gorgeous sensuality. Within two months, she’d broken up with him three times and reunited just as many before the bombshell of her pregnancy with Mateo.
He’d done the honorable thing and proposed marriage even though he was living on a scholarship and a part-time job. So, he’d doubled down. He’d bumped up his hours at work, studied harder, and learned to live on less sleep, but his new little family had prospered, and he’d graduated on time and with top honors.
Felicia had been a nonstop wild card. She’d been restless, dissatisfied. Nothing lived up to her expectations. She hated Ethan’s need for stability and predictability. That had led to the parties and
infidelities. The missing nights and careless, destructive drug use.
He’d had no control. He’d never learned the right thing to say to help her. To make her feel loved enough or safe enough.
Admit it. I wasn’t the right person for her. He could have bungee jumped off the Empire State building or pledged his love on the Kiss Cam at Camden Yards at an Orioles baseball game, but it wouldn’t have been enough. Felicia knew it. He knew it. But she was trapped. She couldn’t ask him for a divorce. Divorce was a failure. Religiously and morally. A sign of her mistakes.
When he’d finally thrown in the towel, her parents had lashed out at him. They insisted she was the wounded party and that no one should give up on a marriage or a child.
Here he was again. Sam was pregnant. His knee-jerk reaction had been to rail against fate and his stupidity. You didn’t just go around getting women knocked up. How had it happened twice?
His father was probably right. Once was a coincidence, twice was practically a habit or a trend. Maybe life or fate or someone was trying to tell him something.
Keep your pecker in your pants? Ethan snorted, and the sound echoed off the windshield. According to his father, the life lesson was to learn to go with the flow and not attempt to control every damn thing.
Nothing with Sam went by the book. Not since he’d laid eyes on her as a half-grown woman with a pair of thugs assaulting her. He’d been a married family man, but as he’d held Sam close and stroked her hair until her silent sobs had eased, his attraction had flared.
Her hair smelled of violets and a hint of wood smoke. Her curves melded into his body. His attraction had been instant, intense. Forbidden.
He’d put all thoughts of her aside, but the fates had a different idea. He’d rented the house next to her, and as soon as she’d popped through that fence, every crazy emotion and passion had leaped back into a towering blaze.
She was his ultimate temptation. Did he love her? Did he love her as she deserved? She was right. A marriage without true love would tear her apart.
He imagined life without her. Quiet. Dull. Orderly. Passionless.
What had Dad said? He’d have to give it all before he could get it all.
His pager blared out an obnoxious beep. Ethan swallowed a curse. He pulled over, checked it. A possible acute stroke. He’d have to go back to the medical center.
At the lull in traffic, Ethan flipped a U-turn. A few miles down the road, taillights flared in the fading late afternoon sunset. Cars came to a complete stop right as the road curved to the left.
A white pickup truck careened to a stop far out in a field to Ethan’s right. Up ahead, a local delivery flatbed truck had pitched over on to its side, into the oncoming lane of traffic. Dimensional lumber spilled on to the black pavement and partially covered a vehicle. Heavy pipes and roofing shingles slumped a sprawling pile.
The driver had taken the curve too quickly, or perhaps that white pickup had caused an issue. Ethan pressed his lips together. The load must have shifted and rained destruction on the squashed car. The flatbed smashed the back quarter of the SUV.
Shit. That didn’t look promising. He darted onto the shoulder, parked, and grabbed his medical kit. A man stumbled out of a cream-colored sedan that was lodged in a creek to his left.
As he approached, the truck driver called for help. A woman jumped out of her car and ran to assist the driver. His head was sticking out of the crumpled passenger side window since the driver side was pinned against the pavement. Ethan neared the chaos of beams and pipes that flattened a bluish SUV.
Teal blue. Like Sam’s. He ran.
A thick, coal gray pipe harpooned into the roof of the vehicle with a deep, splintered dent. The windshield was shattered into a billion crystalline chunks. A heap of two-by-fours smashed over the hood.
For one frozen nanosecond, Ethan’s breath ceased. The hiss of scalding steam escaping from the radiator faded. A second Good Samaritan running to the truck driver slowed to a crawl. The earth halted in its tracks.
Sam’s sprawled, golden hair and the paleness of her skin stood like beacons. Delicate, fragile. He waited for her chest to rise, for some sign that life still clung to her.
Nothing. He prayed. Not Sam. Don’t take Sam. Not our baby.
He needed her. Her laughter. The adoring tenderness shining in her eyes. Her love for Mateo. Heaven above, he was finally home when Sam was next to him. She completed him. A partner in life, in love, in fiery passion.
Love at its simplest. At its most complex. He needed Samantha Barrett.
He’d failed Felicia, but he had a new beginning with Sam. With Mateo and the new baby. If they made it. They had to make it. Sam was a good woman. The best. She didn’t deserve to die in a random accident by the side of the road. Not if he had anything to do with it.
Sam’s chest rose and fell. Sweet breath of life. Ethan’s world began to move again.
A woman shrieked, and the Good Samaritan streaked by in a blur. A horn blared, and the acrid scent of diesel assaulted his nostrils. Ethan scrambled to the passenger side of Sam’s vehicle. The window was a crystal jumble. He tried the handle. Nothing. He pulled hard. It still wouldn’t budge. He dropped his kit.
He jabbed the already broken glass with his elbow. With light taps so that pieces wouldn’t fly. He checked on Sam through the empty frame of where the windshield had been. A jagged foot-long splinter of wood pierced into her thigh. The roof bowed in a vicious V that ended a mere finger’s width above her head.
Ethan pulled off his jacket, wrapped it around his arm and punched out the remaining glass in the side door. He reached in to unlatch the door and prayed that the door wasn’t jammed. He pulled. It creaked and opened.
He crawled into the car, sweeping aside glass chunks and chunks of lumber. With knowing fingers, Ethan reached for her pulse. Her skin was cool but silky. A second passed. Another. At last, a faint tick. Her lashes fluttered, and she moaned.
“Stay with me, Sam. I’m here.”
White powder clung to Sam’s blouse, and the driver and passenger airbags sprawled limply. An array of glittering diamond-like chunks of window glass adorned her hair and forest-green khaki slacks.
A trickle of blood careened down her forehead from a shallow, swollen gash, perhaps from the cast iron, six-inch diameter pipe that poked through the roof of the SUV. Her arms dangled at her sides, but there were no signs of bleeding from her mouth, ears, or anywhere on her torso. At least nothing showed through her white shirt.
A splintered two-by-four pierced Sam’s thigh. Dark blood oozed from her leg. Venous, not arterial. He checked the floor and carpet. No pool of blood. Only drips. If the artery was severed, she’d be losing blood at liters per minute. The wood was acting as a nice plug, so far.
He tried to check her pupils, but he couldn’t get in front of her without risking touching the wood chunk speared into her leg.
Sirens screamed distantly. Ethan sniffed gasoline.
“Hey man, you’d better get her out of there before anything catches on fire,” said a young man with a shock of red hair. “This looks bad. Is she still alive?”
“Do you smell smoke?” Ethan asked, ignoring redhead’s question.
The slightest change in air pressure and a crackle hit Ethan’s ears. Dammit. The ambulance wouldn’t get here soon enough.
Ethan jabbed the red button on her seatbelt. Nothing. He cursed. He edged back and pulled the glove box open. Papers and pens tumbled out. Ethan pawed through them until he spotted it. A seatbelt cutter.
“Dude, you’d better hurry,” the redhead said.
“Find a fire extinguisher. Try the truck?” Ethan turned the cutter in his hand and sliced through Sam’s lap belt and shoulder strap. She didn’t move.
A flame shot up. He spotted it through the remains of the hatchback. The sirens were closer, but not enough. Her leg wasn’t stabilized. He had no idea if she had a back, neck, or internal injuries. Warmth from the fire brushed on his awareness.
Time to act.
Ethan wound his arms under hers, close to her body. He kept his gaze glued to the tan shard in her leg. If he turned her, he could avoid the steering wheel. Fire danced in his peripheral vision.
Ethan yanked and turned in one motion. He pulled, slid, scrambled. Hands grabbed him and broke his landing. The redhead picked up Sam’s ankles while a steady stream of curses flowed from his lips.
The sirens stopped. A heavy rescue and a trio of medic units. The back half of Sam’s car was engulfed in flames as were the rear tires on the delivery truck.
With one hand, Ethan steadied the spear in Sam’s leg, and with the other, he checked for internal injuries. Blood seeped around the wound.
A pair of medics arrived, and Ethan identified himself and rattled off the barest details of what had happened.
“Hey, Doc. I’m Dan, and this is my partner, Ellie.”
Ellie knelt and began her assessment.
“Be aware that she’s pregnant.”
“Are you sure?” Dan scanned her still flat abdominal region.
“Yes. I’m sure.”
“We’ve got this now, Doc. You’re free to go.”
“Hell no. I’m going with her. It’s my baby.”
***
As the ambulance raced past the sodden, brownish-green hills toward the hospital, Ethan focused on the rise and fall of Sam’s chest. The oxygen mask blurred her face, and blood crusted her hairline and left eyebrow. The EMT steadied Sam’s leg against the jolting of potholes and dips in the road.
That damn two-by-four sprang out of her thigh like an infantry flag planted on foreign soil. His skin itched. He should be able to fix this. She couldn’t die like Felicia had. He needed another chance to make it right between him and Sam.
He loved her. His eyes blurred. Wetness seeped from his eyes. He needed Sam.
Bright red blood splatted on the floor. Sam’s blood pressure plummeted. Arterial bleed.
“Ellie! What’s our ETA? Her BP is dropping.”
Tempting Doctor Forever (Barrett Ridge Book 2) Page 13