by Penn Gates
The view of the low mountains, silhouetted against clouds set ablaze by the dying sun, is breathtaking. The beauty of it gives her a moment of serenity, but it doesn’t last long. Once the sun is below the horizon, darkness spreads over the barren fields like a creeping dread. Somewhere, an owl hoots.
She feels the stirrings of a primal fear. Anything could be out there in the dark, watching, waiting. She walks quickly back across the parking lot and climbs the steps. It’s ridiculous how much safer she feels with a solid wall behind her and a roof over her head. But only for a minute. Where’s the sentry who’s supposed to be on duty? Then she remembers. There’s a sentry posted out back, as well. The two make a full circuit of the lodge every half hour, moving counterclockwise to each other.
The long windows of the lobby are glowing with firelight and a few strategically placed lanterns. It looks homey - and secure. She decides to call it a night and find a place near the roaring fire. She glances over her shoulder one more time at the ominous landscape behind her as she pulls open the heavy carved door - and sees a flash of headlights before they vanish behind a rise.
Her heart leaps. They’re back! But on the heels of her relief comes the thought that it could be anyone on that twisting road that leads to the lodge.
At that moment, one of the sentries comes around the corner. “Diggs!” Lisa calls urgently. “Get Chiznik. We’ve got company.”
Chiznik sticks his head out the door almost immediately.
Lisa points. “Headlights over there - what should we do?”
He steps outside and stares into the night. Then he laughs. “They just blinked on and off in the right sequence - it’s Holden and the guys.”
As the truck comes to a stop at the bottom of the stairs, Baxter leaps from the driver’s seat and jogs around the front of the truck, but Chiznik is already yanking open the passenger door. To Lisa’s horror, Corporal Holden almost falls into Chiznik’s arms.
CHAPTER 9: All That’s Left
Lisa is already moving towards Holden before she’s aware that she’s moved at all. His leg is oozing blood through the ragged hole in his fatigues. She holds open the door as Chiznik half drags the corporal to the stairs, and Diggs rushes forward to help get him inside.
Impatient to find out exactly how bad the injury is, Lisa catches a glimpse of Marcelli and shouts, “Grab that lantern, Tony, and find another one - I’ll need to see what I’m doing. And go find my bag.” But she’s talking to his back. He’s already in motion, anticipating her needs.
“Hold up, Marcelli!” she calls. I’m going to need to turn our bedroom into an ER, and Janet may still be in there. Take her to the office.”
She turns to the two men carrying Holden. “Put him—”
“I got ears,” Chiznik tells her.
“Hey, Joe—” Holden grimaces in pain. “What gives? I thought I put you in charge before I left.”
“Shut up and save your strength, bud,” Chiznik grunts as they lift Holden onto the bed.
When Marcelli finally appears at Lisa’s side with her bag, she quickly finds her scissors and grabs a handful of fabric just above Holden’s knee.
“Don’t cut my pants leg, damn it!” he yelps. “I only got the two pairs.”
She sighs and puts down the scissors. “Tony, I’m going to need you to lift his lower torso while I slide his trousers off.”
“The hell you are,” Holden mumbles.
“Either I take them off or cut them off,” she says, feeling uncomfortable at the prospect of undressing him, but too busy at the moment to wonder why that should be.
“Oh shit,” he says under his breath as Lisa unbuckles his belt and yanks his pants down to his knees.
Without looking up at Marcelli, she orders, “Take off his boots and get that bloody mess out of my way.”
“Don’t throw ‘em away, Tony,” Holden gasps. “That’s an order.”
“Forget your wardrobe and be still,” she murmurs. She quickly unties the makeshift tourniquet around his thigh. “I’ll just take a quick look at this scratch on your leg.”
The wound begins bleeding profusely and Lisa forgets her sudden shyness about working on an unclothed male as she goes to work filling a syringe with a strong sedative. The shot begins to work immediately, and Holden’s eyes start to close - although she can tell he’s fighting it. She tears her eyes away from his face and concentrates on what comes next.
She reties the tourniquet and says, “Tony, take these alcohol pads and clean around the entry wound, then the rest of the thigh. It will keep seeping blood, but don’t worry about that. The main thing is to disinfect the area so it’s ready for my poking around when I get back.”
“Is - that - medical term?” Holden slurs before his eyes close.
Marcelli looks scared. “Where are you going, doc? I can get whatever you need—”
Lisa pats his shoulder. “It’ll be faster if I just go myself. I’ll be back before you know it.” She’s gone before he can protest.
LISA DROPS INTO A CHAIR close to the bed where her patient lies unconscious. She’s done all she can, and she’s shaking with fatigue - but she won’t be able to close her eyes until Holden wakes up and makes some snarky comment.
The procedure was straightforward enough - removal of a bullet and stitching up the wound. He’s lucky - there’s no damage to bone or muscle tissue. That might have been beyond her capacity without a surgical team to assist. As it is, he should make a complete recovery if she can get him to stay off that leg long enough for it to heal.
If she’s being honest with herself, the deep relief she feels doesn’t have anything to do with the successful triage. And the warmth she feels somewhere in her stomach as she looks at him is - unsettling. She’s never had the chance to study his features uninterrupted in a whole year of sitting next to him ten hours a day, and she makes the most of the opportunity. He seems so young without his habitual worried frown. What kind of a person had he been before this unimaginable catastrophe had changed them all forever?
When his hazel eyes open and stare directly into hers, she flushes and looks away, rummaging in her bag for the stethoscope until her face no longer feels hot. She hangs it around her neck for protection, like a crucifix to repel a vampire, before she straightens up again.
“How do you feel?” she asks in her best bedside manner.
“Like shit,” he mumbles. He tries to shift his position. “Christ, that hurts. Did you amputate my leg or what?”
“You’ll be as good as new,” she assures him. “I’ll give you something for the pain.”
She notices his scowl is back.
“You’re not gonna knock me out again - it feels like dying.”
“This will just take the edge off,” she says as she slides the needle into a vein in his arm. “It should feel more like getting drunk.”
“Well, all right then,” he slurs.
He seems to be fighting a losing battle with his eyelids, and Lisa begins to relax. No matter how she tries to rationalize it, she can never shake the feeling that he’s evaluating her every move.
She starts a little when he suddenly mumbles, “What’s the damage, doc?”
“In a few weeks all you’ll have to show for it is a scar and a story to tell,” she reassures him. A minute later he’s out again as the pain medication really starts to kicks in.
Before Lisa tiptoes from the room, she grabs an armload of bedding off the second bed. As she half-expected, Janet is waiting just outside. Lisa digs deep for the strength to reassure her.
“Not a thing to worry about,” she tells the girl. “Holden’s going to be fine.” She dumps the blanket and pillow into Janet’s arms. “Go make yourself a nest on the floor of the office and get some sleep.” She smiles reassuringly. “I need to stay near my patient tonight.”
Out in the lobby, Lisa finds the whole squad clustered around the fireplace.
“How is he?” Peterson calls before being silenced by a look of annoyance f
rom Chiznik.
“How ‘bout lettin’ the doc catch her breath first?” he growls.
“That’s okay,” Lisa assures him. She’s about to launch into a medical explanation until she realizes that’s not what they want to hear. They want reassurance.
“He woke up long enough to ask if he’ll ever dance again,” she says and is rewarded by laughter.
“Will he? That guy could do a mean tango,” Baxter jokes.
More laughter.
They quickly fall silent again when Lisa adds, “All I had to do was sew him up. He won’t even have a limp.”
There’s a ragged cheer, and Lisa puts her fingers to her lips.
Their voices trail off, so they all hear Holden when he shouts from the other room. His words are slurred, but there’s still plenty of volume. “Shut the fuck up! I’m trying to pass out in here!”
The guys look sheepish. “Diggs started it,” Peltz complains.
“What are you? Twelve?” Chiznik barks. He raises his voice, just enough for the men in back to hear his words clearly. “Time to hit the sack, meatheads. Only a couple hours before you rise and shine.”
“Hey, BB,” Lisa calls, unconsciously using the nickname the squad has stuck on Bill Baxter. “Can we talk for a second?”
Baxter looks alarmed that he’s been singled out and hesitates.
Lisa gets right to the point. “How did Holden get shot?”
“Just bad luck,” he mutters defensively. “We came across a big box store that looked promisin’ and Holden decided we should scope it out. Only when we got inside and started diggin’ around, we spotted a guy half buried under a pile of boxes.”
He glances at Lisa. “Holden checked to see if the guy was dead - and bam! Doors on the back wall slammed open and the bastards came out shootin’ and got Holden in the leg - which was what saved him. If he hadn’t gone down, he woulda got caught in the crossfire.”
“Good Lord,” Lisa breathes.
Baxter takes her exclamation as criticism. “It was them or us,” he says, then appears uncertain that he’s understood her correctly. “We had to get to Holden fast - he was layin’ there bleedin’.”
“Thanks for telling me, BB,” she snaps, then seeing his expression she adds, “You know, I’m not against violence when it’s necessary. I’ve been involved with it myself, if you remember.”
As Baxter rejoins his fellow soldiers as quickly as he can, Lisa stands rooted to the spot, swaying with fatigue. At this moment, the couch in front of her is as good a place as any to get off her feet before she falls down - and near enough to hear Holden if he needs her.
She doesn’t stretch out immediately, but sits down and rests her head against the couch cushion. The memory of her response when she had to undress Holden still disturbs her. She’s a doctor, for God’s sake. She’s been examining people’s bodies - including a lot of male bodies - for years. And it’s never felt intimate before.
How could she have let this happen? When, exactly, had she started to feel that way about him? For a moment she wonders if he feels something, too, but quickly discards the idea. She’s never been the type of woman that attracts men’s attention. That’s just a fact. Even her fiancé had not been - well, wildly passionate. Nor me towards him, she admits. While Holden was unconscious - while she could look at him as much as she wanted to - what she felt was primal. And she was terrified - because she couldn’t just avoid him. We’re trapped together in this mission - maybe until one or the other of us dies.
WHEN LISA WAKES, SHE doesn’t immediately open her eyes. She shifts her position slightly and discovers she’s so stiff she can hardly move. Doing a 24-hour shift is brutal. She’s learned to catch a short nap whenever she can to keep going - but why did she choose a sofa in a surgical waiting room? Her eyes fly open. It takes her a few seconds to realize that she’s not in the familiar, antiseptic environment of a hospital - but she does have a patient who needs tending.
“Oh God,” she groans as she struggles to her feet and runs her fingers through the wild tangles of her hair.
She needs a toothbrush and a change of clothes. But first, she needs to check on Holden. She hears voices coming from the bedroom and frowns. He needs to stay still for another twenty-four hours or his stitches could tear. If that joker Diggs snuck in there to cheer him up -
When she bursts into the room, Holden is half-sitting, propped up by pillows, and listening to Chiznik.
“What’s going on?” Lisa says, glaring at Holden. “I warned you to stay as still as possible - didn’t I?”
“I’m fine,” he says, frowning. “Joe’s just giving me an after action report.”
“Well I need to check his stitches,” she tells Chiznik. “You can finish up later.”
Holden stares at her. “Joe was just telling me how you got that cut on your face. Looks like a mule kicked you.”
“Close,” she says. “It was an ass.”
He half-grins, acknowledging her play on words. “You should have somebody look at that,” he says.
“I would, but I can’t seem to reach my doctor.” She touches the cut. “Maybe I’ll have a dueling scar.”
This time he doesn’t respond to her quip, and she immediately reverts to a professional manner to cover her embarrassment.
“But enough about me,” she says and busies herself pulling out alcohol swabs and a fresh dressing for his wound. She gestures toward the blanket. “Do you mind?”
He pulls the covers back, exposing as little of his injured leg as possible. “This is awkward,” he mutters, then winces as she loosens the tape.
She couldn’t agree more, and bends closer to inspect her handiwork so he can’t see her expression. “There’s blood on this dressing,” she scolds. “I hope you didn’t pop a stitch.”
“I’m not worried - I’ve got you to sew me together again.”
Holden knows he should look away - at anything but this woman, whose whole attention is now on a portion of a leg which happens to belong to him. But being this close to her is making it hard to think. He can see the freckles sprinkled across her nose, the corkscrew curl that falls across her cheek. She straightens up a little as she reaches for a clean dressing and he’s suddenly staring at the front of her shirt. She’s not following regulations, that’s for sure. The two top buttons are undone. A ring with a diamond that looks like a disco ball escapes its hiding place between her breasts and dangles in front of him. He swallows hard.
“What’s that?” he asks.
“My engagement ring,” she says, and quickly tucks it back where it belongs.
“Damn thing’s as big as an ice cube,” Holden says. “I can see why you’d want to keep it out of sight.”
“I’m not hiding it,” she says defensively. “I’ve always worn it on a chain because it cuts through surgical gloves. As for its former value, I’m more likely to be mugged for a potato at this point than a useless rock.”
“You’d be surprised how many idiots would trade every scrap of food they had for that little trinket.” Holden says. “Besides - it’s got to have sentimental value.”
Does it? she wonders. She no longer thinks about Roger unless she sees his ring. What does that mean? How would she feel if he appeared before her right now? She’s pretty sure her response to her fiancé wouldn’t come close to what she’s feeling at this moment.
She surprises herself by volunteering, “I don’t have any idea if Roger is even alive.”
“When’s the last time you heard from him?”
“The first week or so after Geezer hit. He wanted me to come back to Boston.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“He said we could head to northern Maine and wait it out there,” she says, staring into space. “It didn’t feel right to me. Doctors were in short supply. I was needed.”
“Duty and honor - I know something about that,” Holden says quietly. “It’s all that’s left. Looks like we have something in common after all.”
S
he gives him a startled look.
“Besides touring the seventh ring of hell, I mean.”
“Oh - right,” she says a little breathlessly. She snaps her bag shut. “Everything looks good - you’ll live.” She all but runs from the room.
Damn! he thinks. We have something in common after all! Sounds like a lame pickup line. He’s angry with himself. Every recovering asshole she’s ever treated has probably put the moves on her. Now she’ll think he’s one of ‘em.
CHAPTER 10: Sudden Change Of Plans
“That bruise around your cut is an interesting shade of purple,” Holden says, watching Lisa change the dressing on his wound again - for the last time, he hopes. The small talk involved while she does so feels like a mine field.
“Well - it’s the first color I’ve worn other than olive drab in awhile,” she smiles.
She suddenly becomes aware that her cut doesn’t hurt any more when her facial muscles tighten. When did that happen? Have I really been too busy to notice? Or maybe I just haven’t been smiling.
Lisa finishes the dressing with quick, efficient movements and pulls the blanket up to Holden’s waist with an inner sigh of relief. “Since you decided to listen to medical advice, your stitches are healing nicely,” she tells him.
“I heal fast - good immune system.” Holden changes the subject. “Other kinds of wounds take a lot longer. How’s the girl doing?”
“She’s a survivor,” Lisa answers slowly. “But this last thing was different.”
“Seeing someone die is always different.”
“I don’t think it was his death - as stomach-turning as that was.”
She hesitates. Does she have the right to discuss the particulars of Janet’s trauma with a third party. Third party? Holden’s been there every step of the way. No one knows more, except maybe for Marcelli.
“What happened to Janet is like out of the Middle Ages - or the Middle East.”
