by Scott, Laura
“Thank you.” Miranda spotted the minister. “Oh, I think we’re finally ready to get started.” She hurried off.
Kate saw a familiar towheaded girl clutching the hand of a handsome dark-haired man who stood beside her granddad. For a moment, her heart soared. Ethan had come! Then, just as quickly, it plummeted to her feet. The expression on his face as he talked to Granddad told her he’d been there for a few minutes.
Ethan hadn’t come for her. He’d come for Granddad. Even Carly didn’t run over to talk to her but stood admiring Miranda’s ivory lace dress.
Kate blinked rapidly, staving off tears. Don’t cry, this is Granddad’s day. Don’t cry!
The minister quickly took charge, shifting everyone around the room. He positioned Kate on one side of the altar, and Kate was surprised to see Ethan standing next to Granddad on the opposite side. She glanced at him inquiringly, but he simply smiled and nodded at her, then focused his attention on Miranda when the music began to play.
Music from Bach’s Fantasy in G Major filled the chapel. Kate smiled as Miranda slowly walked up the short aisle to Granddad. He stood, leaning heavily on his cane as she took his arm. He beamed, then proudly turned and faced the minister.
“We are gathered here today to celebrate the marriage of Anthony Lawrence and Miranda Purdy . . .”
The service was sweetly romantic and over all too soon. There was a wheelchair nearby for Granddad as he still had a long way to go before being back to his old self. Kate was surprised to see him sink into the chair, allowing Miranda to push him through the room.
Kate tried to find a good time to duck out. So far she’d managed to avoid conversing with Ethan, but the chapel wasn’t that big, and there weren’t very many people, so her stall tactic would work for long.
“Kate!” Carly ran toward her, throwing her arms around her waist in a big hug. “You are so beautiful. Green is my favorite color! I missed you.”
Tears threatened again, clogging her throat so she could barely speak. “I’ve missed you, too, Carly.”
“You wanted to talk?” Ethan’s deep voice drew her gaze upward to where he stood behind his daughter.
“Hello, Ethan. It was nice of you to stand up with Granddad.”
“My pleasure.” He glanced toward the newlyweds. “He’s a great guy.”
Her eyes misted at the admiration in his tone. “I know.”
“Kate.” Ethan reached out to grasp her hand. “I’m sorry we weren’t home yesterday. Carly’s friend came down with the chicken pox, and I had to find the pediatrician records to confirm she’d had her booster before they let her go back to school. Then she ate something that made her sick—”
“I throwed up,” Carly added helpfully.
“It’s all right, I understand,” she interrupted. “Really.”
“You do?” His tone was wary as if he knew there was something he was missing.
“I don’t have the chicken pox,” Carly announced. “See?” She held out her arms. “No pox.”
Kate had to laugh. “I’m glad.” For the first time, she realized Ethan might not have changed his mind after all. She glanced at Granddad who caught her gaze and winked.
Suddenly, she knew just what to do. Capturing Carly’s hand, she knelt in front of the child. “Carly, I have a very important question to ask you.”
The girl tilted her head to the side. “What’s that?”
“I want to know if you’ll give me permission to ask your Dad to marry me.”
Carly’s eyes widened in surprise. “Isn’t he supposed to ask you?”
Kate’s knees were knocking from nervousness, but she shook her head. “Not necessarily.”
“Yes, he is.” Ethan raised his voice over hers, reaching out and drawing her to her feet. He tucked her close, his arm strong around her. “Kate, will you marry me? Be a family with us?” With his other hand, he brought Carly into their embrace.
“Yes. I will.” Kate wrapped her arms around both of them. “I love you, Ethan.”
“It’s about time,” he muttered before capturing her mouth in a deep kiss.
Carly squirmed away and ran toward Granddad and Miranda. “Great-Grandpa, guess what? My dad’s gonna marry Kate, and I don’t have the chicken pox, see?”
Ethan lifted his mouth from hers and grinned. “Are you sure you know what you’re in for?” His tone was full of doubt. “Things have moved pretty fast. Maybe we should slow it down, give you some time to adjust.”
“I don’t need to slow down.” Kate didn’t have a single doubt. Not anymore. Not about him. She leaned on Ethan and knew she was home at last. “I’m through with running. I love you, and I love Carly.” Her voice dropped to a mere whisper. “My new family.”
DEAR READER
I hope you’re enjoying my Lifeline Air Rescue Series built off my personal ride along in our very own Flight For Life. The theme of this story is laughter, and I am a firm believer, like Kate, in the power of positive thinking and in laughter being the best medicine.
Reviews are critically important to authors, so if you enjoyed this book, please consider putting up a review on the platform where you purchased it from. I would appreciate it very much!
I love hearing from my readers and can be contacted via my website at www.laurascottbooks.com, through Facebook at Laura Scott Author, and on Twitter @laurascottbooks. Also, if you haven’t signed up for my newsletter, please do. I offer a free Crystal Lake novella for all newsletter subscribers.
If you are curious about the next book in my Lifeline Air Rescue Series, the first chapter of A Doctor’s Trust is included for your reading pleasure.
Until next time,
Laura Scott
A DOCTOR’S TRUST
Her seventeen-year-old sister was late. Again.
Jenna Reed opened one eye and looked at the illuminated tiles of her clock. Yup, almost midnight. Rae’s curfew was 2330. Where in the world was she?
Exhaling a long breath, Jenna flopped onto her back and untwisted her ratty T-shirt from the sheet. Outside, ribald shouts coalesced with the heavy beat of rap music. Not that the noise was unusual for a Thursday night—this area, dubbed Barclay Park, located in the heart of Milwaukee, was rarely quiet. Her house was packed like a sardine beside her neighbors’, and the walls were paper thin. She used to sleep like a rock.
Unless her sister happened to be out with Nelson, her numskull boyfriend. Then sleep was next to impossible. Rae didn’t care if Jenna had to be up at 0600 to make it to work at Lifeline Air Rescue by seven.
Or maybe her sly sister was actually banking on that fact, hoping to sneak in without waking her.
Ha! Fat chance.
Squealing tires and a thunderous crash jolted her from bed.
“Help! Someone help!”
Jenna rushed outside, sparing no more than two seconds to jam her feet into the flip-flop sandals lying beside the door. Her eyes widened when she saw what all the fuss was about. A car had smashed headfirst into the light pole not far from the abandoned lot across the street. Instantly, her paramedic training kicked in.
She hurried to the crash site, pushing her way through the small crowd. “How many people are inside?” Jenna peered through the windows. “Two?”
“Three. Two adults in front and baby in the backseat,” one teen pointed out.
“Anyone hurt?” She tried to open the driver’s door, but it was seriously dented and wouldn’t budge. Through the window, she could see the driver was slumped over, his face covered in blood. The airbag had deployed, but his face had still been cut from the force of the blow.
“Call nine-one-one, tell them we have two adults and one infant involved in a single-car crash, and the driver is seriously injured,” she directed.
A familiar pierced, purple-haired teenager, about the same age as her sister, used her cell phone for something more useful than text messaging. She didn’t pay attention to the nine-one-one call, working instead on finding a way into the car. All the doors were
locked, so she made her way around to the passenger side where the back window happened to be opened a few inches.
“They’re sending the Lifeline helicopter,” the breathless purple-haired teen informed her.
“They are?” Jenna lifted a brow in surprise. Normally, they didn’t send the chopper into the city unless the crew just happened to be close by. Especially since there weren’t always available spots to land.
“How are we gonna get them out?” The teen—what was her name? Luanne?—peered anxiously inside the car.
“Very carefully.” Jenna stepped around the broken glass from the windshield shattered by the airbag deployment. Sneaking her arm through the tiny opening, she reached down. It wasn’t easy, but she managed to hit the unlock button with the tip of her finger.
“There.” With the back doors unlocked, they could at least get to the wailing infant. Thank heavens the kid was protected in a car seat.
There wasn’t time for Jenna to run back inside the house for her stethoscope. She could tell the difference between seriously injured and stable without the aid of medical equipment. In examining the baby, there wasn’t a speck of blood to be seen. He looked fine, with a healthy set of lungs.
“Here, keep an eye on him for me.” She handed the crying infant to Luanne, who was standing with a group of other kids Jenna recognized from MCCT, the Milwaukee Community Center for Teens program. Apparently, Rae wasn’t the only one out late.
Back inside the car, she crawled up between the seats. The woman in the passenger seat groaned, moving restlessly. Jenna zeroed in on the still, silent driver. She pressed two fingers along his neck, searching for a carotid pulse.
For a moment she feared the worst and then felt a slight, thready beat. Relief washed over her. He was still alive, although the distinctive scent of alcohol made her wrinkle her nose. “Hey, mister, can you hear me?”
No response. She stared at the driver’s chest. He was breathing, but the motion was shallow. He’d need medical attention pretty quick. She glanced around the interior of the car. How could she get him out without causing potentially more damage?
She turned her attention to the passenger. ”Ma’am? Can you hear me?”
“Yes.” The voice was faint, and Jenna figured she was only slightly better off than the driver. The airbags had deployed, which was probably the only reason they were still alive.
“What hurts?”
“Everything, but mostly my chest.” The woman grimaced, then asked, “Where’s Matthew? My baby?”
“Matthew is fine. Not hurt a bit. Now don’t move. Help will be here soon,” Jenna reassured her. She took note that neither the driver nor the passenger had been wearing seat belts, despite the seat belt law in Wisconsin.
The whirling beat of the Lifeline chopper overhead, along with the distinctive wail of sirens, echoed through the night. She didn’t dare move the driver without further assistance, so she backed out of the car and pried open the passenger door to gain better access to the woman. The helicopter landed in the vacant lot. Two people dressed in flight suits pulled a gurney from the back of the chopper and headed across the litter-strewn blacktop to meet them.
She recognized the taller of the two and inwardly groaned. Of all the crew members on staff, why did Zane Taylor have to be the flight doctor on duty tonight?
“Jenna?” His eyes widened with recognition, and she was surprised he remembered her name. He stared for a long moment at her bare legs, and she resisted the urge to tug at the hem of her T-shirt. She was wearing shorts but still felt completely underdressed. “You live around here?” His tone was laced with incredulous concern.
Hoping the darkness hid her scarlet cheeks, she chose to ignore his question. “We have a young woman with a blunt chest trauma, complaining of chest pain.” Concentrating on work helped to cover up her mortification. “The driver is also suffering blunt trauma, including an apparent head injury. The airbags did deploy, but neither were wearing their seat belts. The driver is in bad shape, has alcohol on board, and is not responding to verbal commands. He did have a pulse, but the rate is fast and his breathing shallow.”
“Let’s take a look.” Zane oozed confidence she envied.
Overly conscious of how she must look in her threadbare sleep shirt, without a bra or shoes, Jenna would’ve given her entire life savings, earmarked for Rae’s college, to slither away through the gathering crowd.
Kate, the flight nurse on duty, knelt beside the passenger, examining her. Zane went straight for the driver.
“Jenna, give me hand with this guy.” Zane gestured for her to come over to the other side of the car.
Her chance to escape vanished.
Between them, she and Zane helped to get the driver out of his seat, protecting his spine as much as possible in case there were fractures they weren’t aware of. Once they’d gotten him supine, they could begin taking care of him.
“Let’s put a C-collar on him, then get him on the gurney so we can get him transported to the chopper.”
Jenna pulled equipment out of the flight bag as he spoke, anticipating what they’d need. Her long straight unbound dark hair was a nuisance, and she shoved it aside with the back of her forearm to keep the strands out of her way. Once they had the driver safely transferred onto the gurney, Zane continued to dictate orders.
“I need to place an IV. Set up a normal saline infusion.”
Jenna had only worked for Lifeline for the past few months and could count on one hand the number of times she’d been paired to fly with Zane, and that had been mostly during her training when a third person had been around as a diversion. For whatever reason, their schedules always differed—either they were on different shifts or he was working on her off days and vice versa. The simple bit of fate had suited her just fine.
Until tonight’s curveball.
Zane threaded the catheter into the driver’s vein, then she took over, connecting the tubing and regulating his fluids. She already had him hooked up to the heart monitor, the beat was fast but sinus rhythm, a good sign. From there, it didn’t take long to have him ready to go.
Strange, but working with Zane was easier than she’d anticipated, as if they’d been partners for years.
“Two liters of fluid have been infused, Dr. Taylor.”
“Thanks.” Zane flashed a quick, lethal smile. Her stomach clenched, and she fought the wave of awareness, knowing full well he smiled like that at everyone. It didn’t mean a thing. Zane Taylor was so far out of her stratosphere she wasn’t even on the same planet. He was as unreachable as Pluto while she was stuck on mere planet Earth.
Jenna took a hasty step back and winced at the sharp biting pain in her foot. Glancing down, she noticed her left foot was covered in blood. Whether it was hers or the drivers, she wasn’t quite sure.
“What happened?” Zane must’ve noticed the direction of her gaze because he stared at her foot with concern while still clutching the edge of the gurney. “Sit down. We need to get one of the paramedics from the ambulance crew to take a look.”
She forced a smile. “I am a paramedic, remember? Go on, take care of the trauma patient. I’m fine.”
“Let them take a look.” He sent her a no-nonsense glare, then pushed the gurney toward the chopper. Kate had the female passenger on an ambulance gurney and gestured for the paramedics to take care of the infant and the mother. Within moments, Kate had joined Zane and they had stowed the driver in the back of the chopper, then went airborne. Soon the other paramedics prepared to leave as well.
She didn’t bother asking one of them to look at her foot, they had better things to do. More important medical needs to address. She’d take care of it herself.
“Jenna?”
She turned and found Rae standing there, dressed in a tight miniskirt and a midriff-baring tank top. She hoped her sister and her goofy boyfriend weren’t having unprotected sex. An unexpected pregnancy was the last thing she wanted to think about. Sex, drugs, and rap music were th
e norm in Barclay Park. Raising a teenager in this environment was far from easy.
“What happened here?” Rae gazed at the crash scene with morbid fascination.
“You’re late,” Jenna snapped. “Where have you been?”
Rae shrugged one bare shoulder. “Chill. We lost track of time. It’s no big deal. Soon I have to start cramming for finals. Get off my back, Sis.” The sharp emphasis of the last word rankled. It was an old argument: Jenna was Rae’s sister, not her mother.
But their mother was gone, and Jenna was all Rae had.
She stepped close and wrapped her arms around Rae in a big hug, a nice way of getting into her sister’s face. No strong scent of alcohol or pot, thank heavens. That didn’t rule out other drugs, but she preferred not to think the worst. Just two weeks until Rae graduated from high school, then another few months until she started college. Jenna’s goal wouldn’t be complete until Rae graduated from college, but finishing high school was proving to be the first hurdle.
Rae didn’t tolerate the embrace for more than a split second. She broke away and rolled her eyes, then spun on her heel and stalked inside the house as if she always came home well after midnight on a school night.
Jenna sighed and followed more slowly, wincing with every painful step. Her own high school years were a blur. She couldn’t remember going out to have fun, and sometimes it was hard not to resent Rae for her easy dismissal of the rules. Still, Jenna was grateful there was only one person dependent on her now.
With any luck, she’d pull herself out of debt soon.
As she doused her injured foot in the bathtub, looking for signs of embedded glass, Jenna tried not to remember Zane’s reaction at finding her at the crash scene or the incredulous tone in his voice when he asked if she lived there.
She closed her eyes and leaned her overheated forehead against the cool tile. Good thing they didn’t fly together often because she didn’t think she could ever look him in the eye again. Now that he knew the truth, she planned to continue to avoid Zane Taylor in every way possible.
