Trauma Alert

by Radclyffe

  “It’s so hard when there’s nothing you can do to fix it.”

  “I know.”

  “Thanks for telling me.”

  “You’re welcome.” Ali closed her eyes, grateful Wynter hadn’t asked her why she was thinking about Sammy so much now. She didn’t want to answer. She didn’t want to think about, let alone talk about, how Beau had somehow gotten her to unlock the door where she’d kept the memories of Sammy hidden away. She especially did not want to think about how much Beau reminded her of Sammy, and how devastating losing her had been.

  Chapter Nine

  Beau jerked upright as someone walked into the cubicle. Blinking in the sudden wash of fluorescent overhead lights, for a few disorienting seconds she thought she was back in the glassed-in room covered in stiff, sterile sheets, surrounded by strangers in masks.

  “Sorry,” the pregnant woman she’d seen with Ali the other night whispered. “I didn’t realize you were in here.”

  “That’s okay,” Beau said, her voice gravelly and her pulse racing a million miles an hour. She attributed the sick feeling in her stomach to her night of interrupted sleep and the aftereffects of hospital meat loaf. Rising, she rubbed her face and looked at Bobby. Her heart leapt. His eyes were open. She reached over the metal railing, searching for his hand among the tubes and lines on his bed. She knew how terrifying it was to be tied down, locked inside a body you couldn’t control. “Hi, partner.”

  Bobby’s eyes shifted to the woman next to Beau.

  “I’m Dr. Thompson,” the pregnant woman said. “You’re in the trauma intensive care unit. I’m going to draw some blood for a blood gas, and if the results are as good as I think they’re going to be, I’ll take that tube out of your throat.”

  Bobby’s eyes closed for a second, then he nodded. Beau felt Bobby’s fingers grip hers. He had to be scared.

  “Damn,” she said. “It was so peaceful and quiet for a while too. Now I’ll have to listen to him whine.”

  Bobby released her hand and weakly lifted his middle finger.

  “Yeah. I love you too,” Beau said mockingly, but her voice broke and she quickly looked away.

  Wynter finished drawing the blood sample. “I’ll be back in just a few minutes.”

  Beau slipped her arm through the rails to hold Bobby’s hand again. “So it’s no big deal, getting the tube out. It stings like a bitch for about a minute, but nothing close to catching cinders on the back of your neck or getting a hand jammed in the winch. Of course, if you want to cry like a baby, you go right ahead. For a hundred bucks, I won’t tell anyone.”

  At the sound of quiet laughter, Beau turned her head and her stomach took another nosedive, but for really different reasons. Ali stood with her arms folded across her chest, a half-amused, half-chiding expression on her face. She was pale and smudges of fatigue bruised the hollows beneath her dark eyes, but she still looked great. Just seeing her got Beau stoked like no other woman ever had.

  “Blackmailing my patients?” Ali asked, one eyebrow cocked.

  “Just negotiating terms,” Beau said.

  Ali’s gaze traveled to Beau’s fingers entwined with Bobby’s and her expression softened. She moved to the bed and lightly clasped his shoulder. “Good morning. You remember me? I’m Dr. Torveau.”

  Bobby nodded.

  “You’re doing fine. We’ll have you out of here in a day or so.”

  Bobby lifted the hand joined with Beau’s.

  Ali smiled. “Oh, and your parents are on their way.”

  Bobby’s eyes widened and he tried to raise his head, his frantic gaze shooting to Beau. Several monitors shrilled as his blood pressure jumped and the ventilator tubes strained.

  “Whoa, easy.” Ali pressed on his shoulder, holding him still.

  “Don’t worry,” Beau said quickly. “I’ll talk to them.”

  “Problem?” Ali asked.

  “Not really,” Beau said. “Families tend to get overexcited about minor stuff, and it’s better if one of us kind of interprets for them. If you don’t mind.”

  “You’re welcome to explain how the injury came about and any of the technical issues you think they should know about that. The medicine is my territory.” A muscle jumped in Ali’s jaw and she fought a surge of irritation. These two were just like so many of the cops she treated—holding the line against anyone who wasn’t on the inside, downplaying the danger, living on luck and bravado. “I promise not to scare them when I discuss the injuries. Minor or otherwise.”

  “Sure, thanks.” From the way Ali’s expression had shuttered closed, Beau figured she’d just racked up more negative points on Ali’s scorecard, although how there could possibly be room for more she didn’t know.

  Wynter Thompson reentered the cubicle and handed Ali a printout. Ali scanned it, set it aside, and rested her elbows on the top of the bed railing. She was so close her shoulder touched Beau’s, and Beau caught the scent that had lingered in her mind all night long. Ali had left her lab coat somewhere, and her arms were bare below the short sleeves of her scrub shirt. Her forearms were tight and lean, like the rest of her, and her long, tapering fingers looked strong and steady. The muscles in Beau’s stomach tightened when she thought of the way those fingers had brushed low on her belly. As if reading her thoughts, which Beau prayed she couldn’t, Ali looked up into her eyes.

  “We’re going to extubate him,” Ali said. “You want to stay?”

  “Sure,” Beau said. “I’ve got money riding on this.”

  Ali knew Beau’s bravado was covering fear, and she squeezed her arm at the same time as she said to Bobby, “There’s nothing to this. There’ll be a very brief interval when it will feel like you can’t breathe, because we will be pushing air down the tube as we take it out to clear your airway. You ready?”

  He blinked and nodded.

  “Go ahead,” Ali said to Wynter.

  Wynter carefully worked her way between the stands holding various monitoring devices into the cramped space at the head of the bed. After pulling on gloves, she efficiently removed the tape around the tube in Bobby’s mouth, disconnected the lines from the ventilator, and attached an inflatable Ambu bag, which she squeezed rhythmically to deliver air into his lungs. After thirty seconds, she slid a thin suction catheter into Bobby’s mouth and removed any secretions.

  “Okay,” Wynter said, grasping the tube. “Here we go.”

  Beau gripped Bobby’s hand tighter, noting Ali looked calm and relaxed. She’d be a good person to have at your back going into a tough call.

  Wynter smoothly and rapidly extracted the tube and immediately Bobby jerked and coughed, his face turning deep red. Ali handed Wynter a plastic oxygen mask, which Wynter placed over Bobby’s mouth.

  All the monitors that had been beeping crazily for the last minute quieted. The silence, broken only by Bobby’s raspy breathing, fell heavily around Beau. She wasn’t by Bobby’s bedside any longer, she was back in that surreal world of pain and disorientation and soul-chilling fear that never seemed very far away. A tide of memory pulled at her, and she gripped the bed rail with both hands to steady herself.

  “Nice job, Dr. Thompson,” Ali said. “I’ll leave the paperwork to you.”

  Wynter laughed. “Not a problem.”

  Ali placed her hand low in the center of Beau’s back and murmured, “Let’s take a walk.”

  Beau barely managed not to stumble, her legs wooden, as she walked beside Ali out of the unit into the corridor. Hospital personnel hurried through the halls, some pushing gurneys and equipment, everyone looking like they were late. The stark tan walls, gray tile floors, and flat white light made everyone look pasty, as if they never saw the sun. Ali’s palm warmed her back even as icy sweat trickled down her neck.

  “Do you want to sit down?” Ali asked.

  “No.” Beau leaned against the wall. “I’m okay.”

  “Did you get any sleep last night?”

  “More than you.”

  “You’re very go
od at evasion.” Ali cupped Beau’s chin and studied her face. “Want to talk about it?”

  “No,” Beau said, her voice hoarse.

  “Fair enough. Then I suggest you have breakfast and go home.”

  Ali moved her fingers and Beau wanted to grab them and bring them back to her face. The touch centered her, grounded her in a way she hadn’t needed in years. She drew an unsteady breath and forced herself back to the present.

  “Is Bobby going to be okay?”

  “I think so, yes.” Ali smiled ruefully. “Considering the minor injuries.”

  Beau straightened, the challenge in Ali’s voice dispelling the last disquieting images. “It doesn’t help anyone to scare people unnecessarily.”

  “No, and downplaying the danger makes it easier for you to keep risking your life for the hell of it. All the thrills you want and no one to be accountable to.”

  “Is that how you see it?” Beau couldn’t believe Ali was dismissing her job with the same casual disregard as she’d dismissed her the first night they’d met. “Jesus. We’re not playing games out there.”

  “Are you sure?” Ali said. “I know how important the job is. I respect you and every other firefighter for doing it. But tell me you don’t love the high.”

  “Oh come on, who are you to judge me for that? Sure, I love putting it all out there, going up against the big one and winning.” Beau had come too close to losing it all not to revel in the win. “But Jesus, don’t be a hypocrite. Tell me you didn’t love it last night when you were right out there on the edge with Bobby, just you in a fight to the death. I saw it in your face. You were riding the high too.”

  “The difference,” Ali said, not even sure why it mattered so much, “is that if I fail, I don’t die.”

  “No?” Beau stepped close, her face an inch from Ali’s. “Try pretending some part of you doesn’t die every time you lose one.”

  Ali gasped. Death and loss, the twin specters in her life she tried so hard to ignore. She saw Sammy. Beautiful, vibrant, wonderful Sammy lying on a slab in the morgue, a sheet drawn up to cover her young breasts, a bullet hole in her throat, another in her chest, her eyes vacant and empty. A huge part of Ali had died as she’d stood looking at the one person she’d loved completely. If Sammy had been her own child, she couldn’t have loved her more. And every time she failed to save someone else’s child, someone else’s lover, someone else’s life, another piece of her disappeared. She knew it, but she accepted the risk. No one she loved suffered from her failures. Not anymore.

  Beau recognized the second Ali’s pain eclipsed her anger. Her eyes, as hard and hot as black granite a moment before, flickered and the fire in them died. Beau would take the fire and the anger over the pain any day, and she knew she’d pushed too hard. She’d pushed because Ali shut her out, as she had every right to do. Was probably smart to do. Because Ali was right. She loved her job for a lot of reasons, but one huge reason was she loved the rush. She loved putting it all on the line to prove she was alive and that being alive mattered.

  “I’m sorry,” Beau said. “That was way out of line.”

  “No,” Ali said quietly, stepping back. “I owe you the apology. I don’t know you. I respect what you do tremendously, and I hope you’re always safe doing it.”

  When Ali turned to walk away, Beau grasped her shoulder. “Wait.”

  Ali hesitated. She’d left the unit wanting to comfort Beau. Beau hadn’t just been frightened for her partner, she’d been shaken, upset in a way Ali had never seen her before, even when she’d been on the verge of collapse. The tough, cocky firefighter was gone, and in her place was a vulnerable woman with her own secret torments. Now Ali’s sympathy had segued into ire at Beau’s selfish, egotistical disregard for her own well-being. Too busy chasing the next adrenaline high, risk-takers like Beau never stopped to consider the devastation they left behind. Couldn’t she see, didn’t she care, that she’d destroy someone else’s life, break someone’s heart, if she casually threw her own away?

  “You and I see the world differently,” Ali said without looking back. “Let’s just accept that and move on.”

  “You’re right,” Beau said. “That’s exactly what we should do.”

  “Good,” Ali said, annoyed at her own disappointment. “Now you’re making sense.”

  “But I don’t want to.” Beau stepped close behind Ali, lowering her voice so that those passing by wouldn’t hear. She whispered into Ali’s ear. “You stir me up. One minute I want to kiss you, the next I want to strangle you.”

  Ali laughed, hoping the instant and totally unwanted flood of pleasure didn’t show in her face. “That’s where we differ. I just want to strangle you.”

  Beau grinned. She’d seen the faint flush climb the ivory column of Ali’s neck. She couldn’t remember what she’d been pissed off about a minute before. She couldn’t recall why she’d thought letting Ali walk away was a good idea. Her body, her instincts, her every impulse said otherwise. “I owe you dinner. You promised.”

  “I did not,” Ali said, starting to walk.

  “You did,” Beau said, catching up to her. “Last night over meat loaf you agreed that I could take you out for a decent meal to pay you back.”

  Ali stopped and stared at her incredulously. “That is entirely not true. You completely fabricated that.”

  “Wish fulfillment, then. Say yes. Just dinner.”

  Ali wanted to say yes. Insanely, irrationally, ridiculously, she wanted to say yes.

  “Absolutely not. No.”

  “You don’t mean that. You said you didn’t know me. Now’s your chance.”

  Ali smothered a smile that threatened to emerge against her will. “Does that kind of thing usually work?”

  “What?”

  “The persistence. The way you have of making it seem as if it really matters.”

  Beau caught her breath. What the hell was she doing playing with this woman? She opened her mouth to toss out another smart line, and what came out stunned her. “It matters.”

  Ali had to look away from the sincerity in Beau’s eyes. Flippancy, ego, cockiness she could discount. The undisguised honesty she couldn’t. “I’ve got rounds, and Bobby’s parents will be here soon. Are you going to stay?”

  “Yes. The captain switched my schedule so I’m off the next few days. Bobby’s sister is in Afghanistan, and his parents are elderly. I want to be here while he’s in the hospital to help them out.”

  “That’s nice of you.”

  “He’s my partner.” Beau hurriedly fell into step as Ali headed purposefully for the unit. “If you have dinner with me, I promise no sex. In fact, no sex for six dates.”

  Ali laughed. “You’re unbelievable. What in the world makes you think I want to have sex with you?”

  A nurse striding by stutter-stopped, did a double take, and then with a shake of her head, walked away chuckling. Ali glowered and punched in the code to open the ICU doors.

  “Look, I’m just setting the ground rules so you’ll be comfortable,” Beau said. “No risk. What have you got to lose?”

  “My sanity, for one thing.”

  “When is your next night off?”

  “Tonight, and no.”

  “I’ll probably be here with Bobby, anyhow.”

  Ali frowned, preventing the door from swinging closed again with her hip. “You need some rest. It won’t help him if you wear yourself out.”

  “I’m used to working twenty-four hours on, twenty-four hours off for four days in a row. I don’t need much sleep.”

  “This is a different kind of stress. Trust me on this one.”

  “Tomorrow?”

  “Go home. I mean it.”

  “You didn’t say no,” Beau called after her.

  Ali escaped into the ICU, wondering why she couldn’t say no to Beau Cross and mean it.

  Chapter Ten

  After Ali finished rounds in the trauma unit, she met with Bobby’s parents in a small room next to the visito
rs’ lounge down the hall. The trim, white-haired couple both looked exhausted.

  “Did you just fly in from somewhere?” Ali asked after they were all seated around a small unadorned conference table in an otherwise barren room.

  “Fort Lauderdale,” Bobby’s father replied. “We retired there a number of years ago. How’s our son?”

  Ali explained why Bobby had been admitted and reported his current status. “He should be moved to the step-down unit later this afternoon. That’s an intermediate intensive care unit where he can still be monitored, but he’ll have a regular room and you’ll be able to spend more time with him. I suggest you both say hello to him now and then check in to your hotel and rest until tonight. He’s going to be sleeping most of the day anyhow.”

  “He loves his job, you know,” Bobby’s mother said, “but we worry. It’s so dangerous.”

  “They’re all very well trained for what they do,” Ali said, thinking of Beau. Had Beau not been sidelined earlier in the day, she would have been with Bobby, and Ali had no doubt Beau would have been in the forefront of the operation. Beau would have been the one rolled into the trauma bay instead of Bobby. Just imagining it made Ali’s gut clench and reinforced her intention to stay far far away from Beau. For some reason, she couldn’t seem to resist her face-to-face.

  “Both our children are braver than us,” Bobby’s father said, his voice choked.

  “I doubt that. That kind of integrity is learned at home.” Ali stood up. “I’ll take you to the unit, and the nurses will let you know when you can see him. In the meantime, his partner is here, and I know she’d like to speak with you.”

  “Oh good,” Bobby’s mother said. “Bobby mentions her so often. Sometimes I think he might be a little sweet on her.”

  Ali smiled, wondering if Bobby knew of Beau’s sexual orientation, guessing that even if he did, Beau’s charisma would be hard to ignore up close every day. “If you’ll come with me.”

  Ali saw her as soon as she stepped out into the hall. The immediate ripple of anticipation that whispered down her spine sent off huge warning klaxons, but she indulged in the pleasure of looking at her unawares just the same. Beau leaned against the wall outside the intensive care unit, talking to an African American man in a white shirt and dark trousers. He had a gold badge pinned on his left chest and looked imposing and professional. Beau, on the other hand, was in the same rumpled uniform shirt and pants she’d worn the day before. Her hair was tousled, making her look young and vulnerable. She’d rolled up her shirtsleeves and unbuttoned the top few buttons of her shirt, probably while trying to sleep in the chair next to Bobby’s bed, baring a patch of pale skin between her breasts. These glimpses of Beau’s unwitting softness in contrast to her hard, muscular body were disturbingly attractive. Ali wanted to look away but before she could, Beau looked up and saw her staring.