Lost & Found Love

by Laura Browning

  He saw Catherine Richardson first, standing slightly to one side. Her clothing was spattered with blood, and Joe’s alarm grew. Was the senator involved in this in some way? He searched and found his gray-haired head next. Stoner was huddled side by side with the paramedics who already worked frantically over their patient. Even from this distance, he could tell from the body language the situation was not good. He heard fear in one paramedic’s voice, urgency in the other.

  “Keep hold of that artery, Senator. I’ll clamp it off just above your fingers. What’s her BP, Tony?”

  Joseph saw Catherine hurry toward him. He slowed down to smile reassuringly and would have moved on, but she reached out and grabbed his arm. He noticed again the blood staining the knees of her slacks and the front of her shirt.

  “Pastor. Wait!” The urgency in her voice surprised him. She was always cool and unruffled.

  He stopped and touched her arm. “Are you hurt, Mrs. Richardson?” He glanced toward the accident scene. “What’s happened?”

  Her mouth opened and shut before she whispered, “Joseph, it’s Tabby.”

  The shock of her words was as great as if someone had grabbed him by the throat. In fact, he wanted to shake his head and ask her to repeat it, but he’d heard her. His head swiveled in slow motion. Now he saw things he hadn’t noticed before, or maybe hadn’t wanted to notice. Tabby’s bike helmet was discarded right behind the paramedic who was busy hooking up an IV. The twisted frame of her bicycle sprawled in the middle of the road. There was so much blood…too much blood.

  He shook off Catherine’s arm and started walking. Tabby. Walking turned to running. He swallowed thickly, squelching the panic that threatened. Tabby. He reached her side and saw exactly what Stoner clenched between his fingers.

  “Tabby!” He gasped past the pain and tightness in his chest, fighting the knowledge that the woman he loved might already be beyond any help he could provide.

  The older paramedic looked up in relief. “Pastor! We can use an extra hand here in a minute when we get ready to move her.”

  “We could use him right now,” Stoner gritted and glanced over his broad shoulder. “Talk to her, son. Let her know you’re here.”

  Joseph didn’t even question how the senator seemed to know so much about him. He found a spot near her head, and while he watched with a practiced eye what the paramedics were doing, Joseph talked to her.

  “It’s Joseph, Tabby. I’m here, darling. I came back early so we could talk like I promised. You have to hang on for me, so we can have that talk. There are so many things I need to tell you, things I should have talked to you about before.”

  Tony looked at him. “It’s true? You’re seeing her?”

  Joe never took his eyes off Tabby’s still face. “I want to marry her as soon as I can convince her.”

  Stoner lifted his eyes to Joseph, who saw in the older man the same calm determination he felt. “If we can stop her bleeding to death, Joseph, I don’t think convincing her will be much of a hurdle.”

  Joseph nodded. He touched Tabby’s head and closed his eyes as he prayed. He opened his mind not only to God, but also to the woman he loved in the hope she could feel the strength he wanted to give. He would gladly take her pain as his own. He would do anything. “Feel me, Tabby,” he whispered near her ear so softly no one else could hear him. “Feel what I feel. Take my strength.”

  Her lids fluttered open. “Joseph.”

  Their eyes met. Understanding lay in hers. Joe also saw how weak she was, and his heart missed a beat. “Don’t move, darling,” he told her. She blinked.

  “Hurts.” Her voice was weak and slurred.

  “I know, but you’re going to hang on. You’re strong. You can do this. You’re a survivor.”

  More sirens punctuated the noise around them followed by the sound of feet pounding the pavement. Sheriff Sam Barnes rounded the truck from the other direction with a trooper right behind him. As soon as the trooper saw the situation was under control, he set up flares and pulled the truck driver to one side to question him.

  Sam studied Tabby, his mouth in a grim line as his gaze darted to the truck driver and back. “Damn,” the sheriff whispered.

  Joseph returned his gaze steadily. “I couldn’t have said it better myself.”

  The older paramedic looked around. “Sorry y’all, but this is gonna have to wait.” He looked at Stoner. “You ready, Senator?” At Stoner’s nod, the paramedic continued. “Okay. I want to test this before you completely turn loose. Now, ease up on the pressure you’ve applied so I can see if these clamps hold.”

  Joe held his breath, knowing that this was critical. If they couldn’t stop the loss of blood, Tabby had no chance of making it to the hospital because maintaining a manual hold on the artery while traveling would be impossible. “All right. Good, good. Now a little more. All right. Take your hand out.”

  God, if ever there was a time for some intervention, Joe prayed, now was it. He sucked in a deep breath, only now conscious that he’d been holding it. The older paramedic glanced at his partner. “Get the stretcher. You help him, Preacher.”

  “Let him stay,” Stoner spoke, before the protest had even formed on Joe’s lips. “She needs him right now. Just keep a hold of her, Preacher.”

  As if he could or would do anything else. The paramedic nodded. “Sam… You radio ER, tell them we’ve got the patient stabilized. She may need to be airlifted later, but they will have to do at least temporary repairs to this leg before she can be flown out. Have them call Doc.”

  Sam’s eyes widened. “She just had the baby three weeks ago.”

  The paramedic stared at him. “She’ll have to do it. Razawi is exhausted. Besides, Sheriff, where’ve you been? This is her sister. It’s an emergency, so she sure isn’t going to sit around and wait for another doctor to be called in from out of the county. Anyway, ain’t no law says she can’t treat her.” The paramedic shook his head. “And to top everything else off, this girl’s wearing a medical ID for a rare blood type.” As soon as Sam left, the older paramedic looked at Stoner. “Get that trooper. I want everyone here to help move her so we can make sure these clamps stay put. The more people we have help, the less we’ll jostle her.”

  Stoner nodded. “Bill? What is her blood type?”

  Joe wanted to tell them to stop talking and get moving.

  “O negative, so she can only receive O negative, and this girl needs a transfusion bad.”

  “Son,” he interrupted, “I’m O negative.”

  The paramedic looked at him and slowly smiled. “Then get ready, sir. This time when you ride with the sheriff, you’re going to the ER to get stuck like a pig.”

  Joe was getting antsy. They needed to get Tabby out of here and to the hospital.

  Bill, the lead paramedic, looked around at all the faces crouched around Tabby. “Okay. On three. One, two, three, lift. Easy. That’s it, Mrs. Richardson, slide the stretcher underneath her. Steady. Okay. Lower her. Let’s load her and get her out of here.” He looked at the sheriff. “I need the senator to come with us. Can you bring him?”

  Joe watched Sam’s gaze dart between the two men, but Sam didn’t question them. Joe guessed he and Sam were in the same boat. They’d seen enough injuries where Tabby’s was to know exactly which artery the paramedics had clamped. “Get in, Senator. This time you can ride in the front.”

  “Careful, Sam,” Stoner growled. “You only have me on a leash for two years.”

  Sam glared at him. “Yeah, but I can make your leash a whole lot shorter.”

  “Stoner! Sam!” Catherine interrupted them. “This is not the time. You need to follow that ambulance.”

  Stoner looked at Catherine, and all Joe saw there was love and admiration. “Sorry, Katie.”

  “I’m going to follow you, Sheriff,” Joseph stated quietly. “Mrs. Richardson. You’re welcome to ride with me, though I’m afraid it will be with the top down.”

>   She smiled graciously. “Hair, I can brush. Let’s go.”

  * * * *

  Evan wanted to share what he’d discovered with Tabby, so he stopped by her house. While neither one of Melodie’s parents had a criminal record, he’d discovered a couple of interesting facts about the little girl’s mother. She had lost a baby near full term just a year earlier. Shortly after that, she had been hospitalized for an attempted suicide and treated for postpartum depression. Past experience told him Melissa Matthews had real potential to be a time bomb waiting to explode. There were several notorious cases where young mothers, depressed in the wake of even a normal birth, had gone over the edge… And that could be dangerous for any children in their care, like Melodie.

  When he parked the Tahoe, he noticed the church secretary outside Joe’s door. When she saw him, she turned to hurry back over to the church. Evan knocked on Tabby’s door but got no response. Her car was there, but he didn’t see any sign of her bike. She must have gone for a ride to clear her head. Well, that was healthy. Running always helped him.

  As he started back down the steps, he noticed the cloth-covered frame near Joe’s back door. Must be what the church secretary brought, but damn it sure looked like a picture. Curiosity getting the better of him, he crossed the driveways, took the two steps in one stride, and lifted the cloth over the painting.

  “Damnation,” he muttered in amazement. Tabby must have painted it, and she’d caught the very essence of the man. He wondered idly if it was because she was in love with him, or if all her work was this dynamic. If so, what the hell was she doing teaching? Shaking his head, Evan replaced the cloth cover and sprinted back out to the car. He wanted to talk to Jenny and get her thoughts on launching his own investigation on Melodie Matthews.

  His cell phone rang as he turned down Maple toward his big Victorian home. The caller ID read home. “Hi, honey.”

  “Oh, Evan! Thank God I reached you. Where are you?”

  “About a hundred yards from the house. What’s wrong?” Alarm coursed through him at the tone of her voice. “Are you okay? Is Peter all right?”

  “He’s fine. I’m walking out the door with him now. Pick us up. I’ll explain as we go.” And she hung up. Go? Go where?

  Evan wheeled into the drive and jammed the car into park. Jenny was already waiting on him.

  “Where are we going?”

  “The hospital,” she replied, handing him the baby’s carrier. “I have to prep for surgery.”

  While Evan finished fastening Peter’s infant carrier, Jenny climbed into the passenger seat and buckled her belt. As soon as Evan was back behind the wheel, he noted Jenny’s pale, set face and asked quietly, “Why you?”

  “Razawi’s been up all night. They’re bringing in an accident victim right now. Torn femoral artery, other leg trauma, and a possible dislocated shoulder.” She paused and looked at Evan. “It’s Tabby, Ev.”

  “You can’t operate on your own sister. Damn it, Jenny!”

  She stared straight ahead, her chin jutting stubbornly. “I have to. Razawi’s only good to assist right now. Evan, if I don’t get that artery fixed, at best she’ll lose her leg, and at worst…”

  “She’ll die.”

  “Yes.”

  Evan pulled up to the emergency entrance, and Jenny hopped out. Razawi was already at the door. They fired medical terms back and forth that Evan didn’t even try to comprehend. Only two phrases caught his attention. Medical Alert tag and rare blood type. God! That was all they needed.

  After parking the Tahoe, he grabbed Peter and headed back to the emergency room just as the ambulance turned into the entrance, cut its sirens, and came to a halt. The sheriff’s car was right behind it closely followed by Joe Taylor’s Mustang…with his mother inside? He sprinted down the sidewalk, only to stop abruptly. His eyes widened as he watched his father get out of the sheriff’s car, but this was a man he’d never seen before. His hair was disheveled, his face was pale and tense, and his clothes were covered in blood.

  Fury welled up in Evan. He thrust the infant carrier with the sleeping Peter into his surprised mother’s arms, dropped the diaper bag, and went toe-to-toe with his father. Evan grabbed his dad’s shirt at the throat, mindless of the blood that now stained his dress shirt and tie.

  “What the fuck did you do to her, you son of a bitch?” he snarled in his father’s face. He shook off Joseph and Sam as he slammed his father up against the cruiser. “Wasn’t Jenny enough for you? Did you have to hurt her sister too? The girl thinks you hung the moon!” His voice broke.

  “Evan!” Sam Barnes growled. He was a big man. Nearly as tall as Evan and Stoner and a much heavier build, but he still struggled to pull Evan off his father. “He saved her life, man. He put his hand inside her leg and pinched her damn artery shut until the paramedics could clamp it. Now let him go! They need him in there.”

  “For what?” Evan snapped, but he relaxed his hold slightly. “Jenny has her now. She’ll take care of her. Why the fuck do they need him?”

  Stoner stared at Evan before his gaze dropped to the silver bracelet Evan wore on his wrist. “Blood,” he whispered hoarsely. “They need my blood. They need your blood. Oh, Jesus, Evan. She’s my daughter. Your sister.”

  And Stoner Richardson sobbed.

  Evan released him and stepped back, blinking his eyes in disbelief. “She’s Jenny’s sister, old man. Jenny’s!”

  An orderly came out. “Mr. Richardson. We need you inside.” When both men turned, the orderly said, “Both of you. Doc says both of you.”

  Evan glanced at his mother, who stood holding Peter’s infant carrier while Joe Taylor wrapped his arm around her shoulders. She had heard his father. Why didn’t she look at all shocked?

  * * * *

  As soon as Jenny walked through the doors, someone was shoving a chart in front of her. She stared at the blood typing information on the chart, looked at it again, and recited the information from memory. It was the same, exactly the same.

  “Doc, the sheriff brought Stoner Richardson with them. He’s the one who pinched her artery shut until the ambulance arrived.” Razawi yawned. “Sorry. Glad you could get here.”

  Jenny looked at her colleague, but she already knew the answer to her question before she asked it. She needed to hear it so it would sink in. “Why are they bringing him in?”

  “He’s O negative, like the woman.”

  “He’s her father,” Jenny murmured.

  “What!”

  She laughed incredulously and with absolutely no humor whatsoever. More loudly, she stated, “He’s her father.”

  “How do you know that? I mean O negative is relatively uncommon, but not like AB positive or B neg—”

  “Raz, look at this!”

  As he looked at the chart and saw everything that followed the O negative, Jenny rattled off from memory what was on it. Razawi looked up at her. “How did you remember all those other antigens?”

  “I memorized it years ago in high school as a joke. It’s Evan’s blood type. It’s his father’s blood type. It’s bad enough they’re O neg, but add in the rest of this, and it further narrows what blood they can accept in transfusion.”

  “Jesus.”

  “As much blood as she’s going to need, it’s a miracle to have two such exact matches. We can transfuse and not worry about a reaction.” She looked at an orderly. “Get the two Richardsons, probably already at each other’s throats if I know Evan, and start pulling blood. Two pints from each of them. No more than that. Although if you wanted to let the older one bleed out…no never mind. You never heard me say that.”

  “Say what, Doc?” The man’s expression was bland.

  Jenny smiled at the orderly. She turned to Dr. Razawi. “Okay Raz, let’s do this. Did you call Roanoke about flying in an orthopedic surgeon? I’d rather pay to fly one in than risk flying her out.”

  “Yeah. He’s on his way. Dr. Jarrett Campbell. Private plane
. I already have a deputy standing by at the air strip to get him here.”

  “Cool. Campbell’s one of the best there is.” Jenny wasn’t at all as confident about what they would be facing in surgery as the front she put on for everyone else. Knowing Campbell would be the surgeon flying in to help with the orthopedic end of Tabby’s injuries was an enormous relief. She brushed aside the fatigue of her recent childbirth and dug deep down inside. Saving lives was what she was trained to do. While she couldn’t do the complicated surgery likely needed to make sure Tabby could lead a normal life, she could fix the artery that would save her sister’s leg and keep her alive until a specialist could handle the orthopedics.

  * * * *

  Stoner lay side by side with Evan, their arms extended as two techs expertly located veins and hooked them up to draw blood. Only a life and death situation could have led to his son lying next to him, and Stoner didn’t want to think about the life that was on the line right now.

  Evan spoke to the tech hooking the bag to Stoner’s arm. “He’d like to donate about ten pints all at once.”

  The tech gaped at Evan. “You want me to drain him?”

  Stoner met Evan’s glare as his son added, “It would save all of us a lot of misery.”

  Stoner glared. “You always were a self-righteous asshole.”

  “Tell me what it’s like, Dad? How do you treat a woman so badly that she would run away and never tell you she bore your child? Then you turn around a few years later and try to destroy her other child? How does that work, asshole?”

  Stoner’s jaw tightened. He shut his eyes and shut his son out, but he couldn’t shut out the pain.

  Mary. She’d been Mary Sinclair when he’d first seen her. Sweet sixteen and as beautiful as a mountain sunrise—all golden from her hair to her shining eyes. He had felt like someone had punched him in the gut the minute he’d laid eyes on her. She had been working at Tarpley’s. He’d teased her all that summer. Nothing more than that. He was already engaged to Catherine, but he had looked at Mary Sinclair, and she had looked right back.