The Will to Love

by Lindsay McKenna

  People were running over to him, crowding around him, asking if they could help. Quinn shook his head. He waited what seemed hours for the medevac team to answer. When they did, he gave them coordinates.

  “Hurry! She’s critical. It’s a head wound!” His voice cracked. Everything blurred as Quinn signed off. It would be fifteen minutes before the chopper arrived—the worst, most nightmarish fifteen minutes of his life as he leaned down and continued to assess her condition.

  He felt the touch of a man’s hand on his shoulder. Someone was thrusting a blanket forward, to keep Kerry warm. Trying not to sob, Quinn looked up—into the terrorized faces of the civilians who surrounded them.

  “Y-you saved us,” a woman choked out. She gripped her small boy in her arms. “Those men were from Diablo. They were going to kill my baby here, for food. Oh, thank you…thank you!” She began to weep harder.

  Quinn put his hands up. “Please,” he called, “give us some room. There’s nothing you can do here—unless there’s a medical doctor present?” He prayed there would be.

  The people stood mute, staring down at him and at one another, their faces mirroring shock from this latest tragedy.

  No one answered, so Quinn quickly went back to work. Inside his pack, he carried a small EMT kit for just such emergencies. Because Kerry had a head wound, it was important not to raise her feet. Ordinarily, when a person was unconscious and in shock, that’s exactly what was done, to force the blood back toward the head and into the major organs of the body. But not this time.

  Reaching out, he touched her curly brown hair, which glinted with red highlights from the slanting sun. Shaking his head, Quinn tried to think. But he couldn’t. As he knelt at her side and applied a pressure bandage to the bullet wound in her right thigh, he wanted to scream—scream in pure frustration. Kerry couldn’t die. She just couldn’t!

  January 16: 1700

  “How is she?”

  Quinn turned toward the deep male voice. He was standing alone in the surgery floor waiting room. Looking up, he recognized Morgan Trayhern coming toward him, his black brows knitted, his blue eyes narrowed with concern.

  Opening his hands, Quinn whispered, “I don’t know, sir. She’s been in surgery for an hour now. The paramedic on board the Blackhawk said the wound on her thigh was clean and superficial. It’s her head. She took a shot to the head.” Numbly, Quinn sat down. He didn’t know what else to do. He felt so damned helpless. Kerry’s blood was on his shirt. On his hands. Her head wound had bled profusely, as that type always did—even when he’d helped the paramedic take care of her in the chopper on the way back to the base.

  Morgan gripped his slumped shoulder. “Damn, I’m sorry, Quinn.” He sat down with him on one of the red plastic chairs. “Tell me what happened?”

  Quinn knew it took an act of Congress to get Morgan out of Logistics; the man was busier than anyone at Camp Reed. The fact that he was here made a powerful statement about him. Morgan cared deeply for the people in the field.

  Swallowing hard, Quinn rubbed his face. Hot, unexpected tears jammed into his eyes. He looked down so Trayhern couldn’t see them. Opening his mouth, he tried to gather his shocked, fragmented thoughts. He knew Morgan was expecting a report. Emotionally, Quinn wasn’t with it. His heart was with Kerry in the surgery room.

  “Take your time,” Morgan said heavily, studying his profile. He saw the glitter of tears in Quinn’s eyes even though he tried to hide them.

  Finally, Quinn managed to get ahold of himself. He sat there and talked in a rough whisper, his legs spread, his hands gripped between them. When he finished, he heard Morgan curse softly beneath his breath.

  “This gang is a helluva lot stronger and more violent than we realized,” he told Quinn. “We’re getting reports from other areas of their activity. It’s a much larger group than we realized. And there’s no way a fire team is going to handle this volatile situation. There’s just too many of them.” He scratched his head and muttered, “I’m going to have to put together a special Recon team with a doctor in case of medical casualties, and have them find the bastards.”

  “Sir, what with all the needs and demands of the people in Kerry’s area, we’re stretched too thin.” Quinn opened his hands. “This was the first day since our arrival that she and I were out reconnoitering the area. I hadn’t expected to run into them. We were undermanned. We didn’t have enough firepower. And they had civilians they were using as a shield so we couldn’t fire back. They knew what they were doing.”

  “I hear you, Quinn. Damn, I hear you.” Morgan sighed and stood up. “Listen, you go get cleaned up. I’ve arranged for you to have a room at the B.O.Q. Take a hot shower. There will be a fresh set of clothes for you, Son.”

  Looking up in surprise, Quinn muttered, “The B.O.Q., sir?” That was the Bachelor Officers Quarters, and only officers were allowed to stay there. Not an enlisted person like him.

  He saw Morgan smile grimly. “You’re getting a field commission, Corporal. As of right now, I’m making you a second lieutenant. Orders just came down today that we’re to pinpoint marines with leadership qualities out there in the field and promote them battlefield rank. Okay?”

  In shock, Quinn sat there, his mouth open. He didn’t know what to say. He saw dark satisfaction glimmer in Morgan’s eyes.

  “There will be a set of silver bars with your clean clothes, Lieutenant. I suggest you get over there, clean up and hotfoot it back here.” Morgan glanced at his watch. “I’m late for a meeting. I’ll try to swing back by here in two hours. Just know there’s a lot of people praying for Kerry right now, Son. I know how much she means to you. I see it in your face, hear it in your voice. Let’s hope for the best….”

  Stunned with the good news that warred against his worry and anguish, Quinn sat there for a long time trying to digest it all. During a war, it wasn’t uncommon for an enlisted person to be handed officer’s rank. This quake, the horrific magnitude of destruction, was a war, he realized belatedly. And Morgan Trayhern had just made him a second lieutenant. My God.

  Shaking his head, Quinn shuffled stiffly out of the visitors’ center and to the nurses’ station, a beehive of activity. He caught one nurse’s attention and asked her about Kerry.

  “Hey, look, Corporal, I don’t know. She’s in operating theater three, that’s all I can tell you.” Harried, she grabbed a clipboard. “You’ll just have to wait.”

  Nodding and swallowing hard, Quinn turned woodenly toward the elevators at the end of the highly polished white passageway. Right now, all he wanted to do was hold Kerry’s hand. To whisper to her that she would be all right. In a daze, he walked unsteadily toward the row of elevators. The hallway was crowded with male and female nurses in light blue uniforms hurrying in and out of surgical rooms where patients lay. The antiseptic odors were cloying and sharp. As an EMT, Quinn knew what went on in an operating room. Kerry would be on a table surrounded by hospital staff, a doctor heading up the team trying to save her life.

  Quinn’s mind gyrated with grief. With fear. Kerry couldn’t die! She just couldn’t! As he pressed the down button, the door to one elevator slid open and he stepped in. There were five other people, all in cammos, standing there, their faces grim. A gurney bearing an older woman covered with blankets stood beside them. A hospital corpsman held up a bag for the IV flowing into her right arm.

  The intense anguish he felt for Kerry nearly suffocated Quinn. As the elevator dropped to the first-floor lobby of the huge naval hospital, he couldn’t wait to get out of there, and escaped hurriedly into the cool evening air. The sun was just setting. Standing on the cracked sidewalk, Quinn barely noticed the people milling around him like ceaseless droves of busy ants. Instead, his gaze sought out the B.O.Q.

  It felt so strange to be heading toward officers’ quarters. He’d been given a battlefield commission! Quinn had never expected that, not in a million years. It just wasn’t done. The last time that had occurred was during the Vietnam War, when so man
y young officers were killed because they were unprepared for jungle warfare. And without an officer to lead, the entire unit ground to a halt. Now Quinn was an officer.

  None of it really mattered, he thought as he headed to the B.O.Q., his heart heavy with worry over Kerry. To his surprise, his name was already on the register at the front desk. The clerk handed him a key to a room on the second floor, no questions asked. Quinn knew he looked filthy, what with Kerry’s blood staining the front of his cammos. He climbed the stairs slowly, in shock, then went through the motions of finding the small room. Opening the door, he found a queen-size bed with a floral bedspread, and a set of maple dressers. The curtains at the window matched the bedspread. Different rooms were available. Some were suites and others were not. He was grateful to have any room.

  Standing there, he felt torn apart. The world he’d just left was so devastated, this one so neat, clean and sparkling, with all the amenities. There was a pitcher of ice water on the coffee table in front of the leather davenport. Water! It was so desperately needed out there in the heart of the quake zone, and here it was readily available. There were so many thirsty and dehydrated people out there, many dying slowly from a lack of water. He felt as if he were in a surreal nightmare as he stared down at the pitcher. Walking past it, Quinn headed directly to the bathroom. How wonderful a hot, steamy shower would feel.

  As he climbed out of his dirty uniform and let it fall on the tile floor, he thought of Kerry. She hadn’t had a shower in weeks. Guilt ate at him as he stepped into the glass cubicle and felt the first hot droplets fall. As he applied soap to a washcloth, he wished desperately with all his heart and soul, that Kerry could be here with him. He wanted to wash her gently, kiss her, caress her and tell her how much she meant to him.

  Standing in the pummeling stream of hot water, Quinn began to cry. He’d never done that before—cry on the spur of the moment. The experience was foreign to him. The salty tears flooding down his heavily bearded face mingled with the heated water from the showerhead above. He had no idea how the tears had started—or why. All he knew as he stood there, feet apart, the water running over him, was that he’d fallen helplessly in love with Kerry. She was an extraordinary person, so very courageous, and yet incredibly kind and compassionate. As Quinn savagely rubbed his face with the soapy cloth to erase the unbidden tears leaking out of his eyes, he felt a wave of sheer terror tunneling through his chest. Kerry didn’t know how he felt about her. Quinn hadn’t wanted to admit the feelings growing powerfully toward her. Not even to himself.

  He’d shrugged off his feelings as something that had grown out of the trauma of the quake. But now he knew differently, and it hurt that he’d never told her. It felt as if someone was slicing up his heart with a razor blade, one deep, violent cut after another.

  What if Kerry died on the surgery table? What if she became paralyzed or worse, a vegetable, because of the bullet? A beautiful life destroyed by a roving band of thugs…It wasn’t fair, Quinn thought as he stood there, gasping for breath. He tried again to stop his tears, but it was impossible.

  If someone had been in the bedroom, they would have heard a man sobbing hard and long. But no one was there to hear him. The sounds of his grief, of his hopes and dreams for a life with Kerry were all muffled by the walls.

  Would Kerry live or die? The question tore at Quinn, and not even his tears brought him any relief.

  Chapter Eight

  “How long are they going to keep Kerry in an induced coma?” Laura Trayhern asked. She sat in the wheelchair, Baby Jane wrapped in her arms.

  Quinn sat on a red vinyl lounge chair, tension filling him. “I just talked to Dr. Edmonds. She was the surgeon for Kerry.” Rubbing his bloodshot eyes, he felt fear clawing at his throat. He tried to keep his voice even and detached. Just the look on Laura’s kind face broke something loose within him. Even though she was confined to a wheelchair because of the broken ankle she’d sustained during the earthquake, she had made an effort to come up and visit him. Her kindness overwhelmed him.

  “And Dr. Edmonds said they were going to purposely keep Kerry unconscious with drugs?”

  Nodding, Quinn muttered, “She said something about Kerry’s skull being cracked. The bullet glanced off her cranium and cracked it. The doc is worried that her brain will swell because of the injury.”

  “I see….” Laura sighed. “But Kerry’s brain is okay? The bullet didn’t penetrate?”

  Releasing his own trembling sigh, Quinn said, “No, thank God, it didn’t, Mrs. Trayhern.”

  “Call me Laura.” She smiled softly. “Then there’s a lot of good to come out of this? The doctor is inducing her coma so her brain doesn’t swell?”

  “Something like that,” Quinn murmured. He was exhausted. Even now, he wasn’t thinking clearly. The surgery had taken five hours. He’d come straight back to the hospital after cleaning up and donning his fresh cammos, with the single black bar which was seen on each shoulder to denote his new second lieutenant status. Then he’d had to wait for Dr. Edmonds to finally appear and tell him how Kerry was doing.

  Reaching out, Laura squeezed his arm. “I can tell you’re tired, Quinn. Have you seen Kerry yet?”

  “No, I haven’t. She’s in recovery right now, and no one’s allowed in. They’ll transfer her to ICU, the critical care unit, in about thirty minutes.” He looked down at the watch on his hairy wrist. Feeling as if he were moving through a nightmare, Quinn sighed again. All he wanted was to see Kerry. To touch her. To convince himself that she was still alive. She had to live! She just had to! Clenching his teeth against the avalanche of wild, frightening thoughts, he glanced over at Laura. She was holding the baby in her arms, looking content and at peace.

  The thought that Kerry would look like that with their baby struck him full force. He sat back in amazement. Quinn had no idea where that errant idea had come from. He knew he was sleep deprived. Knew that the emotional burden of Kerry’s wounds weighed heavier on him than anything he’d ever encountered. Wrestling with all of it, Quinn felt like he was being torn apart, piece by piece, and he didn’t know where to go or what to do with all those emotions.

  “Listen,” Laura whispered gently, “I know you want to wait until she’s transferred to ICU, so you can see her…touch her and know that she’s alive. But after that, Quinn, go back to your room at the B.O.Q. and sleep. You look like you’re in shock yourself.”

  With a low, startled laugh, Quinn said, “Yeah…I am. I’m a trained EMT and I recognize my own symptoms, Laura.” It was easy to be on a first-name basis with Laura Trayhern. She was so warm and caring. No wonder Morgan loved her. In many respects Kerry was very much like Laura, Quinn thought as he sat there holding her warm gaze. They both had that gentle nurturing quality.

  “I promise to get some rest soon,” he told her gravely.

  “Morgan said that he’s in contact with Sergeant Slater, the leader of the platoon your fire team came from. They’re sending out a replacement for you now. That should make you feel better.”

  “It does, thanks. But all those people in Area Five will wonder about Kerry. They love her. They’ve come to rely on her—a lot. I need to get back out there….”

  “In time,” Laura counseled wisely. “First things first, Quinn. Make sure Kerry is okay, and then get some badly needed sleep. Morgan said for you to come to his office over in Logistics at 0900 tomorrow morning. Until then, you have nothing but downtime on your hands.”

  Nodding, Quinn whispered, “Thanks….”

  Just then, a nurse in a light blue smock came into the visiting room.

  “Corporal Grayson?” She frowned and looked at him again, studying his clean uniform and the bars on his shoulders. “Er…I’m sorry, Lieutenant Grayson? Deputy Kerry Chelton has been transferred to ICU. Mr. Trayhern said the two of you are engaged, so that makes you family. Only family members are allowed to see her at this point.” The nurse looked at her watch. “You have five minutes every hour with her, sir. That’s the ru
le.”

  Quinn rose to his feet, feeling uneasy with his new rank. One moment enlisted, the next an officer. He had seen the brunette corpsman’s eyes widen as she saw the lieutenant’s bars on the cammo shirt he wore. “I understand. Thank you,” he told her.

  “No problem, sir.” She turned and hurried away.

  Quinn turned to Laura. “Thanks to you…and your husband. I don’t know what I’d do right now if you hadn’t been here.”

  Grinning slightly, Laura rocked the baby in the pink blanket gently. The little tyke was sound asleep. “I told Morgan he’d better concoct a story so you could get in to see Kerry. Patients in ICU aren’t allowed visits from ‘friends.’ I wasn’t sure you knew that, so I told Morgan to tell the nursing staff you two were engaged.” She looked up at him, her eyes sparkling. “I hope that doesn’t bother you, Quinn?”

  Reaching out, he touched her shoulder. “No, ma’am, it doesn’t. I’m not thinking fast on my feet at this point, and I’m grateful you are. Right now, all I want—need—is to see Kerry….”

  “Then,” Laura whispered, “go see her. And remember, even though a person is in a coma, they can still hear you. That’s a medical fact. So go in there and talk to her. She’ll be listening, Quinn. I know she will.”

  Swallowing hard, he lifted his fingers from Laura’s slim shoulder. “Do you need help first, though? I know you came up here on your own.”

  Laughing, Laura said, “If you could ask the orderly who is waiting at the nurse’s desk to take me back to my room, I’d appreciate it, Quinn. Thanks for asking.”

  Nodding, Quinn felt his heart begin to thud with dread. “I’ll get him right now and then I’ll go see Kerry. And I’ll see Morgan tomorrow at 0900. Thanks—for everything…”