Page 3 of Shielding His Heart
Walker grabs me by the arm and pulls me to the front of the car. I fight him every step of the way. “Hold it together, man. Let them do their job.”
“Unless you want my fist in your fucking face, you’ll tell me how my wife’s doing. You know you’d do the same thing if it were Avery.” His lips press together at the mention of his girlfriend and the mother of his baby girl.
“Look. She’s sustained mild head trauma, potentially resulting in a concussion, but no significant findings of brain injury. She’s got a flail chest, probably due to broken ribs. Her vitals are all within normal limits. Pupils are round, reactive, and equal.” As he speaks, I keep my eyes on her. They’re putting her in a c-collar and spinal package. “Captain wants to fly her out to a level one trauma facility. You can’t ride with her, but—”
Before he can answer, I rip away from his hold. “Alec!”
The captain stops me before I can climb back into the ambulance. “You’re not going anywhere like this.”
“Try and stop me,” I snarl.
“Let me give you a ride back to the station, and I’ll take you up to County in my truck. You’re in no condition to be driving anywhere.”
“I’m fine,” I say, although I most certainly am not. I can’t stomach the thought of being away from Tana, not until I know the extent of her injuries.
“Bullshit,” Zeke says quietly, calmly. How he can be so fucking calm, I’ll never understand. “Get in the rig. I’ll take you back. There’s nothing you can do for her going off half-cocked like this, and you know it. Don’t argue with me.”
Knowing arguing with him will only cost me precious time, I do as he says. The sooner we can get moving, the sooner I’ll get to the hospital.
I'm lost in thought during the entire drive back to the station, assaulted by memories of her face behind the window. Bloody. Broken. She’d seemed so small. So fragile.
My hands are sweating. I wipe them on my legs and wonder if the captain is purposefully driving at a snail-like speed to piss me off. He keeps in contact with Med 1, who transports Tana to the helicopter. They make it there successfully, and she’s soon on her way to County Hospital, an hour drive away but a short twenty-minute flight. Because of the broken ribs and possible head trauma, it’s safer to fly her by helicopter than transport her by ambulance.
Zeke is quiet for most of the drive to the hospital. What can he say? Not a damn thing. He relays each update. When they take off. When they land. After that, there’s not much we’ll know until we arrive at the hospital. Which seems to take an eternity.
When we arrive, I’m out the door and at the emergency desk like a shot. When I get a nurse, I say, “I’m Alec Dorran. My wife Tana was in an MVA. She was just brought here by chopper.”
The rest is a blur. She’s in critical condition and in the ICU. Someone leads me to her room, where I see her through a small window, hooked up to monitors and covered in stark white bandages.
There’s only one thing that sticks out from the litany of information the doctor spits out at me.
“We won’t know the extent of her injuries until she wakes up.”
What could be worse than this? I wonder.
Please wake up. Please.
I fall asleep holding her hand and hoping I’ll see her eyes again in the morning.
Please come back to me.
I can’t lose you.
CHAPTER2
TANA
He comes around the doorway, his face lifted in hope.
Which I’ve come to recognize after four weeks of the same routine. And like always, when my own expression doesn’t brighten at his appearance, he tries to mask the disappointment with measured politeness. “Hey, Tee.”
He’s said the same thing every time he’s come to see me.“Hey, Tee.”
Like if he says it enough, maybe I’ll get used to the routine. To seeing him like this. To everything that’s insane and unfair andwrongabout my life. Like if he calls me by a nickname, it’ll make our relationship seem more real.
Nothing about my life seems real right now.
His gaze shifts to the nurse at my side. I scowl because I don’t even remember her name, and I know she’s told me a thousand times. Details of my day-to-day life still slip away from me from time to time if I don’t write them down, leave myself a note on the phone I was given, or repeat them over and over in my mind. It could be worse, I’ve been told. I could be in a coma, in a vegetative state, or dead.
