Cedar Bluff's Most Eligible Bachelor

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“I wouldn’t recommend it,” Hailey said dryly. “A better plan would be to get healthy, and then come back to visit when you look smashing. Doctors aren’t overly impressed with sickly patients.”

“Good idea,” Christy said, with such enthusiasm Hailey knew the girl was starting to feel better.

Barely three seconds after Christy Drummel had been safely discharged, Hailey’s trauma pager went off.

She read the text message with a sinking heart.

Male victim, MVC, pulse 130, BP 80/40, long extrication, suspected chest injuries. ETA three minutes.

“Hailey?” she glanced up when Simon called her name. “We have a trauma on the way. Are you ready?”

No. She wasn’t ready. But she nodded anyway, praying she wouldn’t throw up the way Christy had. “Of course.”

Hailey finished with her other patient’s labs and then took her place in the trauma bay as the paramedics wheeled in the new arrival. The patient was a young seventeen-year-old male, who’d run his stolen car into a tree while being chased by the police.

He’d been wedged inside the car, to the point where it had taken the firemen over forty-five minutes to get him out.

The first glance at his pale and lifeless face made her blood run cold.

Not Andrew.

She kept the mantra running in the back of her mind as she concentrated on getting the new patient connected to the heart monitor. His vital signs were dangerously low.

The monitor began alarming. “I’m losing his blood pressure,” she said sharply, with a worried glance at Simon.

Simon looked up at the monitor, his expression grim. “PEA. Probably a hemothorax with his crushing chest injuries. I need a chest tube.”

Hailey grabbed the chest tube tray at the same time Bonnie, the ICU tech, did. Bonnie stared at her for a moment, and Hailey readily let go, realizing setting up and assisting with the chest tube was something useful the tech could do.

She vaguely heard Simon give Bonnie instructions on prepping the guy’s chest. She hung IV fluids and performed a quick assessment, noticing the young man’s abdomen was taut.

Their patient rebounded as soon as Simon placed the chest tube. Bright red blood came pouring out, though.

“Call Kane Ryerson,” Simon said to Bonnie. “This guy needs the OR.”

Bonnie headed for the nearest phone, but almost immediately the patient’s blood pressure bottomed out again.

“He’s bleeding into his abdomen,” Hailey said, watching in horror as the patient’s belly grew larger right before her eyes. “Simon? Do you see his belly?”

“Yeah. We’re going to have to open him up here.” Simon didn’t look very happy with the prospect.

She tugged the peritoneal lavage tray from the bedside, but before Simon could get the guy’s abdomen opened, his heart rate slowed and then stopped.

“No!” Hailey shouted, unwilling to believe they were going to lose him. She climbed up on a stool to start chest compressions. One and two and three and four and five. Breathe. One and two and three and four and five. Breathe.

We’re not going to lose him. We’re not. We’re not …

“Hailey!” Simon’s sharp tone finally registered. She stopped CPR and glanced up at the heart monitor.

Asystole.

“It’s over,” Simon said quietly. “Time of death, six-forty-two p.m.”

She thought she could handle it. But without warning her eyes filled with tears. “Excuse me,” she mumbled, nearly falling off the stool in her haste to get away.

“Hailey!” she heard Simon shout behind her.

But she disappeared into the staff lounge, shutting the door firmly behind her.

CHAPTER FOUR

SIMON followed Hailey as soon as he could, but by the time he arrived at the staff lounge she appeared to have pulled herself together. But her red, puffy eyes and stuffed-up nose betrayed how she’d been crying.

“Are you all right?” he asked, concern in his voice. He took a step forward, instinctively wanting to offer comfort. What in the world had happened in there? Did she know the young man?

“Yes. Sorry for running off,” she muttered, avoiding his gaze and moving to brush past him.

He caught her arm to prevent her from leaving. Immediately, a sizzle of electricity zinged up to his shoulder.

Quickly, he let go and took a step back. What in the world was that? “Hailey, there’s no rush, if you need a few minutes yet,” he began.

“I’m fine.” Her tense tone was not at all reassuring. “I shouldn’t have left like that. I need to get back to work. And we have to make sure his family gets notified of what happened.”

He stared at her for several long seconds. Logically, he knew it would be best to leave her alone. Maybe Hailey always reacted like this after losing a patient. Especially a young man who’d had his whole life ahead of him.

And even if there was something more going on with her, it had nothing to do with him. So why was he so reluctant to leave well enough alone?

“All right,” he agreed, stepping away from the door. She hesitated only a moment, before walking past him to return to the trauma bay.

Letting her go was harder than he’d anticipated. With a resigned shake of his head, he followed her back to the trauma bay.

The rest of their shift flew by quickly, but while they had several trauma calls, none of them were as serious as the young man who’d died.

Simon kept a close eye on Hailey, but she seemed fine as they cared for a seemingly endless line of patients. He sought her out at the end of their shift, intending to talk to her again, but she’d apparently left without saying goodbye.

He headed home, uncharacteristically frustrated that he hadn’t been able to spend a few minutes alone with her.

The next day he locked his front door before heading outside to his car for his shift, ducking his head in the rain. A crack of thunder made him jump as he climbed into the front seat. He pulled slowly out of his driveway, the rain coming down in sheets making it difficult to see the road in front of him.

Lightning flashed and more thunder rolled as he made his way to work. He slowed his speed, peering through the deluge of rain hammering against his windshield as he headed to Cedar Bluff hospital.

Maybe they did need the rain after nearly a month of drought, unusual for April. But with the force of the rain coming down, flooding was a definite concern. Water pooled on the roads and he carefully rolled through the deep puddles to avoid stalling his car.

As he approached an intersection with a four-way stop, a cyclist came out of nowhere, not stopping or slowing down at the junction, instead racing across the street directly in front of Simon. Startled, and a bit freaked out by the fact that someone was crazy enough to be riding a bike in this downpour, Simon slammed on his brakes.

Too hard!

He wasn’t going very fast at all, but his car started to hydroplane on the slick street, heading diagonally in a path straight for the cyclist. Simon’s heart hammered in his chest as he gripped the steering-wheel tightly, keeping his foot firmly planted on the brake as the antilock brake system bucked the car, praying he’d miss the slim figure on the bike.

No such luck. He grimaced as his car bumped the cyclist with a soft thud, just loud enough to hear over the pelting rain.

His tires finally gripped the road, stopping the car abruptly. He grabbed his cell phone and dialed 911 even as he jumped out, heading for the cyclist who was sprawled on the pavement not far from the bike, which lay crumpled beneath Simon’s front bumper.

He could barely hear the operator asking about the nature of his emergency over the sound of the storm. “Injured cyclist, hit by my car. Send a paramedic unit. We’re at the intersection of Grover and Howard. Hurry!”

Snapping his phone shut, he tucked it in his pocket as he knelt beside the crumpled heap of aluminous yellow cycling gear. His breath caught in his throat nearly strangling him when he realized it was Hailey.

Thankfully, a helmet covered her chin-length blonde hair, but her eyes were closed and her face deathly pale, despite the rain coming down.

“Hailey? Can you hear me?” He sheltered her from the rain with his body as much as he could as he felt for a pulse. Relieved when he found one, he turned his attention to the rest of her potential injuries. Her body was lying at an awkward angle halfway on her side, and he was loath to move her without a neck brace at the very least.

“Hailey? Open your eyes,” he said, running his hands along the arm and leg that he could easily reach, trying to ascertain if she’d broken anything. “Hailey, please open your eyes. I need to know if you can hear me.”

Her eyelids fluttered open and she groaned as she tried to turn over onto her back. She still had a backpack looped over her shoulders.

“Easy,” he cautioned, halting her movement with his hands. He unhooked the backpack from the one arm and twisted it up and out of the way. “First, tell me what hurts.”

“Everything,” she whispered. Her blue eyes were wide and frightened as she gazed up at him. “But mostly my arm and the leg beneath me.”

The naked pleading in her eyes did him in. He quickly unlatched the strap of her helmet and supported her head with his hand. “Okay, you can roll onto your back very slowly but don’t twist your spine or your neck.”

She let out a whimper as she log-rolled onto her back, his hands cradling her neck and head for stability. He slid off the backpack, tossing it aside.

“You’re going to be okay,” he told her reassuringly. “A paramedic unit will be here any minute.”

“Andrew?” Hailey whispered, looking at him oddly. A chill snaked down his back. Had she managed to sustain a head injury despite the protection of her helmet? “Andrew, is that you? “

“No, I’m Simon, not Andrew.” He took her hand in his and she grasped it like a lifeline, her fingers cold in the rain. Her apparent confusion scared the hell out of him. “Hailey, do you know where you are?”

For a moment she looked confused. “On the road. We had a car accident.”

Somehow he didn’t get the impression she was talking about this most recent accident but a different one. Suddenly her reaction the day before with the young trauma victim made sense. The sounds of sirens split the air. He was glad, very glad, to know help was on the way.

“Yes, I was in the car, but you were on your bike.” He held her gaze with his, willing her to remember.