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“We’re headed in the same direction. Why not run together?”
Her mouth was so dry it was hard to speak. “I prefer to jog alone.”
The grin he sent her was quick and careless. “You’re from a big city, right? A big Southern city?”
Her fingers curled into her palms. “What makes you think so?”
“You answer your door armed with a knife. You just told me to get lost. Not the usual mindset of someone who hails from a small town.”
“Look, I came out this morning to run. Not get analyzed.”
“Just making an observation. And issuing a friendly invitation. We’re headed in the same direction so we might as well jog together. You ready to go?”
She swiped her hand across her damp throat while she felt her raw nerves stretch razor-sharp. Instinct told her the more she protested, the harder he would push. And dig. The sooner she cooperated, the faster she’d get away from him.
“Try to keep up,” she said, then sprinted off.
He caught up, matched the cadence of his pace with hers. “You run every day?” he asked between breaths.
“Yes.” A prophetic question, she thought, watching him out of the corner of her eye. “You?”
“I try never to miss.”
They continued for several minutes in silence, then he said, “How about heading into town for breakfast at the café?”
“I don’t eat breakfast.”
“Lunch then.”
“Can’t.”
Her warmed muscles moved as fluidly as oiled gears by the time Regan topped the next rise. She caught sight of the narrow wooden bridge that spanned a small stream snaking off the lake. A few yards past the bridge, the road bent like a crooked finger, then narrowed into Wipeout Curve. One mile to go, and she’d be back at her apartment over the tavern. Then she could sort out her thoughts. Work to tighten her hold on her self-control even though she could feel it crumbling beneath her.
“You can’t, or you don’t eat lunch?” he persisted.
“I take lunch to Etta every day.” Her words came out in a staccato that matched the rhythm of her run. “I eat with her.”
“Dinner, then?”
“I work nights.”
“Not every night.”
“Most.”
“I get the feeling I shouldn’t plan on sharing a meal with you.”
“Trust your feelings.”
“You’re hell on a man’s ego, Regan.”
“Plenty of women at the tavern last night gave you the eye. Ask one of them to dinner.”
He shot her a smile, a quick flash of teeth that was unexpectedly charming. “Should I be flattered you paid me so much attention?”
God, he was smooth. Too smooth. “I noticed only because Deni was one of those women. More than once I had to tell her to keep her mind off you and on her job.”
“Another bruise to my pride.”
“I’m sure you’ll recover.”
Her words were nearly drowned out by the engine roar of a green Chevy with heavy metal pumping from its radio. The car shot past them, the bridge’s wooden planks clattering in the wake of speeding tires. Regan caught a glimpse of the driver—a male teenager with dark hair and an insolent grin. A laughing teenage girl with flowing blond hair leaned out the passenger window, a beer can clutched in one hand.
“Beer this early in the morning,” Regan commented. A sick feeling welled in her stomach as the car careened out of sight. “There’s an accident waiting to happen.”
“No kidding,” Josh said as he sidestepped a pothole. “Signs are posted, warning about the narrow bridge and the curve ahead. Does that kid have the sense to slow down? Not when ninety-five percent of his brainpower is in his pants.”
Regan opened her mouth to agree, her thoughts spinning off as she heard the high squeal of brakes and rubber against pavement. She and Josh had already picked up speed when the crash of glass and horrendous rending of metal exploded through the air.
Above the roaring of her heart Regan heard the pounding of her feet against the bridge’s wooden slats as she and Josh raced toward the sound of the crash. Yards past the bridge, the road transformed into the treacherous curve.
Halfway through the curve, she got a whiff of burning rubber. Fresh skid marks veered off onto the shoulder, tearing ridges into ground already rutted like a washboard. From there, the green Chevy had hurdled into a clearing rimmed with massive oaks. From what she could tell at this distance, it had crashed head-on into a thick tree trunk. The car’s hood was buckled; smoke spewed from the engine. Half of the back window was gone. The remaining glass was cracked, resembling a massive spiderweb that glinted like diamonds in the sun.
Dread settled in the pit of Regan’s stomach as she and Josh dashed toward the car. She knew from experience speed was a major predictor of severity of crash injuries. The sedan had shot across the bridge like a bullet, probably taken the curve at the same speed. Chances were, both teens were gravely injured, if not dead.
“The impact knocked out the engine,” Josh said as they neared the car. “At least we don’t have to worry about a fire.”
“Probably the only thing.”
“Yeah.”
In her peripheral vision, Regan spotted a black van skid to a stop. Its doors flew open. A bald man and a woman with a blond beehive piled out and started toward the carnage.
Metal scraped against metal as the driver’s door on the wrecked car slowly opened. The teenage boy angled his legs into view, then pushed himself unsteadily up. Blood poured out of his nose, streamed down his chin. Already, the front of his white T-shirt was stained crimson.
As if the last twelve months had never happened, Regan slid seamlessly into the paramedic she’d been in another lifetime. She felt the familiar adrenaline spike that came with knowing lives might be at stake.
What she was about to do carried consequences, but she couldn’t let them matter right now. What mattered were the two teenagers in the car.
She flicked Josh a look. “Do you know anything about emergency medicine?”
“What I’ve picked up working traffic accidents and crime scenes.” His gaze sharpened. “You have some training?”
Years of it. “I know what needs to be done.”
He gave her a curt nod. “I’ll follow your lead.”
Gripping the top of the car’s open door, the teen raised his head. His eyes were saucer wide and had a feral look. “Help us.” He staggered forward. “Help. Please, help.”
Josh snagged one of his arms, Regan the other, her mind going cold, analytical. “Don’t move,” she ordered, wrapping her hand around his wrist. His pulse was jumping, his heart rate off the chart. He was talking, breathing, which omitted the possibility of an airway obstruction. “What’s your name?”
“I… Easton.” Josh held him in place when he made a feeble attempt to turn back toward the car. “Amelia’s hurt. Bad.” He used his shoulder to wipe at the blood streaming from his nose. “She’s hurt. Please…”
“We’re going to help her,” Regan said, then looked up when the bald man and blond woman reached them. The man was sweating profusely and the woman’s face was chalk-white. She hoped to hell neither of them passed out. “Do you have a phone?”
“I do.” The man dug his cell phone out of his shirt pocket.
“Call 911 and give the dispatcher our location,” she ordered, then looked at Josh. “I don’t know Oklahoma codes. They need to be advised this is life threatening and to use lights and sirens en route.”
“Tell dispatch this is a Code 4,” Josh instructed the man.
“Have the dispatcher connect you to the nearest EMT,” Regan added. “I need you to stay on the line with the EMT so I can relay conditions of the victims.”
“Got it,” the man said.
Regan looked back at the injured boy. “Easton, I want you to lie down. Slowly.”
“No. Gotta help ’Melia.” He was sobbing. Tears mixed with the blood on his face, dripped in rivulets onto his T-shirt. The adrenaline shooting through his veins had him straining, fighting against their hold. “Let me go. Gotta help—”
“We’re going to help her.” Regan tightened her grip on his arm. An air bag had probably protected him, but he could still have spinal injuries. His head needed to be immobilized.
“Josh, we have to get him down.” Beneath her hand, the boy’s pulse hammered. “Gently.”
“All right.” He stepped in front of the teen, locked his hands on his shoulders. “Easton, I’m Sergeant McCall. Do what we tell you so we can take care of Amelia. Lie down. Now.”
A sob cut off his words as he shivered uncontrollably. “Okay.”
The instant they got Easton on the ground, Josh looked at Regan. “I’ll check on the girl.”
“I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
He dashed for the car while Regan waved the blond woman over. “What’s your name?”
“Helen.”
“Helen, I need you to hold Easton’s head like this.”
Gulping, the woman dropped to her knees. Regan positioned the woman’s trembling hands on either side of Easton’s head. “His spine has to be kept as straight as possible. Keep his head still.”
“I’ll do my best.”
Still crouched, Regan shifted. “Easton, look at me. Look up at my face.” Using her palm, she shaded his eyes from the sun, then moved her hand while watching his pupils react to the light.
Rising, Regan snagged the bald man’s arm and pulled him toward the car. “What’s your name?”
“Quentin.”
“Tell the EMT the male victim is equal and reactive to light,” she instructed. After Quentin echoed her words into his cell phone, Regan added, “Stay close to me.”
“Okay.”
She reached the gaping driver’s door just as Josh slid out. She’d seen his same grim, flat stare on the faces of uncountable cops at accident scenes.
“She’s alive, but bad,” he began in a detached voice that Regan knew came with the job. “Wasn’t wearing a seat belt.” He gestured a blood-smeared hand at the car. “There’s an impression of her face imbedded in the windshield.”
Like an instant replay, Regan again saw the girl as the car sped by. A pretty smiling girl, her long blond hair blowing in the wind. Carefree. Happy.
Not anymore, Regan thought as she leaned in through the door and shoved the deflated air bag aside. Her throat tightened at the devastation.
“Amelia?”
The girl’s face was an unrecognizable bloody mass, her long hair dripping crimson. Using her middle three fingers, Regan pressed against the pulse-point on the girl’s neck. She watched Amelia’s chest rise and fall in labored, sporadic heaves while counting her breaths. At that instant, Regan would have given anything for some medical equipment. “Amelia, can you hear me?”
The girl’s eyelids fluttered open. She moved her head, expelled a feeble moan.
“Hang on, Amelia.” Regan checked her pupils. They were small, with sluggish reaction to the light. At this point, at least, her brain was still functioning. “I need to leave you for a second, but I’ll be back. You’re going to be okay.”
Scooting out of the car, Regan snagged the phone from Quentin. “This is a load-and-go situation,” she told the paramedic on the other end. “One patient critical, one stable. Critical patient is an approximately seventeen-year-old female with a severe head injury. Glasgow coma scale is seven. Pulse slow at fifty, respirations ten and signs of Cheyne-Stoking. Possible punctured lung.”
She exchanged a few more details with the paramedic, then handed the phone back to Quentin. “Stay on the line.”
He gave her an impressed look. “Sure, Doc.”
Regan shifted her gaze to Josh. “I need you sitting behind her. We’ve got to stabilize her head and spine.”
“The back doors are jammed. I’ll go in over the front seat.”
She glanced at his bare legs. She had glimpsed the broken glass littering the backseat. Angling to give him room to get past her she said, “Be careful of the glass.”
“Least of our problems.” He went over the seat like a shot. Regan dived back in beside Amelia.
“Wedge your elbows on top of the seat so your arms won’t get so tired.” As she spoke, Regan positioned Josh’s hands on either side of the girl’s head. Beneath her palms, she was aware of the firmness in his long fingers, the steadiness. The type of man you’d want around in a crisis.
“Right now she’s breathing on her own, but we’ve got to make sure her airway stays open,” Regan explained. “Use your fingers to push her jaw forward.” She adjusted her hands on Josh’s, moving his fingers beneath hers into position for a modified jaw thrust. “You’ve got to keep her head absolutely still.”
“All right.”
“She’ll probably vomit. Head injury patients almost always do, so get ready. When it happens, I’ll deal with cleaning her airway. You keep her motionless.”
“Yeah.”
Already, Amelia’s breathing had slowed, become even more irregular. The pinkish cerebral spinal fluid that bathed and suspended the brain and spinal cord now seeped from the girl’s ears and nose, indicating serious brain injury. An empty helplessness tightened Regan’s chest. If only she had some equipment. “Amelia?”
Nothing.
Pinching the girl’s arm got no response. “Amelia, can you hear me?” Regan knew that unconscious patients could still hear what was going on around them. “Hang on,” she said, keeping her voice calm and soothing as she rechecked the girl’s pulse. “Easton’s okay, Amelia. You’re going to be okay, too. Hang on.”
Despair engulfing her, Regan met Josh’s gaze. She knew the girl’s chances were as bleak as the look in his eyes.
