The Right Stuff

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The minute they saw Daniel, the airmen immediately parted as if he was Moses and they were the Red Sea.

“Thank God, you’re here, Doc,” said a senior airman with relief in his voice. “We knew better than to try to get the Jeep off him, even though he was begging us.”

“Good job.” Swiftly, Daniel knelt beside a pair of uniformed legs protruding from underneath the vehicle. As the men related what had happened, Taylor could hear the victim moaning softly.

Daniel issued orders and the airmen leapt into action. They scrambled here and there; one airman going for a first aid kit, a second one bringing in a hydraulic lift, another rushing out to wait for the medics to arrive.

The coppery taste of adrenaline spilled into her mouth as she watched the scenario unfold. In a matter of minutes, they had the vehicle off the victim. Daniel sprang into action with skills that took her breath away. His assured self-confidence was amazing.

Taylor watched, agog. Sure, she knew he was a doctor, but knowing it intellectually and seeing him in action as a strong, decisive leader whose actions saved lives, were two different things. The boy she’d once known had become a powerful, influential man.

Ambulance sirens screamed to a halt outside the hangar door and two medics hustled in to load the victim onto the gurney. They’d brought a portable cardiac monitor with them and Daniel slapped the leads onto the man’s chest, busily barking out instructions about IV solutions and pain medication and other medical stuff Taylor didn’t understand.

The medics carried out his orders, seemingly doing a dozen things at once at the same time they were wheeling the victim toward the ambulance.

“You riding with us, Doc?” one of the medics asked.

Daniel’s head came up then, his eyes meeting Taylor’s and she realized he’d completely forgotten about her until that moment. She stood there barefooted, holding her five-hundred-dollar sandals, as a gaggle of airmen ogled her. She felt distinctly out of place.

“We’ll meet you there.”

We. He was taking her with him.

The ambulance raced off and Daniel commandeered a Jeep that was parked outside the hangar. “Get in,” he said.

She climbed in beside him, slipping on her shoes as he drove. Her pulse pounded in her temples, her head spun, overwhelmed by what she’d just witnessed.

“I thought you were a flight surgeon to the astronauts,” she said.

“I am, but that doesn’t mean I don’t respond to emergencies.”

“I didn’t mean that,” she corrected. “Of course you’d respond to any emergency. I did some research before coming here and I was surprised to learn a flight surgeon isn’t really a surgeon. It’s just what they call the doctors who take care of the flight team.”

“I’m an actual surgeon as well. Trained in a field hospital in Iraq.”

“Oh, I didn’t know.”

“Why would you?”

“So you won’t be following this airman’s case?”

“No, I’m just going along to make sure everyone is okay and to brief the physician who’ll be taking over his care.”

“I see. How severe are the man’s injuries?”

“When the jack collapsed, the Jeep fell on his chest.”

Taylor hissed in a breath.