Florida Fling with the Single Dad, page 3
“What’s the holdup?” Dylan asked as they approached the EMTs.
“The door crushed in on impact and they needed to use their rescue equipment on the victims in the car first. They were both unresponsive on arrival. They said this guy was talking when they arrived.”
She followed Dylan as he moved to where the first responders worked. From the language of the firefighters that were operating the Jaws of Life, things weren’t going well.
“How’s our patient?” he asked as he moved to look inside the crushed front end of the truck. “You couldn’t get him out through the window?”
“The way the top folded in on it, it was faster to go in this way,” a man closest to the wrecked truck said. “When the trailer jackknifed, it hit the side rail before hitting the tree. The whole truck was crushed.”
“We’re in,” a firefighter said, and then moved back as Dylan moved to the opening.
Leaving the stretcher, Katie grabbed their bag. An older man, she estimated to be in his fifties, was still attached by his seat belt in the driver’s seat.
“I thought they said he was talking,” she said, opening their scene bag and pulling out a collar to secure the man’s neck.
“He was until about two minutes ago,” a fireman said as he joined them.
“Can you bring the backboard and stretcher over here,” she asked the him as she watched Dylan check the man’s pulse.
“He’s got a pulse, but his respiration is shallow. He needs intubating but there’s no way to do it without moving him first. Let’s get him out and secured.” Dylan took the cervical collar from her and secured it before moving back to let the firefighters transfer him to the stretcher.
She grabbed an endotracheal tube and laryngoscope and readied them for intubation. Handing them off to Dylan as soon as the man had been strapped to the backboard, she pulled out an IV kit and started working on getting access. Going for a big bore site, she cleaned the man’s antecubital vein. As she inserted the needle, she suddenly became aware of a group of men crowding her back.
A bunch of nosy first responders was the last thing she needed to deal with right now.
She flushed the line and hung the bag of fluid she’d prepared earlier. Turning around, she gave the crowd of firefighters and EMTs a look that would have had her older brothers shaking in their NYPD-issued boots. Of course this group of adrenaline junkies didn’t have the good sense to give her some space.
“Problem?” Dylan asked as he slid the tube into their patient’s trachea.
“No. I’ve got this,” she said as she applied the patches and hooked the man to the portable monitor. His heart rate was elevated, in the one-twenties. The men behind her pressed in even closer.
“The whole bunch of you need to take a step back.” When they didn’t move, she raised her voice. “Now.”
As she turned back to her patient, she heard some of the men laugh while others complained. As she and Dylan began to rush their patient back to the helicopter, she overheard one of the men say that she must be a rookie.
They’d been on-site just over ten minutes and part of that time had been waiting for their patient to be cleared from the wreckage. The two of them had worked together as if they had for years. There was no one she had ever worked with that could have done things any better.
“Ignore them,” Dylan said as she climbed into the helicopter. “They’re just curious about a newcomer. It’s one of the problems with living on a small island. It won’t last long.”
“I handled it,” she said, then put the comments she’d heard behind her. There were more important things here than whether a bunch of first responders liked her. She wasn’t there to be liked. She was there to keep this guy alive till they could hand him off to the closest trauma unit.
She had begun her assessment before the skids even left the ground, calling out her findings to Dylan as he radioed report to the receiving hospital in Miami.
“I’m only getting breath sounds on the right side and his oxygen sats are in the mideighties,” she told him after he signed off the radio.
“Pneumo?” Dylan asked. “Or tube placement?”
Was this a test? With the extent of the man’s injuries it could easily be a pneumothorax, but without an X-ray to verify placement or determine if there was a pneumo, the first thing she would normally do was replace the tube. Of course, telling her boss that his tube might not be correctly placed could be awkward, but if they were going to work together they would need honesty. That was something her father had drilled into all his children. If you couldn’t trust your partner, who could you trust?
“My instincts say it’s a pneumo, but we have another thirty minutes of flight time so we should replace the tube first,” she said.
“Should?” he asked. One eyebrow rose above those amazing eyes that were bearing down on her.
“I’m going to replace the endotracheal tube in case there’s a problem with placement,” she said with more confidence than she felt. If she’d been back on her own home turf she would have told her partner what she was about to do and unless they’d had any objections she’d have moved on.
Not waiting for Dylan’s consent, she pulled out the proper ET tube and supplies. After removing the tube placed by Dylan, she placed the new tube in seconds. Checking placement with her stethoscope she listened to both sides of the man’s chest. She shook her head. “Still no sound on the left side.”
“His sats are still holding in the high eighties and his blood pressure is stable right now. I think we can hold off and let the trauma center put in the chest tube. You agree?” Dylan asked.
“I do. The best thing for this guy is to get him to a surgeon. He’s holding his pressure right now, but his stomach’s tight. He’s bleeding somewhere internally,” she said as she was adjusting the IV fluids to give the patient a bolus to help replace the blood she knew he was losing. She reached into the man’s pants pocket, checking one and then the other and finally locating a billfold. She handed it to Dylan. “The hospital will want this. His phone must still be in the truck. Maybe one of the officers will find it and can notify his family.”
“Fifteen-minute ETA,” Roy said over the headphones. “Heli-Care Marathon should be cleared out by the time we arrive. Then it’s back home for us, right, boss? I think Katie’s pretty much got a good lay of the land by now, don’t you?”
“Ten-four, Roy. I think we can head home as soon as we unload. Time to get back to the surf and sand.” Dylan turned toward her with a smile that sent her heartbeat racing. This man could be a real charmer when he wanted to be.
“Whatever you say, boss,” she said as she smiled back, “whatever you say.”
* * *
“How did the newbie do, boss? I heard you got dispatched together.” Katie heard a male voice ask. Stopping before she entered the office, she tried to remember if this was one of the two men she’d met that morning. Feeling self-conscious, and a little bit curious, she waited to hear Dylan’s answer.
“She’s not a newbie; she has as many years as you do in flying. And stop calling me ‘boss.’”
Okay, he hadn’t sung her praises, but he had let the man know she was an experienced flight nurse.
“I heard she let the guys shake her up like a newbie,” the man, who was really starting to get on her nerves said. What was his name? Casey? No, that was the flight nurse going off shift.
“You know we need someone we can count on, not some big-city nurse who doesn’t understand how we do things around here,” the man continued.
“I heard she had a bad scene in New York and took a bullet for her patient,” a female voice said, “that sounds like someone you can count on to me.”
If she wasn’t mistaken it was Summer’s voice that she heard defending her now. It had to be since she was the only woman on the shift till tomorrow morning. She’d known she was going to like the petite blonde the moment she’d met her. Though, she did wish everyone didn’t know the story of her being injured at a scene. It seemed nothing traveled faster than a juicy story. Or maybe Alex told Summer before he’d left? She’d asked Katie several questions that morning about where Alex could have taken off to. As if Katie had any more information than the rest of them. If anyone was to know where Alex was, it should have been Dylan.
Alex had always been so vague about his family. It couldn’t have been easy having the paparazzi hounding him and his mother when he was growing up. And he’d never mentioned anything about his father.
“I also heard she choked the first time she went out on a flight in New York after the shooting,” the man answered Summer back. “That’s not cool. You know we all rely on each other here. I’m sure we’re just a bunch of beach bums to her, but we can’t go around insulting our firefighters and EMTs without ruffling some feathers. We depend on those guys for our safety.”
“It seems to me you’ve all been spending too much time listening to gossip that doesn’t have anything to do with you or your job. I hear what you’re saying, Max. I don’t know exactly what happened when she went back to work, but I can assure you she was fully cleared to work before she left New York and she did a great job on the scene today. I’d be happy to fly with her anytime. And yes, Katie’s new here so maybe the guys at the scene should have given her some room.”
As the door started to swing open, Katie turned and rushed toward the kitchen. The only thing that would be more embarrassing than overhearing her coworkers’ objections to her working there would be for her to get caught.
An older man came into the kitchen and gave her a weak smile before heading off to the lounge where she heard the television volume increase. When Summer didn’t follow him, Katie figured she’d gone to her quarters to rest.
The smart thing to do was to just pretend that she hadn’t heard the conversation, but was that really the right thing to do? If she was already having problems with the staff not trusting her, what future did she have here?
But that was just her lack of confidence talking. Alex said himself that he’d be willing to fly with her. She couldn’t ask for anything more than that as his vote of confidence in her.
All she had ever wanted to be was a flight nurse since the first time she’d seen a helicopter take off of the roof on the hospital where she had first started as a new nurse. She’d made that her focus for three years, taking classes and getting certifications and experience in the intensive care units so she could meet the necessary qualifications. Her father had bragged to all his buddies on the police force that his daughter was now flying the skies of New York saving lives. She’d used her father’s pride in her as motivation at rehab so she could get back the physical stamina she needed to return to work.
Alex knew all this about her. He knew that she would never let anything stand in the way of her doing her job. But Dylan? He didn’t know her at all.
“Hey,” Dylan said, startling her as he stepped into the kitchen, “I thought you were going to come finish your paperwork.”
“Sorry, I just stopped to get a bottle of water.” She held up the bottle before following him back to the office.
“How much did you hear?” he asked as he shut the door behind them.
She should have known Dylan was an everything-up-front kind of guy. He had known she was headed to the office right behind the two flight crew members and while he could have pretended that she hadn’t overheard them, he wasn’t going to do it.
“Enough,” she said. Enough to know she was already starting off on the wrong foot. He’d told her that this was a good crew that worked closely together. Her plan had been to keep her head down and work hard for the next two months, but on her first flight she’d managed to bring too much unwanted attention to herself.
“You want to talk about it?” he asked as he leaned back on the corner of the desk.
“Not really,” she replied. What could she say? That all of this was because of the simple fact she couldn’t handle that feeling of defenselessness she felt whenever someone came up behind her? Didn’t that just sound like a strong, capable nurse you would want on your team?
“And why is that, Katie? Afraid someone might see a kink in that armor you’re wearing? We’ve all got our issues. Take Max. He can’t handle a puking patient so he carries an emesis bag with him at all times. It’s how he handles it.” His eyes searched hers.
Was it possible that this man could see the fear she barely kept hidden? Would he see how broken she was? She’d been able to keep her anxiety to herself, even hiding it from her family of hard-core police officers. How could this man see inside her so easily? She’d thought she was safe because Alex wasn’t there. It seemed she was wrong. Dylan saw too much.
“Look, I’ve been through a lot the last few months, but one thing I know for sure is that nothing that happened has affected my caring for my patients.” Like her father had told her when she’d come out of surgery, she couldn’t lie in bed feeling sorry for herself. If she wanted to show the coward that had shot her that he hadn’t won, she had to get up and get back to work.
And that was what she had done. Only it hadn’t been as easy as her father had made it sound. She’d healed on the outside, but there was still something on the inside that wasn’t ready to move on. But that wasn’t something she was going to admit to Dylan.
“Alex told me everything he knew about your injuries. I know you were shot by some punk who didn’t care who he hurt while he was trying to finish off his first victim. I know you placed yourself in front of your patient and took a bullet. I know that your patient died with you lying injured over him. And while Alex seemed to think that you were back a hundred percent, I find that a little hard to believe,” Dylan said, his eyes still locked with hers.
“What do you mean? I’ve done everything my doctors have asked. I worked my butt off in rehab.” She broke contact with him, afraid to see the pity she’d seen so much of when her coworkers had come to visit her in the hospital.
“I’m not questioning that you’re up to the job here. I have no complaints about your performance today.” He ran his hands through the curls that were working their way down into his eyes. “Look, Katie, I know it’s hard to admit that you need help. It’s hard for everyone. I just want you to know that if you want to talk to someone I’m here.”
“What, like you want to be my new counselor? You have to know I’ve already gone through all the counseling sessions that are required after a traumatic injury. It has to be there in my employment record somewhere.” The vulnerability from having this stranger know so much about her made her want to strike out. What did he really know? What did anyone know about her life now?
“Have you ever had to do it? Sat down in some office and bare all your personal feelings and failings?” she asked, knowing what his answer would be. There was no way this tough guy would ever admit that he had some type of weakness.
“Yes, actually I have. It was only once, but after a particularly bad scene when I was first starting off I was having problems sleeping. I have a friend who went into psychology who has an office in Islamorada so I went to talk to him,” Dylan said as he leaned back in his chair.
“Did it help?” she asked, “Did it make any difference?”
“I can’t say it was an instant fix-all, but it felt like just admitting to someone and sharing that I was having a problem with what I had seen, and having him say that it was okay, even expected, for me to have the reaction I was having helped. Soon after that, we started doing debriefing after our flights. I think that’s helped us all.”
“But that’s different. Your friend wasn’t in a position to decide if you were able to work or not. Your future wasn’t being determined by him.” And that didn’t sound a bit paranoid, did it?
“I’m just saying if you need someone to talk to, I’m here for you just as I’d be there for any of the crew. Or I could see about getting you set up with my friend here if you think that would work better for you. He’s a good man.” Dylan stood and handed her a folder. “Here’s the paperwork that you need to finish. You can bring it by the cottage if you want. I’ll email you a copy of the schedule I’m reworking before I leave today.”
“Thanks,” she said as she took the folder and turned to leave. She knew she should say more. He was only trying to do his job. She should be grateful that he cared about her. After all, she was only there for the next two months. All he really had to care about was whether she showed up for her shifts or not. But that didn’t make it any easier to take.
“And, Katie,” Dylan said from behind her, “don’t worry about Max. He can be a little grumpy, but put him out on a scene and he’ll have your back.”
She turned around and met Dylan’s eyes as he added, “We’ll all have your back.”
CHAPTER THREE
KATIE’S PHONE RANG as soon as she opened the door to her cottage. After her talk with Dylan, she was sure it was her counselor calling again. The woman was a nice person. It wasn’t her fault that she had been assigned to Katie’s case, which required her to check on her once a month. If only the woman didn’t ask so many questions.
Seeing that instead it was her younger brother, she answered the call. “Hey, Mikey.”
“Sis, why haven’t you called anyone? Matt’s been going crazy wondering if his Jeep is okay,” her brother said.
“I’m glad to hear that it wasn’t me he was worried about,” she teased. Laying down the folder of paperwork she had to fill out onto the small dining table, she moved over to the French doors and opened the curtains. Paradise was just outside her back door. It was the perfect place for her to escape her worries.
“You know that all of us worry about you, especially now that you’re over fourteen hundred miles away. You sure you don’t want to come home?” Her brother had been asking the same question every day since she left New York.
