and they’re here on vacation, staying at the inn.”
Katy stared at him, knowing she needed to tend to the boy, but curiosity held her in place. “So, you just happen to know Danish?”
Jake shrugged. “It pays to study abroad.”
She nodded, interest fading as duty called. She reached out but didn’t touch the boy until she asked permission by arching a brow with her smile. He nodded, and she cupped his arm gently. After probing the boy’s shoulder around the welt, she turned to the police officer. “Jake, could you please tell Evan that I wish I had better news for him, but it doesn’t look like he’ll even have a scar to show his buddies when he tells them how he jumped in the stream to save his sister.”
Jake chuckled and relayed the message. Evan scowled down at his shoulder, then leaned sideways to see past Katy before clasping Shep to his chest again. He looked up at her and spoke, and his tone suggested he was asking her a question.
“Evan wants to know if his sister is going to be okay,” Jake said.
Katy pulled the jacket over his shoulder and glanced back to see the now conscious and sobbing girl being strapped onto the gurney as the mother held an oxygen mask over her daughter’s face. Likely, she’d been pressed into service to keep her from renewed hysteria. Not that Katy could blame her.
Evan looked toward the bridge crowded with people, and Katy touched his shoulder again. Smiling at him, she said, “You definitely earned your hero’s medal today, big man. She’s going to be just fine.”
Jake translated. She guessed he added praise of his own as he spoke at some length because Evan’s chin rose proudly.
“MacBain! Bring the boy. He’s going with us,” the other medic called.
Katy look over to see the medic set the jump bag on the gurney, then watched Niall, Chief Wolfe, and a couple of other firefighters muscle it up the sloping bank toward the ambulance parked at the top of the lane. Jake said something to Evan while tugging Shep out of the way, and Katy helped the boy stand. She placed a steadying hand on his uninjured arm for support and walked him toward his mom and sister.
“I’ll drive the father and other boy to the hospital,” Jake told Niall when they reached the ambulance. “I speak enough Danish to translate what the doctor has to say, and I’ll see if I can’t get Evan to tell me how they ended up in the water.”
“We don’t need two medics.” Madam Sunshine helped Evan into the ambulance then moved to block Katy from getting in. The woman smiled tightly. “Maybe if you’re lucky, the tones will go off for a stranded climber before I’m back, and you’ll get to use all your fancy new wilderness training. Meanwhile, do something useful and shut the doors,” she added as she turned to buckle Evan into the jump seat.
Chief Wolfe closed the first door, but Katy stopped in the act of closing the second one. “You in the habit of taking over another medic’s patient in the middle of treatment?” she asked, gesturing at the girl on the gurney.
“I’ve been saving lives longer than you’ve been alive. And when I’m in station, I deal with the critical ones. Welles, drive!”
Chief Wolfe finished closing the door and gave it two heavy thumps with his fist, signaling to Welles that he was clear to go.
“What is her problem?” Katy muttered over the sudden blare of the siren as the ambulance pulled onto the road. She turned to the chief. “She stole my patient.”
He stilled, clearly confused. “There were enough patients to go around.”
“But the girl was mine. I was first on scene and had first contact. And Madam Sunshine over there just waltzed in after the fact and—”
“Gretchen,” he interjected. “Her name is Gretchen Conroy.”
Katy narrowed her eyes, annoyed at his casual tone. “Not even a doctor who shows up on scene will touch a patient unless the attending medic asks for help. It’s an unwritten code of respect.”
Chief Wolfe swiped at some water dripping off his hair, scanned the people still hanging around, then pulled the hem of his T-shirt out of his pants. He started walking up the road toward the station as he lifted the wet material—making her gasp a little at the sight of an amazingly ripped abdomen—and wiped his face, his boots squishing in rhythm with his brisk pace as Katy walked beside