A Time for Us - By Amy Knupp Page 0,53

captain, who’d been standing right behind him, on the situation, and Joe assigned Nate, one of his fire crew on scene, to drive the ambulance since Rafe and Cale would have their hands full in the back.

Rafe continued to work on the patient and they got her on the spine board. As soon as the three of them were in the back of the ambulance, they started backing up.

His own pulse hammering, Cale yelled up to Nate to avoid Gulf Boulevard at all costs. If they got caught up in that traffic again, this woman didn’t stand a chance.

They reached the hospital on the mainland without Cale even noticing they’d crossed the bridge over the bay. The hospital personnel had been radioed on the way in and would be waiting for the patient at the door. He focused on none of that, though, only on getting a response, a change, anything positive from the patient. Rafe continued to work on her as they slid the gurney out and rolled her to the entrance. Cale updated the nurses who hurried alongside them, filling them in on what they’d attempted as well as the results—or lack thereof—in the minutes since the radio report.

As soon as the patient was in an exam room, things got even more chaotic—if that were possible. Rafe was the lead on this call, and Cale was only in the way at this point, so he stepped aside, swallowing hard. The mood in the tiny room was panicked and somber at once, and even someone who wasn’t trained in what was happening and hadn’t been involved on the call would grasp that it was going to take a miracle for a happy ending.

As he backed into the wall, making the mental transition between being wholly responsible for this woman’s life and letting others take over, he swore under his breath the most vulgar stream of words he could concoct when he finally had the chance to observe and realized...

The doctor on duty was Rachel.

Unless there was a major turnaround, this situation had the potential to seriously mess with her head like other patient deaths hadn’t.

Though Cale was out in the E.R. hallway, sagging against the wall a short distance down from the room with the asthma patient, he knew the minute Rachel called the death. The frenzied din of medical personnel had petered out, and the energy in the air had disappeared.

He knocked his head back against the wall in defeat.

The woman’s family members were crowded into a private room, and as Cale looked in that direction, he fought to get air past the choking lump in his throat to his lungs, all too aware of the devastation they were about to have thrust upon them.

Rachel emerged from the exam room, her face as white as the drab, institutional walls around her. Generally speaking, her professional demeanor remained intact. However, there was a second when Cale saw it falter, saw her swallow, close her eyes for a moment longer than a blink and exhale slowly, as if to expel any personal pain so she could carry on with the task at hand.

She looked up then, met his eyes for the briefest instant, and there was no mistaking the toll the past half hour had taken on her.

Without so much as a nod of acknowledgment, Rachel walked in the opposite direction from him, toward the room where the family waited, undoubtedly to deliver the most difficult news to the family of the twenty-three-year-old woman who had, like Noelle, inexplicably, unfairly lost her brief battle.

“Paperwork’s done,” Rafe said, coming from the nurse’s station around the corner. “Let’s get out of here. We’ve got an ambulance to restock.”

Cale didn’t immediately move, feeling hollow and so damn tired.

“Standing here isn’t going to do anybody any good,” Rafe said gently.

Cale glanced back toward the room Rachel was now in, thinking she shouldn’t have to handle this alone. That she needed someone to be there for her. But...no. The likelihood of her breaking down while on duty was next to nothing. The queen of blocking out the hard stuff would soldier on at least until the end of her shift—he was sure of it.

* * *

FOR ONCE, RACHEL WAS out the door of the hospital less than ten minutes after her shift ended. She didn’t bother to change out of her scrubs, didn’t grab anything to eat, didn’t hang around to get any extra work done. She didn’t say a word to anyone, either.

Her training