Saxon's Savior (Protect and Serve #3) - Pandora Pine Page 0,7
of it, and me with a fucking rookie. I turned to glance at Saxon. He was staring out the windshield with a fierce look on his face. Today might be his first day with me, but he had ten years’ experience on the job. “Triage when we get on scene. By the sound of it, we’re gonna need the Jaws to get the guy out of the car.”
“You got it,” Saxon said. He had his game face on, no doubt about it.
Pulling up to the crash, the scene was worse than I’d expected. The Market Basket Supermarket trailer lay on its side, blocking both sides of the road. Thankfully, the truck only contained a grocery delivery. I picked up the mic connected to Ozzy. “Did they call a second alarm on this for the other side of the truck?”
“Don’t know,” Ozzy returned. “The trailer driver is sitting on top of the rig. I can see him from here. Might have to call up the hook and ladder to go get him.”
“It’s the middle of rush hour,” Saxon said. “The other side of the bridge will be jammed with traffic. You might not be able to get the ladder through all of it. Why not try the air cushion? It won’t take up much room.”
Ozzy paused, as if he were thinking it over. “Good plan. Out.”
I knew when I turned to look at Saxon, he’d be wearing a shit-eating grin. He wasn’t. He still had his game face on and looked like he was ready to go. Just the kind of man I needed on my ambulance. I was still going to keep my eyes on him. Once bitten, twice shy. Technically, I hadn’t been bitten, but whatever.
Parking the ambulance, I shut off the siren, but kept the lights flashing. Saxon was out the passenger door before I’d even gotten my seatbelt off. I could see three cars involved. Two of them were stuck together, front bumper to back bumper, a late model Cadillac and an older Chevy. The third was crushed against the side of the guardrail of the bridge.
I could see Saxon working on the passenger of the rear-ended car. He hustled the driver out of the car and was directing him toward the back side of the bridge. I could see the man sprinting. “What the fuck is going on?” I muttered under my breath. Saxon hadn’t checked the driver for neck injuries before practically yanking him out of the car.
When I stepped out of the ambulance, I knew exactly why Saxon had acted the way he had. I smelled gas. Getting down on my hands and knees, I could see it spilling out of the first car and running back toward the second. Ozzy and Chasten Coyne were busy with the Jaws of Life, trying to free the driver pinned in the third car, while Carl and Jax worked to deploy the air cushion for the driver stuck on the top of his overturned rig.
My attention turned back to Saxon, who was yanking with all his might to open the driver’s side door of the Chevy compact that had rear-ended the Cadillac. The door was stuck tight. “Try the passenger side!” I shouted as I ran toward the car.
Saxon looked up at me and nodded. The back end of the Chevy was wedged against the side of the bridge. I watched in awe as Saxon climbed over the roof of the car, sliding off to the other side. “Passenger door will open, but not enough for me to get inside!” he yelled back.
Before I could yell at him to break the window and crawl in, Saxon was doing that very thing. Glass shattered, and then he was belly crawling into the car. I could hear him shouting instructions to the driver. When I reached the car, half his body was inside the cab. I knelt down to look inside the driver’s side of the car.
The driver was a young woman, no more than eighteen or nineteen years old. She was wearing a yellow dress with fancy pumps, one of which was wedged under the brake pedal. “It’s going to be okay,” I reassured the woman.
“I can smell gas,” she panted, turning her huge blue eyes at me. “And my seatbelt won’t unbuckle.”
Saxon and I exchanged a knowing look with each other. We both understood what was happening. He was using a knife to saw through the thick polyester of the belt. “Cathy,” Saxon grinned. “Tell me about