We All Sleep Alone (Finley Creek #11) - Calle J. Brookes Page 0,5
own head to Annie’s and whispered something he didn’t catch.
He’d never forget how they looked right there in that moment.
He stepped out of the trauma room and headed toward the exit, passing the mayor on his way. Turner looked like total shit right now.
The governor was there, too.
Allen didn’t care.
He just needed to get outside, breathe again.
Then move on to the next patient.
5
Cherise was going to stay in recovery, watching over everyone they had there now. Including Annie.
Izzie wanted to break down, but she couldn’t. Not yet.
The night was not over yet. Annie was going to be fine. Izzie had a new respect for Dr. Jacobson; he’d definitely earned his reputation as one of the best trauma surgeons in the country.
She caught up with him in the parking lot before he made it back to the triage tent. “Dr. Jacobson!”
He turned to look at her. He was tall and broad-shouldered. Not as tall as Rafe, but the chief of medicine was over six and a half feet. Dr. Jacobson was a few inches shorter. Maybe a full foot taller than Izzie’s five four or so. With more lean muscle than Rafe’s linebacker brick-wall build.
Both seemed strong enough to captain this ship through the storm.
They still had a line of patients waiting to get started at treatment.
“We have to keep moving,” Izzie said. “How long can we do this? We’re already at maximum capacity, with a third the number of beds to put people in. Half our supplies are destroyed. It’s still storming. What if we get hit again? Or we lose some of the tents or the people—including us—in them?”
He wrapped a strong hand around her arm and pulled her closer. Quieting her, so that her words didn’t scare anyone nearby.
Too late. Everyone was already scared.
The man was used to being in charge. It was hard to miss that. “We keep going. We don’t let them see. Just keep going.”
Izzie closed her eyes and pulled in a deep breath. Then coughed. She wheezed. Damn it.
She recognized the signs of impending trouble when they hit her. Izzie still had debris and contaminants in her lungs from the ER caving down around them, and the wind was whipping every possible allergen right toward her—she’d pay for that soon.
Stress didn’t help much, either.
She opened her eyes. He was staring down at her, concern in his gray eyes. He hadn’t missed it. “You ok?”
“Fine. I’m asthmatic. The dust and plaster have irritated my lungs. We need to get back to work.” She turned away. The last thing she needed was him looking at her like that. Not today.
Allen didn’t like it, but she was right. They had to get back to it. He would listen to her lungs the next free moment they got. In the meantime, he kept her as close to him as he could. Nearly dying together had tied them together somehow. If only for tonight.
Or maybe it was the dark eyes. They reminded him of Jess. Jess had had dark eyes like that. Big and deep and so dark a man could lose himself in them.
Izzie wasn’t like Jess, though. She had compassion for others. Kindness she couldn’t fake.
It was evident in the way she held the little boy on her lap while Allen stitched up the child’s arm. When Allen was finished the little boy hugged her. Izzie held him back and said something to him in Spanish. Comforted him and his terrified father.
They couldn’t find the child’s mother. She’d worked near city hall.
From what he’d heard, that area had taken a direct hit. Thousands of people were without shelter tonight. All of the usual places—hospitals, schools, churches, community centers—were all destroyed. Two of the largest churches in the city had been wiped clean off their foundations.
City hall—where Annie had been. Where Nikkie Jean had been going.
All the others that could had opened to the uninjured for shelter.
The mayor—Turner Barratt, a friend of Allen’s from his college days—was about to make a press conference from right in front of the hospital. Turner had been stuck with Annie Gaines in city hall. They both had come damned close to dying.
If they had taken much longer getting Annie out of the rubble, she would most likely have bled to death in the mayor’s arms.
The medical buildings across the parking lot from the hospital were relatively unscathed. Someone had opened W4HAV up to the public to use as a Red Cross post. Volunteers were gathering to help locate the missing.