Healing Her Heart, Laura Scott [reading fiction txt] 📗

Chapter One

“Hey, Jules—we have two trauma patients on the way, ETA less than five minutes.”

ER nurse Julie Crain stifled a groan. She’d just returned from taking her previous patient down to the morgue, and she was emotionally drained from dealing with his grieving family. She forced her exhaustion aside. “Okay, what’s the story?” she asked, glancing up at Merry Haines, the ER charge nurse at Hope County Hospital.

“A two-vehicle crash, T-bone on the driver side. From what I hear, the drunk driver who ran a red light and caused the crash wasn’t hurt-but the guy in the SUV and his young daughter are being brought in.”

Julie caught her breath as her heart thumped painfully in her chest. Oh, no. Not a young child. She couldn’t handle an injured child. She closed her eyes and prayed.

Please God, keep the little girl safe. And her father, too.

“I hope they lock up the drunk driver and throw away the key,” Merry muttered.

She understood where Merry was coming from. Working in the ER, they’d both seen more than their fair share of alcohol- or drug-related injuries and deaths.

Dr. Gabe Allen came into the room in time to catch the last part of their conversation. “The driver was Tommy Hinkle,” he said with a dark scowl. “So yeah, I think that scenario is highly likely.”

Not a tourist then, but one of their own. Tommy Hinkle was the Crystal Lake troublemaker, picking up where his father had left off. At nineteen, he wasn’t even legal to drink at all, much less drink and drive.

Tommy would end up in jail this time, for sure. Just like his father. The only good thing was that his mother, Annie Hinkle was still recovering in a Madison rehab center from a terrible car crash and wasn’t here to see her son behind bars.

Before she could check over their supplies, the doors from the ambulance bay burst open, and a bevy of paramedics wheeled in two gurneys.

Julie was relieved to be in position to take the first patient, which happened to be the father.

“Thirty-year-old Derek Ryerson, suffered loss of consciousness at the scene,” the paramedic announced. “We placed two eighteen-gauge PIV’s and gave a liter of fluid so far. His vitals remained stable throughout transfer.”

She quickly connected the heart monitor leads to his chest, reassured by the steady beat of his heart. She leaned over to perform a neurological assessment, noting an abrasion on the side of Derek Ryerson’s left temple that was easily seen, considering his military-short dark hair. Concerned about a possible head injury, she carefully lifted his eyelids and peered at his pupils. She flashed her penlight, grateful to note they were both equal and reactive.

She continued her assessment, listening to his heart and his lungs. The right side of his lungs didn’t sound as clear as his left side, and there was an angry red band across his chest from where the seatbelt had held him in place, likely preventing additional and more serious injuries. When she brushed a hand over the right side of his ribcage, he let out a low groan.

Bruised or broken ribs? Or something worse? She glanced up again at the heart monitor, but his vitals continued to be stable.

Before she could call over to Dr. Allen, a large hand reached out to grab her wrist. She gasped, her gaze clashing with his as he stared at her intently. His hard, blue, uncompromising gaze caused a spurt of fear.

“My daughter. Lexi,” he said hoarsely. His pain-glazed eyes bored into hers, and his grip on her wrist tightened painfully. “Where’s Lexi?”

The flash of fear faded when she realized he was concerned about his daughter. She glanced over to where Merry and Gabe were examining the young girl. “Don’t worry. Lexi is right here in the gurney beside you. My name is Julie and I’m your nurse. Merry and Dr. Allen are taking good care of your daughter.”

Lexi must have heard her father’s voice, because up until now, the silent child created a sudden commotion from the gurney next door as she struggled to get away from where Merry was trying to hold her down. “Daddy! Let me up! I wanna see my daddy!”

“Lexi.” Derek dropped Julie’s wrist and struggled to push himself upright as if intending to go to his daughter. He didn’t get far before he let out a harsh sound and grabbed the right side of his chest, swaying dangerously. His face went pale, beads of sweat popping out on his forehead.

“Take it easy. You’re going to hurt yourself more,” Julie told him, trying to keep calm, knowing she didn’t have the strength to hold him down if he chose to get up. Derek Ryerson was a big man, at least six feet tall and broad shouldered—his entire body was solid muscle. Whatever he did for a living, he kept in shape. “You have a couple of bruised or broken ribs, and we haven’t cleared your spine yet, either. We also need to make sure you don’t have a head injury.”

For a moment, he stared into her eyes, as if trying to decide whether or not to believe her. Considering the strength with which he’d grabbed her wrist, she thought he couldn’t be too badly injured. She waited, simply looking back at him, secretly amazed at how brilliant his blue eyes were.

Good thing she was immune to good-looking men.

After what seemed like a long time, he dragged his gaze from hers. “Lexi, listen to what the doctors and nurses are telling you to do, okay, honey? They’re only trying to help. I’m right here next to you. I promise I won’t leave without you.”

“Daddy, I want my daddy,” the girl cried out between heartbreaking sobs, repeating herself over and over again, seemingly inconsolable. The poor child must be traumatized from the accident.

“Gabe? I might need a chest X-ray here,” she called out, doing her best not to be distracted by Lexi’s sobbing mantra, even though she wanted nothing more than to cross over to offer comfort.

Gabe walked to her side. “His vitals, along with his oxygen saturation, are stable, so let’s do a CT scan of his head, neck, chest, and abdomen. That way we’ll have the big picture.”

“Sounds good.” She picked up the phone and called over to radiology to put in the request for the CT scan. When she finished, she turned back to Derek. “How does your head feel?”

“Fine,” he said through gritted teeth. The lines bracketing his mouth indicated suppressed pain, but whether from just his ribs or his head, too, she couldn’t say for sure. He closed his eyes, as if he couldn’t stand the bright lights. “I’m fine, just take care of my daughter.”

She frowned. Was his head injury worse than she thought? Hadn’t she already told him that his daughter was being cared for? “Merry and Dr. Allen are taking good care of Lexi, remember? Does your back hurt anywhere? I need you to be honest with me, because if you have a cracked spine that goes undiagnosed, you could become paralyzed.”

He opened his eyes and glared at her, but she refused to back down. She couldn’t understand why he was downplaying his injuries. “No, my back doesn’t hurt. My neck is sore, and my head hurts a bit, too. The right side of my chest feels like it’s on fire, but nothing hurts as much as listening to Lexi cry.”

She smiled gently, feeling bad for him. She could only imagine how difficult it would be to stay on a gurney if her niece had been injured. “I know, and I’m sorry. But the best thing you can do for your daughter is to make sure you’re all right. She needs you.”

“I’m fine, nothing a little aspirin won’t cure. Bruised and battered from the airbag and the crash, but fine.”

There was no point in arguing. She glanced over at the next gurney, where Gabe and Merry where in deep conversation.

“I don’t see any sign of serious injury,” she heard Merry saying to Gabe. “The paramedics believe she was likely in a proper booster seat in the back on the passenger side, opposite from the point of impact. When they arrived, they found her out of the seat and clinging to her father. Apparently, they had a heck of a time getting her away from him, and they had to give her a mild dose of Versed to get her onto the gurney. She’s probably fine, but we should get a chest and abdominal CT scan, just to be sure there is no internal bleeding from the straps of her car seat.”

Julie waited until Merry finished. “Since they both need CT scans, I should take them down the hall to radiology together. I think Lexi will be calmer if she can be with her father.”

“She can’t go into the scanner with him,” Gabe pointed out with a frown.

“No, but I could sit with her in the viewing room, behind the lead glass,” she argued. “And once Lexi sees her father going through the scanner, maybe she’ll cooperate when it’s her turn.”

Gabe and Merry looked at each other and shrugged. “Fine with me,” Gabe finally agreed.

Satisfied, Julie waited for Gabe to finish his exam of Derek and then entered the necessary radiology orders for both patients into their respective charts.

She made the arrangements and then quietly told Derek