“EARLIER I MEANT to tell you how fabulous you looked, but now you look as tired as I feel after being here all day. You okay?”
Sarah glanced at Shelley. Fabulous wasn’t how she’d have described herself at any point that evening. Well, prior to Jude and her arriving at the engagement party Sarah had felt a bit like a belle on her way to a ball. As if she’d been the star of the evening, shining for Jude.
Ha. If so, that star had burned out and now there was a painful gaping black hole where hope had once shone.
“Even before I got here, it had been a long night,” she admitted, squirting hand sanitizer on her hands and rubbing them together as she readied to go to the next patient. “But I’m fine.”
“It’s just getting started. Sorry you got called away from Charles and Grace’s party. Especially with as glam as you looked when you got here.”
“I was in scrubs when I got here,” she reminded her.
“Yeah, scrubs and make-up and a fancy hairdo. You looked like a movie star doctor.”
“That’s funny.” But neither Sarah nor Shelley were laughing. Or dallying to talk as they quickly moved from one patient to the next.
“Hot date?”
Her date had been hot. He’d also been a jerk. And admitted he was in love with another woman. No biggie.
“I went out with my neighbor, but it wasn’t a big deal. We’re not dating.”
Not anymore.
But for the past few weeks she’d felt...alive. Wonderfully, femininely alive.
The night before she’d felt amazingly alive in Jude’s arms. Then, poof, he’d transformed into someone totally inconsistent with who she’d believed him to be.
Because he’d gotten what he’d wanted and was ready to move on?
He was usually a one-night-stand man, but maybe he’d given her a few weeks because she’d been a virgin?
He probably had treated her more delicately because of her inexperience, but she believed his reasons for his bad behavior. He’d been in love with Nina and had shut off a part of himself when she’d died, had shut himself off from his family.
On autopilot, Sarah treated another patient, deeming the young man’s severe abdominal pain to be a renal stone.
Sending over a prescription to manage his pain until he could be seen by Nephrology in clinic, Sarah typed in discharge orders and stepped out of the bay.
The emergency department was crazily busy. People, both patients and hospital personnel, were everywhere. In addition to the usual influx of patients, an apartment building filled mainly with low-income elderly had caught fire. Two people were confirmed dead. Dozens more had been rescued and brought in for smoke inhalation and minor burns. The hospital was still on standby as more were trapped inside the building.
Last she’d heard the fire was running rampant and out of control.
Was Jude there?
Of course he was.
That had to be the emergency call he’d gotten right before he’d left her apartment.
He was there. Probably inside that burning building, risking everything for strangers.
Because that’s what he did.
Risked everything for strangers.
That’s why he had the steady flow of different women.
Because he wouldn’t let anyone get close.
Why he had invested more time with her than he generally gave, she wasn’t sure. No doubt he regretted having done so, regretted having admitted the truth.
Not that he had to worry that she’d tell Charles. Jude’s secret was safe with her. It wasn’t her place to try to heal the rift between the two cousins, or to try to get Jude the counseling he so obviously needed that he couldn’t let go of a dead woman’s memory.
He’d put Sarah in her place tonight.
Her place wasn’t to interfere in his life in any shape, form, or fashion.
He didn’t let anyone interfere in his life, not friends or family or women. He kept them all at a distance and preferred it that way.
“You okay?”
Sarah blinked at her nurse. “Fine.”
“You zoned out on me for a few seconds. You’ve been running since you got here. You need a short break or a drink or something?”
Sarah shook her head. “Sorry. Got lost in my thoughts, but I’m fine. Who’s next?”
Every bay was full of smoke inhalation victims. Some with burns, some not. Every respiratory therapist in the hospital was administering oxygen and nebulizer treatments and whatever else was needed to keep airways open. Fortunately, so far only a few had had to be intubated, but from the calls they were getting from EMS, more victims were on their way.
Other hospital personnel were talking to family members and less critical patients who they’d stuck in the waiting area, offering drinks, blankets, and just a comforting pat on the hand in some cases.
All the acutely critical had been seen to and were being appropriately cared for. Now Sarah and the other providers would start chipping away at the overflow of minor injuries and other anomalies that had sent folks into the emergency room on a Saturday night.
Or so she’d thought.
At that moment, a gurney came rushing in, with another close on its heels. An elderly man and an elderly woman.
Paul was the paramedic with the elderly man who appeared to be in worse shape than the woman on the second gurney. Both wore oxygen masks, but the woman kept taking hers off to talk to the paramedic pushing her.
They had no empty bay to put either of the new patients, but hopefully the kidney stone patient would be out of his room soon. Plus, the transport crew was on their way to admit another patient up to the medical floor. Goodness knew the emergency room was giving them a workout with so many more than normal admissions thanks to the smoke inhalation victims needing respiratory observation at least overnight.
Sarah rushed over to meet Paul since the elderly man appeared to be more critically injured. “There’s not an empty bay. Let’s pull him over this way so he’s not in the direct line of traffic and you can give me report while I do my assessment.”
“Ed Johnson and his wife, Clara...” Paul gestured over to the other gurney “...were trapped in their apartment bathroom. Like almost everyone brought in tonight, Ed is suffering from smoke inhalation, but his main injury is from a fall that occurred when he and his wife were trying to get out of the building.”
“Tripped over my own two feet,” the man said between coughs, his words muffled by his oxygen mask.
“His wife is a retired nurse and took a rolled-up bed sheet, put it under his arms, and dragged him back into their apartment. She blocked their doors with wet towels, and barricaded them in their bathroom where she called 911 and begged for help.”
For a brief moment Sarah tried to imagine the pure terror the couple had to have felt. She shuddered.
“Thank God someone got to them.”
Paul nodded, then a light dawned on his face. “Actually, it was my buddy, the one you met with the little girl a couple of weeks ago, who pulled them out.”
“Jude?”
“That’s him.” Paul grinned. “Figured you’d remember him. He’s that kind of guy.”
Jude had rescued the couple, had saved their lives.
“Were they the last of the victims?” she asked, hopeful.
Paul’s smile faded and he shook his head. “There were still others trapped. They’d called for everyone to evacuate the building as we loaded the ambulance with the Johnsons.”
“Jude was out then?” she asked, praying that he’d heeded the warning.
Paul shook his head. “I don’t think so. Like I told you before, that man is first one in and last one out.” Paul finished giving report, then took off to get back to the fire scene, ready for the next load.
“Good man,” her patient said through his oxygen mask after Paul had left.
“Paul? I only know him from coming into contact with him here, but, yes, he seems to be.”
Mr. Johnson shook his head. “Didn’t mean him.”
It took Sarah a few seconds to realize Mr. Johnson meant Jude.
“I’m glad he got you out.”
Mr. Johnson coughed so hard his oxygen sats dropped several points and Sarah began to wonder if she was going to have to suction, then intubate him.
When he finally cleared his throat, he grabbed Sarah’s hand. “You’re Dr. Sarah Grayson?”
She blinked in surprise. “I am.”
“Said he was sorry.”
“You must be...” She started to say “confused”, but why else would Mr. Johnson say something of the sort unless Jude had indeed talked about her?
The question was why? Why would he say anything about her at all? Much less tell a virtual stranger that he was sorry?
“He said I might see you here.” Mr. Johnson paused to cough and this time Sarah did suction him to clear the mucus from his throat.
When the man had caught his breath, he continued as if nothing had happened. “He told me if I saw you here to put in a good word and tell you he was sorry and that he was crazy about you.”
Sarah’s head spun. Jude had sent word to her? Why?
“He was going back for Betty Kingston. She was in her bathroom, too. Whole place was up in flames.” The old man coughed again. “I hope he found Betty. And the Millers. And got out of that inferno.”
Sarah’s heart pounded. Jude was inside a burning building. He was in danger.
The thought gutted her. Made her want to call him and beg him to get out of the building if he wasn’t already.
She closed her eyes, took a deep breath.
Examining Mr. Johnson, Sarah ended up admitting him to the medical floor and consulted orthopedic surgery. Bedside X-ray had shown he’d fractured his right hip when he’d fallen. Mrs. Johnson had suffered mild smoke inhalation and had been discharged. As Sarah expected, the woman stayed with her husband rather than leave.
Then again, her home had burned. She might not have anywhere else to go. Not that Sarah thought she’d leave even if she did.
Ambulances dropped off victims from a motor vehicle crash. Pedestrians came in with abdominal and chest pain. The ER stayed crazy. Sarah was swamped. But her heart wasn’t fully on what she was doing.
Because no Betty Kingston or Millers had come into the emergency department and if they were who Jude had gone back for, surely they should be out by now? Should be in the emergency department, being given a good once-over even under the best of circumstances of being trapped inside a burning building.
Had Jude gotten them out?
Had Jude gotten out?
“Oh, God!” Shelley breathed, catching Sarah’s attention. Her friend had just been at the unit desk and her face was pale. “That building that was on fire collapsed.”
Collapsed.
Jude!
“Was everyone out?” she managed to squeak from her tight throat.
Shelley shook her head. “Per the call that just came in there were people still inside. Firefighters, too.”
The room spun around, making Sarah think she might fall to her knees.
First one in. Last one out.
Wasn’t that what Paul had said? Please, no.
Please, just, no.
“Sarah?”
Insides shaking, she stared at Shelley. “My neighbor works for the fire department.”
“Your neighbor?”
Jude was so much more than her neighbor. He was...her heart.
Sarah’s personal life never interfered with her work.
Never.
But for the life of her she couldn’t focus.
Couldn’t think.
Could only feel.
Jude.
“Sarah?”
“I...um...sorry. I’m feeling a little light-headed. I’m going to grab that drink, Shelley. Be back in a few.”
Sarah slid into the break room and leaned against the doorway. Breathing hurt.
Everything inside her hurt.
She couldn’t think the worst. Jude might not have been in that building. Even if he was, he could be just fine. She had to pull herself together. She had patients to see, had to get through the night no matter what happened.
She needed to get back out there because she could hear nearing ambulance sirens wailing. Grabbing a cup, she filled it to the brim from the water dispenser, then downed it.
She needed something much stronger, but that would have to do.
She had this. Whatever the night brought. She had this.
Only when the doors opened and an elderly woman and a badly burned couple were rushed in, Sarah had to mentally brace herself.
The Millers and Betty Kingston.
No Jude.
Which probably meant that he was fine. He’d rescued them and was still there, fighting the fire.
Only Sarah’s inside hurt and couldn’t let go of the fear inside her.
Sarah and two other docs examined the new patients, taking over their care. Sarah had just gotten Mr. Miller ready to admit when there was another commotion as a group rushed in.
A group of firefighters carrying an unconscious Jude.
Sarah rushed over to the group, trying to get close enough to examine the man they carried.
“Bring him in here,” she insisted, thanking God that the transport crew had just come and emptied the room minutes before.
Shelley was there, wiping down the bed and throwing a clean sheet over it even as the men set Jude down.
Immediately, Sarah had oxygen on him, helped Shelley undress him to get telemetry hooked up. She flinched at the deep purplish bruises across his ribs, across his shoulder, but said a silent little thank you at the strong beep that filled the room with its reassuring sound.
“He insisted the three ambulances at the scene take the others, rather than him, that he’d wait until another showed up,” one of the men she’d met at the fire hall said.
“When he lost consciousness, we decided there wasn’t time to wait for another ambulance to show,” Roger said, his gaze focusing in on what Sarah was doing and helping her get Jude situated on the bed as she cleaned a spot to start an intraosseous line. “So we loaded him up and brought him in the fire truck.”
“Got him here faster than another ambulance could have gotten to us,” another of the crew Sarah had met at the fire hall party piped up. “Much less have gotten him here.”
Even while she listened to his crew tell about how Jude had gone rogue to rescue the Millers and had them almost out when another section of the building had caved in, she, Shelley and another nurse worked on him. They started the intraosseous line and got only a grunt from Jude.
That grunt was priceless, though, because it meant he had felt pain, that he was in there.
“He managed to clear a path to get them out by holding up a beam for the Millers to crawl beneath. After the couple had cleared the building, they were that close, he tried to clear himself of the beam to get out, but triggered another cave-in that trapped him beneath rubble.”
“Roger there had tried to go back in the moment he had the Kingston woman out, but Command restrained him. There was no restraining any of us when the Millers came out and we realized he was trapped twenty feet or so from an exit.”
Thank God Roger and whoever else of Jude’s crew had gone back in.
His blood pressure was low, his pulse slightly elevated. His oxygen was lower than it should be but not dangerously so. Yet.
Sarah gave another order to Shelley, preparing to establish an airway. She needed to get Jude stable, to be prepared for any scenario, so they could get scans to check for internal injuries in case of hemorrhage.
Please, don’t let him be hemorrhaging.
Please, let him be okay.
Please, guide my hands and my mind as I do this.
Oh, God, how could she do this? How could she not? She didn’t want anyone working on Jude other than herself. She needed to make sure everything possible was done, everything.
Sarah intubated Jude, not quite believing she was doing this to him. Her hands shook. She panicked just a little when the tube met more resistance than it should have. Mentally talking her way through what she was doing, she got the tube situated, sighing in relief when she checked placement and it was good.
Heartbeat low but steady. Airway established. Fluids going. Meds going.
Vitals stable for the moment.
She glanced around at the haggard, dirty crew who’d carried Jude into the emergency department. “I’m taking him for imaging to check for internal injuries and fractures. Other than insisting that he wait for the next ambulance, did he say anything particular before he went out? Mention somewhere he was hurting? That kind of thing?”
“We carried him out, but I don’t think he’d broken anything. He’d had the air knocked out of him by the debris that fell on him.”
“What kind of debris?”
“The big kind. Beams, ceiling tiles, dust, who knows what all that was? Visibility was next to nil and we were digging him out as quick as possible because the upper floors of the building were gone. We could hear explosions going off and although that ground floor wasn’t on fire, the weight of everything above was pushing down hard and stuff was falling almost as fast as we could clear it.
“We cleared him of the building. Had him lying on the ground, but he was talking some. He kept saying your name.”
She placed her hand over Jude’s, squeezed the warmth she found there.
“He’s going to be okay, isn’t he?”
Sarah’s gaze met Roger’s. “He has to be.”
Which said it all.