SAMANTHA’S entire body vibrated with suppressed fury. Why had she caved in under the pressure and accepted help from Reese last night? She should have known better than to rely on a man. Reese was a bulldozer, just like Denis. One tiny favor and he acted as if he owned her.
Oh, God. Never again.
She straightened her spine, prepared to fight. But instead Reese simply went over to his phone, jotted Vince’s number on a slip of paper and crossed the room to hand it to her.
“I’m sorry. You’re absolutely right. It’s your car. I should have asked Vince to call you first thing.”
His quiet apology caught her off guard. Again. Damn it, why couldn’t he stay true to form? It was easier to resent him when he was being a jerk. And why couldn’t he put socks on his feet? She fought to keep her voice steady. “Yes, you should have.”
“You’re not helpless, Samantha. I know how well you take care of everything. Hell, you literally save lives every day. I just wanted to help. Kind of the way I help by flying you to places where you can do the most good.”
The earnest expression in his warm brown eyes made it difficult to hang on to her anger. His damp mink-colored hair curling around his ears and his bare toes didn’t help either. Since when had she noticed a man’s toes? With a sigh, she took Vince’s number and nodded.
“I know.” She turned to leave.
“Are you sure you won’t stay for breakfast?” His voice stopped her as she opened his door. “I can whip up an omelet if you like.”
“No, but thanks.” She lifted her hand in a simple wave. “See you later.”
She thought she heard him say something like, “Count on it,” before she closed the door behind her.
Sam lifted her face to the sun as she stepped outside. The warmth after several days of sub-zero temperatures felt wonderful. The walk from Reese’s building to hers wasn’t far and she was proud of the way she didn’t glance over her shoulder every ten seconds, looking for Denis the Menace.
Why had he smashed her car battery? Was this more of his need for control? He’d often used words as weapons, but breaking things was out of character. What would he break next? She couldn’t even begin to guess. Denis wasn’t always ruled by logic.
Even with this new turn of events she was still royally ticked at herself for having allowed Reese to take over her car problems last night in the first place. Thoughts of sharing more than a meal with him had obviously clouded her judgment. Well, no more. She would call Vince, making it very clear she was in charge of her car repairs and the bill. Reese was not. He was a nice guy, but if she didn’t maintain her independence, what did she have?
Loneliness.
For a moment, her shoulders slumped. How many times over the past year had she wished for someone to lean on? Her family was on the other side of the continent and keeping close friends during a medical residency wasn’t easy. Every month she was shipped off to a new rotation, with a whole new group of other residents. At least, that had been the pattern until this last stint at Lifeline.
Lifeline didn’t change residents every month, mostly because of the lengthy flight training. Also, because she’d requested a double rotation. Ben Harris had been more than willing to juggle the schedule in her favor.
Had Denis really contacted Ben because of her? She shied away from the thought. Denis had probably had a business appointment with Ben. For all she knew, his sales territory had been changed to include Milwaukee. There was no reason to think a pharmaceutical sales rep had a special friendship with her boss. She didn’t envy Denis’s job. As a rule, most of the physicians didn’t do much more than tolerate sales reps. They were sources of free food and free drug samples and that was all. Most physicians resented the high cost of pharmaceuticals and didn’t hesitate to let the sales reps know of their displeasure.
The fact that Denis hadn’t made it through medical school only worked against him. She knew firsthand how much he resented all physicians for accomplishing something he hadn’t been able to.
Her success had pushed Denis over the edge. When she’d started her residency training, she’d noticed his behavior had changed. And not for the better.
With a start Sam realized she’d arrived at her apartment building. The weather was so nice, she was tempted to keep walking. Too bad she didn’t have her car, or she would consider heading downtown to the lakefront. Wasn’t there some sort of Winterfest going on this weekend? How long had it been since she’d done anything for fun?
“Samantha.”
Heart pounding, she whirled at the sound of her name. Her breath whooshed out of her lungs when she saw Reese standing a few feet behind her, his hands tucked into his pockets. “Darn it. Don’t do that to me.”
“I’m sorry. I called your name earlier but you didn’t hear me.” His dark eyes held regret.
She forced a smile. Her jumpiness wasn’t Reese’s fault. “I guess I was deep in thought.”
He didn’t ask about what. Knowing Reese, he could no doubt guess. Amazing when she thought about it. Reese knew more about her personal life than anyone.
“Would you be interested in going down to Winterfest with me? We’re both off and it’s such an unusually nice day, it seems a shame to waste it.”
How had he read her mind? Sam’s first instinct was to refuse, but the alternative of going back to her closed-in, sterile apartment held no appeal. “I have to call Vince,” she told him, which wasn’t an answer at all.
“I know. I’ll wait.”
Still, Sam hesitated. She didn’t want to give Reese the wrong impression, but then again she had made her feelings about relationships very clear. What could it hurt to go down to Winterfest with him? When was the last time she’d had the luxury of going out with a friend?
“All right.” She decided quickly, before she could analyze things to death and find a reason to talk herself out of going. “Give me a few minutes and I’ll be back out.”
A ghost of a smile flitted across Reese’s features. “I’ll get my truck and wait for you.”
Sam nodded and quickly dashed inside. She called Vince, but had to leave a message. Not a big deal, since she knew darned well Reese had already talked to him. With excitement flickering through her veins, she spent a few purely adolescent minutes in front of the mirror, then grabbed her purse and headed back outside.
When she jumped in the truck beside Reese, he flashed her a warm smile. Maybe, with Reese’s help, she could forget all about Denis, at least for a little while.
The lakefront teemed with life, people everywhere walking and jogging. Partially because of the Winterfest activities, including a giant ice sculpture contest taking place right on the shores of Lake Michigan, but more so, she guessed, because of the unseasonably warm weather. Not that temperatures close to forty were exactly warm, but winter in Wisconsin was cold. Like really, really cold. Which made temperatures in the forties more than tolerable.
There was a huge banner announcing a Children’s Memorial Hospital Fund-raiser being held in a few weeks at the Lakefront Art Museum. The tickets were expensive, although the money was for a good cause. Too costly for her budget, but she wondered if Lifeline would spring for them? She made a mental note to look into it before she and Reese wandered toward the ice sculpture display.
“Will you look at that?” Reese stopped in front of a guy teetering on a stepladder, intently carving his massive ice sculpture of a hot-air balloon. “Very cool.”
Sam raised a brow. “Did you always dream of flying, even as a kid?”
Reese didn’t take his eyes off the hot-air balloon emerging from the block of ice. “Yeah, pretty much. But mostly I was fixated on planes. All sorts of planes. I joined the Air Force straight out of high school, just so I could learn to fly planes.”
“So how did you end up flying helicopters?”
He turned toward her and shrugged. “Couldn’t afford to be picky. They needed chopper pilots so that’s the track they sent me. Since I was learning to fly, I wasn’t about to complain. And I quickly learned to love the flexibility of the whirlybirds. You can’t set a big hulking plane down on a dime.”
She could easily imagine Reese in the military. He had a quiet strength that must have helped him endure the tough physical training as well as the constant rules and regulations. She wanted to know more—about his parents, his family, where he grew up. But before she could figure out a non-nosy way to ask, as they wandered amongst the ice sculpture displays, his hand smoothly captured hers.
She enjoyed the protective feeling of his hand around hers and knew she should consider pulling away. Wasn’t hand-holding a violation of the friendship agreement? His hand was nice, warm and firm without being too tight around hers. For the life of her, she couldn’t bear to give up the slight contact.
He’d promised not to ask for more than she was willing to give and she couldn’t help but believe Reese was the type of guy who kept his promises.
“What about this one?” she asked, pausing in front of a giant ice beetle. “What makes someone want to carve a bug?”
“I don’t know, but I like the race car over there.” Reese gestured with his hand to the sculpture up ahead. “It’s true to scale. I feel like I could jump inside and take a spin.”
“Men and their toys,” she teased.
“How about some lunch?” Reese asked as they came up alongside a couple of fast-food vendors. “I bet you didn’t eat breakfast either.”
She hadn’t and knew her refusal to stay and eat with him had probably caused him to miss his breakfast too since he hadn’t wasted any time in following her this morning. “Sure, but I don’t want to wait in line. I’d like to sit and look out over the water for a bit.”
“Tell me what you want, and I’ll bring it over,” Reese promised.
She made her selection—hot, spicy, Cajun chicken—then ambled toward the shore. The rhythmic sound of waves crashing over the rocks was almost as soothing as Reese’s voice flowing through her headset in flight.
Squealing tires, followed by a loud thump, made her turn with a frown. Screams split the air.
“Oh, my God, he’s hit. He’s hit!”
Before the woman’s screams fully registered, Samantha was running toward the group huddled by the side of the road. She quickly shoved her way through the crowd.
“I’m a doctor. Let me through.”
Like a parting of the sea, people moved out of her way. She instantly saw the victim, a man who appeared to be in his late twenties or early thirties dressed in jogging clothes, sprawled along the side of the road. Blood trickled from a wound on his temple and the odd angle of his legs had her suspecting a pelvic fracture at the very least.
“Someone call 911,” she directed in a stern voice as she knelt at the victim’s side.
“I did.” Reese materialized by her side. “Do you need help?”
“Not yet.” Samantha positioned the man’s head to open his airway. He wasn’t breathing. Before she could pull a small resuscitation mask from her purse, Reese handed her one.
“Here, I carry one at all times.”
Grateful, she took the mask and used it to give the victim rescue breaths. Then, following the ABCs just like they did in the ED, she checked for a pulse.
“No pulse,” she muttered, before placing her hands over the sternum to perform chest compressions.
“I’ll breathe for you.” Reese positioned himself at the patient’s head.
Good thing the pilots at Lifeline were trained in CPR. Samantha concentrated on performing good chest compressions, counting out loud so Reese would know when to give a breath. They worked together in tandem as if they’d done this a hundred times before.
“Pulse check,” Samantha suggested. “First with compressions.” A little trick she’d learned in medical school, when you could feel the pulse with chest compressions, it was easier to then stop them to see if there was a spontaneous return of the victim’s pulse.
“Pulse good with compressions,” Reese informed her.
“Okay. What about now?” She halted her compressions, waiting while he kept his hand in the same place along the carotid artery. She waited a moment, knowing how easy it was to miss a pulse on a victim when your own was pumping in double time.
“No pulse. Continue CPR.”
Samantha nodded and began the chest compression routine all over again.
She and Reese had performed several rounds of CPR before she heard the distinct wail of sirens. She wished for a chance to do a neuro exam on the patient, but if they didn’t maintain his oxygenation with breathing and chest compressions, there wouldn’t be a neuro status to worry about.
The paramedics arrived on the scene and quickly took over the rescue breathing with an oxygen tank and ambu-bag. Samantha didn’t let up on her chest compressions as they made the switch.
“Are you all right there for a while longer?” one of the paramedics wanted to know.
She nodded. “I’m an emergency medicine resident working at Lifeline,” she informed them.
The paramedics nodded, trusting her skills. Once they had the patient connected to the portable monitoring equipment, she stopped compressions so they could see the underlying rhythm. Seeing V-fib, they shocked him. Once, twice, then a third time.
When those shocks didn’t convert him, they quickly intubated the patient and flushed medication straight down his endotracheal tube directly into his lungs. They worked over him for another ten minutes, giving more meds and shocking again.
“He’s converted into sinus rhythm,” one of the paramedics noted. “Let’s get him into the truck.”
The paramedics didn’t waste a second but packed him up and whisked him off, presumably to Trinity Medical Center. Samantha stood there, watching them drive away, feeling at a loss. Normally she would be on the receiving end of getting this patient from the field. Being the first responder on the scene felt extremely odd.
“You were amazing.” Reese came up behind her and gently squeezed her shoulders. “You saved his life.”
“We saved his life,” she corrected, slanting him a wry look over her shoulder. The need to lose herself in Reese’s arms was strong. “Thanks for your help. I really hope he makes it. At least he has youth on his side.”
“If he doesn’t, it’s not because we didn’t do our best,” Reese observed quietly. He slowly turned her so she was facing him. He reached up to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear.
“I know.” She tried to smile. But the intense expression in Reese’s eyes practically sent her heart into V-tach. Before she could think of protesting, he pulled her close.
“Samantha.” He didn’t try to kiss her, but tucked her head into the hollow of his shoulder. “This time I think we both need a hug.”
She closed her eyes and inhaled the comforting scent of his spicy aftershave. He held her close, but not so hard that she felt as if she were suffocating. His chest was firm, muscular and yet, oh, so soft.
“Excuse me,” a strange voice interrupted them. “I need to ask you a few questions.”
Sam raised her head to find a Milwaukee police officer standing beside them. “Of course,” she responded.
Reese prevented her from breaking free of his embrace, but tucked an arm over her shoulder so they could face the officer together. “What can we do for you?”
“Did you see the car that hit him?”
Samantha slowly shook her head. “No, but I heard the screech of the tires and the thud as he was hit.”
“That’s what I was afraid of. Only one woman saw a brown car slam on the brakes and hit the jogger, but she didn’t get the make of the car or the number off the plates.”
For a moment, Sam didn’t understand. “You mean, this was a hit-and-run?”
The officer’s expression was grim. “Yes. And we don’t have a clue to point us in the direction of the assailant.”