Page 8 of Protecting What's Mine

“You, too, Bubs.”

“Meet you downstairs in thirty? I gotta do some post-flight checks,” RS said, jerking her chin toward the helicopter.

Another thing Mack appreciated about the pilot. She’d flown with pilots who focused only on pre-flight checklists then walked away from the bird without a backward glance after landing. Ride Sally took her job seriously, beginning to end.

Mack headed inside and down three flights to the locker room where she indulged in a five-minute, scalding hot shower. Her muscles loosened as she washed away the layer of dried sweat. When she was sufficiently clean, she threw the knob to cold and counted down from sixty, letting the iciness reinvigorate her brain.

She wanted a tall green tea and a sandwich with a mountain of cold cuts. She’d play a little getting to know you with RS, then head on home. Maybe unpack another box, catch up on another study or journal. Bed early. Wake early. Workout. Breakfast.

And then head into the small-town family practice—God help her—where she’d be spending the next six months of her life.

She stepped out and toweled off. Examining the cut on her forehead in the mirror, she rolled her eyes. “You were the one who wanted normal,” she muttered to her reflection.

She ran a comb through her hair, gave it a blast with the hair dryer, and stepped into her civilian clothes. A glance at the clock on the wall told her she still had fifteen minutes.

For the first time, her thoughts flitted back to the firefighter on the ground.

Her brain always sifted through calls and responses in odd, dreamlike ways. Rather than replaying the action during the flight, she was thinking of the blue-eyed firefighter with the bum shoulder. He looked more like a lifeguard. Tanned, blond, easy charming grin.

A pair of nurses in scrubs wandered in and gave her a nod. The one with a short cap of silver-blonde hair popped open her locker and toed off her clogs with a grateful sigh. “I hate twelves.”

“They’re not all bad when you get to work on Chief Sexy Pants.” The other nurse, willowy and weary, flopped down on the bench. Her long dark hair was pulled back in a sleek tail. “Hear what he did on-scene?”

“I got the broad strokes from Javier. Something about climbing into a car on fire like a sexy superhero?”

“He used that beautiful body of his to block the driver from the flames while sawing through the guy’s seatbelt. Dislocates his shoulder, burns his hand, but stays put. Had some Good Sams pull the man through the sunroof. Then his own rookie is hauling his fine ass up, and he stops to grab the flowers the guy got for his wife’s birthday off the front seat.”

“Swoon,” the first nurse sighed.

“Yeah, swoon and a subluxed shoulder and third-degree burns on the hand that I hear is capable of delivering multiple orgasms within impossible windows of time.”

“This guy tall, blond, gorgeous? A little on the flirty side?” Mack asked.

The first nurse looked up as she dragged on an ancient pair of gym shorts. “Yeah. Lincoln Reed. Fire chief over in Benevolence. He was first on-scene. You meet him?” she asked, eyeing the flight suit Mack was shoving into her bag.

“Briefly.”

“He’s downstairs in the ED. You know, if you want to check him out with two working arms,” the second nurse said with a glint in her eye.

Mack chewed it over. “I might just do that.”

“I’m Nellie, by the way.”

“Mack. Dr. O’Neil,” she said.

“The new flight doc. Nice to meet you. Great work today. Your girl is in surgery. No spine injury. I’m Sharon.”

“Oh…thanks for that.” She said her goodbyes and headed out into the hallway.

She wasn’t used to knowing that. The after. Whether they made it or didn’t. Her job as a retrievalist was to get the patient to the best resources. End of story. She’d gotten used to the not knowing. Gotten comfortable with it.

Sometimes it was better not to know.

Faces flashed before her. The ones she’d lost.

Two orderlies wandered by cracking jokes. Mack pulled herself out of her head. Nothing good came from looking back.

Going on instinct, she veered away from the parking lot and headed instead into the emergency department. It was relatively quiet here. Most of the other crash victims would have been routed through the county hospital. It was smaller but closer. The fact that Linc was here told her he hadn’t wanted to add another case to the overtaxed emergency department. A point for him.