Chapter Twenty-Three
S ierra loved her Corvette. It wasn’t an ideal car for Montana, especially in the winter, but it was spring now and the snow was basically gone for the year. Before long she could drive with the top down. She felt good. Happy. She was headed back to Marietta and back to working from Marietta Hospital. It had been interesting working from Bozeman and the surrounding areas, but she was glad to be done with it and going back home.
The truck came out of nowhere. She heard a horrific sound of smashed metal and broken glass and then…nothing.
She opened her eyes. She couldn’t move. Something—an airbag—held her still. Pain. She was dizzy. Disoriented. Oh, my God, I hurt. What happened?
A truck—she remembered it coming out of nowhere before it hit her. She’d had no time to react. Broadsided by a pickup truck. She tried to move the stupid airbag but couldn’t. Her left arm was killing her and her knee and her head hurt. Her hand came away bloody when she touched her face. Her window had shattered and she must have been hit with shards of glass. She tried to unbuckle her seat belt and tried again to push the airbags out of the way but couldn’t do either. She was stuck, with the truck that hit her wedged against her car.
She couldn’t see the driver because his airbags had deployed too. She couldn’t reach her phone to call 911 or Connor. Maybe the other driver could call. Otherwise they were going to have to wait until help showed up. The road was fairly busy. Surely someone would stop or call in the accident.
She tried to calm down and assess her injuries. Nothing life-threatening. At least, she didn’t think there was. Where was EMS? They couldn’t be far from the Billings hospital. She hadn’t been on the road for that long.
She jolted to awareness at the sound of a voice by her window telling her help was coming. She must have dozed, and hoped she wasn’t bleeding internally. But would she know? Her mind was too foggy to figure it out.
Eventually she heard a number of sirens. Though she couldn’t differentiate she suspected fire, police, and ambulance were all there. When the fire crew finally managed to get her out of her car she passed out. She came to lying on a gurney, hearing the EMS crew relaying her vitals and stabilizing her. She didn’t know them but she thought they came from the Billings hospital since it was closest and she didn’t think they’d taken that long to arrive. Of course, she’d been passed out part of the time, so honestly, they could be from anywhere.
“Can you tell me your name?” a female EMT asked her.
“Sierra.”
“Sierra, I’m Jackie. We’re going to take good care of you.”
“Connor. My phone.”
“You want us to call your husband?”
“Boyfriend.”
“Let us finish getting you situated and we will.”
That involved checking to see what was injured, splinting her arm with an inflatable air splint, and offering her a painkiller.
“Just Tylenol.” She didn’t want to be out of it when she got to the hospital and the splint had helped the pain in her arm. Other than her knee, which throbbed like a son of a bitch, and her headache, the rest were only sporadic pains. “My knee. Can you check it?”
“I don’t think it’s broken but you’ve definitely done something to it. We’ll splint it.”
It seemed to take forever but Jackie eventually called Connor on her phone. “This is EMS,” Sierra heard her say.
*
Sierra had committed to her temporary job for another few weeks after they got back together. Connor hadn’t minded working with the flight nurse who’d traded with Sierra. She was good and knew what she was doing but he still missed Sierra. While the people he’d worked with had all been good, he and Sierra worked together smoothly and efficiently, in a way he’d never experienced with anyone else.
But today was her last day with the Bozeman office. They’d sent her to Billings for her last day. She’d be back in Marietta later that evening. He’d made peace with the fact that Sierra might never move in with him, much less marry him. He still wanted that more than anything but he’d been with her and without her, and being with her was worth any concessions he had to make. Did that make him a loser? Maybe, but he didn’t care. She’d told him she missed him and proved that she had. They’d been together every night since they made up, except when one of them had the night shift.
But she’d never told him she loved him. Maybe she didn’t. He’d been very careful—after the fight in which he’d admitted he loved her—not to tell her again. He didn’t want to crowd her. He knew she cared about him. He knew she liked the sex. A lot. Knew she enjoyed being with him, liked doing things together. If that was all he’d ever have he’d live with it. Until he couldn’t do it anymore.
She’d left that morning grumbling because she had to fill in for someone at a hospital in Billings. “At least it’s a day shift,” she said. “I’m not sure when I’ll be home, though.”
“Okay, take care.” Home. He wished… No, damn it, he wasn’t going to do this. He was happy with what they had, and he didn’t intend to tempt fate by pushing for more. Either she’d be ready one day or she wouldn’t and as long as they were together he wouldn’t fight it.
He went to work and was soon flying to a bad car accident. Two DOA and one who had several broken bones. All three were teenagers. The poor kid who’d survived was scared, in terrible pain, and didn’t know yet that both her friends, the driver and the front-seat passenger, were dead. She’d escaped with broken bones only because she’d been in the back seat with her seat belt buckled.
“My friends. Serena and Isabel. Where are they? How are they?”
Connor looked at Mandy, the flight nurse. She shook her head. Good, because he didn’t want to tell her either.
“Someone else is taking care of them,” Mandy told her. “You’re our patient.”
She’d told them her name was Rebecca. Her ID was in her purse and the hospital was calling her parents. Meanwhile, she fretted about her friends the entire way to the hospital. By the time they got her to the ER he was glad to hear her parents were due any minute. Thank God.
“Haven’t you been in that situation before?” Mandy asked him as they left her to the ER staff.
“Yeah. And I hate it every time. I always feel guilty I haven’t told them what I know.”
“It will be better coming from her parents. Or someone she knows.”
“I know. Doesn’t make it any easier.”
He was still stewing about it when he got home. He had started to worry when he finally got a call from Sierra’s cell phone. Relieved, he answered. “Hey, what’s up? Are you still at the hospital?”
Instead of Sierra another female voice answered. “Connor McFarland?”
“Yes. Why are you calling on Sierra’s phone? Is she all right?”
“This is Jackie with EMS. We’re on our way to the hospital in Billings. Sierra has been involved in a car accident and wanted us to call you.”
His heart stopped. “How is she? Is she—” Obviously, she wasn’t dead. Other than that he had no idea of the severity of her injuries.
“I’m not sure of the extent of her injuries. I think her arm is broken but we’ll know more once we get her to the hospital. She’s got some cuts and bruises and she injured her knee. It doesn’t appear to be broken, though.”
“Sierra is a flight nurse and I’m a flight paramedic. Can you be more specific?”
Jackie gave him her vitals and a more detailed assessment and then put Sierra on.
A car accident. He’d just come from one with two DOAs.
“Connor?”
Her voice was thready, and she sounded like she’d been crying. “Are you all right?” He stopped himself and said, “Never mind. Stupid question. Of course you’re not. You’re in an ambulance on the way to the hospital.”
“Can you come?”
“Of course. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
“My car. I think it’s totaled.”
“We’ll worry about that later. I’m more worried about you.”
“I’m all right. I think.”
“I’m on my way.”
*
By the time Connor reached the Billings hospital Sierra had been x-rayed, her arm splinted, and her knee wrapped. The cuts on her face had been attended to as well. She had stitches on her forehead and bandages on the smaller cuts.
“Hey,” he said, taking her uninjured hand. “How are you feeling?” She looked pretty out of it.
“Woozy. They gave me drugs.”
“The good ones, I take it.”
“Uh-huh. I’m so glad to see you. I was afraid I had internal injuries, but I don’t. They took a lot of X-rays and a CT.”
“That’s good. You scared the hell out of me. Do you remember what happened? I just heard you were in a car wreck.”
“A pickup hit me.” Tears came to her eyes. “My poor car. It’s dead.”
“I’m sorry.” He knew she loved that car but a Corvette wasn’t exactly built for snow country. He’d worried about her all winter. She’d put snow tires on the car but still…
“What did the doctor say about your arm?”
“I might have to have surgery. But not here. I want to go home.”
“I’m sure we can do that.” He’d have to talk to the doc to see if they’d release her to let him drive her to Marietta. If she truly didn’t have more injuries than those that were visible, they should. But it was better to be safe. He didn’t think she needed an ambulance but the doctor might feel differently.
Eventually the doctor came and agreed to discharge her, but he strongly recommended Connor take her to the Marietta hospital before letting her go home. He agreed and armed with a prescription for a painkiller and the CDs of Sierra’s X-rays and CT scan, they left.
Fortunately, Sierra slept the whole way back. He’d been afraid she wouldn’t since she was bound to be uncomfortable, but he leaned the seat back as far as it would go so she was able to sort of lie down. She must have had enough painkillers to compensate. Still, she whimpered every time she changed position. He hated seeing her in pain.
He pulled up to the emergency entrance of Marietta’s hospital and woke her up. “Hey, we’re here. I’m going to get a wheelchair.”
“What? Why?” She looked around. “Why are we at the hospital?”
“You were in a car wreck, remember?”
“Of course I remember,” she said grumpily. “I’ve already been to the hospital. I want to go home.”
“I’ll take you home after you’ve seen the orthopedist and made sure he doesn’t want to do anything else to your arm or your knee right now.” He’d feel better once Wyatt Gallagher was taking care of her.
She grumbled but agreed. Sometime later he was able to take her home with an appointment in two days with Wyatt to operate on her arm. After seeing the X-rays Wyatt thought she needed a plate and possibly pins put in. He planned to x-ray her again before the surgery.
Sierra was not going to be pleased once she realized what was happening. She wouldn’t be able to work for quite some time. He remembered how difficult she’d been when she’d had her concussion and then she was only out for a week or so. Although, if she had a plate her broken bone would heal quicker. Not quickly enough for Sierra, he knew.
But all that would have to be handled later. For now he was going to take her home, give her something to eat so the pain pills wouldn’t make her sick and put her to bed. He was not looking forward to when she woke up.
But he’d never been so happy to see anyone as he had when he’d seen her at the hospital and realized she wasn’t seriously injured. Bad enough she’d broken her arm but it could have been so much worse.