2. Travis
2
TRAVIS
T ravis settled into the medical assistance vehicle as Matt took his place behind the wheel. The dispatcher continued to rattle off information from the Blackwater Police Department about the victim on the outskirts of town.
“Adult female. Loss of consciousness.”
Travis entered the location in the GPS. He’d barely settled in for his shift at the station before duty called, and from the information dispatch relayed, it didn’t look good for the woman involved.
“Hit-and-run,” Travis repeated. Those were always the worst, but she was a pedestrian. A human didn’t stand a chance against a moving vehicle.
Matt was the other paramedic on shift with Travis, and he couldn’t have asked for a better partner. Matt had a good twenty years on Travis, and he was the epitome of prepared and focused.
Matt gripped the wheel as they headed toward the town limits. “Better start praying.”
“I’m way ahead of you,” Travis said as he cataloged the dispatcher’s notes. Travis had faith in the Lord like a stone mountain, and he knew when to ask for help. He’d seen plenty of people fail to save lives, and there were times when all the schooling and experience in the world couldn’t save someone the Lord decided to call home.
Focusing on what he knew about the incident, Travis formed a plan. It was all tentative, but mentally walking through the steps kept him from dwelling on the sobering fact that a woman was walking the line between life and death.
She could be someone’s mother. She was definitely someone’s daughter. Would she see her family again?
He couldn’t let those thoughts see the light of day. He had to look at her as a patient and not a person whose life could be finished or changed forever.
Sometimes, it was easier to picture the victim in his own position. No parents who cared. No spouse or kids. Sure, Travis had friends, but no one in this world was tied to him. Anyone with a blood connection had cut those ties a long time ago, and the only ones left were the ones who chose to stick around.
The emergency vehicle lights flashed in multiple colors as Matt parked alongside two Blackwater Police Department vehicles.
Various law enforcement officials moved around the scene, and Officer Jennifer Freeman approached Travis and Matt. Travis had known Jennifer for years, and the petite blonde was extremely good at her job. It was always a good show whenever someone underestimated her.
“Single female. Seems to be the victim of a hit-and-run. She had a head injury and is losing blood. She’s been unconscious since we arrived, but she has a steady pulse. We stabilized her neck and tried to stop the bleeding.”
Those stats didn’t do the woman any favors. They had to get her to regain consciousness as soon as possible.
Travis jerked to a stop as Jennifer stepped aside to reveal the injured woman. A C-collar stabilized her neck, and she lay in a pool of dark blood.
Too much blood. Her light hair darkened where it was soaked by the puddle of red.
Officer Dawson Keller knelt by her head as he applied pressure to the wound with gloved hands. He looked up with wide, haunted eyes. “Man, I’m sure glad to see you.”
Travis’s gut twisted before he turned his attention toward the medical bag Matt rested on the pavement. “Do we have an ID?”
“No ID,” Jennifer said.
They’d be going in blind then. Hopefully, she wasn’t allergic to any medications. They’d need to find out her blood type. A transfusion was probably in her future.
Travis worked quietly beside Matt. It was a race against the clock, and the unnamed woman was losing. They were all losing.
Travis risked a glance at the woman’s face. One side was red and raw where it had scraped against the dirt, and the other side was swollen and purple around her eye.
Hmm. How did she get a black eye from being hit by a car?
There wasn’t much time to think about it. He’d seen plenty of crazy and unexplainable injuries. A black eye was nothing compared to the head injury, broken bones, and internal bleeding this woman might be dealing with right now.
“You okay?” Matt asked as he opened a sterile gauze pack.
Travis swallowed hard. He had to get a handle on his focus. The woman’s life depended on him. “Yeah. You?”
“Yeah.”
The word was as hollow as Travis’s gut.
The woman was young–probably close to Travis’s age, and watching her fight for her life hit a little too close to home.
It could have been him, and he’d probably trade places with the stranger if given the chance. The resolve to save her solidified in his stomach. “Let’s get her loaded.”
Matt jumped into action, preparing the stretcher, while Travis assessed the woman for a spinal injury. His hand brushed against the skin of her neck, and the cold sucked the warmth right out of him.
Something dark and hot kindled inside his chest. He couldn’t lose her, but life was flowing out of her by the second.
When they’d locked the stretcher in the ambulance, Travis climbed in beside the woman. There was so much blood, they’d spent precious seconds locating the wounds. He focused on the things he was supposed to be doing and stayed busy.
God, protect her.
God, help me.
God, I need You.
The prayers were set on repeat in his head, but it wasn’t enough. He could feel the truth settling in. He was going to lose her. Her pulse was wavering, and she’d already drained a saline bag.
No. He couldn’t lose her. It wasn’t an option.
The vehicle came to a stop, and Matt opened the double doors at the back. Travis was grasping for anything to stabilize her as the hospital personnel assisted in the transfer.
Soon, the woman was out of the ambulance, and an energetic female nurse with a tablet strapped to her arm stepped up to Travis’s side. He answered the questions for transfer on autopilot.
“She doesn’t have identification,” he added.
The nurse didn’t look up. It was fairly common that a patient needed medical care without being able to provide an identity. The hospital would get the information eventually and pass it along to the fire department. Still, it bothered Travis that he didn’t know enough about the woman.
So far, no one had shown up looking for her. How long would she be alone?
“I think we have everything,” the nurse said. “We’ll be in touch with insurance information and identification later.”
Matt slapped a hand on Travis’s shoulder. “Come on. Let’s get cleaned up.”
Travis looked down at his uniform. There were multiple blood spots, but his hands were clean after removing the gloves to sign the transfer paperwork.
He followed Matt out to the vehicle in a fog. Could he have done more? Should he have done something else?
“Stop what you’re doing,” Matt said as they pulled out into the road headed back to the fire station. “You did all you could.”
That was exactly what Matt was supposed to say, but it didn’t ease Travis’s worries. “There was way too much blood.”
“They’ll get her a transfusion.”
“That might not work,” Travis reminded him.
“You can’t think like that.”
“But I am. She was so young.”
Matt paused and took a deep breath. “You’re going to have to let it go. We can’t dwell on cases.”
Travis rubbed his hands over his face. Matt was right. As crazy as it seemed, thinking of patients as cases or victims instead of people was one way to maintain that emotional distance they needed.
By the time they pulled back up at the station, checklists held all of his attention. Sanitizing, restocking, and the complete equipment reset took up a good chunk of the morning.
Travis meant to take his time in the shower, scrubbing every inch of his skin, but the silence only allowed thoughts of the woman to creep back in. Once he was sufficiently clean, he stepped out of the bathroom to the warm smell of cooking bacon coming from the kitchen. A few of the other men hung out around the bar.
“Morning, sunshine!” Lucas shouted with his arms spread wide. The guy was the epitome of an annoying morning person, and he liked to cook a full breakfast for everyone whenever there was a lull between calls.
“Morning.”
“How was the mystery woman?” Lucas asked as he flipped bacon in a skillet.
Travis glanced at Matt who slid a finger across his throat, signaling for Lucas to cut to another subject.
“I mean… How do you like your eggs?” Lucas asked.
“Scrambled.” Just like Travis’s head at the moment.
Calls involving kids and death were usually the worst, but their earlier call affected him just as much.
Why couldn’t he shake it off? His inability to compartmentalize was stirring a fire in his chest. He’d been trained. He’d passed all the tests. He’d been through plenty of hours of counseling provided by the department.
Matt patted the barstool beside him. “We all have our days, man.”
Travis took the seat and rested his elbows on the counter. “I’m just glad the bad days only last twenty-four hours. I need a do-over.”
Lucas turned around, waving a spatula in the air. “Did y’all hear about Anna and Dean?”
“Remind me again who Anna and Dean are,” Matt said.
“You know Anna Harris. Her parents are attorneys at Harris and Associates,” Travis said.
Matt snapped his fingers in recognition. “Oh yeah. They live in the same neighborhood as Ridge and Cheyenne.”
Lucas pointed his spatula at Matt. “Yes, that one. Anyway, they got engaged over the weekend. I heard he took her to a fancy restaurant in Cody and proposed.”
“I bet Anna enjoyed that,” Travis said. “She’s been waiting for that guy to do something good for her, but I really thought he didn’t have a romantic bone in his body.”
Travis ran in circles with Anna often, and they had plenty of mutual friends. She spent most of her time talking about finding true love and living happily ever after.
Too bad the guy she chose was kind of a jerk. Dean didn’t exactly fit the knight in shining armor label women tended to swoon over. He wasn’t a bad boy either–just bad.
Lucas shrugged and turned back to the bacon. “Someone gave him a clue. She said yes.”
“Good for her,” Matt said. “Now if only someone would take on the role of mentor and hold that man’s hand through his relationship, he might turn out to be a good husband.”
Travis chuckled. “You’re right about that. Care to step up to the plate?”
Matt shook his head. “No, but I do hope he matures a little. From what I’ve heard, Anna has high expectations, and Dean seems kinda–”
“Clueless?” Lucas finished.
Travis liked Anna well enough as a friend, and if she’d found a man she wanted to spend the rest of her life with, then more power to her.
Why did it sting that someone like Dean could find a woman who wanted to marry him but Travis couldn’t? What did that say about him?
He’d been there once and got the rug pulled out from under him. He wasn’t really ready to jump back in and get burned again, but he should be over it by now. Five years was a long time. Too long.
The alarm sounded, and the call from dispatch came over the speakers.
“No!” Lucas wailed.
Travis got to his feet and grabbed a handful of bacon from the plate beside the stove. Shifting his focus, he headed toward the garage with Matt on his heels. He needed a distraction. Hopefully, a fire call would do the trick.