THIRTY-FOUR

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Claire slammed the radio down and turned to the medic who had shown up at the clinic after hearing the explosion. "Get bandages and IVs ready," she ordered.

He nodded and ran toward the supply room.

"What's going on?"

Pivoting around, she found Bruce standing by the door. He was holding the thing open, as if unsure he was welcome, but he held her gaze with a look that said he wasn't leaving.

"One of our returning patrols hit an IED a few miles out—three wounded, one severely. I've called for a medevac. It's thirty minutes away."

"What can I do?"

Damn it. He was always so willing to help. It was what she admired most about him. Reaching up, she gathered and twisted her hair back into place while her eyes challenged his. The anger was still there, and part of her wanted to send him off to his tent with a patronizing pat on the back. But instead she pointed to the exam rooms. "Bring those beds out here. I'll be able to work faster. Scrounge up a cot for the third. And get that ultrasound set up, I'm going to need it."

Bruce got busy, wheeling the beds into the main room and setting up the machine between them, plugging it in and checking its read outs. Claire maneuvered around him, moving trays of supplies closer to the beds. What happened in Morris's storage room was pushed to the back of her mind, to be dealt with later. It paled in comparison to what was happening right here, right now.

Injured troops were about to arrive on their doorstep. This was the true horror of war.

)l(

Virginia's phone rang. She knew who it was without looking. It was the fourth call from him in thirty minutes, the deluge starting after her simple text back to him of:

NO

Holding her index finger up to Bill, she walked a short distance across the lawn to talk in private, assuming the exchange was likely to get heated.

"Hello?" she said with sarcastic sweetness.

"Have you reconsidered?" Mark all but growled.

"I'm not leaving."

"Your stubbornness is starting to get irritating."

"So is your bossiness," she spat.

There was a sigh, followed by a long silence. His voice carried a hint of distress when he eventually said, "I want you to be safe."

She smiled and softened her tone. "Then you'll be happy to know we are taking precautions. We are outside right now checking all the motion detectors. Bill has called on a few of his retired army buddies who are on their way over. And Carol is taking Janine over to her sister's place until Sunday."

"You should go with Carol."

This discussion was getting them nowhere. Biting down on her irritation, she calmly stated, "I'm not leaving Bill alone to face Gus."

"But you just said he won't be alone. It's not your job to protect them."

"Excuse me? That is precisely my job!"

Bill and his gardener turned their heads. She ducked her chin and hurried out of earshot. Another drawn out silence on the line was interrupted by the sound of glass shattering somewhere in his vicinity. She closed her eyes and cringed, wondering what had taken the brunt of his temper this time.

During the three earlier calls, he had been hesitant to talk about what was happening back home aside from Augustus's current state of distrust—the fallout from that day in the warehouse. He had made no mention of his "help", but she knew things were moving much slower than anticipated. In the meantime, he felt stuck in a traitorous limbo. His frustration was obvious.

"I'm coming up there," he vented.

"You can't. You convinced Augustus we were over to get the contract lifted. If you think he's having you watched—"

"You let me worry about that—"

"No. I don't need you running to my rescue every time something happens."

There was more silence but no sounds of wreckage this time.

"Mark?"

"I'm dying to see you, Ginny," he said deeply, suggestively.

God, she was feeling the same. She touched her abdomen. "Me too."

The sound of car doors drew her eyes to the street. "Bill's friends are here. I've got to go. I love you."

She ended the call before he could offer up any more arguments. When the thing rang again a few seconds later, she hit the power button, hoping there weren't too many breakable things within his reach.

)l(

Bruce rolled the second gurney back where it belonged and sat down on the stool beside it with his head in his hands. The last half-hour ranked up there as one of the more intense thirty minutes of his life, and exhaustion tugged at him like a river's strong current.

Beyond the curtain he could hear Claire talking to the combat medic as she stitched up the gash on the guy's forearm. She had been amazing tonight and was still going strong from the sounds of it—soft words of praise over the corporal's first-response trauma care were reassuring the young man as she worked.

The wounded had arrived within ten minutes of the call. As reported, an infantry corporal, who had been sitting in the passenger seat of the light armored vehicle, came in with massive damage done to his right leg. The driver, a reservist, was the second-most injured, small bits of shrapnel imbedded in his shoulder, neck, and cheek. And the third, the crew commander, had bruising and complained of pain in his stomach.

Bruce replayed the scene in his head, certain that he would be returning to it again and again during the next few days:

"Over here," Claire said, pointing to the beds.

Troops rushed in, two at a time, the stretchers carried between them. Claire and her assistant started their triage right away.

"Major Morgan, clear this room," Claire yelled, tossing her head in the direction of the stretcher bearers that stood helpless and staring at their comrades.

"Can I stay?" the medic from the field asked her.

"Yes. Sit down and clean that cut." She nodded at the medic's arm and he looked down, seeming unaware of the large gash on the inside of his own forearm that was steadily dripping blood onto the linoleum.

As the young man did as instructed, Bruce ushered the others out to the hallway. But he knew they weren't going far, not until their buddies were loaded onto that medevac anyway.

Back inside, he caught the tail end of the medic's rundown of his first aid in the field. " . . . I bandaged what I could and gave him morphine. The other two refused help, told me to concentrate on him."

Claire nodded as she removed the blood pressure cuff and started an IV on the most critical of the three. Then she checked the packing on the leg wounds. "You did an outstanding job here, Corporal."

Her words seemed to calm the medic as he swabbed his own arm.

Her assistant had started an IV on the driver and was now bandaging his shoulder. The guy moaned, drawing Claire's attention away from the screen of the ultrasound she had started on her patient.

"You allergic to any pain meds, Corporal?"

When the driver shook his head, she told her assistant to start him on some Percodan.

Then she glanced over at Bruce. "Get the sergeant's shirt off. I'm going to do an ultrasound on him too."

The sergeant winced as Bruce rolled him onto his left side to slide the thing off. "Where does it hurt?" Bruce asked.

"I'm fine," he grumbled. He was a big, burly type, the kind of guy you swore could eat nails for breakfast.

Bruce was about to tell him that being tough at this point was not helping when he noticed the rapid blinking—the sergeant was doing his best not to cry. He pulled a chair over and sat down next to him, grabbing the sergeant's hand into an arm-wrestle grip. "Hey man, it's going to be alright."

The sergeant's voice was shaky. "I told them to drive on the left side of the road—the exact path we took on the way out. I should have just let them stay right."

"This is not your fault. Those cowards were probably watching you leave, waiting to plant the thing."

The sergeant closed his eyes, a tear escaping down to his ear. "He's going to lose that leg, isn't he?"

Bruce gripped his hand tighter. "The surgeons at the hospital are top-notch. They'll take good care of him."

"Yeah," the sergeant breathed.

"What's your name?" Bruce asked.

"Jim."

"Well, Jim, the important thing is you got him in here. He's safe now."

"The screaming"—Jim shook his head—"I'll never forget the screaming."

Bruce knew exactly how that felt. "I know."

"Where does it hurt," Claire asked softly, having made her way over.

Jim stiffened, no doubt ashamed of showing weakness in front of a woman.

Claire put her palm to his cheek. "It's okay, Sergeant. You are allowed to show emotion in here. There are many different kinds of wounds."

His eyes filled with gratitude. "Left side, around my hip."

Claire went to work, sliding the probe across his abdomen as she watched an image on the screen that only she could decipher. Jim didn't take his eyes off of her for a second. Neither did Bruce.

"You've got some internal bleeding here. They'll have to rush you into surgery. I'll let them know."

The door to the clinic was shoved open. "Chopper's landing," was yelled into the room.

Fifteen minutes later, Bruce had watched it fly off, all three patients secured inside its cabin.

He pushed his fingers through his hair, still taken by surprise to feel its much-shorter length. "Jesus," he whispered, staring down at his feet.

"Hey."

He looked up to see Claire standing at the foot of the bed. She walked around it and sat down on the stool beside him.

"You okay?" she said.

"I keep looking at my feet, wiggling my toes."

"That is a perfectly normal reaction."

"They're going to amputate his leg, aren't they?"

When she brought her hand up to his shoulder and squeezed, he felt like a jerk. He should have been the one comforting her after all she had done in that room.

"Probably," she said.

"Well," Bruce breathed, "at least he's alive."

"These are such young men, most of them barely out of high school. They place so much value on their virility at that age. For some, death is preferred."

They sat for a long moment, each of them dealing with their own emotions. Claire was the one to break the silence by saying, "I, on the other hand, don't need to wiggle my toes. My feet are screaming that they are present and accounted for." She removed one boot to rub the bottom of her arch.

Bruce reached down and grabbed her foot, pulling it toward him. Her stool squeaked on its wheels as it turned and rolled closer to his. Resting her foot on his lap, he started a slow massage.

Claire opened her mouth, looking like she was about to protest, but only a groan came out.

Bruce smiled. "Feel good?"

"Yes . . ."

As she closed her eyes and tilted her head back, his gaze followed the arch of her neck from chin to collarbone. He longed to put his mouth there, to trail kisses down its length, then move lower to—

"I have to warn you, my feet have been in these boots all day."

"If I pass out, I've got you to revive me."

She laughed. It was a soft, harmonic sound that soothed away some of the anxiety and sadness that lingered. He wanted to hear it again, to commit it to memory, but leave it to him to blow such an incredible moment. He regretted his next words before they had even finished rolling off his tongue. "I might need a little mouth-to-mouth, though."

Her head came up as her eyes snapped open.

END OF CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

I cry every time I read that scene with the sergeant. 😩

Between Virginia and Mark, who do you think is right? Should she stay or should she go? (That reminds me of a song)

The cover for book #3 is up. Let me know how you like it. It won't be starting until this one is finished. As always, thank you for reading, and your ⭐️ votes ⭐️ and comments are much appreciated!


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