To Protect and Serve (7 page)

             
“Oh, honey.  I’m sorry.  I’m just so glad to see you’re alive.”  Nancy loosened her grip a little, but not much.  “What happened to you?  There’s so much blood!”

             
“That’s from her head wound.  She took twelve stitches.”  The doctor came around from behind Christy’s gurney and helped the orderly maneuver the bed back into place in the cubicle. 

             
Nancy mentally shook her head.  The doctor looked no older than her daughter, Kate.  It seemed that all doctors and dentists were getting younger and younger these days.

             
“Head wounds are notorious for producing copious amounts of blood,” Dr. Darren Coburn explained, then said to the orderly, “Let’s get this cleaned up.”

             
The orderly seemed to magically take all the bloody material with him when he left the unit, pushing the other gurney away to the back of the ER.  Except for a little spot of dried blood on the gown that Christie was wearing, everything looked clean.

             
“Jackson?  How are you, babe?”  Christy called to him through the curtain.

             
No answer.

             
“Jackson?”  Christy swung her feet around as though she intended to get out of bed.

             
“Whoa there little lady.”  Dr. Coburn gently pushed Christy’s feet back on the bed.  “Just a second.”  He smiled at Kate as she moved to stand on the other side of Christy’s bed.

             
The doctor stuck his head around the curtain separating the two units.  He said something to the nurse, listened, and then turned around and smiled at Christy while he pushed back the curtain which separated the two areas.

             
Sitting up in bed was Jackson with huge round eyes.  “Babe?  You OK?” 

             
He started to get up and the nurse put a restraining hand on his shoulder.  “Easy there.  She’s all right.  See?  Alive and breathing.”

             
Christy and Jackson eye’s both filled with tears as they looked at each other, realizing how close they’d come to losing everything.

             
Nancy looked around and saw Kate’s eyes filled with tears, too.  Joey was valiantly trying to look unmoved; however his own eyes looked pink.

             
“Well, we’re a sorry bunch.”  Nancy wiped at her own eyes and tried to smile a watery smile at the group.  She turned to the doctor.

             
“So, how badly were they beat up?”

             
“We should get the x-ray results back in a few minutes.  I’ll let you know as soon as I know.”  He handed Kate a tissue, squeezed Nancy’s shoulder reassuringly and walked over to the nurse’s station to write something in a chart.

             
“Okay.  So now we wait.” Nancy took a seat in one of chairs between the gurneys and looked around at everyone.  “What happened?”

             
The four of them started talking all at once.  Nancy was able to get from snatches of what they were saying that a truck had run a red light and was going to crash into Jackson’s motorcycle from the side.  Luckily Jackson had been paying attention.  When he saw the truck coming at them, he sped up so that the truck just bumped the back fender of the

bike, sending it up and over the curb where the two of them went sky-born. 

              Christy’s head laceration happened after she’d gotten up, taken off her helmet and slipped on a patch of oil, hitting her head on a broken piece of concrete laying on the side of the road.  Jackson had ended up with a bruised rib cage where he’d hit the handlebars as he flew over them.  Thank goodness nothing worse happened.

             
“What about the truck driver?”  Nancy looked at Kate.

             
“I think the police took him away.”

             
“Was he under the influence?”

             
“We don’t know.”

             
“How old was he?”

             
“I think around my age,” Joey chimed in.

             
Several minutes passed with only small talk happening.  In the background there were the haunting sounds of machines beeping, soft crying, and murmuring voices.  Punctuating this background noise was the occasional grunt or groan of pain.  Dr. Coburn came back holding the x-rays, and gave both Jackson and Christy clean bills of health, telling Christy to make an appointment to have the stitches removed in about a week.

             
As the doctor spoke, he pulled out a deck of cards from his pocket.  Glances were exchanged all around while they waited to see what the doctor was going to do.

             
“Do we each pick a card and high card pays the ER bill?”  Kate teased the doctor.

             
His eyes cut to Kate and a mysterious smile appeared on his lips.  “No, but that’s an interesting idea.  No, I just wanted to show you something.”

             
Then Dr. Darren Coburn, ER doctor extraordinaire, did something that Nancy had never seen a doctor do before.  He did magic without the use of needles, drugs or x-rays.  He proceeded to charm everyone into smiling by doing a feat of magic wherein he had Kate pick a card and

write her phone number on it.  Then he made the card disappear, only to reappear under the battery in her cell phone!  It was phenomenal. 

             
Once Kate had examined the card in wonder and declared it was her original card, Dr. Coburn put the card in his pocket and returned to business.  

             
He handed all the follow-up papers to Kate and also handed her what appeared to be his business card.  Nancy was shaking her head in wonderment while she came to her feet.

             
Everyone gathered up their belongings and left the hospital after Nancy dealt with the admittance desk and gave the hospital the insurance information.  Christy and Jackson were put in the backseat of Nancy’s car, while Kate and Joey followed them to the house in his car.

             
Arriving home, they all walked into the living room where the bowl of popcorn had been upended all over the carpet and the tea cup was on its side with a small wet stain next to it.  The four young people looked at Nancy and she glanced back awkwardly.

             
“I guess I was a little excited when I got your call.  I’ll clean it up.”

             
“Nope, Mom.  You sit down with Christy and Jackson.  Joey and I’ll get it.”  Kate was in charge for the moment.  It felt good to have someone else giving the orders for a while.  Nancy sank wearily onto the couch and counted her blessings while she gathered in her kids.

             
She thought of calling Jonathon, but realized that all he’d do was ask her twenty questions and tell her everything she’d done wrong.  She wasn’t in the mood right now.  She’d call him tomorrow and let him know how everyone was doing.

             
Maybe.

CHAPTER 6

              “Just a minute!”  Nancy shouted to whoever had just knocked at the front door.  She closed the dishwasher door and was wiping her hands with a kitchen towel when she opened the door.

             
Then she just stared.

             
Broad navy-blue shoulders filled her field of vision.

             
Mirrored sunglasses glinted in the sunlight.

             
The badge flashed as strong hands reached up to pull off sunglasses.

             
Dark blue, almost obsidian eyes crinkled at the corners as he smiled.  The eyes cut to Nancy’s hand where the kitchen towel had just slipped from her fingers and fallen to the ground.

             
Nancy pulled herself out of whatever spell she’d fallen under and reached down for the towel at the same time the officer reached down.  They ended up bumping shoulders.  Nancy started to fall sideways but was stopped when she felt strong warm hands grab her shoulders and help her stand upright.

             
Feeling her face flush (another hot flash, thank you!) she reached up to sweep the hair out of her face.  “Oh, I’m sorry,” she breathed out.

             
“Not a problem.  Are you all right?”  He removed his hands from her shoulders and she suddenly wished he hadn’t.  Then reality took over and she realized that she’d been staring at the Kevlar vest covering his chest.  She shot her eyes back up to his and watched his gaze warm.

             
“Here, let me.”  He bent over and picked up the kitchen towel, handing it to her.

             
“Thank you.”  She managed a smile, but lost it as soon as she realized that this was a police officer at her door.

             
“The kids...” she started with a worried look.

             
“They’re fine.  At least as far as I know.”  He hooked the sunglasses onto his shirt pocket.  “I’m Officer Saunders.  Doug Saunders.”

             
Nancy just looked at him blankly.  (Okay, and perhaps sort of dreamily too.)

             
“I was the officer who talked to you over the phone from the site of your daughter’s motorcycle accident last week.”  He seemed to grow younger before her eyes.

             
“Oh!  Yes, of course.  Sorry about that.  I didn’t recognize your voice.  Although we only spoke for a few minutes.  Actually it was just a

few seconds, not minutes.  And it was over a cell phone.  Thank you for helping them.  How are you?” 
Shut up Nancy.  You’re babbling.

             
“I’m fine.  How are you doing?”  His killer smile made him look like a kid.

             
“Oh, um.  I’m fine.  Thank you for asking.  How are you?”

             
Grinning he replied.  “I’m still fine.”

             
Nancy realized that she was acting like a complete idiot.  Then it dawned on her that she was wearing her rattiest tee-shirt, cut-offs and tennies.  Her “cleaning house” outfit.  Yep, faded navy tee-shirt, tan

sagging cut-offs, and old white tennies which were filthy.  Not to mention no make-up and her hair flying everywhere.

              She was very aware of the difference between her unfashionable attire and the officer’s precisely creased uniform.

              Then she chastised herself.  This man wasn’t there to flirt with her.  Did she really think that real life was like the movies?  He probably wasn’t even there to see her.  He needed to see Jackson and Christy.  Yes, that must be it.

             
“They won’t be back for a while.”  She managed to pull herself together.

             
“Who?”  He genuinely looked puzzled.

             
“The kids.  That’s who you’re here for, right?”

             
“No.  I’m not.  I need to give you some information and find out what you want to do about it.”

             
Okay.  The conversation had now gone into left field and Nancy was clueless about what he was talking about.

             
“You’re looking for me?” 

             
“You’re Mrs. Adams, right?”

             
“Mrs. Adams is my ex-mother-in-law.  I’m Nancy.”  Nancy winced and suddenly hated how the witticism she’d used ever since the divorce now sounded a little bitter.  Wiping the towel across her forehead, she managed a small smile, “Sorry.  An old joke, beyond its expiration date.”

             
He smiled back.

             
“May I come in?”

             
“Oh!  Of course.  I’ve been keeping you out here in the hot sun.  What was I thinking?  Of course, come in.”

             
She stepped back into the entry hall and he followed her inside, filling the small entry space and emptying it of all oxygen.

             
“Would you like some iced tea?  Coffee?”  Nancy indicated to him to have a seat in the living room as she turned left into the kitchen to retrieve beverages … and breath.

              “I said would you like...
whoof
!”  When she hadn’t gotten an answer, she had reversed direction to call into the living room and had suddenly run into a wall.  A warm, masculine, broad-shouldered wall.  Armored in Kevlar.

             
Once again, warm hands wrapped around her shoulders as she gained her footing.