If I’ve gotten five words out of the cheerful blonde, he’s gotten two, but that’s the thing about a small town like ours. When we claim someone as one of us, we’re all in. Quincy’s recognized it. Toni too.
Clover might be here to make videos and do a social media blast, but I’d bet my last dollar she’s going to be one of the tourists that stays.
Lola helps me get her on the stretcher and she’s giving her an IV as soon as the doors close. This is her rig and I do my best to stay out of her way while she works.
All I can do is hold her hand and wait as Glenn drives this ambulance like he stole it.
I know the exact second Clover comes back to me.
Her fingers twitch in mine. Just one tiny movement, but it feels like an electric current, shocking me into motion.
I lean forward so fast my shoulder clips the metal cabinet behind me hard enough to leave a bruise.
“There you are,” I whisper and for a second, I don’t recognize my voice. It’s too low, raspy, and filled to the brim with panic.
Her lashes flutter, revealing her disoriented blue eyes and I can breathe again.
The ambulance rattles over the washboard road down toward Bramble, the suspension groaning every time Glenn takes a rut too hard. The overhead fluorescents buzz faintly above us, washing everything in sterile white. The whole rig smells like antiseptic wipes and plastic tubing and the sharp medicinal sting of bleach, but underneath it, I can still smell the mountain clinging to Clover.
Pine sap, sun-warmed skin, wildflowers crushed against denim, and dirt from the trail dusting her calves. It’s like summer followed her inside.
Lola’s securing gear in the cabinet behind me while Glenn drives like the devil himself is chasing us down the mountain. Cabinets rattle. A monitor beeps steadily beside Clover’s shoulder. Oxygen hisses softly into the mask, Lola’s placed over her mouth and nose.
Clover blinks up at the overhead lights, dazed. She turns toward me, brimming with questions. A devious part of me wonders if she’ll still be too shy to talk to me properly.
“How long was I out?” she rasps despite the blush that darkens her cheeks.
“Ten minutes.”
Her voice sounds scraped raw. She swallows and winces. Lola checks her throat, finding that it’s still red from the swelling, but it’s already getting better. So much better. Her oxygen saturation is climbing on the monitor, her chest rising and falling with good deep breaths. Her lips are back to their normal color and size. The angry flush blotching her chest is fading.
The epinephrine did its job.
“You scared the hell out of me,” I tell her. The words leave before I can stop them.
“Sorry,” she mumbles.
I shake my head immediately.
“No. Don’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“Apologize.”
Even pale and exhausted she looks unfairly pretty resting on the stretcher with her freckles standing out against flushed skin.
“Okay.”
Lola checks Clover’s pulse ox, the monitor chirping softly as she adjusts the clip on her finger.
“Can you take a deep breath for me?” she asks, pulling out her stethoscope to listen to Clover’s lungs.
It’s a standard check. One I’ve done a thousand times, on patients we’ve rescued from burning structures and from remote trails. Even knowing that Lola is just doing her job, I’m impatient.
I want to be the one checking Clover’s stats. Lola catches my eye, with a knowing look.
I’m compromised and we both know it. I might work as a paramedic for the fire department but in Glenn and Lola’s rig that doesn’t mean shit.