Relief rushed through her. She didn’t know what else was happening with Lisa, but she’d take any good sign she could get. “The bleeding isn’t as heavy.”
“No, but that may not be enough.” Caleb was pulling into the dock at Zakyos Island. He jumped out of the boat and took Lisa from Jane and laid her gently on the beach. Then he was kneeling beside her, holding both her hands, his thumbs on the pulse points of her wrists.
Jane got out of the boat and dropped to her knees beside them. She didn’t speak. Caleb’s expression was intense, and whatever he was doing, she didn’t want to risk disturbing that concentration. She had no idea of the intricacies of how he adjusted blood flow and kept damaged arteries and veins from interrupting vital life-force functions, but she had been present before when he had done it.
But, dammit, Lisa was so still.…
“O … kay?” It was only a breath of sound. Lisa’s eyes were open, Jane realized thankfully. She was looking up at Caleb and that word had definitely come from her.
“Hush,” Caleb said. His hands tightened on her wrists. “I’m trying to repair some of this damage you did to yourself. Now be quiet and let me work.”
“You’re … okay?” she repeated.
“Why shouldn’t I be okay? You saw fit to take that bullet for me. Now relax and let me see what you’ve done. I don’t suppose it occurred to you that you could have been killed?”
“No…” Her eyes were closing. “Didn’t … think. But you wouldn’t … let anything bad … happen to me.…” She was unconscious again.
He knelt there, looking down at her. Then he reached out and gently touched her cheek with his forefinger. “No, I’ll never let anything bad happen to you. Never again.”
Jane could feel her eyes sting as she gazed at the two of them. She wasn’t certain what she was seeing, but it was both moving and bewildering. “How is she?”
“Not good.” He turned to her. “But it’s mostly blood issues, thank God. She’s going to need surgery, but I don’t detect any serious damage to her lungs or heart.”
“You’re sure?”
“Could I be mistaken? Yes. But the blood is everywhere in the body and I know how it behaves around any injury.” His gaze went to San Leandro, which was still aflame. “Santara may have been able to call for reinforcements and might have that helicopter on top of us at any minute. We’ve got to get Lisa out of here.”
“Should we move her again?”
“Yes. No choice.” He picked her up in his arms and was carrying her down the beach.
“Wait.” Jane was running after him. “Where are you going? We’re not taking the speedboat?”
“Not that one.” He’d stopped by an orange-and-beige speedboat down the line. “I told you I’d hired some help from a couple of the islanders. I traded our speedboat for this one and a small service from Pieros Naxon, one of the fishermen who was hanging around the beach admiring it.”
“What service?”
“When they see activity on San Leandro and any boats heading in this direction, they just jump in our blue-and-white beauty and lead them a merry chase.”
“A distraction.”
He nodded. “And they know these waters so well that they’ll be able to lose them with no trouble and give us the time we need to get back to Athens. I’ll call him once we’ve started.” He nodded at the wheel. “You drive. I have to be in back to work on Lisa.”
She nodded and jumped into the driver’s seat. “Right. Do we take her to a hospital?”
“Not here. I’ll call and have a doctor meet us at the plane in Athens with X-ray and other equipment and fly with us to Glasgow. I know those doctors at that university hospital from the time when I worked with them to remove the poison from Eve’s bloodstream. I have a better chance of being in control.”
“Not that you wouldn’t be anyway.” She watched him settle carefully with Lisa in his arms and then started the speedboat. “It would just be more difficult for you.”
“If you’ll notice, I haven’t had any real degree of control since all this started.” He was looking down at Lisa, his thumbs once more on her wrists. He whispered, “Yes, that’s definitely going to change.…”
SOUTH GLASGOW UNIVERSITY HOSPITAL
GLASGOW, SCOTLAND
“Stay here,” Caleb said over his shoulder to Jane as he hurried down the hall, following Lisa’s stretcher toward the emergency room. “I’ll be out and give you details as soon as I can. I think we’re okay. The X-rays the doctor took on the plane didn’t show too much damage.”
Then he was gone.
Jane stood there in the hall, looking after him. It had been a breathless, frantic journey from Athens to Glasgow and Lisa had only stirred one time when the doctor’s assistant had positioned her for the X-rays once they were in flight.
She had opened her eyes, frowned at the doctor, and then looked up at Jane. “Don’t … like this. Can’t you … stop them?”
“I could, but I won’t.” She’d taken Lisa’s hand. “Because we have to know how to get you well.” She’d smiled. “And you’re probably thinking, If you can’t give me what I want, then what good are you, Jane MacGuire?”
“No…” Lisa’s eyes had begun closing again. “I … know … what good you are.…” Her hand had tightened on Jane’s. “Stay.…”
“You couldn’t pry me away.”
Jane hadn’t known if Lisa heard her or if she was unconscious again. It didn’t matter; she’d made a promise. She’d sat down on the floor beside Lisa’s stretcher and held her hand throughout the flight.
Now that Caleb had whisked her away from Jane down that corridor, she was feeling strangely empty and without purpose.
Foolishness. Lisa was in the best possible hands and Jane’s role had been played and was over. Caleb would see that she was no longer needed, and Lisa had appeared to be more annoyed with their interaction than pleased. It was probably healthy that she was free to walk away now.
Not now, but soon. Not until she was sure her responsibility for Lisa was completely over.
After all, she’d been chosen.
She smiled as she remembered Eve’s words that night on the porch, which seemed so long ago now. The opportunity to make things brighter, to help them go right, instead of wrong. It had been a very close call, and she was still uncertain what the outcome would be. The fact that Lisa was in that ER was a testament to that narrow escape.
Did I do okay, Eve?
She’d have to call her and ask her—as soon as Caleb came out and gave her a definitive answer.
She dropped down on the bench and leaned back against the wall, waiting for him to come out of the ER.
*
“I just called Jock and told him to come pick you up and take you back to the camp,” Caleb said as he strode back toward her over an hour later. “He should be here within the hour.” He held up his hand as she opened her mouth to speak. “Lisa is going to be fine. They’re keeping her a couple days longer for observation, but then she’ll be released.”
“What are they going to observe?” Jane asked as she got to her feet. “She was shot, for God’s sake.”
“The arterial damage.” He shrugged. “Everything else is fairly clean. But they’re always doubting Thomases when it comes to repairing veins and arteries in a patient whose status is critical.”
“But not so critical that you can’t help her?”
“Two days,” he said. “And I’d need those two days anyway.”
Her gaze narrowed on his face. “Why?”
“I think you know.”
“Tell me.”
“Let’s just say I have to rebuild more than those arteries.” His lips twisted. “It’s been five years.”
“From the expression on her face when she saw you, it could have been yesterday for her. She loves you.”
“Then she has to learn not to love me quite so much. I don’t want her ever to be put in that position again.”
“I don’t believe you’re going to be able to convince her,” Jane said. “If a five-year desertion didn’t do it, it’s not going to happen. She’s very stubborn.”
“I’ll find a way.”
“You usually do.” She looked down the hall. “May I see her before I leave?”