Chapter Four
“I need a volunteer.” Donald pulled Monica aside twelve hours after she’d set foot in the blazing inferno.
She rubbed a clean hand over her face and blinked a few times. “Volunteer? Isn’t that what I’m doing here?”
Donald offered a half smile. “I need a nurse to go over one county to the east, it’s a fishing village, Port Lucia. The clinic there is bursting. The local doctor hasn’t been seen since the quake.”
Monica shook her head. “There isn’t a doctor?”
“No. There’s a couple of nurses… aides.” He glanced around them. As organized as chaos could go, the room had some order. “Your triage skills kick ass.”
As much as she’d like to bask in the compliment, she couldn’t get over what he was asking. “You want me to go to a clinic where there isn’t a doctor? How does that work? My license…”
“Your license is safe here. There are people suffering and I need to send someone to triage the worst back here. We have standing orders you’ll take with you, and a two-way radio to ask questions if needed. The last thing we need is more walking wounded filling these rooms.”
Monica couldn’t argue with that. “You’re asking for a volunteer?” The way his eyes looked through her said he was more than asking.
“Tina’s good… but you’re better. If I put the best nurse there, I won’t worry that careless mistakes are happening. Either Walt or I will come up every twenty-four hours to lend a hand.”
“A lot can go wrong in twenty-four hours. I’ll need to sleep.”
“Like I said. There are aides. They’ve been sending most of the wounded here. Half of them didn’t need to come.”
Like a bad flu season in California, when the ER would fill with patients, bottlenecking the entire department and eventually the hospital, which made it next to impossible to treat anyone in a timely manner. Here the numbers of critical patients were too great to let sit.
“So… can I count on you?”
The inside of Monica’s stomach twisted. She liked to think she had some autonomy as a critical care trauma nurse. The bottom line, however, was there was always a doctor around. She followed a doctor’s orders.
A cry from a patient three beds away had Monica glancing around the room. All day she’d treated people, tended their needs… directed them to the next level of care if need be and she could count on one hand how often Donald or Walt had made it past her side.
“How far away is Port Lucia?”
There was an excited hum in his veins Trent had forgotten existed. For the first time in what felt like ever, he woke with sense of real purpose. He tried to convince himself the reason for his overzealous sense of self was due to the state of emergency the island had been under since the quake. That was part of it, but the itchy, hot exhilaration came from something much baser.
Blonde hair and cool blue eyes found him while he slept. Even there, her sassy tongue and knowing eyes found a moment to mock his bare feet.
Before leaving his chopper on the tarmac the night before, he’d been asked to arrive early to pick up one of the American nurses and deliver her to Port Lucia. Because Trent’s home resided between the short runway and Port Lucia, Reynard asked him to deliver the nurse personally. There wasn’t anywhere to land the chopper close to the clinic so a short drive would be in the travel plans.
Trent wanted to ask which nurse was taking the new assignment, but didn’t. He’d find out soon enough. He didn’t hold too much hope that Monica would be that nurse. He knew she didn’t take to flying and probably wouldn’t volunteer.
Either way, he’d have an excuse to see her again briefly, if only to find out who he was escorting around the island.
After a short shower and a cup of god-awful instant coffee, Trent filled Ginger’s dog bowl and pulled his Jeep out of his driveway.
Clouds blocked the morning rays of the sun and threatened more than a few drops of rain. The last thing the island needed was bad weather.
The closer he made his way toward the airstrip, the more concerned with the clouds Trent became. Visibility was everything in a helicopter. If the ceiling of clouds wasn’t high enough, he’d be grounded until the thick layers lifted.
Alex, one of his pilots, met him outside of the air traffic tower. Alex was a good thirty years older than Trent. He and his wife, Betty, both flew for Blue Paradise Helicopter Tours, an offshoot of Fairchild Vacation and Charter Tours, which Trent and his brothers owned. Unlike Jason and Glen, Trent decided to run one exclusive leg of the worldwide company. A decision that still provoked arguments between the three of them.
He and Alex shook hands. “You look like you finally slept,” Alex told him.
“A good six hours. You?”
“More like four. Betty had a hard time falling asleep.”
“It’s hard to close your eyes and see anything other than destruction.” Trent almost felt guilty for dreaming of a blonde nurse.
“She told me to come pick her up if we really needed her. Otherwise she needed a break.”
Trent shook his head. “No worries. Outside of some jockeying, I think the officials will take over most of the runs. I’m doing an early run,” Trent told him. “If you’re not needed go home.”
Alex shook his head. “I need to do something.”
Trent knew how his friend felt. Everywhere they looked there was a need for help. Even if it lay in the packing of water bottles… or body bags.
He squeezed his eyes shut and pushed away the thoughts of lifeless people… of the despair that took him by the throat every time he landed his helicopter.
Above their heads, the clouds were breaking up. “I’ll be on the radio when I’m onboard. I have an angel to deliver to Port Lucia. Call me if you need anything.”
Alex nodded and leaned against the building.
Trent walked around his aircraft and performed his visual inspection of the chopper before climbing inside. He signaled air traffic and awaited their approval before taking to the air.
A sputtering of rain graced his short ride and heated the air. This, exactly this, might not be quite what it was he imagined when he decided to live on the island. But life wasn’t always what he thought it should be.
Hell, his own parents had expected so much more and yet their lives had been cut short… so painfully short.
Trent’s jaw ached and he forcefully managed to stop grinding his teeth. Temporary lights blinked where his intended target lay. He flipped the chopper into the onshore wind and set the skids on the ground. Unlike any time in the past, there wasn’t an extra hand standing by when he powered down the chopper and exited his aircraft.
People lined the outside walls of the hospital, some waiting on loved ones… others simply waiting. Trent kept his sunglasses in place… and his mask. The air smelled of humidity, death, and despair. Such a far cry from the happy-go-lucky tourist and sightseer that had been in his life only a few short days earlier.
Even though the island had experienced nothing short of an apocalypse, the world still slept during these early hours. The stairwell was filled with people. Some slumped in sleep beside the walls, others were awake beside them. Trent moved past them in search of the director.
Past the room where he’d witnessed Monica help fix the boy’s fracture the day before, he moved into the next room. There lay two dozen patients. Some with IV bags of fluid hanging over them giving some semblance of normalcy of a hospital. Trent knew better. There was nothing normal about people stacked this high or thick in what used to be a waiting room.
He glanced around and found a nurse he recognized from the flight over slumped against the wall. She’d fallen asleep. He considered waking her, but realized that no one in the room was screaming for assistance, so he moved on. Up the stairs he found a smaller room with an attendant… or maybe it was a nurse… with a half dozen patients.
Trent swallowed. The patients rested on gurneys in a line. Used to seeing the dark umber skin tone of the residents, it shocked him to see so many gray faces.
Pushing past his unease, Trent stepped up next to the attendant. “Excuse me. I’m looking for the American, Dr. Klein?”
The woman behind the workstation nodded toward the closed door beyond the patients. “He’s in surgery.”
Trent ran a hand over his neck and glanced around the room. “I’m supposed to be escorting a nurse to Port Lucia.”
The woman shrugged and returned to the work.
Disturbing the doctor didn’t seem wise so Trent twisted around and moved back through the hospital. He found the sleeping nurse and stood over her.
As he debated waking the woman, someone behind him beat him to it.
Hearing a patient’s groan, the nurse shot to attention, her gaze disconnected from the world. Her eyes moved around the room, panic clouded her face before she realized he stood over her.
“Oh, God… I fell asleep.”
He couldn’t imagine the exhaustion she must be experiencing. “It was quiet when I walked through a moment ago.”
She moved to her feet and the clipboard in her lap fell to the floor. Trent moved to pick it up for her. A coy smile passed her lips.
“Thanks.”
“S’OK. Listen. I’m supposed to pick up a nurse to take to Port Lucia. Do you know who she is?”
The brunette shook her head. “Not me. Monica ducked out a few hours ago. Said she was being moved somewhere east.”
Trent felt his lips pulling into a smile. “Where will I find her?”
The nurse pointed in the opposite direction. “They set up a small room for us to rest. Go through four sets of doors, up a stairway one flight, and take a left. There’s a doctors’ lounge. Girls on the right, boys on the left.”
“Thanks,” Trent uttered as he turned and walked away.
Four sets of doors opened to rooms filled with misery. He kept his sunglasses on, though the sun wasn’t out and it certainly didn’t filter into the rooms. If he could block out all the images around him he would.
The stairway up to the lounge was quiet and void of anyone. He stood outside the door and wondered if he should knock. If there were nurses sleeping, he might wake all of them instead of the only one. He took a gamble, inched the door open, and peeked inside.
Sure enough, there were a few cots in the small space, all of them filled. A quick assessment brought his gaze to Monica. She’d fallen asleep fully clothed with a hand tossed over her head. Her blonde hair hung loose around her shoulders, the tight lines in her face from the day before were erased while she slept.
Trent stepped over a duffel bag and avoided a cot before he stood over his passenger. He had no idea how long she’d slept and felt awful for waking her.
He knelt down to her level and whispered her name. “Monica?”
Nothing.
“Monica?” he said a little louder.
Her hand drifted off her forehead.
The other women in the room hadn’t stirred.
“Monica?” He placed his hand on her shoulder and gave a gentle shake.
She shot up so fast Trent didn’t have time to move back. Her head collided with his bringing gasps from both of them.
“Ouch!” she yelled, waking everyone in the room. She blinked several times while staring at him. “What the…”
Trent stood and rubbed his head. “I was trying to wake you without disturbing everyone.”
“Too late,” someone said before rolling over and going back to sleep.
“Sorry,” he mumbled.
“What time is it?” Her voice was rough with sleep.
“Almost seven.”
Monica flopped back down to her cot. “You’re driving me to Port Lucia?”
“Yeah.”
She rubbed both hands over her face and pushed her legs off the bed. “I’ll be ready in a minute.”
Trent took her words as his cue to leave the room. His wait in the hall took less than ten minutes. Monica emerged with her hair pulled back in the same ponytail he’d seen the day before. He liked her hair down, he decided. Why his mind would travel to how this woman wore her hair, he didn’t know.
But he did. He was attracted. The curling in his gut wasn’t something he could ignore.
She hid a yawn behind her hand and closed the door quietly behind her.
As she started to hike her bag onto her shoulder, Trent moved forward and reached for it. “Let me,” he said.
“I got it.” She pulled the strap higher on her arm.
He reached for her bag again. “I wasn’t raised to let a woman carry a bag while I’m empty-handed.”
She cocked her head to the side as if she’d argue with him. Instead, she shrugged the bag down her arm and handed it to him.
“I wouldn’t want to be responsible for blowing your mother’s good intentions.”
The memory of his mother repeatedly telling him to grab a bag or hold a door for a woman filtered past his mind. “My mother would thank you.”
He took her surprisingly heavy bag in one hand and encouraged her to walk in front of him down the stairs.
The gentle sway of her ass caught his attention as he followed her. She wore scrubs, and loose cotton hid most of her petite figure. Most, but not all of it. The cotton shirt covered her slim waist, but there was no mistaking her delicate neck and full breasts.
Monica turned when she opened the door at the bottom of the stairs. Good thing his sunglasses disguised his eyes. He held the door and let her pass. She waited for him to walk beside her as she spoke.
“So, Trent. It is Trent, right?”
“As much as I liked Barefoot, my name is Trent.”
She smiled. “Sorry about that. I didn’t catch your name on the flight over.”
“I’ve been called worse.” He stepped around a man sleeping on the floor and urged Monica out the door.
Monica glanced up at the gray skies and frowned. “So, Trent,” she began again. “Are you the only one shuffling the foreign medical staff around the island?”
He shook his head. “There are a few others. Why?”
He kept his eyes on where he walked and avoided her questioning gaze.
“Just wondering.”
He didn’t buy that. “Just wondering?”
“Seems like anyone could drive me to the clinic.”
He walked her behind the hospital and up a short path to where his helicopter waited. “Anyone could drive you.”
She hesitated when she saw her ride. “I thought you said you were driving me.”
“I am. After a short flight to where my car is parked.”
She turned a full circle. “Can’t we just drive?”
Trent moved in front of her and removed his sunglasses. “It’s a short flight back to the airport, then a thirty-minute drive. That’s if the roads are cleared.”
“Can’t we just—” Her ice blue eyes never left his.
“I didn’t kill you the first time, Monica. I won’t this time either.”
She swallowed.
“It was better thinking you volunteered to take me instead of being the only person capable of it.”
Actual fear hid behind her eyes. “Why’s that?”
“I prefer flirting to flying.”
A slow easy smile met his lips. He knew then, irrevocably, that Monica thought about him at some point during her short stint on the island.
He replaced his sunglasses and reached for her hand. “How about a little of both?”
“Damn,” she mumbled as she let him drag her to the aircraft. He opened the door on the passenger side and quickly shoved her bag in the back.
Inside, he reached across her body and latched the passenger door. “I could have done that,” she said.
He caught her eyes over the rim of his sunglasses and winked. “That would be the flirting portion of our flight.”
She laughed then. A nervous laugh that seemed to surprise her as the sound escaped.
He handed her the extra headset and buckled in.
Once her ears were in place he could hear the quickening of her breath. He powered up and switched his radio to air traffic control.
“This is Bravo Papa one.”
“I hear you, Bravo Papa one, over.”
“I’m en route to you. Can I get a weather reading? Over.”
Trent listened to the wind report and received an all clear of the fog lifting.
The hum of the helicopter wrapped around him with a warm welcome. He glanced over to see Monica’s fists clenched in her lap.
“Do you want to copilot?”
She rolled her eyes at him. “I fell for that once, Barefoot. I’m not that gullible twice.”
So he was Barefoot again. “Took your mind off the flight the first time.” He removed a stick of gum from its pack and handed it to her.
“And what, gum is going to do it this time?” She took the gum and unwrapped it.
“No, but it helps the ear popping.”
She placed the gum in her mouth and took a deep breath.
“Ready?”
She shook her head. “You sure we can’t drive?”
He patted her knee as he would a child. “If it makes you feel better, I’ve been flying since I was fourteen. Two solid years longer than I’ve been driving.”
“I’m not sure that helps.”
He smiled, and lifted the aircraft off the ground. Once he was above the trees, he turned the chopper around and headed toward the airport.
Her white knuckles were not a sign of his flying, he reminded himself. “How long have you been a nurse?” he asked, hoping to calm her down.
“Three years… almost four.”
He would have thought it was much longer based on what he’d witnessed the day before.
“Did you follow in your mother’s footsteps?”
She sputtered a laugh. “Not hardly.”
That’s a loaded answer. “She’s not a nurse?”
“She’s not anything. Go nowhere jobs. Go nowhere husbands.”
As in plural.
“What about you? Is your dad a pilot?”
“He was one of the best.”
“He doesn’t fly anymore?”
“He passed away.”
Trent felt her eyes on him. “I’m sorry.”
He shrugged. “Some dads teach their kids how to ride a bike or throw a ball. My dad taught us how to fly.”
“I’ll bet your friends were insane with jealousy.”
Trent had always been thankful for his parents’ desire for him and his brothers to fly. He glanced over and noticed Monica’s hands resting loosely in her lap. Their conversation was distracting her. Trent did something he almost never did. He talked about his past. “On my eighteenth birthday a buddy of mine convinced me to go for a joyride.”
“A joyride? In one of these?” Her voice rose with alarm.
“We took a couple of girls up. I thought I’d show off my skills.”
“Strut for the ladies?”
“Some guys show off their cars. I showed off my dad’s helicopter.”
She glanced out the window as if noticing that she was still in the air. “Did you stay this close to the ground on the joyride?”
“No. It was a clear fall day.”
“Clear fall days allow you to fly higher? Or are you staying close to the ground to keep me from freaking out?”
“Is staying low keeping you from freaking?”
“No,” she said laughing.
“Staying low is necessary today.” He didn’t want to worry her about flying conditions and kept his explanations simple. “Not on my eighteenth birthday.”
“So what happened? Did your skills get you lucky?”
There was an innocence about discussing one’s youth with a virtual stranger. “It almost landed me in jail.”
“Seriously?”
“Security at the private airstrip notified my father that his bird was missing. After he found and quizzed my older brothers, he assumed someone had stolen it. It never occurred to him that I’d take it.”
“You weren’t a wild child?”
Oh, he was wild. His parents had very little idea of how wild. “I wasn’t bad.”
“Why don’t I believe you?” Her tone teased and when he looked over he noticed her slow steady breaths pushing her breasts against her clothing.
“Anyway. When we landed, the police were there and put us all in handcuffs. My parents were livid,” he told her, taking his eyes off her chest.
“I can’t imagine why. Did you ever see the girl again?”
The lights of the airstrip appeared in the distance. “Her parents forbid it.”
“That doesn’t usually stop teens from anything.”
Trent banked the chopper in a wide turn. “I think it was the handcuffs that turned her off.”
Monica smiled. “Handcuffs wouldn’t bode well for a second date. Unless the girl is into that sort of thing.”
Trent turned to stare at her and had to erase the thought of Monica in handcuffs… the fuzzy kind, in order to swallow.