Her voice was barely more than a whisper and her trembling worsened as shock set in. She cradled her left hand and Zac noticed blood on one of her fingers, oozing from a fairly deep laceration.
The woman swayed slightly, and Zac grasped her arm to steady her. “Ma’am, how about I take you inside the ambulance and we see about getting your finger bandaged up? You can rest there a moment, okay?”
“She’s pregnant...” the woman said, her voice dazed as he guided her toward the ambulance. “I want to make sure the baby’s okay. I was driving behind her and she slammed on her brakes. I didn’t realize I was so close and I went right into her.”
Susan was already at the rig, getting the pregnant woman loaded onto a gurney. As he helped the older woman up the stairs into the back Zac caught snippets of what the woman was telling his partner.
“I was hit from behind and then pushed into the flatbed in front of me.”
Given the damage to the vehicles, things could’ve been a lot worse for everyone, thought Zac.
He got the older woman situated on a bench in the rear of the rig, then climbed back out to help Susan load the gurney inside as well. Once both patients were secure, he tended to the older woman’s lacerated finger while Susan checked the pregnant patient’s vitals.
A bit of color had returned to the older woman’s cheeks since she’d sat down and Zac handed her a cup of water. Her focus, though, remained fixated on the pregnant woman across from her, her expression anxious. “It all happened so fast. Then she got out and said the wheel had pushed into her stomach.”
Zac glanced over to where Susan was hooking up a portable Doppler to the pregnant woman’s stomach to monitor the fetal heart rate. A comforting thump-thump rhythm soon filled the interior of the ambulance. Susan looked up at him and hiked her chin to let him know everything sounded okay for now. They’d still transport the patient to the hospital, to make sure everything was fine, but it appeared she’d been lucky.
“Right,” Zac said, finishing up with the bandage on the woman’s finger. “This isn’t as deep as I first thought, so you should be fine taking care of it at home, ma’am. Keep the wound clean and dry and change the dressing daily until it’s healed. Any questions?”
The older woman shook her head.
“Okay, then.” Zac stood. “You’re done here. I believe the police officers outside might have a few questions for you.”
“Blood pressure’s one hundred and two over sixty-nine,” Susan said, adjusting the cuff on the pregnant woman’s arm.
“Is that good?” the other woman asked Zac.
“Fine. It’s usually a bit low when you’re pregnant.” He helped the older woman stand, then led her toward the door. “Watch your step on the way down. I’ll keep ahold of your arm until you’re safely on the ground.”
“Oh, wait,” the woman said, stopping to turn back to the pregnant patient. “I’m so sorry about all this.”
The pregnant woman nodded. “Thank you.”
Once he’d gotten the older woman out of the rig and over to the cops, Zac secured the rear doors on the ambulance, then climbed behind the wheel and radioed the ER to let them know they were coming.
“Anchorage Mercy, this is Frontier Ambulance Fourteen en route to your facility with a thirty-seven-year-old female who is thirty-eight weeks pregnant, involved in an MVA. Five minutes until arrival. Over.”
“Copy. We’ll have OB on standby,” came the voice of a trauma nurse. “Any visible injuries?”
He glanced back at Susan in the rearview mirror.
“I have a midwife there,” the pregnant woman said. “Carmen Sanchez. I want her present.”
Zac nodded. Of course it would have to be Carmen.
He relayed the information, then signed off. “Be there soon. Over.”
Thankfully, traffic was lighter now, and they pulled into the ambulance bay at the hospital in under six minutes. Zac and Susan unloaded their patient from the back, then wheeled the gurney through the automatic doors into the brightly lit ER.
As they headed down the hall toward one of the open trauma bays Zac gave the ER team a rundown from Susan’s notes, doing his best to ignore the fact that Carmen was rushing along beside him, her arm brushing his and sending all sorts of inappropriate zings through his system.
“Patient states her abdomen struck the steering wheel hard during the accident. Fetal heart rate was normal during transport, no bleeding, spotting or cramping, though patient did complain of some chest pain post-accident. Patient has a history of three previous miscarriages and one stillbirth.”
“Thank you. I’m familiar with her history,” Carmen said, and she nudged him aside as they pushed the patient into an empty trauma bay where the OB on call, Dr. Tom Farber, raised a hand to Zac in greeting.
“We’ve got it from here.”
The curtain abruptly swooshed closed in his face, and Zac stood there a moment, blinking at it, while Susan chuckled beside him.
“There’s that look again, buddy.” Susan clapped him on the back and chuckled. “Don’t worry. Carmen’s too good for you anyway. I’m going back out to the rig to clean up.”
Zac moved over to the nurses’ station to get out of the way. He didn’t usually hang around after they’d dropped off patients, but things had been slow all day and his shift was almost over. Besides, he wanted to make sure things were all right with the baby.
That was the excuse he was going with anyway.
“You’re still here?” Carmen said when she emerged from behind the curtain twenty minutes later.
The words had emerged snarkier than she’d intended—but darn it. Bad enough that she hadn’t been able to sleep well since their conversation in the cafeteria, her mind whirling with thoughts of him. Now he was distracting her at work too. The only way her plan was going to work was if she kept her wits about her and her feelings out of it. In fact, most things in life worked better that way, in her experience. Caring too much only meant trouble.
She stepped around Zac, who stood far too close for her comfort. The weekend conference was approaching fast. And, as if that weren’t stressful enough, she’d just worked three twelve-hour shifts in a row and now, with this new patient’s arrival, her already long night was about to become even longer.
“Figured you’d have a hot date or something.”
“No dates for me. I’m off the market now, remember?”
She gave him a pointed glance. If Zac had taken offense at her snapping at him, he didn’t show it. He just stood there, grinning and looking smug.
“Just getting into practice for my role this weekend. Besides, my shift’s almost done. And since when do you care so much about my schedule?”
“I don’t care,” Carmen lied. “I just don’t want any rumors starting around here about us. You know how people gossip.”
Zac snorted. “You don’t think they’re going to hear about it from Priya and Lance anyway? The guy’s my good friend, but I don’t tell him anything I don’t want the rest of the hospital to know. He’s worse than social media when it comes to privacy.”
He laughed, but she gave him a dark look. “Don’t remind me.”
“Hey, this was your idea, remember?” he said, leaning closer.
Close enough that his warm breath ghosted the shell of her ear and made her shiver.
“Speaking