Opening the man’s shirt, he looked his belly and chest over, noted bruising on his left rib cage, then began to feel his belly for telltale signs of bleeding.
Like the turgid area on the left upper quadrant. “How’s the line?”
She flushed the catheter she’d just inserted into the man’s arm, nodded, and then hooked up a saline line to it. “We’re good. I’m going to pin it to your suit. It’s wide open, do you want it slower?”
“No, his spleen is ruptured, I don’t know how badly. Run the drip wide open. We have to get him in the air.” He lifted his head out of the way and Penny produced a massive safety pin from somewhere, and clipped the saline line to the shoulder of his suit.
It wasn’t exactly the kind of protocol taught in medical training, but she’d done it before. Once they got to the chopper, she’d have to fly them to the hospital, and unclipping it from her own shoulder to free her to fly would slow them down. The first time she’d done it, he’d been surprised, but over their months, working together, her unusual methods had ceased to be strange. She always had a reason for the things she did, and he didn’t doubt she had a reason to be so pale and stiff-lipped now. Which was what worried him.
“Get his legs,” he ordered once the bag swung from his shoulder, and waited until she was there. On the count of three they lifted, moved, and lowered their patient, then secured straps.
“You and you, help me carry him,” he said to the manager and another strong-looking worker watching them. “Let my pilot run ahead and get the chopper running so we don’t lose any time.”
Penny waited until they’d started moving, then went to take his bag of supplies, swung it over her shoulder, and ran. She would push the button for the elevator and have Security hold it for them while she took the stairs. That was how she worked. She thought ahead, and he was grateful for that.
So, whatever was wrong, she was probably handling it. Maybe he should just let her handle it. The problem was, he had to be the one who forced her home when she did get ill, or would admit to being ill. It had become a happily infrequent part of his job description, but a part nevertheless.
By the time they’d reached the chopper, the blades were whirring. They got Frank loaded quickly and he put his headset on.
“They’re already prepping an OR.” Penny’s voice came through the comm. “A surgical team’s going to meet us at the roof to type him for transfusion.”
“What did you report?” He locked himself into the jump seat over his patient, and while she flew he affixed leads for the portable heart monitor and checked again for pupil dilation.
“Internal bleeding, most likely splenic rupture, irregular pupil reaction, possibly some kind of spinal damage, and unconsciousness.”
All that was the most she’d said to him all day.
“Okay.” He called in another update, laying on the need for an MRI, then asked over the comm, “Why did you suggest spinal damage?”
“Skydiving. Landing jars badly.”
Not his favorite answer, but not wrong either. Leave it to Penny to frame things in terms of extreme sports activities, that was like her. Answering with so few words on a subject she could chatter hours about usually? Again, not like her.
No matter how hard she’d hit the ground running today, something was definitely wrong.
* * *
As soon as they’d handed over their patient to the surgical team atop Manhattan Mercy, Gabriel took Penny’s elbow to keep her from following the team inside. Not letting himself touch her had been another way to keep temptation at bay, and even this casual, platonic touch to her arm felt exasperatingly intimate to him. But it had a purpose.
She turned to look at him, her elbow held out from her body at an unnatural angle, her brows up in question. On top of the high building, the wind blew loudly enough that talking meant shouting, even with the helicopter blades silent. He jerked his head back toward the chopper.
“You want to go somewhere?” She was nearly shouting over the wind, eyeing his hand on her arm again. It wasn’t as though he gripped her in anger, though he’d admit frustration at having to have this conversation again, and his grip wasn’t strong enough to hurt. Sometimes he had to grab her to keep her from flitting away.
A quick shake of his head and he answered with one word. “Talk.”
The flare of wariness in her blue eyes only firmed his resolve. He released her, went and opened the sliding side door, climbed in, and scooted to make room for her.
If he hadn’t suspected anything before, the way she looked at the sky, at her feet, and generally stalled for time would’ve given it all away.
She had to talk herself into speaking with him.
After about half a minute, she squared her shoulders and marched over to board the helicopter, nearly closing the door behind her. It was enough to dampen the wind and make this conversation less stressful than it would’ve been if it had to start from a position of yelling, but remained open enough for easy escape.
She perched on the edge of the seat, one hand staying on the door handle, and looked at him. “What do you want to talk about?”
So ready to fly.
“You know what I want to talk about. You shot me a nasty look, but you never actually answered me. Are you ill? Because you look like hell.”
Blunt. Maybe a little too blunt, but if that was what it took to get through to her, so be it.
“I’m fine.”
“Pale. Black circles. No motormouth. No music before flying. No band radio. You didn’t even know we’d been called out. Want to revise your statement?”
“That was a mistake. Normal people do make mistakes sometimes!”
“Fine. If you want to stick to the Not Sick story, then are you hungover? Are you distracted by whatever last night’s festivities were?”
“Oh. My. God. You’re jealous? That’s what this is?”
She couldn’t have shocked him more if she’d just decked him.
They’d made an agreement! And the only way to keep up his end was to refuse to rise to the bait.
“I have plans to be alive tomorrow. A distracted pilot is a bad pilot.”
“Did I fly badly?” Her voice rose, bringing it right back to near shouting level. “Did I perform badly today?”
“No.”
“No. I did my job just fine.”
“You’re distracted, at the very least, and you’re a distraction. Whether or not you’re willing to admit it. I can’t focus on the patients if I’m constantly checking on you to make sure you’re still upright.”
“I’m not sick—”
“I don’t care.” He cut her off. “Do whatever it is you need to do to function at your usual level. Do shifts in Emergency until then, I don’t want you on my crew. I’ll get another pilot.”
A fierce blush washed into her cheeks but didn’t detract from her paleness. It actually amplified how very pale she was against that bright red contrast.
“I’m so glad that you don’t care.”
Still shouting...
“Since you don’t care, and I know you don’t because we’re not friends, this is probably the perfect time to put your mind at ease. It’s not an illness.”
She never liked him questioning her over sickness, which had always bugged him, like he should feel guilty for being concerned about her or about their patients. But this was extreme, even for her. His neck prickled and he