out a hiss of air. He’d seen big, tough guys yelp when they experienced the same thing. “Okay?” he asked.
“Lovely,” she managed.
He almost smiled. “I think it’s possible that the captain has some internal injuries that we’ll have to watch for. He probably hit the dash pretty hard. I’ll bandage his head after I set the copilot’s leg. Unfortunately for Angus, we don’t have any ice and it’s going to be difficult to keep the swelling down. His leg really needs stitches, but I didn’t see any needles or thread in the first-aid kit. Same issue with Captain Ramano. I’d like to stitch up his head wound.”
“I have a sewing kit,” Elle said. “It’s just a small one. I think it was a giveaway at a conference I attended a couple years ago and I toss it in my carry-on when I travel, just in case.”
It was better than nothing. The needles wouldn’t be nearly as sharp as what he was used to, but he could make them work. He could sterilize the needle and the thread with one of the antiseptic wipes in the first-aid kit. Not great but better than leaving a gaping wound. “Please get it,” he said.
She found her bag in the rubble and dug through it, pulling out a tiny plastic box with three needles and six small coils of thread in it. She handed it to him.
“What else do you need me to do?” she asked.
The Elle he remembered had turned a little green when he discussed the surgeries he was observing in medical school. “There’s going to be blood,” he said.
“I’ll be okay,” she said, swallowing hard.
He studied her. So familiar. Yet so different. It was hard to get his head around it, so he did what was simple. He pushed it to the back of his mind. There were wounded. That’s where his energies needed to be.
“Okay. Clear some space in the aisles. It’s the only place where there will be room to work. I really need something to...” He let his voice trail off. He saw something that would work. In Mr. Hardy’s seat pocket, there were several newspapers. Brody grabbed one and handed it to Elle. “Once the space is clear, lay this down on the floor.”
He was going to need something to sop up the blood, especially if he got unlucky and the sharp edges of bone cut a vein or an artery.
“If I only had a scalpel, I’d be in good shape,” he said, under his breath.
Mrs. Hardy pointed to one of the large suitcases that had spilled out of the cabinet. “I’ve got a knife in with my makeup. Never gets caught by airline security.”
Brody figured security had seen it but just decided they didn’t want to have the twenty-minute conversation with Mrs. Hardy about why she had to fly with a knife. He opened the suitcase. Mrs. Hardy’s makeup was in the zipper pocket. He was surprised when he saw the lovely pearl-handled instrument, tucked in beside lipsticks and powders. He’d expected something like a butter knife or at best a little pocketknife. No. Mrs. Hardy was packin’. Fully unfolded, the knife had at least a three-inch blade. The woman could have done some serious damage with it.
Brody looked from the knife to Mrs. Hardy and then back again. “And I had to give up my four ounces of shaving cream,” he said.
Mrs. Hardy smiled. “There are advantages to being an old woman.”
Brody tested the point against the palm of his hand. It was very sharp and would make a difference. “Thank you,” he said, and started for the cockpit.
When Brody got there, Angus had his head back and his eyes were closed. Captain Ramano also had his eyes shut. Pamela was wide-awake and looking pretty agitated.
She was still dutifully pressing down on the pilot’s head wound. “How is he?” Brody asked.
“I don’t know. I’m not the doctor,” she said crossly.
“You’re doing fine,” Brody assured her. “The bleeding looks as if it has stopped. You can go back to your seat.”
He’d assist Captain Ramano once he finished with Angus. He tapped the young man on the shoulder. Angus opened his eyes.
“So it wasn’t a dream?” Angus said.
Brody shook his head. “Wish it was, my friend. Once we get that leg set, you’ll feel better. I promise.”
He helped Angus up out of his seat. There was so little room that as careful as they were, at one point Angus brushed his injured leg against something and let out a yelp as if he were an injured dog.
The young man leaned heavily on Brody as they carefully maneuvered back to the main cabin area, where Brody helped him lie down. Angus wasn’t a big guy, but he filled the small center aisle, and right now he looked as if he was about ready to pass out. His pant leg was still rolled up and Brody got his first really good look at the leg. It was already starting to swell. Brody untied the man’s shoe and took it off.
It was going to get worse before it got better. This was frontier medicine and he didn’t even have any rotgut whiskey to give to Angus.
Elle took a spot on one side, Brody on the other, each of them shoehorned in the seating area. Both were on their knees.
She could see the pain on Angus’s face and she looked up at Brody. “He’s lucky you were on this plane,” she said.
He didn’t answer her.
When Brody didn’t answer, Elle realized that the young man she’d loved was gone. Instead, there was a stranger, who didn’t feel the need to be particularly polite to her.
The Brody Donovan she remembered was always polite. She’d met him during his first year of med school. Had known he was supersmart after an hour of conversation, not because he told her he was—he just was. She’d enjoyed it when he and his friends came into the little bar where she’d been cocktailing. And when he asked her out, it had been flattering.
She’d declined. Men like Brody Donovan were out of her league. But he hadn’t given up. Finally, she’d agreed, thinking it might be a nice holiday romance, and to her great surprise, and great joy, it had worked. They had clicked.
Loved the same movies, enjoyed the same food, laughed at the same things. She hadn’t been a bit surprised when she learned that he’d been an Eagle Scout in middle school and the senior class president in high school. When he casually mentioned that his father was a novelist, she’d rather belatedly put together that Larry Donovan, hottest thriller writer around, was Brody’s dad. Learning that his mother was a scientist who worked off and on for NASA didn’t even make her blink an eye.
Brody was special.
When he graduated from med school with honors and had been accepted into his first choice for a residency program, everybody had assumed that he was rightfully on his way.
Everybody loved Brody. And she had, too. Which had made leaving him the hardest thing she’d ever had to do.
Brody opened the sewing kit, threaded a needle with a piece of dark blue thread and set it down on the spread newspaper.
He opened a couple packages of antiseptic wipes, then handed her a pair of gloves and slipped a pair onto his own hands. “Angus, I’m going to move your bone back into position. To do that, I’m going to make a very small incision, but given that I don’t have anything to numb the pain, it’s going to hurt. I need you to keep the leg as still as you possibly can. Can you do that for me?”
Brody’s voice was calm, reassuring.
Angus nodded.
“Elle, wipe that blood away,” Brody said, his voice still calm.
She took the antiseptic wipe and as gently as possible, tried to clean around the wound so that Brody could see what he was doing. Her stomach was jumping.
“After that, I’ll be ready to stitch up the wound and bandage it. You’ll be on the road to recovery. How’s that sound, Angus?” Brody asked.
He