Recon Marines II: Marine's Heiress, The (2 page)

Then Emma heard the excited shouts of
men out on the street. She knew what it meant and ran toward the
door.

Vin snagged her arm, stopping her more
with the shock of his action than his grip. He moved in front of
her. “Stay back.” He went out through the door.

The cold command of his voice stopped
her for a heartbeat, but then she chased after him.

He paused on the wooden walkway,
staring down the narrow street at the band of men hurrying toward
them.

Emma dodged around him and ran the few
steps to her surgery door. She pushed the door open to the long
narrow room. Once it had served as a schoolroom but a newer larger
building housed the school on the south edge of town for the last
three quarters of a year. Only Vannie and Moe knew she’d financed
the building of it.

The lights sputtered once but steadied
to bathe the shining surgical table and three clean beds with a
white glare. She hadn’t seen whom the miners carried toward her,
but their haste signaled the urgency. Two ten-days ago, she’d lost
her first patient since coming to Hovel Port. She hoped they were
bringing her a simple broken leg or a smashed hand, common injuries
with their work.

“
Easy there, don’t bump
his head on the door frame,” Vannie directed as he backed through
the doorway. He supported a corner of a canvas tarp along with
three other men. They somehow all squeezed through with Vin
trailing behind.

Vannie counted to three and then they
lifted together. Emma’s heart slammed against her ribs as she took
in the injuries. The same as last time. Both of the man’s legs were
nearly amputated. Like most of the workers, the victim wore short
pants to wade in the river and pan for silver. Blood colored his
lower legs from half way down his shins to his toes so it appeared
he wore crimson stockings.

The victim moaned and drew Emma’s stare
up to his face. Russ Little. A lump of cold horror filled her
belly. Russ and his wife, Jenny, had welcomed Emma when she first
arrived in Hovel Port and invited her to live with them until she
found her own residence. She’d stayed with them for three months
until the surgery had become livable.

“
Same as last time,”
Vannie said between gasps. He wiped his brow, leaving a red streak
to mix with the sweat. “He stepped into some shallow, muddy water
and the trap got him. Nearly drowned before we could free
him.”

Emma turned away to gather her
supplies. She needed three tries to fit the key into the medicine
cabinet. What she saw inside it deepened her despair. She gathered
two bags of saline to replace the fluid Russ desperately
needed.

“
I’ll start that while you
get whatever you need ready.”

A bag fell from her hand but Vin caught
it before it hit the floor. He stood so close she could feel his
heat on her cold skin.

“
Are you a doctor?” Hope
filled Emma. A military medic, experienced with battlefield wounds,
could make this case different than the last one.

“
No, but I know how to
start an IV.” Vin reached past her and grabbed a precious, sterile
needle out of the cabinet along with a packaged alcohol prep. He
carried it over to Russ’ side without waiting for her
permission.

Emma glanced at Russ’ pale face. There
wasn’t time to waste on questions or turning away unexpected help.
She took out another key and hurried to the small refrigerator that
held antibiotics. Not only did the murky stream pose a danger of
infection but the steel trap could carry contamination. Behind her
she would hear Vannie ushering the other men out of the
door.

When she returned to the table, Vin had
the IV running into Russ’ arm. He tore strips of tape and secured
the line so Russ’ thrashing couldn’t knock it loose.

Emma drew a dose of antibiotics into a
syringe and shot it into the IV line.

Vin gathered nearly all of her gauze
and set it within reach on the edges of the table. He frowned down
at the wounds. Someone had wrapped pieces of shirts around each leg
but the rough bandages only slowed the bleeding. The cloth would
need to be cut off, something that would restart the severe
bleeding.

“
Do you have antibiotic
powder for in the wounds?” Vin asked.

His even tone calmed Emma’s racing
heart so her mind could conquer her emotions. She understood her
emotions in a way most people didn’t and now used her training to
funnel her fear into determination. “I don’t. That’s why I started
the antibiotic first. I have to hope the bleeding washed the wounds
clean.”

She went back to her cupboard and found
the curved stitching needles and the two types of thread needed
from among her meager supplies. Back in the more civilized parts of
the galaxy she would have liquid sealers for the skin wounds and no
fear of infection. And a trauma surgeon instead of her to use them.
She carried her instruments back to the table, her traitorous
memory pulling up images of the last victim of the vicious metal
traps. He’d bled to death while she tried to close his
wounds.

Vannie stood at the foot of the table,
his mouth set in a hard line. “I’ll hold him down for you,
Emma.”

Vin picked up the roll of tape he’d
used to secure the IV. He pulled long strips and used them as
straps above Russ’ knees. “I don’t know you, sir, but you look more
likely to pass out on top of this man than help hold
him.”

Vannie glared at Vin for a long moment,
but the soldier met his gaze without the slightest flinch. Vannie
shifted his gaze to Emma, lifting an eyebrow with a
question.

He would stay if she asked him, but the
look in Vannie’s eyes begged for escape. “Go.”

“
I’ll stay if you need me,
lass.”

Emma shook her head. “The tape should
hold him. Best if you go tell Jenny before she hears it elsewhere.
Keep her out until I’m done.”

Vannie’s shoulders slumped, the task of
telling Russ’ wife worse than witnessing the surgery. He trudged
out the door, giving them a glimpse of the men keeping vigil
outside.

“
Will you stay and help
me, Vin Smith?”

Vin studied her for a long moment and
then he looked down at Russ. “Do you think you can save him, Emma
Jones?”

She swallowed back the emotion
threatening her calm again, aware of precious minutes ticking by.
“I didn’t save the last one. I wasn’t fast enough.”

He held out his hand. “I can stitch,
too, though the needlework won’t be fancy or fine.”

She sorted through her needles, handing
him a small one for interior work and the larger needle for skin
and muscle. The thread followed, the dissolving sort for inside the
body and the dark thread for the exterior. “Where did you get your
medical training?” She handed him one of the packs of disinfectant
clothes for his hands that would wipe his skin clean and protect it
from any infections inhabiting Russ’ blood.

Vin cleaned his hands and then lifted
the small needle toward the light and pushed a thread through it.
“On the lines of battle, Miss Emma.”

The smooth efficiency of his
long-fingered hands distracted her for a moment and then his words
caught up to her. She threaded her own needle. “I knew you were a
soldier.”

His brow creased above his clear, gray
eyes. “Really? I look like a soldier?”

Emma appreciated his attempt to lighten
the mood, though when she looked at his expression he appeared
serious. She handed him a pair of sterilized scissors and took a
fistful of gauze from him.

They bent their heads to their work and
started cutting away the rough dressings. Vin worked faster than
her, working the sopping cloth free and dropping it to the floor.
Blood from Russ’ leg flooded the table. He pressed a wad of gauze
to the back of the leg and immersed his hands in the gaping wound
left by the trap’s jaws.

Emma looked up from her work from time
to time to check Vin’s competence. He knew as least as much as she
did. Despite her physician’s diploma, she’d never trained in this
kind of surgery.

The next hour passed in a horror of
blood, wet stitches, low curses and sweat dripping in Emma’s eyes.
Vin finished before her, knotting his last stitch and then using
bits of gauze to soak up the blood on Russ’ shin where she still
worked to close the horrid wound. When she tied off the last dark
thread, she wanted to wilt to the floor. Instead she checked Russ’
pulse and breathing rate. Weak pulse, uneven slow respiration and
his pallor resembled the gauze more than the skin of a man who
spent most of everyday in the sunshine.

Vin startled her when he flipped a
blanket over Russ. “I think we need to keep him warm.”

“
Of course.” Emma shook
off the crippling worry spawned by friendship and took another bag
of IV fluids from the cabinet. She hung it on the hook beside the
nearly empty first bag.

Vin took another blanket off of a bed
against the wall and spread it on top of Russ. After tucking it
gently along Russ’ torso, Vin removed Russ’ rubber sandals. Without
asking, he went to her small sink and searched underneath for a
pail. He filled it with warm water while she gathered rolls of
bandages. She needed all she had on hand to wrap his legs. After
Vin bathed the blood from Russ’ feet, they finished covering him as
best as they could.

Throughout their ministrations, Russ
didn’t stir. He hadn’t flinched through their stitching or tossed
about in pain. Not that Emma had much in the way of pain medication
to give him, but she wished he’d step far enough away from death to
at least groan or cry out.

“
He would rest better on
one of the beds, but I’m afraid to move him,” Emma muttered as much
to herself as to Vin.

“
It might be better to
wait a few hours and see if the stitches hold. If he lives that
long.”

Emma couldn’t protest the dour
prediction. And Vin’s experience with such life threatening injures
probably outnumbered hers. He’d certainly acted in a calmer manner.
“Thank you for helping me.”

He carried the pail of bloody water to
the sink, dumping it with care so as not to splash any on the
floor. His reply seemed as measure. “I only did what anyone would
do.”

She snorted and bent to gather up the
discarded shirts that had served as bandages. “Not many can work in
this,” she gestured toward Russ’ legs, “carnage. Not without
passing out or losing their meal.”

Vin rinsed the pail and returned it to
its place beneath the sink. “I’ve seen worse.” He looked for
something to dry his hands on and then settled for wiping them down
the sides of his coarse, gray shirt. He’d shed his jacket at some
point and rolled up the sleeves of his shirt.

Emma had noticed his strong hands while
he stitched but now the tightening and gliding of sinews and
muscles in his forearms distracted her. Without his jacket, his
lean physique drew her attention. He looked too thin as if recently
ill. Or perhaps he’d served in a combat unit and still recovered
from a wound. Though he didn’t move like a man suffering the
lingering effects of an injury as he walked back to Russ’
side.

Emma joined him, refocusing on Russ. “I
don’t know what to tell Jenny?” She pulled the scarf restraining
her hair off and rubbed her temples.

“
Jenny?” Vin asked but he
stared at her hair.

Wondering how wild her curly mane
looked after hours in the kitchen and with the stress sweat
dampening the roots, Emma resisted reaching up to touch it. Instead
she checked Russ’ weak pulse again. “Russ’ wife. How can I face her
if he doesn’t make it?”

“
Did you injure
him?”

“
What? Of course
not!”

“
And you’ve done
everything you could here. Tell Jenny that.”

Emma’s outrage drained, leaving behind
exhaustion and worry. “That’s small comfort to Jenny.”

Vin studied her hair for a moment
longer and then switched his gaze to Russ. His expression went hard
and distant. “They were married, had time to love and be together.
What more can a man want?”

The man really knew how to hit nerves
with the wrong thing to say. “They could want years and years
together rather than months. Russ could want to live to see his
child born. Jenny could want her husband at her side to help her
raise their child.”

Vin stepped away from her and scooped
up his jacket from one of the beds. He walked to the door and
stopped with his hand on the knob and his back to her. “Some people
never get a single day of warmth and love. Some people get only
hours or days. Russ and Jenny have been blessed with more time than
many others.”

He opened the door to the dark and the
quiet murmur of voices. Every citizen of Hovel Port seemed to wait
outside her door. The people parted in front of Vin, whatever they
saw in his expression opening the path.

Jenny escaped Vannie’s grasp and raced
in through the open door. She flicked one desperate glance at Emma
and then hurried to Russ’ side. She keened as she reached a
hesitant hand toward Russ’ face.

“
Sorry, Emma, she got away
from me.” Vannie entered and closed the door behind him.