“The chopper is on its way. ETA is ten minutes,” Armie shouted. “There’s a landing pad on top of the clinic for just this purpose. The ambulance will be here in five. Who’s going where?”
She wasn’t about to move Rene more than she had to. And Mrs. Herbert could go into arrest again at any moment. She needed to get to a cath lab as quickly as possible. “I need you to carry Mrs. Herbert to the clinic. Rene is going in the ambulance. The bleeding is controlled for now.”
Armie nodded as the sweet sounds of sirens hit her ears.
“I’m fine.” Janice Herbert was trying to get up on her own.
Damn stubborn woman. “You had a cardiac arrest. You’re still hooked up to a defibrillator and you and I will have a serious problem if you unhook it. You will go to the hospital.”
“I want to see the real doc,” Janice said.
Hallie had gotten Gracie calm again. The baby clung to her momma. Momma, however, was obviously taking charge. “You will do whatever Ms. Daley tells you to do, Mother. You will let the sheriff carry you to the clinic. You will take whatever drugs they give you, and you will get in that damn helicopter because that woman saved your life. She saved your granddaughter’s life. So shut the hell up and do what she says.”
Mrs. Herbert’s eyes went wide, but she allowed Armie to pick her up.
The ambulance pulled through and two EMTs got out, quickly taking over for Mabel.
“We got this, Doc,” the big man said.
His female partner was already dealing with Rene’s injury. “He’s stable. He would have bled out if they hadn’t gotten to him quickly. I hear you’ve got a cardiac patient. Do we need to look at her? We can fit him on the bench and her on the stretcher.”
She shook her head. “I have a chopper coming for her. She needs a cath lab ASAP.”
The EMT gave her a thumbs-up. “You did good work here.”
Mabel stood up. They were both covered in blood, but they still had work to do.
She needed to get Mrs. Herbert safely on that chopper and then check out her daughter and granddaughter.
Her day wasn’t close to being done.chapter eightHours later, Armie sat in the clinic waiting room, a vision of a blood-soaked Lila Daley single-handedly taking chaos and turning it into survival imprinted on his brain.
They’d been on the knife’s edge today. One wrong move and they would have lost Rene or Janice or that precious baby.
She’d been the difference. If she hadn’t been there, the day would have turned out very differently.
“What are you doing here?” Lila asked as she walked in. “Of course. You want an update. The good news is Rene came through his surgery with flying colors. He didn’t need the rod I thought he might. He was lucky. He’ll be in a cast for a few weeks and he’ll be weak, but I hear he’s already making plans to come home. As for Janice, she had an eighty-eight-percent blockage. They put a stent in and she’s resting comfortably now. She’s got some lifestyle modifications she’ll have to make, though.” Lila closed her office door behind her. She’d put on new clothes, taken a shower in the back, and now she looked perfectly clean, but he remembered what she’d looked like when she’d taken control.
She’d looked like a warrior, like a freaking Valkyrie.
He’d been wrong to tell her to fit in.
“I came to drive you home.”
There was a weary look in her eyes. “I have a car here.”
“Lila, you went through a lot today. Let me drive you home. Or take you to your sister’s. I don’t think you should be alone tonight.”
She seemed to think about that for a moment. “Lisa and Remy are in New Orleans for the weekend. I’m fine. It was a job, and one I’ve done a hundred times.”
It wasn’t her job to do that kind of work in the field. He knew how hard it could be. He’d been emotional out there, shocked at how close his friends had come to losing everything. She was certainly feeling the consequences of all the pressure she’d felt today. She’d done a phenomenal job of shoving it aside and doing the job, but she would crash. “Not when you were the only one responsible, you haven’t. When you took over the clinic you took responsibility for this town, and you take that seriously. Even when the town let you down.”
“No one let me down. They just don’t like me. They don’t have to like me.”
Her words sounded hollow, and he wondered how much the day had cost her. She’d been there when the helicopter had come to take Janice to the hospital. She’d updated the medics on the patient’s condition and the way she’d stabilized Janice. Then she’d rechecked the baby, made sure Hallie was all right, and only then had she done a thing to take care of herself. Only after Hallie’s cousin had shown up to drive them to the hospital had she gone to take her shower and calm down.