Page 1 of Stick Around
1
Grace
Grace closedher eyes and strained her ears. It was difficult to tell if the distant wail was the ambulance siren or the wind. She hugged herself and rubbed her upper arms to stave off the chill biting at her skin.Okay, there. That’s definitely the siren. Shouldn’t be much longer now.
She took a few cautious steps away from the door, holding her arms out and shifting her upper body forward to avoid slipping. It felt strange to battle ice with the smell of the rain hanging in the air.
Grace’s eyes caught the red and white flash of the ambulance lights on the southern horizon. She’d been gone for five years, but she still knew this highway like the back of her hand. So she knew the ambulance would have come into view after the bend at Shaunessy Creek. Four minutes away. Five on these roads.
She loved the panoramic views and wide open feeling of absolute freedom you could only find on the prairies. But now, forced to watch the ambulance approach minute by agonizing minute, she wished to god for a hill or a valley to give the knot in her stomach a moment’s reprieve.
The charge nurse, Bernice, had taken the call. One patient coming by ambulance from Avery Autos. Serious condition. Get the doctor on call in there ASAP.
Please don’t be Billy.
Grace watched as the flashing lights made their way closer, the reflection off the icy roads creating the illusion of a second ambulance. The siren was clear now. The shriek echoed out over the town. They were passing the turnoff to the Piper’s bison ranch. Two minutes.
She turned and shuffled back across the ice to the front door. The large glass door slid to the right and Grace stepped through, stopping to stamp the ice from her shoes before jogging the short hall to the nurse’s desk.
“Two minutes out. Maybe less now.”
Bernice nodded. “Dr. Mackey should be here any second. He was home when I called.”
Grace jogged back to the doors and stepped out into the wind in the emergency entrance bay.
Please don’t be Billy.
Her heart hitched with guilt.Or Nikki. Or Mr. Avery.
It was an impossible wish. She knew when she accepted the nursing position at Silver Creek Health Center she would face difficult moments caring for people she knew. But she couldn’t have imagined the sickening dread that would fill her chest at the thought of an ambulance bringing Billy through those doors.
Her heartbeat quickened as the ambulance hit the town limits and turned down Memorial Street. It was close enough now that she could see the sleet spitting up from the tires. A left on the service road. Grace’s blood pulsed against the walls of her veins and pounded in her ears as the ambulance pulled in front of the hospital. It rolled to a stop, and she approached the large double doors at its rear.
Oh god, I don’t know if I can do this.
A paramedic flung the doors open and hopped out, shouting at Grace. “We have a male patient with head trauma suffered in a fall. He’s conscious, but he’s had significant bleeding from the wound.”
Another man tumbled out after the paramedic. He braced himself against the ambulance door with a bloodied palm. Grace traced the man’s splayed hand up his arm, landing on a head of dark hair hung low over broad shoulders. He lifted two skittish eyes to hers and it was as if a tourniquet had cinched her rib cage, squeezing the breath from her lungs.
Billy.
She’d been pining for the moment she’d run into him since the day she returned home from university, but it wasn’t supposed to be like this.
He opened his mouth to speak, but the paramedic pushed him out of the way before tugging the stretcher from the ambulance and dropping the legs to the pavement with a clang. Grace’s attention darted from Billy to the stretcher, landing on the patient’s face. A wave of dread washed over her.
“Mr. Avery.” The paramedic spoke in a loud, authoritative tone. “Brian, I need you to stay awake with me here, okay?”
Her mind whirled and her heart hammered in her chest, but Grace fought to remain in control. She grabbed the side rail of the stretcher and led the way, racing the paramedics through the doors of the emergency room and down the hall.
One of them bellowed at Bernice as they approached the nurse’s desk. “Where’s the doctor?”
“He’s coming. It’s Dr. Mackey tonight. He’s always fast getting in on calls.” She swung the half door dividing the nurse’s desk from the rest of the small lobby and extended her arm toward the hall on her left. “Let’s get him in here.”
Bernice, Grace, and the paramedics transferred Mr. Avery from the stretcher to a bed and began taking his vitals and hooking him up to an assortment of machines.A whirlwind of gloved hands, wires, and skinny tubes twirled above Mr. Avery’s head.
“Brian, it’s Bernice here, honey. We’re going to get you all fixed up, okay?” She turned to the paramedic. “I thought he was conscious and talking? How long has it been since he stopped?”
“He was conscious when we pulled up.”
