There is only one woman I want, and it’s like the universe has summoned her.
Pulling out my vibrating phone from my back pocket, the shock of seeing her name on the caller ID has me almost dropping it to the floor.
Accepting the call, I push the phone to my ear, struggling to speak.
“Landon,” she whispers.
My feet are moving so quick that I’m almost running to the office.
“Poppy, what’s wrong?” My voice is harsh, and I can feel my heart almost beating out of my chest as I slam the office door behind me.
“I need you.” The sniffle I hear tells me she’s in trouble.
“Start talking,” I demand as I unlock the drawer and grab my wallet and car keys, because I already know I’m leaving right now. Adrian will have to manage without me.
Poppy needs me, and that’s all that matters.
POPPY
Opening my eyes, the bright lights above me hurt them.
Trying to adjust my vision, I blink a few times. Looking around the room, I begin to understand I’m in the hospital. As I start to wake, the noises around me get louder, and it’s like I’m coming out of a fog.
“She’s awake,” I hear a man’s voice that I think is Rosco’s calling out to someone. “Get the doctor in here now,” he demands.
I feel disoriented, and my head hurts. But visions of what happened rush in so fast I need to close my eyes again to try to process everything I remember. Nothing makes sense, and as fast as the memories rushed in, they disappear again.
“You’re okay, Bert. Just relax, you’re going to be okay.” Rosco’s voice is closer now, and then I feel him pick up my hand and squeeze it. “You’re going to be fine.” I’m not sure who he’s trying to convince more, me or him.
Taking a deep breath, I slowly open my eyes and look up at him. Rosco has soot all over his face and is still in his turn-out gear from our call-out.
“Please, Poppy, can I call your mother now?” Rosco pleads with me. A vague memory surfaces of me screaming at him as they were loading me into the ambulance that he was under no circumstances to call my mom unless I died.
“No,” I try to say with conviction. My voice is raspy and not very loud, but I can tell he gets the message. Especially when I squeeze his hand back as hard as I’m able to. “She doesn’t need to know, she worries too much.” Forcing the words out, I already know they’re going to tell me I have smoke-inhalation burns in my throat. I have seen it so many times before.
“But it’s her job to worry,” he scolds me. Rosco is about twenty years older than me and has kids of his own.
“No. I’ll…”cough, cough“…call her soon.” Taking another breath, I continue. “I’m going to be fine… you said so.” My voice is fading the more I try to talk.
“Damn, you’re a stubborn shit,” Rosco mumbles as he slaps my phone down on the hospital tray table. “The captain went and got it out of your locker at the station for you.”
We don’t carry our phones with us on call-outs and only the captain has the master key to open the lockers in the station.
“Your bag is over there, and all the crew are pacing in the waiting room.” As he finishes speaking, a doctor and nurse walk into my room. “I’ll go tell them you’re awake, and then I’ll be back.”
Trying to conjure up a smile is too hard, I don’t have the energy, so I just nod at him instead.
“Miss Bertrum, I’m Doctor Warren. I’ve been looking after you since you came into the ER a few hours ago. Don’t try to talk because I know it will be hard. I just want you to listen for a few minutes.” He looks down at me with the kindest eyes.
“You took quite a lot of smoke into those lungs, but thankfully, there are no serious burns in your throat.” I relax into the bed a little at that good news.
“We’ll keep an eye on you overnight to make sure your breathing continues to improve and that your oxygen saturation stays up where it should be. But your leg wasn’t so lucky.” He pulls back the blanket for me to see. It then occurs to me that I can’t even feel my legs.
“Don’t panic, we gave you an epidural so we could control the pain for you and manipulate the bones back into the correct position on your right leg. That’s why you can’t feel them. It’s temporary. You have snapped both your tibia and fibula bones in your lower right leg. You will need surgery tomorrow to insert a plate and screw them both back together so they heal correctly and quicker than just putting you in a cast. Besides both those things, you took a knock to the head when the beam fell on you, so I would expect you have a pretty good headache right now.”
“You guessed right,” I reply.
“Okay, we’ll give you some pain relief for that too. But right now, the most important thing is that you rest and just let your body do what it needs to do.” Dr. Warren then turns to the nurse beside him and rattles off what I’m guessing are the instructions for my medication and care for tonight. She types everything into the computer she’s standing in front of that is attached to a tall mobile stand on wheels.
