Beckett’s eyes darken, the trauma finally starting to recede, replaced by that familiar heat.
“Hypothetically,” he whispers, his breath hot against my lips. “I think you’re right.”
“And physically?”
“Physically,” he says, his mouth closing over mine, “I think I need you to make me forget everything I saw in that kitchen.”
“I can do that,” I murmur against his lips. “I’m a fixer, remember?”
As he pulls me into his arms, everything else fades into the background. Because in my apartment, on a Sunday afternoon, there’s only one thing that needs my attention.
And he’s currently lifting my dress.
Forty-Five
Beckett
“Beckett. We’ve got a return.”
By the time I reach the trauma bay, the room is loud in the way it gets when the clock is running out. Monitors beep in uneven rhythms. A nurse is cutting away clothing with hurried movements. Someone calls out blood pressure numbers that make my stomach sink.
I step in, and the room shifts, instinctively making space for me at the head of the bed.
Dan Morales. Forty-six. Construction foreman.Married with two kids.
He had a workplace accident four months ago. Blunt trauma, multiple rib fractures, pulmonary contusion. He was cleared. He was stable. I sent him home.
“Walk me through it,” I say, snapping on gloves.
“Collapsed at home,” a resident answers. “Shortness of breath and chest pain. EMS reported rapid decompensation.”
I move to the bedside. Dan looks smaller than he did the last time I saw him. His skin has that gray, waxy cast that tells me his body has been fighting a losing battle for longer than anyone realized. His wife is directed to the waiting area, and for a split second, I’m grateful she isn’t here to see this.
His eyes flutter open when I speak his name.
“Dan. It’s Dr. Lawson. You’re back in the hospital.”
His lips barely move. I lean in, my ear inches from his mouth.
“Can’t… breathe,” he whispers.
We intubate fast, but there’s blood in the tube where there shouldn’t be. When the imaging flashes on the monitor, it confirms what my gut already knew. Delayed complication. Internal bleeding. Something weakened by the initial trauma finally gave out.
I’ve saved people like him before. I’ve lost them, too. The difference never gets easier to predict.
When his heart stutters, then stops, the room goes silent for one heartbeat. Then it explodes.
“CPR. Now.”
I’m counting compressions when the smell hits me. Iron and antiseptic. The way the room tilts just slightly, like it did that night on the asphalt.
No. Not now.
I push the memory down and keep going. “Again.”
Shock.
Nothing.
