Ash had already fallen asleep. His head rested against the window, and his jaw hung open, soft snores spilling from his mouth. His fingers grasped his wife’s much smaller and delicate hand. Thick calluses attested to his chosen profession.
Ryker glanced at his fingers. He played enough while at home to keep the pads of his fingers tough, but it had been months since he’d been home. His fingers were soft, and that boded ill for the upcoming weeks. He prayed he calloused quickly.
“So,” Skye said, continuing her conversation with Tia, “do I really need a CRNA and an RT?”
“I don’t really think you can do it without both.” For the first time in the past half hour, Tia acknowledged his presence, turning to look at him. “Don’t you agree?”
He grimaced when she looked away, unable or unwilling to make eye contact. “Definitely,” he said. “We’re codependent in our roles.”
Tia hitched her breath, and he hoped she was thinking exactly what he’d meant by that comment.
“You might think a CRNA can manage all aspects of the airway,” he said, “but in our unique environment, you’d be wrong.”
Chiming back in, Tia shifted in her seat, turning sideways to better include him.
He took that as a positive sign.
“We deal with heavy trauma,” she said. “My focus is on managing sedation, pushing fluids, and tracking vitals. I don’t have time to hook patients to the ventilator or monitor them while they’re on it.”
“And that kind of teamwork takes a lot of training. You can’t slap together a team and expect them to work it all out.”
Skye’s head bobbed. “I’m definitely interested in how you train. Forest wants a team, and he’s going to get it. My job is to figure out how to make it work.”
“Why don’t you hire a consultant?” he asked.
Skye gave a soft laugh. “Well, you’re kind of my consultants. When Ash signed up for this tour, I knew Tia was over here somewhere. Ash is still pissed I tagged along, but what better than getting the story from the horse’s mouth?”
“And a very cheap mouth that is,” he said, teasing Skye. “Whatever you need, you just holler. We’re going to be spending a lot of time together. You’ll be a special ops surgical team expert in no time.”
“I can tell,” Skye said with a laugh. “How could I not be with such good friends?” She glanced between them, her cheeks reddening with the heat. “So, tell me about the composition of the docs. I know my way around an ER, but I wonder…is emergency medicine a good fit? Why not have two trauma surgeons?”
“Surgeons train to cut and sew,” he explained.
“True,” Tia added. “You know how it is; sometimes, they forget about basic physiology. Our force is composed of relatively young, healthy men, but even they can have other medical issues. The surgeons might not key in on those. For your team, you’ll need a trauma surgeon and an ER doc.”
“But”—Skye’s face screwed up as she thought about what they’d said—“I thought everyone here was screened medically before being allowed to deploy.”
“True,” Tia said, “but we still have hypertensive patients and other small issues. Sometimes, the emergencies we’re called in for don’t require the skill set of a trauma surgeon.”
“And orthopedics?”
Skye impressed Ryker with her tenacity. The woman was soft spoken, but a brilliance lay behind her eyes. She didn’t waste time on irrelevant questions and seemed to have already figured out most of her answers. She was confirming her assumptions and digging for holes in her plan. He appreciated a forward thinker and then realized how much Skye reminded him of Tia. No wonder the women were such good friends.
“Unfortunately,” Tia said with a heavy sigh, “we deal with a lot of limb injuries. We used to perform field amputations left and right years ago, but we’ve developed amazing limb salvage techniques over the years. I’m not really the one to talk to about that, but I wonder how that might figure into your injury profile.”
“We have preliminary data,” Skye said, “but I’m interested in investigating all the angles.”
Bent gestured for Ryker to move up and sit beside him.
“Excuse me, ladies,” he said and then squeezed his large frame between the seats.
Bent scooted over, giving Ryker space to sit, but he still had half an ass hanging in the aisle.
“What’s up?”
“I wanted to go over our set list with you,” Bent said, “and see what you’re good with and what you might need help with. How many of our songs do you know?”
“All of them,” he admitted. “How many are you thinking I’m going to play?” Despite the concert last night, he was a sideshow event.
