She’d told them her name was Rebecca. Her ID was in her purse and the hospital was calling her parents. Meanwhile, she fretted about her friends the entire way to the hospital. By the time they got her to the ER he was glad to hear her parents were due any minute. Thank God.
“Haven’t you been in that situation before?” Mandy asked him as they left her to the ER staff.
“Yeah. And I hate it every time. I always feel guilty I haven’t told them what I know.”
“It will be better coming from her parents. Or someone she knows.”
“I know. Doesn’t make it any easier.”
He was still stewing about it when he got home. He had started to worry when he finally got a call from Sierra’s cell phone. Relieved, he answered. “Hey, what’s up? Are you still at the hospital?”
Instead of Sierra another female voice answered. “Connor McFarland?”
“Yes. Why are you calling on Sierra’s phone? Is she all right?”
“This is Jackie with EMS. We’re on our way to the hospital in Billings. Sierra has been involved in a car accident and wanted us to call you.”
His heart stopped. “How is she? Is she—” Obviously, she wasn’t dead. Other than that he had no idea of the severity of her injuries.
“I’m not sure of the extent of her injuries. I think her arm is broken but we’ll know more once we get her to the hospital. She’s got some cuts and bruises and she injured her knee. It doesn’t appear to be broken, though.”
“Sierra is a flight nurse and I’m a flight paramedic. Can you be more specific?”
Jackie gave him her vitals and a more detailed assessment and then put Sierra on.
A car accident. He’d just come from one with two DOAs.
“Connor?”
Her voice was thready, and she sounded like she’d been crying. “Are you all right?” He stopped himself and said, “Never mind. Stupid question. Of course you’re not. You’re in an ambulance on the way to the hospital.”
“Can you come?”
“Of course. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
“My car. I think it’s totaled.”
“We’ll worry about that later. I’m more worried about you.”
“I’m all right. I think.”
“I’m on my way.”
*
By the timeConnor reached the Billings hospital Sierra had been x-rayed, her arm splinted, and her knee wrapped. The cuts on her face had been attended to as well. She had stitches on her forehead and bandages on the smaller cuts.
“Hey,” he said, taking her uninjured hand. “How are you feeling?” She looked pretty out of it.
“Woozy. They gave me drugs.”
“The good ones, I take it.”
“Uh-huh. I’m so glad to see you. I was afraid I had internal injuries, but I don’t. They took a lot of X-rays and a CT.”
“That’s good. You scared the hell out of me. Do you remember what happened? I just heard you were in a car wreck.”
“A pickup hit me.” Tears came to her eyes. “My poor car. It’s dead.”
