He wasn’t sure why it mattered what a random jungle scientist thought of him. So far, she seemed highly unimpressed with Lincoln Kerr, as played by Rory Baker.
With a sigh, he trailed after the others, wondering at the strange twists of fate that had brought him to this moment. He was supposed to be drinking a mai tai at the resort bar in Maui while Lincoln took care of business. Not asking his exhausted brain to keep track of a lie that he could barely remember why he’d told in the first place.
5
In the community yurt, Mathilda helped Robert transfer the pilot onto the table so Sasha could examine him. His name, according to Lincoln, was Rory Baker. Sasha dragged out her doctor bag and tested his vitals. All good, if weak. As she checked his blood pressure and so forth, she asked Lincoln questions about his pilot.
As expected, he didn’t know much. “I think he’s getting close to forty,” he said. “But he stays really fit. He says he has the body of a thirty-year-old. He does collagen treatments and things like that.”
“Really? Those are super-pricey.”
“I offer an excellent health plan to my employees.”
Mathilda gave him a sidelong look, wondering again at that little edge of sarcasm she kept picking up from him. Truth to tell, she liked it because she could be pretty sarcastic herself. That was probably why she kept alienating their corporate funders.
“So what’s wrong with him?” Lincoln asked, sounding quite worried about a mere pilot. Maybe he wasn’t such a cold-hearted plutocrat. “Why is he still out cold?”
“I can’t say. I’d have to do a brain scan. The closest MRI machine is in Hilo.”
“It takes us two days to get to Hilo, including the time it takes to hike to our truck in Waipi’o,” Mathilda explained.
“I wouldn’t recommend all that bouncing up and down in his condition.” Sasha’s gleaming crop of silver hair caught the light as she shook her head.
Lincoln rubbed his forehead, looking weary. No wonder, after everything he’d been through over the past few hours. “So what’s your suggestion, Doctor?”
“The correct protocol would be to call in a Medivac to take him to a hospital.”
For some reason, Lincoln looked alarmed by that suggestion. “Is that necessary? He, uh, hates normal hospitals. Maybe it’s a religious thing, I don’t know.”
“I like him already.” Sasha’s dark eyes brightened. “The stories I could tell…”
Mathilda nudged her, hoping to fend off a rant about the medical system. “What would you recommend instead, Sasha? Keep him safe and comfortable and hope he wakes up soon?”
“Honestly, yes. As long as he’s breathing, he’s getting plenty of oxygen to his brain. Sometimes after a traumatic event, people can go into shock and their brain shuts down. It just takes them some time to come out of it.”
“That’s what you think is going on here?” Lincoln asked.
Mathilda liked the way he spoke to the older woman. Respectful, deferring to her judgement. Sasha had so many stories of being treated dismissively by sexist doctors and patients. Mathilda would hate for her to experience that attitude here in the jungle too.
“Maybe. Sorry, I left the medical profession years ago. Now I’m just a field researcher. I’m the closest thing we have to a doctor, but I’m not a practicing physician.”
Mathilda squeezed Sasha’s shoulder. She was so much more than a field researcher. She was the rock of their little crew, the mother figure, the wise one, even though she wasn’t much older than the rest. With her cropped silver hair and lean marathoner’s frame, she was a nonstop fount of energy and advice. “You can trust Sasha. But if you want to call for help, we have a satellite radio for emergencies only. We’ve never actually used it.”
“I believe a plane crash and a coma counts as an emergency,” Sasha agreed.
Lincoln’s dark eyebrows drew together. He really was handsome, she thought randomly. He didn’t seem to have a bad angle. Was it really fair for a billionaire to also be so good-looking? Maybe he paid lots of money to look that good. Maybe he too took advantage of the company health plan.
“I’ll trust your recommendation,” he told Sasha.
“How about we give it a day or so. I’ll set him up with IV fluids and a urinary catheter. We’ll monitor him closely.” Sasha smiled at him kindly. “It’s nice that you’re so concerned for your pilot.”
“Of course. He saved my life.” A heartfelt declaration. “Both of our lives. If not for his heroic actions, we might have landed in the ocean. Rory never lost his cool even when we were plummeting through those clouds.”
“Wow.” Sasha wiped her stethoscope with a sterile Handi-wipe. “It must have been quite a crash. How did you come out uninjured?”
Lincoln rolled up his sleeve and showed Sasha his arm. Mathilda gasped at the sight. Blood was seeping through the makeshift bandage he’d wrapped around it.
“I…uh…there was glass…” He swayed back and forth and his skin took on a greenish tone at the edges.
