Biting her lip, she listened to the siren’s wail growing louder.
Someone else could handle the crisis for once. She was tired. She didn’t feel like rushing in to save the day.
But her mother would have put Chance to bed hours ago. He wouldn’t know his mother hadn’t come home on time. The night-shift nurse, Jane Rawlings, was a good nurse, but she was young and inexperienced. What if it was something Jane couldn’t handle?
Robyn’s shoulders slumped in defeat. Once again, her overblown sense of responsibility won out. After pulling her keys from the car door, she threw them in her purse and hurried back through the hospital door. The look of relief on Jane’s face said she’d made the right decision.
“Thank goodness. I thought you’d gone.”
Robyn dropped her purse in a drawer behind the emergency room desk. “I should have been. One of these days, I’m going to put my own life before this job. I swear I am.”
“Right. That’ll happen about twenty-four hours after you’re dead.” The skeptical comment came from Dr. Adam Cain as he strode in.
He rubbed the sleep from his eyes and then raked his fingers through his thick blond hair. “What’s coming?”
Jane read from the notes she had taken when the call came in. “A bull rider has been injured over at the rodeo. The paramedics say the guy’s in bad shape. They’re suggesting we call for an airlift.” She read off his vital signs, as well.
Dr. Cain nodded. “All right, alert Kansas City General’s team that we are going to need them. It will take a little while to get the chopper ready.”
Startled, Robyn asked, “You’re going to call an air ambulance transfer without seeing the patient first?”
“I’m been moonlighting in this one-horse town long enough to know that your paramedics know their stuff. If they think this guy needs an airlift, I’m sure he does. Every second counts this far from a trauma center. If he looks like something we can handle, we’ll cancel the transport.”
Jane chuckled. “You’d better count again, Doc. We’ve got more than one horse in Bluff Springs.”
He grinned. “I stand corrected. In this two-hundred-and-fifty-horse town.”
Robyn smiled at him. “That’s more like it. When you first came here, I had my doubts about you. But I think you’ll make a decent country doctor after all.”
“Coming from a nurse like you, that’s high praise, indeed.” Returning her smile, he pulled off his white lab coat and draped it over the desk.
A blush heated her cheeks. She quickly turned away. Now wasn’t the time to let her growing attraction for this man get in the way. They worked well together. That was all. She shouldn’t read anything into his friendliness. Every unmarried nurse in the hospital, and half of the married ones, had a crush on the handsome resident who worked weekends in their small town. She didn’t intend to add herself to the list.
He glanced at the clock. “Does your husband mind you working late? Or is he used to it?”
“She isn’t married,” Jane piped up. Robyn shot her a quick frown, but Jane only grinned and winked. A newlywed herself, Jane made no secret of the fact she thought Robyn should be dating again.
“You’re not married?” His tone was puzzled. He glanced at her hand. “You wear a ring.”
“My husband passed away four years ago,” Robyn said quietly.
“I’m sorry.” His voice held true compassion. She liked that about him.
“Thank you.” Even after so many years, she still found it difficult to talk about Colin.
She quickly moved the conversation back to the task at hand. “I’ll check the IV supplies and make sure we have everything. Jane, you get started on the paperwork.”
When the ambulance backed up to the doors, they were ready and waiting for it.
“What do we have, gentlemen?” Dr. Cain grabbed the foot of the gurney. He guided it inside the doors and into the nearest room. Thick, blood-soaked bandages covered most of the patient’s face. A wide foam-and-plastic collar held his head and neck immobile. The front of his blue-and-white-striped shirt was covered with blood—a lot of blood. Robyn grasped his wrist to check his pulse.