“I’m sorry about earlier,” Jett murmured.

Tristan shook her head. “There’s nothing to be sorry about. You’re right. I had a great time.” She lifted her shoulders and forced a casual tone. “You definitely know what you’re doing.”

Jett ran her fingers up and down the inside of Tristan’s arm, stroking the bare skin below her scrub shirt. “No, I don’t. Not where you’re concerned.”

“I gotta go,” Tristan said, aware of Quinn waiting for her nearby.

Jett was driving her crazy, not just from touching her, that was bad enough. The slightest caress got her so hot she couldn’t think. She was a little sore from all the sex, but she still wanted it. Wanted Jett. And that’s what was really driving her nuts. One minute Jett was there, touching her, taking her, pushing her to places she’d never been, and in the next minute she was gone, sequestered behind a wall of perfect indifference, leaving Tristan feeling gutted. Laid open and bleeding.

And all she could think was that she wanted more. “Fuck, I really gotta go.”

“Yeah. Go. I’ll catch you later.”

Tristan didn’t go. Instead she turned so her back was to Quinn and only Jett could see her face. “I want to kiss you right now. I want you to do to me what you did last night. How fucking crazy is that?”

“Pretty fucking crazy,” Jett agreed. She took a breath. “And about last night. When things settle down, we should do it again.”

“We should. I’ll call you.”

“Yeah, do that,” Jett called after her. She watched the team disappear, then headed toward the white van with the flag indicating it was the command post. She needed to let someone know she was available to transport. She rubbed her fingertips. They were warm, and she thought of Tristan’s skin. She thought of how easily Tristan had recognized what she needed, and how effortlessly she’d given it.

I know what you need, Gail had said. But maybe she’d been wrong.

Quinn squatted next to a fire rescue van, twisted off the top of a plastic bottle of water she’d snagged from a cooler filled with them, and punched in Honor’s cell phone number on hers. After three rings the call was picked up.

“Hello?” Honor said, sounding harried.

“Hi, love, it’s me,” Quinn said.

“Baby,” Honor replied softly. “How are you? How are things out there?”

“Pretty grim,” Quinn said. “They’ve been pulling cars out of the river for the last six hours, and it still looks like there’s more down there or under the rubble.”

“If we get many more, we’re going to have to close,” Honor said.

“We’ve converted half the fifth floor to an intermediate care unit, and all the intensive care units are full. We’re boarding patients in the ER. God only knows how much blood we have left.”

Quinn could hear the strain in her voice. “You need to go home, Honor. It’s been almost eight hours. It’s too soon for this.”

“I haven’t been walking around, I swear.”

Quinn said nothing.

“I promise I won’t stay any longer than two more hours. Then I’m gone.”

“Okay.”

“What about you? What’s it like out there?”

“Hot.” Quinn guzzled the rest of the water. She didn’t need to tell Honor about the casualties. Honor was getting them flown in to her. “A lot of cars are burning. If it wasn’t August, it would feel like it anyhow. The smoke makes it tough to see. I just talked to the OR. Every room is running. Things are slowing down a little out here. If there are people in those cars, well—there probably aren’t many more survivors, and it’s going to take a long time to get them out. Most of the acute surgical patients have been transported. I’m heading back to the OR now.”

“Are you going to be able to get any sleep before you start operating?”

“I’ll try.”

“Take care of yourself, baby. I love you.”

“I love you too. Tell Arly I said hi, and I’ll see her tomorrow sometime. Kiss Jack for me too.”

“I will. Miss you.”

“Me too.”

Quinn put her cell phone away and went to find Jett. She wanted to hitch a ride back to the hospital.

Tristan wrapped a thin strip of tape around the endotracheal tube she’d just placed and secured it to the cheek of a child who appeared to be no more than four. The Coast Guard had pulled her out of the water, just floating there. Tristan wondered where her family was and tried not to think about how long she might have been in the water, how long she’d gone without oxygen, how long her brain had suffered from hypoxia. If Tristan let the pictures of grief and loss into her head, she’d be useless. So she did her job and passed the child off to the next person to do theirs. Two medics strapped the child carefully to a gurney and trundled away. Still crouched down beside her equipment box, Tristan wiped the sweat off her forehead and was surprised to see streaks of blood on the back of her arm.

“Tris!” Jett dropped to the ground beside her and cradled her face. “You’re bleeding.”

“Can’t be much,” Tristan said wearily. “I don’t feel anything.”

“Let me look.” Jett rummaged in the open tackle box of equipment and found a penlight and some gauze. The sun had gone down an hour ago, and despite the emergency halogen lights strung around the perimeter, there were still pockets of darkness that swallowed up victims and rescuers alike. Here on the bank of the river, they were in shadow. “Hold still.”

“You give up your wings?” Tristan asked.

“Not likely.” Jett gently dabbed at Tristan’s forehead with the gauze. “You’ve got a pretty deep laceration. What did you do?”

Tristan started to shrug, then recalled reaching into a mangled automobile to help extract an elderly woman and cracking her forehead on a twisted portion of the frame that shouldn’t have been where it was.

“Hit my head.”

“No kidding.”

“What are you doing here?”

“I caught a five-minute break.” Jett turned away, searching in the box again. “Haven’t seen you in a couple of hours. Aren’t you about ready to head in?”

“Soon. What about you?” Tristan liked that Jett had come looking for her. She liked it very much.

“Soon.” Jett put on gloves, smeared antibiotic ointment over the laceration, and taped a square white bandage over it. “I think it needs stitches.”

“You any good at that?”

“I think someone in the ER should do it. I think you’re beautiful no matter how you look,” Jett said, “but it would be nice not to have too much of a scar.”

“Beautiful, huh?”

Jett rubbed a smudge of soot away from the corner of Tristan’s mouth. “Yeah. Very beautiful.”

Tristan closed her eyes, giving herself a second to absorb the contact. Jett’s touch helped mute the horrors of the last few hours. Then she sighed and looked around. “I feel like I’m in a war zone. Is this what it was like?”

“The destruction. The senseless death. Yeah.” Jett smiled bleakly. “But at least no one is trying to kill us.”

“I don’t think I would have lasted very long.”

“Sure you would have. You get used to it. And everyone else is going through it too.”

“That must have helped. Not being alone.”

Jett busied herself replacing equipment and didn’t answer.

“The soldier who visited today,” Tristan said. “Was she with you over there?”

“You saw her?” Jett thought Gail had left before Tristan showed up on the roof. She wondered what Tristan had seen. She wondered how much Tristan guessed.

“Talked to her for a few minutes. Who is she?”

“Just someone I knew.” Jett stood. “I’ve got to get back. I’ll be making another run soon.”

Tristan rose also, surprised when she felt dizzy. She ignored the spinning sensation. She didn’t want to ask, but she had to know. “Was she someone special?”

“Special?” Jett laughed, a short, bitter laugh. “Well, I guess you could say she was a special friend.”

“Oh. I see.” So they’d been lovers, Tristan thought. And now she’d come for a visit, or something more. Tristan had no reason to be jealous. In fact, what she felt wasn’t jealousy. It was something far, far more painful.

“I didn’t know she was coming,” Jett said, although Tristan hadn’t asked.

“And if you had, you probably wouldn’t have spent last night with me,” Tristan said lightly. “You would’ve had better places to be.”

Jett went completely still. “You’re wrong, Tristan. You couldn’t be more wrong.”

“I’m sorry.” Tristan knew she’d pushed too far one time too many, but she was exhausted and soul-weary and God damn it, she was jealous. She didn’t want to be just a body in Jett’s bed. Replaceable. Forgettable. “Jett—”

“I’ve got a run to make.”

And then Jett was gone. Tristan wanted to go after her, to explain, but she didn’t move. What could she say? She didn’t have any claim on Jett, even though she was coming to realize she wanted one. More, she wanted Jett to put a claim on her. It didn’t make any sense, but then, looking around her, the entire world had gone insane. Why should she be any different?

Chapter Twenty-three

“Everybody secure?” Jett called, her hand on the throttle.

Linda and Quinn had just loaded a middle-aged man with a broken leg, facial lacerations, and a concussion. He was stable, but the closed head injury combined with serious extremity fractures put him at risk for unseen internal injuries as well. Quinn wanted to get him to the ER faster than he would make it if he was added to the queue waiting for ambulance transport.

“We’re set,” Linda said.

“Where’s Tristan?” Jett didn’t like returning to base without all of her crew, especially without this particular crewmember. The disaster scene was even more treacherous now that night had fallen. Shifting blocks of concrete, uncertain tides, and the ever-present fires threatened more than the victims. The rescue crews were exhausted, their reflexes dulled, their judgment slowed. Tristan had been on the ground now for ten hours.