“Go for it, Hol, you can do it,” Rob had said, and she’d believed him.

Annie hadn’t grown up with many choices, but somehow she had found herself and her way. The price she’d paid had been steep, the path plagued with pain and disillusionment. Listening to Annie tell her story, Hollis had wanted to go back in time and change the young Annie’s first experiences with a world she hadn’t known existed. She still wanted that. She wanted to be the one to take Annie to the theater for the first time, and walk with her along the river at sunset, and watch her laugh at the antics of the ducks chasing bits of bread thrown by children in the park. She wanted to be the one who showed her how much there was to life, even though she knew that wasn’t possible. She’d dealt with tragedy enough to know one could only go forward. The past was written and couldn’t be unwritten, no matter how much she wanted to. Sighing, she walked into the office. This was her world, the one she had made, the one she knew.

Sybil gave her a quizzical look. “Problems?”

“What? No,” Hollis said.

“So.” Sybil’s eyebrow shot up and she pointed to Hollis’s face. “What happened to you?”

Hollis grimaced. “Volleyball.”

“I don’t know what I find more surprising,” Sybil said. “That you were playing volleyball or that you managed to get hit by one.”

“Ha ha.” Hollis set the hot dogs down, picked up her mail, and leafed through it. “Freak accident. We were winning.”

“Of course you were.” Sybil smothered a smile. “Anything happening in clinic?”

“Nope. Everything’s routine for a change.”

“Okay.” Sybil picked up an old-fashioned steno pad Hollis didn’t think they even made any longer. Sybil probably had a private stash. “Medical records called about some overdue discharge summaries—I put them on your desk.”

“I’ll do them.”

“Today, please.”

“Right.”

“Larry Anderson called from University, and they want you to do OB-GYN grand rounds there next month. I told them it would have to be the last weekend because you were full otherwise.”

“Okay,” Hollis said absently, tossing drug promotions in the trash and signing office copies of operative notes she’d dictated. “Remind me to pull slides that Wednesday.”

Sybil made a note. “The chart you wanted me to get is on your desk too.” She paused. “That’s the same Annie Colfax you’re meeting with in fifteen minutes?”

Hollis squared the paperwork she’d just signed and placed the neat stack in front of Sybil. “Yes. That’s her. Thanks for pulling the chart.”

“I didn’t read it, by the way.”

Sighing, Hollis rolled her shoulders to ease the sudden tightness. “She was a patient of mine briefly, four years ago. Emergency C-section.”

“You know, it’s not that much of a coincidence. You’ve got a lot of patients in the medical field. They know the score—it’s only natural they’d want the best.”

Hollis smiled ruefully, wondering what choice Annie would make today. Another thing she hadn’t been able to choose. No wonder she was angry. “Thanks. You can send her in when she gets here.”

“Of course.” Sybil made a face at the hot dog bag leaking a faint orange substance. “Go eat your lunch. Those things are deadly enough when they’re hot.”

“I’m on it.” Hollis carried the offending objects into the other room and settled behind her desk. Annie’s chart sat alone by her right hand. She pulled it in front of her and stared at the closed manila folder with the plastic numerals along the side—Annie’s patient number spelled out in six multicolored digits. She knew what was in the chart. She remembered examining Annie, remembered making the incision and lifting Callie from Annie’s open uterus, and the bleeding that she couldn’t stop. The bleeding that she’d been certain wouldn’t stop unless she did something about it, and quickly. She didn’t open the folder. She picked up the phone instead.

“Dr. Ned Williams’s office, may I help you?”

“It’s Hollis Monroe. Is he there?”

“Oh hi, Hollis, no, he—wait a minute, he just came in. Hold on.”

“Hey, Hollis,” Ned said. “You didn’t miss much yesterday—barbecue got rained out.”

“Yeah, it was some storm.” The roll of thunder played in Hollis’s head again and suddenly she was running with her arm around Annie, Annie’s breast against her side, soft and warm. A surge of desire rose out of nowhere and she caught her breath. She’d only wanted to protect Annie and Callie, that’s all. Memories played tricks sometimes, nothing more.

“What’s up?” Ned asked. “Hollis?”

Hollis pulled herself out of the storm. “I need a favor.”

“Sure.”

“I’d like you to review a case for me.”

“Litigation?”

“No. I just want a second opinion on the management.”

“Sure? Who’s the doc?”

“Me.”

Ned was silent for a beat. “Okay. Mind telling me why?”

“It was a long time ago and I’d just like a second pair of eyes.” The explanation was weak, but Ned was a friend and he wouldn’t push. She didn’t doubt her treatment then or now, but she suspected Annie did. And that ate at her. Maybe clearing the air on this once and for all was the first step toward working together. Or…anything else.

“Well, bring it around. I’ll look through it in the next day or so.”

“I appreciate it. Thanks, Ned.” The second line rang. “I’ve got another call.”

“I’ll call you when I’ve had a look.”

“Appreciate it.” Hollis switched to her other line. “Hi, Sybil.”

“Ms. Colfax is here.”

Hollis slid Annie’s chart onto the bottom of the stack, out of sight. “Thanks. Send her in.”

Chapter Twelve

Linda set her protein shake aside and picked up the ringing phone in the flight ready room. “Linda O’Malley. Go ahead.”

“This is State Trooper Anthony Alaqua. We need transport for a twenty-five-year-old female, motorcycle versus truck.”

Linda ignored the fluttering in the pit of her stomach. She hated motorcycle call-outs even more than the usual MVAs. The carnage wrought by machine versus man was so often devastating. But medevac runs were usually for major traumas or other life-threatening situations, and she was used to the shock of human tragedy by now. Still, she sometimes wondered if the horrors didn’t leave some invisible scar on her soul. Beside her, the printer spat out the location and details of the accident, logged in at the site electronically by the first responder, and she pushed the pointless musings aside. This was what she did, and she wouldn’t change it no matter the cost. “The coordinates are coming through now. Estimated flight time is twenty minutes.”

“Good. We already have one DAS.”

The roiling in her stomach surged. One dead at scene. Not just a minor bump and slide, then. “We’ll push it.”

“Roger that. Out.”

Linda hung up, grabbed the printout, and hurried across the lounge to the closed on-call room door. She knocked sharply. “Jett? We need to roll.”

The door opened and Jett McNally, the chief helicopter pilot, scrubbed a hand through her thick sandy hair. She’d been on shift six hours and had flown four times. She’d probably been catching a nap. “I heard the phone. What have we got?”

“Motorcycle accident. One to transport.” Linda scanned the details. “Looks like head injury and multiple extremity fractures. Her vitals are shaky.”

Jett’s full lips thinned and her jaw tightened. “Okay. Wheels up in two. Rally the troops.”

“Right. We’ll meet you up there.”

Jett, lanky and lean, yanked her flight suit off a hook in the cubby by the door and pulled it on over her black jeans and tight T-shirt. From the back she looked like a young guy, and she moved like a practiced soldier. She zipped up, grabbed her helmet, and disappeared. Linda liked and trusted all the helicopter pilots, but she secretly preferred flying with Jett. Unlike the others, who had come from civilian sectors, Jett had seen combat in Iraq and Afghanistan, and she was unflappable in an emergency. Linda loved being a flight nurse, but emergency medevac choppers often flew into unstable situations due to weather or terrain, and she flew easier knowing her pilot could handle anything. Especially now, with the baby coming. She pressed her hand to her abdomen, the fluttering settled a little, and she checked the on-call list hanging on the board behind the STAT phone. Good. Sammie Chu and Dave Burns, two of the easiest-going and solid members of the flight team, were up for trauma and anesthesia. After paging them with the code to report to the flight deck, she zipped into her own royal blue flight suit. The form-fitting suit was getting tight in the middle. She didn’t have too many flights left. As she collected the rest of her gear, the exhilaration of heading into the unknown caught her once again, and she headed for the elevator to the rooftop flight deck with nothing on her mind but the upcoming call.

When she reached the roof, Jett was beside the big EC145 Eurocopter with a clipboard in her hand, completing her preflight check. She shot Linda a thumbs-up and climbed into the cockpit. The rear double doors slid open, and Linda stepped aboard, settled into the pull-down seat behind Jett, and strapped in. The engine roared to life and the overhead rotors turned, caught, and whirled. The belly of the chopper trembled like a beast on a chain, hungry for freedom. Linda peered out the open bay doors and watched a short, thickset man with a bullet-shaped, shaved head and a taller brunette in hospital greens sprint across the tarmac. Not yet noon and heat shimmered off the black surface like fingers of fire. Dave Burns, the nurse anesthetist on flight call, and Sammie Chu, the senior trauma fellow, clambered aboard at the same time.

“Hiya, what we got?” Sammie asked in her deep alto, the Texas twang still evident in her voice despite six years at PMC. She took the other half of the double seat next to Linda and pulled on her helmet.