Spring River Valley: The Spring Collection (Boxed Set) by Clarice Wynter Read Free Book Online Page B

space leading to the treatment rooms, several of them stopping at Quinn’s gurney, others flowing past in a river of blue-green scrubs and white coats to attend to the other patients who were backing up like planes on a runway behind him.
    “Report?” Someone demanded of him, and his brain kicked back into gear. Everything sped up as though he’d gone from slow motion to fast forward.
    “Umm…male, age twenty-seven, approximately a hundred and sixty pounds, head trauma and possible injury to the cervical spine…”
    The resident’s name escaped Tanner, but he knew her. She rattled off something to a nurse and an orderly who stood beside her, and seconds later they whisked Quinn away to X-ray. Tanner remained in the middle of the corridor for a moment, suspended in time, before a trembling hand closed over his. He looked into Lily’s eyes, and his breath caught.
    “What happened, Tanner? Is he going to be okay?”
    “He…uh…”
    “Come over here and sit down.” She guided him to one of the plastic chairs that lined the corridor, and when he felt resistance at the back of his knees, he sat, numbly.
    “He…uh…the house, he was carrying the woman out. We couldn’t get a gurney inside because of the stairs. He got her out to the porch, and…it collapsed…”
    Tears shimmered in Lily’s eyes. “Are you okay? Are you hurt?”
    He shook his head. “I was heading for the rig. When we were inside the house, we smelled gas. We think she passed out from the fumes and—”
    Someone called Lily’s name. “I have to go, but I’ll be back. You stay here, Tanner. I’ll be back.”
    He nodded again, feeling like his head was disconnected from his body. He could still smell the natural gas that had permeated the house. There was a leak somewhere, probably in the basement. A spark must have ignited it, and the porch had just buckled underneath Quinn and the woman they’d gone to revive.
    He dropped his head into his hands and rubbed his burning eyes. Damn, why was it always Quinn? The guy was a magnet for disaster, and it didn’t even bother him. He was proud of every scar he had, but this time…
    “Tanner?”
    He looked up into Evie’s brilliant eyes. How had she gotten here? She knelt in front of him. “Thank God you’re okay. Max told me an EMT was injured.”
    “It’s Quinn.”
    “Your partner? What happened?” She pulled up a chair next to him and pressed a paper cup of cold water into his hand. “Drink this and tell me what happened.”
    He gulped the icy water, felt the cold burn in the middle of his chest. “Routine call. Someone reported finding a woman unconscious in her kitchen. Quinn and I took it. We went inside and found her slumped over at the table. The house reeked of natural gas. We carried her outside, and I headed for the rig. Quinn waited on the porch for a second because she was starting to come to. He yelled to me that she’d said there was someone else in the house—then…boom. The porch collapsed.”
    Evie’s eyes rounded, just as Lily’s had. “It wasn’t her children in the house?”
    Tanner shook his head. “Stanton Fire Department said no. They found a man upstairs…no kids.”
    “Oh, thank God. So it was just the two of them, and they’re both out?”
    “Yeah. The fire started in the basement. There must have been a major gas leak that knocked them both out. Quinn—”
    “He’ll be okay.” She wrapped an arm around his bicep and twined her fingers with his. “I know he’ll be fine.”
    Part of Tanner would have argued with her if he’d had the strength. Quinn had been out cold, but he hadn’t been burned or cut. The firefighters had pulled him and the woman up from the wreckage of the home’s old wooden porch. Miraculously, she’d been awake—groggy and incoherent, but talking at least. Quinn had been limp, his pupils unresponsive to light, his head lolling, his pulse thready.
    He’d have no scar to wear like a badge of honor after they patched him