Trauma Alert Read online

  Synopsis

  Dr. Ali Torveau knows just how fragile life can be—she sees death and tragedy every day in the trauma unit. Battling the dark forces of fate is her life’s work and she doesn’t want or need anything else, certainly nothing as transient as love. Plenty of women try to change her mind, but she never has any trouble saying no. Not until the day firefighter Beau Cross shows up in her ER and sets Ali’s carefully ordered world aflame.

  A First Responders Novel

  Trauma Alert

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  eBooks from Bold Strokes Books, Inc.

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  Please respect the rights of the author and do not file share.

  By Radclyffe

  Romances

  Innocent Hearts

  Love’s Melody Lost

  Love’s Tender Warriors

  Tomorrow’s Promise

  Love’s Masquerade

  shadowland

  Fated Love

  Turn Back Time

  Promising Hearts

  When Dreams Tremble

  The Lonely Hearts Club

  Night Call

  Secrets in the Stone

  The Provincetown Tales

  Safe Harbor

  Beyond the Breakwater

  Distant Shores, Silent Thunder

  Storms of Change

  Winds of Fortune

  Honor Series

  Above All, Honor

  Honor Bound

  Love & Honor

  Honor Guards

  Honor Reclaimed

  Honor Under Siege

  Word of Honor

  Justice Series

  A Matter of Trust (prequel)

  Shield of Justice

  In Pursuit of Justice

  Justice in the Shadows

  Justice Served

  Justice For All

  Erotic Interludes: Change of Pace

  (A Short Story Collection)

  Radical Encounters

  (A Erotic Short Story Collection)

  Stacia Seaman and Radclyffe, eds.

  Erotic Interludes 2: Stolen Moments

  Erotic Interludes 3: Lessons in Love

  Erotic Interludes 4: Extreme Passions

  Erotic Interludes 5: Road Games

  Romantic Interludes 1: Discovery

  First Responders Novels

  Trauma Alert

  Writing as L.L. Raand

  Midnight Hunters

  The Midnight Hunt

  Trauma Alert

  © 2010 By Radclyffe. All Rights Reserved.

  ISBN 13: 978-1-60282-470-6

  This Electronic Book is published by

  Bold Strokes Books, Inc.

  P.O. Box 249

  Valley Falls, New York 12185

  First Edition: July 2010

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.

  Credits

  Editors: Ruth Sternglantz and Stacia Seaman

  Production Design: Stacia Seaman

  Cover Design By Sheri ([email protected])

  Acknowledgments

  Although several important characters in this book have appeared in previous novels, this book is not a sequel or even a continuation. This is the first book in a new series. The concept behind the First Responders Novels is to create a series of stand-alones that feature similar storylines, but with new characters and new romances in each one. The term First Responder is defined differently depending upon where you look, but I plan to employ the broad definition of “any professional who responds to a crisis on the ground level.” These individuals could be emergency medical technicians, paramedics, firefighters, law enforcement agents, medical personnel, hostage rescue negotiators, natural disaster teams (think hurricanes, tsunamis, earthquakes). Basically, people who put their lives on the line for others. Ali Torveau is a minor secondary character in the Justice series, but I always saw a much larger role for her and finally told her story. I hope you enjoy it.

  Many thanks to: editors extraordinaire, Ruth Sternglantz and Stacia Seaman, for finding the wrong turns—those that remain are all mine; first readers Anita, Connie, Diane, Eva, Jenny, Paula, Sandy, and Tina for feedback and suggestions; Sheri, whose art continues to inspire; Cindy, who gets the work out month after month; and never last—all the readers who stand by me.

  And to Lee—who always gets it. Amo te.

  Radclyffe 2010

  Dedication

  To Lee, everlasting

  Chapter One

  Dr. Ali Torveau was late, and she hated being late. She supposed her psychiatrist friends might call her rigid or inflexible or even obsessive for insisting her OR cases start on time and requiring her clinic hours to begin and end on schedule. She thought of it as being in control, and a surgeon, especially a trauma surgeon who worked in the midst of chaos, needed to be in control. So she was faintly annoyed as she hurried down the stairwell to the auxiliary conference room on the ground floor of the Silverstein Pavilion a little after seven p.m. on what was supposed to be her night off. She’d been elbows-deep in the belly of a gunshot victim a little after four p.m. when Ambrose Rifkin’s secretary had called to inform her that she needed to cover the chairman’s lecture in the TER-OPS training course that night. The edict had been politely phrased in the form of a request, but refusal was not an option. Never mind that she had four lectures of her own to give later in the month. Not even a senior attending like herself said no to the chairman.

  Ali resolutely squashed the image of sitting in front of the fire with the book she’d been trying to finish for a week and a glass of Pinot Noir. The Littorai 2006 she’d been saving had been described as brooding and powerful. Tonight, the brooding part, at least, fit her.

  Putting regrets about the lost evening aside, she shouldered through the door and surveyed the strapping young men lounging around the conference table. They were pretty much exactly what she expected firefighters to look like—husky, clear-eyed jock types in jeans and shirts or sweatshirts emblazoned with Philadelphia Fire Department paramedic emblems. A little windswept and flushed from the cold November air, they slouched in their seats, legs spread, arms draped over chair backs. Self-assured and a tiny bit arrogant, not all that much different than most of the surgical residents she dealt with, although her residents generally opted for earnest and respectful demeanors—at least on the surface.

  “I’m Ali Torveau, one of the trauma surgeons. Dr. Rifkin couldn’t make it tonight, so I’ll be filling in for him on crush injuries to the chest.” She counted heads, frowned. “Aren’t there supposed to be six of you?”

  “Cross went out on a call right at the end of shift,” a ruddy blond with an incongruous spattering of freckles across his nose and cheeks that made him look about fourteen replied in a deep baritone voice.

  “It’s my understanding that all the TER-OPS trainees are to be relieved for these sessions. They aren’t optional, and you can’t make them up. The state certification board is very clear on that.”

  The blond grinned and shrugged. “Nothing gets Cross out of the field.”

  Ali plugged her jump drive into the computer sitting on the conference table, thinking that the firefighter paramedic in question probably ought to reconsider his plans to join the new PFD technical rescue unit. A unit like that demanded discipline and tight teamwork, and Cross sounded like a cowboy.

  “Okay,” Ali sa
id. “Let’s talk about sucking—”

  The door burst open and a woman in a sweat-soaked T-shirt plastered to her broad shoulders and sculpted chest shot into the room. “Someone mention my favorite subject?”

  A couple of the men chuckled as the latecomer dropped into a chair and tossed Ali a confident smile while pitching a denim jacket, too light for the unseasonably cold late November weather, onto the table. She looked vaguely familiar, but Ali was sure she would have remembered her had they met. She was about Ali’s height—a little above average—and like the male firefighters, fit and strong looking. Her bare arms were subtly corded and her threadbare jeans stretched tight over muscular thighs. The soot streaking her lightly tanned face did nothing to detract from her good looks. Casually layered collar-length dark brown hair shot through with shimmering red highlights clung to her neck in damp ringlets. The startling softness of those sensuous curls against a canvas of carved muscle and bone gave her the look of a fallen angel. Her ridiculously blue, blue eyes flickered with amusement and Ali realized she was staring into them.

  Abruptly, Ali cut her gaze away. She’d been dealing with these showy types all her life. Surgery bred—or perhaps simply attracted—super-confident, sexually charismatic, egotistical pains in the butt. Unfortunately, as annoying as these sorts might be, they often made the best surgeons. Maybe the same was true for firefighters. Any other time she would have ignored the relatively harmless flippancy, but she hadn’t completely forgotten about her missed glass of wine and interrupted evening of relaxation. She was feeling a little testy.

  “Since it’s your favorite subject,” Ali said conversationally, directing her comments to the newcomer, “maybe you’d like to give the rest of us a quick overview on sucking chest wounds. Cross, is it?”

  “That’s right. Beau Cross.” Beau leaned back in her chair, affecting a blasé attitude to buy herself a few seconds to get her game back on. The woman standing at the end of the conference table with her arms folded across her chest and an expression of supreme control put her off balance, and that just never happened to her. She worked with strong, commanding women all the time. Female firefighters and emergency medical personnel needed to be smart, tough, and resilient to handle the work and disprove the lingering belief in some quarters that women couldn’t cut it in the fire department. No, there was something else about this particular woman that tripped Beau up.

  Beau studied her through lazily lowered lids. Taken separately, the brunette’s short tousled hair, matching dark eyes, trim figure, and delicately etched features could be carelessly termed “pretty.” But her high-bridged nose and dark, dramatic brows emboldened her profile and moved her from attractive into the arresting category. Still, the surgeon might conceivably go unnoticed amidst the literally hundreds of other women and men roaming the hospital in shapeless, faded green scrubs. Maybe. Maybe if someone were comatose. But Beau rarely didn’t notice a good-looking woman, and she could never remember a single one throwing her off stride.

  Not just off stride. The look she’d gotten from the surgeon when she’d breezed into the room had almost stopped her in her tracks. Those deep dark eyes had swept over her with the intensity of a flashover, assessing her, summing her up, and then—just as quickly—dismissing her. Beau had spent the last ten years of her life honing her image, perfecting her façade. Everyone believed she was exactly the person she wanted them to see. And that worked just fine for her. But for a few seconds, as she was evaluated and discarded, she’d felt the weight of maintaining her image tighten like a chain around her chest, and she’d wanted to cast the mask aside. A very dangerous reaction. Her heart raced, and usually only a multi-alarmer or a do-or-die crisis could do that to her. Her pulse didn’t even pick up when she came, not like this. She took a deep breath, forced a grin.

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t get your name,” Beau said.

  “That might be because you were late.” Ali was aware of the others in the room watching the exchange avidly. If one of her surgical residents had been as irreverent, she could have threatened the hapless soul with weeks of floor work. Being locked out of the OR was a fate worse than death for a competitive surgeon-in-training. But this firefighter wasn’t her resident, and why she seemed compelled to joust with the woman was completely mystifying. Holding the turquoise gaze without blinking, Ali said softly, “The question?”

  “Occlusive dressing and positive pressure ventilation,” Beau said.

  “Good,” Ali acknowledged. “And if the BP bottoms out?”

  Beau hesitated, and when she flicked a glance at her colleagues, Ali realized the firefighter was giving the others a chance to answer. Interesting. Not quite as egotistical as she initially appeared.

  “What if I told you there was a midline shift in the trachea?” Ali said when the room remained silent.

  “Tension pneumothorax,” one of the men blurted out.

  “Yes.” Ali nodded and canted an eyebrow at Beau Cross. “Care to amend your treatment?”

  “Same treatment,” Beau said, “but the dressing needs to be adjusted. Lift one corner to create a flutter-valve. Air goes out, but not back in.”

  “Agreed.” Ali reached behind her to the wall switch and dimmed the lights, then opened her PowerPoint presentation. “Let’s talk about the mechanism of closed chest injury and variations in presentation.”

  For the next sixty minutes Ali ran through emergency management protocols for life-threatening chest trauma, comfortable with a topic she’d discussed hundreds of times before. She described, questioned, challenged, and found the paramedics sharp and eager. She enjoyed the session, as she always did when talking about something she loved. The hour passed quickly, and the entire time, she was aware of Beau Cross just a few inches away. Even though she couldn’t see the firefighter’s face, she sensed her presence like a heat signature flaring against a backdrop of shadows.

  *

  “Hey, Ali, I thought you were off tonight,” Wynter Thompson said when Ali walked into the surgical locker room. She pulled a pair of black pants from her locker with one hand and tossed her balled-up scrub pants into the laundry hamper with the other.

  “I was. I am.” Ali unlocked her locker and kicked her clogs into the bottom. They made a satisfying thud. “I got shanghaied into giving the boss’s lecture tonight.”

  “Whoops.” Wynter laughed and wiggled her scrub shirt over her prominently pregnant belly. “I guess I shouldn’t mention the Eagles tickets Pearce got from a patient’s family for tonight?”

  Ali stopped in the midst of buttoning her shirt and glared at her good friend, who also happened to be the senior trauma fellow. “You’re kidding. The chief is at a football game right now with your spouse? Why am I having trouble seeing the two of them tossing back beers and chowing down on hot dogs?”

  “Father-daughter bonding.” Wynter pulled on a navy blue cable-knit sweater and tugged on the loose pants. “I think Ambrose has finally forgiven Pearce for not following in his academic footsteps, but still…they don’t have much chance to spend time together. So when something comes up, I push her to go.”

  “I understand.” Ali sighed. Ambrose Rifkin had expected his daughter Pearce to pursue a lofty career at one of the top ten medical schools, and Pearce’s decision to take a general surgery position close to home so she could marry Wynter and raise a family had put father and daughter at odds. Ali tipped her chin toward Wynter’s belly. “How are you feeling?”

  “Like it’s much harder to be pregnant at thirty-one than it was at twenty-five.”

  “If you need to rearrange the call schedule—”

  Wynter shook her head. “No. I’m not due for seven weeks and I don’t want any more time to make up than I already will.”

  “You’re not required to make up maternity leave.”

  “You know that’s not how it works for female surgery residents. The guys might be a good bunch, but they’d never let me hear the end of it if I didn’t make up for the lost time.” W
ynter shrugged. “Besides, I wouldn’t like being out that long either. I need the cases.”

  “Ah…I don’t suppose you’d play the chairman’s daughter-in-law card? You are owed leave, and we could cut down on your floor time when you return. Get you more cases—”

  Wynter snorted. “Oh sure. That would really win me a few friends.”

  Ali grinned and shouldered her locker door closed. Funny, she’d never noticed the reddish highlights in Wynter’s chestnut brown hair before. Wynter’s eyes were a sharp clear blue too. She wondered how it was that Wynter and Beau Cross could share some superficial physical attributes and yet look completely different. Wynter was softly elegant—especially now that she was pregnant. And Beau…Beau was seething sexuality and raw strength. Both were incredibly attractive women, but Wynter was much more Ali’s type. Steady, calm, focused. And completely responsible. On the rare occasions Ali imagined herself with a steady girlfriend, she envisioned a woman like Wynter.

  “Ali? You okay?” A tiny frown line marred the smooth skin between Wynter’s brows.

  “Hmm? Sure. Why?”

  Wynter gestured to Ali’s jeans on the low bench that bisected the space between the two long rows of lockers. “You forgot your pants.”

  Ali glanced down at her bare legs extending below her half-buttoned, and forgotten, shirt and her face flamed. She grabbed her jeans and yanked them on. “Sorry. I was just thinking about the session earlier.”

  “What was that for?” Wynter reached for her heavy gym bag stuffed with clothes, study guides for the trauma accreditation boards, and toiletries.