me?”
“Callie.” The hoarse whisper seemed to exhaust him.
“Yes, I’m here. We were in a car wreck. We’re going to the hospital. Everything is going to be all right.”
He frowned and licked his lips. “Call Seth.”
Callie clutched her uncle’s hand tighter and shook her head. “Uncle Dan, don’t talk. Just lie still.”
His eyes grew wide, and he struggled to push up. “No!” he wheezed. “Need Seth. Something to tell him about the case.”
She glanced up at the EMT who placed his hands on her uncle’s shoulders and eased him back down to the gurney. “All right, Uncle Dan. I’ll call Seth.”
“Tell him it’s important,” he mumbled before he closed his eyes again.
New tears poured down Callie’s cheeks as she watched her uncle being loaded into the ambulance. One of the EMTs grasped her arm to help her up, but she paused when a car skidded to a stop next to the police car blocking the highway, and a man jumped from inside.
She wouldn’t have to call Seth after all—he was already here.
She braced herself for her first encounter with Seth Dawtry since the night when she’d turned down his marriage proposal. For years her uncle had said that she and the young policeman he’d mentored would make a perfect couple. He’d tried matchmaking every time she came back to Memphis to visit. It had almost worked two years ago.
Seth only hesitated a moment when he saw her standing at the back of the ambulance before he raced toward her.
“Is he alive?” His voice shook with each word.
She nodded. “Yes, but he’s seriously injured. How did you know he’d been hurt?”
“One of the first responders is a friend of mine. He called as soon as he saw who it was. I got here as fast as I could.” He glanced at the EMT inside the ambulance. “Is he conscious?”
The man shook his head. “He was for a moment but not now.”
She took a deep breath and turned toward Seth. “He asked me to call you. If he regains consciousness, I’ll tell him you arrived.”
Seth’s eyes narrowed, then his stare settled on her and turned cold. Even after two years she could see he still harbored anger toward her. He gave a curt nod. “Thanks.”
She tried to smile but her lips trembled. “We need to go.”
Seth backed away. “I’ll follow the ambulance to the hospital and see you there.”
Callie wanted to tell him there was no need for him to go to the hospital, but she knew he would never listen to her. His relationship with Dan had been forged years ago when Seth was a recruit at the Memphis Police Academy where Dan was an instructor. They’d bonded right away, and in Dan, Seth had finally found a father to replace his own who had abandoned their family. Dan also regarded Seth as the son he’d never had.
She nodded and climbed in beside Dan’s gurney. Before they could close the door, one of the men who’d pulled her from the car ran up to the ambulance. “I found your purse in the backseat,” he said. “I thought you might need it.”
Callie took her purse and smiled. “Thank you. I appreciate everything that all of you have done for us tonight.”
He touched the front of his helmet in a small salute. “It’s part of the job, ma’am. I’ll be praying for you and your uncle.”
The ambulance door closed before she had a chance to respond, to tell him how those words from a man she’d met only minutes ago had comforted her. She glanced down at her uncle lying so still on the gurney and wrapped her fingers around his big hand. One of the EMTs grabbed the rear doors to close them, and Callie glanced over her shoulder. Seth had already disappeared from view.
Still holding his hand, she dropped down in the seat across from her uncle. When she’d arrived at the Memphis airport an hour ago, she hadn’t expected this turn of events. The memory of a roaring car and a gunshot blast flashed in her mind, and she closed her eyes and groaned.
Then there was her brief meeting with Seth. She’d been resigned to bumping into him at Dan’s retirement party, but had hoped she could avoid any extended conversation. So much for that plan. Now he would be at the hospital, and she would have to keep him informed of her uncle’s condition.
He’d tried to hide it, but even after two years she could feel his smoldering anger toward her. Perhaps he never would forgive her for how she’d hurt him, but she had hoped by this time he had moved on. She’d put the events of two years ago behind her, but it didn’t look like he had.
Her uncle’s body jerked suddenly and gasping sounds came from his throat. The EMT grabbed her uncle’s hand out of her grasp and pressed his finger to the pulse. Frightened, Callie scooted away to give the attendant more room to work in the crowded ambulance.
“What’s happening?” she cried.
Without answering her, he turned and yelled to the driver. “We have a problem back here. Move it!”
The ambulance surged forward, and Callie could only watch in horror as her uncle struggled to breathe. The vehicle careened into the hospital parking lot and came to a screeching halt at the emergency room bay.
Before she could ask another question, the back doors opened, and the ambulance driver reached up to help the EMT whisk the gurney out of the ambulance. A nurse helped Callie to the ground, seated her in a wheelchair and hurried toward the entrance.
The EMTs had the gurney inside before Callie and the nurse got to the doors. When they entered the waiting area, Callie grasped the arms of the wheelchair and choked back a sob at what she saw. Two nurses and the EMTs ran down the hallway beside her uncle’s gurney. Before she could call out to them, they made a sharp turn and disappeared into a room on their right.
The nurse turned the wheelchair toward the exam rooms on the other side of the area. Callie sat up straight. “Where are you taking me?”
“To an exam room,” the nurse said.
“But I want to be with my uncle.”
The nurse shook her head. “I’m sorry, but you can’t do that.”
“Why not?”
The question was no more than out of her mouth when she saw the answer in the nurse’s eyes. She couldn’t be with him because he was dying.
* * *
Seth Dawtry’s heart sank as he pulled his car into the emergency room’s parking lot. An ambulance, its rear doors still open, sat backed up in the bay for unloading patients. He knew enough to know that if they’d abandoned the ambulance to rush the patient inside, things weren’t looking good.
He pulled the car to a stop and sat there a moment, grasping the steering wheel, trying to work up the will to go inside. As badly as he wanted to know his friend’s condition, he couldn’t bring himself to move. Not when it meant facing Callie.
He’d
