years.”
“That explains it.”
“What?”
“Why you’re so cynical.”
“Sheesh, Em, don’t spare my feelings,” Brynn said with pretended hurt. “Just spit out what you really think.”
“We’ve spent a lot of time together since I started work here,” Emily began.
Brynn nodded. Too much time. She’d logged more hours in the E.R. than she cared to remember, interviewing victims of accidents, domestic abuse and the rare but disturbing casualties of assault and other crimes. “And your point is?”
Emily shrugged. “You act like none of this—” her gesture encompassed the E.R. “—touches you.”
Brynn blinked in surprise. Did she really come across so hard-boiled? “If you don’t maintain emotional distance, jobs like ours will burn you out fast.”
“That’s easier said than done,” Emily admitted with a sigh. “Especially when kids like that sweet little boy are concerned, bless his heart.”
Brynn had to agree. Worrying about Jared had shaken her more than she cared to admit. “A sense of humor helps.”
“Any new jokes?” Emily asked.
Brynn grinned, happy to change the subject. “How can you tell if it’s a skunk or a lawyer who’s been run over on the highway?”
“I give up.”
“There’re skid marks around the skunk.” Emily’s laugh encouraged Brynn to continue. “How many lawyers does it take to change a lightbulb?”
“How many?”
“How many can you afford?”
Emily chuckled again and shook her head. “You know more lawyer jokes than anyone I’ve ever met. Do you really dislike them so much?”
“Lawyers? I like ’em about as much as I like Yankees,” Brynn admitted.
“I always figured lawyers and the police are on the same side.”
Brynn snorted with disgust. “If I had ten bucks for every criminal who’s lawyered up and gotten off scot-free because some crooked attorney manipulated the system, I could buy a luxury condo at Myrtle Beach.”
Emily folded her arms on the admissions desk. “But not all lawyers are crooked.”
“No,” Brynn admitted with a straight face. “Some are dead.”
“You are so bad,” Emily laughed and shook her head.
Although Brynn had made her comments in jest, she recognized her prejudice. For the most part, she considered herself fair and open-minded, but attorneys and Northerners pushed her buttons. Where attorneys were concerned, she agreed with the principle that every person was entitled to the best defense possible, but the shady shenanigans of too many un-principled lawyers had left a bad taste in her mouth for the profession as a whole.
And she hoped Emily wouldn’t get her started on Yankees. They flooded the town every summer, in their big RVs and fancy cars, passing through on their way to summer homes in the nearby mountains. Not that she envied their wealth. They’d probably worked hard for it. What Brynn disliked was their condescension, treating the locals like dim-witted morons from The Beverly Hillbillies, laughing at Southern drawls and taking great pleasure in explaining how much better everything was done up North.
Two particular Yankees had caused plenty of trouble recently in Pleasant Valley. Ginger Parker, with the morals of an alley cat in heat, had almost ruined Jim and Cat Stratton’s marriage. Ginger had been from New Jersey. And the antiques dealer who’d tried to rip off sweet old Mrs. Weatherstone had been based in Rhode Island.
Not that there weren’t Southern snakes in abundance, but, at least in a five-county radius, Brynn knew who they were. Strangers, especially from the North, always put her on alert and on edge. If that attitude made her opinionated, it also made her cautious. And she couldn’t be too cautious in her line of work.
“You don’t fool me,” Emily was saying. “I know you too well. For all your ranting about lawyers and Yankees, you’d be first on the scene if either needed help. And you’d provide it gladly.”
“That’s my job,” Brynn countered.
Before she could say more, Dr. Anderson came out of the treatment room and approached the desk.
“How’s the kid?” Brynn asked.
The young doctor pursed his lips, then sighed. “He’s in severe respiratory distress. I have him on oxygen and antibiotics. We’ll have to wait and see how well he can fight this off.”
Brynn’s heart went out to the little boy, so ill without his mother. “How soon before he’s out of the woods?”
“Depends on how strong he is. Could be a couple of hours. Could be a few days.” The doctor’s solemn expression indicated a third possibility. The boy might not recover at all.
Brynn felt a rush of sympathy, not only for Jared, but for his father. She couldn’t imagine how Randall Benedict was feeling now, without anyone to stand watch with him over his sick child.
Her radio squawked and she keyed the mike. “Sawyer here.”
“We have an accident with injuries west of Carsons Corner,” the dispatcher announced. “I’ve dispatched Rhodes.”
“Understood,” Brynn replied. “I’m coming in.”
The Pleasant Valley police department was small, usually manned at night by only the dispatcher and one patrol officer. In bad weather or other emergencies, additional help was needed, and Brynn often had to pull an extra shift. With the police station across the street from the medical center and a clean uniform in her locker, she could report for duty in mere minutes.
Brynn said goodbye to Dr. Anderson and Emily and headed for her car. But she couldn’t get Randall Benedict and Jared, a worried parent alone in a strange town and his dangerously ill little boy, out of her mind. She turned before exiting the automatic doors.
“I’ll drop by later to see how the kid’s doing,” she said before plunging into the night and the blowing snow.
Chapter Two
The light pressure of a hand on his shoulder jolted Rand out of a deep sleep. He came instantly awake and centered his attention immediately on Jared. The boy, dwarfed by the hospital bed, lay still.
Too still.
Terror squeezed Rand’s lungs like a fist, and he couldn’t move from the hard plastic chair where he’d slept. Couldn’t breathe. “My God, he’s not—”
“Jared’s fine,” a drawling feminine voice assured him. “The crisis has passed. His fever’s broken, and he’s breathing without difficulty now.”
Relief
