“Ready to go?”
Olivia half nodded. She tried to see his face, but it was raining too hard.
There was something else. Something about that voice...
But her head was starting to throb and when he tried to lift her, something in her shoulder popped. A bone shifted and then ground against another joint.
She screamed at the sudden, blinding pain.
Dimly she felt him lean her back against the seat. He crouched beside her and touched her forehead. “You’ve got a dislocated shoulder. I heard that joint give way and I can see its position. I can set it back into place, and since I don’t know how long that ambulance is going to take, I think that would be best—if you agree.”
Olivia could barely understand him. Every fiber of her being was screaming madly from the pain in her shoulder.
“Do you understand? It’s going to hurt, but you’ll feel better. Nod if you hear me and if you agree.”
Olivia locked her jaw and managed one sharp nod of assent.
She hadn’t known it was possible to feel pain like this. It wiped out all her sanity and logic. She had to make it end.
“Do whatever. Just do it now. Make it s-stop.”
“We’ll get you through this.” He leaned closer, his chest against hers. He pulled off her scarf and opened the top of her sweater, touching her shoulder.
Olivia realized he was being as gentle as he could, taking time.
She didn’t want him to be gentle. “Just do it. Do it now. Whatever it takes.”
“Okay.” One strong arm slid around her back and his other hand locked. “This is some heck of a storm. They said to expect rain, but who knew the hillside would collapse. If there’s one thing I hate—”
Olivia’s mind was screaming for him to stop talking and make the pain go away. But she was following his words, slipping in and out of consciousness as he rotated her arm and then raised it, holding its position tightly. He was gentle, but the pain was excruciating, bone slipping against bone.
Olivia gasped and passed out.
* * *
IT WAS GOING to be one of those nights, the new deputy for Summer Island thought.
He got the children off to safety, crowding them into the police cruiser, which he had pulled to the side of the road. Once they and their teacher were safe, he checked on the status of the ambulance and the highway patrol. Neither was due for another six minutes. The first winter storm of the season had left traffic snarled along the coast for forty miles.
Officer Rafe Russo walked to the damaged car and took a deep breath. She looked thinner and more tired than he remembered, but Rafe had recognized her instantly. You never forgot your first love.
He was still shaken at seeing Olivia Sullivan and he was worried about her condition. She was unconscious now. He knew that the pain had been overwhelming. Dislocated shoulders were a bitch, no mistake about it. Rafe had had a few of his own, so he knew what Olivia was going through.
He shrugged out of his sweater and laid it over her for warmth as the temperature dropped. Then he zipped up his jacket and trotted back to the road. At least the flares had done the job. Traffic had slowed to a crawl, and he used another flare to guide cars slowly around the mudslide.
Rain crawled down the neck of his jacket, but Rafe ignored his discomfort. He was used to bad weather, to heat and flies. Afghanistan had taught him to stay focused in all situations.
Off in the distance red lights burned through the rain and he made out the outline of an ambulance. About time. The kids were shaken up. Their teacher was holding it together, but Rafe had learned that she was a diabetic, and she didn’t have extra insulin with her. He had already called in that information to the EMT unit so they would have the meds she needed.
Two more cars crawled past. A state police cruiser appeared. The window came down. “Looks like you could use some help here. I’ll park and take the other side.”
“I’d be glad for it. I’ve had my hands full with the mudslide.” Rafe turned up his collar against the pelting rain. “At least the ambulance is here. I’ve got somebody in my cruiser with a dislocated shoulder. Possible concussion. She needs to be looked at first.”
“I’ll pass that on.” The cruiser angled forward into a spot right behind Rafe’s vehicle.
It was barely 5:15 p.m. on his first day with the Summer Island Police Force.
He had dealt with two accidents. A mudslide. Crank call at the high school and a possible case of identity theft.
It was one helluva homecoming, Rafe thought grimly. He remembered the sound of the collision. At first he’d been angry. Then he had realized the driver was very brave, choosing the only space left to avoid hitting the van full of stranded children.
She’d kept the collision to minimum impact, despite zero visibility in the storm.
But Rafe wouldn’t have expected anything less of Olivia Sullivan. She had always been smart, always been thoughtful and careful. She did the right thing, no matter what. You could count on that.
A flood of other memories returned to haunt him. Rafe’s hands clenched. He didn’t figure well in most of those memories. They had been very close once. He had let her build up hopes that he couldn’t fulfill. In the end he had betrayed her.
Rafe had lived with that guilt every day since.
But now he had a job to do. He couldn’t allow Olivia’s warm breath or the soft, sweet pressure of her breasts against his shoulder to pull his mind away from all the things he had to do to stabilize the accident scene.
He had screwed up more times than he could count growing up as the town bad boy. He had mocked authority, been a petty thief, played hooky from school as often as he could get away with it and broken more than a few store windows. After one brief season as a football hero, he had given up on sports, too. He didn’t care for the male bonding, the authority figures or the relentless schedule.
Which was kind of funny, all things considered, because Rafe had joined the Marines as soon as he could, and that brought him right back to authority figures and relentless schedules.
But the Marines had given him a home, a focus and a discipline in his life. He would still be over in Afghanistan had it not been for the broken arm and shattered wrist from a fuel explosion that had nearly killed him.
When Tom Wilkinson, the county sheriff, had pitched him the offer of a job, Rafe had simply laughed. He was the last person anyone on Summer Island would expect to wear a uniform. But the sheriff had persisted, and he was a hard man to say no to. At one time, his son and Rafe had been good friends in high school. But Tom’s son had been killed in the Sangin Valley, and Tom looked pretty sick these days. Rafe hadn’t gotten all the details, but he gathered the diagnosis was inoperable, slow-growing cancer. Tom was signed up for experimental treatments in Portland, but he was getting weaker.
So Rafe had agreed, even though it was the last
