Next of Kin

And now that the emergency was over, Casey was left with the strong feeling that he needed to see this woman again. Not because she was pretty, or sexy, though she was both those things. No, he felt a pull that had nothing to do with the usual reasons he sought out a woman.

“Jackie, I—”

She shifted her gaze from him to the floor and backed up a step. The movements were slight, but enough to make his confidence falter.

“I’ve got to get back in there. We need to treat a couple of fractured bones. Our baby’s still in the operating room…”

Our baby. He liked that she’d said it that way, connecting the two of them to the child they’d saved. “Is she okay? Do you think I could see her?”

The expression in her eyes softened. “That’s nice of you to be concerned. But her operation won’t be over for a while yet. I’m not sure if they’ll allow visitors after that.”

“Well, until they locate her next of kin, I feel kind of responsible for the squirt.”

“I do, too. But they will find her father soon, don’t you think?”

“Probably working on it right now.”

Jackie started to leave, then turned back. “Thanks for getting us to the hospital so quickly.”

Seeing Jackie smile at him, Casey felt an unaccustomed twisting of his heart. He really did feel the most inexplicable concern for that child—a paternal response that was shockingly out of character. He hadn’t been faking it just to win Jackie over.

But he had to admit that in the past, he wouldn’t have been above using tactics like that.

He suddenly felt ashamed.

“Jackie?”

She paused again, and he could tell she was impatient to move on.

“What time does your shift end?”

“Not for ten more hours. It was nice to meet you, Officer Guthrie.”

Then she was gone, having made it all too clear that she had no intention of seeing him again.

CASEY RODE ACROSS the street to the gas station, where he washed his regulation bike and filled it with gas. He chatted briefly with the woman at the till—he and Debbie were big fans of the Mighty Ducks—then headed the few blocks back to the station to park his bike in the garage and hand in his tickets for the day.

He found his lieutenant reading copy straight from the fax machine. Tank Gordon, in his forties but so clean-cut he could pass for ten years younger, checked him out.

“That was quite a mess on PCH today. You okay? What happened?”

“I’m fine. I was on my way back to the station at the end of my shift. The collision happened right in front of my eyes. First a sedan burst into flames. A tractor-trailer rig right next to it lost control and overturned. Cars piled up on both sides of the highway.” He shook his head, remembering.

“You left the scene without clearing an exit route for the emergency vehicles.”

Casey frowned. Was he being reprimanded here? “Backup had arrived, sir. We had lots of men on hand. I figured it was more important to get an injured baby to the hospital.”

“I heard.” The lieutenant was holding a grin in check.

“Huh?”

“They’re running footage on the evening news. Picked yourself a pretty little nurse, I’ll say that for you. Reminds me of Sally Fields in her younger days.”

Used to being teased about his ability to attract lovely women, Casey bristled this time. “Jackie Kellison was amazing out there. I’ll bet she saved more than a couple of lives.”

“So you didn’t notice her huge brown eyes? Or long, bare legs?”

“Cut the B.S., Lieutenant. In case you’ve forgotten, we had an injured baby on that bike, too. Her mother was killed in the crash.”

The lieutenant sobered with that. “Yeah. I know.”

“Any luck locating next of kin?” In those hours he’d paced the ER floor, Casey had worried a lot about the father. He couldn’t stop imagining the man coming home from work and wondering where his wife and baby were. Then the phone would ring and his life, as he’d known it, would come to an end….

Lieutenant Gordon turned to watch the fax machine slowly regurgitate a new sheet of paper. “Actually, the baby’s family is turning out to be a problem.”

“What do you mean, a problem?”

“We haven’t been able to ID the woman. And that car she was driving?” Gordon pulled out the latest fax and handed it to him. “Take a look at this.”

JACKIE’S SHIFT ENDED at dawn. She didn’t change out of her uniform since the shorts and top she’d been wearing yesterday afternoon were too torn and bloody to salvage. At the water fountain, she stopped to pop two muscle relaxants. She’d considered taking them earlier in her shift, but had worried that the medication might make her drowsy.

As a result she could barely move her head more than a couple of inches to either side. She hadn’t been this bad at the beginning of her shift, but now her muscles were seizing in protest. Driving would be impossible, but that was okay.

She no longer owned a car.

Declining a sympathetic colleague’s offer of a ride home, she took the stairs up to the infant care ward on the third floor. She had to see the baby to find out about his—no, her—eyes.

She checked the board at the nursing station and saw an infant listed as “Jane Doe.” She nodded to a nurse sitting behind a computer monitor. The buxom woman, in her early forties, was ponderously inputting chart information into the system.

“Excuse me. Is Jane Doe the baby from the accident on PCH yesterday?” Twelve hours had passed since Jackie’s shift had begun. The accident had occurred on Monday, so it was now Tuesday morning, very early.

The nurse stopped typing. She seemed glad for the interruption and eyed Jackie curiously. “Yes, poor thing, that’s her. The cops still haven’t figured out who she is.”

“But the accident happened over twelve hours ago.” Something was wrong here. “The mother died in the crash, but surely they must have located her father by now.” Her father and, Jackie hoped, a mess of brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles. As far as she was concerned, the more family the better.

“Well, the cop who keeps checking up on her is doing a good job looking after her for the time being.”

Cop? Was Casey Guthrie…? She shot a speculative glance down the corridor.

“He’s in with her right now,” the nurse confirmed. “Why don’t you go say hi? You two looked real good together on the six o’clock news.”

CHAPTER FOUR

JACKIE REGISTERED the woman’s teasing words with some confusion—until she remembered the reporters who’d been waiting outside the ER when Casey had driven up to the door yesterday.

It felt like forever ago now.

So they’d made the regional news broadcast. That meant her older brother Kell would know what had happened and be worrying. Of course, Nate had probably told him by now anyway. She’d have to phone them both.