Midnight, Moonlight & Miracles

“Mr. Reynolds? Can you hear me?” She glanced at the man. His eyelids flickered and he groaned but didn’t look at her. “Where’s his helmet?”

“Wasn’t wearing one,” the EMT responded.

Shaking her head in disgust, she yanked her bandage scissors from her pocket. The blunt, angled end made it easier to cut away his tattered shirt and the bottom part of his pants. She grabbed a disposable razor and shaved five circular spots on his chest, then attached stickies for the leads that would hook him up to the heart monitor. The machine would take constant pulse, respiration and blood pressure.

“What have we got, Megan?” Dr. Sullivan hurried into the room and stood on the other side of the gurney, surveying the victim. He palpated the belly and then prodded, searching for evidence of internal injuries.

She filled him in on what the EMT had said.

“Take him to X-ray for a CT scan. We’ll see what shows up. His vitals are normal, and it doesn’t look like there’s any bleeding in the belly. He just looks like hamburger.”

“So he’s not toast,” she agreed, going with ER-speak for he looked a lot worse than he was.

“Probably not.”

“Mr. Reynolds, I’m taking you to X-ray.” His eyes flickered, but he didn’t say anything.

Megan tugged on the end of the gurney, wheeling it out of the room and through the double doors for the short trip to radiology. Looking down at him, she sighed. “His guardian angel was working overtime tonight.”

“Can you hear me, Mr. Reynolds? I want you to open your eyes now.”

Simon decided maybe he would open his eyes if only to silence that bossy female voice. He wanted to tell her not to waste any more time and energy on him. He’d been aware of her—and other people—moving around him, doing X rays and bloodwork, beeping and poking and prodding. All their efforts were wasted on him, and it was time to tell her so. But when he looked up, a blond, blue-eyed knockout of an angel was staring back at him.

If he was dead, she was slumming. He’d already been living in hell. Dying would only make it official.

“Welcome back, sleeping beauty,” she said.

“Isn’t that the one where the wake-up call is a kiss?” He forced the words past what felt like gravel in his throat.

“I’m a nurse, not the fairy-tale police.”

“Not an angel?” He remembered hearing something about a guardian angel.

She shook her head. “Not even close.”

“Then I’m not dead?” A purely rhetorical question. The pain knifing through him was clear evidence that he was alive.

“You’re still a member of the human race,” she confirmed.

Maybe a member of the race. He wasn’t so sure about the human part.

“Where am I?” He knew it was a hospital, but details were fuzzy.

“You’re in the ER at Saint Joseph’s. You’re on a heart monitor, standard procedure for trauma patients.” She glanced at the beeping machine beside him and the screen with lines spiking across it. “Next time you decide to give Evel Knievel a run for his money, I suggest you wear a helmet. Didn’t you get the memo that protective headgear is the law? And it’s designed for the purpose of preventing nasty goose eggs like the one you’ve got there.”

Pain roared through his head like an Amtrak train. But still he lifted his arm to touch his forehead, and winced when he found a good-sized lump that confirmed her words. He noticed thin, clear tubing connected to his arm. An IV?

“Who are you?” he asked.

“My name is Megan Brightwell. Do you know who you are?”

“Simon Reynolds.”

“Good. Do you know what day this is?”

He thought for a moment. When he remembered the date, consuming pain roared through him again, but this time it wasn’t physical.

“Yeah. I know.” He looked at her, wishing the protective haze hadn’t cleared so fast. “You’re a nurse? Then I guess goose egg is the correct medical terminology?”

“Actually, that would be contusion, but I didn’t want to get too technical with a man who just scrambled his brains.”

“What happened?”

“You don’t remember?”

“Nothing except riding the bike.” He shook his head, wincing as he instantly regretted the motion.

“I guess I don’t have to tell you to lie still.” In spite of her teasing words and tone, there was a sympathetic expression in her eyes.

The last thing he wanted, needed or deserved was her pity.

Metal scraped on metal as she dragged a privacy curtain halfway around the space where he was lying. Beyond it, he heard a phone ring and muted voices. Pretty quiet. The last time he’d been here all hell had broken loose. Must be a slow night. Good. Someone would look at him before his injuries had time to heal. He wanted the hell out of here.

“According to the paramedics who brought you in, one minute you were riding that motorcycle. The next you were playing slip and slide on the street—without the plastic mat.”

“The roads were slick.”

“Yeah,” she allowed. “Rain does that. And you just proved what everyone says—Southern Californians don’t know how to drive on wet roads.”

“You’re not going to cut me any slack, are you?”

“That’s not my plan. Do the words ‘slow down’ mean anything to you?”

“And miss slip and slide?”

“Silly me. What was I thinking?” she asked, her tone rife with sarcasm.

In spite of the stinging, throbbing and aching that encompassed every single cell and nerve ending of his body, he registered a flicker of respect for this woman’s shoot-from-the-hip, call-a-spade-a-spade style.

He shifted on the hard gurney, then wished he hadn’t. “I think I took a solid bounce or two.”

“You have some nasty yet colorful lacerations and abrasions,” she confirmed.

“Anything life threatening?”

“You almost sound like you’re hoping.” A frown puckered her smooth brow.

He shrugged and caught his breath at the pain that zinged him. “I just want to know when I can get out of here.”