Racing Against the Clock Read online

  She experienced an odd popping sensation deep within her solar plexus as if a dam had broken. She had never felt it before, not when she had healed Margie Parks or Tyler or Angie Henry. It would have concerned her except a peaceful lightness overcame her, soothing her, calming her, keeping her mind fixed on the ailing woman and off her own health.

  The woman’s jerking stopped and she groaned.

  Hannah continued to run her palms along the woman’s face, touching her hair, caressing her cheeks. The woman’s skin pinked. She opened her eyes and looked up at Hannah.

  “You saved my life,” she whispered. “I was going down a long dark tunnel. I could see a light at the end. I felt warm, fuzzy and weightless. You pulled me back.”

  Shocked by the woman’s words, Hannah clenched her jaw. “Are you all right?”

  “My little boy, Jake…” the woman said, then reached up to grasp the collar of Hannah’s coat. Desperation rose to her eyes. “We were ice skating when the avalanche hit. I think the snow broke the ice and he fell into the pond. I lost my grip on his hand. Find him. Save him. Please. Oh, please. He’s only five years old!”

  Tyler didn’t think. He simply acted. Barely noticing the sharp bite of winter through his damp clothes, he shoveled deeper into the snowbank, searching for the missing boy.

  Two things occurred to him. One, over half an hour had passed since the avalanche, placing the boy in grave danger and, two, he could not allow Hannah over here. He had seen how pale she had become after touching the boy’s mother, how her strength had visibly zapped from her slender frame. She would insist on helping with the child and in her state of compromised health, Tyler feared for her safety. He would allow her intervention only if there was no other way to save the boy’s life.

  He leaned forward, burrowing like a frenzied mole and tossing shovel after shovelful of snow over his shoulder. Snow drifted from the sky and packed down the collar of his coat. In a matter of minutes he had peeled back the thick layering to reveal the frozen pond underneath marred by a long crack and a jagged hole six feet in diameter.

  The woman had gotten to her feet and staggered over. “Jake,” she wailed, then clutched Tyler’s sleeve. “Please, mister, save my baby.”

  “Keep her back,” Tyler said, nodding at a male bystander.

  “Let the doctor work,” the man coaxed, reaching for the boy’s mother and drawing her away. Sobbing helplessly, she turned into the man’s embrace.

  Tyler spared a moment to peer at Hannah over his shoulder. She was on her knees in the snow. Her eyes were closed and she had a beatific smile on her face. It took every ounce of resolve he possessed not to go to her. His heart pushed for him to stop what he was doing and take care of Hannah but his head told him the boy was in more immediate danger.

  He forced his attention to the gaping cavity and the turgid dark water below. He stared hard, willing himself to detect the child’s little body buried beneath the ice, but he saw nothing. His blood slurried through his veins and fear chilled his belly.

  “Tyler.”

  Looking up, he saw Hannah swaying on her feet a short distance away. From the expression on her face, it was clear she knew he was going in. She swallowed hard. He saw the word no in her eyes. Instead, she surprised him by saying, “Find him.”

  He nodded, then took a deep breath, prepared himself for a shock and plunged into the icy water.

  The sensation defied description. Every muscle in his body seemed to cramp in unison. He thought he screamed but it must have been only in his mind. His mouth was locked tight, his lungs frozen in stunned silence. His clothes weighted him like anchors, his world suddenly silent.

  Prying open his eyes, he forced his legs to tread water. He felt as if he were moving through a nightmare, frigid and viscous. Desolate. Dead. Rendered insensate by the freezing liquid.

  Nothing made sense any more. From the time Hannah Zachary had appeared in his emergency room, Tyler’s whole life had changed in unimaginable ways. His comfortable world of granite reason and steely logic was eroding around him and he was powerless to halt the degeneration.

  Mentally, Tyler shook himself. Get with the program. Hannah was depending on him, and so was the child and his mother.

  Where was that boy?

  He whipped his head first left, then right. His spirits rose when he caught a glimpse of red. Lunging through the water, he grabbed the parka, catching hold of the boy’s wrist.

  The child was unconscious. How long had it been? Tyler wondered, grateful for once that the water was so cold. Hypothermia gave him a fighting chance at survival. With the boy in tow, Tyler kicked toward the light that indicated the opening in the ice.

  He buoyed to the surface, lungs ready to burst. He gasped and sputtered. A paramedic reached for the boy. Two more men pulled Tyler from the hole. He lay on the ice, gasping like a fish. He heard a multitude of voices but they sounded far away.

  Talking noisily, people gathered around him. He could make out blue jeans and ski pants and woolen leggings, but overall his vision was blurred and he couldn’t see more than a few feet in front of him.

  His body jerked with shudders so severe they felt like grand mal seizures. His teeth slammed together. Someone threw a blanket over him. He tried to mutter, “Thanks,” but no sound came out.

  And then he felt soft hands on his face and he knew at once those hands belonged to Hannah.

  Wherever she touched him, his skin heated instantly and he experienced a calming sense of tranquillity. Gradually, his convulsions subsided.

  “The boy?” Somehow, he managed to push the short question past his stiff lips.

  “They’re giving him CPR.”

  Tyler winced, closed his eyes and prayed he had not been too late to save the child’s life.

  She had to remain composed. For Tyler’s sake. Those few minutes he had been under the ice had been the longest minutes of her existence. She had ripped off her gloves and chewed her nails to the quick. When the boy’s mother had asked if she was Tyler’s wife, she had nodded, too frightened to bother with the truth. She couldn’t have loved him more if she had been his wife.

  If he dies, she had thought, I’ll surely die, too. Because without Tyler, nothing was worth fighting for.

  She could not have begrudged him for what he had done, jumping into the frozen water to save the boy’s life. That’s the kind of man he was. Brave, strong, idealistic. His actions defined his personality. His courage was one of the many reasons she loved him. Tyler would always place the needs of others ahead of his own. He had been the only person in a crowd of three dozen or more who had been willing to risk himself to rescue the child.

  But when the paramedics had extracted his rigid, colorless body from the hole, Hannah had been certain he was dead. So certain she had burst into tears.

  Then she realized she possessed the power to resurrect him.

  I’m coming, my love.

  She had pushed through the crowd to where the paramedics had laid him on the ice and covered him with blankets, but when she tried to get close enough to lay her hands on him, they stopped her.

  “Step back, ma’am.”

  “But I’m his wife,” she said, surprised at how easily the lie came to her lips.

  They were magic words. The men stood aside and Hannah crouched beside Tyler.

  The minute she touched him, all fear vanished. She literally felt him grow stronger beneath her fingers. She closed her eyes and concentrated, no longer awed by her power but interested in learning how to use it to capacity.

  Her own energy drained until she was as lightheaded as someone who had donated two pints of blood in one afternoon. You could have stirred her knees with a spoon.

  Strange sensations were taking place in her body. Hannah didn’t understand what was happening. Odd as it sounded, she felt as if her very cells were collapsing, sucked dry of vital fluids and nutrients. But what did it mean?

  Can’t waste time thinking. Must help Tyler.

 
She was functioning on pure epinephrine and nothing else. She tasted the “fight or flight” hormone in the back of her throat, a bitter flavor like rancid coffee.

  “The boy?” Tyler said, his voice clear and firm. The color had returned to his cheeks and he was struggling to sit up.

  Hannah looked over to where the paramedics were still working frenetically on the small body laid out on a yellow fiberglass backboard. He was not responding to CPR. Hannah’s own heart fluttered in her chest like a dying butterfly.

  “Not good,” she answered.

  Tyler’s jaw clenched, anguish clearly etched across his handsome features. Love for him filled her, revived her. He was a very special man and she had been lucky to know him. But she could no longer cling to him. He could not save her. No one could save her. She knew that much. Her body was failing and in the short time she had left, Hannah was going to use her healing power to salvage that boy’s life.

  “You’re all right now,” she said. “I’m going to help them with the boy.”

  “Hannah, no.” He grabbed her wrist. “You’re fading fast, I can see it in your eyes. Let the paramedics do their job.”

  “It’s not working.”

  “Please.” His pleading almost broke her in two.

  “I have no choice. Just as you had no choice when you jumped in the water after the child. You’re a healer, that’s what you do. And now, I’m one, too.”

  “Then do your best,” he whispered.

  “I will.”

  He let go her hand and she ran over to the paramedics. “I’m a doctor,” she said, not bothering to explain that she was not a medical doctor. She knew basic life-support but that was not important. “May I relieve you?”

  She looked at the young paramedic doing compressions. He was tiring; she could see it in his flagging form. Hannah could only pray that she herself had the strength to take over.

  “Thank you,” he said, and moved aside as Hannah knelt at the boy’s chest, laid her palm against his sternum and turned her attention to the second paramedic positioned at the child’s head. He was squeezing an ambu bag, forcing air into lifeless lungs. He stopped a moment, checked the boy’s carotid pulse and shook his head.

  “Continue CPR.”

  Hannah pressed down on the boy’s frail chest about an inch with the heel of her hand and desperately willed the lifeless heart to start beating again.

  Come on, come on.

  Slowly, her palm heated and the customary tingling spread outward through her hand and fingers.

  “One, one-thousand. Two, one-thousand. Three, one-thou-sand,” she counted. On the count of five, the paramedic delivered air with the ambu bag.

  Hannah watched the child’s passive face. His tiny lips were blue, his wet hair plastered to his forehead. In the background she heard his mother helplessly sobbing.

  Please, don’t let this strange healing gift fail me now.

  But the boy did not respond.

  No. Impossible. She had healed that little girl, the boy’s mother and Tyler, twice. She could do this.

  Except she was exhausted. The tingling did not engulf her entire body as it usually did. She was wrung-out, empty. Her arm hung like loose string, lightweight and insubstantial. But she kept at it because there was nothing else she could do.

  A minute passed. Two. Three.

  Useless. The boy was dead.

  The crowd held its collective breath. All eyes were trained upon Hannah, but she paid no attention to anyone.

  She was a woman possessed. Her hair flew about her shoulders in wild disarray when she rocked forward, compressing the boy’s chest with the heel of her hand. She could feel the color drain from her face, knew her skin was deathly pale, her cheeks hollow and that dark circles must be ringing her eyes. Fatigued to the core of her being, she felt as if a sharp wind could slice her into two pieces.

  But undaunted, she kept working.

  And then, miraculously, just when she was about to give up, Hannah felt a stirring beneath her palm.

  A heart beat?

  She peered at the child’s face. His lashes fluttered.

  “We got a pulse!” the paramedic crowed triumphantly.

  A shout of joy went up from the crowd.

  The boy coughed up water and then began to cry.

  Trembling all over, Hannah rose to her feet.

  And collapsed.

  Trauma.

  Tyler knew the details intimately. Blood loss. Cardiac arrest. Shock. Systemic shut down. Rescuing others came as second nature to him. Correcting the tragedies brought about by illness, disease and accidents were part of his identity. He was trained to handle whatever emergencies life might throw his way.

  Except when it concerned those he loved.

  His eyes were trained on Hannah, watching her as she labored over the boy. He was worried for the child, yes, but he was worried about Hannah even more. He knew what effects each healing had upon her. Knew all too well that each might be her last.

  He lay shivering on the ground, barely able to breathe following his plunge into the icy water. Bystanders kept plying him with warm blankets and shoving mugs of hot coffee into his hands, but Tyler could not stop shaking.

  Get up. Hannah needs you.

  His mind prodded him to move, but his body refused to obey.

  Until he saw Hannah stagger to her feet and then fall face-first into the snow.

  In an instant, he was galvanized, leaping to his feet, tossing off the blankets, sprinting the few yards to where she lay surrounded by people. He shoved them aside.

  “Hannah!” He bent down and scooped her into his arms.

  She did not respond. Her head lolled back against his elbow. Her eyes were shuttered closed. Her deathly pallor and icy cold skin scared him. He needed to get her inside. Immediately.

  Tyler swiveled his head to the young man in the paramedic uniform who had helped Hannah perform CPR on the boy. The paramedic was ministering to the child who sat in his mother’s lap and cried against her shoulder.

  “You saved my boy’s life,” the grateful woman said. “You and your wife.”

  “Quick,” he said to the paramedic. “Where’s your clinic?”

  “I’ll take you,” said the ski resort worker who had passed out the shovels. His snowmobile was hitched to a cart parked nearby. He nodded at the contraption. “Get in.”

  Tyler climbed into the cart with Hannah still clutched securely in his arms while the mother and son got in beside them. He wanted to reassure the mother and tell her everything was going to be all right, but he was too preoccupied with Hannah. She hadn’t moved a muscle since her knees had buckled and she’d fallen onto the ground. He fixed his gaze on her chest, making sure she was breathing through the short ride to the resort’s small emergency clinic.

  He had a lot of work ahead of him, between examining the other avalanche victims and taking care of Hannah.

  Gently, he brushed her hair from her eyes and fought back the tears that stung his throat. Hang in there, sweetheart. Don’t leave me now.

  A nurse was waiting for them at the clinic. She ushered the mother and son to two cots set up in the corner while Tyler deposited Hannah on a third. The other four victims had already been brought in by rescue workers and were lying about the room on similar cots.

  “This guy’s a doctor,” the resort employee told the nurse.

  “Thank God,” the nurse breathed. “With Dr. Malix in Taos I wasn’t sure how we were going to handle all the casualties.”

  Tyler heard them speaking but his attention was concentrated on Hannah.

  “Doctor.” The nurse tapped him softly on the shoulder.

  “Yes?” Distracted, he turned to peer at her. She wore a name tag that said, Trisha Martin RN, and was giving him a set of green cotton scrubs to wear.

  “You’re soaked to the skin. Go put on some dry clothes before you catch your death. “

  The nurse was right but he hated to leave Hannah even for a single moment.
/>   “Go on,” she said, gently pushing him forward. “You can change in the men’s room around the corner.”

  Tyler cast a backward glance over his shoulder at Hannah. “Do you have a centrifuge here?”

  “Of course,” the nurse answered.

  “Spin a hematocrit on her, will you? She’s too pale.”

  “Will do, Doctor. Now go change. You’re going to need all your strength and concentration to get through this day.”

  Feeling dazed in a way he hadn’t experienced since Yvette had finally told him about her cancer, Tyler shuffled to the men’s room, his mind blank. Perfunctorily, he tugged off his wet clothes and slipped into dry comfortable scrubs.

  Hannah can’t be dying. Not now. Not yet. I never told her I love her.

  Then right there in the men’s room Tyler rested his forehead against the wall’s cool porcelain tile and allowed himself to cry in a way he had been unable to cry for Yvette. His shoulders shook and his stomach tightened, his heart breaking into a thousand little pieces.

  You can’t indulge your sorrow. There are people out there who need you. Hannah needs you. Pull yourself together. Swallowing his bitter tears, he swiped at his eyes with the back of his hand, then squared his shoulders and strode purposefully into the clinic, slipping into the role of physician like a second skin.

  “I’ve got the warming blanket on the boy,” Trisha Martin told him. “And I’m spinning a crit on your wife. Her BP is eighty-three over sixty and she’s bradycardic.”

  “Good job.”

  Tyler forced himself to examine the boy and his mother before allowing himself to check on Hannah. Once he ascertained that they were stable, he hurried over to Hannah’s cot. Unbidden, the memory of that moment in Saint Madeline’s E.R. when he had first laid eyes on her came flooding back. He wouldn’t have given two cents for her recovery then. She looked worse now.

  “Hang in there, sweetheart,” he soothed. “Everything is going to be all right.”

  But was it?

  “Are there any more victims?” Tyler asked the paramedic who had stayed behind to help them. It was the same young man who had done CPR on the boy.