Hearts to Heal

Chapter 1

Chapter 1Bonnie sensed herself falling. No amount of scrambling was going to change anything. After she lost her balance, her left foot flew out in front of her. As rocks rolled, her right foot twisted so all her weight came down on the bent ankle.

Crack. Crack.

Two distinct sounds, like breaking sticks across her knee. As detached as a casual spectator, she absorbed the import of those sounds. No one needed to tell her what had happened—she’d broken her lower leg, both bones.

Crack. Crack.

I don’t believe this. She shifted enough to pull her crumpled right leg out from under her butt, stretching it in front of her. As the foot flopped sideways, pain lanced up her leg. She set her teeth and willed away the engulfing black, fought down the sour nausea burning her throat.

Bending and reaching, she straightened her foot, then held it in place with both hands. When the pain eased, she looked around, not sure what she sought. Maybe just to take stock of the situation.

The spring sun poured gentle heat on her back, but that would vanish as soon as the sun set in a few short hours. Here at some eight thousand feet above sea level, nights were cold, even in late April. From the scrubby oak and juniper trees around her, the cheery chirps of sparrows sounded ironically peaceful.

She’d ended up in the bottom of a hollow where a bulldozer had once cut along the side of the hill. Dust raised by her fall settled, leaving a musty, acrid scent in her nostrils. Her seat on a jumble of rocks, most of them sharp-edged, added to her discomfort.

Question was, could she move? No question. To be found, she had to move.

Crawling proved the easiest, least painful way. She eased onto her knees and then shifted first the left leg forward, next the right. It hurt. Some, but not intolerably. She inched along for ten feet or so until she found a flat rock that made a better seat. Bracing her left foot against another rock, she rested a few minutes. She forced herself to breathe in a deep, even rhythm to regain a degree of calm.

Below her perch, a litter of sticks lay scattered down-slope, the residue from a dead manzanita bush. Practicality set in. If she could immobilize the injury, moving wouldn’t hurt nearly so much. She tore one strap off her day pack, ripped her bandana in two, and added her belt to the collection of ties with which to bind several of the straighter, stronger sticks around her ankle and foot.

The resulting splint looked and felt clumsy, far from the neat job she normally did as an Emergency Medical Technician. Usually, she had better materials to work with, though, and didn’t have to pretzel herself around to splint her own leg.

Huffing out a last deep breath, she shook her head in rueful acknowledgment. Dumb, Bonnie—hiking alone. You know better. How are you going to get yourself out of this?

She had an excuse, but excuses were like belly buttons—everybody had one. Mostly it was about Papa. Putting him in that so-called home hurt worse than her leg, but she couldn’t leave him alone at home anymore. He didn’t even recognize her much of the time now or recall his own name. His worsening illness seemed to steal her ambition, almost her main reason for living.

Today, the pressure of that gnawing anguish had driven her out of the little house they’d shared for the past thirteen years. It chased her up onto the rocky slopes above Rio Vista, Arizona and finally drove her to seek relief in the freedom of the open air, the exhaustion of a brisk climb. Who’d guess she’d fall, breaking bones? Now her first worry was how to get out of here.

She stretched the splinted leg in front of her as she looked off into the distance. Past the straggling bushes around her, the view held a blue expanse of sky lightly dotted with a few small clouds and rimmed with a jagged line of darker blue mountains.

“The land of room enough and time enough.” She’d read that once in an old magazine, years ago, and the phrase had stuck in her mind. Arizona was like that, lots of space, lots of time. Now too much space and maybe too much time. How long before she could reach the road, before anyone would come along?

The road, such as it was, couldn’t be more than a couple hundred yards below her. She hadn’t climbed that far. Yet assuming she could get back down there, would anyone come by? At midweek, students from Southern Arizona University and soldiers from Fort Cochise were not out in droves as they would be on a weekend.

Even if she could reach the road and her car, there was no way she could drive the ten-year-old SUV down the mountain. The vehicle had a stick shift and a stiff clutch. She couldn’t manage both brake and clutch with her left foot, let alone the gas pedal, too. She fought the tendency to panic. One task at a time. The first thing is to reach the road.

Attaining that goal took her two long, exhausting and painful hours. She scooted some, crawled and wriggled, even tried to hop—bad idea. In her downhill struggle, she tried everything but walking. That she could not even begin to do.

She finally got to the road, dirty, scratched and shaking from exhaustion and shock. She took her canteen out of her dangling day pack and drank deeply. Her tendency to tremble served as a reminder her blood sugar was probably getting low. She hadn’t eaten all day. Digging in the pack, she found a couple of granola bars. They tasted stale. She didn’t try to guess how long they’d been there, but it was food and after eating, she told herself she felt better.

There was a CB radio in her old Blazer, but the vehicle sat parked a quarter mile or so away, at the official trail head. She couldn’t go that much farther. In fact, she’d reached the end of her endurance, right here, right now. No more going at all.

The left knee of her jeans had worn through, the skin inside the tattered denim scraped raw and sore. The other knee was little better. Her injured ankle felt tub-sized, swelling inside her old Army boot and the makeshift splint. The broken bones throbbed dully in rhythm with her heartbeat.

What next? Nobody knew where she was. Most of her partners on the second shift of the Rio Vista Fire Department Station Two Ambulance Squad were not off duty today. Since she hadn’t planned this expedition, she hadn’t told a soul where she was going. For all anyone knew, she was either home or at Peaceful Manor with her dad. In her haste to get away, she’d left her work cell phone at home. Reception was iffy in the mountains anyway.

She fought another wave of nausea, reminding herself again to stay calm. There had to be a solution to her problem if she could just think things through. Pondering the possibilities, she didn’t recognize the sound at first—a dull, low, growl that came and went.

Finally, she did. A vehicle was coming up the steep, winding road to the Copper Countess Mine and the head of the Crest Trail of the Platina Mountains. In no more than five minutes, although it seemed like an hour, an old pickup truck came in view.

A weak wave of relief swept over her followed by a twinge of concern. She was in no shape to defend herself if the driver proved unfriendly—or too friendly. She muttered a swift prayer that neither would prove true.

Even after she saw the vehicle, it seemed to take forever to reach her. She’d perched on the side of the road, her good leg dangling into the roadside drainage ditch and her injured one propped against a ragged chunk of wood. The short log had seemed out of place, probably dropped by one of the professional woodcutters who harvested oak and juniper to feed stoves and upscale fireplaces in town, but she’d been glad to find it as a rest for her damaged leg.

The truck, driven by a grizzled man wearing a jean jacket and a battered gray cowboy hat, pulled up beside her and stopped.

“Howdy, missy. You got a problem?”

She nodded, forcing a wry grin. “Sure do. I was hiking up above here. Some rocks rolled out from under me, and I fell. I broke my leg, right at the ankle.”

“You up here all by your lonesome?” The man looked shocked, surprised. “How’d you get from where you fell to here?”

“I crawled and scooted and stuff…knew I had to get to the road. Nobody would find me up there, at least not before they saw the vultures.”

A subtle hint of admiration softened the old man’s weathered face. “Well, reckon we better get you down to the hospital. Let me go turn around. I’ll be right back.”

The road down was so rough and twisting. Even the best driver could not avoid some very heavy jostling on the route. Bonnie held the armrest tightly and braced her left foot, keeping most of the shock off the injured leg.

I’m just feeling pressure, not pain. She made the words a silent mantra. I can handle this.

* * * *

The whole emergency room crew at Rio Vista Hospital knew Bonnie. Ann Flannigan, the charge nurse, was even one of the instructors in the Nurse Practitioner program at Rio Vista Community College. Ann came into the cubicle where the orderly had wheeled Bonnie’s chair. The tall redhead stopped, hands on hips, shaking her head.

“What have you gone and done now, Bonita Verdugo? I never expected to see you in here as a patient, for Pete’s sake!”

“I hadn’t planned on it, myself,” Bonnie admitted. “I guess I pulled a dumb stunt, if you want the truth.” She quickly described her accident.

“Well, Dr. Bertini will be around in a few minutes to take a look. Meanwhile, let’s get you down to x-ray so he can see what kind of damage you’ve done.”

Dr. Bertini. Bonnie’s insides clenched at the name. Oh, he was a good doctor—the best orthopedic and sports medicine doctor in the region—but he had an attitude that wouldn’t quit. She hated every bone in his calendar-worthy body.

What had he done to earn everything he had and which she lacked? Especially the wealthy family that made medical school an option instead of an impossible dream. Everyone said he was a skirt-chasing playboy, so he couldn’t possibly deserve all he had and apparently took for granted.

She’d done her shifts here in the ER during training, both for the EMT credentials and now as part of her nursing courses. Naturally, she’d encountered Dr. Bertini more than a time or two. Maybe the rest of the nursing students went gaga over his great bod, movie-star face and tidy bankroll, but not Bonnie Verdugo! She didn’t knuckle under to his arrogant, demanding manner, either. Seeing her helpless like this, he was bound to razz her, and she’d hate every minute of it.

* * * *

Dr. Jerry Bertini shuffled out of the operating room, shedding his mask and gloves. Five major surgeries in nine hours, starting at eight this morning. Two legs, one hip, one elbow and one arm smashed into splinters. Why couldn’t people learn to keep their bones in one piece? If they ever did, he’d be out of work, but there was little danger of that. Between the crazy scrapes the college kids and GIs got into, the auto crashes, and the normal childhood mishaps, he could clone himself twice and still be busy.

In the doctor’s lounge, he shoved quarters into the soda machine, grabbed the cold can that clattered down, and sank onto the closest of the sagging chairs. He dozed off before he finished the cola, only to be startled awake by the intercom. Hearing his name, he had a hunch it wasn’t the first time he’d been paged. Oh s**t, another one.

By the time he reached the ER, he was wide awake again. He finished the lukewarm soda and chucked the can. Ann Flannigan had the x-rays ready for him, already clipped on the light box. She was a good nurse, not like many of the giddy young girls, too immature and irresponsible for their profession.

He studied the film for a few seconds. Nasty break. Tibia and femur both, almost in a line, angling upward from the outside, just above the ankle. The ends of both bones were pushed down, distorting the muscle and over-stretching the ligaments and tendons. Surgical reduction. No other option, really. He crossed the hall to the cubicle where this as-yet-nameless patient waited.

He recognized her at once—Bonnie Verdugo, the prickly, opinionated little Latina EMT. She looked up as he swept through the curtained door, chocolate-flecked hazel eyes sparking defiance. Beneath her dusky tan, she was pale, stress and tension visible in the tightness of her lips, the pinched look to her nostrils. All considered, though, she was dealing well with the shock and pain. They had her on an IV already. Good.

Enjoying the unusual chance to have this particular woman at a disadvantage, he folded his arms and observed her for a silent moment. Of all the female EMTs and student nurses he worked with, she was the only one he could not reduce to tears or simpering giggles with a few choice words. Now, he couldn’t resist a jibe.

“Well, if it isn’t Ms. Super-EMT herself. How does it feel to be the victim?”

“Like a bad day at work. I wouldn’t be here if I had a choice.”

Her husky voice held the same go-to-hell independence that blazed in her eyes. Fidgeting in the wheelchair, she twisted the end of her long braid. Only the slight tremor of her hand revealed her anxiety.

He snorted. “Just like jail, ninety percent of the people end up here due to their own stupidity. Unless some old lady ran you down with her wheelchair, I’d bet you’re in the same boat.”

“Hiking accident,” she ground out. “I slid about eight feet and lit on my bent ankle. A nasty break, isn’t it?”

He nodded. “Nasty, but fixable. I’ve got to do an open reduction—put some hardware in there to hold everything in place while the bones heal.”

She huffed out a breath, looking everywhere but directly at him. “My insurance ought to cover that. They don’t make exclusions for stupidity, last I heard, or clumsiness. I just want to be back on both my feet as soon as I can.”

“Be a walk in the park. You’ll be hiking again in no time.” He glanced at his watch. “When did you last eat?”

She looked up at the clock on the wall and mentally counted. “About 2:30, two granola bars up on Platina Ridge. Almost five hours now.”

“Okay. I’ll go set up so we can get that surgery done this evening.”

Jerry turned from the room, feeling her gaze boring holes in his back all the way down the corridor. That’s one tough little lady. Got a chip on her shoulder bigger than New Jersey, but a lot of gumption in a small package. Make that a small, easy-to-look-at package.

Dirty and hurt, bundled in one of those ridiculous floppy gowns, she was still all woman. Hardly bigger than a half-grown kid, but there was nothing childlike about her. He’d heard she had to fight for everything she had, too. Well, there were worse ways to get there, and it certainly made a person value what he achieved.

His own progress hadn’t always been easy, but he wouldn’t trade his M.D. for the top post in Grandpa Bertini’s Boston law firm. And he could never have reached the pinnacle until the old man, Dad and brother Joe were all gone, even if he had chosen a legal career. Medicine was better, anyway.

Here, every case was a special challenge—to undo the damage and make someone whole again. He was never too tired to feel a thrill when he accomplished it. No, he’d made the right choice, maybe for the wrong reasons, but still the right choice.

* * * *

Bonnie was already under anesthesia by the time he prepped and went into the OR to do his job. On the table she hardly raised a ridge under the blankets, folded back from her leg to bare it from the knee down.

His weariness fell away as he took the scalpel and made the first cut. With the oxygen mask hiding most of her face, with her tough mouth silent and her busy form still, he could forget who he worked on. There were only flesh and bone to be repaired, tasks his hands knew with total, intimate familiarity. He bent to the work, tiredness, sassy women and all else forgotten.

The surgery took just over an hour. This time, when he left the OR, he left the hospital. He prayed he wouldn’t get called back tonight. Exhaustion had caught up with him again. He drove home slowly, grateful the car almost knew the way by itself.

* * * *

Bonnie came awake all at once, cotton in her mouth and hunger gnawing at her stomach. Struggling to sit up, she found she could before the recovery room nurse gently pushed her back.

“Take it easy. You’re still a little foggy. Bet you’d like a drink.”

Bonnie nodded, finding her mouth stiff and clumsy, words refusing to shape themselves. The first few sips of citrus soda tasted like elixir of the gods. She wanted more. Within a few minutes, the nurse wheeled her out of recovery and down to a semi-private room on the floor.

She ate a dry, tasteless sandwich and polished off a second soda before she settled down for the night. There was too much noise and light and bustle to sleep very well, but she napped in snatches until morning.

Now her main desire was to get out of here, to get home and be left in peace.

Hospitals are no place to be when you’re sick. Bonnie really understood that old saw now. The atmosphere was anything but restful.

By midday, her nerves were frayed to threads. The therapist had been in and showed her how to use the walker. She’d been back and forth from bed to the bathroom twice and found she could handle things. When an aide brought in her lunch, she asked the only question on her mind.

“When can I get out of here?”

“Dr. Bertini makes his rounds right after lunch,” the aide said. “If he agrees, I expect you can leave this afternoon.”

“Gracias a Dios! This place wears me out.”

The aide grinned. “Not much fun, huh?”

Bonnie mumbled a curse. “No fun at all!”

When Dr. Bertini arrived, he all but ignored her. He glanced at her chart, spoke briefly to the nurse and left before Bonnie could question him. She fumed. Who did he think he was, treating her like a piece of furniture? Por los Santos! I’m his patient, Don’t I even rate a, How are you feeling today?

The nurse, one Bonnie did not know, turned back to her, teeth bared in a patently false smile. “Well, are we all ready to go home?”

Her cheery kindergarten teachers’ manner grated. Bonnie struggled to respond civilly—not easy. Being nearly helpless made her feel insecure, on top of which she was thoroughly uncomfortable. She wanted a shower, which she couldn’t have, some real clothes, and something other than tasteless hospital food.

“I woke up ready,” she grumbled. “The sooner the better.”

They started on the paperwork. There seemed to be enough to fill at least one drawer in a file cabinet. Bonnie answered the questions. She was not allowed to write herself, but had to wait while the nurse took everything down. At this rate, she’d be here until midnight.

“And who’s going to come get you?”

“I’ll have to call a cab. My car’s up on the Platinas. Aye de mi, I’d better call over to the station and have someone go get it before the Forest Service has it impounded.”

“There is someone at home, though?”

If she’d thought fast, she would have lied, but perhaps the painkillers had dulled her wits. “No, I live alone.”

“Well, is there someone you can call? Someone to come stay for a couple of weeks?”

Bonnie shook her head, a sick feeling building inside.

“We can’t release you until proper arrangements are made. You’ll either have to go to a convalescent home or have someone with you at all times. At least until you get the regular cast. We have a list of people who work as live-in caregivers. We can call someone for you and make the initial arrangements.”

“No way! I won’t have some stranger in my house. I can manage.”

“We can’t allow that. Hospital policy says—”

“Shove hospital policy! I want to go home!”

Immoveable object and irresistible force, head to head. The nurse was not about to give in, and neither was Bonnie. Another aide came to the door, peered in cautiously, wide-eyed anxiety painting her face.

“Is something the matter? They can hear you clear down at the nurses’ station.”

The nurse let out a sharp, exasperated sigh. “If he’s still on the floor, go get Dr. Bertini. Maybe he can convince Ms. Verdugo she’s in no condition to go home alone.”