“Why did you?” Jett pushed her tray aside and focused on Tristan.

Maybe Tristan was just one of those curious people who befriended everyone casually. She’d known plenty of people like that in the Army, men and women alike. People who would talk to anyone about anything because they enjoyed social interaction, or they just liked the sound of their own voices. Jett had never been like that. She didn’t share what was important to her with anyone, because she didn’t trust anyone that much. She’d learned that lesson at a young age after her brothers scoffed at her dreams and her father tried to beat her into the shape he thought a woman should assume.

“I don’t know,” Tristan replied. “I mean, I want to know. I’m interested in you.”

Jett pushed her chair away from the table, gripped her tray, and stood up to leave. “I’m not that interesting.”

“You’re wrong about that, but I won’t argue,” Tristan said calmly. “I’m glad you know what’s in this stuff, because I’m not sure.”

Jett stopped and looked back. Tristan was pushing the food around on her plate with her fork. Her hand was shaking. Jett slid her tray onto an empty table nearby and sat back down across from Tristan. “I liked the Army because it gave me the one thing I wanted, and all I had to do in return was the job I signed up to do.”

“Just one thing?” Tristan regarded Jett intently. “All you wanted was one thing?”

Jett nodded.

“You love it, don’t you. Flying.”

Jett was so used to keeping what mattered to her to herself, she almost didn’t answer. But Tristan’s words echoed in her mind. I want to know you. She wasn’t certain that anyone had ever really wanted to know her before. “If I couldn’t fly I don’t think I’d want to do anything at all.”

“Yeah. I get that.” Tristan wondered if Jett had a woman in her life who she wanted with that much fervor. She tried to imagine what it would be like to be the focus of that kind of passion, to have all of someone’s energy poured into her. She’d had women want her because she was fun or sexy or wealthy. She’d had women beg her or tease her to touch them, to take them, to push them beyond their limits. But she couldn’t remember a single one who had begged to touch her. Hunger like she’d never known rose up inside her.

“You make me wish I were a helicopter.”

Jett laughed and after a few seconds Tristan joined her.

“Why?” Jett asked.

“You make flying sound like a love affair.”

“It’s nothing like that,” Jett said.

Tristan couldn’t miss the bitterness in Jett’s voice. Someone had hurt her, and the realization made her angry. In fact, so angry she was frightened by her own response. In defense, she intentionally changed the subject. “I guess you heard about the patient from last week. The governor’s daughter-in-law.”

“We got a call asking for records first thing this morning. I know she had some kind of problem.” Jett was relieved to get away from personal topics. Some things about civilian life were going to take some getting used to, and hearing lesbians talk openly about their love lives was one of them. Talking about romance with Tristan was way outside her comfort zone.

“I doubt it’s a secret. At least it won’t be for long.” Tristan leaned back in her chair and sighed. “A tooth turned up in her right main stem bronchus. They saw it on the x-ray after she had a respiratory arrest last night. It didn’t show up on earlier films because that part of the lung was collapsed.”

Jett hadn’t had any formal medical training, but she’d spent enough time with medics in and out of field hospitals to have picked up a lot of the terminology. “She swallowed…no, she aspirated a tooth in the accident?”

“That’s one explanation. The other popular theory is that I pushed it down into her lung when I intubated her in the field.”

“I imagine if you had, you’d have said so at the time.”

The iron band of tension that had been constricting Tristan’s head for the last eight hours dissipated as if someone had unlocked it with a key. She’d been reeling all day long from the thinly veiled accusation that she’d been hasty and reckless when she’d decided to intubate the patient at the scene under less than controlled conditions.

Having her professional competence called into question hurt. “Thanks. Unfortunately, not everyone agrees.”

Jett frowned. “Is it going to be a problem for you?”

“I don’t know. Maybe.”

“Is it okay for me to ask you that? I don’t want to compromise you.”

“So far, nothing official has happened,” Tristan said. “I don’t plan to discuss it with the other members of the medical team, because they’ll have to testify if it comes to legal action. You might be questioned too, but not about the medical circumstances.”

“She looked like she was in pretty bad shape when you brought her on board.”

“Major facial fractures and a lot of bleeding. Anyone familiar with that type of trauma knows you’ve got loose teeth all over the place. There was just so damn much blood.” Tristan grimaced. “I was worried she was going to choke to death on all that blood. Hell, sometimes it’s just a judgment call.”

“That’s why no one should question your actions without a damn good reason,” Jett said vehemently. “You’re the one on the line. You’re the one making the hard call. It has to be that way, and you should have the support of the hospital behind you.”

“You want to stand up in court and say that?” Tristan joked.

“I would if it would make any difference,” Jett said seriously.

“How do you know I’m worth taking a chance on?”

“You wouldn’t be here if you didn’t know what you were doing. And I think if you had a problem out there, you’d say so.” Jett shrugged.

“Is it me,” Tristan dared to ask, “or do you just believe in the system that much?” She wanted to believe it was her Jett believed in, wanted it so much it scared her. Her parents hadn’t believed her, or believed in her. And her sisters said they loved her but they didn’t want to love her the way she was—they wanted to change her into a person they understood. She’d stood up to them, but it had cost her. She hadn’t wished for anyone to really see her, to believe in her, in a very long time.

Jett collected her tray and stood up. Not that long ago she had believed that the chain of command was sacrosanct. Without order there was anarchy. And in the heat of battle, chaos meant death. She didn’t believe that any longer. She looked down into Tristan’s questioning eyes and saw vulnerability as well as pain. She didn’t even hesitate.

“It’s you.”

“Thanks,” Tristan whispered.

“Don’t mention it.” Jett started away, then turned back. Tristan was hurting, and she wanted to give her just a little of the comfort Tristan had unwittingly given her. “I never said thanks for coffee the other day. I—”

Jett’s beeper went off and a second later, so did Tristan’s.

“Shit,” they both said simultaneously.

“Take it easy tonight,” Tristan called after Jett, who had left her tray on the table and sprinted away. She caught Jett’s brief wave before she took off in the same direction, wondering what Jett might have said.

When Tristan arrived in the emergency room she discovered Quinn and the other trauma personnel resuscitating two young men, both of whom appeared to have multiple gunshot wounds. Penetrating chest and abdominal injuries. Even as she called, “What do we have,” she saw the long night ahead of her in the operating room.

“This one,” Quinn said, indicating a patient in whom she had just finished inserting a chest tube, “needs to go upstairs right away. Probable punctured lung. Maybe great vessel injury.”

Tristan hurriedly assessed the breath sounds. “Portable chest x-ray?”

“It’s hanging.”

Quickly surveying the radiograph, she saw that the right lung was nearly white. Most likely filled with blood. “O2 SATs?”

“Just getting them,” one of the nurses called. “Seventy on sixty percent O2 and a rebreathing mask.”

“Hell,” Tristan muttered. “Let’s get a tube in him.”

Another one of the nurses grabbed a suction catheter and cleared blood and fluid from the patient’s mouth. For just a second, Tristan hesitated, thinking of the governor’s daughter-in-law. So much blood. Maybe she should have waited. Maybe she had been hasty.

“His pressure’s dropping,” a nurse reported.

Tristan glanced at the oxygen readout. Sixty-five. She pushed her way around to the head of the table and grabbed a laryngoscope. “Give me a number eight tube.”

In less than a minute she had inserted the tube into the trachea and was pumping in a hundred percent oxygen. The patient’s blood pressure stabilized immediately.

“His SATs are coming up,” the nurse said.

“Nice, Tris,” Quinn said.

Tristan lifted her shoulder. She had only done her job, just like everyone else in the room. With the patient secured, the tension level in the room plummeted. “So, Quinn, they finally made you come back to work, huh?”

“Honor went home today. I don’t have any more excuses.”

“How’s she doing?” Tristan taped the endotracheal tube to the patient’s face to prevent it from being dislodged during transport.

Quinn nodded, a fleeting expression of discomfort crossing her face. “Honor insisted she was ready days ago, but with the blood loss… she’s still pretty weak.”

“Jack go home too?”

“Everybody.”

“No wonder you wanted to work.”

One of the nurses poked Tristan in the arm. “Some people actually like family life.”

Tristan rolled her eyes. “Sorry.”

Quinn slid her a grin as she secured the dressing around the chest tube. “Don’t forget practice this weekend.”

“I’ll be there.”

“Coming to the party at Linda’s?” another nurse asked. “Linda invited all of us.”

“Planning on it,” Tristan muttered. She hadn’t called anyone for a date yet, although she’d thought of it several times. She wasn’t sure why she was waiting.

“Okay, that’s it,” Quinn said, stepping away from the table, all business again. “Let’s get him upstairs. The other one is waiting on vascular unless something changes. Any problems, call me.”

Tristan secured her tubes and the oxygen tank, one hand stabilizing the patient’s head as she pushed the stretcher toward the elevator. Just as she, Quinn, and a nurse crowded on, the trauma beeper went off again.

The second-call anesthesiologist was waiting in front of the elevators opposite the OR when the doors opened. “Healthstar’s on its way in with a level one,” he said to Tristan. “You want me to take it?”

“No. You take this one. I’ll get the incoming.” Tristan handed off the patient and caught the elevator doors just as they were closing. She jumped in.

When she reached the roof, the helicopter hadn’t yet landed, but several nurses and the trauma fellow were already there. Tristan stepped a little bit away from them as they chatted while waiting and watching the sky. As the helicopter settled onto the landing pad, the turbulence from the rotors and the glare of the bright landing lights brought tears to her eyes, but she stared through the sheen of moisture, hoping for a glimpse of Jett at the controls. As soon as the skids touched down, the trauma team rushed forward and she went with them.

Tristan was almost to the aircraft when the cockpit door swung open and Jett jumped out. She had a brief glimpse of Jett pulling off her helmet and rifling a hand through her hair. Their eyes met and Jett smiled. Tristan had only a second before the medevac crew delivered the patient. Even though her attention was elsewhere, she held on to the smile as if it were a gift. Just before she stepped into the elevator, she looked back. Jett still stood on the rooftop, a solitary figure backlit against the night sky, watching her.

Even though Tristan knew it was crazy, she felt as if Jett had reached out and touched her. Hell, she definitely needed a date, because she was starting to imagine things. Jett hadn’t shown any indication of interest, and even if she had, she definitely wasn’t Tristan’s type. Nothing about her suggested she did anything casually. Of course, that was exactly what made her so intriguing. Despite the almost overwhelming urge to stop and look back again, Tristan forced herself into the elevator. She had a patient to take care of, and she didn’t need any complications in her life. Everything was going along exactly the way she wanted it to go. Smooth, easy, and no strings attached. Just the way she wanted.

Chapter Nine

When Quinn let herself into the house shortly after eight the next morning, she was greeted by silence. She was used to coming home after twenty-four hours on call to find Arly’s grandmother, Phyllis, busy in the kitchen making breakfast or getting Arly ready for school. In the summer when there was no school, Phyllis supervised Arly after Honor left for her shift in the ER until Quinn returned home from night call. And since Quinn would usually have been up all night operating, Phyllis often took Arly out somewhere while Quinn slept.