A Heart Decision Read Online Free PDF Page A

you can return the favor and protect me.”
    “If that’s the case,” Ben muttered, “I don’t think
I’ll be letting that rag mop into our bedroom.”
    A deep wrinkle furrowed Luke’s forehead right before
a smile spread over his face as if he’d had a sudden, pleasing
revelation.
    If he had no romantic feelings for her, why did he
seem so happy she hadn’t slept with his friend?
    Ben shoved him in the shoulder. “What’re you looking
so smug about?”
    “Nothing. I’m just—”
    A loud squeal of skidding tires sliced the air a
split second before a child screamed. Luke catapulted from his
chair and sprinted toward the front of the house. Sabrina handed
the puppy to Mandy and dashed after him, her pulse pounding in her
ears.
    A tan minivan sat in the middle of the road. A
little girl lay sprawled on her back in the street. A portly,
gray-haired man bent over the child, his face twisted in
anguish.
    “When the wee lassie’s ball rolled out in front of
me, I did me best to stop,” the man explained in a thick Scottish
brogue.
    The smell of burnt rubber and the skid marks behind
the van testified to the fellow’s claim.
    “We understand, Mr. uhh....”
    “McKinnon. Innes McKinnon.”
    “Somebody get a blanket and call 911,” Luke
shouted
    “I feel terrible, the old man said. “I have a
granddaughter not much older than this sweet lassie.”
    “Accidents happen.” Luke scanned the people gathered
at the curb. “Where’s Sabrina?”
    She pushed her way through the crowd. “I’m right
here.” She dropped to her knees and pressed two fingers to the
child’s neck, holding her breath until she found a strong pulse.
She, then, pulled up the unconscious little girl’s eyelids. “Her
pupils are even, but at the very least, she probably has a
concussion.”
    Adam Chase knelt beside her. “Her labored breathing
suggests she may have a broken rib or a punctured lung.”
    Mr. McKinnon released a tortured groan.
    “Whose kid is she?” Luke hollered.
    Long russet waves streamed behind a woman who had
bolted out of the house across the street, sobbing. “Oh, my God,
Jillian! She’s mine. I’m Mary Cooper.”
    Luke held the woman back as she lunged for her
daughter. “No. We don’t want you to move her, Mrs. Cooper. I’m a
police officer,”—he gestured toward Adam and Sabrina—“and this
gentleman and lady are a doctor and a nurse.”
    “She’s only six. Please help her,” Mrs. Cooper
pleaded.
    Annie handed Luke a quilt. “I called for an
ambulance. The squad is out on another emergency, so they’re
scrambling a team from another town. It’ll be at least twenty
minutes before they get here.”
    “Oh, no.” The child’s mother wrung her hands. “We
could be at the hospital by then. Can’t we take her?”
    Luke looked at Adam. “What do you think, Doc?”
    “If we secure her to something flat, and I come with
you, I don’t see a problem.”
    “You can use Annie’s Navigator,” Tyler suggested. “I
took it to pick up a new lawnmower yesterday, and the rear seats
are still stowed.”
    “Good plan.” Luke covered Jillian and glanced over
at Tyler. “You got anything flat and rigid enough to use as a
backboard?”
    “How about one of the kids’ boogie boards?”
    Nodding, Luke barked out a string of orders, “Noah,
go get one of the boards. Annie, get me a bunch of dishtowels.
Tyler, find some duct tape.”
    “How can I help,” Ben asked.
    “Get Annie’s keys and pull the Navigator out of the
garage.”
    A silver-haired woman hurried down the sidewalk with
a portable canister of oxygen under her arm. “My husband has
emphysema. We thought this might help. It’s one of his spares.”
    “Thank you, ma’am, it will,” Adam told her.
    Sabrina took the tank from the woman and turned the
nozzle on before fitting the plastic tubing to the child’s face and
pressing it to her nose. By the time she finished, Noah had
returned with the Styrofoam raft.
    She silently prayed the