Desert Heat Read Online Free PDF Page B

foothills.
    “We’d better hurry,” Walter McFadden urged. “Come on.”
    Together they made their way to his 4 x 4 which was parked just off the road with its light bar still flashing. Once they reached it, McFadden helped her inside before racing around to open his own door.
    “You talked to the medics,” she said quietly as the pickup lurched into reverse and circled back onto the roadway. “What did they say?”
    “Lots of internal damage,” McFadden re-plied, pressing the gas pedal all the way to the floor.
    “Is he going to make it?” Joanna asked.
    “They don’t know. Nobody does. Like I told your daughter, they’ve called for a helicopter to meet them in Bisbee. They’ve managed to stabilize him enough to move him. That’s a good sign. I told them I’d take you directly to University Medical Center.”
    “Shouldn’t we stop in Bisbee for me to sign surgical releases.”
    McFadden shook his head. “Not necessary. When somebody’s hurt this bad, they don’t wait for releases.”
    “Can’t I go along in the helicopter? Wouldn’t that be faster?”
    McFadden shook his head. “It might be faster, but with the EMTs along there’s not enough room. Don’t worry, Joanna. They may beat us to the hospital, but it won’t be by much.”
    With siren blaring, they roared past the newly opened county jail, up Highway 80, around the traffic circle, and on through town. Joanna glanced at the speedometer. They were doing sixty-five when they rounded the long, flat curve by the open-pit mine, and the needle hit seventy as they headed up the long straightaway. After that, she gripped the arm-rest and avoided looking at the dashboard. She knew they were going fast. She didn’t need to know any more than that.
    Once through town the nighttime desert swept by outside the windows, washed by the alternating red and blue flashes from the light bar overhead. Joanna ignored the intermittent crackle of voices on McFadden’s two-way radio. She heard only the jumble of unanswerable questions roaring in her head. Would Andy live or not, and if he did, would he be all right? What would she do if he died? What would she do if he didn’t quite die but if he couldn’t ever go back to work, either?
    With help from the bank they were buying the High Lonesome Ranch from Andy’s parents, Jim Bob and Eva Lou Brady, who had moved into a small two bedroom house in Bisbee proper. Joanna knew full well that it took all of Andy’s and Joanna’s joint efforts to keep things afloat. The monthly payments they made on the ranch constituted a major portion of the elder Bradys’ retirement income. What would happen to them if Joanna and Andy could no longer keep up the payments? Joanna squeezed her eyes shut and refused to think about it anymore.
    “Somebody told me that today was your anniversary,” Walter McFadden was saying.
    Joanna nodded. “We had a date. We were supposed to have dinner and spend the night at the Copper Queen. In fact, my suitcase is all packed. It’s right by the kitchen door. Maybe you could have someone bring it to Tucson for me in the morning.”
    “Sure thing,” McFadden answered. “Glad to do it.” For a moment there was silence in the speeding truck before Walter McFadden asked, “How many years?”
    Joanna’s thoughts had strayed, and it took a few seconds before she answered. “Ten.”
    “You kids eloped, as I recall,” McFadden continued. “Made Eleanor mad as all get out.”
    It still does, Joanna could have added, but she didn’t. Her mother had never liked Andy to begin with, and when she had learned he was interested in law enforcement, Eleanor Lathrop had predicted this very kind of outcome.
    “If you let him become a policeman,” Eleanor had warned, “you’ll end up raising Jennifer alone, the same way I had to raise you.” Remembering her mother’s dire prophecy, Joanna’s fingers tightened around the armrest.
    Again Joanna and Walter McFadden fell silent. Several miles sped