Disguised Blessing Read Online Free PDF

rocked. Catherine heard voices and felt someone take her arms and lift her onto the dock where a man wearing a firefighter’s helmet and yellow canvas jacket questioned her,quietly but persistently. She answered automatically, giving names and addresses by rote.
    She stopped listening when she heard Lynda scream. The sound cut through Catherine like acid through cloth, leaving a jagged, gaping hole that terror rushed to fill.
    “Be careful,” she begged them. “Please…be careful.”
    “Why don’t you come to the house with me?” the man with the clipboard said. “They’re going to take her out of the boat in a minute and we’ll just be in the way.”
    What was wrong with him? How could he even suggest such a thing? What if Lynda wanted her and she wasn’t there? “I can’t leave.” She looked past him to her daughter. “She might need me.”
    “Is there someone who can drive you to the hospital?”
    “My fiancé.” She looked for Tom. He should have been easy to spot in the hushed, anxious crowd standing around the house, but she couldn’t see him. “Which hospital?”
    “Barton Memorial. They’ll want to stabilize her there before lifeflight takes her to Sacramento.”
    “Lifeflight?” The word hit like a fist. Lifeflight was something they talked about on the news, a last-ditch effort to save someone grievously injured in an accident. How could it have anything to do with her daughter? Frantic, Catherine searched the faces of the men taking Lynda from the boat, looking for a sign that they believed their job hopeless.
    “I’m sorry—I didn’t mean to scare you. Lifeflight is what we use to transport people who need more care than we can give them. Your daughter needs to be in a burn unit and we don’t have one here.”
    “What about Reno? Isn’t it closer?”
    “By air, it’s about the same.” He guided her out of the way of the arriving rescue workers. “Besides, there’s that new Shriner’s hospital in Sacramento.”
    Lynda screamed again when she was taken from the boat and placed on the gurney. “They’re putting her on her back—that’s where she was burned. Someone should tell—”
    “As soon as the morphine takes effect, she won’t feel the pain.”
    “But what about her back? Shouldn’t they—”
    “They have to keep her airway open and they can’t do it if she’s on her stomach.”
    “Her airway?”
    “It’s just a precaution.”
    Two firefighters stood at each end of the gurney and guided it off the dock and up the hill. Lynda rolled her head from side to side, looking for a familiar face. “Mommy? Where are you?”
    Catherine ran after them, calling, “I’m right here.” She made it to Lynda’s side and reached for her hand. “I’m coming with you.” She looked to one of the men in white for confirmation.
    “Are you the mother?”
    “Yes.”
    “You’ll have to ride in the front—and there’s only room for one.”
    Again, Catherine looked for Tom. She found him standing on the porch talking to a firefighter. “I’ll be right back,” she told Lynda. To the man in white she said, “Don’t leave without me.”
    She ran to Tom and grabbed his arm to get his attention. “I’m going to the hospital with Lynda. Get my purse and meet me there with the car.”
    “Now?” He glanced around at the assembled people as if he were the host of a party and couldn’t leave.
    “Yes— now.” Instantly she went from being furious to contrite. He had no way of knowing Lynda was being flown to Sacramento and that they had to drive there to meet her. “Don’t forget my purse,” she said in a conciliatory tone. “I’ll need the insurance card.”
    “How do I get to the hospital?”
    The question dumbfounded her. Tom was a takecharge person. A man who gave orders, not took them. “I don’t know. Ask someone.”
    He said something more, but she was halfway to the ambulance and couldn’t hear him over the sound of the engine. She had her hand on the