Waiting... On You (Force Recon Marines) Read Online Free PDF Page B

wanted to lose his friendship, but
she had always hoped that one day he would see her as more than a lifelong
friend.
    Sometimes Hanna wondered if she’d
still be waiting for Nick Kelly when she was old and gray. No one had ever come
close to replacing him in her heart. She had always been helplessly and
hopelessly in love with him, and she probably would be until the day she died.
    Now, he was coming home again, after
being gone three long years. Colleen had told her that his commander had given
him all the leave he needed to assist his family in finding his brother. Hanna
was elated and yet scared to death. No doubt, they’d be seeing a lot of each
other as they worked to discover what had happened to Dylan and Lance. Her life
was in an upheaval as it was, and Nick Kelly’s extended visit was undoubtedly
going to bring even more chaos.

 
    CHAPTER 3
     
    “THAT WAS A NICE PIECE OF EMERGENCY
SURGERY, DR. WALLACE.”
    Rick Penman was a resident physician
who frequently assisted Hanna in surgery. As they stood side by side at the
sink, removing their surgical gloves, then washing their hands, his compliment
made her smile self-consciously. A blush heated her face. Compliments always
made her feel awkward, but one of her teachers at medical school, a favorite,
had told her once just to be gracious and say thank you, so she did.
    “I was afraid he’d lost too much blood
from that leg laceration. That was a bad car accident out on Highway 20. The
cops were saying the guy who caused it was high on something,” Dr. Penman told
her.
    Hanna shook her head as she left the
operating room with the young doctor. “I heard he was hardly injured.”
    “Just a few scratches. The triage
nurse patched him up before the arresting officer took him over to the police
station for booking.”
    “The young man we operated on was
lucky. If he’d been older all that blood loss probably would have killed him.
He should be fine, eventually.”
    She’d had to stop the rapid and heavy
blood loss from a deep wound to the man’s right leg. In addition, he’d suffered
broken bones in the both legs when he’d gotten trapped in his demolished car.
The firemen at the scene had used the Jaws of Life to extricate him from his
totaled vehicle.
    One thing she saw a lot of in the
emergency room at George Vancouver County General Hospital was car accident
victims, especially during tourist season. Too many were caused by intoxicated
drivers, drunk, or lately, high on drugs. Port George was a community of around
9,000, so they hadn’t had much of a drug problem, until recently. And it wasn’t
just pot or amphetamines or barbiturates. They were seeing more and more cases
of cocaine overdoses in ER, even heroin occasionally.
    “Are you done for the day?”
    Hanna glanced at her watch. “Yes,
barring any more accident victims coming through those doors before I get out
of here.”
    It was Friday night, and she was
anxious to get home; to take a long hot bath and curl up with a good book.
She’d worked twelve-hour days all week. But she had the weekend off. Then she
had only one more week until her two week vacation. Besides being the chief
trauma surgeon at the hospital, she was head of ER, though you’d never know it
by her arduous work routine. No perks for her.
    But she loved her job, and she loved
the emergency room. People needed a good doctor when they came into the ER. She
felt like she was doing something important, not just making money. She hadn’t
gone into medicine to make money. She’d wanted to make a real difference; to
help people. And she loved the nonstop energy of the emergency room. It kept her
sharp and on her toes. You had to assess quickly and correctly in emergency
situations. George Vancouver County General wasn’t as fast paced or as
challenging as Harbor View Medical Center in Seattle had been, but she had more
responsibility as head of ER, so it made up for the slower pace.
    Though she certainly needed the rest,
her