Her Hometown Hero(2)

The Montana road was familiar, but Sage Banks was tense as she drove for  endless miles without passing a single vehicle. In the spring, summer,  and fall, the area was usually spectacular and welcoming, with the wheat  blowing in the wind, birds singing their magical melodies, and farmers  smiling with a polite nod as you passed by.

It was night, however, and she was caught in the middle of a summer  storm, making visibility basically zilch. The rain slashed across her  window and the wind pushed her car around like a toy.                       
       
           



       

The blacktop looked treacherous. Thick puddles of water from the  unexpected June storm formed small lakes on the asphalt. Sage kept her  foot light on the gas pedal and her fingers clutched the steering wheel  like a vise.

"Perfect. Just perfect," she muttered as the car hydroplaned for a heart-stopping second before straightening out again.

She hated driving in this kind of weather, hated that it reminded her  every single time of the loss of her parents and her grandfather, who  had lost their lives too soon when their vehicle had slid off the road  into the river.

She couldn't think about that right now, couldn't focus on something  that would make her tear up, make her visibility even worse than it was.  No. It was better to think about the fact that she was driving here in  the first place.

She hadn't wanted to accept what in her book counted as failure-to come  back to the place she'd worked hard to move away from. She'd won a big  scholarship, worked her tail off, and made it through medical school.  Residency was her time to shine, but it was really hard to shine at a  place where everyone had known you since you were a little girl.

Her boss, Dr. Thompson, was going to be the man who'd bandaged her knee  when she took a tumble down Rice Hill, stitched her up when she fell off  her bike, bruising her ego far more than her body, and seen her when,  embarrassment of embarrassments, she needed her first "young woman"  appointment. He had to be a hundred years old by now.

It just wasn't fair.

Even to herself she sounded like a petulant child, but . . . She shook  her head to change her focus. This topic wasn't any better to think  about. First she had to pay more attention to the road. And then she had  to accentuate the positive. She'd get to spend more time with her  grandmother, and she loved Grandma Bethel more than any other person on  this planet. Bethel had always told her that when life handed you  lemons, you got to make lemonade.

"I guess I'll be making a lot of lemonade over the next several years,"  she muttered with a strained laugh. It was time she accepted her fate  with a smile.

But since her grandfather had died in the same wreck that had taken  Sage's parents, she had an unbreakable bond with her grandmother. They  needed each other, and it had been just the two of them since she was  ten years old.

Plus, it wasn't like her to throw tantrums or to dwell on her  "misfortunes." She knew a number of good students who hadn't received  any offers of residencies, and she'd been offered several. She also knew  that a lot of residents would never become full-fledged doctors. If she  didn't pull herself together, and fast, she could end up throwing  everything she'd worked so hard for right into the garbage can.

She had chosen to accept this position. The thought of being two  thousand miles away when her grandma needed her had been thoroughly  unappealing. So, as much as she hadn't wanted to come back home, it had  been the right decision. She refused to regret it.

As Sage topped a rise in the road and neared the picturesque town of  Sterling, she thought of the people she'd met in Stanford and LA-where  she'd gone for her undergraduate and graduate programs-who would never  consider being stuck in a town like Sterling, Montana.

Maybe they were right. But it was still home, and whether she liked it  or not, she was back for at least three years. This won't be so bad, she  told herself with a determined glint in her eyes. Call it a midyear  resolution.

As Sage came down the other side of the hill, another car turned a  corner, and its lights temporarily blinded her. She focused on the wet  pavement and the barely visible lines on the side of the road, but she  turned the steering wheel too far to the left as she tried to regain her  bearings.

A horn blared, and before she could stop the car, she felt her tires  slipping on the water and loose gravel on the shoulder of the road. The  ditch was quickly coming up to meet her, and it wasn't looking too  friendly.

"Perfect!"

That was the only word that made it past her lips before the car skidded  down into the hard earth and her head slammed against the steering  wheel. Her fear vanished as everything went black.


THAT HAD BEEN too close. His heart in his throat, Spence Whitman pulled  over to the side of the road, turned on his emergency flashers, and  leapt from his car, leaving his door swinging in the strong wind as he  dashed into the ditch. There wasn't any smoke right now, but that didn't  mean it wasn't coming. He needed to assess the condition of the driver  and do it fast.

Pulling his phone from his coat pocket as he scrambled down the bank, he  dialed emergency services, connecting just as he reached the car.                       
       
           



       

"Nine-one-one. What's your emergency?"

Spence had yanked open the door to find a red-haired woman pressed  against the steering wheel, a slight line of blood dripping down her  cheek. "It looks like a twenty- to thirty-year-old female. Unconscious.  Her car slammed hard into the ditch between milepost seventeen and  eighteen. She has a visible contusion on her right cheek and a rapidly  forming contusion on her forehead."

"Are you a doctor, sir?"

"Yes. This is Dr. Spence Whitman."

"Emergency vehicles are on their way."

"Thank you." Spence hung up the phone as he began checking her vital signs. "Ma'am, are you okay?"

It was stupid to ask that question, or any question, when she was  clearly knocked out. He knew this, but he couldn't help it, not when it  was so ingrained in him from his training. Lifting his hand to her neck,  he was relieved to find her pulse strong. Though she was out cold, at  least she was breathing steadily, and the bleeding from the cut on her  cheek was already slowing.

He ran his hand carefully along her body and was happy that he didn't  discover any obvious signs of serious injury. That didn't mean there  wasn't internal damage, but as smoke began rising from the hood of her  car, he didn't want to take any chances by hanging around. He needed to  move her.

Just then, she moaned and her eyelids fluttered open. She blinked up at him with confused emerald-green eyes.

"You've been in an accident," he informed her in his most businesslike manner. "Can you tell me if anything hurts?"

She stared blankly at him while she tried to get a handle on his words.

"My name is Spence Whitman and I'm a doctor. I need to move you from the vehicle. Can you tell me if your neck or back hurts?"

"No, they don't," she murmured after a brief pause.

"That's really good. Could you please lift your arm for me and wiggle  your fingers?" After another pause, she did as he asked. "Great," he  said. "Now I'm pulling off your shoe. If you could just wiggle your toes  for me . . . Great. That's a very good sign." He kept his voice  professional, calm, reassuring. It was what he did and he was on  autopilot.

"Okay, we're going to get you out of this car now." He didn't grab her  right then, but waited for her to answer. It was difficult for him to  move so slowly, but he didn't want her frightened, and because she'd hit  her head, there was a chance she wasn't fully processing what he was  saying.

"Okay," she said, her voice weak.

"We're going to be nice and careful about this," he said as he slid his  hands beneath her and began shifting her weight against his chest. Dark  gray smoke began to billow from the hood of the car, making it more  apparent that their time was running out.

She groaned when he stood, cradling her close before he began moving  cautiously away from the car in the heavy rain. He knew this had to be  hurting her more than she'd expected-it was difficult to know how much  you'd been hurt in a car accident until you moved. Finally, sirens  blared in the distance, filling Spence with relief.

"Spence?"

Spence stopped as he looked down at the woman in the quickly fading light. She'd said his name like she knew him.

"Yes, I'm right here."

In this town everyone knew everybody. He must have run into her at some  point. But after high school, Spence had gone straight to college and  then medical school, and he'd lost touch with some of the people here in  the years he'd been gone. He'd become something of a city boy over the  years. He loved living in Seattle, loved the hustle and bustle, and he  was quickly becoming a highly regarded trauma surgeon. A good life, with  a lot more privacy. Still, he made enough trips back to Sterling that  it bothered him not to remember who this was.