Then she felt his lips on her neck. “Jack! I’m fishing!”
“Okay,” he said hoarsely. “I’ll try not to bother you too much.”
He pulled her just a little harder against him and began to nibble at her neck. “What are you doing?” she asked, laughter in her voice.
“Mel, please… Can’t we go somewhere and just make out for a while?”
“No!” she laughed. “I’m fishing!”
“If I promise to take you fishing after…？”
“No! Now behave yourself!” But she was smiling because it was pretty heady having this big tough guy turn weak and desperate just from the taste of her neck. She concentrated on her casting while he concentrated on her neck, his arm tight around her waist. Ahhh…Nice. Very nice.
After a few more minutes passed, he let go of her with a tortured moan, walked back to his truck and laid himself over the front, arms outstretched wide, head lying on the hood. She looked over her shoulder at him and chuckled. Brought him to his knees, she thought. Big tough marine. Hah!
She treated herself to a few more casts, then turned and shuffled in those great big boots back to Jack. She leaned the rod against the truck and pulled her feet out of the rubber boots. He lifted his head and looked at her through narrowed eyes. “Thanks, Jack. I have to go. It’s time for my soap.” She treated him to a conciliatory peck on the cheek. “Maybe we can do this again sometime.”
As she drove back to town, she got to thinking—a few weeks ago, she was absolutely certain there was nothing in her that allowed her to respond to a man. To Jack. Now she wasn’t so sure. A little contact, a little kissing—deep kissing—it felt good. It made her forget sometimes that she had nothing to give. In fact, it made her wonder if maybe she was wrong about that. Going somewhere to make out for a while didn’t sound like a bad idea. She was going to give that more thought.
She poked her head into Doc’s and found him on the computer and said, “Anything?”
“Nope,” he said.
“Okay, I’m going to the store. Need anything?”
“Nope,” he said again.
She checked her watch, found herself hoping she hadn’t missed the beginning. When she walked into the store, Joy stood in the curtained doorway and said, “Mel! Thank God!”
The panicked look on her face sent Mel rushing to the back room. Leaning forward in the lawn chair, her hand gripping the front of her sweatshirt and breathing shallowly was Connie. Mel kneeled down. “What is it?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” she said weakly. “I can hardly breathe.”
“Joy, get me a bottle of aspirin. Pain?” she asked Connie.
“My back,” she said.
Mel put a hand between her shoulder blades. “There?”
“Yeah.”
Joy handed her a brand-new aspirin bottle off the shelf and Mel ripped it open, shaking one out into her palm. “Swallow this quickly.” Connie did so and Mel asked, “Pressure in the chest?”
“Yeah. Oh, yeah.”
Mel got up, grabbed Joy’s hand and pulled her out of the back room. “Run for Doc. Tell him it might be her heart. Hurry.”
Mel went back to Connie. She took her pulse and found it fast and irregular. She had grown clammy and her respirations were rapid and shallow. “Try to relax and breathe slowly. Joy has gone for Doc.”
“What is it?” she asked. “What’s happening?”
Mel noticed that Connie’s left arm dangled at her side, probably in pain, while she gripped her shirt with her right hand and tried to pull it away from her body, as though to relieve the pressure in her chest. If Mel had speculated on a heart attack for one of these two women, she’d have bet on Joy who was overweight and probably had high cholesterol. Not Connie who was petite and didn’t even smoke.
“I’m not sure,” Mel said. “Let’s wait for Doc. Don’t talk, just stay calm. I’m not going to let anything happen to you.”
A tense couple of minutes passed before Joy, breathless, came flying through the door with Doc’s medical bag and rushed to Mel’s side. “Here,” she said. “He said try the nitro and get an IV started. He’ll be right here.”
“Okay, then.” She dug around in the bag, found the nitro tablets and shook one out of the bottle. “Connie, hold this under your tongue.”
She did as she was told while Mel got the blood pressure cuff and stethoscope out of the bag. Connie’s pressure was high, but within seconds some of the pain was easing. The nitro might be working. “That better?”
“A little. My arm. I can hardly move my arm.”
“Okay, we’ll take care of that.” She snapped on a pair of gloves. She pulled the rubber strap around Connie’s upper arm and started searching for a good vein, slapping her inner arm with two fingers. She tore open the package containing the IV needle and inserted it slowly. Blood eased up the clear tube and dripped on the floor. Mel then capped it off because she had no tubing or bag of fluid.
A moment later she heard a sound she didn’t recognize and looked out of the back room to see old Doc wheeling a squeaky old gurney into the store. He left it in the store aisle and picked up a bag of Ringer’s solution from its bed, handing it to Mel, while he toted a small portable oxygen canister. He put the cannula around Connie’s neck and into her nostrils while he asked, “What’ve we got?”
As Mel hooked up the tubing to the needle and the Ringer’s to the tube, she said, “Elevated pressure, diaphoretic, chest, back and arm pain…I gave her an aspirin, and the nitro.”
“Good. How’s that pill working, Connie?”
“A little,” she said.
“Here’s what we’re going to do. Put her on the gurney in the back of the truck, you beside her holding the Ringer’s and monitoring her pressure, and if you think we have to stop for any reason, you bang on the window. The black bag goes with you—you have oxygen, a portable defibrillator in the truck bed, and I want you to draw an eppie and atropine right away, to have ready.” He went back to the gurney, pushed it into the very narrow space in the back room, and lowered it. He shook out and spread a large, heavy wool blanket over the sheet and said, “Okay, Connie.”
Managing the IV bag and tubing, Mel supported Connie under the arm so that she could be transferred from her chair to the lowered gurney. Doc lifted the back slightly so that she wouldn’t be lying flat, then wrapped the blanket around her and strapped her in. He put the oxygen canister on the gurney between Connie’s legs, then said to Mel, “Have Joy hold up the bag of Ringer’s while we get her out of here.”
“Shouldn’t we wait for an ambulance?”
“Not the best idea,” he said while together they lifted the gurney to its former upright position. As they rolled out of the store, Mel once again in control of the IV bag, Doc said, “Joy, as soon as we get out of here I want you to call Valley Hospital and ask them to get a cardiologist to meet us in E.R. Tell Ron to meet us at Valley.” Doc and Mel released the legs on the gurney and slid it in the back of the truck. Doc took off his heavy wool coat and draped it over Connie. As he would have headed for the driver’s door of the truck, Mel grabbed his sleeve.