Thank God, he thought, meaning it—
Behind them an immense blast shook the world. Instantaneously, what felt like a huge fist slammed into him from behind, tearing Chloe’s hand from his, tossing him forward like a rag doll and rolling him across the ground. His head banged across a tree root, but he staggered to his feet, looking wildly around for Chloe.
She lay a few feet to his left, crumpled at the base of an old oak tree. Leaves and debris rained down around them, and as a stinging sensation penetrated his dazed senses, he realized that the tree was burning above them.
Dropping to Chloe’s side, he shielded her body with his, feeling tiny bites across the back of his neck from the rain of fire. She had a bleeding gash at one temple, where he guessed she hit the tree, but he got a pulse in her neck. He had no choice; he had to move her.
Lifting her carefully into his arms, Thad staggered away from the tree, on toward the street and the knots of shocked people watching him approach. He could hear sirens shrieking, careering closer. Two men darted forward. One reached out and took Chloe from him, the other put a supporting shoulder beneath his arm. “C’mon, buddy, you’re almost there.”
But he couldn’t. His knees wouldn’t lock, wouldn’t hold him up. As he slowly sank to the ground, his body twisted. The last thing he saw was a giant bonfire as the church was engulfed in flames.
He heard the technicians talking; before he opened his eyes he knew he was in an ambulance. One look confirmed it. He knew why, and he knew what he needed to know before he could relax. “Is Chloe okay?”
“Welcome back,” said a woman in a blue medical technician’s uniform. “Is Chloe the woman who was with you?”
He nodded, then was sorry as everything whirled around him.
“She’s coming to the hospital with another unit,” the woman said. “She wasn’t conscious when we loaded you, so I can’t tell you anything else.”
Then they were at the hospital. To his annoyance, they carried him in on a gurney like he was severely injured, and he was poked, prodded and X-rayed about four hundred times. He was given an ice pack for his head, and some sadistic nurse cleaned and bandaged an assortment of bums and cuts he couldn’t remember receiving.
He asked about Chloe at least a hundred times but nobody would tell him anything. Finally, after yet another nurse had backed out of his cubicle with a vague promise to check on Miss Miller’s condition, he got off the uncomfortable bed and eased his way into the burned and bloody T-shirt they’d taken off him, then started for the door.
“Whoa, fella, where are you going?” One of his nurses, with a build and a grip like a fullback, snagged his arm.
He jerked himself free and glared at her. “I’m going to find somebody in this damned place who will tell me how Chloe Miller is doing.”
The fullback scowled back. “We’re checking for you. You have to be patient, Mr. Shippen.”
“I’ve been patient,” he snarled. “And now I’m done. So just scratch me off your little list, lady, because I’m getting out of here.”
“Mr. Shippen?” Another nurse came toward them, but he was in a stare-down with the fullback. Finally, with narrowed eyes and a sniff, she looked away first.
Ridiculously pleased at the small victory, he was a little happier when he turned to the second nurse. “What?”
“Miss Miller is undergoing some tests. She’s been admitted to the Critical Care Unit, room 338. That’s the—”
“Tests for what?”
“Routine tests for head injury. She suffered quite a blow to the head, apparently.”
“When she hit the tree,” he said, mostly to himself.
The nurse looked sympathetic. “It could be hours before she is allowed to have visitors other than family. Is there someone who can take you home after you’re released?”
Thad didn’t bother to answer her as he turned and started toward what he hoped was the exit from the Emergency Department into the rest of the hospital.
“Wait, Mr. Shippen!” The nurse’s voice was a panicked squeak. “You haven’t been discharged yet.”
“Tough.” He didn’t look back.
The nurse scurried along beside him, waving a clipboard under his nose. “You’ll get me in big trouble if you leave here without being discharged.”
The note of genuine dismay in her voice was the only thing that penetrated his determination. He halted. “I’ll give you sixty seconds to get a signature on that.”
She hesitated, then apparently realized she didn’t have time to argue. Her jacket flapped behind her as she raced back down the hall.
Thad rubbed his forehead, then swore under his breath when his fingers brushed over the raised lump where he’d hit the tree root. He glanced through the glass windows of the double doors leading from the emergency area, noting a sign directing visitors to the elevators. When he turned back, the nurse was coming down the hall with the doctor who had initially looked him over striding behind her.
The man frowned at him. “We’re busy people around here, Mr. Shippen. I was dragged away from a seriously ill person for this.”
“So sue me.” Thad frowned right back. “If you’d signed me out of here when you saw me, I’d be out of your hair.”
The doctor ignored him, stepping forward to shine a small light into each of Thad’s eyes. “Touch your right index finger to your nose.”
“Give me a break.” But he complied.
The doctor lifted the clipboard and scribbled his name across the paper. “You should be admitted for additional observation, although you don’t seem to be concussed. I assume that hard head protected you. If you have any episodes of blurred or double vision, any feelings of vertigo or dizziness, call your doctor or come back. Change the dressings on those bums tonight and tomorrow. After that you may remove them. See a doctor if you suspect any infection.” He handed the clipboard to the nurse, who immediately dashed away again. “Any problem with that?”
Thad grinned unwillingly. “Nope. Thanks.”
The doctor grinned in return. “Now get out of here and go find your girl.”
Thad didn’t bother to answer as he banged through the double doors and headed for the elevators.
He had just punched the button for the Critical Care Unit’s floor when he heard the commotion behind him.
“That’s him! Hey, Mr. Shippen!”
“Thaddeus Shippen?”
“Mr. Shippen, give us your version of what happened in the gas explosion today.” A woman with sharp features and frosted hair stuck a microphone under his nose.
Another man raised his pencil in the air. “I’m from the Valley First Edition. Is it true that you reentered the building to rescue the church’s secretary?”
“Mr. Shippen, what were you doing at the church? Are you personally involved with Miss Chloe Miller?”
Thad sagged against the wall, wishing the elevator would hurry up. He hadn’t even thought about the press, but he guessed something like this was a national story just as that plane that had crashed right into a house over in Waynesboro a few years ago had been. He might as well get this over with or they’d only get more intrusive. The last thing he wanted was this crowd following him up to Chloe’s floor.
He smiled at the woman reporter. “This will have to be brief.”
“Certainly.” She was smooth and way too polished for him as she launched into her first question. As he answered, everyone around her was nodding and scribbling