The man’s hair had a dramatic white streak, although he looked young. His black leather jacket was well-worn, open to reveal a white T-shirt with a picture of an eagle in full flight. His jeans fit like a second skin, molding to his long, strong thighs. He looked up, meeting Jordan’s eyes. His were clear and cool, a surprising pale green with specks of gold, and for an instant she had the disconcerting feeling that he could see into her mind.
“I’m Silas Keefer,” he said in a deep, soft voice. He didn’t smile.
“Jordan Burke. Hi.” She’d heard that voice before, she thought, turning back to her patient. “Okay, Louie, we’ll get some fluids into you and then take you up to the medical center.”
Although just how she was going to accomplish that without any medical supplies or an ambulance—
“It’s slowing down now, Silas. I’ll have it stopped in a minute.” Louie’s glazed eyes looked to the man beside her.
Obviously he was in shock. Silas leaned over her patient and murmured something close to his ear. Jordan couldn’t make it out.
From somewhere nearby, she heard Christina. “I’ve got your bag here, Jordan, and the medical pack from the ambulance. The first-aid guys are bringing a stretcher. We’ll have to use a pickup to get him to the center—it’ll take too long to fix the damned tire. You want me to establish a line?”
Christina crouched beside Jordan, proving herself first-rate at finding a vein.
The flow of blood from the wound was much less than Jordan had expected, and there didn’t appear to be a severed artery or nerve damage. The saw had bit deeply into the muscle, the fleshy part of the thigh.
Jordan supervised Louie’s transfer first to a stretcher and then to the back of the pickup truck that had backed in close. Through it all, Silas Keefer helped without once getting in the way. Jordan was aware of him the whole time, as she was sometimes aware of electricity in the air before a thunderstorm.
In the back of the truck, she crouched beside her patient, feeling a little like a pioneer doctor as she steadied the drip and kept tabs on Louie’s pulse and breathing. Christina and Silas Keefer rode in front beside the driver.
At the medical center, Jordan had to argue with Louie, who refused to be airlifted to Tofino.
“What good’s having a doctor here if you’re gonna send me to the hospital over there? Can’t you sew me up right here, Doc?”
Jordan considered it. It would have been impossible if there was major nerve damage or arterial bleeding, but Louie had lucked out.
“I’d have to give you a brief general anesthetic,” she warned. Christina had said she was qualified at anesthesia, but they’d never worked together. “Wouldn’t you feel safer having this procedure done in hospital?”
“Hell, no,” Louie insisted. “You’ve sewed people up before, haven’t you?”
“Oh, yes.” Jordan grinned. “One or two.” She’d done more than her share of minor surgery in the E.R.
“Then do it, Doc. I want you to patch me up here, that way I can be home in a couple days, keep an eye on the kids for the wife. She works at the RCMP office.”
Jordan hoped she was making the right decision. “Okay, that’s what we’ll do.”
As she and Christina scrubbed, Jordan said, “That tall guy, Silas Keefer, who is he? He knew a lot about first aid, but he left before I could talk to him.”
“Oh, that’s my older brother.”
“Your brother?” Jordan shot Christina a surprised look. Different surnames and no family resemblance. Even Silas’s speech patterns were unlike Christina’s slow, measured delivery.
“He’s my half brother,” Christina amended. “From Mom’s first marriage.”
“I see. Has he had medical training? He seemed to know exactly what to do.”
“Not really.” Christina concentrated on soaping her hands. “Silas does a lot of things. He’s a writer, he’s published a few books and he writes articles for various journals. He lives in the bush outside of town. He’s not very social. I keep telling him thirty-six is too young to be eccentric, but he’s determined to play the part.”
“So he’s your big brother.” Jordan felt a familiar jolt of homesickness, thinking of her own big brother. “Is he married?” There was no real reason for the question—except that she very much wanted to know.
“Nope. He came close a couple years back, a nurse from Edmonton who spent a year up here. But she couldn’t stand the isolation. She went home, Silas didn’t follow, so that was that.”
Jordan filed that information away and forcefully evicted Silas Keefer from her mind. She had work to do.
The surgery on Louie’s leg took every ounce of Jordan’s concentration. She was accustomed to an entire crew of nurses and aides, and far more sophisticated equipment. The clinic had the basics, but it was a strange experience to work with only Christina and an ambulance attendant standing by. Jordan was acutely conscious of being totally responsible for her patient’s well-being, in a way she never had been at St. Joe’s.
The wound was jagged and dirty, the flesh ripped by the teeth of the saw. Splinters of wood needed careful extraction, and there was heightened danger of infection from the dirt and oil off the blade of the saw. She heaved a sigh of relief when the procedure was finally over, shocked to learn that the afternoon had faded into evening.
She talked to Louie’s wife, Roberta, and then to his mother, Angie. A long string of concerned relatives and friends dropped by the clinic, and Christina was kept busy reassuring them.
Louie came out of the anesthetic in record time, and within an hour was asking for something to eat, which astonished Jordan.
He had to be in severe pain. She’d ordered five milligrams of morphine every hour to keep him comfortable, and she couldn’t believe he was actually hungry. “Food’s not a good idea,” she warned. “You may be nauseous, I’d recommend only liquids until tomorrow.”
“C’mon, Doc,” Louie wheedled. “I cut my leg, not my stomach. Can’t I at least have some soup?”
“Okay, then. I’ll see if I can find a tin of clear broth,” Jordan offered doubtfully, thinking of the woodstove she had no idea how to light. She felt more than a little nostalgic about St. Joe’s, where one call to housekeeping took care of these kind of details.
“Oh, you won’t have to make anything. I think somebody left a pot of soup back there in your kitchen,” Christina said with a mischievous grin. “I unlocked your door so the donor could get in. I hope you don’t mind.”
“Mind? What are you, nuts?”
Jordan went through the connecting door into her apartment, and stopped dead at the kitchen. The cookstove was giving off waves of heat. Not only was there a pot of soup simmering, but on the table someone had laid out three kinds of salad, a tray of sliced beef, what looked like a meat pie, along with jars of pickles, relish and berries. On the counter, she saw another pie, chocolate cake, oatmeal cookies—and homemade bread.
Jordan studied the bounty, and for the second time that day, tears burned at the back of her eyes. For several long moments she couldn’t contain them.
Get a grip, for God’s sake. It’s only way too much food. But there was something about women welcoming her by bringing gifts of food that touched her deeply.
“Louie’s hungry,” she said aloud to no one, blowing her nose and studying the feast. She filled a small bowl with broth from the potato chowder, poured a glass of apple juice and, folding paper towel into a napkin, used a battered cookie sheet as a tray. Then she took it all to the room where Louie was stretched out, his heavily