When Hunter O'Banyon glanced over at the pretty little
blonde he'd met only moments ago, adrenaline began to pump
through his veins. Her porcelain cheeks were flushed with
a mixture of heat and excitement, and he could tell from
the sparkle of urgency in her violet eyes that he was in
for one hell of a ride.
"I hope you don't mind, but this is going to have to be
faster than I'd planned," she said, sounding a little
breathless.
Grinning, he nodded. "Bring it on. I can take it as fast
as you want to go."
"I like the way you think." Her smile caused his heart to
race like a twelve-stroke engine hitting on all
cylinders. "Hang on, big guy. This might get a little
wild."
Hunter took a deep breath and braced himself. "Burn it,
darlin'."
At the same time as she pushed the gas pedal all the way
to the floor, she reached out to flip a switch on the
dash. Lights and the keening wail of a siren competed with
the sound of spinning tires kicking up a huge cloud of
gravel and southwest Texas dust as the pickup truck
careened away from the tarmac at Devil's Fork Community
Airfield.
When Hunter had discovered there was no commercial air
service to the little town, he'd wondered why the pilot of
the Cessna Skyhawk he'd chartered to fly him to Devil's
Fork from El Paso had laughed like a hyena when Hunter had
called it an airport. Now he knew why. The entire thing
consisted of an asphalt landing strip that he'd bet barely
met FAA standards, a storage shed that leaned precariously
to one side and a wooden pole with a tattered wind sock
attached to the top just above the United States and Texas
flags. As far as he could tell, there weren't even any
lights for landing at night. He could only hope the Life
Medevac operation looked better.
"By the way, I'm Callie Marshall, the flight nurse on the
Evac II team," the blonde said conversationally.
Nice name for a nice-looking woman, he thought as they
approached the edge of town. "I'm Hunter O'Banyon."
"Thank God." She grinned. "When my pager went off, I
didn't give you time to introduce yourself, and it
suddenly occurred to me that you might not be the man I
was supposed to meet."
His heart stalled and he had to clear his suddenly dry
throat. When she smiled, Callie Marshall wasn't just
pretty, she was drop-dead gorgeous.
"What were the chances of anyone else flying into Devil's
Fork?" he asked when he finally got his vocal cords to
work.
Her delightful laughter was one of the nicest sounds he'd
heard in a long time. "Good point," she said, nodding. "I
think you're the first person I've heard of flying into
Devil's Fork since I arrived two months ago."
"Somehow that doesn't surprise me." He tightened his
safety harness when she turned a corner, seemingly on two
wheels. "Did you arrive by plane?"
"No way." She shook her head, causing her ponytail to sway
back and forth. "I drove over from Houston. I wasn't about
to take one of those puddle-jumper flights in here."
As they sped down Main Street, Hunter decided that if he'd
blinked, he might have missed the entire town. Besides the
fact that Callie was going so fast it wasn't much more
than a blur, the business district was only a few blocks
long and there wasn't much more than two or three blocks
to the residential section.
"Mary Lou, our dispatcher, said you're from the Miami
area. It might take a while for you to get used to Devil's
Fork. It's about six hundred miles from the nearest beach
and not exactly a hotbed of social activity."
"No kidding." He cringed when they sailed through a four-
way stop on the opposite end of town without so much as
slowing down. "I knew this place was small, but I expected
something a little bigger than this."
"I did, too," she agreed. "After I drove through it the
first time, I had a hard time believing there was enough
of a call for a medevac operation to be based here. But I
was wrong."
Hunter thought back to what he'd read in the file he'd
been handed on the business his grandmother had given him
to run. "The way I understand it, we're the only emergency
service available for sections of five different counties."
She nodded. "The population is so sparse in this part of
Texas, it isn't cost-effective for communities to have
their own ambulance." Shrugging, she steered the truck
onto a dirt-packed road leading up to a large aircraft
hangar with Life Medevac Helicopter Service painted on the
side. "Besides, if they had a ground unit, it would take
too long to reach most of the people and even longer to
get them to a hospital. We're their best hope for
emergency medical care."
When she drove the truck around the side of the building,
Hunter breathed a little easier. The Life Medevac base
appeared to be in much better condition than the Devil's
Fork airfield. Besides the well-kept hangar, there were
two brand-new, top-of-the-line Bell EMS helicopters
sitting on brightly painted helipads, and the entire area
was ringed with what looked to be state-of-the-art
lighting for night takeoffs and landings.
"I'll see you when we get back," she said, jamming the
gearshift into Park at the same time she killed the engine
and threw open the driver's door. "I have a flight to
catch."
"Thanks for the ride," Hunter called, getting out of the
truck.
Turning, she gave him another one of her killer smiles. "I
almost forgot to tell you — beware of Mary Lou's coffee.
She'll tell you it's the best you've ever had, but don't
believe it." She grimaced. "It's awful."
As he stood there staring at Callie slowly jogging toward
the waiting helicopter, he couldn't put his finger on what
it was about her, but something bothered him. Aside from
the fact that she'd driven the truck through town as
though the hounds of hell were chasing them and she now
moved as if she had all the time in the world, there was
something about the snug way her navy-blue flight suit fit
her around the middle that didn't seem quite right.
But when she disappeared inside the cabin space of the
chopper and the door slid shut behind her, he quickly
dismissed his concerns as Evac II lifted off the helipad.
Although Emerald Larson had assured him that she'd seen to
it that all the equipment was up-to-date and exceeded
state requirements, he intended to order new flight suits
in a color that could be more easily differentiated from
other first responders that might be on scene when the
Life Medevac crews arrived. And he'd make sure everyone
wore the right size.
"You must be Hunter O'Banyon, the new boss of this outfit."
At the sound of the female voice behind him, Hunter turned
to face a woman he'd judge to be somewhere in her late
sixties or early seventies. With curly snow-white hair, a
perfectly round face and a pair of narrow reading glasses
perched on her nose, she looked as if she could easily
play Mrs. Claus in a Christmas pageant.
He smiled as he extended his hand. "That would be me. And
you must be Mary Lou Carson."
"The one and only." Grinning, she firmly shook his
hand. "Come on in the dispatch room and rest a spell. I'll
pour you a cup of the best coffee you've ever had, then
I'll show you your quarters."
Reaching into the bed of the pickup truck, Hunter grabbed
his luggage and followed Mary Lou out of the late-August
heat and into the air-conditioned office of the hangar.
When she led him into the dispatch room, he looked around
at the framed military medals hanging on the wall beside
the door.
"Did these belong to your husband?" he asked
conversationally.
"Some of them." Mary Lou walked over to a small kitchen
area on the opposite side of the room to stir the
delicious-smelling contents of a huge pot on the electric
range. "The rest are mine."
When she walked back over to where he stood, she handed
him a cup of coffee, then motioned for him to sit in one
of several chairs on the opposite side of a scarred wooden
desk. "Take a load off, Hunter."
"What branch of the military were you in?" he asked,
sitting down.
"Lester and I were both career Navy." She walked between
the desk and a built-in counter filled with radio
equipment, a computer and several telephones to settle
herself into an old wooden desk chair that looked as if it
might have been around since World War II. "He was an
aircraft mechanic and I was a nurse. He died in an
accident onboard an aircraft carrier not long before we
were supposed to retire."
"I'm sorry." Hunter knew all too well what it was like to
lose someone unexpectedly.
"Don't be sorry," she said, surprising him. "Lester died
doing what he loved most — working on fighter jets. That's
the best way any of us can hope to go out of this world."
Before he could respond, she shrugged. "That's why I'm a
dispatcher here. After my arthritis forced me to stop
working the floor in a hospital, I took this job. When
people call with an emergency, I sometimes stay on the
line and talk them through whatever medical crisis they
have until one of our crews arrives. It's almost as
satisfying as nursing."
Hunter took a sip of coffee as he considered what Mary Lou
said. But as the bitter taste spread over his tongue, he
had to force himself to swallow. Quickly setting the cup
on the desk, he barely controlled the urge to shudder.
What Callie had told him about the coffee being awful had
been an understatement. The stuff was as thick as syrup
and tasted as though it had been made with quinine.
Coughing, he looked up to see Mary Lou watching him
expectantly. He could tell she was waiting for him to tell
her how good it was.
"You like your coffee strong, don't you?" he asked, trying
not to grimace.
She shrugged. "I like my coffee to be just the way I like
a man — strong and the best I've ever had."
If he'd thought her coffee was enough to send his system
into shock, her outspokenness finished the job. He
couldn't have been more dumbfounded if he'd tried. Unable
to think of a thing to say, he waited to see what she'd
say next. Unless he'd misjudged her, that shouldn't take
very long.