“I didn’t realize I’d touched on such a deep subject,” he joked. “You looked like you were a hundred miles away.”

“Sorry,” she said, embarrassed at being caught woolgathering. “I was, but you’re right. We should rejoice in our success stories when we can.”

His smile nearly blinded her. “Then you’ll join us on Friday night?”

“Sure, why not?”

“Great,” he said with such enthusiasm that she knew he’d hold her to her decision, no matter what. “We’ll—”

Their pagers went off simultaneously. Sierra abandoned her mug and followed Trey out of the door.

A scuffle at the far end of the hall near the ambulance entrance doors caught her attention. Two police officers were escorting two punks in low-slung jeans and ripped T-shirts, but for every step forward they sidestepped two more in an effort to keep the two street hoods apart. Obscenities flew, along with several wild punches, but it was obvious that not long ago those punches had been landing.

One young man had a swollen, bloody nose and a bloodstained bandana wrapped around his right biceps. The other had one eye completely swollen shut as he limped forward.

Trey sighed. “Looks like the natives are restless.”

“No kidding. I thought they saved their fighting for Saturday nights,” she remarked.

“Around here, any time is a good time,” he answered. “I’ll take one and you can take the other so we can get them both out of here faster.”

“Okay.”

She started forward, but he pulled her behind him. “Stay out of the way until they’re stashed in separate corners.”

Stay out of the way? For a few seconds she stood in amazement at his high-handedness. Did he really think she couldn’t hold her own? She’d gone nose to nose with men who were far more belligerent than these two. Of course, she hadn’t been wearing a dress and heels at the time, but sometimes looking feminine gave her an advantage. Goons like these were often busy ogling her legs and forgot their reason for fighting.

She hurried to catch up, but Trey’s long-legged stride had already put him at the scene. Although she was still half a hallway away, she heard and saw everything.

“Take him…” Trey pointed to the one sporting a bloody nose “…to Trauma One and the other to Room Two.”

“Move it, buddy.” Officer Wright gave his prisoner a not-so-gentle nudge in the appropriate direction. “You heard the doc.”

“Hey, man, don’t tell me what to do.” The guy immediately began swinging.

Instinctively, Sierra knew this wasn’t going to end well. She watched in horror as the situation deteriorated, taking Trey with it.

TREY saw the man’s arm move out of the corner of his eye. He tried to duck as he watched a beefy fist come toward him, but his body didn’t respond to his brain’s command. His instincts warned him of the impending blow, but before he had a chance to brace himself for impact, his ears rang and his vision blurred.

He heard shouts and curses as if they were coming from a distance, but he concentrated on trying to protect himself. Before his scrambled brain could convince him to duck, a body plowed into his midsection and he lost his balance. His fall inevitable, he twisted to minimize the damage, but five hundred pounds of angry males landed on top of him, effectively causing him to kiss the floor.

The bruise on his chin and the weight on his back seemed minor in comparison to the excruciating pain that he felt in his right knee.

Damn! This wasn’t how this was supposed to play out, he thought, before everything faded to black.

Before Sierra could yell at Trey to watch out for the guy on his right, she heard the distinctive sound of flesh striking bone. For a split second, he stood upright, frozen in place, until the other man shoved Trey in his apparent haste to reach his enemy. Immediately, Trey crumpled like a broken toy and disappeared under the bodies of punks and police officers.

“Call Security,” she yelled over her shoulder as she hurried forward. She certainly couldn’t fight this battle if she relied on muscle because she was definitely outgunned. However, she could win through chemistry.

“Lorazepam,” she called out, already calculating an appropriate dose of tranquilizer to use. “Hand me lorazepam!”

Suddenly, what seemed like the entire emergency department materialized around them. By the time someone had slapped the medication in her hand, there were too many arms and legs to identify the owners. She could accidentally sedate a staff member, which would definitely not be the best thing to do.

To her great frustration, she simply had to wait for stronger backs to peel back the pile, layer by layer. Finally, only Trey was lying facedown on the floor.

Sierra knelt beside him, half-afraid of what she might find. “Trey,” she said urgently as she frantically ran her fingers over his head to check for injuries. “Can you hear me?”

She found a goose egg on his forehead, presumably caused by his bounce against the linoleum. “Trey?” she asked again.

This time, he groaned. “Must you scream in my ear?” he complained.

He’d answered. What a relief. “I’m not screaming. Can you move?”

“Barely.” He grimaced as he tried to roll over and only got as far as his side. “Damn. My knee.”

She placed a hand on his shoulder to steady him. “Anything else?”

“You mean, other than the fact that my lungs will never be the same after being squashed within an inch of my life?”

She smiled at his affronted tone. If he could be sarcastic, his injuries probably weren’t as bad as she’d feared. His skin color was on the pasty side, but he didn’t sound wheezy or raspy, which was good because she felt guilty enough for not wading into the fray with him. “Yeah, other than that.”

“You’re the doc. You tell me.”

She paused to study him with her practiced eye. “We’ll need X-rays to check for hairline skull fractures or broken ribs, but as a purely preliminary opinion I’d cancel any photo ops if I were you.”

He swiped at the blood running down his chin. “That bad, eh?”

“It could be worse,” she said, taking a gauze pad someone had handed her to hold against his chin. “Besides the goose egg that’s probably giving you a headache and the gash you’re already well acquainted with, you’re developing quite a shiner. Don’t worry, though. You’ll be back to your handsome self in no time.”

“My handsome self, eh?” He tried to grin, but it came out as a grimace. With shaky fingers, he gently probed his cheekbone. “Oh, that hurts.”

“I’m sure. Pain is a common side effect of having your face meet a fist, but ice will help. What about your chest? Can you breathe in and out easily?”

He huffed first, then took a deep breath and let it out. “Yeah.” He rubbed the side of his chest. “My ribs are sore, though. How do football players handle this day after day?”

“Conditioning and extra padding,” she answered. “Let’s get you to a room so I can look at your knee. Ready?”

He winced. “I’ll have to be.”

Immediately, multiple hands pulled him upright. “Any dizziness?” she asked.

“Not really,” he muttered as he sank heavily into a waiting wheelchair, his face white with pain.

“Who’s on call for Orthopedics?” Sierra asked Roma.

“Abernathy. I’ll page him,” the nurse said.

She turned back to Trey. “Ready for your ride down the hall?”

“No. I want to go home instead.”

“Don’t be a baby,” she scolded lightly as she pushed his wheelchair alongside a bevy of worried-looking staff.

“Did anyone ever tell you your bedside manner lacks a little something?” he grumbled. “Like compassion?”

“Would you rather I stand here and gush all over you?” she wanted to know. “If so, I could hand you to another doctor, but I don’t think Lamont or Ben are likely to treat you like spun glass either. Marissa might, but you’re older than her usual clientele, so who knows?”