Gideon wanted to reach out for his rescuer and beg her not to leave him alone. He obviously wasn’t thinking straight, but this blindness had thrown him. The only thing anchoring him right now was the sound of her voice.

He hurt everywhere. But not being able to see concerned him the most. He knew he had a concussion and, by his labored breathing and the stabbing pain between his eyes, a broken nose. Any one of those two things could cause temporary blindness, not to mention the powder from the air bag deploying. Until his sight returned, he was at the mercy of his rescuer. She’d done an outstanding job of saving his life.

He heard scuffling behind him. She was coming back as promised.

He liked a woman who kept her word.

“Hanging in there, Gideon?” She touched his shoulder, and by the direction of her voice she’d knelt next to him.

“Better now that you’re here.”

“The paramedics are going to strap you to a board, immobilize your neck as a precaution. Don’t worry.”

He grabbed onto her arm. “Stay with me. Please. I’m really not a needy man, I can be as butch as the best of them, but….”

“You don’t need to explain. Not being able to see must be disconcerting. Like I said, don’t worry. We’ll get you patched up in no time.”

She continued to explain step by step what was happening around him so that he wasn’t surprised by anything.

He was secured on a board and carried up to the ambulance and loaded into it with quick efficiency.

His rescuer continued to hold his hand, joining him in the ambulance. He heard the doors slam and they were racing off.

“Where are they taking me?” he asked her.

“Fairbanks Memorial. The clinic in Heartbreak isn’t equipped to handle your injuries.”

That was one thing he was in the process of changing by opening his practice. Heartbreak didn’t even have a doctor on staff, just one that roved from town to town, showing up one or two days a week. A nurse practitioner ran the clinic until Gideon had decided to settle back in his hometown and now she worked for him. Which was all rather ironic since at eighteen he couldn’t wait to get out of the quirky town.

His head was killing him but so was his abdomen. The seatbelt could explain that. But they were traveling awfully fast and paramedics had already inserted an IV in his arm. He had a blood pressure cuff in place and had been asked if he was on any medication or allergic to anything. Currently, the paramedics talked in hush tones to each other, reporting his vitals every few minutes.

“What’s going on?” he asked, anxiety clear in the higher pitch of his voice. He was becoming concerned by their actions. Nausea and dizziness hit him. “What else is wrong with me?”

He hated not knowing what was happening around him. His father had complained about his endless curiosity, calling it a curse when he was a kid. Curiosity was one of the reasons he’d gone into medicine. He needed to understand things, and the mystery of the human body rivaled the mysteries of space. And since he practiced on the other side of a hospital bed, he knew they weren’t telling him everything.

“Be honest with me. I can take it,” he said when no one answered him, telling him that he had more injuries than a concussion and a broken nose. What if the reason he couldn’t see was because he no longer had eyeballs in his head? He reached up a hand to feel his face.

“What are you doing?” His rescuer grabbed his hand.

“Are my eyeballs still in my head?”

She choked out a laugh. “Yes, your eyeballs are still there.”

“How do I know you’re telling me the truth?”

“Well…I guess you don’t as you don’t know me and my character. One thing about me, I never lie. I’m brutally honest to the point where it’s been considered a flaw by certain members of my family. And you have the warmest, deepest brown eyes I’ve ever seen. Also, why do men always have thicker, longer eyelashes than women? It’s not fair.”

He sighed in relief. Good, he had his eyeballs. Then what else was it? He could move his limbs without pain. “If it isn’t my missing eyeballs, then what is everyone so worried about?”

“Just stay calm. We’re almost there,” she said in a composed voice like they were discussing the weather. He wondered if she practiced that, finding the right tone to settle a person down.

“Please, don’t leave me in the dark. I’m a doctor. What I can imagine will be worse than the truth.”

There was a pause, and then she wrapped his hand in both of hers, holding it up to her chest. He could feel her rapidly beating heart. She was worried. “You might have some internal bleeding.”

Well, shit.

“How far away from the hospital are we?” he asked.

“Another ten minutes,” one of the paramedics answered, his tone grave.

“How long has it been since the accident? What’s my blood pressure?” He already knew his pulse was dropping because exhaustion threatened to take him under and his speech had started to slur.

“You’re not going to treat yourself,” she said. “That’s like a defendant pleading his own case in court. You’d be a fool to even try.”

“Consider me a fool, then.” He couldn’t die this way, but he already felt coldness seeping into his limbs. “Do you have my bag?”

“Yes,” she answered.

“Could you do me a favor?”

“Anything,” she said, quickly. Too quickly, as if she knew he lay on his deathbed.

“Please make sure the test samples make it to the lab and contact Dr. Lambert to take over the case if things take a turn…for the worse.”

“You’ll be around to finish treating your patient, I have no doubt.” There was a thickness to her smoky voice as if emotion had a hold of her vocal cords.

He wished he had more time—that this wasn’t the end for him—but he felt cold, colder than even the time his car had broken down and he’d been stuck huddling in forty below under a survival blanket until help arrived.

Even though he couldn’t see, he felt the darkness crowd in, just before it took him under he had the fleeting thought that he didn’t know the name of his rescuer or any idea of what she looked like.