The ambulance bumped over something in the road and everything from the machines to the medic to Vin on the gurney got tossed up. As he sucked in a vicious hiss and squeezed his eyes shut, she went back to looking out the front window again, anxious to see the ambient glow of the St. Francis Hospital complex…hoping that somehow her making visual contact with their route would speed things along.

Come on…come on….

All at once the ambulance up ahead put its red lights out and slowed down to the speed limit, and the one she and Vin were in caught up quickly…then passed its leader.

“Why did they slow down?” she demanded as the medic repositioned the EKG monitor. “Their lights are off. Why are they slowing down?”

The shake of the head she got in response was not a surprise. It was a tragedy: You needed to rush only if the person were alive. Which was why no one had attended to Saul after he’d been pronounced dead.

Death left you with an eternity to deal with bodies. No hurry there.

Marie-Terese dragged in a breath, and as tears came to her eyes, she let go of the stable bar and brushed them away. The last thing she wanted was for Vin to crack his lids and see her upset.

“ETA two minutes,” the driver called out from in front.

The medic picked up a chart. “Ma’am, I forgot to ask you. Are you his next of kin?”

Wiping her eyes, she pulled herself together for Vin’s sake and knew right off there was no way in hell she was going to risk getting sidelined when it came to his care. Acquaintances and friends got only so far when it came to ER doctors and nurses.

“I’m his wife,” she said.

The woman nodded and made a note. “And your name is?”

She didn’t even pause. “Gretchen. Gretchen Capricio.”

“You are a very lucky man.”

Two hours later, those hell-yeah words were spoken to Vin as his admitting physician snapped off her bright blue surgical gloves and tossed the pair into an orange biohazard container.

She was so right. All it had taken was local anesthesia and some stitches to close up the entrance and the exit wounds. No bones busted up or tendons sliced or nerve damage. That bastard with the gun had hit nothing but meat, which was gross and a good call.

Vin had been really lucky.

Unfortunately, his response to the good news was to curl over and throw up into the pink bedpan next to his head. And the fact that he moved his torso made the pain in his shoulder go rock-star…which made the vomiting worse…which made the pain worse…and around and around he went.

And yet still he had to agree with the woman in the scrubs. He was lucky. The luckiest bastard on the face of the planet.