Hello Stranger (The Ravenels 4)

Garrett hadn’t realized he’d been watching the operation—she’d been too intent on her work to notice his arrival.

Coming forward, Trenear set a gleaming rosewood case on the library table. “What can I do?” he asked.

“Open the case but don’t touch anything inside it. I need one of you to donate the blood, and the other to help with the transfuser.”

“Take my blood,” the earl said readily.

“No,” Ravenel said, “I insist on being the donor. If he lives, it will annoy him far more.” He smiled slightly as his gaze met Garrett’s. Something about his presence was so relaxed and steady that it smoothed the edges of her panic.

“Very well.” She took a measured breath. “Lord Trenear, please wash your hands in the basin on the other side of the table, and douse them with carbolic solution. Mr. Ravenel, remove your shirt and sit on the table so that your left arm is positioned next to Mr. Ransom’s right one.”

The transfuser was already sterilized. It was a strange-looking device, a collection of delicate unvulcanized rubber tubes sprouting from a rigid cupping glass, like a mechanical sea creature. One tube was connected to a water aspirator, another to a tiny junction tap and a cannula with a needle, and another to a balloon pump regulator.

The unwieldy mass shook a little in Garrett’s hands as she lifted it carefully from the case. Although she had assisted in a transfusion once, the operating surgeon had used a far simpler and more old-fashioned apparatus.

If only Havelock had stayed, damn him, and given her some advice about how this contraption worked.

As Garrett looked up from the transfuser, she blinked at the sight of a shirtless West Ravenel hoisting himself easily onto the table. Despite his earlier crack about Ethan’s athletic form, he was certainly no physical lightweight himself. He had the hard, rippling musculature of a man accustomed to lifting and carrying heavy weight. But what had surprised Garrett was the discovery that his torso was tanned the same shade of golden brown as his face. All over.

What kind of gentleman went outside in the sun for that long with no shirt?

Ravenel’s lips quirked as he saw her expression. A twinkle of arrogant amusement appeared in his eyes. “Farmwork,” he said in a matter-of-fact tone. “And I do some quarrying.”

“Half naked?” Garrett asked tartly, setting the transfuser on an expanse of clean linen.

“I’ve been loading rock into horse carts,” he said. “Which suits my intellectual capacity perfectly. But it’s too hot for a shirt.”

Although Garrett didn’t smile, she appreciated the touch of humor, which helped to stave off an attack of nerves. One mistake—an air bubble in the vein—would finish Ethan off in short order.

The earl came to her. “What now?” he asked.

She handed him a sterilized glass vessel. “Fill this with boiled water.”

While the earl attended to the task, Garrett listened to Ravenel’s heart with the stethoscope and checked his pulse. He had the heart of an ox, the rhythm strong and regular. She filled the water aspirator of the transfuser and tied a length of surgical bandage firmly around the thick muscle of his upper arm. “Make a fist, please.” His brawny forearm flexed. “A perfect median basilic,” she said, swabbing the inside of his arm with isopropyl alcohol. “I could find it without even tying a band around your arm.”

“I would preen and bask in your admiration of my vein,” Ravenel said, “if I didn’t see that three-inch needle attached to one of those tubes.”

“I’ll be as gentle as possible,” she said, “but I’m afraid it will be uncomfortable.”

“Compared to a bullet in the chest, I suppose one can’t complain without sounding like a milksop.”

His older brother told him kindly, “We all know you’re a milksop. Go ahead and complain.”

“You may wish to look away, Mr. Ravenel,” Garrett murmured, “and keep making a fist.”

“Call me West.”

“I don’t know you well enough for that.”

“You’re draining the life essence from my median basilic,” he pointed out. “I’m on a first-name basis with women who’ve done far less to me than that. Son of a bitch!” The profanity burst out as he felt Garrett ease the hollow curved needle into his vein. He frowned down at the sight of his blood running along the rubber tube into the aspirator. “How much of this is he going to need?”

“Probably no more than ten ounces. We’ll replenish his vessels just enough to restore his pulse to its normal rate and volume.” Garrett tied a band around Ethan’s lax upper arm and hunted for a vein. None were visible. “Lord Trenear, if you would help me by applying pressure to his arm here, and here . . .” The earl clamped his fingers on the places she had indicated.

Nothing. No vein.

No pulse.

Ethan’s last breath escaped in a sigh.

He was gone.

“No, you don’t,” Garrett said fiercely, swabbing his arm and picking up a scalpel. “You’re bloody well not going to do this to me, you sow-buggering bastard!” Deftly pinching a fold of cool skin, she made a quick incision to expose a depleted vein. “Hand me the director,” she said through gritted teeth. As Trenear hesitated over the tray of instruments, she snapped, “The pointy one.” Immediately he picked it up and handed it over to her.

Within seconds, Garrett had lifted the vein with the director, made a transverse cut with a scalpel, and inserted a cannula. While Lord Trenear held the cannula in place, she connected it with the transfuser and used the pumps and aspirator to withdraw every dram of air in the line and flush it with sterile water. Although she’d never used this kind of transfuser before, her hands somehow knew what to do, guided by a part of her brain that was thinking ten times faster than usual. A twist of a silver stopcock, and blood began to flow into the vein.

The two men were now connected by a hermetically sealed channel.

Garrett exerted pressure on the balloon pump to release the blood into Ethan’s arm at a slow pace, to keep from overwhelming the heart. Her lips moved in a ceaseless incantation: come back come back come back . . .

After one minute had passed, a miraculous change came over the lifeless form. His pulse resumed. His color rose rapidly. His chest lifted once, twice, and he began to breathe in deep, fitful gasps. Another minute, and he was perspiring and twitching.

Garrett let out a sigh of relief that sounded embarrassingly like a whimper. Feeling her eyes brim, she covered them with one hand and fought for self-control. A few profane words escaped her lips as a tear slid down to her chin.

“You curse so beautifully,” she heard Ravenel say dryly. “Few women can do it with such natural ease.”

“I learned at the Sorbonne,” Garrett said with her hand still over her eyes. “You should hear me curse in French.”

“I’d rather not, or I might fall in love with you. By the way, does Ransom have enough blood now? Because I’m starting to feel a bit light-headed.”

After Garrett had cleaned her instruments and the transfuser equipment, she checked Ethan’s vital signs for the tenth time. Pulse, one hundred. Temperature, ninety-nine. Respirations, thirty. He was sweating profusely, and stirring uneasily as the effects of anesthesia slowly faded.