Jarrod’s life had never been easy, but that’s what you get for being a doctor in a warzone. After a deadly attack on his hospital leaves multiple members of his team dead, he’s sent back home, much to the surprise and joy of his young daughter. Now that he’s back, he has to remember what it’s like to live a normal life… and that involves interacting with his daughter’s very attractive teacher.
Age Rating: 18+
In Need of Rescue by 597000 is now available to read on the Galatea app! Read the first two chapters below, or download Galatea for the full experience.
Subgenres:
Contemporary, Later in Life
Similar to:
Me Before You
Read the full uncensored books on the Galatea iOS app!
Chapter 1
Jarrod’s life had never been easy, but that’s what you get for being a doctor in a warzone. After a deadly attack on his hospital leaves multiple members of his team dead, he’s sent back home, much to the surprise and joy of his young daughter. Now that he’s back, he has to remember what it’s like to live a normal life… and that involves interacting with his daughter’s very attractive teacher.
Age Rating: 18+
Original Author: Collette G. May
The water was still running a deep scarlet as he tried to wash the blood from his hands. It was ingrained in the grooves of his cuticles, under his nails, in the folds of his fingerprints and DNA.
Relief swept through him as he watched the water start to run clean. He cupped his hands beneath the stream and splashed it on his face and over his short cropped black hair.
He looked at himself in the cracked and peeling mirror. He noticed the crow’s feet next to the neon blue eyes—a description given by his twin sister—and the silver flecks along the temples.
He knew that the weariness didn’t limit itself to his face. His body was tired. His knee was hurting like a son of a bitch.
His back burned with the effort to stand up straight. His ribs were tender, making breathing an added strain.
His eyes were bloodshot with the lack of sleep—but they’ll have to hold on for a little while longer.
He suppressed a groan as someone knocked on the bathroom door. “Doc? You okay?”
“I’m good. Be out in a minute.” His voice emerged as a husky rasp and he realized how tired he was.
He dried his hands and face on a paper towel and left the sanctuary of the bathroom.
His phone twanged as he made his way to the tiny kitchen to get a much needed cup of coffee.
A rare smile turned his stern mouth soft when he saw Riley’s face pop up on the screen. He put his cup on the table and sat down in the rickety chair as he answered the video call.
“Daddy!” The high-pitched voice called through the miles that separated them.
“Hey, Ri-Bear! I miss you so much!” He felt his heart constrict at the sight of her little face.
She had his eyes and black hair, but her mother’s softer, heart-shaped face, and cupid-bow lips that always had a ready smile.
Looking at her sparkling eyes, he could almost feel her arms squeezing his neck.
“I miss you too, Daddy.”
“What did you do in school today?” He felt the weariness wash off him as he listened to her rambling on about wild animals and farm animals and sea life. And then came a question he wasn’t sure how to answer.
“Will you come to my daddy-daughter dance, Daddy?” Her face was so hopeful, so trusting.
“It depends on when it is, honey. Remember, I’m far away and I can’t promise to be home soon, Ri-Bear.”
His mom’s face joined Riley’s on the screen. “Hey, baby.”
“Hi, Mom. Everything okay? Is there anything you need?” She took care of Riley when he was away.
“We’re okay, Jarr. Just the usual. Oh, and Riley will be needing a few things for summer soon.”
“Okay, Mama. You have that card I gave you. Get whatever you guys need. When is this daddy-daughter dance thing?”
“It’s the last Friday of the term.” Two weeks, he made a mental note.
“No promises, okay, Ri-bear?”
“Okay, Daddy, I love you.”
“Like stars in the sky, Ri-bear,” he looked up at the knock on the door. His trusted, wiry field nurse Turner Finch was trying to get his attention.
“Incoming, doc. Not sounding good.” Jarrod nodded.
“Gotta go, Ri-bear. Take care of Ganna and be good.”
“Bye, Daddy.” She logged off and he slipped the phone into his pocket as he gulped down his cold coffee, knowing that sleep will not be seeing him for a few hours yet.
***
Twelve hours later he rolled onto his cot, exhausted beyond belief. He sighed as he tried to clear his mind enough so that he could get as much sleep as time would allow.
What brought him to this blasted-to-smithereens little town in the middle of nowhere?
What made him decide to leave his four-year-old daughter with his elderly mother in Wichita, Kansas?
What made him push his body through rubble-strewn buildings to get to victims trapped so that they could get the help they needed?
One name flared through his mind as he drifted off into oblivion.
Blaire…
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Chapter 2
“Doc!” A fist pounding on the door brought Jarrod to instant alertness; he rubbed a rough hand through his hair and pulled on his shoes.
He grabbed the T-shirt hanging over the chair and opened his cabin door.
“What the f—?”
People were running along the hallway in confusion, some of them coughing and wheezing, most of them bleeding, and several were injured. And everyone was covered in dust.
“Doc! This way!” He turned to see Turner coming towards him with an unconscious nurse in his arms. “We were bombarded with mortars about three minutes ago. I got a feeling more are on the way.”
His adrenalin kicked into gear and he immediately went into doctor mode.
Within five minutes, they had moved everyone into the safest area of the building, triaged the twenty-five members of his medical team, found three that had been missing, and the two had died.
Jarrod had just covered the face of a twenty-five-year-old anaesthetist whose lungs were shredded by shrapnel.
He looked up at the sound of the distinct whistling and crouched over her body. He tucked his head under his arms as the mortars struck the already crumbling building.
Rubble bombarded his back and the groan of falling cement and support beams deafened his ears.
Through their ringing he could hear the screams of his team and he knew he had to get to them. He looked up when he felt the wind lift his T-shirt and ruffle his hair.
It was as though the bombs had taken the walls of their clinic and pushed them over, causing a runway of rubble.
He sucked in a dust-laden breath and waited, listening for anything that would tell him that moving the team deeper into the building was not a mistake.
“Doc McKenna! Are you okay?” He squinted at the tall marine who tapped him on the shoulder. He allowed the man to help him to his feet and staggered as he took his weight on his busted knee.
“My team,” he croaked, coughing to clear some of the dust from his lungs.
“We have men searching for them now, Doc. I’ll get you to our medic and then join them.”
Jarrod put a hand on the marine’s shoulder and took a deep breath. The battering his ribs took when he fell two days earlier had not yet healed and must have gotten another round of abuse.
The knee he dislocated a few years ago on a mission with his SEAL team was reminding him that he was no lightweight at six-foot-four and nearly two hundred pounds.
His shoulder was cut where a piece of masonry had clipped him. He could feel some scrapes and cuts on his arms…but overall he was alive and his team was trapped somewhere in the rubble.
“After we find them,” he stated.
“Commander, you’re hurt, and I’d prefer—”
“I’ll be fine, Sergeant. I’ve been fucked over before, but I need to find my team.”
He picked up the young girl at his feet and gently handed her to the man barely older than she was. “Take care of her for now please.”
The man nodded and took her to the makeshift medical tent. Jarrod gingerly started climbing over the rubble, placing his feet carefully so as not to dislodge any large chunks.
He moved in the direction his team had been before the bombing. He called their names, hoping for a response.
“Doc! Over here!” A Search and Rescue officer called his attention to the area where his canine partner sat.
Jarrod hurried over and pulled loose stones away, quickly and methodically, the dog’s behaviour indicating that there was someone alive under the rubble.
He gasped when a hand grabbed his wrist and he recognized Turner’s wedding band.
“Turner! Hey buddy, don’t worry. We're gonna get you out, okay! Just hold on, we’re coming!”
“You crazy son of a bitch!” Finch cried as Jarrod and another S&R officer pulled him out a half hour later.
“I thought you were the craziest dumb-ass when you told us to dig the extra hollow…but am I glad we listened to you! Jeez, Doc! If it wasn’t for that bomb room we would not have made it!”
Jarrod pulled Finch into a tight embrace. “Anyone get hurt in that second round?”
“Nope. We just wondered where you were ‘cause we barely shut the door when those cats rained down.”
They both stilled as they heard the whine of war planes overhead. Jarrod’s ribs screamed in protest as he released a deep breath of relief when they were identified as US Tomcats flying over.
“All clear!” It was a welcome sound from the S&R chief. Jarrod checked his watch.
It had been a total of three hours since falling asleep and the S&R team pulling his staff from the rubble.
“Commander McKenna,” Jarrod turned toward Major Stephson as he approached.
Stephson was a short man with a soft voice—normally—who took no nonsense from anyone, generals included.
“A Huey is waiting for your team. You fly out in the next hour. My men will search, store and send all items we recover. It’s great to see you alive and I’d prefer to keep you that way.”
“Major, we put a lot of work into this area, The people were just beginning to trust us—” Stephson was shaking his head before Jarrod finished his protest.
“Do you think I didn’t see the change your team has made in these people? The hope that you guys have instilled in the children is immeasurable.
This was a direct attempt to put an end to your good work. I’m not kicking you out permanently, man. Just a temporary move. I want to stabilize the area so that you can come back and continue safely.
Jarrod, think about it. You were trained to work in adverse conditions. Most of your team are medical and nursing students on field training before their residencies. They won’t survive this.”
“Temporary?” Jarrod repeated, his brows drawn together.
“Just until we get behind the intention of the attack and find out who would jeopardize the health of their own people.”
“Okay,” Jarrod acquiesced, biting his cheek to stop the scream of frustration ripping through his soul.
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