Page 6 of Kiana's Hero

The steady beep of the monitor was the only reassuring sound in the ambulance. As long as her heart was still beating, she had a chance.

Why didn’t she wake up?

At the hospital, Tish was taken straight back to an examination room. A nurse stepped in front of Kiana when she tried to follow. “Are you a relative of the patient?”

“Her name’s Tish Jenkins,” Kiana said. “I’m the only relative she has. Tish and I grew up in the foster system together.”

The nurse frowned. “No parents? Siblings? Spouse?”

“No.” Kiana looked over her shoulder at the gurney disappearing with her friend on it. “Please. Tish was attacked and nearly killed. I’m her roommate, her sister of the heart. She hasn’t regained consciousness since the attack and can’t speak for herself. She needs someone to advocate for her. All she has is me.”

The nurse’s eyes narrowed, and she chewed on her bottom lip. Finally, she gave a curt nod. “Since you’re her sister, you can go with her,” she said and stepped aside.

Kiana hurried after Tish, catching up as the orderly pushed the gurney into an examination room.

Moments later, a doctor appeared. As he shined a light into Tish’s eyes, he asked questions about what had happened. Kiana answered to the best of her knowledge. He performed a preliminary examination, noting injuries to her face, ribs, arms and everywhere that could be seen on the outside.

The more bruises and cuts he discovered, the deeper Kiana’s heart sank into her belly.

All that time, Tish remained unconscious.

When the doctor had completed his examination, he turned to Kiana. “We’ll perform a CT scan looking for injuries to her brain and run other tests. You can wait in the waiting room. Someone will let you know when you can see her again.” He turned to the nurse, gave her instructions and then stepped toward the door.

“She’s going to be all right, isn’t she?” Kiana called out. “She’s going to wake up, right?”

The doctor looked back and gave Kiana a gentle smile. “Head trauma can be tricky. We need to see what’s happening and make decisions based on what we find. We’ll do our best to help her.”

Kiana nodded even as the doctor left the room.

The nurse opened the door wide and tipped her head toward the exit that led out of the emergency department. “You can wait in the lobby. I’m taking Ms. Jenkins for that CT scan. We’ll let you know more as we get results.”

“Thank you.” Kiana stepped out of the room and waited in the wide hallway until the nurse pushed the gurney out of the room and disappeared through another door at the opposite end of the hall from the direction of the lobby.

Kiana pressed a hand to her chest, trying to ease the ache. Tish and Meredith were her sisters. They’d found each other in the foster care system and forged a bond that had carried through to adulthood. Kiana might still be living with Tish and Meredith if she hadn’t had such a shitty breakup with her fiancé and opted to get the hell off Oahu.

She’d left to get away from Carl Brandon, former model and Kiana’s ex-fiancé; the man who’d siphoned off every last cent of her savings for a downpayment on a Corvette convertible he’d had to have for his transition to real estate broker.

He'd passed his brokerage training with her help, and no sooner had he signed on with a large brokerage firm than he’d called off their engagement and walked away from their three-year relationship with the Corvette Kiana’s savings had helped him buy.

Kiana had saved every dime she could of her next three paychecks from modeling gigs, packed what she could carry in her suitcase, gave everything else to Tish and Meredith and moved to Maui. That had been over a year ago, and she hadn’t been back to Oahu since.

Until now.

But she’d stayed in touch with Tish and Meredith and had sent money when they were in a tight place financially, or she had extra. She’d tried to get them to move to Maui with her, but there were few jobs for models on the island. After the fires, there were even fewer jobs on Maui. So many people who’d lost their homes and places of employment had been displaced from Maui to other islands. It was just as well Tish and Meredith had stayed on Oahu.

Though Kiana had made new friends, she’d missed her sisters.

Kiana paced the length of the waiting room for the next forty-five minutes, waiting for Dev, waiting for news about Tish and going through everything she knew so far, which wasn’t much. How was she supposed to be with Tish and look for Meredith at the same time?

She pulled out her cell phone and called Cliff Rey, manager of Aloha Escorts. When he didn’t answer his personal number, she tried the escort service’s business number. An automated response answered in a sexy female voice, “Need a date to make your Hawaiian stay complete? You can count on Aloha Escorts. Please leave your name, number and preferences, and we’ll get right back with you.”

Kiana frowned. When had they gone to voicemail instead of having a real person fielding calls? She hesitated to leave a message but had no other choice. “Cliff, it’s Kiana. Call me as soon as you receive this message. You have my number. It’s important. Life or death.”

When she ended the call, she turned to see Dev enter the ER waiting room. He stopped inside the door and swept the room with his gaze. When it landed on her, his lips curled into a muted smile.

In seconds, he crossed the room, opened his arms and she fell into them.

Hell, she barely knew this man, but she felt instinctively safe with him. She didn’t realize she was crying until he leaned back and tipped up her chin.

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