She Played Daughter-in-Law on a Pig Farm, So I Took Her Hospital novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: The Barn Floor

He saves the man on the barn floor while she freezes, and the video reaches the hospital group chats.

I was on my knees in the dirt before I knew I had moved.

The heavy man was gray and not breathing.

I put two fingers on his neck and felt nothing.

"Call 911," I said, without looking up. "Does anyone have a defibrillator?"

"The fire truck," Dale said. "It's in the cab."

"Get it. Run."

He ran.

I tore the man's coat open and put the heel of my hand on his chest and started pushing.

Somebody counted out loud beside me.

It was Dale's wife.

She was a small woman in a knitted hat, pale around the mouth, and she had come out of the house when she heard the shouting.

"One, two, three," she said, in a firm voice, and she did not stop.

"Louder," I told her.

"I know how to count, young man."

"Good. Keep going."

Around us the yard had gone silent except for the radio, still playing a song about snow.

Someone turned it off.

My arms began to burn at the shoulder.

I did not look at Veronica.

I knew exactly where she was, and I knew that she had not moved.

Dale came back with the red case and dropped it by my knee.

I cut the man's shirt open with a pocketknife a boy handed me.

I put the pads on and the machine told us all to stand clear.

The man's whole body jumped.

I started pushing again.

The machine told us to stand clear a second time.

This time the man took a long, ragged breath and coughed up dirt.

Somebody in the crowd began to cry.

"Stay down, sir," I said, and put my palm flat on his shoulder. "You're all right. Your heart stopped, and it's going again. Don't try to get up."

His eyes found mine.

"Who're you?" he whispered.

"Nobody important," I said. "Lie still."

The ambulance took forty minutes to come up that road.

For forty minutes I knelt beside him, with Dale's wife holding his hand, and I did not leave.

When the paramedics finally loaded him onto the stretcher, one of them looked at the shirt I had cut off and then at my hands.

"Who ran this?" she asked.

"I did," I said. "Cardiac surgeon. Eastbrook Memorial. Take him there, and tell the ER chief Nolan sent you."

She nodded and went.

I stood up on legs that felt borrowed.

When I turned around, the whole village was looking at the barn.

Veronica was still standing at the steel table.

The knife was lying on the table now, and her hands hung at her sides.

The blood on her apron had gone dark and tacky.

Dale walked to her slowly, with his cap in his hand.

He had been a volunteer fire chief for twenty-six years, and he knew exactly what he had just watched.

"You didn't come," he said.

"I was in shock," Veronica said. "It's a trauma reaction. It happens to doctors too."

"Doctors don't stand there."

"Dale."

"A man was dying in my yard. You told my wife you cut open hearts."

"I said I'd worked with them."

"You said you were a surgeon," said Dale's wife, quiet and clear. "You told me you'd take care of my valve."

Veronica said nothing.

For the first time since I'd walked into the yard, she looked at me.

It was not the look she gave me at home.

It was the look of someone who had run out of rooms to hide in.

"What did you study, Veronica?" Dale asked.

"Medicine," she said.

"Where?"

"I told you. It's a long story."

"We've got the whole afternoon," I said.

She turned on me.

"You think you're so noble," she said. "Walking in here and saving everyone like it's a movie."

"I think a man is alive."

"You waited a month," she hissed. "You let this happen."

"I did," I said. "That one's mine."

Her face twisted.

Then a girl's voice, the one who had called her a real surgeon, rose from the edge of the crowd.

"Mommy, I got it all on my phone," the girl said. "I sent it to Cody's cousin. He said he'd put it up."

Cody had gone gray.

"Put what up?" Veronica said.

The girl's mother pulled her child close and said nothing.

But in her pocket, Veronica's phone began to buzz.

It buzzed once, then twice, then did not stop.

She pulled it out and stared at the screen, and I saw the name of the hospital in the notifications, and then the names of three board members.

The buzzing went on.

"What did you do?" she said to me, in a thin, high voice.

"I saved a man."

"You did this," Veronica said, as every phone in the yard began to light up. "You did this to me."

← Chapter 2 · All chapters · Chapter 4 →

Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend