Fixed up in February (Spring River Valley Book 2) by Clarice Wynter

his blood. This was what he wanted to be doing. News photography was his calling. He didn’t have to make anyone smile, or wait for someone to achieve the perfect pose. He could just point and shoot and capture amazing images as they happened.
    Behind him, the reporter was now talking into his cell phone, likely directly to his editor. Max heard his name mentioned. This would be great publicity for his studio, not to mention give him an in at the paper. He kept shooting while the rescue workers swarmed.
    Another group reaction traveled through the crowd as the car jerked. One tire seemed to be coming up over the rim of the bridge, and the man’s movements inside were making the vehicle bounce. Someone shouted to stop the bridge, and the onlookers crowded closer to the barriers. Still talking into his cell, Marchand passed Max and made his way to the line of neon orange sawhorses. For a better angle, Max held back, taxing his telephoto to the limit to try to capture a shot of Mr. Dochanti’s gloved hand griping the steering wheel as his open door swung dangerously back and forth.
    Everything after that moment happened in a blur. The car bucked once, and its wheels came free of the lip of the roadway. In the next instant, it began rolling down the raised deck of the bridge, the still steep angle giving it momentum.
    The bridge workers shouted, and Max looked up in time to see Marchand, turned away from the barriers to talk to someone standing behind him. The car was barreling toward the onlookers, and Max let go of his camera, letting it swing by its strap from his body, and threw himself into the knot of reporters, pushing them out of the way.
    The next thing he knew he was face-to-bumper with the rolling Buick.

Chapter Seven
     
     
    “Room four is still waiting for an X-ray,” Audrey said, making a note on the patient’s chart. She’d been in Radiology and missed most of the excitement when injuries began rolling in from the runaway car on the drawbridge. Now there was little left to do but oversee the discharge for a couple members of the bridge crew and onlookers brought in by the EMTs.
    “I’m on my way to four now,” one of the orderlies responded, stopping to peer at the chart before Audrey put it in the stand. She flipped through the others there, quickly checking to make sure no one else was waiting for something she could provide.
    His name registered immediately, and she snatched his chart from the stack. Max Shannon. A little frisson of—was it excitement or concern?—buzzed through her as she scanned the chart. He’d been hit by a car!
    She took the chart with her and headed for room seven where a curtain obscured the ER bed. God, what could have happened to him? Her stomach churned with worry at what she’d find when she peeked around the curtain.
    “Mr. Shannon?” She used her professional voice so no one would suspect she knew him. She pulled the curtain open an inch and looked inside.
    He lay sprawled on the rolling cot, deeply involved in sending a text message.
    She rolled her eyes as he looked up.
    “Hey! Iron Audrey, it’s you.”
    “What are you doing here? Is this some kind of twisted attempt at a second date?” She crossed her arms over her chest. The dead battery approach hadn’t worked, so he had to go and throw himself in front of a car to get her attention?
    He gasped in mock indignation. “Get over yourself. I was injured on the job.”
    “Was it a baby or a dog in a Santa suit that ran you over?” Her instinct was to examine him, but did she trust herself to put her hands on him?
    “I was shooting the bridge accident, and the car hit me.”
    She raised a brow. “What were you doing at the bridge?”
    “Filling in for a newspaper photographer. Am I going to live?”
    Audrey glanced at his chart. According to the notes made by the admitting physician, he’d been checked for contusions and was awaiting discharge. “This says you’re fine. The car couldn’t have hit you