“I’m fine.” Doc’s words slid into each other like melting ice. “Just got dizzy.” He tried to push himself up again.
I placed a hand on his shoulder. “Doc, stay with me. I need you to sit tight while we check you out.”
Something in my tone must have reached him because he stopped fighting, his eyes fixing on my face with frustration and something that looked like fear.
“Don’t make a fuss, Diego.”
“No fuss. Just doing my job.” I kept my voice calm.
Donkey had the blood pressure cuff around Doc’s arm, the monitor beeping as it inflated. “BP one-seventy over ninety-five,” he reported. “Pulse eighty-eight.”
I leaned closer. “Doc, smile for me.”
He tried, but the left side of his face barely moved. The right side lifted in a crooked attempt.
“Now raise both arms for me.”
His right arm lifted. His left barely cleared the floor.
“What’s the date today?” I watched his eyes.
Doc’s brow furrowed. “It’s…July?” He stopped, confusion clouding his features.
I glanced at Gillian. Her face had gone from pale to bloodless, but she wasn’t falling apart. She’d always been stronger than she knew.
Twitch checked the glucometer. “Blood sugar’s normal. Oxygen’s good.”
I nodded, pieces clicking into place. “Likely TIA or stroke.” In which case, every minute mattered. “Let’s move.”
Donkey was already prepping the stretcher I’d set aside. The crowd parted as we transferred Doc, his body suddenly looking frail under the bright lights of the bar.
“Is he—?” Gillian’s voice cracked as she followed beside us. “Is he going to be okay?”
Her eyes locked onto mine, green and fierce and terrified. The same eyes that used to light up when I’d walk into this same bar years ago. Now they were pleading for something I couldn’t guarantee.
I met her gaze, steadying myself. “We’re going to take care of him. I promise.”
That was all I could give her right now. No false reassurances, no medical predictions I couldn’t back up with certainty. Just the unvarnished truth that we would do everything in our power, which was more than most promises people made in moments like these. It was the kind of honesty that mattered when someone’s world was tilting sideways.
Something tightened in my chest—that old, familiar instinct to comfort her, to reach out and put a steady hand on her shoulder, to pull her close and tell her everything would be alright the way I used to when we were young and believed the world was conquerable. The urge was so strong I had toconsciously keep my hands on the equipment, fingers gripping the rails of the stretcher instead of reaching for her.
But years of training and hard-earned discipline held me in check. I had a job to do, a patient to stabilize and transport, and emotional entanglements weren’t part of the protocol. Not when lives hung in the balance. Especially not with the one woman who’d walked away four years ago and left a crack in my carefully constructed armor that had never quite sealed, no matter how many calls I’d run or how many people I’d helped since then.
“We’ve got it from here.” My voice was steadier than I felt.
She backed up just enough, hands fisted at her sides, eyes never leaving her grandfather. The crowd had thinned, most customers moving outside to watch from the sidewalk, but she remained, a fixed point in the chaos.
“I can walk, dammit.” Doc tried to push himself upright against the restraints. Even pale and disoriented, the stubborn set of his jaw remained unchanged from all the years I’d known him.
“Not tonight.” I placed a firm hand on his shoulder. “We’ve got you.”
For a moment, his eyes cleared, and he looked at me with the same sharp assessment I’d seen him use on rowdy college kids who tried to sneak fake IDs past him. Then he sank back, something in his expression surrendering.
“Fine,” he muttered. “But this is ridiculous.”
We secured him to the stretcher, Twitch checking the straps while Donkey gathered the monitoring equipment. Every move efficient, practiced. Outside, the ambulance waited, back doors open, interior lit like an operating room.
As we wheeled Doc toward the front, the saloon door swung open, letting in a blast of humid night air. The crowd outside had grown, faces tight with concern. In a town this size, Doc Holliday wasn’t just a business owner—he was a fixture, a cornerstone.
