Rescue Team

Rescue Team by Candace Calvert

Kate Callison has a habit of running away. This time she has run into a firestorm as the interim director of Grace Hospital's ER. Kate built impenetrable walls that she is determined will stand. The death of a newborn won't break them. The emergence of her distant father won't crack them. The kidnapping of an infant won't tumble them. The affection of a cute cowboy won't soften them. She's stepped into a maelstrom in the ER as she's filling in for the missing Sunni.  The lovable, compassionate, kind Sunni who was beloved by staff and who Kate will never be a decent replacement for.

Wes Tanner is a volunteer with Search and Rescue. He's a kind-hearted cowboy that every girl dreams about except Kate. Despite her attempts at remaining a good distance from him, life keeps putting them together. Wes might actually scale those walls Kate built, until tragedy brings about the truth of her painful past. Can Wes forgive Kate for the one sin that he has deemed unforgiveable?

Rescue Team continues Calvert's skilled writing of the trauma, tragedy, and excitement of an ER. She mixes life outside the doors of an ER and the battle for life within the doors. Rescue Team had perhaps my favorite underlying theme. Do we draw lines and declare that certain actions/decisions/sins/mistakes are unforgiveable? Can we place ourselves in someone else's shoes and see their heart? Are we capable of the compassion necessary to look beyond the actual act and see the brokeness/confusion/pain/helplessness that often leads to those actions?

I really enjoyed Rescue Team because the message was one that I've been mulling over recently. It is so easy to draw a line in the sand and claim a side, however sometimes that line gets washed away with the tide and we need to be prepared to step over it.