Page 87 of Tulips and Lost Time

“I want five minutes.” I back up to stay out of the way. But I watch with my heart in my throat and pride swelling in my chest. “I just wanna watch.”

“She was the same, right?” He keeps his voice low, tilting his head when Kari commands a doctor like she’s a fucking drill sergeant and rattles off orders for x-rays. “Home invasion?”

“When she was seven. She wasn’t harmed, though. No broken bones.” I draw a long breath and reach up to silence my radio as it crackles by my ear. “She had Marcus there to protect her.”

“Lucky.” Mitch brings a hand up and scratches the stubble on his jaw. “Good thing she had him.”

“All a matter of perspective, right? Lucky, she had Marcus. Lucky for Cleo, her mom and dad will live.” I firm my lips and fall head over heels, irreversibly fucking stupid when Kari looks across and meets my eyes. She’s insane if she thinks I can walk away from us. Delusional if she thinks I’ll even consider it. “I met her just a few days after her parents were murdered. And it was just… It was our normal. I didn’t even stop to pat her on the head or tell her to be brave the way I want to with Cleo.”

“Because you’re grown now.” He leans back and folds his arms. “Cleo’s a little girl you wanna protect. Kari, back then and always, was your equal.”

“I probably could have been nicer to her. Even a gentle, ‘sorry your parents died’ would’ve been better than she got.”

“You were a kid, too. And hindsight is always around to make us feel like a dick. Come on.” He claps my chest and drops his hands. “We have to keep moving. Let her do her job. We’ve gotta do ours.”

“But she’s so beautiful.” I turn and walk, my head swiveling on my neck and following the girl I vow to marry. Obsessed with the woman she grew to become. “She’s so powerful.”

“Let’s get her up for an all over CT!” she commands. “We need a look inside. Right now.”

“Dude.” Chuckling, I spin and speed my steps to follow Mitch. “She’s ordering Dr. Eastgate around on her first fucking day.”

“He’ll eat her for breakfast unless she cools it.”

“Or he’ll worship at her feet because she’s so fucking incredible.” I cast one last glance back before the door closes, grinning when Eastgate nods and does as he’s told. “She’s queen of the ED, Mitchy. She’s gonna be amazing.”

26

LUC

ANYONE UP FOR A RIDE… ON A CARGO SHIP HEADED FOR GREECE?

The best part of living and working in a small town is that our first responders don’t typically work the same as big city first responders.

Elsewhere, cops and paramedics and nurses are on wildly different shifts. They’re not connected, and they’re not reliant on one another. But here, most of our team comes in at the same time, and like clockwork, we tend to leave at the same time.

It’s nice, really, since that means I get to hang with the same crowd more often than not. Nicer yet, because as the end of my shift approaches and the town surrounding us slumbers, I wait out on the ambulance dock with a can of Pepsi and get a chance to finally breathe. Because with the loss of the sun, comes a little reprieve from the heat.

And with the end of my shift comes the end of hers.

I sit on a tiny, raised wall, only two feet high and two layers thick. I’m not even sure of its purpose, except, perhaps, to discourage cars from driving over here.

But it makes for a good seat, and it comes with the perfect view of the back of the ED, where the double doors swing wide and anyone coming off shift wanders out. Usually, I take my time. Head to the locker rooms, have a shower, and chill the fuck out before I go home. But tonight, I didn’t even change. I have someone’s femoral blood on my pants. And someone else’s tears on my shirt. But I also have a little girl inside that building, traumatized and broken, but she’s alive.

And better yet, for her, her mother is alive, too.

She’ll always carry trauma from today. But it won’t be quite as heavy as the burden Marcus carries with him. Or as hidden as the load Kari walks around with daily.

“Why are you staring at the doors?”

I startle and twist in my seat, grinning when I find Mitch in fresh jeans and a shirt that is surely lighter than the uniform I wear. He’s showered and his short hair has been combed clean; I guess I had time to change after all, though I didn’t want to risk it. Shaking my head as my thundering heart slows, I turn back to study the hospital and bring my soda up. “You scared me.”

“You’re skulking outside a safe place, hiding in the dark with your hand in your pants.”

I sip and snicker, flexing my hand as though to prove where it is. “Maybe I really like sick people.”

“Or maybe you’re on a fast track to being slapped with a protection order.” He comes around and sits on the wall, too. Dropping his duffel so it lands on the concrete with a thud, “What’s your plan if she doesn’t want you, Luc?”

Aching, I turn and study the side of his face.

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