Page 4 of A Gift for her Festive Firefighter

And why on earth was she on a blind date with Gollum from Lord of the Rings? She thought wildly as Davy pulled a pink pill out of his shirt pocket and held it up to inspect it, like he was holding the one ring. She mentally hissed ‘My Precious’ the split second before he popped it into his mouth and swallowed.

“Oh. My. Gosh,” she muttered flatly in disbelief, grabbing her wallet. “I’m out.”

“Whuuuh?” Davy drawled, his eyes barely cracked open. “Gimme a few, m’kaaaay? Gonnaaaa fix dish.”

“I forgot I’ve got cobwebs to clean and mopheads to bake,” she said slowly, wondering just how far gone he was – only to see him nod. He had no clue what she’d said and it showed.

“Gottaaaaa clean ‘dem,” he whispered, leaning his head back and closing his eyes – and Holly shook her head. “Dos mop heads… uh, ahh… dir-dee.”

Nope.

She was done, and Davy needed help. He didn’t even blink when she stood up and snatched her wallet off the seat. The bench made a loud noise, drawing even more attention as every set of eyes watched her head to the counter. She hurriedly paid for both of them and dialed 9-1-1 on her cell phone while she was getting change.

“9-1-1, what’s your emergency?”

“I’m at The Cozy Cup in Sweet Bloom, and we’ve got someone here that is strung out on drugs. He’s barely responsive. I’m afraid it’s going to get worse because he just took something else in front of me,” she whispered, looking back at Davy, whose mouth was hanging open as he slumped down in the seat. “Yup, higher than a kite.”

“We’ll send someone right out.”

“Thank you,” Holly said quietly, hanging up the phone, and met Ruth’s eyes. The woman gave her a pitying look and shook her head. “I’m sorry this is happening in your place. It’s so nice here, and dinner was good.”

“That boy had so much potential when he was younger.”

“He keeps popping that ‘potential’ in him, and he’s going to end up killing himself or someone else.”

“I think it’s the only way he deals with the stress…”

“He needs to find a different outlet like the rest of us – God, whittling wood, yoga, fishing, whatever…”

“You don’t have to preach to the choir, Beary – I agree with you completely. Let’s see if we can walk him up toward the front, away from the other patrons. I hate for them to see Davy wheeled out on a stretcher.”

“Yeah, doesn’t look good for the business.”

“Word will reach his mother, and she’s already bad off. Let’s not finish the job with this fiasco.”

Holly, Ruth, and Jim Petrie managed to lug the boneless man toward the front of the café where there was a bench out front of the shop. Setting Davy down, she could hear the sirens in the distance and sighed heavily once more – only to see him limply dive forward. Holly quickly sat beside him on the bench, afraid he was going to hit his head on the concrete. The ambulance would take him to the clinic – or the nearest hospital, if things went from bad to worse.

The small fire engine pulled up along with an ambulance – and she never understood why the two went hand in hand and stared as a man jumped out of the passenger front seat of the truck, walking over.

A MANLY-man.

A rugged, handsome, sexy man who oozed sex-appeal as he stepped forward in his uniform, speaking to Ruth and Jim like she didn’t even exist. Oh, she existed all right – she was currently propping up the ‘problem,’ who was drooling on her shoulder and let out a snore.

“What have we got?” one of the paramedics asked her, moving Davy to the stretcher. “How long has he been like this?”

“I was on a blind date with him, and he was acting weird with large pupils – and then took a pink pill in front of me… before this happened,” Holly said bluntly, waving her hand.

“Can you tell me about the pill?”

“It was pink,” she retorted.

“Big, little, round, triangular, a capsule?”

“Pink – and then in his mouth,” she shrugged, feeling utterly stupid right now because she had no clue and it had all happened so fast – and she felt eyes on her. “I don’t mean to be difficult; I’ve just never seen someone actually take drugs in front of me and…”

“Are you clean?”

“Me? Yeah.”

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