Page 14 of Just This Once

A firm nod was all I could offer her. I was confident my voice would be thick with emotion. I turned and cleared my throat, discreetly patting the wet corners of my eyes.

“This is yours.” Whip’s deep rumble startled me, and I turned to him.

His clear blue eyes pinned me in place. Stunned, I searched for any ounce of recognition, but his features were hard and unmoving. I glanced over his shoulder, and Mrs. Marsh had stood with Michael, her arm wrapped around her son as the other EMTs chatted with her. Michael was nearly as tall as his mother, but in the aftermath of his seizure he looked slight and fragile.

Refocusing on the man in front of me, my eyes dropped to the cardigan in his hand.

When I reached for it, our fingers grazed, and electricity crackled across my palm and up my forearm. I tucked the cardigan under my arm as I folded them across my chest.

No recognition. Nothing. He doesn’t remember me.

“Thank you.” I couldn’t even look at him. The single hottest night of my life and I was completely forgettable. I wanted to fold in on myself and dissolve before having to face him again.

Whip pulled a pen from his uniform and lifted the clipboard in his other hand. “He’ll be released to his mother.”

I nodded, unable to speak.

Without another word, Whip and his team strode out of the doorway and out of my life for good.

SEVEN

WHIP

I pressedthe heel of my hand into my chest, willing the ache to let up. I was shocked to barge into a classroom for a medical emergency call only to find the woman I had been obsessing over gaping back at me.

Thankfully I stared for only a fraction of a second too long before instinct took over.

“It’s always the worst when it’s a kid.” Lee Sullivan stared out the windshield of the ambulance.

I dropped my hand. “Yeah.”

Lee and I were on opposite sides of the King–Sullivan feud, but when it came to work, it was the job that mattered. We typically saved our petty bullshit for the break room or outside of work. Plus, fucking with him held slightly less appeal now that I knew my sister would have my ass if we took it too far. Still, it hadn’t kept me from gift wrapping Duke Sullivan’s entire truck with dinosaur paper in honor of my nephew’s impending birthday.

I chuckled quietly to myself. Our town flashed past the truck as we rolled down the road back to the station.

“What tickled your pickle, Bill?” Lee Sullivan gave me the side-eye from the passenger seat.

I clenched my teeth, knowing full well that if Lee knew I was behind the prank against his brother, he’d make it his personal mission to exact revenge. “Nothing—just remembering how funny it was to see you like a turtle on its shell when you slipped in that puddle.”

During a house fire a few months ago, Lee was stripping siding off the building when he lost his balance and fell backward into a shallow koi pond. The weight of his air tank had made it so he couldn’t roll himself over. He’d been stuck, like a turtle on its shell, moving his arms and legs and rolling around trying to right himself.

“Fuck off. You know those air tanks are heavy as shit, and it’s not my fault the mud was too slick for me to flip over. You could have helped sooner, you know.”

I grinned at the mental image of cocky Lee Sullivan stuck on his back, arms and legs moving in a desperate attempt to flip himself over. I watched and laughed for a good five minutes before hauling him up and out of that shallow puddle.

We drove through our small town, returning waves and smiles as we passed. Lee grinned and basked in the attention. In another town—another life—Lee and I might have been friends, but given who my father was and our family’s history, there was little chance that would ever happen.

Too drained to continue our typical banter, I stayed quiet as I drove the ambulance the rest of the way to the station.

In our small town, the men and women on my team were trained as both firefighters and EMTs, and there were perks to serving my hometown—free coffee and congratulatory handshakes, kind smiles while waiting in line at the grocery store—but it also meant the people who needed your help would be family, friends, or neighbors. Every call carried the weight of knowing you could be arriving on the worst day of their life for someone you loved.

Once the fire truck and ambulance were parked, the team got to work restocking supplies and cleaning up. Back at the station I spent time preparing lunch for the crew and willing myself not to think about the soft shudders of Emily’s breath as she came on my fingers or the pliant curve of her hips.

I dragged a hand down my face and sighed.Damn it.

The reality was she had consumed my thoughts for the past two months. Emily and I had danced and laughed and had what I thought was the most incredible accidental date of my life before she panicked and bolted out the door.

What the hell had I done wrong?

---