Page 41 of One Sweet Day I Found You

Courtney smiled. Nick was easy to talk to. And he seemed like he reallygot it. Guys like that were rare.

It was just that he seemed a lot more comfortable talking about her than about himself.

“So, tell me, what else do you do when you’re not working? What makes Nick Bingham’s week fly by?” Courtney uncrossed her leg and crossed the other one. “Because if it’s high-definition video games all weekend long, I would like to know as soon as possible, please.” She grinned.

Nick laughed. “Oh, no, nothing like that. Although I have been known to spend a rainy day here and there on the screen with my stock cars in Daytona.”

“Okay. Good to know.” She grinned. “So, what else?”

“Oh, I don’t think I mentioned it yet, but I work in search-and-rescue for the county’s emergency medical services.”

Courtney’s expression changed from amused to amazed. “What? So, like, you run around saving lives? And you havetwojobs?”

The guy was full of surprises.

Nick cracked up. “Well, I don’trun around. But yeah, something like that.”

Courtney laughed at the image.

“And no, it’s a voluntary position.”

“Wow. Still. It’s a job.” Courtney stared. “So, do you drive the ambulance, too?”

He laughed. “No, I’m not in the ambulance either. The units each have a full-time staff for that. I mostly do the wilderness rescues—places an ambulance can’t go.”

Courtney rested her chin in her hand and allowed her elbow to rest on the table. “Right.”

He scrubbed a hand across his cheek. “They need someone to ride a bike or a snowmobile into the wild and rescue the poor suckers who get themselves into trouble. We bring ’em out so they can haul ’em off in the ambulance. It’s usually tourists, but not always.”

Courtney sat back. “Wow. So what if they’rereallyin trouble out in the wild? Who does the lifesaving procedure?”

Nick cleared his throat and looked away for a second. “We do most of that. But it’s not always a medical emergency. Often, it’s someone who got lost or did something careless and needs help. Stuff like that.”

He seemed to be downplaying it, but Courtney thought it was pretty hard-core.

She nodded along. “So, how often do you get called out?”

“About once a week, sometimes less. More, in the summer. And sometimes it’s out on the lake, not the woods.”

“Really? That issocool.”

Her glance fell on Nick’s chest and she imagined his muscular arms carrying helpless victims out of the woods on a stretcher.

Courtney caught herself and turned her attention to her slice of pizza. She took a big bite.

“I usually go out on calls with my roommate, Tom. I’m sure you’ll meet him at some point. He helps manage the apartment complex that we live in. Good guy.”

“I’d like that. So, you must’ve gone through some medical training?”

Nick cleared his throat again. “Yeah. A little bit. But EMT’s not that big a deal.”

He sat back and Courtney smiled again, studying him. “Sure, it’s not.” She raised an eyebrow.

Nick was so modest. How did the guy live a superhero kind of life and act like it was an everyday, run-of-the-mill kind of thing?

“It’s not as hard as it sounds. And it gets me out of the shop, sometimes, to go ride my bicycle. What’s not to like?”

Courtney laughed. “Uh, that’s above and beyond the call of duty. Most guys want to ride their bicycles for fun. You’re riding it for…well,notfun.”

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