Page 84 of Jump

“They usually are.”

My eyes snap to the side as a hand wraps around my arm. I follow the wrist, and up to a shoulder. Then I stop on Ivy’s penetrating stare and narrow my eyes.

“I’ve got you, Lieutenant.” She’s stronger than she appears, and unafraid of my wrath, as she balances on the edge of the cliff and carefully steers me and Rory closer.

“We’re nearly there,” I tell Rory. “I know you’re getting tired.” I hitch the woman higher, aware I hurt her when she whimpers. But it’s better I keep her with me, even with a little pain, than let her go. “Almost done, then you get a ride into town, and a room for a couple of nights at our hospital. Some of our doctors are cute, too. So you can perve all day.”

“Boy doctors?” she moans. “Or girls?”

“Your choice. The place is rife with brains and good looks.”

“Here, Lieutenant.” Ivy bounds into our space the second we’re on secure ground, and hooking her arm beneath Rory’s thighs, takes half of the woman’s weight to help carry her. “Paramedics!”

“Hey there.” Two guys wheel their stretcher between me and Ivy, sliding it into the space under Rory’s backside, and stop to help us secure her.

“How are you doing, ma’am?” Luca Lenaghan, the blond paramedic, comes to stand by Rory’s head and smiles for her. “My name is Luc.”

“Rory.” Her eyes flicker closed, now that she’s horizontal. “How’s it going?”

“My morning is better than yours, I think.” He peels one of her eyelids open and flashes a light until she practically hisses at the brightness. “Do you know where you are?”

“Yeah.” She swallows so I see the movement in her throat. “On the hill. My car got rammed by some jackass.”

“Good recall. What year is it?”

“I know it’s not December twenty-fourth, nineteen fourteen.” She stops, opens her eyes, and grimaces. “Despite the cold. It’s not when German, French, and British soldiers declared a ceasefire and kicked a ball around instead.”

“Well, that’s…” Luc nods. “True. Today is not then. You a history major in college, kid?”

“No, I just broke up with a history major. Because he was sleeping with his professor when not writing his dissertation on the first and second world wars.” Settling back and exhaling, she pouts. “Such an asshole.”

“Sounds like it,” Luc chuckles.

He straps Rory to the bed while his partner wraps her wounded leg, so they have her secure and ready to transport, all in under a minute.

“Heading down now,” Luc speaks into his radio, putting the hospital personnel on notice. “Vic’s awake and alert,” he reports as they turn away. “Shattered femur. Head lac, but it appears superficial.”

They wheel the bed away and secure their patient in the back of their bus. As the sirens restart, our tanker finally rolls onto scene, so I spin and get back to work.

“Where’s the driver of the wrecked truck?” I ask.

“Over there.” Axel nods toward a police cruiser. A cop stands beside it while a civilian sits in the back seat, the door open and his feet on the ground outside. “I can smell the booze from here.”

“Why’s he here?” I spy the police chief, Alex Turner, over by a cruiser, and his deputy, Oscar Franks… but it’s a fresh new face on scene—not new at all—that has my eyes narrowing.

Axel sniggers in the back of his throat. “Drake is a cop too, Lieutenant. He’s not one of ours, but the station has an agreement with the city and borrows men semi-regularly. Maybe Turner’s short on officers today, or maybe Banks just wanted to hang with the cool kids, since he was already in town.” He shrugs, like the asshole we speak of wasn’t all over my girl at his house last night, then claps my shoulder and darts toward the tanker to help Sloane hook up the hoses.

I could go to Drake. Release a little pent-up anger and let him taste my knuckles. But I’m the one who walked away with Viv last night. I’m the one who got to take her home and be with her.

So I choose the high road, and turn on my heels to help my crew extinguish the smashed-up hatchback before it’s fully engulfed in flames.

Or at least, that’s my plan. But when I turn, I screech to a stop again and snarl at Ivy’s grin.

“That was a good save, Lieutenant!” She nods to where the ambulance sat only a moment ago. “Climbing out there without a rope wasn’t your smartest plan, but it was brave—and you became that woman’s hero.”

“You’re on pumps,” I bite out, stepping around her. “Go get them ready for the guys.”

“Lieutenant—” She pivots, then speeds up to stop in front of me, her hands on her hips, and her brows pinched tight. “I’m trying to tell you that you did a good job.”

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