by Score, Lucy
“I’m going to work.”
“Back on the bird?” Linc pressed. She was an enigma to be decoded.
She shook her head. “That’s just for fun. Keeps me sharp. The real work starts today.”
“Emergency department? Burn unit?” he teased, holding up his expertly bandaged hand.
“Worse.” She winced. “Family practice.”
He laughed. They were a match made in heaven, and she really had no idea.
“Did I miss something hilarious?”
He liked that she didn’t seem to mind being laughed at. Didn’t take herself too seriously.
“Just thinking about how much we have in common.”
“Oh, really?”
“I’m fire chief here,” he said. “I always wanted to be a firefighter. Was a good one, too. Good enough to move up the ranks. Guess how often a chief gets to run into a burning building?”
Her smile was understanding. “About as often as a family practitioner gets to intubate a patient in a helicopter?”
“Bingo, Dreamy. You and me, friend. Two peas in a pod. So if you need some kind of distraction from the grind—”
“The still essential grind,” she reminded him.
He nodded, giving her that. “Someone’s got to take temperatures and write scripts.”
“And someone’s got to organize the guys running into the fire.”
“And gals,” he said with a wink and a point.
“And gals,” she agreed. She sighed and took another look around the room. “Place suits you.”
It had. Linc wasn’t sure if that was still true. Recently, he noticed a restlessness creeping in on the contentment he’d known for so long.
“Who’s that?” she asked, nodding at a photo on the wall.
“That’s my sister. She lives in Sedona with her three kids. Do you have any?”
“Siblings or kids?” she clarified.
“Both. Either.”
She waited a beat. One just long enough that he knew what followed was either a lie or only a small part of a complicated story.
“Nope. Neither. And on that note, I need to get to work.”
He rose with her and followed her to the door, Sunshine on his heels.
“Good luck organizing all those tongue depressors, doc.”
“Have fun with all your paperwork today, chief.”
He opened the door for her and enjoyed watching her amble across the asphalt to the sidewalk.
No car, he noted. Interesting.
Doctor Dreamy was a puzzle that begged to be solved.
7
The Benevolence Fire Department was housed in a new two-story building where the faucets didn’t leak, the drivers didn’t have to mind the piddly four inches of clearance on the garage doors, and the furniture didn’t smell like decades of firefighter farts.
They’d made the move three years ago after a lifetime of fundraising and a few generous grants.
But part of Linc still felt nostalgic for the original brick station with the garage doors that stuck, the cracked concrete floors, and the wood-paneled living quarters with their creaky, uneven floors.
“Morning,” he called, strolling in through the open bay. Shift change officially happened at seven every morning, but after bigger incidents, volunteers usually came in early to get the scoop from their counterparts.
“Morning, chief,” the crew echoed.
“How’s the shoulder?” Assistant Chief Kelly Wu asked, nimbly hopping down from the engine and slamming the access panel.
She cruised in at five feet six inches with jet black hair that she kept cropped in a stylish pixie cut. It fit under her hood and helmet better that way, she said. What she lacked in long legs, she made up for in fast feet and freakish strength. At forty-five, she ran long-distance mud races for fun and got matching tattoos with her eighteen-year-old daughter.
“Right as rain,” he fibbed. Sore as hell was what it was.
Sunshine raced around, greeting everyone with equal enthusiasm. She accepted Kelly’s head scratch and then happily bolted for the stairs and kitchen where a variety of dog treats waited.
The garage smelled of diesel and fresh cleaners. To Linc, the scent meant new starts. No matter what the apparatus and equipment had been through the previous day, it was reset to like-new.
Two of his day shift volunteers were already going over the engines, checking the med kits and emergency lighting, while last night’s crew filled them in on the accident clean-up.
Every day began with a thorough check of all equipment and vehicles. Personal gear was stowed, equipment tested, and each apparatus gone over with a fine-tooth comb.
There was something satisfying, almost meditative, about the daily check. It prepared them all both physically and mentally for anything.
“Shouldn’t you be wearing a sling?” Kelly asked in her best mom voice.
“Shouldn’t you be buying your kid another hamster?”
“Deflecting,” she shot back. “And it’s on the agenda for tonight. Still not sure how the last furry little bastard got out of that damn ball.”
“You’re the one who named him Houdini.”
“I just hope he doesn’t turn up in an air vent or something.” She sighed. “Then we’ll have five.”
The glass windows gleamed in the morning sun. The crew took pride in their new station. Saturday was cleaning day. It was a hell of a lot easier—and more satisfying—to clean a brand-new facility than try to scrub through the decades of sludge on twenty-year-old turd brown carpet.
The novelty of a new facility had yet to wear off.
“Want an unofficial briefing?” she offered.
“If there’s coffee involved,” he yawned. He stopped himself mid-stretch when he felt the twinge in his shoulder.
He’d slept like a log but could have used another hour or two.
Kelly followed him up the stairs where they ducked into the kitchen.
“Morning, chief,” Zane “Stairmaster” Jones greeted him with a bagel in one hand and his gym bag in the other. The deli in town always dropped off bagels the morning after a tough incident. Yet another benefit of small-town life.
“What’s up, Stairmaster?”
“Heard you tweaked your shoulder pretty good,” he said. The man was short and stocky but had the endurance of a professional athlete. He’d earned the nickname for organizing the local 9/11 memorial tribute. One hundred ten floors on stair climbers in full gear at the local gym.
Linc shrugged, then regretted the motion. “It’s not bad. Doctor’s being over-cautious if you ask me.”
“Is that the doctor who looked you over in the ED or the one you had dinner with last night?” Kelly asked, the picture of innocence.
News traveled at lightning speeds in Benevolence.
He gave her an enigmatic smile and changed the subject. “How’s the ’stache race going?” he asked Zane. Some of the guys were competing in a pre-Movember facial hair growing contest.
Zane stroked a hand over the sad wisps of facial hair dotting his upper lip. “Pretty good. I mean, Harry’s in the lead, but I think I’m doing all right.”
“He’s a hirsute bastard,” Linc agreed, thinking of the thick-haired Italian volunteer. “Make sure he’s not just letting his nose hair grow out.”
“I think it’s muscle memory. Dude shaved his decades-old ’stash off just to participate.”
“I’m competing in the leg hair division,” Kelly put in. She took a drink of coffee so pale it could pass for milk.
“Please. You draw on your eyebrows every day,” Zane scoffed.
Kelly gave her brows a wiggle. “With a hundred bucks at stake, I’m willing to draw on a mustache.”
“A hundred bucks?” Linc mused. “Maybe I need to get in on this action.”
Hearing his voice, Sunshine lifted her head from where she’d buried it in the couch cushions, surfing for dropped food. She bolted off the couch and ran to his side.
“T
hat dog loves you more than anything in this universe,” Zane noted wistfully. The guy was working on six months of single and was starting to make noises about wanting to meet a nice girl and settle down.
“Speaking of action and l-o-v-e,” Kelly said with a pointed look at Linc. “How was dinner with hotshot air doc?”
“It was a professional face-stuffing,” Linc said. He didn’t kiss and tell, and he certainly didn’t talk about getting shot down from kissing.
“Professional? I heard she’s sixty shades of gorgeous and you practically choked on your tongue when she popped her pretty face out of the helicopter,” Kelly said.
“I heard he threw out his shoulder begging her to give him the time of day,” Zane said, miming falling to his knees and clasping his hands.
“I’m happy to put you both on toilet scrubbing duty for the rest of the week,” Linc mused.
“Aw, chief. Why’d you do a thing like that when we’ve got ourselves a rookie?” Zane asked.
“That rookie hauled my ass out of a flaming car yesterday.”
“After you heroically saved a bouquet of flowers,” Kelly pointed out. “For what it’s worth, that would have scored points with me if I were in the market for a hotty mchotterson guy. I can make sure the pretty doc hears about your heroism, give her a nudge about what a catch you are.”
“You’re off toilet duty,” Linc decided.
Zane took a bite of bagel under Sunshine’s watchful eyes. “The chief doesn’t need our help. He’s never not landed the girl.”
Linc shoved a hand through his hair. He didn’t know what this feeling was. It felt like the opposite of confidence, and he didn’t much care for it. There was something about Doc Dreamy that unsettled him. Made him doubt himself. It tightened up his glib tongue, made his flirting rusty. She was a challenge, and he didn’t have the best track record with challenges.
Sunshine, bored with the conversation and lack of treats, trotted down the hallway and into his office.
“Maybe we can get to that briefing, Wu?” Linc hinted.
She snatched a bagel off the tray on the table. “Be there in a minute,” she promised. “You want half?”
He eyed the bagel. Thought of the piece of pizza. “Nah. Thanks.”
He ambled into the chief’s office. Sunshine was perched on the dog bed, looking out the sole skinny window the room offered. Her tail swished happily across the carpet at whatever held her attention outside.
Linc flopped down in the desk chair and booted up the computer. His desk was littered with hand-written notes and papers. All waiting to be compiled neatly, concisely into his daily report, the bane of his existence.
Being chief had its perks. But the avalanche of paperwork was not one of them.
“Seriously, how are you feeling?” Kelly asked. She dropped into the chair across from him and bit into her bagel slathered with a half-inch layer of cream cheese.
“Fine,” he said, opening his email program and wincing when he saw the number of unread messages.
“Chief.” Her mom voice required an answer.
“Hurts like a son of a bitch. There. Happy?”
She smirked at him. “That my chief was injured on a call? Yeah, I’m ecstatic. Ass.”
“That’s Chief Ass to you,” he groused.
“Okay, Chief Ass, let’s catch up.”
She walked him through the night shift and the accident clean-up. Still only one fatality.
“Crew had the usual round of cuts and bumps and bruises. Rookie had some burns from hauling your cute butt out of the car, but you got the worst of it injury-wise.”
“She didn’t have any gear on.” He sighed. “I told her to work triage.”
“Lucky for her, there was an ear, nose, and throat doc whose Mercedes got turned into a tin can. He took over triage until the EMTs got there. How’d she do on her first big call?”
Linc walked through it in his head. “Good. Kept her head. She was excited. But not in the unhinged rodeo clown kind of way.”
“She’s gonna be a good addition to the crew,” Kelly predicted.
“Seems so.”
“I mean, we still have to razz her.”
“Of course. It’s part of the process.”
“Oh, since you were bumming around the emergency department yesterday, I wrote up a draft of your DR for you.”
“Bless you, Wu.”
“Yeah, you just remember that when I ask for the next Fourth of July off.”
She stood and brushed bagel crumbs off her pants. “Need anything before I head out?”
“Nope. Hoping it’ll be a quiet one after yesterday. Go on home.”
Kelly gave Sunshine an enthusiastic ruffle before heading out the door. “Keep that shoulder rested,” she called.
“Yeah. Yeah.”
She left, but Kelly was just the first one through his door for the day.
“Yo, chief! How’s the shoulder?” Hairy Harry poked his head in.
“I barely recognize you without the ’stache,” Linc said. The man had had one as long as Linc could remember.
Harry brushed a hand over his stubbled lip. “Be back in no time. Sounds like you guys had quite the mess yesterday.”
One of the worst things for a firefighter was missing out on the big call.
“It was ugly,” Linc agreed and mentally pushed back his DR and email for another ten minutes to shoot the shit.
It was the theme of the day apparently.
His eight-thirty briefing was interrupted no less than three times by neighbors “just dropping by.” Most brought goodies with them, so the interruptions weren’t exactly annoying. It was a sign of the kind of community they lived in. They were all involved. Everyone had stakes in everyone else’s lives. An accident, a trauma, had wide-reaching effect. Like ripples in a pond.
With the day shift tucked into the upstairs conference room for classroom training on responding to calls with victims with special needs, Linc headed back to his office. His shoulder hurt. His hand burned. But his mind was working on a different problem.
One Dr. Dreamy.
She wasn’t exactly resistant to his charm. She seemed to enjoy it, had even flirted back. But she’d made it clear she wasn’t looking for any extracurricular excitement with him.
He found the push-pull of her interest and disinterest in him fascinating.
It had gotten him burned before in the past. The strong, interesting woman who caught his eye, made him hope hopes and think thoughts. It hadn’t panned out. But he’d never stopped hoping.
He tapped out a beat on the desk with the tip of his pen, debating. He could afford a few more dents, he decided. Better to regret something he’d done than something he hadn’t.
He picked up the phone and dialed.
“Yeah, hey, Gloria. How do you feel about making up one of those pretty bouquets for me?”
8
Dunnigan and Associates was located in a barn red single-level building on the way out of town past the high school. The concrete ramp and steps that led to the front door of the office were clean enough to eat from. Inside, the waiting room smelled faintly of fresh paint.
The chairs were the standard kind found in family doctor waiting rooms around the country, wooden legs with mint green cushions. A tiny table and chairs topped with coloring books and fat crayons sat in a corner next to a fish tank. Some little colorer had gotten overzealous and scribbled orange zigzags on the off-white wall.
There was a mother holding a flush-cheeked toddler on her lap. She was reading a Frog and Toad book to him.
The girl behind the front desk looked up. She had the cheerleader look. Bright eyes. Bouncy curls that went from warm brown at the roots to glossy caramel at the ends. Perfect shimmery makeup. And a beauty queen smile.
“Hi! You must be Dr. O’Neil,” the girl said, rising. “I’m Tuesday, and I’m so happy to meet you.”
Oh, boy. A sincere cheerleader.
Well, Mack wanted different. So rath
er than a military pilot nicknamed Buzz who spit tobacco out the chopper door, she now had Tuesday. This was already a significant step up.
“Hi. Yes. Tuesday.” Years of dealing with unconscious patients had apparently rendered her unable to communicate with the conscious.
Nerves. It was vaguely funny that the big, bad helicopter doc was nervous about practicing a little ol’ family medicine.
A woman, short, comfortably round with a close-cropped cap of jet-black hair and more eye makeup than Cruella de Vil, bustled out of a doorway. She wore unsullied white orthopedic sneakers and purple scrubs.
“Freida, Dr. O’Neil is here,” Tuesday announced cheerily. Mack wondered where Tuesday had been in the pyramid foundation.
“Dr. O’Neil. Nice to meet you,” Freida said. Extending a hand. Her nails were short and polish-free, but she wore four jeweled rings to make up for it.
“Call me Mack,” she said, remembering to make eye contact with both of her new co-workers.
“Dr. Mack then,” Freida compromised. “You can follow me.”
Mack didn’t know where she was going or what was waiting for her. But the unknown had been a familiar comfort up to this point. She never knew exactly what she was going to find when the helicopter touched down. She’d just treat this entire experience as one small, odd emergency call.
Freida led her to the end of a hallway and down another shorter one before pausing to rap lightly on a closed door.
“Yo,” was the energetic response.
Freida opened the door. “Dr. D., Dr. Mack is here.”
Dr. Trish Dunnigan was unapologetically wiping powdered sugar off her coat. Mack liked her already.
She stood up, brushing the crumbs into the trash can before wiping her hand on her pants and extending it to Mack.
“Great to meet you. Welcome aboard,” she said heartily. The handshake was firm and a little sugary. Dr. Dunnigan was tall and on the stocky side with a spectacular head of frizzy red curls. Her smile was confident.
“Thanks, Dr. Dunnigan. I’m happy to be here.” Happy. The word echoed in her head and she briefly wondered if she really had any idea what happy felt like. Great. Now she had to worry about an existential crisis as well as staving off burnout.