by Score, Lucy
She picked up his hand, and he tried hard not to think about how good the physical contact felt. “I’m not the only one who took some damage,” she said, examining his bruised and split knuckles.
“No one messes with my girl.”
She shot him the look but didn’t bother arguing with him this time.
Progress. Hard-fought progress.
“Listen,” he said, rising. “I’ve gotta go. Shift change at seven. Text me if you need anything. I’ll be back to make you dinner and take Sunny off your hands.” He dropped a kiss on the top of her head, liking how natural it felt.
“You could have just asked me,” she called after him.
“You would have said no,” he called back. “Be a good girl for the doc, Sunshine.”
21
“What? What do you want?” Mack asked Sunshine while she unloaded the contents of the dog-sitting bag onto the dining room table. Treats. Dog food. Water and food dishes. A leash and some harness thing that looked like it would fit a Clydesdale. And a note. With—even in her grumpy, pity party state—pretty amusing stick figure drawings.
The dog scooched closer and closer until she was attached to her leg and whimpered hopefully.
“Are you hungry? Because according to this note from your father, you already had breakfast, and you don’t get dinner until seven.” She showed Sunshine the paper. Sunshine immediately took a bite out of it.
“Hey! I don’t think that’s good for you. Spit it out.”
Sunshine swallowed, then made a horking noise and deposited what was essentially a spitball on the blue woven rug next to Mack’s boot.
“Good girl,” she said dryly.
The dog’s tail swished across the floor in a windshield wiper rhythm.
Mack read the last item on Linc’s note.
She likes to eat paper. Don’t let her.
Once again, Sunshine scooted up against her.
“Do you have to go to the bathroom?” That probably wasn’t dog language. “Do you need to urinate outside?”
Sunshine gazed at her adoringly.
“I can’t take you for a—hang on.” She scanned the note. Yep. Walk was another spelling-only word. “W-A-L-K. You may not have noticed, but I’ve got a broken ankle. It’s not conducive to walking—”
The dog gave a joyful bark and danced on her hind legs. Well, hell. She’d done it now. Gotten the fluffy, sweet dog excited.
Mack didn’t have the heart to disappoint her. Besides, she was already going stir-crazy.
“Okay, fine. But it’s going to be very short and very slow. Got it?” Sunshine was too busy pirouetting around the kitchen like the world’s clumsiest, most excited ballerina.
Her ankle throbbed in protest, but Mack managed to limp down the front steps to the walkway with Sunshine prancing happily on her hot pink leash. It was a beautiful day and that only added to her bad mood. She should have been up in the air today. She could have gone for a run. Could have been mowing the damn swatch of lawn that already needed it again. And there were weeds in the front flower bed that hadn’t been there on her last day off.
“How are you at landscaping?” she asked the dog. But Sunshine was too busy peeing on the tall grass.
They made it halfway around the block with Mack limping, Sunshine sashaying. A pleasantly soft, round woman in a pink and purple muumuu that somehow looked actually stylish called a greeting from her front porch.
“Yoo-hoo! Is that little Miss Sunshine?”
Sunshine shoved her face over the thigh-high fence and wriggled with excitement. Everything made this dog happy. Everything was an adventure.
“It is,” Mack called back.
The woman heaved herself out of her rocking chair and bustled down the front steps of her porch. “And you’re that doctor lady that got herself hurt by that dumbass last night. I heard it was bath salts and booze. He always was a no-good, no-account asshole. I hear his mama refused to post his bail, and he’s gonna be rotting away in jail for a long, long time.”
The woman was very well-informed.
She reached the fence and pulled out a treat from a hidden muumuu pocket. “Now, who’s the best girl in the whole world?” she asked.
Sunshine’s butt hit the sidewalk, and the rest of her quivered in delight.
Mack wondered when the last time was that she’d been that happy. Quite possibly never.
“Here you go, sweet girl.” The nice lady handed over the treat, and Sunshine took it with a surprising daintiness. “I’m Mrs. Valerie Washington. And you’re Dr. Mack.” She dressed and spoke like she was in her late seventies, but there wasn’t a line that Mack could pick out on the woman’s beaming mahogany face.
“I am,” she said. “I’m dog-sitting for Chief Reed today.”
“That’s a smart move on his part,” Mrs. Washington decided. “If he can’t get you to go out with him based on his charm alone, you’ll fall for Sunshine here. I’m gonna pop over this afternoon and bring you some cookies fresh baked and all the fixings for a good Tom Collins because, honey, if anyone deserves a drink, it’s you. I gotta get to my weightlifting class. But I’ll see you later.”
“Bye? Thanks?” Mack raised a hand in a wave as Mrs. Washington be-bopped back into her house.
“Does everyone just give you what you want?” Mack asked the dog. Sunshine shot her a smug look.
They made the arduous return to Mack’s house. Her ankle, foot, and calf were now screaming obscenities at her. Her hips, back, and shoulders were also reminding her that she’d taken a header down an embankment.
She was so distracted she almost tripped over Captain Brody Lighthorse, who was kneeling in the flower bed that paralleled her walkway.
“What the—”
Sunshine exploded into delirium.
“There’s my Sunny girl!” Brody shucked off his gloves and gave the dog a full-body scruff.
There were firefighters all over her lawn. One, a young woman, presumably the rookie, was energetically push-mowing the grass. Another, an older, rounder man, was on a stepladder cleaning the first-floor windows.
Two more were weeding the front flower beds, and yet another was greasing the hinges on the storm door that squealed like a banshee every time it opened.
Someone had brought a wireless speaker that was blaring eighties pop. They all bopped to the beat in varying degrees of dancing prowess.
“What’s all this?” she asked.
Brody rose. His shaved head gleamed in the mid-morning sunshine. He had tattoos, intricate tribal designs, down both forearms. His teeth were blindingly white against copper-toned skin. “The BFD—Benevolence Fire Department, also Big Fucking Deal—thought we’d lend a hand to a sister. Sorry you’re out of action for a while. That sucks.”
It did suck.
“Thanks. But you don’t have to.”
He shrugged and reached for the gloves again. “There’s nothing ‘have to’ about it. You put yourself between a dumb fuck and a patient. You’re good people. Plus, there’s no way in hell you’re going to be up for mowing the lawn anytime soon.”
He wasn’t wrong.
Still, she preferred to mope in solitude. Now, she had a dog that was sniffing the butt of a firefighter with a lopsided mustache and a yard full of half the town’s fire department.
“Thanks,” she said again. Then remembered her manners. “Do you guys want something to drink?” She could do tap water. Or maybe some iced green tea.
“Nope. We brought our own cooler. Now, we just need you to go on inside, elevate that foot, and prepare to be waited on.”
“I don’t need the fire department to wait on me,” she insisted.
“We’re the yard and maintenance crew. The waiting-on crew comes later. You might want to grab a nap to mentally prepare or at least start drinking now.”
She thought about the Tom Collins Mrs. Washington promised her.
“I don’t nap,” Mack told him.
He grinned. “Suit yourself.”
>
She turned toward the house, then paused again. “I’m being rude. I’m tired. Everything hurts. And I’m feeling sorry for myself. I’m sorry for being a dick,” she said.
“You earned it. You go on and feel any damn way you want. Just think of us as Santa’s elves. We’ll be out of your hair in no time.”
“Thanks for all this,” she said. “Really.”
“My wife and girls made Amish cinnamon bread. It’s on your table.”
Mack paused again to make small talk with Skyler Robinson, the rookie and Dr. Russell Robinson’s daughter. Then openly admired the gleaming windows and squeal-less front door before finally, finally gimping inside.
She flopped down on the couch. Sunshine, having greeted all her friends, climbed up next to her. Maybe a nap wasn’t such a terrible idea.
It was her last thought before the buzz of the doorbell woke her. Sunshine hurled herself off the couch and threw herself at the front door, yelping enthusiastically.
“Vicious guard dog, huh?” Mack dragged her aching self to the door and opened it.
Two women, both near carbon copies of the other, grinned at her. Blonde, pretty, dimpled chins. They bore a striking resemblance to—
“Hi! I’m Christa. This is Jillian. We’re Linc’s sisters.”
Uh-oh.
Sunshine greeted them and generously accepted their pets and compliments.
“Hi, I’m Gwiffin.” A very small Asian kid poked his head between the women. He was missing a front tooth. “This is my brother Mikey. He’s not supposed to be here ’cause he’s usually in school. But Mom said we couldn’t leave him at home.”
Mikey was a few years older than Griffin—unless it really was Gwiffin. He was a little Latino studmuffin with thick curly hair, a fake tattoo on his skinny bicep, and brown eyes that looked like they might be able to charm anyone into anything. Except today they were painfully bloodshot.
He sneezed three times in rapid succession.
“It’s allergies. I swear. Not anything infectious,” Christa, the slightly taller of the two, insisted. “Now, let’s see where I can set this up.” She patted the large folding table leaning against her leg.
“What’s happening?” Mack asked, stepping back as the party entered.
“Well, Chris here is a chiropractor. We heard you took a pretty good tumble, so you’re probably pretty jacked up,” Jillian said, surveying the living room. “Meanwhile, I have no special skills. So while you’re being adjusted, I’m going to fix you lunch and do whatever else needs doing. Laundry? I’m great at laundry. And I’ll grill you on what the hell to do with Mr. Sneezy Pants over there. His seasonal allergies are getting worse every year.”
Mack opened her mouth, but no one was listening. Christa set up the table, a fancy portable chiropractic thing in the middle of the living room. “Bag, nephew,” she said, snapping her fingers at Griffin.
With a grunt, the kid hefted a big black bag into his aunt’s hand. “Good work. Now, turn on Dr. Mack’s TV and go find your brother a box of tissues.”
On cue, Mikey wiped his nose on the back of his hand.
“Hop up here, Dr. Mack. You can tell me all about your intentions with my brother while I see what we’re working with.”
Groggy from the nap. Not her sharpest thanks to the pain. Mack thought about arguing and then gave up. She flopped face down on the table and prayed for it all to be over and everyone to be gone.
“Whew,” Christa said. “I thought you might be one of those doctors who calls chiropractic hippie woo-woo garbage.”
Mack gave a weak laugh. “Not saying I am. But at this point, I can’t feel any worse. So have at it.”
She heard Jillian washing dishes in the kitchen, heard the kids squabble over what show to watch. The tip-tap of Sunshine’s toenails on the hardwood.
Christa’s hands pressed down on her low back, and Mack groaned.
“My brother seems to be smitten with you,” she said, moving her hands methodically over Mack’s back and hips.
“Smitten?” Jillian called from the kitchen. “Is that a new interrogation technique? Old-ladying up your language?”
“Shut up, Jillybean.”
“Mom! Aunt Chris said shut up,” Griffin yelled.
“I heard. Bad Aunt Chris!”
“Back to the interrogation,” Christa insisted. “Deep breath in.”
Mack barely had a chance to draw a breath when Linc’s sister pressed her hipbones firmly into the table.
She felt the resistance, was convinced she was going to snap in half, and then breathed a huge sigh of relief when something gave way with an audible pop.
“Better?”
“Yeah,” Mack whimpered. “Much.”
“Good.” Christa worked her way up the spine. “Linc is one-of-a-kind, you know. He’s got a reputation.”
“I don’t mind a reputation,” Mack admitted. “I’m just not looking for any—” Crack. “—thing right now,” she gasped.
“Just because you’re not looking doesn’t mean you can’t find something,” Christa said cheerfully.
“It’s true,” Jillian said, poking her head into the room. “I wasn’t looking for Vijay when I stumbled into that karaoke bar ten years ago, and look at us now. Three boys, an aquarium full of goldfish, and no time to ourselves.”
That did not sound like the life for Mack. That sounded like a dozen disasters waiting to happen every day.
“Not that you’d need to go that route with Linc,” Christa said, working her thumbs between Mack’s shoulder blades.
“Gah,” Mack whimpered.
“He’s the greatest guy. You can trust us. We’ve known him since he was born,” Jillian said knowledgeably. “I think you two would be very happy together.”
“I don’t think one kiss means happily ever after,” Mack gritted out.
“Oooooh! A kiss! Tell us more,” Christa squealed.
The boys passive-aggressively turned up the TV volume.
“Turn it down,” Jillian yelled. “I wanna hear about the kiss!”
Mack politely declined to share any sordid details. But she did begin to wonder why it had been only one kiss. He hadn’t kissed her this morning before he abandoned his dog with her.
“It was worth a shot,” Christa said, working her way through all the kinks in Mack’s back.
After her adjustments and a lunch of chicken corn soup and half a turkey sandwich prepared by Jillian, Mack felt almost human again. Or at least human enough to give the sniffly Mikey a quick exam.
“He’s old enough that you could look into allergy shots,” she told Jillian.
“Shots?” Mikey’s bloodshot brown eyes widened.
“Are you afraid of needles?” Mack asked him.
He shrugged a bony shoulder, the picture of eight-year-old nonchalance. “They’re no big deal.”
“Well, if they did bother you,” she continued, “I could tell you a trick so it’s not so scary.”
“What kind of trick?”
She reached over and pinched him lightly on the arm. “Feel that?”
“Ow. Yeah.”
“Okay. This time take a deep breath.”
He inhaled skeptically.
“Good. Now hold it for a second. And then blow it out really hard.”
On the kid’s exuberant exhale, she pinched him again.
“Hey! That didn’t hurt as much,” he said.
“That’s the trick. A really big breath out, and your body is focusing more on the breath than the teeny tiny poke.”
“Pinch me next, Dr. Mack,” Griffin insisted. She felt pretty good about it.
* * *
Half an hour later, a grateful Mack with a folded load of laundry, sparkling kitchen, and pee-breaked Sunshine waved Linc’s sisters off. She hadn’t even made it back to the couch when there was another knock at the door.
Aldo and Gloria grinned at her from the front steps.
“Hey, buddy! How’s it going?”
“
Shouldn’t you two be at work?” Mack asked wearily.
“We decided to forego our weekly scheduled afternoon delight to pop in and see how you’re doing,” Aldo said.
Gloria elbowed him. “Not everyone needs to know about our sex life, Moretta.”
“Oh, good! It’s a party!” Mrs. Washington called out, hauling a grocery bag up the walk.
It was barely one p.m. And it was already the longest day of Mack’s life.
22
Linc gave the incident report a cursory final glance before hitting submit.
How some yahoo managed to get his big toe stuck in a motel bathtub faucet was another one of life’s great mysteries.
Checking the time, he noted he could squeeze in another hour of paperwork before heading out. Or he could cut that to thirty minutes and check in with the crew downstairs for the remainder.
The latter sounded like a much better plan. He pulled up the department calendar to refresh his memory on the maintenance and training for the rest of the month.
Brody strolled in without knocking and planted himself on the narrow, rock-hard couch that squatted against one wall. “Tanker’s on E. Wanna ride shotgun on a gas run?”
“Hell yeah,” Linc said, gratefully pushing away from the computer.
He followed his captain downstairs into the bay. It was spotless thanks to several slow days. They’d trained hard on forcible entries and coordinated attack drills this week and then resealed the concrete floor. The apparatus all gleamed under a fresh coat of wax.
There was an almost tangible crackling in the air. Firefighters going stir crazy. Sure. There were the usual calls. The faulty alarm at the high school—twice—a few lift assists with EMS, the now infamous odor investigation on Pine Avenue that turned out to be a faulty bathroom exhaust fan and a whole lot of tacos. Then there was the ferret in the tree that required rescue. Par for the course in a small town.
But, historically, the longer the station went without a big call, the weirder his crew got. It was already happening, Linc noted, when he spotted a group of his volunteers sitting around a kid’s wading pool trying to flip quarters into floating cups. The men participating were sporting varying stages of facial hair. The women—well, he wasn’t close enough to tell, but in solidarity, most of them had committed to not shaving their legs.