by Teagan Kade
Table of Contents
Title Page
COPYRIGHT
VIP SIGN-UP
ALSO BY TEAGAN KADE:
DEDICATION
LIFE SUPPORT
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
EPILOGUE
HOT PANTS
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
EPILOGUE
EPILOGUE II
HUSTLE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
EPILOGUE
EPILOGUE II
BLAZE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
EPILOGUE
THE LIFEGUARD
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
EPILOGUE
AMERICAN HEROES: THE COMPLETE AMERICAN HEROES COLLECTION
(A CONTEMPORARY ROMANCE BOX SET)
Teagan Kade
* * * * *
Published by Teagan Kade
Edited by Sennah Tate
Copyright © 2019 by Teagan Kade
COPYRIGHT
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.
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ALSO BY TEAGAN KADE:
TROUSER SNAKE
THE ROYAL TREATMENT
BALLSY
SAVAGE
VICE
RECKLESS
PUCK BUDDIES
FERAL
WINTER MIRACLE
ADAGIO
BRUTE
LAWLESS
LONG GAME
DIRTY DEBT
LOADED
AMPED
DRILLED
DIRTY BRAWLER
WRECKED
SLAMMED
STROKER
STRIKER
THROTTLE
ROYALLY WRONG
HITCHED
CHASING STORM
DEDICATION
To my ‘meanie team’. Thanks for keeping me in check ;-)
LIFE SUPPORT
Teagan Kade
* * * * *
Published by Teagan Kade
Edited by Sennah Tate
Copyright © 2019 by Teagan Kade
CHAPTER ONE
ETHAN
Vanessa throws her hand up as a sedan cuts us off. “Jesus, Mary, and the good saint Joseph, do these people not hear the fucking sirens?”
I point to my ears as Vanessa drives the ambulance onto the wrong side of the road, crossing a traffic island to do it. “Probably wearing headphones.”
Vanessa looks over to me. “You mean those tampon things everyone’s got stuck in their ears twenty-four seven these days? Looks goddamn ridiculous, if you ask me.”
I smile to myself. Vanessa’s a great driver, an even better paramedic, but Steve Jobs she is not. The poor woman still thinks VHS is the video format of choice.
“What have we got again?” she asks, fingers tightening on the steering wheel as we come up to an intersection.
I think back to the call we received two minutes, thirty-six seconds ago. “Ah, young woman, possible gunshot to the head.”
“Under the Gateway Bridge, South?”
The tires screech, the ambulance lurching sideways as we take the red. “Can’t say I’m in the mood for a DOA tonight.”
“Me neither,” I add, the familiar flush of adrenaline following. That’s what has always drawn me to this job—you just never know what you’re walking into. Good or bad, it’s never dull. Hell, put me in a cubicle and the first thing I’d be doing is looking for an open window to jump through.
We arrive forty seconds later, Vanessa mounting the curb when we spot the woman in question by one of the main pylons. She’s lying face down in short grass, the pool of shadows she’s in making it hard to identify anything other than the fact she’s in serious fucking trouble.
I wait a beat before getting out of the bus, scanning the scene for danger—the gunman, for one, anyone sketchy out there in the darkness apart from the usual junkies that frequent this shithole.
I get to her first with the kit, crouching down with my flashlight and checking her pulse. As I expected given the bloody mess that is the back of her head, there’s nothing.
Vanessa arrives. “Nine-eighty?” she asks, the code for dead on arrival.
I remember the statistics. Every year something like twenty-thousand people die of gunshot wounds to the head in America. The survival rate is less than five percent, three percent with any kind of life even if they do pull through.
It would be all too easy to call this, but something tugs at me, some unseen force telling me this woman’s deserves a fighting chance no matter the odds.
I gently roll her over and find the middle of her chest. “Starting CPR.”
Vanessa’s flashlight beam runs over the side of her head. “Really?”
As it does, I get my first look at the woman’s face. She must be in her mid to late twenties, beautiful, actually, with full lips and soft, delicate features. It’s in that moment I decide I’m going to do everything possible to pull her back from the brink, short of calling on the supernatural.
“Bag her,” I tell Vanessa.
She takes a bag valve mask from the kit and places it in position, squeezing it with one hand in time with my compressions while she applies gauze to the wound with the other.
I steady myself and concentrate on the task at hand, laser-fucking-focused. Percentages and statistics fly around my head. I’d like to say this kind of thing is rare, and it is here at home. But I’ve been to war, been to the Sandbox where shots to the head were a dime a dozen. I can’t recall anyone coming back from that. You get a bullet bouncing around inside the skull and it’s going to do all kinds of damage before it finds a way out.
“Come on,” I tell her, this lifeless Jane Doe. “Don’t you dare fucking die on me.”
*
By some miracle we manage to keep her alive until we reach the hospital. The whole time I can’t stop staring at her. Why would anyone do this to her, someone so beautiful and fragile? An angry ex? Wrong place, wrong time? No, a girl like this doesn’t just show up at a place like that for sight-seeing. Someone wanted her dead alright.
Someone thought they’d succeeded.
We’re already on our way to the next call. I press my thumb into the palm of my hand. People don’t really understand the kind of force you need to exert during CPR. If you’re not breaking ribs, you’re not doing it properly.
Vanessa is smiling across at me. “I know that look.”
I play dumb. “What look is that?”
She laughs. “The whole I-brought-that-girl-back-to-life alpha bullshit you guys get off on. And don’t tell me you didn’t find her attractive, even with that hole in her head.”
Vanessa and I have been working together for almost three years now. She knows me all too well. “Honestly? I can’t stop thinking about her,” I confess.
“You or that bald-headed pecker in your pants?”
I reach down and cup my junk. “Oh, you mean my penis?”
“Call it what you want,” she says, tapping the side of her head. “We both know what’s really steering the ship.”
“And you never think with your vagina?” I offer. “Remember that bodybuilder downtown last week, impaled on his fence? I saw you checking him out. The trauma shears didn’t have to cut that far, did they?”
She’s really smiling now, eyes on the road. “Pity he was on the juice. Balls looked like a pair of peas.”
I crack up. “Easier to fit in your mouth, right?”
“I’ll put my freaking fist in your mouth if you don’t shut up.”
I raise my hands in surrender. “Truce, truce. Let’s get this done.”
“So you can head back to the hospital and check on your mystery woman?”
I simply smile back in return.
*
The ICU is unusually quiet for this time of night. I’m sitting beside Jane Doe slowly examining every inch of her face. It’s still pale and porcelain, but with her wound dressed and surgery complete, at least she’s looking a lot less like a horror-movie prop.
My eyes shift from those full, plump lips, heading south to her breasts—just as welcome even in that excuse for clothing they call a hospital gown. It’s strange. I treat and see hundreds of people a week, so why am I so consumed with this particular girl?
My thought’s broken as a doctor arrives to the foot of her bed, picking up the clipboard there and moving to check her vitals. Almost a full minute passes before he notices me there. “Ethan? You providing after-hours support to all your patients now?”
“Just the pretty ones.”
Doctor Grant smiles back. “Guess I won’t be finding you beside my bed anytime soon then.”
“How’s she doing?” I ask, rising from my chair, conscious of the toll today’s taken on my body. I should be home counting sheep, not here daydreaming over a patient who in all likelihood isn’t going to wake.
The doc’s sharp intake of breath confirms it. “Well,” he starts, “you know the odds. We’ve done what we can, provided the best possible treat—”
I cut him off. “Enough with the script. I’m not her fucking brother.”
Doc Grant nods. “Alright.” He holds the clipboard against his thigh. “She’s in a world of trouble. I mean, yeah, the bullet didn’t make it past her skull. Still, she probably won’t make it through the night, but if she does, and we’re talking Blue-Jays-take-home-the-World-Series odds here, it would be a good sign.” He claps me on the shoulder. “Don’t get your hopes up for looking for a rerun of The Vow, though. Rachel McAdams here has a long way to go to get back to the land of the living.”
He leaves and I slump back into the chair mulling it over.
From time to time one of the nurses arrives to check on her, but they don’t ask me to leave. They know me too well around here—some more intimately than others.
Eventually the silence starts to get to me. I want this poor girl to think she’s in hospital, not a fucking tomb, so I talk to her. I’m not exactly used to one-sided conversation, but I surprise myself with how easily it comes.
I’m not even conscious of how much time has passed until warm morning light begins to mix with the harsh glower from the overheads. Sleep’s not really in the cards in the ICU.
One of the nurses arrives with a tray of cardboard toast and what could be scrambled eggs… or old paint—it’s hard to tell. I thank her but push it aside, telling Jane about my time in the Army.
“They sent me home on medical discharge,” I tell her, a steady beep-beep-beep from the monitor beside her. I slap the side of my leg. “Uncle Sam did pay for my hip, though, so there’s that. I lift my arms up, looking around my torso. “Got some shrapnel here, nice scar there from some shithead sniper who thankfully learned how to shoot playing Duck Hunt. It’s all a bit of a mess, really, but that’s the price you pay for freedom, right?” I shake my head. “Can’t say I even know what that means any more, you know?”
Her lips remain still.
“My thoughts exactly,” I concur.
T
he morning light falls on her hand and I can’t resist reaching across and taking it in my own. It’s so light it’s basically a feather. Her fingers are long and delicate, so at odds with my own war-torn mitts, cut and fucked up from so many fist fights and general wear and tear.
I squeeze her hand lightly, lowering my voice. “Come on now. Come back and dinner’s on me. Heck, I might even throw in drinks.”
I exhale, looking down between the bed and the floor. I bring my eyes back to that angelic face, the one that seems to be seared into my brain. “I’ve been where you are. Recovery is a fucking bitch. I know it first-hand, but you are strong and you can get through this. Pull that strength from wherever you have to, but you find it, you hear? You come back.”
I lean back in the chair unable to let go of her hand, letting it extend like a lifeline between us. Slowly, the sun creeps across the bed, lighting up the side of her cheek and then her face in full. I notice there’s the slightest tint of red running through her hair.
My own eyes are starting to shutter closed. I’ve been up for almost twenty-four hours straight now. Vanessa would have a fucking fit if she knew, but I have to see this through. I still don’t know why exactly. Maybe I just need the closure.
I’m fast drifting to sleep when a voice cuts through the silence. “Still here, I see. Aren’t you on-call tonight?”
I open to my eyes to Doc Grant looking a hell of a lot fresher than I feel. “Yeah, right.”
“You need to go home,” he says. “You need to get some rest.”
“I’m fine,” I yawn.
“Go home, Ethan,” he repeats. “Don’t make me call Vanessa.”
“You wouldn’t,” I tease.
“Try me,” he smiles back. “I’m a doctor. I’ve got a God complex, remember?”
“And her?” I nod to Jane.
“I’ll keep you updated.” He places his hand over his heart. “Scout’s honor.”
“You were a Scout?”
“Fuck no,” he laughs. “I didn’t have time for that Davy Crockett bullshit. Too busy yachting with the old man. Now, get out of here.”
Reluctantly, I stand. This is technically his turf, after all. But the moment I let go of Jane’s hand, placing it carefully back on the bed, her heart rate begins to drop.
Doc Grant squints at the screen. “The hell?”
It keeps falling, a secondary warning alarm starting to sound.
No, I think to myself. Don’t you fucking dare…