by Alex Lidell
Cullen’s face darkens. “I’ve nothing to say to Denton Uncovered. Which part of that was unclear to you yesterday?”
Yep, this is definitely the same Cullen. He even wears that identical forbidding look he tossed at me yesterday. Except why is he masquerading around Denton Valley as a medic one day and a freaking CEO the next? Nothing about this makes sense. Nothing about him makes sense.
I open my mouth, but no sound comes out. My whole body tenses, blood pumping to my legs and lungs, my fight-or-flight instinct kicking in. But I can’t fight or fly. I need this job. “I… I’m not here from the paper, sir.” I try to swallow, but can’t. “I’m here for an interview. It’s for the dispatcher position? Three p.m.?”
Cullen pulls a phone from his back pocket and punches a number. “Catherine. What’s the name of my three p.m.?”
“Skylar Reynolds, sir,” the woman on the other end of the phone says at once. “Is she not there?”
“Oh, she’s fff—she’s here, all right, Catherine. Why am I talking to her?”
“Because she has the best résumé of the bunch, Cullen.”
Cullen cuts off the line with a disgusted huff, then scowls at me before blading his body to let me into his office. “You’re late.”
“I… I had trouble finding the building.”
“It’s seven stories high and has a number out front. How difficult could it be?”
I curl my hand into a fist. Fine. Cullen is an asshole. I know it. He knows I know it. But still, I came here with a purpose, and I’m following through even if it kills me. The day I bend because some intimidating man says something rude to me is the day I stop being me.
I pad forward into Cullen’s office, detecting his scent as I brush past him. Unlike Frank Peterson’s awful bug-spray odor, Cullen Hunt’s fragrance is spicy yet clean and subtle. If I’d been born a chemist and wanted to bottle the most intoxicating smell ever, it’d be this one. This exact one.
Letting the door close, Cullen goes to sit behind his massive L-shaped desk. Like the rest of the building, Cullen’s office screams wealth and affluence. A state-of-the-art desktop computer sits in front of him, with an ornate wooden pen set standing off to one side. A series of maple trays sit with neat stacks of paperwork inside, and on one corner resides a foot-long wooden chest, carved into intricate abstract designs. On his wall, I spot a series of certifications and plaques, though I can’t scrutinize them with him watching me. Everything feels larger than life in here, just like the man himself does. I feel like a child sent to the principal’s office.
A principal’s office that has a decorative case with a mounted handgun hanging on the wall. Bile rises up my throat. A medical office building paying homage to violence. Lovely.
“Sit,” Cullen orders with all the warmth of a rattlesnake. Gathering every last smidgen of dignity I possess, I sit in the seductively comfortable chair.
Cullen taps his fingers on his desk. “The position title is dispatcher and office administrator. Denton EMS handles the actual 911 call-ins, but I like having my own person on duty to liaise when we run active shifts, which is usually four times a week. Most of the duties are administrative. What experience do you have in any of that?—By the way, I ask only because I want to honestly tell Catherine I interviewed you before showing you the door. ”
Lovely. I clear my throat. “Specifically, with office administration, none. However, I—”
“What’s your educational background?”
“Well, I graduated summa cum laude from NYU with a bachelors in communication and journalism. Also—”
“Also, you enjoy creating stories where there are none. Do you imagine being a dispatcher will give you some inside track? Let me save both of us the trouble and give you a radio. Our dispatch channel is easy to pick up so others know our status.”
My fingers dig into the armrest of my chair. All right. I deserved a little of that. But I’m not going to let a misconception ruin my reputation for integrity. Never again.
“If you’re referring to the run-in we had at Mr. Mason’s accident site, sir, then I was doing my job,” I say firmly. “Looking for facts. If we’re on the subject, was anything incorrect printed in the paper?”
I know for a fact it wasn’t, because Frank yelled at me for two hours straight about pulling defeat out of the jaws of victory before slapping the article onto the last page. I straighten my spine, sitting on the edge of the chair. “If you—”
“Why did you apply for this job?” he asks.
If he interrupts me one more time, I may not be responsible for my actions. My temperature rising, I take three deliberate deep breaths. I can’t smart off to this guy. It took every cent of my savings just to provide first and last month’s rent. Except for Frank Peterson—who is paying me nearly nothing—this is literally the only place that has given me the time of day.
Gathering my dignity I lean toward Cullen and place a copy of my portfolio containing samples of my past articles on his desk. Not exactly dispatch relevant, but it’s all I’ve got to prove my worth. When the bastard doesn’t react, I move the folder toward him until my hand bumps against his. The contact feels like a zap of electricity, as if I’d received a static charge.
“Mr. Hunt, I know we got off on the wrong foot yesterday. But I’m being utterly forthright in saying that my application for this job has nothing to do with my position as a reporter. I wouldn’t use one to influence the other, or vice versa. It would be unprofessional and fall short of the high standards I set for myself and my work.”
Cullen’s eyes zero in on where our hands are still touching, but the fact that he allows me to finish my sentences is encouraging. Heart still pounding a drumbeat, I lick my lips and continue.
“May I walk you through my credentials, then?”
Cullen glances up at me, his eyes darker than I remember seeing them prior to now, before he jerks his hand away from mine as if I’d bitten him like a rabid animal.
“I’ve seen enough, Ms. Reynolds. You can go.”
“I—”
“I said, dismissed.” Cullen barks the last word out as a full-on order, and I’m up on my feet before I can get control of my body.
“I was going to say, I agree,” I snap back at him, the world that’s been spinning around me suddenly settling with a resounding click. I know what kind of man Cullen is. He’s my father. He’s Jaden. All bark all the time, as if the world was invented just to scrub floors with toothbrushes on their bloody command. And this interview? I’m freaking lucky. Better end this now before his barks morph into bites. Because they always do.
I pause with my hand on the door. “You want to know why I wanted this job, you pompous ass? The same reason everyone who isn’t a damn CEO playing medic for fun wants a job. Because it comes with a paycheck. But you know what? I don’t need your blood money. Go find yourself someone else to abuse. Or better yet—don’t.”
My voice is still ringing off the walls when I storm out of his office, slamming the door as hard as I can behind me.
4
Cullen
Cullen’s ears rang from how hard Skylar Reynolds had slammed the door, causing a photograph from Afghanistan to fall from where it hung on the wall. The thing had survived Central Asia and the Middle East, and now one small woman nearly destroyed it. Ironically fitting.
Cullen sat there for a minute, dissecting what had just gone down between them. He didn’t like Sky. She’d attempted to set up Cullen’s best friend, scoured help-wanted sections for story leads, and understood nothing about why Cullen and the other Trident men served on the Rescue. She was the type of woman for whom being a colossal pain in the ass was as natural as breathing. But one thing Cullen couldn’t call Skylar Reynolds was dull. She had a backbone and a will strong enough for a good drill sergeant—that much was more than evident.
Which he found, well…interesting.
And grating.
Especially when she sat there licking her lips at him. A delib
erate provocation? Seeing that soft pink tongue peeking out of her delectable mouth had given Cullen’s thoughts a highly inappropriate twist. It had made him hard, and when she’d shouted at him, it’d made him even harder.
What the actual fuck?
Cullen didn’t want Reynolds making him hard. He didn’t want to ever see her again.
Full of energy that had nowhere to go, Cullen stood and paced next to the framed certifications and honors he’d gained over the years, some as a SEAL and some since. The certifications were mostly tied to overseas days, like when he’d completed his Special Operations Combat Medic—SOCM—training. It’d been intense, like taking a drink from a power washer on high. By the end, though, Cullen had a competency level equal to a third-year medical student. He’d used that knowledge too. All his brothers had.
Far too often.
That was the part Reynolds didn’t—probably couldn’t—understand. He’d seen it in her eyes when they’d narrowed with disdain at the sight of his sidearm mounted on the wall, the backup weapon that had saved his life and taught him the value of training. Of preparedness. To the Skylar Reynoldses of the world, guns were like dangerous firecrackers, as disposable as the little green soldiers who carried them.
Cullen shook his head, not wanting to think about that.
Picking up the fallen photo, Cullen put it back beside the small accolade from Denton Valley Memorial’s pediatric ward. Though he didn’t spend much time there, he’d donated a substantial sum to the ward. Burns and cancer killed as efficiently as mortar rounds. He’d been unable to stop the latter. He hoped he might help fight the former.
Feeling moderately calmer now, Cullen returned to his desk—only to find Reynolds’s portfolio staring right at him. Who brought a portfolio to a dispatch interview? Fuck. The woman managed to get to him without even being in the goddamned room. That took skill.
The whole interaction with Reynolds had left Cullen feeling…off. She’d traipsed in with that snug black dress hugging her curves like a glove, licking her lips and touching his hand. Again, she’d left him enraged as well as hot and bothered.
Christ.
Yet his normal defenses weren’t working with this Sky woman. Somehow, she’d seeped in under his skin anyway.
Maybe it was that Skylar Reynolds was a walking contradiction. One moment she had passion for her work, the next, her passion was for a paycheck. A claim of standards and integrity against the practice of working for Frank Peterson, of all people. At first, Cullen had been certain the girl had come for a story, not a job, but maybe it was simpler than that. Maybe her principles and integrity were simply for sale to whoever was willing to pay.
Cullen didn’t know. Cullen didn’t care. He didn’t.
Outside the window, a crash of thunder and lightning ripped through air with a violence that jerked Cullen around. A moment later, rain and hail mixed together in a sudden downpour that batted against the windows. Rat-tat. Rat-tat. Rat-tat.
Cullen’s breath quickened, his eyes blinking against the darkness. He was moving. Running. Ripping through the debris. The scent of charred flesh and copper blood filled his lungs. He opened his mouth, tasting phantom sweetness as children’s screams rose on all sides around him.
“Come with me!” he shouted, grabbing a little girl against his chest. She wasn’t breathing. Snatching an ambu bag valve mask that, by some miracle, was within reach, he fit it snugly over her face, then squeezed the bag to breathe for her. The girl’s chest rose.
A woman, the girl’s mother, hit him with a rock. She was bleeding badly. Deadly badly. But she hit him anyway.
“You did this! You did this!” the woman shouted, trying to pull the child from Cullen’s arms. He knew enough Dari to understand what she was saying, but not enough to explain that if he released the child, she would die.
“You did this. You did this!”
He breathed for the girl, moving them both toward the exit of the field hospital.
The woman somehow caught up to him, though, her hate-filled gaze cutting into him. She ripped the child away. “You.”
Cullen pressed his forehead against the glass, feeling the chill seep into his skin as the destroyed field hospital evaporated. His heart pounded against his chest, mirroring the rat-tat, rat-tat of the hale. Fuck. Thunder didn’t usually set him off, but he hadn’t been expecting the storm. The sky had been clear blue the last time he checked. Maybe it had had something to do with the way Skylar Reynolds had looked at him just before leaving—like she knew he was the devil incarnate. Just as that mother in Afghanistan had.
Grabbing Reynolds’s portfolio, Cullen threw the whole thing into the recycling bin and dropped himself in front of his computer screen. Skylar Reynolds threw him out of balance, and he still couldn’t seem to find his center of gravity. As if she were kryptonite. In Afghanistan and Iraq, Cullen had trained himself against feeling anything. It was harder in civilian life. Too many interruptions. But it was still harder today. The thunder. The hail. The woman’s eyes.
Taking a series of deep breaths, Cullen forced himself to clear his mind, beckoning the cloak of numbness back into place around him. Adding bricks to the wall that protected the rest of the world from the half-cocked grenade that Cullen Hunt would always be, no matter how many pediatric burn units he funded.
Knowing the woman wouldn’t be stepping foot in his company again helped. There were advantages to being the boss, and Rachel at reception—not usually his favorite person, but a pit bull when he needed her to be—wouldn’t let Reynolds even look through a window if Cullen asked.
Cullen’s phone rang, interrupting his momentary peace. Rachel wanted to know whether she could tell Cullen’s next interviewee to take a long walk off a short pier, given the fresh track marks along his veins.
That was…three down and five still to go for the day. There had to be someone who wouldn’t make Cullen ready to shoot himself.
Three hours later, Cullen’s stomach was growling its empty displeasure when Eli knocked on the open door. Not because he actually needed an invitation, but Eli was good about making sure never to startle Cullen unnecessarily.
“I’m off to Kyan’s for dinner and…” Eli trailed off, his eyes narrowing on the floor, where Reynolds’s headshot had apparently slipped out of the folder and under a side table. “What the bloody hell? Is that—”
“Very much so. Just in a different costume.” Getting up, Cullen pulled the photo from Eli’s hands and went to stuff it back into the discarded folder. “Reynolds had the audacity to waltz in here as if she actually wanted the dispatch job.”
“Oh, that’s too good.” Eli snatched the folder from Cullen’s hands. The asshole. “Let’s see, she does know that neither dispatch nor office management is customer facing, doesn’t she? Unless the headshot is meant to suggest—”
“Fuck off,” Cullen snapped, surprising himself as much as Eli. Eli avoided relationships, but he enjoyed women fully and made certain they enjoyed themselves too. It had been a joke, and not even a crude one. Yet Cullen’s fist had tightened at his side on reflex.
Eli surveyed Cullen with too careful a gaze and held up empty palms. “Not saying anything you don’t know, but if I had a dollar every time someone tried to twist my reputation, I could live off the interest alone. Fuck, I’m sure my mother hires half those reporters.”
“What does that—” Cullen started.
“I’m saying I don’t take that shit she pulled on Main Street personally. And I don’t need you to get indignant on my behalf either. If you want to hire her—”
“I don’t want to hire her.” Cullen threw up his hands. Was everyone deaf today?
“Then let me see the résumé. Maybe I’ll hire her.”
“Asshole.”
“Very true,” Eli agreed companionably as he pulled out the résumé Cullen hadn’t bothered reading and began to peruse the contents. “So who are you getting?”
Cullen pursed his lips. No one. A day of interviews, a
nd he had not a single person he’d trust to color with crayons, much less run a rescue squad communications channel.
“You need to replace Suzy, Cullen.” Eli’s tone dropped into business mode. The man ran an international corporation and ran it bloody well, as he would say.
“I will replace Suzy, but not with Skylar Reynolds.”
“Agreed. You need someone who won’t be shy to ask direct questions. Someone who can keep track of facts, even when they get as convoluted as an NYPD corruption investigation. Perhaps someone with a degree in communications.”
Cullen glared at his former lieutenant. “Seriously?”
Eli handed him the résumé and a couple of news stories he pulled from Skylar’s folder. He was right. The man had a gift for zeroing in on the key information. In fact, now that Cullen looked at the résumé, Reynolds’s only downfall was being overqualified.
“I’m not letting a spy from a trashy tabloid rummage through the Rescue’s computer system, no matter what her résumé says.”
Eli sighed. “You have me there. At the end of the day, you need to trust your people. And…” His brows pulled together as he flipped through more papers in the portfolio Skylar had left. “Wait. What’s the date on the sample articles I just showed you?”
Cullen glanced down. “About a year ago. Why?”
“Look.”
Pulling out the last sheet from the folder, Eli laid it onto Cullen’s desk. Instead of full text, this one just listed the headlines and publication dates. Steady number from about two years ago until a couple of months back. Then, nothing. Why the gap? If Reynolds had been working a job she’d been qualified for, why had she left it? With its higher population and crime rate, the Big Apple must have a lot more opportunities for compelling stories than a place like Denton Valley. Why leave there for here? For Denton Uncovered, of all things?