“Got it. Oz is on his way with the Jaws, and dispatch just rolled another two ambos in our direction. Let’s get these two stable for extraction.” O’Keefe handed the C-collar in his grasp over to Everett before moving to the passenger side of the vehicle. “Nelson, I need to get a HemCon patch on that wound to control the bleeding, but you’re going to have to help me, okay?”
Savannah forced herself to nod. O’Keefe dropped his jump bag to the pavement and removed a medical packet that looked like a supersized Band-Aid. “Hey, kiddo,” he said to Rebecca through the sliver of window space over Savannah’s shoulder. “My name’s Tom, and I’m going to put this cool bandage on your cut. It’s really sticky, so it’ll help you stop bleeding. Then we’ll get you out of here and take you to the hospital, okay?”
Rebecca murmured a thready “okay,” her chest shuddering beneath Savannah’s gloves. O’Keefe dropped his voice a register, placing his next words directly into Savannah’s ear.
“When I tell you, I need you to release the pressure and get her shirt off the wound. If you can’t rip the buttons, I’ll give you shears, but you’re going to have to move fast because she’s lost a lot of blood. As soon as the fabric is clear, slide out and I’ll get the patch in place. You copy?”
Savannah’s “no” was locked and loaded on her tongue. She wasn’t a paramedic, for Chrissake. How was she supposed to do this?
“Please,” Rebecca whispered, tears tracking down her face, and Savannah turned her chin to look at O’Keefe.
“Copy. Now?”
He nodded. “The sooner, the better.”
Savannah scraped for a deep breath. She released the pressure on Rebecca’s chest, pulling her hands back to grip the edges where the girl’s shirt came together. She meant to tear the thing in a decisive yank and be done, but blood spurted from the wound, splashing onto Savannah’s shoulder and hacking at her resolve.
“As fast as you can, Nelson,” O’Keefe said from beside her, and she didn’t think, just tugged with all her might. Once, twice, again . . .
The fabric parted down the center with a loud rip.
“Got it.” Relief rushed through her, hard enough to threaten her vision. She moved Rebecca’s shirt aside with a wet, sickening sound, and the sight of the gaping wound sent her knees immediately off-kilter. The cut ran down to the bone, exposing muscles and all sorts of other things that were never meant to see daylight.
Oh God. Savannah’s body seized right alongside her mind. She jerked upward, banging the back brim of her helmet on the window frame as she stumbled from the passenger side to make room for O’Keefe.
“Jesus Christ,” rasped an all-too-familiar, all-too-condescending voice from a few steps away on the pavement. Oz stood on the driver’s side of the sedan, the Jaws of Life balanced between his hands and a massive frown marking his face. “It took you long enough, Nelson.”
Her adrenaline broke like a huge wave smashing into a shoreline, fear and anger surging through her veins with enough power to make her truly dizzy. Savannah’s stomach twisted and clenched, her breath sticking to her lungs as it crushed her chest, and the harder she tried to slow it down, the more futile the attempts became.
“Whoa, Nelson. You solid?” The voice belonged to Donovan, but he sounded really far away.
She nodded anyway, her head feeling inordinately heavy. “Mmm-hmm.”
She forced herself to focus on the car, on O’Keefe’s quick movements to stabilize Rebecca and cover both her and her friend with blankets to keep them safe from debris as Everett fell in to help Oz with the extraction. But all she could see was the blood, thick on her hands, soaking her gloves and the ends of her ponytail and invading her nostrils with that deep, dirty-copper scent . . .
Savannah barely made it to the guardrail before emptying the contents of her stomach.
* * *
Cole backed Engine Eight into the middle garage bay, his muscles pounding along with his head. His adrenaline had tapped out about three seconds after he and Oz had gotten the roof off that sedan, and he’d been slowly managing his return to normal vitals ever since Westin had called the scene and ordered them back to the house.
Which was more than he could say for Savannah. He should’ve known from the minute he’d seen her face through that passenger window that the call would rattle her cage—shit, the way her jaw had gone rock solid every time car wrecks entered the conversation had practically been a blinking neon sign. But calls like this, grim as they had the potential to be, were part of the deal. In fact, both engine and squad handled a lot more traumas than fires in any given month.
Although Cole had to admit, she’d had one hell of an initiation with that chest wound.
He jumped down from the operator’s seat, jamming a hand through his hair. To his left, Donovan’s boots found the engine bay floor with a thump, Savannah’s following suit two seconds later. She hiked her chin to an upward tilt despite the fact that everyone in the house had seen her lose her lunch over that guardrail. Even though they clearly had some work to do getting her comfortable in trauma situations, Cole couldn’t help but respect her toughness after the fact.
Ordinary fear didn’t stick to this woman. Whatever had prompted her response today wasn’t small potatoes, and chances were, it was fucking with her head something fierce.
“Nelson.”
Speaking of fierce. She stopped halfway between the engine and the door to the house, pivoting slowly. “Before you say anything, I’d like to apologize. I totally screwed up on that call, and it affected my ability to do my job. It won’t happen again.”
As soon as his shock had worn off—and admittedly, it took a minute—Cole said, “Apology noted and accepted. But that’s not why I stopped you.”
Her dark brows lifted in question. “It’s not?”
“No.” It might be his job to train her, and they’d drill trauma protocol until she got it right. But it was also his job to help her adjust, which included her head space. “That was a really rough call. You okay?”
“Yup,” she said, the answer coming too fast not to be manufactured. “Absolutely.”
“Look, Nelson—”
“If it’s okay with you, I’d like to rotate in for the showers right now.”
Cole paused. He was tempted to press his luck—Savannah did it all the time, it wasn’t as if pushback was foreign territory for her. Plus, the sooner they dealt with whatever had sent her into that tailspin, the better trained she’d be.
But then he saw the dried blood matting the ends of the ponytail over her shoulder, the breaking point clear in her pretty brown eyes, and he didn’t think. Just spoke.
“Sure. Just keep your ears on for the all-call.”
“Copy that,” Savannah said, but she was already in motion by the time the words left her mouth.
Cole blew out a breath and turned back toward the engine. He hadn’t gotten five minutes into fixing the loose storage compartment door in the back step when Oz appeared in the open door frame.
“Everett.” He sank his thumbs beneath the suspenders holding his bunker pants over his rangy frame, looking for all the world like he’d been born that way. “Nice work with the Jaws. You been practicing?”
“Thanks. Yeah, I hooked up with a couple of the guys on Squad Four a few weeks ago, and they let me tag along on their drill day.”
“Ambitious of you,” Oz said, although he made it impossible for Cole to read his tone. “Anyway, Cap wants you in his office. Now.”
Now that, Cole read loud and freaking clear. He followed Oz through the engine bay and all the way down the long hall leading to Westin’s office, a thread of surprise uncurling in his chest as Oz followed him in and shut the door.
“Everett.” Captain Westin steepled his fingers over the stack of file folders on his desk. “Lieutenant Osborne has raised some concerns about Nelson’s response to today’s trauma call. I wanted to get your take on what happened.”
Cole felt both the captain’s eyes
on his and Oz’s stare on the back of his neck, and he chose his answer with extreme care. “It was her first big trauma call, and the wreck wasn’t pretty. She had some jitters, but I think she’ll be able to shake them out.”
“Jitters?” Oz uttered a rude noise and a swear to match. “She could barely get out of her own way, much less O’Keefe’s, and she puked over the goddamn guardrail, right in front of God and everybody. I’m telling you, Cap. She’s soft. She doesn’t belong here.”
“She did have a lot of trouble today,” Westin agreed, exhaling slowly. “Her file has a lot to recommend her, but this job can knock down even the best of candidates. Maybe bringing her on was a mistake on my part.”
“No.” Cole heard the tenacity of his answer only after he’d let it fly. But if Captain Westin cut Savannah loose, Cole would be back in the endless queue for available squad assignments, and even then, landing one here at Eight would be as impossible as moving the moon.
Plus, despite her shaky response to today’s trauma call, Savannah wasn’t a bad firefighter. She deserved a second chance to prove herself.
And it was up to him to make sure she got one.
Cole cleared his throat and tried again. “I mean, ah, respectfully, Captain, I disagree. While I can’t argue that Nelson had a hard time today, she’s a rookie. She’s supposed to make rookie mistakes.”
“Mistakes get people hurt. Or worse,” Oz argued. “What if one of us gets injured on a call and she goes soft because she can’t handle a little blood? Then what?”
Cole examined the situation in front of him, grabbing his best plan of action with both hands. “She’s on my hip, and I promised to train her. Just give me another week. If she screws up again, it’s on me.”
The room went quiet, to the point that Cole could hear the clock on the wall, ticking steadily behind him. Finally, Westin slid his stare from Cole to Oz.
“Lieutenant. Can you give me a minute with Everett?”
Although the deep lines of Oz’s frown said he wanted to argue, he responded with a gruff “copy that” before turning to walk out the door. Damn it, Cole was going to have to earn his way back into the guy’s good graces. But strategically speaking, that would be a hell of a lot easier than finding a new spot on squad.
Not that his current one wasn’t swinging in the breeze.
Captain Westin sat back in his desk chair. “I’ll be honest, Everett. For the most part, I agree with you. Today’s trauma call was a nasty one, and I think Nelson’s just having growing pains like any other rookie.”
“Yes sir,” Cole said, unable to keep the relief from flooding into the words.
“However,” Westin continued, his raised blond-gray brows and the flat line of his mouth permitting zero argument, “Lieutenant Osborne is right. There’s damn little room for error on this job. If she can’t handle her responsibilities here at Eight, especially when it comes to backing up her fellow firefighters, I won’t have any problem ending her candidacy.”
Cole’s mouth went as dry as a dirt road in August. “Understood.”
“I hope so. Because as of right now, your ass is on the line right next to hers.”
Chapter Ten
Savannah pulled her messenger bag from the front seat of her Ford Escape, the black leather strap creaking in her palm from the weight of the bag’s contents. But ever since yesterday’s mortifying trip on the vomit comet, she’d been hard-boiled and hell-bent not to repeat her mistake, vowing to be 100 percent prepared when the next trauma call came in.
Since her shift had ended eleven hours ago without a chance to redeem herself and she couldn’t incite a giant wreck in the name of practice, studying response protocols was the next best thing in her arsenal.
With her textbook-filled bag firmly in place on her shoulder, Savannah crossed the sidewalk leading up to the Fairview Library. The building dated back to the late 1800s, according to the plaque she’d just passed, and if the four-story solid stone construction was anything to go by, the place was as sturdy as it was old. Between the library proper and the offices and archive buildings surrounding it, the place took up nearly an entire city block. There were even private gardens alongside the parking lot in the back.
And one very serious-looking, undeniably sexy firefighter in front.
“Oh. You’re early,” Savannah blurted, heat creeping up the back of her neck.
Everett, however, didn’t seem to notice. “So are you,” he pointed out with a half smile. “It’s barely six twenty.”
Something about him looked the slightest bit different from usual, and she realized with a start that she’d never seen him in anything other than his FFD uniform. The snug gray T-shirt, well-worn jeans, and even better worn black work boots he had on now weren’t out of the ordinary, but something about his body beneath them seemed looser, more fluid somehow. With his sand-colored lashes framing the glint in his eyes and the slight smile he still hadn’t let go of, he looked almost . . . relaxed.
Not to mention as gorgeous as ever.
Savannah squeezed her muscles to douse the warmth growing between her thighs. Everett’s leanly sculpted biceps and his smoldering dark green stare might check every box on her sexy ticket, but lusting after him was still an epically bad idea. While her brother had admitted that interhouse relationships did sometimes happen despite being highly frowned upon by the department, risking censure—not to mention her already rocky reputation at Eight—wasn’t on her agenda. No matter how damp her panties had suddenly gotten at the sight of Everett standing there.
Time to get to work. Now would be good. Five minutes ago?
Even better.
“So, uh, thanks for agreeing to help me study,” she said, turning toward the intricate glass-and-mahogany double doors of the library’s main entrance. “I know it’s not the most thrilling thing you could be doing on a Friday night.”
“I don’t mind,” he said, and strangely enough, he looked like he really meant it. He reached out to palm the heavy brass door handle, ushering Savannah inside before following her over the threshold.
“Whoa.” She blinked up at the two-story main lobby, all marble tiles and heavy wood and beautiful, timeless architecture. God, this place was gorgeous.
“Yeah, it’s cool, isn’t it?” Everett answered, making her realize she’d spoken her last thought out loud. “It’s one of the oldest buildings in the city. Even though the place has been renovated a couple of times to modernize things like the wiring and the heating system, they’ve kept as much of the original construction as possible.”
“You know an awful lot about the buildings around here.” Savannah’s curiosity hit a full simmer, but Everett waved the compliment off.
“I’ve been with the FFD for eight years. We go all over the city on calls, and it’s smart to know about the architecture in these older places. Not that it’s a hardship to check out a building like this one.”
He gestured to the columns flanking the entrance to the lobby, but the main information desk was what took Savannah’s breath away. The ornately carved waist-high counter formed a large square around a smaller cluster of mahogany desks, each of them looking antique and original to the library itself.
Just like the tiny, birdlike woman manning the counter.
“Hey, Mrs. Norcross,” Everett said, greeting the librarian with a polite smile. The woman looked up at him, her eyes appearing huge behind the thick lenses of her reading glasses.
“Oh my! Cole Everett, is that you? What brings you out to the library tonight? There’s not trouble with the carbon monoxide detector again, is there? Oh, I have such a hard time seeing that darned monitor sometimes.”
“No, ma’am, no trouble at all. I’m actually here to study this evening. You wouldn’t happen to have an open room upstairs, would you?”
“Of course.” Mrs. Norcross reached out to pat his hand, and Lord, the woman had to be eighty if she was a day. “You go on up to the third floor. I bet you’ll have the place all to yourse
lf.”
“Thanks. I appreciate it,” he said, smiling one more time before turning to head toward the large staircase behind the desk.
“Wow.” The background noise from the lobby faded as they climbed the first flight of stairs, and Savannah dropped her voice to one grade above a whisper. “You know the librarian by name?”
“Yeah. The city did a huge renovation on the top floor last year, and the air-conditioning units really screwed with their carbon monoxide detectors. We came out six times in one day. By the third round, Mrs. Norcross was offering us tea and cookies. She’s a nice woman.”
“I’m impressed,” Savannah said. “Charming little old ladies seems more Donovan’s speed.”
The corners of Everett’s mouth ticked upward. “Charming everybody is Donovan’s speed.”
“Hmm. I think I missed that day at finishing school.”
“Too busy bucking authority?” he asked, and she barely bit back her laugh before it interrupted everyone on the second floor.
“I’ll have you know I’m a model student.” Well, she had been at the academy, anyway. All that MBA stuff her mother had tried to force on her before that had been a waste of time.
Everett crossed the third-floor landing; the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves and individual study carrels made the space both hushed and private. Not that there was anyone up here with them.
“Let’s see how far that gets you tonight. We’ve got a lot to cover.”
He led the way down the far row of books, stopping outside the windowless study room at the very end. The space was nothing more than a ten-by-ten square, with two small desks pushed together in the center and four ladder-backed chairs all the way around. The wood paneling and the soft overhead lights made Savannah think of her father’s study back home, and wasn’t that all the reminder she needed of the truckload of worth she had to prove.
Everett shut the door behind them and hooked a hand beneath the back of one chair, eyeing the pile of books she’d started stacking in the center of her desk. “You know, studying trauma protocol will help you with the facts, and that’s not a bad thing. But if you’ve got a different kind of hurdle jamming you up, then all the books in the world aren’t going to help you clear it.”
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