“You are in a mood today, and I don’t think it has anything to do with not having coffee.”
“If you stop so I can get a coffee, I’ll smile for the rest of the shift.”
He snorted. “No, we’ll get a call and your coffee will get cold while we pick somebody up off the sidewalk and dust them off, and then you’ll bitch even more.”
“I’ll get an iced coffee. Problem solved.”
Before he could agree to her brilliant compromise, dispatch broke into the conversation. Surprise, it was a slip-and-fall on the ice, and Cait tried to resign herself to the fact she wasn’t getting caffeine until they were back in the garage, handing the truck over to the next lucky EMTs.
Between the constant calls, the lack of caffeine and the sound of the chain system that kept them from sliding into all of the other vehicles sliding around, she was starting to get a headache.
“Out with it, Cait. We’re about three minutes out, so talk fast.”
“I slept with Gavin.”
“Okay, that was concise.” He laughed. “In the two minutes and fifty seconds we have left, tell me why that’s a problem. Was it disappointing?”
She imagined she could hear Gavin’s affronted hey in her mind, and she laughed. “No, it wasn’t disappointing. Far from it. But having to get up and leave after because my mother needed me was very disappointing.”
“You already know how I feel about your mother leaning on you as much as she does,” Tony said, and she did. When you spent five or six days a week in a vehicle together, you talked a lot. About everything. “But tell me, if she hadn’t reached out, would you have spent the entire night?”
“Yeah.”
“Because you didn’t want to make your way home in the dark or for snuggling.”
She smiled. “For snuggling.”
“It’s about damn time,” Tony said.
The dispatcher’s voice came through the radio. “Victim is an eighty-two-year-old female, confirmed head injury with possible hip fracture.”
“Shit,” Cait said as Tony gave it a little more gas.
She had her gloves on and was ready when Tony pulled the ambulance up to the curve. A woman was kneeling on the ground next to the victim, and a couple of men had taken their coats off to hold them above the women in an effort to keep the cold rain at bay.
“I was holding her hand, but when she fell, we both went down,” the younger woman—maybe a granddaughter, judging by the ages—told her as she knelt on the other side.
“Hi,” Cait said when the older woman looked at her with clear eyes. “I’m Cait.”
“She’s my gram. Her name’s Barbara.”
“Hi, Barbara,” Cait said to the grandmother. “Did you lose consciousness?”
“I don’t think so.”
When Cait looked at her granddaughter, she shook her head. “She didn’t lose consciousness. She wanted to get up, but her hip hurt and I thought maybe I shouldn’t move her.”
Tony unclipped his pen light from his pocket and checked Barbara’s pupils and asked some questions of her while Cait took some notes. Each time she answered, he glanced at her granddaughter, who would nod confirmation her answers were correct.
“We need to check your hip now,” Tony said. “Cait’s going to touch you, but if it hurts, you let me know and I’ll pinch her for you, okay?”
Barbara chuckled a little, and Cait saw Tony’s big hand close around hers before turning her attention to the hip the woman had landed on. Luckily, she didn’t think there was a break. Her head injury didn’t seem severe, either.
“Okay, Barbara, what do you say we get you into the ambulance where it’s warm?” Cait said. “I don’t think you broke your hip and I know you didn’t lose consciousness, but you should see a doctor. Maybe get an X-ray to make sure you don’t have a minor fracture that can cause problems if it’s not treated.”
“I’ll go with you, Gram. I can go with her, right?” Tony nodded. “I’ll call Dad once we get there. I didn’t want to call him until I calmed down because the roads are icy and I didn’t want him rushing.”
“Barbara, that’s a smart granddaughter you have there,” Tony said while they positioned the board. “We’re going to lift you onto the stretcher now, okay?”
Once the women were in the ambulance and the good Samaritans were thanked and back in their wet coats, Cait was hatching a plan to grab a coffee in the emergency department. But EMS was at zero citywide availability with pending calls, so they had to hand Barbara over and head right back out for an MVA with multiple injuries.
As they pulled up to the scene, seeing Ladder 37 gave her pulse a little kick, but then she saw the two mangled cars and the thought of seeing Gavin again became secondary.
But the driver of one car and the passengers of the other had already been handed over to the first EMS crews on scene, so Cait and Tony got their equipment and stretcher ready and then they had to wait for the firefighters to finish extracting the remaining driver.
Her gaze was drawn to Gavin, who was waiting to help fold back the roof after they were done cutting the frame supports. He was totally focused on the car, and the intense focus on his face triggered memories of the last time she’d seen it, when they were alone in a collapsing house with an injured boy. She still felt a pang of guilt every time she recalled the way she’d accused him of not taking his job seriously.
In less than a minute and a half, they had a collar on the unconscious driver and were ready to extract him from the wreck. Cait’s body tensed, ready for the signal for them to come in while cursing the lack of paramedic availability. The middle-aged man looked to be in rough shape.
The firefighters lifted him from the car onto their stretcher and Cait and Tony did a fast examination while packaging him for transport. The best thing they could do for him was get him to the hospital as soon as possible.
As she picked up her gear, she made eye contact with Gavin and he gave her a quick wink before slinging her bag over her shoulder.
Then they were loading the victim and all of her attention was on her patient. She could feel the speed of the ambulance as Tony pushed as fast as he could without endangering them or people stupid enough to still be out on the streets. She communicated the visible injuries to his head and chest to the ER as they went, and they were ready when they rushed him through the doors.
Cait could have cried when, while waiting for the stretcher, a nurse shoved a paper cup of coffee with a lid on it into her hand. “I love you, Jan. Until the day I die.”
“It’s black,” she warned over her shoulder. “No time for cream or sugar.”
“I love you,” Cait yelled again.
Dispatch wanted an ETA on their arrival to the pending call, so she risked burning her mouth with the strong, bitter coffee while they walked back to the truck.
Tony gave her a stern look as she buckled her seat belt one-handed in order to keep sipping. “Don’t blame me when you’re peeing in a hazmat bag going down the road.”
Chapter Eleven
The next day, Gavin sent a text message asking Cait if she’d be interested in getting a bite to eat after her shift and was pleasantly surprised when she said yes. Based on what she’d said about her mom, he’d half-expected her to tell him she couldn’t get away and needed to have dinner with her family.
Instead, she gave him a time she’d meet him at his place, which his mind kept turning over and over, like it was a puzzle.
Either she wanted to meet him there so they could have some alone time after dinner, or she didn’t want him picking her up at her mom’s house. If that was the case, it could simply be a safety measure that was common in new relationships or it could mean she didn’t want him to meet her mom.
But when he saw her walking up the sidewalk toward him, he didn’t care. All that mattered was that she was there and she was smiling.
> “Waiting for me on the sidewalk? You must be hungry.”
“I’m starving, actually. This is a little later than I usually eat.” And he was afraid if she’d gone upstairs, he wouldn’t be able to keep his hands off her. Not that there was anything wrong with that, but he needed food first.
They’d made it to the end of the block when his phone chimed. It was the chirpy bird sound he’d assigned to his sister, so he pulled out of traffic and looked at the screen.
The upstairs toilet won’t flush and if my kids and my husband have to share the downstairs bathroom I’m going to run away from home.
“Do you mind if we stop by my sister’s house so I can figure out why her toilet won’t flush? It should only take a few minutes, but if you don’t want to, I can put it off. They have a half-bath downstairs, so they won’t suffer too much.”
“I don’t mind.”
“Thanks.” He told his sister he was on his way and pulled back out onto the street.
“Didn’t you tell me she’s married?”
Gavin chuckled. “Yeah, she is. Henry’s a great guy, but he’s... Let’s just say he’s not all that handy around the house. He’ll do anything for anybody, but if it involves tools in any way, you’re better off doing it yourself. So I get the maintenance calls and, in exchange, I can mooch meals off them on a regular basis without feeling like a jerk.”
“Huh.” The way she said it made him glance over, but she was looking out her side window, so he couldn’t really see her face.
“Huh?”
“So when your family calls, you help them out.”
“Well, yeah. They’re my family.” He knew what she was getting at. “And when I call my family, they help me out.”
“My mom has always been my rock,” she said quietly. “Life kicked her pretty freakin’ hard—for a second time—and she just needs a little time.”
“A second time?”
“My dad died of cancer when I was three. I don’t remember much of that time, but I do know she thought losing him was her tragic backstory and she would live happily ever after with my stepdad.”
“I’m sorry, Cait. I didn’t know.”
“Oh, I know,” she said, and she sounded more like herself again. “It’s just that for people who don’t know my mom, it’s hard to understand that this really is temporary. She’s strong enough to get through this, but she had the wind knocked out of her.”
Part of him thought that, after six months, her mom should be coping a little better, but he’d never suffered that kind of loss, so he kept his mouth shut. Cait was right. Not only did he not know her mother, but he hadn’t been in Cait’s life long enough to get a true picture of their family dynamic.
But they were pulling up to his sister’s duplex, so he let it go. And at this point in their hopefully-a-relationship, it was still really none of his business. After pulling in behind Jill’s SUV, he parked the truck and killed the engine.
“I promise this will only take a few minutes.”
“Is that your way of asking me to stay in the truck?”
“Of course not.” He knew if he did, Jill wouldn’t hesitate to walk outside and introduce herself, anyway.
The entire family was in the living room when he gave a quick knock and then let himself in and he felt weirdly nervous as Cait moved to stand next to him.
“This is my sister, Jill. Her husband, Henry, and their rugrats, Bella and Matt. Everybody, this is Cait.”
Cait smiled at them. His sister looked a lot like him, with dark hair and eyes. Henry was tall and thin, with blond hair and glasses. Bella looked like Henry and Matt like his mom. “Nice to meet you all.”
“Nice to meet you, Cait,” Jill said. “I’ve heard so much about you.”
Cait looked at Gavin. “Oh.”
“Okay, not a lot,” she confessed. “Just that he has a girlfriend.”
Gavin’s ears got hot and he cleared his throat. “We’ve got plans, so I’m going to take a look at that toilet.”
Belatedly, he realized he had two options. He could ask Cait if she wanted to go upstairs and hang out in the bathroom with him while he diagnosed his sister’s toilet, or he could leave her downstairs. With his nosy older sister.
He hadn’t really thought this through very well.
“Can I get you something to drink, Cait?” His sister gave him an innocent smile. “It never takes Gavin long to fix things.”
It sure as hell wouldn’t tonight, he thought as he practically ran up her stairs. Not even five minutes later, he’d reattached the lift chain and went downstairs to find Henry and the kids in front of the TV and Jill and Cait nowhere to be seen.
They’d be in the kitchen, he thought. His mom and sister always retreated to the kitchen to drink coffee or wine disguised in coffee cups, which fooled nobody. He would have been tempted to linger outside the arched doorway to the kitchen and eavesdrop, but Bella was watching him. If he stood there doing nothing, she’d start asking him questions and he’d be caught, so he forced himself to move.
“That was really fast,” Jill said, and then she pressed her lips together to keep from laughing. He could see in her eyes that she knew he’d been nervous about leaving the two of them alone.
“If the whole firefighting thing doesn’t work out for you,” Cait said, “you could be a plumber. Maybe don’t charge by the hour, though.”
“You guys are funny. All fixed, so you ready to go, Cait?”
Cait knew, too, and he had no doubt she would give him a bunch of shit when they got back to his truck.
“I can heat you up some leftover chili if you want to stay,” Jill said.
“Thanks, but we have plans. Oh, and your lift chain came unattached and I can’t even guess how.”
His sister smiled. “All I heard was blah blah call me if it happens again blah blah, but thanks for fixing it.”
He walked over and kissed her on the cheek, and then gave Cait an expectant look. She smiled and then set her half-empty glass of water on the counter.
“It was nice to meet you, Jill.”
“You, too. I’ll be in touch about that thing we talked about.”
Gavin frowned, but Cait just smiled and preceded him into the living room. After saying goodbye to Henry and the kids, they walked in silence back to his truck.
He made it maybe an eighth of a mile before he cracked. “What thing did you and Jill talk about?”
She burst out laughing and it was a few seconds before she could answer. “There’s no thing, Gavin. God, you’re easy.”
“You have a mean streak.”
“It wasn’t me. It was your sister. I just went along with it.”
“What did you guys talk about?” He tried to ask the question casually, but he was pretty sure she wouldn’t be fooled.
“You.”
He snorted. “Obviously. But what?”
“You were barely gone long enough for her to get me a glass of water. I only drank half of it.” When he glanced over at her, she shrugged. “She asked me if I was the woman in the Snapchat picture.”
“She’s seen it?” It had to be Grant. He was the only one of the guys who’d spent enough time with his family to send them things like that.
“I told her no and pretended to be pissed off.”
He whipped his head around to look at her and almost side-swiped a parked car. “Jesus, Cait, why would you do that?”
But she was laughing again, and he was tempted to downgrade their dinner plans to a fast food drive-through. “You really are easy to wind up. And you say it’s easy to push my buttons.”
“So she hasn’t seen the picture?” Maybe he wouldn’t have to kick his best friend’s ass, after all.
“Oh, she’s seen it. But when she asked if it was me, I said yes. Then she called you a creeper.” She gave him an
angelic smile that he knew was totally fake. “I didn’t tell her you have the picture framed in your bedroom.”
Despite her twisted sense of humor being a pain in his ass, he took her to his favorite wings place. It was a little loud, but the food was good and he was a regular.
He’d made the mistake before of trying to impress women. Putting on button shirts and taking them to nice restaurants. Washing his truck. But he couldn’t sustain that standard long and it was better to let a woman know what she was getting right from the beginning.
The server gave them menus and Cait ordered a beer. He ordered an ice water for now and a beer to arrive with his food, since he’d only have one.
“Do they have boneless wings?” Cait asked when they were alone, scanning the long, busy menu.
He scowled at her over the top of his. “Boneless wings aren’t wings.”
“But you can eat them without looking like a toddler who stuck his face and hands in a bucket of sauce.”
“It’s popcorn chicken tossed in sauce.”
“You have strong feelings about wings.”
“I do, yes.”
He could tell by her expression that she was trying not to laugh at him. “Am I allowed to sit with you if I get boneless wings? Or is there a roped-off section for people who don’t like cleaning wing sauce out from under their fingernails for hours?”
“I could lick the sauce off your fingers for you.”
She laughed, but it faded into a no look. “I can’t decide if that’s sexy or not. I’m leaning toward no.”
“Too far,” he admitted with a grin. “I told you I do that. But I’ll try to behave while you’re eating sauced-up popcorn chicken with a knife and fork.”
“I might eat my fries with a fork, too, just to embarrass you.”
They both laughed and when their eyes met over their menus—her eyes sparkling with humor—he felt a little kick to the chest.
He really liked this woman.
* * *
After great wings—even if they were boneless—a couple of beers, and with a stomachache from laughing so much, Cait couldn’t remember the last time she’d had such a fun night out.
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