The Slow Burn

by Caro Carson

  “I know you didn’t get the time you wanted,” he heard Tana say.

  “Reynolds beat me. I can’t believe it. I lost to Reynolds.”

  “You did. You can’t change that. It’s time to get prepared, mentally prepared, for the medley relay.”

  “I went too deep off the starting block. I should have—”

  “Cindy, listen to me.”

  Caden looked away from the diving to watch Tana.

  “We’ll analyze all that during practice. Right now, you have to compete. If you allow your brain to focus on a race you are no longer swimming, then you can’t focus on what it takes to win the next race.” Tana tapped her temple. “What’s up here matters as much as anything else. Everyone loses sometimes. You have to put that loss behind you if you want to win again. That’s a champion’s mind-set. So, go find the other relay girls. Eat some fruit for energy. Keep your focus on your next chance to win.”

  “Okay, Coach.”

  “Before you do all that, give me a hand out of this chair.” Tana held out her hand again, laughing, and her swimmer hauled her out of the director’s chair.

  Pregnant. Undeniably, visibly pregnant.

  Caden couldn’t have looked away if he’d wanted to. He didn’t want to. She still had that athletic posture and energy from September, and she wore the same rubber-soled deck shoes, too. She hadn’t lost that healthy pregnancy glow, but now she had a baby bump to go with it, a sweet little soccer ball under her loose-fitting top.

  Something shifted inside him.

  He got it. He understood his brother’s near reverence toward his wife’s baby bump, how he’d lay a protective hand on her belly when they talked. Pregnancy was a common, everyday thing, but Caden looked at Tana and realized it was extraordinary. How did women do it? They carried on as if there wasn’t a major change happening to their bodies, to their entire lives. Tana amazed him, coaching her team, running a swim meet, creating a baby.

  What man in his right mind would walk away from the miracle of her?

  Maybe no man had. She and the father of the baby could have gotten back together. They probably had. They must have. No man could be that much of an idiot.

  Another loud splat of a human body on the water surface jerked Caden’s gaze away from Tana. That splat had the diving coaches halfway out of their chairs, but the diver surfaced and headed for the ladder with sure strokes.

  I’m lifeguard certified, Tana had said. There were no ambulances parked outside during the workouts she must run daily, yet any sports injury that might happen on a playing field, like a concussion or a cramp, could be deadly underwater. Tana would be the one who’d have to jump into the water and haul an unconscious body out.

  She was pregnant. Should Tana jump into the water to save one of her swimmers?

  Caden watched her walk away. Another swimmer came up to her, talking a mile a minute with agitated gestures, and Tana put her arm around the woman’s shoulders as they walked.

  Tana would dive in for her team. Pregnant or not, Caden knew she would.

  She doesn’t have to today. I’m here.

  But he couldn’t be here all the time. He hoped she had gotten back together with her significant other. He hoped the man took good care of her. He hoped—

  Caden scrubbed his hand over his face. That was as much as he could hope. Maybe they’d talk today, maybe they wouldn’t. Tana was fine without him, and he was...doing okay without her.

  Sarah was very nice.

  He gazed around the swim meet, looking at nothing, looking at everything, looking for any distraction. He recognized one of the diving coaches as Shirley from the CPR class. Tana must be her boss, then. He looked at the banners that hung from the ceiling, declaring the years of the school’s past glories in the NCAA, their regional and divisional championships. Painted on the wall, there was a list of Masterson swimmers who’d set pool records, school records, NCAA records. He looked at the blue water, at the bright red lane lines that—

  Caden’s eye went back to that list of records. M. McKenna, and M. McKenna again. And again. He read down the list. Another McKenna. Another. Another.

  Montana McKenna had been their most prolific champion. Who better to coach the swimmers on a champion’s winning mind-set?

  Honest to—

  Caden was never, ever going to meet another woman like Tana, and he was never, ever going to completely extinguish the torch he carried for her.

  You have to put that loss behind you. That was a champion’s advice.

  He hadn’t technically lost anything. They weren’t in love. They’d never even kissed.

  Caden just needed a little distance again, and he’d get back to the good life he’d been leading. Shifts at the fire station with his team. Days at the ranch with the rescued mare, with his niece and nephew, with his brother, who was even more in love with his wife as they raised their babies. Another date with Sarah.

  Sarah really was very nice.

  He just needed to get through the rest of this swim meet. The diving ended, eventually. Swimmers reappeared on the pool deck, slipping into the warm-up pool to do laps, or hanging on the lane lines to talk with their teammates. Tana sat once more in her canvas chair, a little bit closer to the pool than before. She’d never see him unless she looked back over her shoulder.

  A relay must be next, because female swimmers clustered in groups of four around each starting block. The school-spirit chants ratcheted up as the first swimmer for each team dropped into the water and grabbed a silver bar on the starting block. Caden knew, from watching the Olympics on TV, that meant the first leg of the relay must be the backstroke. He saw the swimmer whom Tana had advised to focus on this race. She looked focused, all right. Fierce.

  The cheers died into a silence so sudden, it was eerie.

  “Swimmers, take your marks.”

  The buzzer cued an eruption of noise. Up and back—the backstroke leg was completed in thirty seconds. The moment the backstrokers touched the wall, the breaststroke swimmers dove in over them.

  All the coaches were on their feet, including Tana. Each time a swimmer’s head bobbed out of the water, the coaches gave a short whistle, setting a cadence. Tana had an impressive whistle. Caden found himself smiling a bit to see it, although he wondered how any of the swimmers knew which whistle was for them. The butterfly leg was next, then the freestyle leg, which had Masterson and their rivals neck and neck down to the finish. Everyone in the building was on their feet, shouting as the swimmers touched the wall.

  Masterson won by a tenth of a second. The women, soaking wet, ran to Tana for a victorious group hug, soaking their coach in their enthusiasm. Tana was laughing, high-fiving, slapping her girls on the back, and Caden was assuring himself he was not falling in love with her.

  Then the men took their places for their relay. Another moment of utter silence, another buzzer, another close race. Caden was almost too caught up to notice that Tana was a little winded after whistling her way through the breaststroke lap. He definitely caught the way she set one hand on her belly as she fist-bumped the victorious men’s team, pushing them toward the cool-down pool. He got worried when she flopped into her chair. She reached toward the ground with one hand without taking her eyes off the busy pool scene, then waved her hand around a little bit, until it landed on a stainless-steel bottle. She picked it up and took a drink.

  Good girl.

  She was taking care of herself. Caden didn’t need to watch her like a hawk. He was not her rescuer, because she didn’t need rescuing. On a dance floor at Thanksgiving, he’d seen that she was a successful woman who didn’t want to be coddled. She was wildly successful, he realized now, and she didn’t need to be coddled at all. Good for her. Really.

  There was some discussion taking place between the referee and another person with a stopwatch around his neck. The next set of swimmers, w
omen again, were keeping their jackets on and jumping in place behind the starting blocks to keep themselves warm. And Tana? She was nearly bent in half in her chair, patting the pool deck because her water bottle had rolled under her chair. Her clipboard went clattering from her lap to the pool deck. She picked it up fast, but the deck was wet, and Caden figured her papers were now, too. He heard her little growl of frustration.

  He could keep his distance again after the meet. Right now, he wasn’t going to watch a woman struggle to bend over her pregnant belly to reach the floor, no matter how cute her little growl had sounded. Caden pushed himself off the wall and headed toward her. She’d just snagged the handle of her water bottle with one finger, when her pen dropped off her clipboard and started to roll away.

  She grabbed for it and missed. With a curse instead of a growl, she dropped the clipboard and abruptly sat up, smacked the arms of her chair to push herself to her feet, then whipped around, ready to crouch down and retrieve her things—but she staggered.

  “Tana.”

  She looked at him, surprised, then her eyes rolled back in her head, and she fell to the pool deck.

  Chapter Eleven

  “There you are.”

  Tana squinted up at the silhouette of a man. His face was hard to see, because the industrial ceiling lights were bright beyond him. Why was she looking at the ceiling lights?

  “You fainted,” the man said.

  She knew his voice. She’d recognized him, just before she’d—oh, crap. She had fainted again, hadn’t she?

  Her fireman was here again. Cradling the back of her head again.

  She tried to smile. “Hi.”

  “Hi. We’ve got to stop meeting like this.”

  Very cute, that. She appreciated his warm hand cushioning her head, but her head didn’t hurt. Her tailbone did. She must have landed hard on her butt. Water drops plopped onto her from above, one right between the eyes. She blinked.

  “Coach McKenna!” Cindy stood above her, dripping wet and shrieking. “Oh, my God, Coach McKenna.”

  Tana made a calm-down gesture with her hand. “Shh...”

  More girls arrived, their swim caps and clean faces blocking out the ceiling lights. “Oh, my God! What happened? It’s Coach! What happened?”

  “I’m fine.” Tana made the effort to speak, because they were well on their way to freaking out. “Just dizzy. No big deal. I didn’t hit my head or anything.”

  “Coach!” More water drops rained onto her face as young men crowded over her, too, their bare chests and shoulders blotting out more of the light. “Coach M!”

  She looked at her fireman. They were stuck at the bottom of a dog pile, practically, a dog pile that was raining drops of water on them. She thought it was funny.

  Caden Sterling wasn’t laughing. There was no crinkle at the corner of those blue eyes.

  “I’m fine,” she said to him. Just to him.

  “What hurts?”

  Half her team was around them. She wasn’t going to talk about her butt. “Nothing. I’m fine. I just stood up too fast.” She’d better get up, so her team would quit worrying.

  Caden kept her down with a firm hand on her collarbone. “Whoa. Let’s not make the same mistake twice.”

  “Let me stand up slowly, then.”

  “Nope.” He let go to hold her wrist and take her pulse. His other hand continued to cup her head, a pillow for her instead of concrete pool decking. The bulk of his shoulders blocked most of the dripping water.

  Someone set a heavy black gym bag next to him. Caden looked up at their audience. “I want everyone to step back. Two big steps.” Ceiling lights came back into Tana’s view. Caden jerked his chin at one of her six-foot-tall boys. “Give me your towel. Roll it up like a pillow.” He lifted her head and tucked it under her, so he had two hands free to unzip the bag.

  He took out a stethoscope, looked up at someone else. “Ref, how about a little privacy?”

  The referee shooed the swimmers away.

  The referee? That meant the whole meet had stopped when she’d fainted. Everyone in the building was waiting on her before they could get going again.

  “Okay, I’m fine.” She started to sit up.

  “Nope.” Caden put the stethoscope on her chest and pushed her back down with it as he listened for whatever medical people listened for.

  Tana made eye contact with the ref, who was the only person left hovering over them. “I’m really fine. We can start the 400 medley in just a minute.”

  “Stop talking, so I can hear.” Caden sounded a little pissed off. He moved the stethoscope a few inches, listened, then slid it around her rib cage to listen to her back, a sensation she suddenly remembered from before, at the CPR class. Then he placed the stethoscope on her belly, his fingers resting lightly on the rounded firmness of her baby bump.

  That was a new sensation. His eyes were closed as he concentrated. The fetal heartbeat—he was listening for the baby’s heartbeat.

  Suddenly, the swim meet could wait.

  She was fine, she knew it, but now she wanted Caden to tell her she was, officially. Medically. She watched his expression, looking for any sign that he was hearing something abnormal, so she was staring right at him when he opened his eyes and stared right at her.

  That warm, tropical blue—the loveliest water to sink into—she was so glad he was here. “Is everything okay?”

  He nodded and moved the stethoscope to the side of her baby bump without looking away from her. God, those eyes. Everything about him was so calm. Calm and big and safe, a protector. Her personal protector, at the moment.

  He took the stethoscope out of his ears but kept the part in his palm cupped against her belly. “Sounds strong. Do you want to hear?”

  “I—I believe you.”

  A little crinkle appeared at the corner of his eyes. “You should. But you might want to hear for yourself, so you can breathe easier. You hold your breath a lot.”

  She put the earpieces in. It took a moment for her to sort out the unfamiliar sounds, but then she heard it, the rapid whoosh, whoosh of her baby’s heart.

  “Little hummingbird in there,” she said, and Caden’s professional calm eased into a genuine smile.

  She handed him the stethoscope. He put it in his bag and took a radio off his belt, then turned to wrap his large hand around her ankle. She jerked her foot away without thinking. He held fast.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Checking your pulses.” He let go and took her other ankle. She felt his fingertips seeking a specific spot, stopping, pressing.

  “You never did that before.”

  “Pregnant ladies get special treatment.” He winked at her, but into the radio, he said, “Michelle, we’re going to need the gurney on the pool deck.”

  “What? No. My ankles are fine.”

  “They are, but you have to go to the hospital.”

  “I’m fine. I bent over too long, then stood up too fast. It makes me dizzy even when I’m not pregnant. My doctor knows about it. Orthostatic hypotension, okay? It has a name.”

  “I know what orthostatic hypotension is. You’re still going to the hospital.”

  In a flash, she remembered the last time they’d spoken. On the dance floor, they’d started out just like this, all friendly. They’d ended up speaking to each other in quiet, angry tones.

  “That’s not up to you.” She spoke through gritted teeth now, keeping her voice low. “Remember when you said I always have a choice in medical decisions? That glucose monitor? I’m making a choice now. I’m staying for these last two races.”

  “You have a choice, but there is a right answer. Go to the hospital.”

  “This is my job.”

  “Tana.”

  “I’m working.”

  Caden looked around. The ref was still ho
vering. Every eye in the place was directed toward them. With a sigh, Caden bent over her and slipped an arm under her back. She had the crazy idea that he was leaning in to kiss her, like she was Sleeping Beauty and he was a prince. Instead, he lifted her, so he could speak privately, quietly in her ear. “Your pants are wet. I don’t know what’s making them wet.”

  For a moment of mortification, Tana feared she’d peed her pants, but she hadn’t. Blushing furiously, she whispered back. “Lying in a puddle on a pool deck, that’s what.”

  “There’s no way for me to tell whether it’s water or amniotic fluid.”

  Her breath left her.

  “You landed hard on your rear end. There’s a very small chance you could have ruptured a membrane. Amniotic fluid could be leaking out.”

  No, no, no. But her tailbone did hurt, like it had when she was a child on roller skates that slipped out from under her, landing her on her butt on the hard floor of the roller rink.

  Her heart pounded with fear, but she’d fallen that hard a half-dozen times in her life without any problem. Caden shouldn’t be scaring her like this, over nothing.

  “My shirt’s wet, too,” she said impatiently. “Only my pants would be wet if—if that was it. You’re wrong. Your pants are wet, too, you know, from kneeling on the pool deck.”

  “You’re probably right, but you need to go to a hospital.”

  “Half of my team is in tears already. They need to focus on their race, not on their coach being carted off on a stretcher. Can’t you tell that it’s water?”

  Those warm, blue eyes could turn icy, after all. “No. Obstetric exams on a pool deck are beyond my pay grade. Stop fighting me on this.”

  A woman in a blue uniform came out of the locker room, pulling a massive yellow gurney behind herself. “Sorry it took so long. Had to figure out how to get out here.”

  “Nothing’s wrong. It can’t be. I’m only at twenty—” Tana gulped. “Twenty-six weeks. It’s too soon. It would be too soon, if—”