“If I haven’t had the dubious pleasure, it’s probably because you’ve closed your doors and windows,” he answered.
He was right. Now that winter had passed and spring was here to stay, she opened her windows and the balcony door whenever she was at home. Living on the third floor meant that she didn’t have to worry as much about security unless her would-be burglar had wings or was Spiderman.
“In case you haven’t figured it out yet, I wouldn’t call what you’re doing playing,” he said loftily. “Butchering is more like it.”
Affront filled her soul and stiffened her spine. Nothing raised her ire more than to hear that she’d fallen short of the mark. It had become her ex-fiancé’s favorite pastime and had eventually led to their break-up.
“I’ll admit I don’t practice regularly and I’m more ‘off’ my schedule than ‘on’, but I will get better.”
He stared at her, clearly incredulous, before his face crinkled and he let out a hearty laugh. “Yeah, right.”
“I will,” she insisted. All it took was determination and she had plenty to spare.
“I don’t suppose you’ve thought of just listening to a CD of someone who’s already mastered the instrument?”
“I have, which is why I intend to learn.” She had more compelling reasons than that, but she doubted if Jared would appreciate why she felt so driven to succeed.
“Maybe you should try something else. Piano, for instance.”
He faded away and in her mind’s eye she pictured her former fiancé and heard arguments that sounded remarkably like Jared’s.
Can’t you learn something more traditional? Something less ostentatious? Less unusual?
She’d supposed that playing the pipes wasn’t high on the list of qualities that Brandon’s upper-crust family found impressive. After a year of being molded into what Brandon thought she should be, from her clothes to her apartment, she’d finally realized that a life with him would be a life of listening to him “smooth off her rough edges.”
The final injustice had come when he’d informed her that she couldn’t possibly be considering working as a paramedic once they were married. According to him, his contacts would ensure her acceptance into a prestigious medical school on the east coast. The only problem with his plan was that she was happy in the profession she’d chosen. She’d mustered her nerve and rejected his so-called guidance in no uncertain terms. She was a paramedic by choice, currently working for the fire department, and if she decided to pursue a different career, it would be her decision and not his.
Once he’d realized that she wouldn’t back down, he’d broken their engagement. The last she’d heard, he was dating someone from Dallas who, in Annie’s opinion, had more money than sense.
In any case, Jared’s free and equally unwanted advice had pushed the sore spots that Brandon had created. She refused to let anyone cast aspersions on her interests and make her feel inferior again, especially not a surly, albeit handsome neighbor.
And what made him think he could recognize musical ability in a beginner?
“Perhaps,” she said sweetly. “But everyone can learn, can’t they?”
He exhaled slowly as his face took on the familiar long-suffering look he wore whenever he saw her. “I suppose I should be grateful you’re not playing the drums.”
“Or a trumpet,” she added helpfully. “Wouldn’t it be great to hear reveille every morning?”
He raised his face heavenward in silent supplication. “There is a God,” he mumbled. “Do me a favor, though.”
“Before or after I take care of your electricity?”
He continued as if she hadn’t spoken. “Quit before the rest of the building forms a lynch party. If this is as good as you are after months of practice, you don’t have it in you.”
For a few seconds her frozen smile prevented her from answering. The truth wasn’t what hurt. She knew she sounded horrible. The fact that he’d pointed it out didn’t faze her either. The guys at the fire station traded good-natured insults on a regular basis and she’d learned to take them in her stride, often giving as good as she got. If they’d told her the same thing, she would have smiled and admitted that she had a long way to go.
No, what hurt now wasn’t any of those things. It was the implication that she could never improve, never master this instrument, never succeed.
He could have yelled at her all day about his lack of electricity and she would have endured it with a smile because it was highly probable that she was to blame. This, however, was different. He’d attacked something she held dear—her dream and spiritual link to the grandfather who’d raised her, dried her tears for nearly twenty years, listened to the outpourings of her heart and taught her the value of family. For that, she had no defense.
Hiding her pain behind stubborn pride, she lifted her chin slightly. “I don’t want to.”
“Then find yourself a different instructor. Obviously the one you have is worthless.”
OK, so teaching herself wasn’t the most efficient or the best way to learn, but it was the most economical. Between her CD of Teach Yourself the Bagpipes in Twelve Easy Lessons and what she remembered of her grandfather’s tips, she could and would be successful.
“In the meantime,” he continued ruthlessly, “shut your windows so the rest of us won’t have to hear you committing a crime against musicians everywhere.”
“Don’t worry,” she said stiffly. “I will.” With that, she turned her back on him as regally as she could, and closed the door with a quiet snick.
“Thanks for covering for me,” Jared told his colleague and friend Galen Stafford as soon as he arrived at Hope City’s emergency department.
“Not a problem, but I’m dying of curiosity. What made you oversleep? Or should I ask what you did last night?” Galen winked.
“I had a quiet evening at home so don’t get any ideas,” Jared said. “I overslept because of my neighbor.” The aroma of the fresh pot of coffee was already working its magic. By the time he finished his first cup, he’d feel more like himself and less like a man who’d gotten out of bed on the wrong side.
“Which one?”
Jared shot him a dirty look. “Which one is the bane of my existence?”
Galen laughed. “Surely not Annie McCall.”
“None other.”
Galen shook his head. “What is it with you? She’s nice-looking, intelligent, extremely competent and fun to be around. So what if you have to deliver a few letters? Most men, myself included, wouldn’t mind at all.”
“Delivering mail is one thing, but have you forgotten how often she lands into scrapes that anyone else would avoid? Remember the last time she tried to barbecue on the balcony? I swear my clothes still smell like smoke.”
Their apartments were mirror images on the third floor, both on the south side of the building. A waist-high wrought-iron fence separated her half of the tiny balcony from his, and with her grill against the railing, the smoke would take a direct route into his kitchen if there was any breeze at all.
There was always a breeze.
Galen shrugged in his easygoing manner. “So she didn’t keep track of time and incinerated a few hot dogs on the grill. Things happen.”
“The smoke blew into my apartment and set off my alarm. Not once, but on two separate occasions.” Perhaps he should shrug them off as easily as Galen did, but Annie’s mishaps reminded him of his sisters’ escapades and of how often he’d stepped in as the big brother to save them from themselves. Acting as the head of the household had given him purpose and eased his guilt over his mother’s death, but his over-protectiveness had driven a wedge into his relationship with his siblings. He’d paid the price for caring too much and didn’t intend to make the same mistake twice.
“And now,” he continued, determined to paint Annie in a bad light for his own peace of mind and self-preservation, “she’s decided to learn how to play bagpipes!”
Galen grinned. “Bagpipes, heh?�
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“Would I joke about a thing like that? The noise was positively horrific.” He shook his head. “You can’t imagine.”
“Do you know what your problem is? You need to lighten up.”
Jared responded with a glower, but Galen only chuckled.
“You have to hand it to her,” Galen said. “She’s a live wire.”
“An irritant is more like it,” Jared said darkly. After living in his apartment for a year, Annie McCall was the only neighbor who’d managed to shatter his peaceful existence without batting an eye.
“The woman has backbone,” Galen pointed out. “The fire service is still basically a man’s world. A woman has to have grit if she’s going to survive.”
She had plenty of grit, all right. He’d seen it when he’d chided her for being fooled by Jack Jones and again a few hours ago. Any other female would have been teary-eyed and sniveling on either occasion, but what had Annie done? She’d simply stared at him with big brown eyes that sparkled with life and argued right back.
At least, she’d argued until he’d criticized her musical ability without mercy. He’d plainly hurt her feelings and all because he’d let his irritation and frustration get the better of him.
He would have felt less like a jerk if she’d responded in kind and slammed her door so hard the windows had shaken. Instead, her quiet grace and the soft click had haunted him for the past hour and would do so until he apologized.
He hated apologizing—his sisters had always claimed that if he said “sorry” more often, he wouldn’t feel as if he were cutting off an arm—but he shouldn’t have attacked something that she obviously held dear. Yes, he was upset over his unexpectedly cold shower, but anger didn’t excuse his behavior. He only wanted her to be more responsible.
“So what exactly happened to make you late this morning?”
“Annie didn’t pay her bill and because the electric company thinks she’s in apartment 3D, they shut off my power instead.”
“Bummer.”
“Yeah. Like I said, she needs someone to keep an eye on her. And before you ask, it won’t be me.”
Galen shrugged. “I didn’t say a word. Now that you’ve mentioned it, why not?”
Jared shook his head and motioned for emphasis. “No way. After raising my brothers and sisters, I’m not giving up my freedom to look after someone else.” Idly, he wondered if an imposed freedom was truly a freedom, then decided not to quibble over the semantics. For the first time since he’d been a teenager, he only had to worry about himself.
“Not even someone as attractive and vivacious as Annie McCall?”
She was beautiful, he admitted. Her long, sun-streaked light brown hair matched her perky smile and her dark brown eyes sparkled with warmth, even when he leveled his most daunting frown in her direction.
He didn’t want to feel any pull of interest toward her. He didn’t want to picture her wearing the baggy T-shirt and boxer shorts she’d obviously slept in, dream about those long legs wrapped around him or speculate on how the tawny tresses that hung past her shoulders would slide over his skin if he ran his hands through it.
It was irritating to daydream about a woman he couldn’t figure out. As Galen had mentioned, Annie seemed so intelligent and competent on the job, but at home he swore she had her head in the clouds. Most of the time he sensed her laughing at him and that only served to irritate him more.
“No,” he said firmly.
“Your life would be more interesting with Annie than with Erica,” Galen remarked, referring to the woman Jared had dated three or four times in the past two months.
Erica Brown, Hope’s administrative VP, was finishing her MBA degree and working her way up the ladder to become a CEO. She was focused, independent, and as serious-minded as he was, and they’d drifted together when she’d been assigned to help him draft his department’s budget. While he couldn’t claim any sort of serious relationship with her at this stage, it was quite clear that Erica shared his goals to put career above all else. More importantly, she wouldn’t need him to watch over her or fight her battles and she wouldn’t forget to pay her bills, write down an incorrect address or set off smoke alarms on a regular basis.
“I don’t mind. After some of the stunts my brothers pulled, a quiet, monotonous life doesn’t sound bad at all.”
No, Annie McCall wasn’t the woman for him, no matter how much his hormones suggested otherwise.
“Medic One to Hope.”
Annie released the button on her radio’s mike and paused for someone from Hope City to acknowledge her transmission. Her wait was blessedly short.
“This is Hope. Go ahead, Medic One.”
Immediately, Annie grumbled inwardly at her luck. The crisp, distinctly masculine voice belonged to none other than her current nemesis, Dr Jared Tremaine. For her patient’s sake, she was glad he was on duty because he was a crackerjack physician, but for her own, she wished that someone else was covering the ER. She was still smarting from his “quit the bagpipes and avoid a lynch mob” comment and if she didn’t see him for the rest of her six-month lease agreement, it would be too soon.
Fat chance of that happening, though, unless she gave up her job instead of her bagpipes. And since she didn’t intend to do either, she’d simply have to suffer.
Although, now that she thought about it, she’d have her moment of revenge. For Jared to be so readily available that he could answer their transmission, he was probably having a slow day and she was about to change that. While it was hardly suitable payback, she’d find her satisfaction any way she could.
She held down the button to transmit, schooling her voice into the coolly professional tone she normally employed.
“We have a code yellow,” she reported, relying on their color code system to describe their patient’s overall condition. In this case, yellow meant serious. “A fifty-five-year-old Caucasian male complaining of chest pain. Rapid breathing, elevated pulse, BP is 100 over 60. EKG shows an occasional PVC. We’ve established an IV and patient is receiving fifteen liters of oxygen. Request further instructions.”
“What’s your ETA, Medic One?”
“Ten minutes.”
“Monitor and transport.”
“Ten-four,” Annie acknowledged, signing off. Obviously, Jared didn’t think Gary Turlow needed any intervention other than what she and her partner, Mic Haines, had already provided. The PVCs she’d reported were a sign of an irritable heart ventricle and could be due to anything from nicotine and alcohol use to an infarction or ischemia. Jared and his staff would have to discover the cause and correct it, but in the meantime it was her job to deliver her patient safe and sound to the ER staff’s waiting hands.
She smiled at Gary, who was sitting on his sofa, taking slow, shallow breaths. His daughter, who’d identified herself as Elizabeth Peterson, hovered nearby. “Are you ready for a ride?”
He nodded his salt-and-pepper-haired head. “Yeah.”
Mrs Peterson, who appeared to be in her late thirties, patted her father’s shoulder. “I’ll meet you at the hospital, Dad. Don’t worry. Everything will be fine.”
His smile was weak. “Sure, hon. Probably just a severe case of indigestion.”
Annie and Mic situated their patient on the gurney with the oxygen tank between his legs. As soon as they’d gathered up the rest of their equipment and supplies, each grabbed their side of the stretcher and lifted on her count of three. The wheels snapped into place and they began the careful trek out of Gary Turlow’s house to their waiting ambulance.
Fortunately there were only a few steps to deal with and minutes later they’d carefully tucked the man in the back of their vehicle.
As a paramedic with more medical training than Mic’s EMT-intermediate status afforded him, Annie normally rode with the patients while he drove. The twenty-four-year-old Mic had traded his hobby of motor racing for a career in emergency medical services to please his new wife, so driving with flashing lights and a screamin
g siren compensated for his loss.
Annie started to hoist herself inside, but before she took her second step Gary’s daughter stopped her. “Is he going to be all right?”
“I’m not in a position to predict anything,” Annie said politely. “The sooner we get your father to the hospital, the sooner the doctors can decide what’s wrong and correct it.”
Elizabeth pursed her mouth in obvious worry. “I’m expecting you to take good care of him,” she warned. “He’s quite active in local politics and he’s a member of the city council.”
As if his standing in the community meant she would treat him any differently than anyone else. Patients were patients, regardless if they were federal court judges or street sweepers, but Annie didn’t have time to explain. Her patient was doing fine at the moment, but something about his skin color set her instincts on edge.
“We’ll look after him,” Annie told her, before she jumped in and motioned to the police officer standing nearby to close the doors. While she moved her equipment off the gurney and stowed the oxygen tank in its holder, the vehicle lurched to life. Annie braced herself against the movement and began to recheck her patient’s vital signs.
His oxygen saturation was a little low, so she increased the flow on the tank. “How’re you doing, Mr Turlow?”
“It’s hard to breathe.”
She inflated the blood-pressure cuff and noted the numbers had fallen slightly. His pulse rate had also dipped and his skin remained cold and clammy, which indicated inadequate perfusion. In other words, his blood wasn’t circulating adequately through his lungs for the oxygen-carbon dioxide exchange to occur.
He had all the appearances of shock and since he wasn’t bleeding, hadn’t complained of an illness or infection, and denied being diabetic, she suspected it was heart-related.
If he was in cardiogenic shock, the IV fluids should have helped by now.
She decided to administer a dose of dopamine, which would stimulate heart contractions. As soon as she had, she waited a few seconds before asking, “How do you feel?”
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