In Too Deep: Station Seventeen Book 3

by Kimberly Kincaid

  “Okay.” Yes. Business. Medical things. Nothing personal, and for the love of all things sacred and holy, no more looking at her chest. Even accidentally.

  Damn, she had a really nice chest. Curves just where he liked them. Pert, pretty breasts that would fit perfectly in his palms, with nipples that he’d guess were just one shade darker than petal pink…

  Luke cleared his throat to mask the strangled sound rising from it. Boss! Boss! This woman is in charge of your training. Stop fantasizing about her nipples, you fucking horn dog. “Shoot.”

  Quinn sat on the bench across from him, her expression wide open and bullshit-free. “I know I’m supposed to be the lead, or whatever, and since you haven’t completed all of your paramedic training, I’ll obviously take point on decision-making and higher-level treatments and procedures. But for the most part, I’d really like for us to treat patients as a team.”

  “You take this partner thing pretty seriously, huh?”

  Not that Luke should be surprised, he guessed. Quinn was close with everyone in the house. Well, everyone other than him, anyway. She was also stone-cold serious about taking care of people, from the tiniest scratches to the grisliest amputations. Of course she’d want to go all-in on them being partners.

  “Well, yeah,” she said, all case-in-point. “I mean, I know it’s a little different than how things work on engine because there are only two of us. But we can’t treat patients properly if we don’t rely on each other. And I definitely take caring for people seriously.”

  Although a tiny kernel of him squalled at the potential risk involved in working that closely with Quinn, he shook it off. The last seven months of training on engine had taught him all too well that teamwork was an absolute job requirement. He’d been able to balance the job with keeping his personal life personal. This wouldn’t be any different.

  It couldn’t be.

  “I do too,” he said, capping off the words with a nod. “Teamwork sounds good.”

  Quinn smiled, and yeah, he’d need to start building an immunity to those dimples if he had a prayer of surviving the next three weeks without balls the color of the Pacific Ocean. “Great. Why don’t I show you where we keep everything back here, and we can review some basics as we go?”

  “Sure.”

  She gave him a quick but thorough tutorial on the lay of the land in the back of the ambulance, and he did his level best to mentally catalogue everything as much as possible. They were halfway through the third compartment above the driver’s side bench when the all-call burst out its harsh, high-pitched tone.

  Engine Seventeen, brush fire. Route Four Ten, mile marker thirty-two. Requesting immediate response.

  Luke’s boots had hit the buffed concrete of the engine bay floor for three steps of solid hustle before he realized his auto-pilot needed a reroute.

  “Sorry,” he half-shouted over the thumping footfalls of his engine-mates and the churn and clack of the automatic garage door doing its thing. “Habit.”

  Quinn waited out the throaty, diesel-fueled rumble of the engine as Shae guided it out past the flashing yellow caution lights in front of the house, smiling as she said, “Not a bad one. I’m sure missing all the action on engine is a little disappointing.”

  “Not sure I’ll be missing all the action. Being a paramedic is hardly like watching paint dry,” he pointed out, hoisting himself back up to the interior of the ambulance. He’d seen her and Drake remove a guy’s arm from a wood chipper last month, for God’s sake.

  “Okay, that’s definitely true.” The curiosity that had bubbled over her pretty face earlier went on a giant comeback tour, her blue eyes narrowing over his face. “So how come you want to do it?”

  Luke’s heartbeat sped up. “I’m sorry?” he asked, hoping maybe she’d reconsider the question. Couldn’t they just talk about non-personal stuff, like the best way to splint a shattered femur, or the weather, or something?

  Quinn’s expression refused to let go, and yeah, that was a great, big negative. “How come you want to be a paramedic and a firefighter? It’s a hell of an undertaking, especially as a rookie. And by that, I mean it’s practically unheard of.”

  “I guess I just really want to help people.”

  It was a pat answer, and in honesty, one that knotted Luke’s gut. There was so much more to the truth than that. But ever since his mother had died and his father had walked out the door on the night before her funeral never to return, taking care of people had been his MO. He knew how to find solutions and fix things. It wasn’t just what he did. It was what he’d been hard-wired for. What he excelled at. What he needed.

  And if by splitting time between both meant he wouldn’t get too emotionally attached to one versus the other? Yeah. All the fucking better.

  “Ah,” Quinn said, and funny, the lift of her light blond brows said she actually understood his deep desire to help other people. “Well, if this morning is any indication, you’ve got a hell of a knack for it. You made a great catch with Elena. Patients in diabetic shock are usually really gorked out, so I didn’t think anything of her not answering us verbally, but…”

  The guilt covering Quinn’s pretty features finished her sentence as loudly as if she’d shouted “I should have” through a ten-foot long megaphone, and a pang spread out from his belly to his chest.

  “I got lucky,” Luke said, duking it out with his conscience over the lie. “Anyway, you shouldn’t beat yourself up.” Okay, at least that was all truth. “You diagnosed Elena’s diabetic shock way faster than I would have, and you and Parker took great care of her.”

  Quinn nodded, although she still seemed unconvinced. “I’m just glad she’s going to be okay.”

  Luke replayed the call in his head. “How did you know to skip right to a sternal rub to try and wake her?”

  “How did you know she was deaf?” Quinn asked back, and shit, how had he not seen that one coming?

  Deflect. “You first.”

  “Okay.” Quinn shrugged, propping her first-in bag over the gurney and re-stocking the thing with fresh packages of QuikClot pads. “Elena’s LOC was pretty spontaneous and she’d been out for at least ten minutes. When someone’s lost consciousness for that long, it’s a solid bet the shake and wake isn’t going to work. A sternal rub isn’t fun for the patient,” she admitted, a tiny wince stealing over her face as if she hated the fact that she’d given the woman a bruise while simultaneously saving her life. “And I know your textbook says to start out with the shoulder shake to gauge responsiveness for that very reason. But given how quickly she’d lost consciousness and how long she’d been out, I knew I’d end up needing to do the sternal rub anyway. So I did.”

  “That makes sense,” Luke said, processing the knowledge with care. “So how do you know the difference between cutting to the chase and cutting corners?”

  Quinn closed her bag, the zipper sending a soft thhhrp through the interior of the ambo. “The same way I’d guess you do on engine. Lots of training, and even more practice.”

  “Now that, I can get on board with.”

  A chuckle crossed his lips, but it met an abrupt end a second later when she looked at him and asked, “Is that how you learned sign language? As part of some training program?”

  “No.” His heart took a whack at his rib cage. “I, ah. I know someone who’s deaf. My sister, actually.”

  The words were out before Luke could alter them, leaving a mental path of are you out of your ever-loving mind? in their wake. But he had to hand it to her—Quinn’s only sign of surprise was the slight parting of her lips before she replied.

  “Oh. Well, sign language is a pretty cool thing to know. Maybe in our down time, you can teach me some basics. If you’d be willing to.”

  “You want to learn how to sign?” His brows shot up, his jaw dropping in the opposite direction, but Quinn just jumped down from the back of the ambulance like no great shakes.

  “What, you think you’re the only one who needs to lear
n new things?” she asked, sending a laugh over one shoulder.

  Huh. When she put it that way… “No. I guess not.”

  Her laughter softened, a more wistful expression taking its place as she turned toward him. “Knowing sign language, at least enough to be able to recognize it, would have made me a better paramedic this morning. Practice isn’t always about the medical stuff, proper. It’s about taking care of people the best way I can. Which”—she paused for a self-deprecating eye-roll—“I’m sure sounds all touchy-feely. But it’s also the truth.”

  “It does sound a little touchy-feely,” Luke agreed, partly because Quinn wasn’t wrong, but more selfishly because he wanted her laughter to make an encore. Bingo. “I get it, though.”

  “Yeah?” she asked, her smile growing even bigger as he nodded. “I’m glad.”

  Luke moved from the ambo to the engine bay, squinting against the bright sunlight filtering in past the row of windows set into the garage door in front of them. Maybe teaching Quinn how to sign wouldn’t be that big a deal. Maybe they could even grab a cup of coffee, or go on a date or something, once they were done working together. His attraction to her sure as shit wasn’t going to take a hike anytime soon, and in truth, Shae hadn’t really been wrong earlier. Asking Quinn out was a far cry from marrying her, and just because he didn’t want to let his feelings flag fly didn’t mean he had to be a monk. Maybe—

  The all-call blared from the overhead speakers, screeching his thoughts to an abrupt halt.

  Ambulance Twenty-Two. Person down of unknown causes. Eleven-forty Beaumont Place. Requesting immediate assistance.

  “Looks like I’ll need a rain check on that lesson,” Quinn said, her curl-filled ponytail swishing over the shoulder of her navy blue T-shirt as she turned to give the rear doors on the ambulance a firm slam. “You ready for your first med call, partner?”

  Luke’s nod was firm despite the adrenaline sparking through his veins.

  “Absolutely.”

  5

  Okay, so driving the ambulance was just weird. Not that Quinn was pioneering new territory by sliding behind the wheel, because she’d talked Parker into letting her drive way more than once over the last half-decade. But the passenger seat was broken in just the way she liked it, with the perfect ratio of support to cushion, and ugh, how did Parker last for even one shift on this slab of concrete?

  Quinn let out an exhale and tamped down her inner voice with a steady shot of suck it up, buttercup. Yes, she hated that Parker was hurt, and yes, she really hated that there was nothing she could do to help him. She had to focus on what was in front of her, though, which meant taking care of whoever was on the other end of this call with Slater as her partner.

  The thought made her belly tighten with twin feelings of excitement and curiosity. She’d known he’d probably take the assignment to ambo as seriously as he took everything else—which was to say that on a scale of one to ten, he was going to clock in at about a forty-two. What Quinn hadn’t been expecting was the reveal on his sister, which—while it wasn’t some huge go-viral-on-the-Internet-style bombshell—still had to make her wonder.

  What other surprises was he hiding beneath that wickedly sexy turnout gear and serious ice-blue stare?

  “Isn’t engine supposed to go with us on person-down calls?” Slater asked from the passenger seat beside her, and okay, she needed a super-sized reality check. For God’s sake, she’d been around turnout gear on a regular basis for the last five years straight. Never once had the word ‘sexy’ entered the equation.

  “Not always,” Quinn said, and at least her voice was normal even though the rest of her had clearly filed for temporary insanity. “They’ve almost certainly got their hands full with that brush fire, and we’re not headed to a rough part of the city.” If the call had come in from North Point, dispatch would’ve either sent them with a police escort or pulled the guys from Station Twenty-Nine to back them up, just in case. Granted, this one looked like it was a bit close to the fringe, but she’d been on a bazillion medical calls with no backup, and had never had so much as a hiccup.

  “Most person-down calls are no big deal anyway, especially in heat like this,” she continued. “Someone probably just got a little dizzy mowing their lawn or taking a jog. Fifty bucks says we get back to the house before engine does.”

  Slater gave up a half-smile that did nothing to un-sexy the whole turnout gear fantasy in her head. “I’m going to hold you to that, just so you know. But in the meantime, what should I be doing here?” He gestured to the dashboard unit, which was currently giving them an ETA of seven minutes.

  “Just keep your eye on any updates from dispatch. They’ll come through on the screen. Anything urgent will come in over the radio, just like on engine. But other than that, just be ready to grab your first-in bag when we get there.”

  “Copy that.”

  Quinn navigated their route according to the GPS, her brain adjusting to the new punch list of being the lead paramedic even though the rest of her wanted to give the idea the finger. Guiding the ambulance down a long stretch of road lined with boarded-up warehouses and storefronts that looked like they’d been long-abandoned, she finally pulled to a stop in front of a plain, two-story building flanked by an alley on one side and a pair of industrial garage bays on the other. A weather-faded sign marked the place as HENDERSON SHIPPING AND SUPPLIES, a much newer-looking one warning that trespassers would be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. Quinn scanned the scene, her pulse doing its usual get-up-and-go despite the deep breath she took to set her focus.

  “Okay. Looks like this is it. Eleven-forty Beaumont,” she said, triple-checking the crooked black numbers nailed beside the front door, then grabbing up the radio to call in their arrival. “Ambulance Twenty-Two to dispatch. We are on-scene at eleven-forty Beaumont Place. Over.”

  “Dispatch to Ambulance Twenty-Two, copy your location. Over.”

  Slater sent a wary look through the windshield. “Are you sure? This place looks totally abandoned,” he said, and funny, Quinn couldn’t disagree.

  Still. “Could be kids who were messing around in one of these old buildings and got hurt. Or a squatter who OD’d, maybe. But someone called for help. We just need to figure out who, and why.”

  She got out of the ambo, heading to the side storage compartment for the first-in bag she’d thankfully stocked just before they’d hauled out of the fire house. Slater was on the ball enough to have mimicked her movements on his side of the ambulance—nice—and they met up behind the vehicle.

  “You want to take the gurney in?” Slater asked, but Quinn eyeballed their surroundings in a brisk assessment and shook her head.

  “Getting it over this gravel will slow us down too much. Let’s see what we’re dealing with first.”

  He swiveled a stare over the building, his blue eyes narrowing in the over-bright sunlight beating down from overhead. “Copy that.”

  They fell into step together, their boots crunching and popping over the rough gravel path serving as a walkway through the weed-choked grass. A sheen of sweat formed on Quinn’s brow before they’d even reached the battered steel door to the building, and she pulled a pair of nitrile gloves from the stash in her pocket before pushing her way inside.

  “Hello?” Her eyes struggled to adjust to the shadows of the space. “Did someone call for an ambulance?”

  Annnnd nothing. The building, which appeared to be some sort of warehouse, opened to a large front room littered with old wooden shipping crates and enough trash and empty beer cans to make Quinn’s radar ping.

  “Keep your eyes open for squatters,” she murmured, and Slater nodded from beside her.

  “Paramedics” he tried, his deeper voice echoing eerily off the walls and the dust-encrusted windows set high above ground level. “We’re here to help. Call out.”

  “Stop right there and let me see those hands. Right fucking now.”

  The words were so incongruous with anything Qui
nn had ever heard that for a second, her brain straight-up refused to process them. Then she turned and saw the snub-nosed gun in the man’s hand, the blood covering his once-white shirt, the wild flash of menace in his pitch-black eyes, and fear turned her blood to pure ice.

  “I…I…”

  The man took a swift step toward her from his spot behind a shipping crate, reducing her stammer to a strangled cry. “I didn’t say you could talk, bitch. Now shut up and let me see your fucking hands!”

  Quinn’s arms complied, raising out of sheer survival instinct. Oh God. Oh God, oh God.

  “Radios,” the man bit out, the thick black ink of the snake tattoo on his forearm flexing over his dark brown skin as he jerked the gun between her and Slater. “Both of you. Nice and easy, or I’ll blow your goddamn heads off.”

  She chanced a fast, shaky glance at Slater, who had angled himself slightly in front of her on the dirty concrete floor.

  “Quinn.”

  His voice was quiet, barely a breath in the tight space between them. Yet somehow it managed to penetrate the fear keeping her rooted into place. With trembling fingers, she lifted the radio strapped to her shoulder, ducking out of the thing and tossing it to the ground.

  Think, think. She had to stop panicking and think. “Are…are you hurt?”

  A muscle in the man’s jaw ticked, and he thrust the gun toward her with enough intention to make her pulse go ballistic in her veins. “What did I tell you about not talking?”

  “She’s just trying to help you,” Slater said softly. “If you’re bleeding, we can take care of that. No questions asked.”

  The man dropped his chin, the mention of the blood making him even more agitated even though Quinn couldn’t detect any visible injury to attribute it to.

  “You’re gonna take care of it, alright. See, this blood ain’t mine. It’s my brother’s. He got shot, and you’re gonna fix him up.”