by Lori Avocato
I grabbed the ambulance bag and took out sterile gauze, which I applied to the gash on the back of his head. Despite the numerous stains on the rug, I knew the bright red spot behind Dano’s head was from him. I reminded myself how head wounds bled a lot and sometimes looked worse than they were.
The cops arrived, and not any too soon, since Slick once again became combative as Buzz tried to start the IV. Since he had no luck, and I wasn’t surprised, I had to do it for him. When I looked at the silver face of Slick and then at Dano, I wanted to shove the needle…but I didn’t. With the IV running, I told Buzz to stay near the jerk and sat by Dano’s side.
He still didn’t open his eyes so I stuck an IV in his arm too. He’d kill me if he woke up then.
It seemed like hours before we had backup help-although it had to be only a few minutes. Every ambulance at TLC would rush to the aid of the craggy, negative ER Dano-I just knew it.
Jennifer, one of the EMTs, and Jagger, thank goodness, appeared at the door with a stretcher.
Dano had started to stir. His eyes opened and he looked at me. “What the hell did you do to me?”
“I…you…nothing! Huffer Slick slugged you and you hit your head.”
He tried to turn, but groaned at the movement.
“Stay still,” I said. “They’ve got Slick down in the ambulance. You’re next.”
“Like hell.” He tried to get up, but I firmly pushed him down. He looked at the tubing coming out of his arm. “What the…this had to be your idea, Nightingale.” He tried to get up again.
“Like hell you are getting up,” I said. “And, by the way, I enjoyed every minute of sticking you with the IV needle. I was going to use the largest bore needle, the size of a freaking garden hose, but Buzz wouldn’t let me.”
He growled at me and tried to get up once more, but I was relentless in my effort, and ER Dano didn’t stand a chance. “You think you are fine?” I asked.
He glared at me-a not-too-pleasant glare in fact. “Absolutely.”
“Then how is it that a girl like me can hold you down?”
“Shit,” he muttered, just as Jagger and Buzz came into the room with another stretcher.
Chloe had stayed by Slick’s side after numerous apologies to us all for what Silver Streak had done to ER Dano.
I had to shake my head and say a little prayer for the two sad young people, whose lives were obviously owned by inhalants, pot and probably alcohol. What a waste.
Dano continued to sputter and curse until the guys had him on the stairway-with a few close calls of him nearly sliding feet to head with Jagger. When they got to the lowest landing and had to make a narrow turn, I heard a smack.
Buzz Lightyear lay sprawled out on the landing.
“Oh, Lord!” I yelled, but before I could get to him, Buzz was up again and grabbing the stretcher, while Dano muttered some curses.
I shook my head at the thought that these things always happened to the poor kid. He shook his head a few times as if that would help take away any pain.
“You all right, hon?” I asked.
“Yes, Ms. Pauline. I’m fine.”
Dano looked up. “You look like shit. You should be on this ironing board instead of me.” He shut his eyes and said, “Get me the hell out of here before one of us gets killed.”
Once he was safely out and tucked into the second ambulance, Dano ordered, “Go get in Four five six with your patient, Nightingale.”
I took his hand and held it, all the while sneaking a feel of his pulse. “There’s been a change of assignments. Jennifer’s crew took Slick so we can transport you.”
Dano looked at me questioningly.
I nodded. “Yep, Buzz too. He didn’t want to leave you. Isn’t that sweet?” As soon as the words came out I knew I should have chosen more wisely.
“Ef’n sweet,” he said. “All I need is a good stiff drink to get rid of this headache.”
“And about seven stitches,” I added as we pulled up to the ER at Saint Gregory’s Hospital.
Suddenly I felt something on my hand. ER Dano was holding it!
He winked, despite the pain it must have caused as evidenced by the wince that followed. “Then I’m glad you’ll be with me, Nightingale.”
And my heart fluttered.
Wow.
Seventeen
“Well, they didn’t get to fix the giant hole in your head, but they did a decent job with the small gash,” I said to ER Dano as we walked out of the emergency room.
He grunted.
Buzz was behind the wheel of #456, and I know ER Dano would not want any other transportation back to TLC. How fitting.
We climbed into the back and sat on the bench. Buzz turned around, gave ER a thumbs-up and then pulled slowly out of the driveway.
I felt Dano’s knees bump against mine as the ambulance took several turns. Yum. I shouldn’t be ogling an injured guy like this, but damn, I felt something. ER Dano had made a darn lousy first impression-and I am sure an impression that he thrived upon-but in the end, a different guy came through-and I liked him!
I had a sobering thought. Hopefully, he wasn’t involved in the fraud or…the stabbings, and damn, but I had a gut feeling that the two crimes were related.
In my heart I didn’t believe it was true about Dano, so I had to trust my instincts yet again. And this one was the clincher: Jagger wasn’t keeping me away from him. If anyone suspected ER Dano of anything nefarious, Jagger would know, and I sure wouldn’t be sitting here!
The ambulance stopped and before I could say a word, the back door was flung open and Buzz stood there as if he’d just stepped out of a brand-new toy box I could swear he was made out of plastic, the way he held his shoulders straight in that crisp uniform, legs apart as if at attention. And such a serious look on his face.
“Need any help?” he asked Dano, who looked at him and groaned. “Okay, sir. I’ll be here if you need me.”
I had to smile to myself as Dano stepped to the side, then turned and hurried to open the door. I leaned toward Dano and said, “He was only trying to help. Cut him some slack.”
“Cutting a kid like that slack is not going to get him skilled in this profession, Nightingale. He has to toughen up. One time he was about to zap a patient with the cardiac defibrillator, and I had to point out to him that she was still holding onto his leg. Does the term ‘clear’ mean anything to you?”
I wanted to say, “But he’s such a sweetie,” but realized Dano was correct. Buzz obviously had to toughen up. I remembered the look on his face when he’d seen Pansy.
I tried not to feel negative about his future, but I wondered how long Jeremy would last as an EMT at TLC.
Since our duty day was nearly over, I sat back on the couch in the lounge and sipped my tea while everyone fawned over ER Dano-from a distance. Obviously they were not stupid people. I saw him wince a few times, and I guessed it wasn’t from pain.
“What the hell are you smiling about, Nightingale?” he said.
“Hmm? Oh, nothing.” I hadn’t realized I was.
He eased away from Jennifer and Lilla and straddled a chair from the table in front of me. “Yeah, right. You’re loving this.”
This time I chuckled. “Okay. You got me.”
He kicked my foot with his. Just a gentle touch. A sensual touch even through my shoe. Wow.
It wasn’t easy to rein in my thoughts, when I had to work with him so near. I sighed.
He looked at me.
Damn. He knew. He knew that he was causing a reaction-the bad boy! And, the worst part was, I was losing control of my reactions.
Buzz came over to ER Dano with a cup of black coffee. “Here ya go. How you feeling?”
Whoops. I thought Dano was going to fling the mug at the poor kid. But he did take it and mumble something. I was going with “thanks.”
Dano took a few sips and then shut his eyes.
Dear Buzz could not take a hint, I thought as I bit my tongue.
“So
, you know the ER doc, Dr. Richard Pringle, does not want you alone tonight. He said you need someone to check up on you,” Buzz said, clearing his throat. “Someone has to keep waking you up in case you have a concussion.”
Oh, boy. I started to send mental notes to Buzz to shut up, and even used my facial expressions to try to capture his attention before he ended up wearing Dano’s coffee; but darling Buzz kept up. Being zapped by a defibrillator would be nothing compared to what Dano might do to him.
“So, I will volunteer. I can bunk at your place, boss, and wake you up every hour or so. You know. Ask you what day it is. Who the president is-”
Before Buzz could keep rambling on, ER Dano was up and out of his seat and had Buzz’s unwrinkled tie in his hand-I think, about to yank. But Dano staggered and had to let go. He dropped back to his seat with a thud and a curse that would make a longshoreman blush.
The room hushed.
Buzz swallowed and turned pale.
And I sat motionless, waiting for my mind to catch up to the scene that had just played out in front of me.
Sheepishly and yes, foolishly, Buzz said, “Someone has to be there for you, Dan.”
Yikes! I started to get up to run interference should Dano attempt another attack, but he merely looked at Buzz and said, “She’s doing it.”
I looked around the room to see who’d gotten the short straw and was going to have to stay the night at ER Dano’s place, taking her life into her hands by waking him up? Ready to offer moral support and sympathy, I noticed that everyone in the room, including ER Dano, was staring at…me.
Oh…my…God.
My attempts to get out of the job of “nursing” ER Dano had failed miserably, and here I sat in my car, on my way to his place with a stop off at mine for some clothes, makeup and a check of my phone recorder (no more riddle threats for days now)-and him sitting next to me since he couldn’t drive.
Not that I needed much in the line of clothes or makeup, as Dano was not one to be impressed, but I was one to feel more comfortable, and any reason to get out of my scrubs was a good one.
I pulled into my assigned space, got out and said I’d be right back. Before I made it up my front steps, he was right behind me.
“I need a drink,” he said. “Damn shit they gave me in the ER made me thirsty.”
I paused to try and choose the right words and then thought, Oh, hell. “You shouldn’t be drinking with a head injury. You know that.”
He looked at me and kind of grinned.
Phew.
“Nightingale, I’m talking water here, and don’t try to nurse me. The last woman that attempted ended up…” He grinned again.
My heart did a tiny dance, and I smiled and opened the door to Spanky, who ran up to me and looked behind me. I think the little creature was looking for Jagger!
But the dog settled for ER Dano, who growled a bit that he wasn’t a pet lover, and the next thing I knew, he was sitting on the couch with ice water in hand and Spanky on a pillow nearby. Dano did not, however, pet him, but just sitting there gave Dano a more human quality.
And a rather tasty one at that!
I looked at the pile of clothing on my floor and felt like a teenager. Then again, what I wore was important tonight because I didn’t want to look too sexy-since I was only there as a friend and nurse. And, I didn’t want to look not sexy because, well, I was going to be there-and I was a red-blooded, single, thirty-something woman!
After much contemplation, trying on things I hadn’t worn in a while and wishing my roomies were home to give their expert opinions, I settled on jeans and an aqua long-sleeve top and stuck some toiletries into my makeup bag. I decided my slip-ons would be most like slippers and the jeans weren’t too tight, so I could sleep in them.
Because no way was I parading around ER Dano’s place in my nightie.
ER Dano’s place?
I flopped onto the end of the bed and in my wildest imagination could not think of what it would look like. That’d be one step below figuring out what Jagger’s place looked like. That is, if Jagger really lived someplace and didn’t simply drive around in his SUV.
My thoughts were that Dano’s place would have chrome and glass, and be dark, rather scary, and…male.
Since I had a “job” to do, I pushed any Jagger thoughts out of my head, took my scrubs and shoes for tomorrow and stuck it all into my gym bag. My suitcase looked too girly. Too purple. I couldn’t do purple girly in front of such a guy as Dano.
Brown paper bag might do it though.
When I walked down the stairs, Spanky was not on his pillow any longer. And he wasn’t on Dano’s lap as I’d expected. Evidently Jagger was the only one Spanky had taken a liking to other than myself, Goldie and Miles.
“All set?” I asked.
“Um.” Dano stood, wobbled a bit, and steadied himself on the couch’s arm. “Hold on.”
“Wha-”
He was out the door and into the kitchen before I could finish.
“What the heck?” I muttered, and followed.
There near the back door was Spanky eating out of his dog food dish. But not his dry food. Nope. Dano had raided our refrigerator and helped himself to morsels of leftovers that he’d given to the dog.
After my attack of muteness left, I said, “He has to watch his weight. If he gets another pound heavier, his little kneecap goes out of joint.”
Dano looked at me and then Spanky. “He needed a treat. That’s about as low-cal and wholesome as you can get.” With that he turned and walked back out toward the front.
Spanky gave me a quick look, as if agreeing with Dano.
“Shut up,” I said to him, gave him a pat on the head, looked to see no phone messages, and left. By the time I got out to my car, Dano was in the passenger seat, eyes shut and occasionally wincing.
The tough guy was in pain and despite how he felt, he had taken care of an eight-pound dog.
Eighteen
Life has never ceased to amaze me. My mother used to tell me things that I never believed unless I saw them for myself. “Doubting Thomas,” she and my sister used to call me, after the apostle who didn’t believe that Jesus had been crucified and had risen from the dead.
Well, no one could have prepared me for this.
ER Dano’s house.
Yeah, house. First of all I was expecting an apartment, or condo at the very most. But nope. He lived-and owned, I’d learned-an old Victorian house on the west side of Hope Valley, in one of the finer, older neighborhoods.
Bachelor: grumpy at times, grouchy at others. House: burned-out-bachelor pad, it was not.
As I followed him up the pink flower-bordered walkway, I couldn’t even speak. Without a green thumb on either hand, I knew nothing about the flowers other than that they were pink and pretty, and that Dano must either live with someone or had hired someone to landscape. Yet, what would make him do that?
Then he bent to pick a brown leaf off one of the plants and I mumbled, “He planted them.”
“I planted them. Don’t sound so shocked. Did all the landscaping myself. Good therapy to empty my bucket of ambulance runs when I need to forget,” he said, and opened the large, dark paneled wood front door with a leaded and frosted glass window in the center.
“Oh,” was all I could manage until I stepped inside and added, “Oh, my.” Oh, again.
Dano appeared to ignore me as he pointed out, “Here’s the living room, the john’s in there and you can stay upstairs in the room to the left of the railing. When you try to wake me, don’t get close.”
I wanted to ask why, but figured he must have been a deep sleeper and would probably clock me if I startled him.
We went into the kitchen, which had copper pots hanging from the ceiling, large tomato plants growing in pots by the bay windows and old large-plank hardwood floors. At a white enamel sink, he took a glass from a cabinet, filled it and drank it down in one swallow.
“This place is neat,” I said, sitting down a
t the white wooden kitchen table. There were even crocheted doilies on the table as placemats.
“My grandmother made those,” was all he said when he noticed me noticing them.
“Ah. That’s nice. Look, Dano, I’m here to help you. Let me get you whatever you want while you sit and take it easy. I don’t want your head to start hurting.”
He looked at me.
Gulp.
Damn. The guy had a way of looking that I felt. Actually felt.
“Already hurts like hell. I’d go to bed now, but then I’d be up all night long…thinking.”
There was pain in his voice, and I knew ER Dano had really been on the job far too long. It’d taken a toll on him, and grabbed his life without releasing. I could sense that he didn’t like to go to sleep-obviously since job-demon dreams awaited him.
So I sat there staring at him in the little Victorian kitchen, which looked more like a librarian lived here than a macho paramedic, thinking, What the hell am I going to do? when the urge to kiss him shocked the hell out of me.
I made some excuse about seeing the rest of the house. At least it was an interesting place, and he bought my reasoning for taking the unguided tour while he rested. Naturally Dano had not volunteered to show me around, but had merely shrugged and sat himself at the kitchen table to read the daily newspaper.
Since he hadn’t seemed to mind, I walked through the dining room, which had old mahogany furniture, chairs with needlepoint mauve roses, lacy curtains that looked genuine and antiques-in the corner was an old China tea set on a lace-covered pedestal table.
I had to shake my head. There was an air to the house of antiquity, yet it was freshly kept up and not musty, as one might expect. He had to have inherited this place. For the life of me, I couldn’t imagine Dano decorating in this taste. Then again, he lived here without changing anything. Hmm.
ER Dano was one hell of a dichotomy.
In the living room, I sat on the rose-colored Victorian couch. It wasn’t the most comfortable thing; as a matter of fact it made me think of how prim and proper ladies must have been in the Victorian era. They had to be, to sit this straight. White porcelain vases holding silken floral arrangements sat on the sideboards. Wait a minute. I got up and walked to them and ran a finger along the petals, which came off in my hands.