LITMIR.BIZ

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fine,” he grunted at her. Sitting out on the job, the way he was being forced to do, didn’t square with him. But, different from the days when he had been head of trauma in the army, he wasn’t head of anything now. Just another one of the many. Actually, one of the nearly fifteen thousand New York City firefighters and paramedics. One who was close to the bottom of the ladder. It was a good way to get lost, which was all he wanted. Get lost, stay lost. Do his job. Forget the rest of it.

      “Which is why you’re in my ambulance?” she asked, following him in the door. “Because you’re fine?”

      “Look, just do what you have to do, skip the comments and leave me the hell alone. Okay?” Plopping down on the stretcher inside the ambulance, Jess closed his eyes, even though the light was dimmed to almost total darkness. All he wanted to do was shut out the extraneous noises, but he couldn’t. In Afghanistan, there’d always been noise … screaming, crying, artillery going off. Here, the sounds weren’t the same, but they all amounted to suffering. Here, though, he got there first, made a different difference. Then he moved on, no commitments left behind.

      “Too bad. The comments are the best part,” she quipped.

      Nice voice. A little throaty, which wasn’t bad in the feminine variety … if he’d been looking for the feminine variety in anything. Which he wasn’t. So he laid his right forearm over his forehead, not so much because it was a comfortable position but more to shut out what he’d see when his eyes adjusted to the dark. The equipment, the storage bins, the paramedic … not his life anymore. “Then comment away, after you check me out and release me,” he said, not wanting to be a grouch about it. She was, after all, just doing her job, and being tough on her because of it wasn’t his style.

      “Well, it says here you took in some significant smoke, which means you get a free ride to the hospital like it or not. So, for starters, I need to put the oxygen mask on you …”

      Now he was annoyed. He didn’t need oxygen. Didn’t want the damn mask clamped down on his face.

      “No, thanks,” he said, finally opening his eyes and shifting his arm up just enough to have a look when his eyes adjusted enough to make out a blur. First sight, red hair. Spunky red, even in the dimness. Short, boyish, in a pixie sort of a way. “Skip the oxygen. My lungs are fine, no matter what my captain thinks.”

      She moved toward him, carrying both an oxygen mask and a blood-pressure cuff.

      “Blood pressure’s okay, too. Unless you put that oxygen mask on me.”

      She laughed. “Scared of a mask, fireman? A little bit claustrophobic?”

      “Not scared or claustrophobic. Just don’t need it,” he said, now wishing he could get a better look at her. He was pretty sure she was shapely. Nice curves in silhouette. Oddly familiar to him, even in the dim light.

      “Says you?”

      “Says me. I’m a … used to be a trauma surgeon.”

      “I’m impressed, fireman. But not swayed. You get the mask, I get your blood pressure. And I don’t negotiate.”

      “But do you compromise?”

      “Whoa, the fireman has an offer to make?”

      He couldn’t help but chuckle at that. His paramedic was downright stubborn, and he liked it. “Not an offer. A compromise. I’ll cooperate unconditionally when you take my blood pressure if you let me wear a cannula instead of a mask.” Prongs up the nose were better than a mask any day. The thing was, when he geared up to go on a run, he was all about masks and other equipment. But a simple, lightweight, green oxygen mask … that was his last memory of Donna. Garbled words she’d tried saying to him through her oxygen mask. Words he’d wanted to understand but couldn’t. Words he should have heard if not for that mask.

      “So, fireman, are you always this uncooperative?”

      “Only when I have to be.”

      “Let me guess. In your opinion, that’s most of the time.” He chuckled. “You’ve got some bedside manner, paramedic.”

      “I try.” She pulled the cannula from the drawer and handed it to him. “Since you seem to know my job, you do the honors while I crank this baby up to full squeeze.” She was referring to the blood-pressure cuff she was dangling over him.

      Damn, he really wanted a better look at her. She was tweaking his memory and all he could see right now were big protective eye goggles and a surgical mask. Smart move, considering all the soot and debris flying around out there, but very frustrating. “Is that a threat?”

      “A promise.” She took his blood pressure then tossed the cuff back in the drawer.

      “One twenty over eighty. Pretty good, for a man in your disgruntled and extremely dirty condition. Here, let me clean some of that soot off your face.” Grabbing a bottle of sterile water, she twisted off the lid then soaked a gauze pad and started to dab at his face. But he caught her wrist and stopped her.

      “One twenty over eighty? Did you mean to tell me it was a perfect blood-pressure reading rather than just a pretty good one? Oh, and the dirty face is fine, it comes with the job.”

      She wrestled out of his grip. “And the fireman gets a demerit for the worst manners I’ve met all day.”

      “What the fireman wants is to get the hell out of here and get back to work.”

      “Like I said before, you get a trip to the E.R. After that, you’re out of my hands.” She gave a pound on the glass between her and the driver, indicating they were good to go, then handed him the wet rag. “Wash your face. I don’t want you getting soot in your eyes. And no arguments, okay? I just want to get this over with. You’re my last patient on my last run as a paramedic, and I don’t want any hassles. Think you can manage that for me, fireman?”

      “And I suppose you expect me to smile, too?” he asked, half cracking that smile.

      “What I expect is that I’m going to do the paperwork now, and you’re going to answer my questions. Smiling is optional.” Sitting down on a fixed bench across from him, she picked up the clipboard, clicked her pen and wrote the date on her transport form. “Do you have a name?” she asked.

      “It’s Jess. Jess Corbett.” He thought he heard a little gasp from her.

      “Okay, Jess.” She twisted until her back was almost to him, as the ambulance lurched forward, then lowered her mask and pulled off her goggles. “So, tell me, how did you end up here?”

      “Kid trapped in a closet. I gave him my oxygen. My captain wasn’t happy that I didn’t go in with backup. You know, same old story.” Now, this was frustrating. He thought she looked like … no, couldn’t be. Voice was different. Hair much shorter. Curves more filled out. Julie had been a couple pounds shy of skinny, with long straight hair. Thin voice. Pretty, not gorgeous. But his paramedic, what he could see of her, was gorgeous.

      “I mean here, in New York City, fighting fires. How did that happen?”

      “That’s on the paperwork?”

      “No, but getting to know my patients gives me a better sense of what’s going on with them. As in, are you always so grumpy or is this a reaction to your smoke inhalation?”

      “Trust me, it’s a reaction to my smoke inhalation, but not the kind of reaction you think it is.” But she could be Julie. Except, Aunt Grace had told him Julie was working in the south. “In answer to your question, though, let’s just say that I got tired of my old job, quit it and decided to try something new.”

      “Well, I suppose quitting is good … for some people, isn’t it? You know. As in running away.”

      Julie! He sat up, swung his legs over the side of the stretcher and yanked off his oxygen cannula. “I thought you were working down south someplace.”

      She turned

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