LITMIR.BIZ

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realized it an hour ago, watching her driving around the track, face lit up like it was Christmas morning as she’d deftly swerved and veered her way around the course, him in the passenger seat wondering who had made this woman so courageous and real. He was not a passenger-seat kind of guy—and yet? Here he was, happy to go along for the ride.

      They clicked. On so many levels they clicked and day by day it was growing harder to pretend he was just a nice guy doing a nice girl a favor. Never mind the fact that sleeping in the spare room was just an exercise in torture. Even more so now that he was finally accepting that everything he was feeling for Saoirse was adding up to one thing: love. And there was nothing brotherly about it.

      Fast? Hell, yeah. But with a woman like this? Suffice it to say, if he’d been born in his father’s day, he would’ve asked her to marry him by the end of the first dance.

      Not that he had a clue what Saoirse was feeling. She didn’t do anything slow and steady—or halfway, from what he could gather. Not after what she had been through. It was now-or-never time. For everything.

      Was it the same for falling in love?

      His initial offer might’ve been all nonchalant and devil-may-care but now? Now he’d marry her to keep her in the country and give himself a fighting chance to see if she felt the same way he did.

      He looked away and up to the sky, where some cloud cover was threatening to mask the morning sun.

      Who knew? Maybe this was what genuine arranged marriages were like. Someone saw they were a good potential match, made it, and then it was up to the couple to make good on the potential. Or maybe he was just thinking too damn much about everything because Saoirse made him horny and there wasn’t a thing he could do about it. Love wasn’t only patient and kind. Love was a pain in the butt.

      “At the risk of doing the nagging-wife thing a bit early...” Saoirse went on tiptoe to catch his attention, then looked away when she knew she had it, “Are you actually ever going to call your brothers?”

      He had a little set-to with his hackles before answering as neutrally as he could. Like he’d said...pain in the butt.

      “Don’t worry. I’ll call.” Or drop by. And leg it off to the Keys for a long-overdue ride to try and get my head straight.

      “Because it’s weird going into the ER and panicking I’m going to see them.”

      “Don’t worry about it. They’re not ER kind of guys and generally not Seaside guys. They’re at Buena Vista more often than not.” From what he’d heard, anyway. His brothers had cut some serious pathways into each of their surgical specialties. He felt proud. From-a-distance pride.

      “That was a freakish one-off, but don’t worry. I’ll tell them about you. Us.” Her eye roll was too big to miss.

      All right! It was a fib. He meant to. And yet each day that passed made the next one harder. Especially when he knew all he needed to do was pick up the phone and get on with it. Make peace to find peace.

      He turned to see Saoirse give a little wiggle as she shrugged her shoulders out of her race suit, revealing a skimpy tank top skidding along the sides of her breasts. No need for imagination.

      “¡Caracoles!”

      “What was that?” Saoirse threw him a wary look.

      “Nada.”

      The opposite of nothing was more like it.

      He stuffed his hands in his pockets as she continued peeling off the jumpsuit, revealing her petite body bit by bit, curve by swoop... Por Dios!

      “Murph.” He scanned the parking lot for a concession stand. “I’m going to get some water before we go to brunch. Want anything?”

      “Hang on a minute, my beeper’s going off.” She threw him her backpack. “The work one. Can you check it?”

      He tugged the pager off the black strap and looked.

      He felt his own pager sending vibrations along the length of his belt. No guesses what the message was. He looked anyway and grimaced. Whatever it was, it wouldn’t be pretty.

      “Saddle up, Murph. There’s been a big one.”

      * * *

      “Are you sure we packed everything?” Saoirse threw Santi an anxious look.

      “It’s the Keys, Murph, not the moon.”

      He gave her leg a reassuring pat. From the sounds of the traffic reports coming in like bullet fire on their radio, it wasn’t going to be pretty.

      Two dueling Jet-Skiers had been swerving in and out of coastal fog patches. One of the Jet Skis had exploded underneath the driver just as they’d approached a causeway. The blast had sent him flying onto the windshield of a car that had veered into oncoming weekend traffic. Thirty...maybe forty vehicles involved. Including an oil truck. Two fatalities had already been called in.

      Saoirse had actually looked grateful when Santi had insisted on driving after her time out on the track. It took a lot of concentration to come out on top. Energy she hadn’t banked on saving for what could easily be a twenty-four-hour shift.

      “I threw in a few extra of everything. There’s always a supplies truck to follow up, as well. They’ll call in county, the fire departments, everyone.” He tried to dismiss the grim expression taking hold of his features. No point in giving her the jitters before they even got there. “The triage areas might already be set up by the time we get out there.” He flicked the sirens off and on again to give a particularly pointed signal to the oblivious car in front of them.

      “I suppose this sort of thing is your area of expertise,” Saoirse said after a few minutes of silent weaving in and out of traffic. Sirens were sounding from all sectors of the city and cars were pulling to the side of the road well in advance, as if a statewide alert had been sounded. Doubtless the news was all over the radio.

      “Accidents are just that.” He pressed his lips together, hands gripping the wheel so tightly the veins strained against his skin. He’d done several tours in the military and each one had chipped away at his ability to stay neutral.

      War was ugly. Ugly because it was intentional. Accidents? No one meant for them to happen. Throwing a grenade or setting off a shoulder-launched missile? There was nothing mistaken about that. And the lives lost? Just as pointless as the teenaged boys proving themselves to get into a gang by killing his parents.

      A cruel waste. It was the spur that had finally pushed him to come home. Not that he’d made any headway in extending an olive branch to his brothers. War, it seemed, came more easily to him than asking forgiveness.

      “You all right?”

      “Fine, querida.” He shot her a quick glance and gave her leg a quick pat. She was unwittingly becoming better and better at noticing when his thoughts drifted in the direction of his brothers. “Just getting in the right mind-set. And remember, we’re a team. I’ve got your back.”

      She nodded silently, eyes glued to the road ahead of them.

      “You’ve not been involved in an MCI before?”

      “A Mass Casualty Incident? No.”

      “There are a lot of acronyms on days like this. You remember the START model, right? Things are a bit different in the military—but there’s a lot of overlap. Okay—START.” Santi kept his voice steady. He was used to being cool in dangerous situations. The more intense the fighting, the calmer he’d become. Maybe that was why the happier he felt with Saoirse, the more agitated he was feeling.

      “START,” Saoirse repeated, as if reading from a textbook. “Simple Triage and Rapid Treatment.” She held up four fingers, bending them down as she went through each group. “The expectant. In other words, those who are likely to die. The injured who can be helped by immediate transportation. The injured whose transport can wait and people with minor injuries.”

      “See!

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