Flirting in Traffic (18 page)

“How’s putting your kid in the cold snow supposed to help him if he’s sick?” a tall man with his back to Esa, wearing a black parka with the hood up said, his voice muffled by the wind and swirling snow. He had his hand on the crying woman’s shoulder in a restraining hold.

“Let go of me! He’s going to die, you fool,” the woman shrieked.

“He’s not going to die,” the man said more softly. He removed his hand from her shoulder slowly, as if waiting to see what she would do. When the woman just stared up at him in frightened bewilderment he began to unbutton his coat. “Why don’t you let me wrap him in my coat? It’s freezing out here and your son’s clothing is all covered with snow by now.”

“Better I put him in his clothes then,” the woman wailed. She bent and picked up the tiny pants and jacket that had been tossed next to the waist-high bank of snow created by the plows. Her hand shook pitifully as she held up the snowy garments. “He’s burning up, don’t you see? I have a thermometer in the car. His temperature is a hundred and five degrees! We were taking him to the emergency room but that was hours ago. And we’re stuck in this mess,” the woman added miserably.

Esa pushed through a small semi-circle of several people who had gathered to witness the bizarre scene.

“Excuse me, ma’am? I’m a doctor. I’d like to be of assistance if I can.”

Both the woman and the tall man standing next to her turned.

“Oh thank God! Yes, please help me. My little boy is burning up with fever. Explain to this man that he needs to be cooled off in the snow.”

Esa stared in open-mouthed shock up into Finn’s equally startled face. The hood had fallen partially back, revealing his singular, tousled blond hair. She probably would have recognized him immediately if the hood hadn’t been covering it.

“Doctor?” the woman asked shakily.

Esa blinked. “Everything’s going to be just fine, ma’am. Finn? If the offer of the coat still stands, it’d be greatly appreciated.”

He just nodded his head once and shrugged out of the coat. She was glad to notice that he wore a thick insulated shirt beneath it. Esa reached for the crying, clearly miserable toddler. Finn stepped close and wrapped the child in his coat once Esa had the small, shivering boy in her arms.

“I know that a fever of one hundred and five is alarming, Ms.—”

“Angstrom. Toni Angstrom. And that’s my boy Scott. My father and I were taking him to the hospital when we got caught in this storm.”

Esa nodded as she made soothing sounds to the wailing child. “Like I was saying, a fever of a hundred and five is alarming, and you were right to want to take Scott to the hospital. But the chances are the doctors wouldn’t have been able to do much. A fever is the body’s natural defense, a way of making poor living conditions for the virus that Scott has caught. While a hundred and five degrees is a bad temperature, the best we can do for him at this point is make him as comfortable as possible until the bug runs its course.”

“But my mother used to put me in a cold bath when I had a high fever! That’s why I thought the snow…” The distraught woman waved at the snow bank.

Esa shook her head. “Sometimes doctors recommend a tepid bath but it’s not a good idea to put a sick child in the ice-cold snow, Ms. Angstrom.”

The woman’s face crumpled.

“It’s okay,” Esa soothed. “Everything is going to be just fine. Now, why don’t you show me to your car? Scott needs a nice comfortable place to rest right now.”

“All right,” she sniffled and passed in front of Esa.

Esa turned to Finn. She’d been aware of his steady gaze fixed on her during the entire exchange with Ms. Angstrom. Now that she’d had a moment to reflect back on it, she recognized his bulky clothing as belonging to one of the men that had been trying to push the IDOT truck out of the express lane.

“I know you’re probably very busy with everything going on but would you mind coming? I may need some help.”

“Sure,” he replied gruffly.

Toni Angstrom led them to a white Oldsmobile. Esa instructed Toni to get back into the driver’s seat. She said a quick hello to the elderly gentlemen who sat in the passenger seat as she settled a whimpering Scott in the back. Toni shakily introduced Esa and her father, Eli Shore, to one another.

Esa stood and squinted to see Finn’s face through the swirling snow.

“My car is right over there,” she said, pointing.

“Where?” he asked, obviously confused.

“There…the dark blue Lexus.” She felt her cheeks color when he met her gaze steadily. Maybe he’d been looking for the Ferrari, she thought with a flash of embarrassment. “The keys are still in the ignition. If you could get them, my purse and my medical bag out of the trunk, I’d really appreciate it.”

Finn nodded and started to go.

“Oh, and the bottle of water next to the driver’s seat, please!” Esa called out. She really needed to try to get some fluid into the little boy. Finn turned and nodded once in understanding.

Esa clambered into the backseat of the Oldsmobile and closed the door. She spent the next minute trying to calm and comfort Toni Angstrom equally as much as the sick child. At one point Scott’s grandfather turned with unnatural stiffness in his seat. Esa peered at him through the semi-darkness.

The back of her neck prickled a warning.

“Ms. Angstrom, can you please turn on the inside lights?” Esa asked.

“Certainly,” the woman replied. She looked a little surprised when she did so and turned around to see the doctor staring not at her sick child but at her father.

“Are you feeling all right, Mr. Shore?” Esa asked, taking in his pale face tinged with a sickly shade of grayish-blue. He seemed barely able to turn around in his seat he held his shoulders and chest so stiffly. Pain pinched his features. As Esa watched, he clutched briefly at his left shoulder and winced.

The elderly gentlemen glanced uneasily at his daughter before he answered. Esa’s heart went out to him. He was obviously worried about frightening the distraught woman any more than she already was.

“I’m doing just fine. Worried about my grandson, of course,” he said in a thin, thready voice.

“Do you have a heart condition?” Esa asked softly.

His lips thinned. He nodded almost imperceptibly before Toni could turn her anxious gaze to him.

Esa gave what she hoped was a reassuring smile. Panic wouldn’t do anyone any good at this point. “Try to relax, Mr. Shore. Your grandson is going to be just fine. You can turn down the lights, Mrs. Angstrom.”

When she saw Finn approaching, Esa quickly got out of the car and shut the door behind her.

“What’s wrong?” Finn said when he saw her face.

Esa reached quickly for the medical bag he carried along with her purse.

“Are there any lanes open at all for emergency medical vehicles?” she asked quietly.

His brow furrowed. “The express lane has been closed for emergency vehicle use only because of the storm. But you saw how they’re fairing in this crap. They’re getting stuck just as easily as the motorists they’re supposed to be assisting,” he said, referring to the IDOT truck he’d been trying to push out of the snow earlier with other members of his construction crew.

“You need to call for an ambulance. And Finn…you and your men need to find a way for it to get through. There’s a medical emergency.”

“Were you just saying all that stuff about the kid being okay to calm the mother down?” Finn asked intently.

Esa shook her head. “No. It’s not Scott who needs immediate medical attention. It’s his grandfather, Mr. Shore. I think he’s either had a heart attack or is in the process of having one as we speak. Thank God I have aspirin in my bag, but there’s not much else I can do except to keep his daughter from getting hysterical.”

“Don’t worry, Esa. We’ll get the ambulance through.”

She took reassurance from the steely fortitude of his tone. “
Shore
. Eli Shore. Tell them, there’s a small chance they’ll be able to pull up some records on him. And Finn, thank you,” she said earnestly before she opened the car door.

They’d followed the ambulance in several pickup trucks, stopping to push the ambulance through the snow whenever it got stuck. After a grueling journey Finn and his crew finally got the ambulance to a point that was within a quarter mile of Toni Angstrom’s Oldsmobile—close enough for the EMTs to walk to retrieve Mr. Shore and also in a place that the driver could turn the vehicle around.

Finn turned when he felt a hand on his back.

“Jeez, your shirt is damp. And it’s not from the snow, is it?”

He studied Esa’s pale, drawn features through the snow that fell heavily between them. He’d been grateful as hell to hear her confident voice earlier, and not just because she was a doctor who undoubtedly could handle the distraught mother better than he could.

He’d been happy as hell because it’d been
her
. Period. He’d missed her like crazy over the past two weeks. And his desire to see her again hadn’t faded like it should have if she was just some passing affair. It had grown until it became an annoying ache in his gut that wouldn’t be quieted no matter what he did.

Despite his stupidity on Halloween, tonight the truth had struck him full force as he’d watched her handle the hysterical mother and wailing child like a pro. The idea of her being a physician seemed just as natural and right as the idea of her being a libertine publisher of a singles’ magazine had always seemed somehow wrong.

He burned with curiosity. Why the hell had she lied to him?

“It’s sweat,” he answered Esa’s question after a moment. “The ambulance got stuck five times.”

She sighed shakily. “At least Mr. Shore is better off in that ambulance than in his daughter’s car. Although I have to admit, he looked a heck of a lot better by the time the EMTs came for him. His color was improving and he was breathing more easily. Maybe it wasn’t a bad heart attack. The aspirin seemed to help. I just hope the damage to his heart isn’t extensive.”

She bit her lip in obvious concern as she watched the EMT close the ambulance doors. “Scott’s fever went down a little bit with the acetaminophen, as well,” she added. He was taking liquid and resting quietly by the time the EMTs came.

“They were lucky to have a doctor there.”

Her eyes leapt up to his face. The moment stretched taut as they stared at each other.

“
Why
?” he whispered hoarsely. “Why the hell did you lie to me?”

She shook her head and glanced away. “You thought I was someone else from the beginning. You saw what you wanted. You
wanted
me to be some kind of frivolous, casual fling. So I—”

“Gave me what you thought I wanted, like a good little actress?”

Her chin went up defensively. Her brandy-colored eyes flashed fire behind her glasses. “I gave you what you
did
want. Don’t tell me you’re going to deny it now.”

“I don’t deny that I wanted you but I would have appreciated not being lied to.”

As soon as the heated words left his mouth, however, Finn wondered. Was he being as dishonest as Esa had been? Could he truthfully say that he’d been interested in anything more than a night of hot sex with a gorgeous woman that night at One Life? Would it really have mattered if she was the publisher of a singles’ magazine, a waitress, a lawyer or a doctor? He immediately knew the answer to that.

Hell
no
. He’d wanted
Esa
. He’d wanted her naked, warm and willing in his bed. Maybe it’d been easier to propose sex on the spot believing she was a player but it didn’t change the fact that he would have been wild to have her even if she were studying to become a nun.

He frowned when someone called out his name.

“I have to go. The ambulance needs an escort back to the ramp,” he said.

Her face fell. “Oh, of course.”

He dug in his jeans pocket and extracted his keys. He grabbed her chilled hand and wrapped it around them.

“The snow is letting up some. With some luck I’ll be back in a little over an hour. These are the keys to the trailer. There’s a bathroom there and a portable heater next to the desk. You’ll be more comfortable there than in your car. Will you wait for me until I get back?” he asked intently.

Something hitched in his chest cavity when he saw the uncertainty on Esa’s pretty face. “I made a mistake, Esa. Don’t run again. There’s nowhere to go this time.”

She laughed softly when she glanced back and saw what looked like a massive parking lot instead of an interstate.

“
Okay, I’ll wait. I promise.”

Relief coursed through him. He put his hand on her back. “Come on, then. The trailer is about a quarter mile up the road. I’ll drop you off in the truck on the way.”