Playing With Fire (23 page)

The Creighton office was on the outskirts of town past all
the new office parks. It was almost in the country. She sighed remembering Dylan’s
offices virtually on the ocean. You had to have a roadmap to find them. As if
the more money you had the farther away from the ordinary people you could
afford to live and work. She forced herself to pay attention to the road. It
had narrowed and it was almost impossible to read the signs. At least there
wasn’t much traffic. If only it weren’t raining so hard.

~~~

Naomi interrupted. “Connor is trying to get a hold of you,
Nate. He sounds agitated.”

Nate muttered, “Connor’s always agitated about something. He’s
a damned do-gooder, don’t cha know? Always got some bug up his butt. Usually
something his older wiser cousin is doing that he doesn’t approve of.”

“No, Nate. He’s calling from the hospital.”

Nate frowned, grabbing for his phone.

“I think the baby might be coming.” Naomi’s face glowed at
the possibility. Nate wasn’t surprised. Like everyone who knew Connor, Naomi
had a soft spot for him. Who could resist that million dollar smile? All the
women fussed over him like he was their golden-haired child.

“Connor, what’s up, man. You telling me this wasn’t all a
big ruse for you to get even more attention these last nine months. I really am
gonna be an uncle?”

Connor’s voice was tight with anxiety, his words coming in
short bursts. Nate shook his head and chuckled. Connor commanded a fire crew of
twenty without breaking a sweat… but from the sound of his voice the pending
arrival of a six-pound bundle of joy brought him to his knees.

“Damn, man, take a breath. Do you want me to come over and
hold your hand? Although knowing Mama D. and Marcus and the girls, you are
surrounded with hand holders. Christ, man how about I come and kidnap you? We
can sneak out and have a beer. I promise I won’t tell.”

Connor managed a harsh laugh.

“No, Nate. I can’t do that. Kait needs me. Jeez, I went
through all those damn classes but nobody told me it was going to be like this.
Kait’s in pain, man. I didn’t expect that! Hell they say this could go on for
twelve more hours since it’s her first. I know she wants to do this natural
crap but if this keeps up I’m gonna insist they knock her out.”

Nate chuckled.

“I don’t think you can do that Connor. Those hospital nurses
aren’t gonna fall for your ‘I’m the Lieutenant and I give the orders’ crap.
Besides, Kait would have your balls hanging from the lamp post. For some
reason, women nowadays seem to want to prove that can endure the pain of a
lifetime without taking so much as an aspirin. No man, if you have ’em knock
out anyone, tell them to slip you one. You sound like you could use a heavy
dose of valium. But seriously, I’ll come if you want me to.”

“No, Nate. I’ll keep you posted. But do a favor for me. Check
on Erin.”

Nate came to attention. “Why? What’s up?”

“Sonny James called. Said she’d set up an appointment to
have him look at her car. She told him something was wrong with it but then she
didn’t show. He was concerned because of the storm.”

Nate bolted up in his chair.

“Christ, Connor, you don’t mean to tell me you think Erin is
out in this mess? Don’t know if you’ve looked outside but there are wind
squalls up to fifty miles an hour, and with the fuckin’ rain, visibility is
being measured in feet, not miles.”

Remembering that he was talking to a distraught
‘father-to-be,’ Nate forced himself to sound calm. He reassured Connor.

“I’ll check on Erin, Connor. I’m sure she’s fine. You get in
there and help your wife birth my nephew. It is a boy, right, Connor? I don’t
think I can handle one of those frilly little rosy cheeked girl babies. Christ.
Then you and I will have to start now figuring out how we’re gonna keep all the
assholes from sniffin’ around. Don’t forget what we were like when we were
fourteen years old. Hell, some people say I haven’t changed.”

Connor laughed, sounding relieved as Nate had intended.

“Thanks, Nate. I’m sure the reason Erin didn’t show at
Sonny’s was because of the weather. She’s too smart to go out in this.”

Nate had an image of Erin running through the park in
pouring down rain. Right. She’d never go out in bad weather….Apparently Connor
didn’t know the stubborn little spitfire the way Nate did.

He thumbed her number on his cell phone and groaned when it
went to voicemail. Dammit. She better be in the shower — or not. He’d heard
people could get electrocuted if they showered in an electrical storm. Christ,
he may as well head over there now. He couldn’t relax until he knew she was
safe.

Dan was talking in his cell phone and held up his hand when
Nate stood to leave.

“Yeah, Pete. He’s right here.”

Dan handed Nate his phone.

“It’s Pete Marshall.”

Nate nodded. Pete was Connor’s second lieutenant, and one of
their drinking buddies.

Pete didn’t sound like his usual laconic self. The tension
in his voice was palpable.

“We got an 11-79 here, Nate. Car over the cliff on Highway
2, just past the turnoff at Maker’s Crossing. EMT’s and ambulance are on the
way, meeting us there. I didn’t want to call Connor at the hospital until we’re
sure.”

He paused.

“Nate, we haven’t confirmed yet but from the initial
reports, it looks like it might be Erin’s car.”

Nate swore on everything holy that he would never see
another sight like the one he was looking at now. He didn’t know how he got
from the station to the scene. All he remembered were Pete’s tense words. Dan
rode beside him in the Z, and kept an open channel with the RIT team. A
half-mile away he heard the sirens. Dan sent out a status-wide order to let the
Z through. None of the emergency vehicles passed him. They couldn’t have gone
that fast if they tried. Traffic was backed up on both sides of the accident site.
Flares were visible through the pelting rain which miraculously seemed to be
letting up.

Nate leapt out of the car and headed to the side of the
road. He made a wide birth around the lab guys who were already taking
photographs of the skid marks. Christ, he thought, looking at the telltale
signs, they were easily a hundred feet or more. All that time she would have
known she was going over the cliff. He felt her terror, as if it were his own.
It was no use trying to breathe. What had once been automatic was now a
challenging task. His breath had been stuck in his gut for so long he wouldn’t
know what to do with it if any air did get through.

If he’d thought the scene from the top of the road was bad,
it was peaceful compared to what he saw below. Skidding down the wet ground,
digging the heels of his boots in the slick mud for purchase, he saw the car.
It was hanging at a precarious angle wedged against a twenty-foot pine tree
that some band of angels stuck in her way. It was treacherously close to the overhang
of the cliff. Three feet to either side, and the car would have plunged at
least thirty feet into the river below. Usually a relatively peaceful river,
the Windigo Pine was a turgid greenish gray, swelled with rain water. Trees and
branches sped downstream at a fast clip. Where Erin’s car would have gone. The
front end of the car and passenger side were crushed. A crumpled half-ton of
metal was folded against the driver’s side and back of the automobile like the
pleats of an accordion. The stench of burning rubber and gasoline burned his
eyes. Glass was everywhere.

There were at least twenty uniformed men at the scene. Five
men in full firefighter gear were wrestling heavy chains from the tow truck at
the top of the hill to the remains of the automobile.

Nate finally spotted her. She was huddled on a rock, wrapped
in some kind of a tarp. Four or five EMT’s were hovering nearby, but none were
closer to her than three feet. Nate skidded the rest of the way down the hill
and stopped beside Pete Marshall. Pete’s shadowed eyes and heavy frown said it
all.

“Hell, Nate, we had to pry her out of there with the Jaws of
Life. Christ, one false move and we could’ve pushed her over the cliff. We
couldn’t even attempt to rescue her until we’d anchored the son of a bitch of a
wreck to the ground. All the while, I swear to God, she never whimpered a
sound, just pleaded with those big eyes to get her out. I can tell you I’m
gonna lose a few hundred hours of sleep remembering those tourquoise eyes
begging me to help her. You have no idea, man, how close we came to losing
her.”

“How bad?”

“Hell, Nate, we don’t know. She won’t let anyone near her.
Insists that she’s okay. Says she can walk, that she just has to get her
breath. Fred Mason’s the most experienced EMT guy we have and he can’t get
close to her. The best he could do was get that tarp over her. But she won’t
let anyone touch her, including Fred. She made us call Connor and tell him
she’s fine. Just has a few scrapes. No one can reason with her — including me.
She’s fierce, Nate. Damn, it’s the ‘shoemaker’s children’ syndrome in
overdrive.”

Nate’s heart was thrumming so hard he thought it was prudent
to zip up his leather jacket just in case the damn organ decided to jump out of
his chest. He stepped alongside Fred, who was peering helplessly at the fragile
woman. The burly man had a pressure cuff in one hand, a stethoscope in the
other. He met Nate’s gaze with a frustrated grunt.

“Fuck, Nate, if it was anyone but Erin I would have had one
of the guys hold her down and I would have tranquered her. But I don’t want to
do that until I’m sure she doesn’t have a concussion. But dammit she won’t let
me close enough to check her vitals, much less see if she has any broken bones.
The only thing going for us is that she’s talking somewhat rationally.”

Nate glanced up and saw the ambulance pull in. Two men
jumped out and made their way down the slippery incline, carrying a stretcher.
Nate was relieved to see that Matthew Palmer had arrived. The head of the
police lab was in a heavy discussion with Dan.

Nate headed toward her. He moved carefully, so as not to
startle her. She was shaking, her lips were blue. Clearly in shock, she looked
like a cornered animal. Nate had seen foxes caught in vicious leg traps that
didn’t look as scared as Erin did.

When she looked up and saw him coming, he plastered a
shiteating grin on his face and affected a jaunty tone.

“Hey, gorgeous. I see you decided to test the team’s
emergency readiness. Hell, when you do it, you do it up big, don’t cha, spitfire?
Looks like a damn first responders convention. You’d think all these guys cared
about you, Erin. What do you think, honey? Think the little firewoman is a bit
of a celebrity?”

As he talked to her, his voice a low pleasant drawl, he
moved closer until he was next to her. He squatted in front of her so that his
eyes were at her level. He reached for her hands and held them firmly in his.
Fuck, it was like sticking his hands in a barrel of ice.

“Erin, it’s me, Nate. You got that?”

She nodded and whispered. “I’m okay, Nate.”

“Yeah honey, I can see that you are. But I’m only a cop. I
want Fred to take a look at you and make sure all those gorgeous parts of yours
are in working order.”

He nodded at the EMT’s carrying the stretcher.

“Tell you what, sweetheart. The guys are here now. They’re
gonna get you up that damn hill and into the ambulance where you’ll be warm.
Fred’ll do a quick check then we’ll whisk you off to the hospital.”

Erin shoved him back with such force that Nate almost lost
his balance. Her face was contorted with anguish.

“NO! No, Nate. No hospital. No doctors!”

He heard the mounting hysteria in her voice.

“I told you! I told all of you. I am fine. I just need to
get my breath.”

Nate saw the mix of determination and panic in her eyes.
Knowing what caused her fierce reaction broke his heart. Damn, it was hard to
conjure up a teasing response past the golf ball-sized lump in his throat.

“Stubborn as ever, Erin?” Nate thought for a second.

“Okay, spitfire, I’ll tell you what we’re gonna do.”

When she looked down at the ground and started to pull away
from him, he moved to sit beside her on the rocky ledge. He wrapped his arm
around her shoulders and pulled her up next to him, sheltering her body with
his. She resisted at first, then with a sigh leaned against him.

He held her close and crooned in her ear.

“That’s right, baby. Let me hold you. Okay?”

Glancing up, he signaled Fred.

“Honey, you and I are gonna sit just like this and Fred is
going to check you over. Got that? Good.”

He continued to talk to her in a low pleasant voice keeping
up a running commentary on what Fred was doing.

“Tell me, Fred, does she even have a blood pressure?”

Fred raised a quizzical brow then imitated Nate’s bantering
tone.

“Yeah, I’m sure she does, Nate, but it’s keeping company
with her temperature.”

He nodded meaningfully indicating what was painfully clear.
If they didn’t get her out of the wind and cold her shock alone would bring on
hypothermia.

Nate startled when she dug her fingers into his wrist with
more force that he thought possible.

“No hospital, Nate. Do you hear me? No hospital, no doctors.
I have the right to refuse both. I refuse to be treated in a hospital.”

Nate exchanged a long glance with Fred, who shrugged
helplessly.

“What’s the verdict, Fred? Anything broken?”

“Nope. She’s damn lucky. Christ, luck doesn’t begin to
describe it. I’d say it is a fucking miracle we got her out alive. She does
have a bump on her forehead and she’s gonna have some righteous bruises
tomorrow. She’s a hell of lot tougher than she looks, I’ll give you that.”

“Good work, Fred. Okay, both of you. Here’s what we’re gonna
do now. Erin, I’m going to take you home.”