Shock Advised (Kilgore Fire #1) (12 page)

“Okay,” she said. “But make sure you put that I like beer in there, and I’m not a martini kind of girl.”

“Maybe I should just tell him that you’re an alcoholic,” I muttered.

Masen punched me.

“Alright,” I muttered, typing with my tongue between my teeth as I let my fingers carry me away.

“And make sure you tell him that I like to read, so he won’t get disappointed,” Masen urged.

“Why would he be disappointed?” I asked, knowing the answer.

Masen was an avid book reader, and it wasn’t uncommon for her to get so lost in her fictional character’s world, that she would ignore her real life world in the process.

I smiled.

I’m a country girl, looking for a God-fearing, country boy who loves to get dirty but doesn’t hate getting cleaned up, either. I’m not interested in partying and staying out all night, unless it’s wrapped up in a blanket, standing in front of a bonfire with a beer in my hand. I need a man that’s not offended by my mouth, because when my Dallas Cowboys are losing, I tend to lose control of it.

I’m a simple girl at heart that loves being on horseback, four wheeling and reading. And by reading, I mean binge reading many, many books a week. I love reading. I love to get lost in a fictional character’s world. I need a man that’s willing to let me be me, but who’s also willing to whisk me out of that fictional world and demand I spend time with him. I need somebody to be my other half. Be the Johnny to my June. The peanut butter to my jelly. The cheese to my macaroni.

If you think that’s you, I’d love to meet you.

Sincerely, a book nerd, country girl searching for her country boy.

“There,” I said. “How’s that?”

Masen read and slowly her mouth split into a large smile. “That’s perfect.” She hesitated, “But it sounds like you just wrote that for yourself, not me. I don’t like the Dallas Cowboys. You know I’m a Raiders Girl.”

I snorted. “You’re not going to find a Raiders’ fan in Texas, sweetheart,” I said. “Trust me.”

“Okay, I’ll add it to my site…but this better get me some hot, sexy cowboys,” she said, pointing her now empty wine glass at me.

I grinned.

“I bet you get a reply within two days,” I said, holding out my glass.

She reached for the wine bottle, filled both glasses up and grinned. “You’re on.”

The rest of the night flowed flawlessly.

The only downside was that Tai was at work and hadn’t been able to answer a single one of my text messages.

Hours later, I laid in bed and, for once, Colt wasn’t the first thing on my mind.

Tai was.

I fell asleep, not quite happy, but
okay
.

Okay, and getting better every day.

I didn’t wake okay, though.

In fact, my dreams had been far from okay.

I’d dreamt that Tai had been diagnosed with cancer and that he and Colt had shared a room with each other while in the hospital.

They always had positive attitudes, but they weren’t able to be saved.

Within moments of my son’s death, Tai immediately followed.

I’d woken up in a cold sweat, and I’d been doing my damnedest to forget about everything and everyone since.

And to top it all off with a fucking cherry, my computer had crashed, and I hadn’t been able to pay the water bill because of it.

I wasn’t even able to get the damn thing to turn on.

“Hey,” Georgette, the charge nurse for today, said.

I turned to find her standing behind me, one arm wrapped around a plastic chart.

“Yes?” I asked.

“There’s an admit down in the ER. Can you go grab her for me?” She asked. “The orderlies are busy with a psych patient.”

I nodded and handed her my drink. “Yep, I can do that. Here, hold this.”

She took it and I gave her a thumb’s up, then turned and started for the elevators.

By the time I was down to the ground level, I’d wished that I hadn’t given up my coffee.

I could’ve chugged it fast, and possibly finished it before I’d even gotten to where I was going.

Unfortunately, I’d handed it off, and now I was left facing the raw facts.

I wasn’t going to be able to drink my coffee.

It’d be cold by the time I got back, and there was no way in hell I was using the staff microwave. That thing was disgusting, and I’d rather go hungry rather than put anything in there that would be put inside my body.

I’d just turned the corner of the long corridor that would lead me to the ER when I was stopped suddenly by a stretcher that had been pushed out of one of the other staff elevators on this floor.

“Oh,” I said, heart racing.

A woman with very distinguishable red hair poked her head out.

“Sorry!” Winter cried, a smile on her face. “I wasn’t paying attention.”

I gave her a thumbs up. “I’m okay…”

She frowned. “You don’t look okay. You look like you’ve gotten very little sleep and haven’t had your coffee yet.”

“Guilty,” I said.

“What’s wrong?” She asked as she walked with me.

“My computer’s screwed up, and I swear I just got it replaced,” I explained.

She blinked.

“Well, I can fix that,” she said. “I can have Jack come take a look at it. He’s not busy today.”

A smile appeared on my face.

“I forgot that I have a bona-fide computer wizard in my arsenal now,” I said cheekily. “That’d be great, if you don’t mind.”

“No problem. I’ll tell him to drop by and pick it up.”

I grinned. “Thank you.”

My day got even better when I realized that the ER was having a luncheon catered by Chick-Fil-A, and I was able to get a couple cookies and a small bottle of milk.

My day was looking up already!

I like my force like I like my coffee. Dark.

-Coffee Cup

Tai

My day was shit.

I was tired. I was hungry, and my eyelids felt like they were lined with glass.

My eyes bulged as I read over the email I’d just received from my brother.

I replied quickly with a,
“What the fuck is this?”

A word document that was on Mia’s computer. Just thought you’d want to see it,
was my brother’s quick reply.

I’m a country girl, looking for a God-fearing, country boy who loves to get dirty but doesn’t hate getting cleaned up, either. I’m not interested in partying and staying out all night, unless it’s wrapped up in a blanket, standing in front of a bonfire with a beer in my hand. I need a man that’s not offended by my mouth, because when my Dallas Cowboys are losing, I tend to lose control of it.

I’m a simple girl at heart that loves being on horseback, four wheeling and reading. And by reading, I mean binge reading many, many books a week. I love reading. I love to get lost in a fictional character’s world. I need a man that’s willing to let me be me, but who’s also willing to whisk me out of that fictional world and demand I spend time with him. I need somebody to be my other half. Be the Johnny to my June. The peanut butter to my jelly. The cheese to my macaroni.

If you think that’s you, I’d love to meet you.

Sincerely, a book nerd, country girl searching for her country boy.

I dropped my phone onto the pillow next to my face, tired as hell from the day’s events.

Too tired to deal with that shit.

A fucking personal ad?

What was I?

Chopped liver?

She’d just sent me a text, for crying out loud.

My stomach tried to eat itself again, and I was reminded for the fourth time in less than five minutes why my day had sucked.

Fires were becoming more and more frequent lately, and the strange thing was that after each fire, a reporter had recounted the facts in the events that’d taken place in the newspaper before we’d even told the next of kin.

It was getting out of hand, and the brass was taking it out on us since it was obvious one of us had been talking…but the scary thing was that none of us would.

And now I had to think about that singles ad that my brother had just sent me.

How he’d gotten it, I didn’t know. But I was damn sure going to find out.

I just had to get a few z’s, first.

I woke up less than fifty minutes later with another call.

I trudged down the stairs, skipping the fire pole in fear of falling flat on my face from two stories above seeing as I couldn’t feel my fuckin’ arms and walked over to my bunker gear.

I was glad I wasn’t on the medic truck and required to actively think right then.

I didn’t think that I
could
think.

“Yo,” Drew said. “I need you to drive. Something’s going on with my hand, and I don’t know what’s wrong with it,” he said, opening and closing his fist.

“It’s broken, you dumb shit,” PD said as he walked up behind me as I looked at Drew blankly.

“It’s not broken, fucker. It’s probably just sprained, is all,” Drew shot back.

“Sprained from too much jacking off,” PD countered. “Since it’s obvious your wife hasn’t been giving it to you lately.”

I scrubbed my eyes and stepped into my bunker gear, totally disregarding the two idiots still fighting.

Mainly because I was busy trying not to think about the state of my own wrist.

I’d been doing a lot of one-on-one action with myself since I’d met Mia, and I wasn’t very proud of the fact. So to have the two idiots at my back reminding me of that fact wasn’t sitting well with me.

Then, to make matters worse, I pulled out of the station and immediately ran over the curb as I was turning.

“One gallon on Tai!” The cruel motherfuckers at my back and sides crowed loudly.

I winced.

My head was killing me.

“I’m not buying a fucking thing unless it’s Blue Bell,” I said. “I’ve totally and completely boycotted all other ice cream.”

The boys grunted in acknowledgement. They all know that there has been a shortage of our favorite ice cream since it was so popular.

“That’s why we have a tally board hanging up next to the fridge,” Bowe said.

I shrugged.

I’d buy the ice cream.

It was a good morale booster.

When someone was driving the engine, if they hit the curb, they bought a gallon of ice cream. It was as simple as that.

They ribbed back and forth, talking about the merits of having ice cream over having good ice cream.

The conversation carried us all the way to the patient’s address.

“Shit,” Bowe said from the seat beside me. “This is going to suck.”

My brows furrowed as I pulled the big engine up to the curb and got out.

“Why?” I asked once he joined me.

The neighborhood we were in wasn’t the best. In fact, I would qualify it as one of the lower income housing areas in the city. It wasn’t the worst, but it definitely wasn’t
The Point
on the golf course, either.

“They said it’s a water rescue, and I don’t see any water at all,” he said. “And there’re no pools in this subdivision. It’s against city code.”

We walked forward, stopping when the frantic woman that opened the door started screaming.

“Ma’am,” I said in my most authoritative voice I could scrounge up. It came out sounding more croakish due to my tiredness, however. “Ma’am, please settle down and tell us what’s going on.”

The woman was in her early forties with graying brown hair, and a cigarette hanging out one side of her mouth.

“You’re never going to believe it if I tell you. Just come in and look,” she urged, pulling my hand and forcing me to walk behind her.

Her hand felt leathery, and I wanted to pull my hand back.

However, she had what seemed like a death grip on me, and her nails were about the size of a small pocket knife. I feared for my life if I pulled my hand away from her.

So I endured the touch, following behind the woman.

But I did pull my hand away once we reached the living room.

It was one of those ones that was sunken. Each way into the living room you had to go down three stairs to get to it. And the entire ‘sunken’ part of the living room was filled with water.

The leak was very obviously coming from upstairs.

“Ma’am,” I said, my eyes on the man who was busy flipping through the channels from his seat on the sofa in the middle of the water. “Is there actually an emergency here?”

If she said that no one was hurt, I was going to push her into the water.

“He can’t get out,” she said. “He can’t swim.”

I looked down at the carpet that was clearly visible through the two feet of water in their living room.

“You’re joking, right?” I asked.

“No, I’m not joking! I’m being a hundred percent serious!” She cried. “There’s too much water there. I’d drown if I went to him. I’m so high right now that I don’t think I could get past the mote.”

The mote.

Right.

The woman was obviously on drugs.

I turned to PD, and he nodded.

“They’re outside,” he answered without me having to say anything.

“Get them inside then,” I said.

Then I turned and left, the headache that had started now beginning to pound worse, as I hurried out of the smoke infested house.

Un-
fucking
-believable.

***

Four hours later, I was well and truly exhausted.

I’d had less than four hours of sleep in the last forty-eight hours, and Mia still hadn’t replied to my text that I’d sent hours earlier.

I looked down at my phone, seeing the stupid box right under my message saying ‘read.’

I reread my text message to make sure I hadn’t said anything offensive.

Me:
So I hear you’re looking for a single man…and here I am, offering myself on a silver platter.

That wasn’t offensive…
was it?

Instead of worrying myself to death about it, though, I decided to go home in case she might actually answer me later on in the day.

I was too tired to deal with her anyway.

The only thing that could persuade me to go anywhere but to bed would be Mia’s naked body laying suggestively across my bed, and I didn’t see that happening any time soon.

I practically fell into bed when I arrived home and only woke once when I heard what sounded like a door opening and closing.