The Billionaire's Secret Kink Box Set: Knox: Secret Alpha Billionaire Romance Bundle (Rosesson Brothers Book 1) (45 page)

Emma stole a glance at Jerry. He wore a horrified expression on his face like he knew where this was leading.

"When I got back to school, everything was different. The teachers wouldn't look at me or talk to me. The kids started saying I was weird, although no one said why I was weird. Mandi Paulson didn't come back to school."

Two tears rolled down Emma's face. She didn't bother trying to hide them or wipe them away. She cried sometimes. And she didn't care who knew it.

"I never asked what happened to Mandi because I knew. The only thing I didn't know was when it happened. In a couple of days, word got back to my foster parents about what had happened, and they took me back to social services. They didn't want me anymore."

"Oh, Emma," gasped Jerry.

"It's OK. They weren't great parents anyway."

Jerry barked a laugh, then asked, "Did you ever find out for sure what happened to Mandi Paulson?"

Emma took a deep breath. "When I was in high school I did some digging into it. I found the newspaper from the day after my accident. Mandi had been hit by a blue Nissan in the crosswalk in front of the school while crossing to walk home. The driver of the car was never found. She was pronounced dead at the scene."

Emma took a deep, shaky breath and leaned back in her seat. She didn't feel lighter, or better, or any other stupid cliché, but she was glad she had told him. Now to see what he thought.

Jerry gazed openly at her, with his eyebrows scrunched, thoughtfully chewing on the inside of his cheek.

"Unit 17."

The radio barked out their call sign and both of them jumped. Emma grabbed for the radio. "Standing by."

"Respond to 1460 Wilson St., apartment 1208. Life Alert Call. No contact with patient. No further information given."

Emma was glad to do something and get some distance from the story. She hated people feeling sorry for her more than anything.

Jerry shifted into drive and pulled out onto the street. There was no traffic, so lights and sirens weren't needed just yet. Emma felt that familiar rush of adrenaline that she lived for. It had been too long!

It took them three minutes to get to 1460 Wilson St. They were the first unit there. On a call like this, one engine and one cop car should be coming by too, since nobody knew what they were actually going to find.

The building was a large, neat, condominium complex called Wilson Towers. Jerry parked in front of the entry doors and they jumped out, Emma grabbing the aid bag. They went in the lobby and took the elevator to the twelfth floor.

At 1208 they stopped and knocked. No answer. Jerry tried the door. It was locked. He knocked and called, knowing he would get no answer.

Jerry took the radio off his belt and called dispatch. "Central, get on the line with life alert and tell them the door is locked."

Central dispatch came back and said that the person inside had pressed the life alert button, but wasn't saying anything. The person who lived there was an eighty-four-year-old woman. Life alert was trying to contact her son now.

Emma knocked on the door again and tried to think of what to do. Someone inside could be dying, and they shouldn't stand out here with their thumbs up their butts doing nothing. The door was metal, and solid without even a peephole. There was no way she would be able to break it in.

Noise at the end of the corridor caught her attention. It was two cops. She scanned their faces quickly and was relieved, like always, to see neither one was Norman. Now that he worked in the Vice unit, she almost never had to see him on calls anymore.

Both the officers were women, one young and blond, and one closer to Emma's age of thirty. The older woman wore a broad smile and a long, thin scar on her right cheek.

"Party in the hall?" the older officer smiled and asked.

"We can't get in and the lady inside isn't answering, or can't answer," Emma told her. She was glad to have the police here on this call.

"Is an engine company coming?" the older cop asked. "They could break in."

"Yeah, this is Engine 18's ward. I will call them." Emma looked at Jerry and saw he was still talking to central dispatch. She took out her own radio and switched the frequency to Engine 18's channel.

"Engine 18, are you responding to 1460 Wilson St.?"

The response came back faint and crackly - mobile to mobile reception was frequently poor - "Yes, we are here, in the lobby."

"Uh, we can't get in the door. You might need tools."

"Roger."

Jerry came back to the door, smiled broadly at the two cops, and addressed them all. "The son says he is out of town and can't come with the spare key."

"Let's knock on some doors and see if anyone else has one," Emma suggested.

They all spread out and started knocking on neighbor's doors. Emma knocked and knocked but got no response. She looked down the hall and saw that Jerry was talking to a neighbor, but the two cops were already picking different doors. Past them, the elevator opened and several firefighters in full turnout gear started to get out. She could tell at the distance that Frankie was in the lead.

Oh great - these are the guys that were there when I fell off the roof.

She knew the next few minutes would be uncomfortable but it was better to get it over with.

She started walking back towards 1208 when Frankie spotted her. "Emma!" he yelled and started running towards her, his boots pounding loudly on the carpet.

She smiled. Frankie was a good guy. He always had time for a smile and a quick chat.

He ran up and slung an arm around her. "Hey blue eyes, I am so glad you are ok! I was sick to death when you fell off that roof. So what do we have going on here?"

Emma laughed and filled him in. Frankie always razzed her about her sapphire-blue eyes, her most striking feature.

Jerry and the cops came back to 1208 and relayed that no one on the floor had a key or even knew this lady.

It wasn't Emma's call whether or not to break the door down, since they didn't know if this was a medical call or not. One of the cops was actually in charge of the scene until they knew what exactly what was going on. Emma bet her money on the older one. She turned to her and asked, "What should we do?"

"Give me a minute," the cop said, and walked a few feet away, radio in hand.

Jerry nudged Emma and pointed at one of the firefighters. He was standing at the far end of the hallway, ax in hand, helmet under his arm, chatting with one of his crew members.

Emma looked and her breath caught in her throat. There were almost one thousand firefighters, plus four hundred firefighter/paramedics working in Westwood Harbor, and no one could keep track of them all. She only knew a handful of them by name, and only had ever been on a call with less than half of them probably.

She remembered this one from the call where she had fallen off the roof. He had caught her notice even then, even when there was no time for that kind of thing. This time, standing around like they were, she had all the time in the world to look her fill.

Oh boy, was he hot
.
Handsome. Smokin.
Emma was used to being around hot men - practically all the firefighters could qualify as hot with their broad, open faces, short-cropped hair, no facial hair, and muscular bodies - if you were in to that kind of thing. Which Emma most certainly
was
. She hadn't been too into men lately though. Something about her loser ex-husband had spoiled men for her for a long time.

Her thoughts were interrupted by an elbow in the ribs. "Close your mouth Em, it's not ladylike," Jerry whispered to her.

Emma slammed her mouth shut with a
pop
. Ohmigod was she
drooling
? She leaned against the wall, trying to look nonchalant, and turned her head, but kept her eyes on this new guy in Engine 18. The call where she fell off the roof had been the first time she had ever seen him. They normally shared several calls a day with Engine 18 so he must be new. He didn't look like a rookie though. He was at least twenty-five, but probably closer to her thirty. He had a confident air about him, like he had been on a hundred calls just like this before. His turnout gear was worn in and smoky, certainly not new. That didn't mean anything though - he could have been issued someone's old or practice set.

His standard haircut was just a little too long on top; maybe he liked to wear a faux-hawk on his days off. His hair was not quite blond, but not brown either. His eyes were a bit hooded and very kind-looking. She couldn't see his body under all that gear, but she was sure it was drool-worthy. They always were. He stood at least six feet tall, which put him about four inches or more taller than her. Which was perfect.

Emma started thinking she should look for an excuse to head down the hall a little bit and eavesdrop on him when the older cop came back over and said, "The desk Sergeant says to break in."

Perfect. Let's see big boy wield that ax.

Jerry rubbed his hands together and practically jumped up and down. "All right!" He put two fingers in his mouth and whistled, loud and startling. "Hey guys, get your butts over here, we need you!"

The group of three firefighters looked up and started to saunter over to meet them and Frankie. The new guy moved toward her like a cat, with a small smile on his lips.

Emma was still staring at him, and his eyes locked with hers. His small smile broke into a wide grin, revealing to-die-for dimples. Emma remembered something. She gave him a small smile and quickly turned to Jerry. "Wait, you said a new guy was the one who climbed down the drainpipe and saved me - is that him?"

"Yep, that's him. He's a super nice guy. His name is Craig."

Aw man, Emma knew this was coming, but she still wasn't prepared. Her plan had been to take a trip over to Engine 18, after she had worked up the courage, and get this guy off by himself. Then tell him thank you, in private, before she had to see him out on a call. But the plan was all screwed to hell already.
Damn it!

Emma's mouth went dry. She felt like she couldn't breathe. She hated being needy in any way, it always made her feel so anxious. She also hated being indebted to someone. That was the absolute
worst
!

Breathe Em, breathe
she reminded herself, and purposely took a deep breath. The three firefighters were right there already, but Craig was blocked from her vision by one of the others.

Frankie told them what the score was and one of the men produced a huge, wicked looking crowbar. If they needed to pry cars apart that was probably what they used.

He stuck the crowbar between the door and the jam and started to work it. The door was tough, but it was no match for that crowbar. Craig put his ax down and grabbed the end and they put all their weight on it. The latch popped free, but there was a deadbolt. They repositioned the crowbar and did it again. This proved a bit harder but they worked, worked, worked it.

Emma hoped there was really someone in need in that apartment, because this door would never recover.

Finally the hole around the deadbolt was big enough that one of the men stuck his hand in and unlocked the deadbolt. He swung the door open and looked inside.

"Doc!" he yelled.

Emma and Jerry knew that meant a medical. Emma shouldered their aid bag and in they went at a jog.

An older woman with short white hair and a heavily-lined face lay uncomfortably on the floor in a large pool of urine. Her gaze was turned towards them, and her left eye was looking at them, but she said nothing. Her right eye drooped almost shut, and her lips were down-turned on that side. Emma thought she noted deep embarrassment in the woman's good eye. Emma walked straight to her head and knelt, speaking clearly. "It's OK ma'am, we are going to get you straightened up in a jiffy. Can you speak?"

Peace fell upon Emma. She took charge of her scene and her patient, and within ten minutes, the woman was loaded on a gurney and headed down the stairs with a firefighter at her head and her feet. Emma had forgotten about the new guy for a while. Until this patient was safely in the hospital, all of that was put aside.

Which was good, because if she felt halfway to 'in lust' already and that was something she didn't have time for.

***

At the hospital, after her patient was turned over to a medical team, Emma joined Jerry in the ambulance. She picked up the radio, and stated, "Unit 17, in service."

"10–4, Unit 17."

"Jerry, we should head over to Firehouse 18."

Jerry swiveled his head slowly on his neck to look at her with an exaggerated mask of incredulity on his face.

"Why Emma Hill, I do believe you have a crush."

Against her will, Emma felt her face flush hot. "No, it's not that, I just never got a chance to thank him and till I do I will feel awkward anytime I see him." Emma did want to see him again but she didn't want Jerry to tease her about it. And she was telling the truth. She
would
feel awkward if she did not thank him.

Jerry eyed her for a moment longer and then nodded, put the ambulance in gear and headed toward Firehouse 18.