The Firefighter's Woman (2 page)

“Don’t worry about it,” she said dismissively. “It’s not a problem. I’ve had worse.”

She had a heck of an attitude. A chip on her shoulder big enough that he could practically see it, but everyone responded differently to stress and John wasn’t about to blame her for being a bit off in the middle of a disaster. Chaos was all around them, flashing red and blue lights reflecting off both of their faces as ambulance, police, and fire vehicles came and went. The damage was limited to a few blocks, but those few blocks had suffered. Sarah had been lucky. Some of the other houses nearby were flattened as if some giant boot had come from the sky and simply stepped on them.

“Looks like they’ve got room for you in this next ambulance,” he said once he had her prepped to go. “Are you going to be a good girl for me and let the medics help you?”

She sighed at him, defeated. “Fine,” she said. “I’ll be good. Just for you.”

Chapter Two

It had been a very long night, and though John’s shift had officially ended a long time ago, he found himself de-geared and in the back of an ambulance, escorting a patient to the hospital in the early hours of the morning. The medics needed all the help they could get, and the elderly man he was riding with seemed grateful to have some company as well as someone monitoring his vital signs.

He stayed with the patient right up until the nurses told him he’d have to go because the patient was going into theater. It had been a hard night, and there had been some losses. John couldn’t do anything about those, but he could make sure the people who’d survived were well taken care of.

“Good luck, Rick!” He waved the old man into theater, then started making his way out of the rabbit warren that was the hospital. He was bone tired and his bed was calling, but as he was walking down the hallway a nurse came out of one of the rooms and the door swung open just enough to reveal the figure of the young woman he had pulled out earlier in the evening. Sarah.

She’d been on his mind since he’d left her with the ambulance crew. Something about her curious mixture of vulnerability and refusal to accept it. She’d been fighting everything. Him, her injuries, even the EMTs had copped some attitude from her, even though she’d promised to be good.

In the second or so he saw her through the soft closing door, she didn’t look like she had much fight left in her. Her expression was one of perfect misery.

“Go home, John,” he murmured to himself. “You need sleep.”

It didn’t matter what he said to himself, his hand was already extended toward the door and he was walking into Sarah’s room. She had a private room, and probably pretty good insurance. But the relatively comfortable surroundings didn’t seem to be of any comfort. She looked so small in the bed, and yet so defiant. What she was defying, he didn’t know.

“Hi,” he said as he entered the room. “Remember me?”

She looked up, made eye contact, and looked away again with a little shrug. “Hi.”

His heart went out to her. She was so sad it was palpable. “How are you doing?”

“Great,” she said flatly.

“Your family not get word of you being here yet? Is there anyone I can contact for you?”

“My family are dead,” she scowled. “I don’t know if they got the memo about the tornado or not and I doubt they have any Ouija boards in here.”

So she was an orphan. That went some way toward explaining her prickly attitude, and why she looked so alone.

“I’m sorry to hear that.” He settled into the chair next to her, his weight making the metal frame creak.

Sarah shot him a confused, angry look. “What are you doing?”

“Visiting you.”

“Why?” She was definitely confused now.

“Because everyone deserves visitors when they’re not well,” he said with a smile. It was not returned. He looked at her lying there, small, bruised, hurting emotionally and physically, and with not a person in the world who seemed to care. It made his heart ache for her, though he was certain she would have been very annoyed with him if he had said as much.

* * *

Sarah had barely recognized him at first. The man who had loomed out of the darkness and saved her from the wreckage of her home had seemed superhuman. The man sitting next to her bed looked very human. His brown curling hair was largely sitting flat thanks to the helmet he’d been wearing, but she could imagine that it would probably curl a lot more if it were freshly washed and wet… why was she thinking about him wet? She looked at his face and saw kindness amid the strength. His nose looked as though it had been broken several times. There was a scar on his forehead, a thick line running from just above his left brow toward his temple. There was another on his jaw, though that one was smaller, thinner, looked almost surgical.

This was a man who knew pain. That much was obvious. His warm brown eyes were roaming her face with an odd sort of empathy, as if he both knew her and was trying to figure her out.

“I’m going to get a soda,” he announced. “You want something?”

“No, thank you,” she said. “I’m fine.”

“Okay, I’ll be back,” he smiled.

Sarah tried for a smile and failed as John stepped out. Truthfully, she was glad for his company. The hour or two she’d been in the hospital had been both scary and lonely. Scary because she’d kept thinking about going home, then remembering that home was broken. Lonely because she’d found herself on the verge of tears and yet crying in a sterile hospital room was the last thing she wanted to do.

She closed her eyes and tried to get a grip on herself, tried to force the tears down and the fear into the deeper recesses of her body. She managed to compose herself enough that she didn’t feel as though she was going to burst into sobs right away, which was an improvement. Minutes passed and she wondered if John was actually going to come back. She hadn’t been that nice to him, and he must have had a hard night’s work already.

“Here.”

Sarah opened her eyes to see a soft toy from the hospital gift shop, a little pink pony. She felt a hint of a smile spreading across her face, but averted disaster by converting it into a scowl almost immediately.

“A pony?”

“They had bears, kittens, and ponies. I guessed you were a pony sort of girl,” he smiled.

“Thanks,” she said in aggrieved tones as she took the toy from him and set it on the little cabinet beside her bed, where it beamed happily at her. “But you don’t have to be nice to me. I don’t need anyone to be nice to me. I’m sure you’ve got family and friends to be with. Go see them.”

John sat down in the chair that was far too small for him and looked at her, his handsome face assuming an expression of confusion. “Are you angry at me?”

“Why would I be angry at you?”

“I don’t know,” he shrugged. “For getting you out of that house before it collapsed, maybe?”

He was far too close to the truth of the matter for Sarah’s comfort. “Why would I be angry at you for that?”

“Well,” he said kindly, “that’s the question, isn’t it.”

“I’m not mad at you,” she lied. “I’m just… my leg hurts. Those butchers stitched me up like a side of meat. And they won’t let me out of here because they want to ‘observe’ me, but I’m fine!”

“They’re probably worried you might have gotten a knock to the head,” he said. “Your house did fall down around your ears.”

“Well, I didn’t. And even if I did—I have a hard head.”

“That, I believe,” he smirked at her. Again a smile rose unbidden to her lips.

“Thank you,” she said. “For rescuing me. I don’t think I said that yet.”

“You’re welcome.” His eyes crinkled in a warm smile. He was a very handsome man, a large man from whom care emanated like a force field. She imagined anyone finding themselves caught in that gaze would have a hard time not falling in love with him.

“Well,” she said, feeling suddenly uncomfortable with her thoughts. “You can go now.”

“I’d like to stay,” he said, taking her prickliness in stride.

“You would? Why?”

“Because I think you need someone with you right now, and I wouldn’t be happy with myself if I left you in a hospital bed all alone.”

“But you barely know me. You don’t know me at all!”

“Everybody needs somebody,” he said, stretching his long legs out in front of him. “And maybe I’ll get to know you.”

She shook her head. “I’d rather you didn’t.”

He didn’t say anything in response to that, just gave her a look that strongly implied he wasn’t going anywhere. Sarah didn’t know what was wrong with this man. Any sane person would have gone and gotten a beer or something by this point rather than spend time around some rude woman they didn’t know.

“You’re from around here?”

“I was,” she said curtly. “Not anymore.”

“How can you not be from a place anymore?”

“When that place huffs and puffs and blows your house down,” she said. “To hell with this town.” A sudden burst of rage made her push the blanket off her. “To hell with this hospital,” she growled, more to herself than to him. “I’m getting out of here.”

“Whoa.” He lifted a hand, as if he had some masculine force field that could stop her. “Easy now, you’re not ready to leave yet. You could have a brain injury.”

“I don’t have a brain injury,” she shot back at him, sitting up. “This is just my personality.”

He let out a surprised laugh. “I didn’t mean that,” he chuckled. “I mean they’re keeping you in overnight for a reason.”

“To bill my insurance,” she said. “I’m fine. My foot isn’t even broken. It’s just a little cut up. All I need to get out of here are some clothes that don’t close in the back. Fuck!” She fell back, frustrated. “All my clothes are under rubble now, aren’t they. Of course they are. This is just the sort of thing that would happen to me.”

“Why don’t you just take it easy,” he suggested.

She shot him a vehement look. “Yeah, because that’s going to bring my house back, isn’t it. Taking it easy.”

“Insurance will cover your losses.”

“Who says I had insurance?”

“Just a guess,” he said, raising his dark brow at her just a little. “The sort of person who refuses rescue in the middle of a disaster, doesn’t want to stay in the hospital a second longer than she has to, and takes a tornado personally is the sort of person who knows she needs as many fallback positions as she can get. I’d put money on you having insurance on your insurance.”

Maybe he did know her a little. Or maybe he was just good at guessing things about people.

“Insurance doesn’t get me a change of clothes,” she complained. She thrust the pink pony back at him. “Tell you what, take this back, swap it for one of those godawful sweat-pant suit things they probably have down there, and I’ll pay you back.”

His smile grew a little thinner as he shook his head. “Tell you what,” he said, tucking the pony in next to her. “You stay in bed, let the doctors and nurses take care of you without giving them any attitude, and I’ll refrain from taking you over my knee and giving you the spanking you need so badly.”

For a second, Sarah could only stare at him. He’d made a similar threat after he’d pulled her out of the house, but she hadn’t really believed he’d said it. She’d thought she must have misheard him… or maybe she’d just been so stressed that her brain had addled the words.

“Okay, I must be brain damaged,” she said finally. “Because I could swear you just threatened to…” she hesitated, almost reluctant to say the words that made her want to blush all over, “…spank me.”

“I did,” he said firmly. “You’re acting like a little brat. Settle down.”

“Fine for you to say,” she snapped back at him. “Once you’re finished doing your little feel-good hospital visit, I’ll still be stuck here. I don’t want to be here. I want to check out, go to a hotel, take some proper painkillers and chase them with enough vodka that I don’t wake up for a couple of days—and when I do, I won’t remember any of this. That’s what I want.”

“Are you even old enough to drink?”

“Yes,” she snapped at him. “I’ve been legal for all of… what time is it?”

“One a.m.,” he said, checking his watch.

“I’ve been legal for an hour.”

“Happy birthday,” he said.

“Thanks,” she scowled. “Now are you going to do any of what I asked?”

“Nope.” He remained resolute. “And if you keep it up, you’ll be getting one heck of a birthday spanking.”

Sarah cut her eyes at him. “I thought you were nice.”

“I am nice,” he said calmly. “Part of being nice is not letting people hurt themselves just because they’re afraid and angry.”

“I’m not afraid,” she lied yet again. “What I am is a prisoner. If you’re going to help them, you can go. I don’t want you here.” She crossed her arms over her chest and stared daggers at him.

“Is that right? Are you such a spoiled little brat you can’t settle down and just let yourself be taken care of for a little while?”

“I am not spoiled. Fuck you,” she snarled with real anger. “You don’t know me. You don’t know a goddamn thing about me. You’re just some do-gooding jerk. And I’m out of here.”

She pushed back the covers, swung her legs out of bed, put her feet to the floor and half-fell over his lap. It was an accident, of course, perpetrated by her stupid lame foot, which was not hurting, but also not working as intended or desired.

“You really do want a spanking, don’t you?” John drawled above her.

“Help me get up,” she snapped.

A sharp slap to her left cheek, exposed thanks to the ridiculous hospital attire she was forced to wear, was his response, followed by a firm, “No.”

Another slap to her right cheek made her yelp and caused her to realize that he was not at all joking. He clearly thought he had some right to do this to her, though she couldn’t think why.

“What the hell are you doing?”

“I told you,” he said simply. “I’m giving you a spanking.” He proved the point by dropping two further swats to her left cheek and two to her right. They were not hard, but they did sting her bottom as well as her pride.

“I hate to break this to you, cowboy, but this isn’t an old movie. You can’t just take any woman you see over your knee and hit her because she won’t do what you want. It’s not 1950 anymore.”