by Amy Sumida
She reached for her phone, but her hands shook too much for it to get a reading.
Understanding the problem, he gently held her fingers to the metal pads. Fuck. Her skin is so soft, crossed his mind before his professionalism took over.
He squatted in front of her. “My name’s Chad and I’m a firefighter with lots of medical training.” He watched the rhythm trace out over the screen. Shit. This isn’t good. His eyes roamed her body with a professional detachment. Although, the non-professional side of his brain made sure to remember every detail. He noticed the scars on the top of her heaving breasts and nearly sighed in relief. Please let the scars mean she has a defibrillator.
Aria responded to his question before he could ask. “Have. Defibrillator. In. Chest.”
Chad breathed a sigh of relief. Thank you, God. “From the looks of this, we need to get you lying down.” He quickly slid onto the ground from his crouched position and pulled her to the ground. He placed her head in his lap and ran his hands soothingly over her hair and forehead.
Together they watched the phone record as her defibrillator paced her heart out of the dangerous rhythm.
“Feeling better?” Upon examination, Chad discovered her skin colour improving and her breathing slowing.
“I am. Thanks.”
Her muscles relaxed under his fingers. “I met your friends earlier in the jeep, Aria. Let me contact one of my friends to bring them back down.”
Aria nodded. “That would be helpful. If I called or if you called, they would freak. Not that they won’t freak anyways.” She gave him a lopsided smile as she closed her eyes.
Chapter Three
— Doug —
Doug reached into his back pocket grabbing his vibrating phone. Jason nudged his arm silently asking who it was. He shrugged before glancing down and mouthing “Chad.”
Jason’s brows furrowed as he searched around. “Where is he?”
Doug shook his head as he answered the phone. A frown appeared on his face as he listened. He took a quick scan of the area. “Yeah, I see them.”
Jason raised his eyebrows and bit his bottom lip. His eyes followed the same path as Doug’s.
“What?” Doug’s eyes popped open as his mouth went slack. “Oh, okay. Jason and I will tell them and bring them to you.” He motioned for Jason to follow him as he hung up the phone. “Chad is dealing with a medical emergency with one of the girls in our tour group.”
“The petite brunette that sat up front?”
Doug wrinkled his forehead. “Petite brunette?” Is it her? He placed a hand on Jason’s bicep and pulled him to a stop. His voice clipped as he spoke. “What do you mean? Tell me what she looked like.”
Jason stared at Doug with a slight shake to his head. “I’m lost.” One eyebrow rose. “Didn’t you see the group of girls that got on our bus last?” Doug pursed his lips. “At the resort?” Doug shook his head. “Well, one of them was a cute brunette. She sat next to the driver in both vehicles.” He scanned the lookout area again. “I don’t see her here so it must be her. Did Chad want us to do anything?”
“He wants us to tell the girl’s friends and bring them back to him.” Doug continued his stride towards the group of three girls.
“Excuse me.” Doug stopped just outside the group.
“Well, hel-lo there.” The tall woman who’d been eyeing him in the jeep turned and smiled. Her eyes travelled up and down his body before doing the same to Jason.
The other two women sucked in their bottom lips along with their breath. “Hello from us as well,” one of them said as she batted her eyelashes.
“Um.” Doug looked to Jason for help, but Jason just shrugged and turned to stare the other way, not wanting to get involved. “Are either of you named Shona?”
The tall one’s eyes tightened, her face scrunched as if she’d sucked on a lemon before she smoothed it into a sultry smile. “I am. What can I do for you?” Shona purred as she stroked his forearm with the tips of her fingers.
Doug grimaced slightly as her nails trailed down his arm. “My friend—”
“Chad?” Her mouth tightened as she turned around searching for him.
He nodded. “Yes, he called me to say that he was helping out a friend of yours—”
“Aria? What happened? Is she okay?” Shona squeezed his forearm in a death grip, her concern overriding her flirtatious nature.
Doug caught Jason’s slight jump at the sound of alarm in Shona’s voice from the corner of his eye. His heart sunk, knowing Jason most likely jumped to conclusions as to the nature of the emergency due to his past, but Doug was unable to offer any reassurance. Trying to keep the three distraught women calm occupied his immediate future.
“From what he said, she is doing better, but I don’t know anything else.” Doug patted her hand on his arm before extracting himself from her grip.
“Where is she?” The one who hadn’t spoken yet piped up as her eyes darted around.
“Can you take us to her?” The other one hoisted her bag higher on her shoulder, stepping towards him.
Doug nodded. He motioned for them to follow him. “I’m Doug and this is Jason,” he told them as they started down the path.
“Chad pointed the two of you out earlier. This is Jennifer and Trish,” Shona said as she motioned to each one of them.
They reached the bottom of the hill by the jeep. “Where is she?” Shona stopped and spun as she tried to find Aria.
“They’re across the street behind the jeep.” Doug motioned for them to go around ahead of him.
— Aria —
Aria lifted her head from Chad’s lap and stared across her outstretched body to the corner of the jeep where Chad suggested her friends would make an appearance.
“Aria,” cried the girls as they rushed forward.
“What happened?” Jennifer squatted next to Aria.
“Are you okay?” Concern laced Shona’s voice.
A small smile struggled to make its way to her lips as her friends knelt by her side. “I’m fine now. I just felt a little light headed and Chad here helped me.” His leg muscles, under her, clenched as she told her little white lie. Not wanting him to say something to contradict her version of the events, she tilted her head back and locked eyes with him, begging him not to give her away. Relief flooded her as his tight-lipped face gave her a slight nod.
“Thank you so much for helping Aria. She has a serious heart condition, but she said that she was fine earlier.” Shona held her hand out to Chad.
“It was my pleasure.” Chad shook her hand briefly before sliding his hand back down Aria’s arm to her pulse point.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” Trish’s eyes sparkled with unshed tears.
Reaching out her unencumbered hand to Trish, she squeezed Trish’s wrist gently. “I’m fine. Honestly. Why don’t you guys head back to the jeep if you’re done looking at the sights? The driver has rum punch. I’ll just hang around here for a bit with Chad if he’s okay with that”—Chad nodded—“and then we’ll meet you back at the jeep.”
Shona gazed intently into Aria’s eyes before she finally agreed. “Fine, but I’m warning you. You better call if something happens.”
“Don’t worry. She’s in good hands.” Her Wall moved closer to the girls. “Chad is a firefighter with lots of paramedic training.”
The girls nodded, stood, and backed away, each patting her on the shoulder.
She watched with a slight grin on her face as her Wall and his friend moved towards her. Her heart picked up speed as the Wall loomed over her, his size overwhelming from her position laying on the ground.
Her Wall squatted in front of her. His breath hitched as he examined her from head to toe. “Hello again, my darling.” He reached out and stroked her cheek. “Be good and let Chad take care of you, okay?”
She smiled, her heart slowing as his finger caressed her cheek. His touch, so inviting, calmed her. She wanted to curl up into him, to feel more of it. Heat rose to her cheeks at th
e direction of her thoughts. Mortified, she nearly missed his name for her…my darling…how romantic, she sighed as her blush deepened.
“It’s nice to meet you, Aria, even under these circumstances.” The other friend’s smile was tight and his words almost robotic as he stood by her feet. His hands clenched tightly at his side. “I’m Jason.”
“Hi.” Aria’s smile faltered a little at his cool tone, but her eyes continued to travel the length of his body, noting the breadth of his shoulders. They were smaller than her Wall’s, but wider than Chad’s. His muscles tightly packed onto his lean frame. His brown, curly hair looked soft and she experienced an undeniable urge to pull on one to see if it would spring back. Shifting on the hard ground, she tried to deny the draw between them. From the hard expression on his face, she wondered if he felt and denied it as well.
— Chad —
Eh-hem. Chad chuckled as both Aria’s and Jason’s eyes broke away from each other and turned to him at the sound of his throat clearing. “You should probably go with Doug and escort Aria’s friends back so I can get back to my patient.” His eyes dropped to Aria’s as a soft smile rose on his face.
Jason looked over his shoulder to where Doug was standing with Aria’s friends and nodded. His hands clenched at his side. “Listen to Chad, okay? I trust him with my life.” He waited until she nodded before he slowly opened his hands one finger at a time.
Chad’s eyes locked onto Jason’s retreating back. His lips tight in concentration. The look Jason gave Aria confused him. Jason perused Aria’s body like a drowning man reaching for a lifeline. The old Jason would have acted that way, but not the new one. The new one vowed not to get close to another woman after everything he went through. His obvious interest, despite the cool tone of his words, should have made Chad happy to see his best friend coming out of his protective shell. Instead, a clenching in Chad’s gut had him questioning his own draw to Aria. Shit! After all this time…could it really happen?
As the group passed behind the jeep, he helped Aria to a sitting position. Taking a quick check of her heart rate and breathing, he smiled. Her improving results matched his improving mood.
When she was sitting up, leaning against a rock, Chad stared directly into her eyes. “Sweetheart, care to tell me what that was all about?”
— Aria —
Aria glanced down towards her toes. Something in the way Chad looked at her stirred something long buried in her gut. A feeling she no longer understood, not having experienced it in many years. Add to it the commanding tone in his voice and she wanted to sit back on her heels with her hands palm side up resting in her lap while revealing all. Her hands clenched as she fought the draw. “Um. What do you mean?”
“The little lie that you told your friends.” Chad lifted an eyebrow as his lips remained stretched tight across his mouth.
Aria gnawed on her lip not wanting to tell him, but his draw was too tough to resist. She wondered if it had something to do with his medical training; some trick they all learned to make patients spill their secrets, but it couldn’t be. No other medical personnel made her spill her guts with one simple word. It was just Chad. Somehow, his care, his voice, the look in his eyes all worked together to make her feel safe and cared for. Instinctively she wanted him in her corner.
“I didn’t want them to worry. They’ve gone through a lot with me. As much as they say I needed this vacation, they needed it more.”
“And?”
“And…almost three years ago I went into heart failure and gave birth to a stillborn daughter.” Too scared to look at Chad and see the pity she imagined there, she kept her gaze on the ground as if it held the secrets of the universe. Her shoulders shook from the tension within her.
Aria held out her left hand and rubbed her bare ring finger. “It was all too much for him. Finding out that even if my heart recovered and we tried to have more kids, they would all most likely be stillborn.”
His hands reached out, holding her hands as he massaged the bare ring finger. It was as if he knew how it felt to be missing something there.
“We were told he carried a genetic defect that would give him only a fifty percent chance of having a living child, but that I, too, carried a variation of the gene, which made us have a living child a near impossibility.” She squeezed his hands grateful for the support.
“Six months later, my husband dropped me off for defibrillator surgery. He told the nurse he had to work and gave her his assistant’s phone number. When she called to tell him I was done, it turned out to be Shona’s number. Shona picked me up and took me home. We walked into my condo to find out he had packed up his stuff, some other things, and left.”
— Chad —
“What an asshole. He doesn’t deserve you.” Chad couldn’t hold back any longer. Reaching forward, he yanked her to his chest for a hug. Wrapping his arms around her as if he could keep her from falling into pieces. He couldn’t believe someone could be so callous. His own heartbreak was bad enough, but nothing like this.
He stroked her hair, loving the feel of her against his body. Her girl next door looks hadn’t gone unnoticed by him; they’d just been overshadowed by the pressing medical emergency. But her eyes, her eyes were what drew him and now he knew why. They showed hurt and fear, a constant companion found in his eyes. The same look present in Jason’s as well.
Aria pulled back after a few big sniffs. “Thank you for the hug. I needed that.”
“Anytime.” He gave her a soft smile. “How are you feeling now?”
“Better. It has been a long time since I had an episode like that. At least I now know that the machine works.” Aria tried to joke to cover up how shook up she felt. “I think I probably overdid it on my diuretic trying to take off the extra fluid.”
Thinning his lips into a tight line, he looked down at her ankles and nodded despite his upset over her choice to answer his question with her physical condition and not her emotional one. Physically, he knew her current condition improved. Her emotional state, after revealing her heartbreaking story, concerned him. Lifting his eyes and searching hers, he decided to ignore her subtle change of topic “That makes sense.” He opened his bag and pulled out a bottle of orange juice. Twisting off the cap, he handed it to her. “Drink this and then we will re-examine you.”
Putting the bottle to her lips, he swung his body around until he sat next to her. He wrapped his arm around her shoulders and drew her closer.
Her head rested on his broad chest. Goose bumps erupted along her skin as she shivered drawing herself closer to the heat of his body. “My ex wasted no time after he moved out. The girls don’t know, but I ran into him and his new wife a week ago. She looked like she was ready to give birth any day.” She took another sip of juice as her eyes shone with unshed tears.
Chad felt her shudders against his chest. He closed his eyes. Her heartbreak stirring up too many memories. He never talked about what had happened, but for some reason, he wanted to tell her everything. Maybe it was the seclusion of the spot where they were sitting. Maybe it was Aria herself. He didn’t know and he didn’t care. He only knew he had to tell her.
“I used to be Special Forces, but my wife complained I was gone too much for us ever to have kids.” His hand tightened on her arm.
She held her breath.
Relaxing his hand, he stroked her arm wanting her to relax. “So, I put in my release and became a fire fighter. That was an acceptable job for my wife. She liked the idea of being married to a fire fighter. About six months later, I came home early to find my wife in bed with another man. She looked me in the eye and calmly informed me that he was her boyfriend. They’d been seeing each other while I was in the military, but then his job moved him to Alberta.” Chad took a few deep breaths as he ran his hand through his dark blond brush cut.
“I guess that is why she asked me to leave the military; she didn’t want to be alone when he left. But he missed her and came back for her. By the end of the week she had
most of the house packed up and the two of them left.”
Aria put her now empty bottle down beside her. She turned to face Chad. Placing a hand on his cheek, she gazed intently into his eyes. “I’m sorry. No one deserves that, especially you. You are so amazing. I mean you stopped to take care of me when you didn’t have to”—she put a couple of fingers from her other hand onto his lips, stopping him from protesting—“You may be trained, but you are on holiday. You didn’t have to stop, but you did.”
Moving one hand to cradle the back of her head, Chad’s other hand slid from her shoulder to her cheek. He started to wipe away the tears that spilled over her eyelids until the movement of her tongue caught his eyes and he watched it lick her luscious lips. His heart and body wanted to pull her towards him; to smother her lips with his. He couldn’t remember the last time someone cried for him.
He licked his lips mirroring her actions. Expelling his breath in a rush as he pulled her closer. Lips puckered, ready to pounce the minute they touched her.
Aria stopped breathing. Her lips opened in a slight pucker.
Chad’s lips moved closer, nearly hovering over hers. He wanted her kissable lips fused to his. He searched her eyes, looking for permission, when he remembered she was technically a patient. Shit! You can’t do that, said one voice while another, the one from his heart, said kiss her.
With a slight tilt of his head, Chad’s brain won the battle. Instead of hitting her lips, he placed a soft kiss on her forehead. “Thank you, sweetheart.”
— Doug —
Jason pulled on Doug’s arm holding him up until the girls moved ahead of them. “I’m guessing that she was the girl that had you chasing your tail yesterday.”
Doug chuckled. A sheepish look crossed his face. “Yeah, she was. At least I know her name now.”
“Too true.” Jason laughed. “But she still doesn’t know yours.” He swatted Doug’s arm before he sped up.
