by Radclyffe
“She probably needs to be sure you’re all right. Let her take care of you. Besides, taking a day off is probably not a bad idea.”
“Ali, nothing happened to me yesterday. You were the one who got shot. God, I can’t believe you just walked out into the hall when he was standing there with a gun—”
“Hey, it’s over now.” Ali didn’t want to relive that moment again. “We’re both fine.”
“You’re not exactly fine. You were shot.” Wynter hesitated, and when she continued, her voice shook. “I don’t know how to thank you for what you did yesterday.”
“I didn’t do anything.” Ali closed her eyes. She could hardly tell Wynter that losing her would be like losing Sammy all over again, that she’d rather be shot herself than go through that horror.
“You made yourself a target instead of me. I’ll never forget that. If we have a girl, I’m going to name her after you.”
Ali laughed. “That might be above and beyond the call. But I’m honored that you would think of it.”
“How are you feeling really? Do you need anything? I can have Pearce drop by—”
“I’m honestly much better, and I’m all set. Ralph brought me tea and toast a few minutes ago and watched me like a hawk until I ate.”
“Pearce said that Beau was taking you home last night. How was that?”
“Fine. It was fine,” Ali said quickly. “So I’m planning on going in tomorrow, but I won’t be doing any operating for at least another—”
“That’s called misdirection, and you’re not getting away with it. How long did she stay?”
Ali hesitated.
“Ali,” Wynter said.
“She left this morning.”
“She stayed all night? Were you having a rough time? Damn it, Ali, you should have called us.”
“No, all I had was a little headache and some nausea. She just took the whole observation thing very seriously. I couldn’t get her to leave.”
“She strikes me as being stubborn,” Wynter said. “In addition to all her other yummy attributes.”
“I kissed her.”
Wynter sucked in a breath. “And you’re just getting around to telling me that now?”
“I’m still trying to decide how I feel about it.”
“Ali, honey, a kiss is not something you think about. It’s something you experience—hopefully with really good replays. Are there replays?”
“Endless,” Ali muttered.
“I’m kind of surprised. Not about the replays—she looks the type to inspire many happy reruns. I’m surprised you made the first move. I sort of thought you weren’t interested.”
“Trust me, you’re no more shocked than me. It sounds trite, I know, but it just happened. We were talking and she got a little upset. She was hurting and I just—I just wanted to take it all away.”
“Wow. So it wasn’t just lust.”
“Well, of course it was lust. What else would it be? You’re the one that keeps calling her yummy like she’s some obscenely decadent chocolate dessert.”
“I can see that. Triple chocolate mousse cake.” Wynter laughed. “So. Can she kiss?”
“Like there’s no tomorrow.”
“No wonder you’re feeling better today. She’s a prescription I can really get behind. Or in front of, under—whatever, really.”
Ali groaned. “Does Pearce know that you drool over other women?”
“Pearce knows I’m madly in love with her and can’t get enough of her body, and any appreciation I might entertain for other women—purely hypothetically, of course—just means she’ll need to take care of me more oft—”
“Okay! I get the picture.”
“She likes my fertile imagination,” Wynter said with a playful note in her voice. “You, on the other hand, strike me as being the possessive, territorial type. That can be very sexy too.”
“I have nothing to be possessive or territorial about. And if I had I wouldn’t be, and besides that, Beau would be the totally wrong choice even if I were and wanted to be.”
Wynter’s laughter interrupted her. “You’re babbling.”
Grumpily, Ali finished, “Fortunately, that’s never going to be an issue.”
“Uh-huh. When are you seeing her again?”
“Friday—maybe. Sort of. I’m not sure.” Ali couldn’t believe she was hearing herself waffle like some first-year medical student. She was never ever indecisive, but somehow she’d let Beau talk her into a date, and then talk her out of breaking it. How did the woman do that? “We’re having dinner on Friday. She was nice enough to help me out yesterday. It’s just a friendly dinner.”
“I think that’s great,” Wynter said gently. “Really. I’m glad she was there yesterday at the hospital, and last night too. She seems to like you.”
“Well.” Ali was glad they were talking on the phone, because she knew she was blushing. Thank God she didn’t blurt out that she liked her too. Then she really would feel like a teenager again, even though it was true. She did like her. Despite her attempts not to be charmed, Beau’s cocky attitude was appealing. Knowing what Beau had endured, and what she’d lost, only enhanced the attraction and made Ali respect her all the more. In the moments when they were alone, Beau’s gentleness and genuine kindness had touched her and made her feel safe, when she’d never been aware she needed that. Oh yes. She liked her.
“Don’t think so much,” Wynter said. “Just go with it.”
Ali considered that advice. She didn’t live her life by chance. She didn’t trust fate. She always knew what she was doing and accepted the consequences of her decisions. Maybe just this once she could color outside the lines. A brief affair with Beau Cross would only be a temporary case of insanity, and it might be fun.
“All right, my doctor friend, I’ll take your prescription under advisement.”
*
“You look like shit,” Bobby said when Beau finally found his new room on the eighth floor. He’d been transferred to a regular surgical floor from the step-down unit overnight. The other bed in his new room was empty and Beau plopped down on the edge.
“Thanks. So do you.”
Bobby gestured to his face. “No more oxygen.” He held up one arm. “No more IV. I’m scheduled for a set of PFTs this afternoon. If my lung function is okay, I’m out of here tomorrow.”
“About time,” Beau said, a huge weight lifting from her heart. Bobby was still hoarse and he had to pause every few words to catch his breath, but his color was better and he really did sound as if he’d turned the corner. “I’m off at two tomorrow. I’ll come by and pick you up on my way home.”
“You sure about me staying with you for a few days? Because I think one of the nurses might be willing to make a house call.”
Beau rolled her eyes. “If she did, I think she might end up disappointed. You’re going to need a few more days before you can entertain. Besides, the day after tomorrow is Thanksgiving. You have to stay with us until after that.”
“Aren’t you going to go to your parents’?”
“No. I’m working B shift, so we’ll have an early dinner before I go in. It’ll work out fine.”
“You’re not cooking, are you?” Bobby said.
Beau laughed. “I’m doing whatever Jilly tells me to do. If you know what’s good for you, you’ll pretend to be sicker than you are and keep your ass on the couch, or you’ll be peeling potatoes too.”
“Thanks for the heads up.” Bobby fished around on the side of the bed for the hand controls and cranked up the back until he was sitting nearly upright. “So what’s the deal with the shootout yesterday? Everybody around here’s talking about it but no one will give me any details. And two of my doctors are MIA this morning. Did Dr. Torveau really get hit?”
Pain zinged through Beau’s stomach as if she’d been punched. Then she remembered. Ali was okay, she was fine. “She did, and she was lucky. Just a graze. She might even be back before you’re discharged.”
“Good. Because the guy who replaced her probably knows his stuff, but he doesn’t give me a bo—”
“Whoa. Whoa. I told you about that before,” Beau said. “Do not go there, Bobby.”
Bobby’s eyebrows shot up. “Touchy. I’m just saying, she’s a lot nicer to look at.”
“That goes without saying. The rest of it you can keep to yourself.”
“Looks like she’s given somebody else a—”
“Bobby,” Beau snapped.
He laughed. “I just wanted to see if you were really going to go caveman about her.”
“Moron.”
“So? What’s the story?”
“No story.” Beau worked her shoulders to ease the tension that was starting to coalesce into a ball of pain at the base of her skull. She loved Bobby, but she didn’t like him even thinking about Ali in the same breath as his dick, let alone talking about her as if she were…a really hot woman. Which she was, and only a fool wouldn’t notice. She realized Bobby was studying her with a glint in his eye and wondered what he’d seen in hers. “You owe me a hundred bucks.”
“You’re fucking kidding me. Torveau said yes?”
Beau nodded, unable to hide her smirk of satisfaction.
“To a date? As in go-out-together-somewhere date?”
“Yes, Bobby. Jesus. Don’t you think I’m capable of interesting a woman in anything besides sex?”
“No.”
“Well, you lose. Pay up by Friday.”
“I’m not paying until after it happens, because she could still change her mind.”
Beau worked to keep her grin in place. She was afraid Ali would change her mind, and she didn’t know how to keep that from happening. She wanted Ali to want to see her. It was stupid, maybe, but she did. Besides, she’d already pushed about as hard as she thought she could. Ali wasn’t the kind of woman who took being pushed well.
“She’s not going to back out.”
“You hope,” Bobby teased.
“Yeah,” Beau said quietly. “I really do.”
Chapter Twenty
Ali placed several prescriptions on Bobby’s bedside table along with a copy of his discharge instructions.
“One of these is for an inhaler,” Ali said. “I don’t expect you’ll need it very long, but if your chest feels tight and you get short of breath, use it. If you find that after a few minutes you’re not getting any relief, wait half an hour and try again. If you’re still having problems, you need to come back to the emergency room.”
“Okay,” Bobby said.
“Is that Okay I hear you and I’ll do what you say, or Okay, I hear you and I’m going to ignore you because taking medication is a sign of weakness?”
Bobby grinned. “You’re kind of scary with that mind reading and all.”
“That’s what I thought. Don’t be a macho moron about this,” Ali said nonchalantly. “You do want to get back to work soon, don’t you?”
“You really know how to get a guy’s attention,” Bobby said, bestowing her with a particularly charming smile. “And here I’ve already gone and lost my heart to you.”
Ali shook her head. “I never thought I’d find a harder bunch to deal with or a group of individuals more cocky than cops, but firefighters definitely win.”
“Of course we do,” Beau said as she walked past Ali to the foot of Bobby’s bed. She gave Bobby a two-fingered salute and Ali a slow, smoldering smile. “What are we talking about? Because whatever it is, I’m sure we win.”
“The biggest pains in the ass contest,” Ali said over the racing of her heart and the low roar in her ears. Beau looked sexy as usual in her paramedic uniform, a radio clipped to one hip, instruments protruding from the pockets of her dark cargo pants. She had a swath of red skin on the side of her neck that looked like a first-degree burn. Ali barely restrained herself from moving closer to examine it.
“Oh yeah, we’re definitely all over that one.” Beau laughed and patted the sheets over Bobby’s leg. “So, partner, they’re really letting you out of here today, huh?”
“I haven’t actually signed off on his discharge,” Ali said. “Bobby and I need to come to an understanding about some things.”
Beau’s expression was instantly serious. “I’ll make sure he’s a good boy.”
“Yeah,” Bobby said, “you and whose army?”
“Oh, as if I couldn’t handle you with—”
“Like I said—”
“Children,” Ali said, although it was hard to put an edge in her voice while the two of them bickered like siblings. They so obviously meant more to one another than just colleagues. “Bobby, I want to see you in the clinic on Monday afternoon. Your pulmonary function tests are normal, but I suspect there’s some decrease in your lung capacity and I want to repeat them. If everything looks good then, I’ll release you to go back to duty.”
“What about the TER-OPS field training this weekend?” Bobby asked.
Ali shook her head. “That’s going to be five hours of rigorous activity. You’re not ready for it.”
He winced. “If I miss this, I’m going to get pushed back to the next qualifying section, aren’t I?”
“Probably. I’m sorry.”
“Look,” Bobby said with a hint of desperation in his voice. “Could you maybe look at me on Friday, and if I’m doing okay let me try to do the training session?” He glanced at Beau. “We’re scheduled to partner, and hell—if she does it and I don’t, she’s gonna get bumped up ahead of me.”
Ali smiled. “And we certainly can’t have that, can we.”
Beau turned from Bobby to Ali. “Bobby is staying with me and my sister for the next couple of days. I’m off Friday afternoon and I can bring him in. Whatever time you say.”
“I’ll see if I can move his PFTs from Monday.” Ali gave Bobby a look. “But I won’t approve you for the training session if they aren’t where I expect them to be.”
“I got it. I’ll take the medicine.”
“Good. You can leave anytime. Your discharge papers are already with the nurses.”
Bobby shot Beau an outraged look. “She bluffed us!”
“Yeah, she did.” Beau smiled into Ali’s eyes. “She’s all over us.”
Ali tucked Bobby’s chart under her arm and spun away. She couldn’t be caught looking at Beau the way she feared she might be, especially considering the way she was feeling. Being in the same room with Beau had started a hungry ache that was completely unfamiliar. She wanted to touch her. Hell, she wanted to kiss her. Instead, she hurried from the room. She made it partway down the hall before she heard footsteps behind her.
“Ali,” Beau said. “Hey. Do you have a minute?”
“I—” Ali was about to say she had to finish rounds, but the hopeful look in Beau’s eyes stopped her. That, and her own surge of pleasure. “I was about to grab a cup of coffee.”
“I’ll keep you company. Bobby will be a while with the paperwork. Besides, he can’t leave without me.”
Ali led the way to the stairwell. “You’ve got a burn on your neck.”
“What? Oh—a little bit of flashback. It’s nothing.”
“You should put some ointment on it.”
Beau pushed ahead and opened the stairwell door for Ali. “I will.”
“What was the call?” Ali asked as she stepped into the empty stairwell. Professional. If she kept it professional, she’d be fine.
“Some idiot drove out of a gas station with a hose still in their tank. Sparked a fire and a couple of the tanks blew.” Beau grasped Ali’s arm just as she reached the stairs. “How are you—”
At the touch of Beau’s hand, Ali turned abruptly, slipped her fingers around the back of Beau’s neck, and kissed her. Just as she remembered, Beau’s mouth was soft and incredibly warm, her lips a sensuous flow of hot silk. When the tip of Beau’s tongue swirled around hers, a fist of arousal punched between her thighs. She gasped and pulled back. “Okay, that’s enough of that.”
“I
don’t think so.” Feeling dazed, Beau backed Ali into the metal railing enclosing the stairwell. She cradled Ali’s jaw in one hand, taking care to avoid the dark purple bruise on the left side of her face, and took her mouth in a longer, deeper kiss. Except when she’d actually been in the field and completely engaged, she hadn’t stopped thinking of Ali for more than a minute in the past twenty-four hours. Every time the Zetron sounded a call, she sighed in relief because she could stop torturing herself for a while with memories of lying next to Ali, of Ali’s hands on her body and Ali’s skin beneath her fingertips. The worst time had been just before dawn, when she couldn’t sleep and there was nothing she could do about the relentless urgency in her body while she was lying in a narrow bed in the dorm with five other firefighters.
“I’ve been going crazy thinking about you,” Beau muttered against Ali’s mouth.
“I don’t want you thinking about me when you’re working.” Ali trailed her fingers down Beau’s throat. The burn on Beau’s neck was minor, but it was the danger it represented that terrified her. She brushed her palm over Beau’s chest, envisioning the long scars beneath both collarbones. They were from chemotherapy ports, she knew now. Past threats, future dangers. Life was nothing but uncertainty. “God, Beau.”
“What,” Beau said, resting her pelvis against Ali’s, her thighs and lower abdomen molding to Ali.
Ali kept her demons to herself. Beau didn’t need to be reminded of what she’d gone through, and Ali was certain Beau would hate knowing she was thinking about her illness. She understood a patient’s need to discount illness and disease when faced with their own mortality. For a teenager, for whom mortality was a foreign concept, acceptance of a life-threatening illness was practically impossible. All that remained for a young woman faced with what Beau had gone through was anger and denial. Was it any wonder Beau taunted death? Or perhaps, courted it. Ali kissed her again, less out of passion now than from a deep desire to ease that long-ago hurt.
“What are you thinking, hmm?” Beau asked when they stopped to catch their breath. She feathered her fingers through Ali’s hair. “What’s bothering you?”
