by Jaci Burton
“Doesn’t matter. She turned me down.”
“Oh. Well, maybe she’s seeing someone.”
“She’s not. I asked. And, anyway, her reply when I asked her was . . .”
She drew her knees up to her chest. “Was what?”
“I don’t know. She seemed . . . horrified. And then she apologized and stumbled all over herself complimenting me.”
“Huh.” She frowned.
“What does that mean?”
“I don’t know. You should ask her to clarify.”
He laughed. “I’m definitely not asking her again.”
“Why not? Maybe you caught her off guard and she wasn’t prepared for the question. Maybe she was flustered and didn’t know how to answer.”
“And maybe she’s just not interested.”
“Maybe she’s not. But if you’re interested, you should ask her again.”
“I don’t know.”
She nudged him with her shoulder. “I realize being turned down is new territory for you, Rafe, but if you like her, ask her again. Or at least ask her to explain her answer.”
There was no way in hell Rafe was going to push things with Carmen. They lived next door to each other. If things went bad, they’d have to see each other all the time. It would be awkward—forever.
Nope. Not gonna happen.
“And you know, Becks, I get turned down all the time.”
She laughed. “Sure you do.” She slid off the couch. “I have to go get ready for work. But if you want to talk about this some more, I’m always here for you.”
He watched her walk away.
He trusted Becks. She’d been part of their group when they were homeless kids. They’d been close. She was like a sister to him. When she and Jackson had fallen in love, it had made Rafe so damn happy he could hardly hold it all in. Becks was family.
But on this? She was way off base.
Though after Becks left for work, he thought about it some more. Had he misinterpreted Carmen’s response? Rafe knew no meant no, in all things regarding women. His mom had taught him that early on when he’d first started dating, and that was the way he’d always operated. So the thought of pushing Carmen on this seemed like a bad idea.
He decided the best way to handle it was not to handle it at all. He put on his tennis shoes and decided to go for a walk to stretch his muscles and clear his head.
He did three miles and wished like hell he could have run those three miles, but until he got the all clear from the doctor, he knew he had to obey the edict. At least he was moving. As he walked past Carmen’s house, he noticed Jimmy, Carmen’s grandfather, sitting in his wheelchair outside. Jimmy waved to him, so he walked up to the porch.
“Morning, Jimmy.”
“Rafe. Out for a walk?”
“Yes, sir. How are you doing today?”
“Just fine. Catching a little hot summer air. You doin’ the same?”
Rafe smiled. “Seems that way.”
“I was about to grab some iced tea. Can I interest you in a glass?”
“That sounds great. Thank you.”
Rafe held the door while Jimmy wheeled himself inside. His electric wheelchair offered him decent mobility, which was good. In the kitchen, he noticed that Carmen put everything in the lower cabinets within Jimmy’s reach, but then he saw Jimmy park the wheelchair and stand.
“Hey, look at you,” Rafe said.
Jimmy nodded. “I’m workin’ on it. My physical therapist is a bastard. Making me stand and move around with the walker and the cane.”
“You probably hate it, and then you also love that you’re more mobile.”
Jimmy smiled. “Yeah, something like that.”
There was nothing more important to a man than being independent, so Rafe stayed out of his way while Jimmy grabbed two glasses, filled them with ice and took a pitcher out of the refrigerator. He didn’t offer to help, because you didn’t take away a man’s dignity by doing things for him when he already had physical restrictions.
Jimmy handed the glass to him.
“Thanks.” Rafe took a couple large swallows. “This is good.”
“Carmen makes the best iced tea in Florida.”
Rafe laughed. “I don’t disagree with you.”
“Come on over and let’s sit by the window.”
They had a similar floor plan to Rafe’s house, except that Rafe and his brothers had renovated their house before they’d moved in.
They sat at the table, and Rafe noticed Jimmy had a deck of cards sitting there.
“Are you playing some solitaire?”
“I’m looking to play a little poker. You up for it?”
“You know it. Let’s get started.”
Jimmy dealt and then promptly kicked Rafe’s ass. The man was lethal at poker. But since they weren’t playing for real money, it wasn’t like Rafe was losing anything. Except maybe his dignity.
Rafe studied his cards on the current hand. “I’ll take two.”
Jimmy handed him the cards, then took two for himself.
He looked around. “I take it Carmen is at work today?”
Jimmy didn’t look up from his cards. “Mm-hmm.”
Rafe placed his bet. “I call.”
“Four kings,” Jimmy said.
“Dammit, Jimmy.” Rafe laid down his three jacks. “You got a loaded deck or something?”
He laughed. “No. I’m just better at this than you are.”
They played several more rounds, and Rafe managed to actually win a couple of hands, so he didn’t feel like a total loser. Rafe refilled both their glasses with iced tea while Jimmy went to the bathroom. After that, they ate some sandwiches for lunch.
Rafe munched on his chips and looked around. “Carmen keeps herself busy, doesn’t she?”
“She does.”
“Work and keeping this place up. Does she . . . date anyone?”
Jimmy’s lips curved. “Asked her out, didn’t you?”
Obviously, he couldn’t slip anything past the sharp old man. “Yeah.”
“And she turned you down, didn’t she?”
Rafe sighed. “Yeah.”
Jimmy nodded. “She’s a tough woman, my bebita. Her exterior—like a hard shell. But she’s soft on the inside, Rafe. She’s had some very hard times. It’s made her wary about men.”
Hearing Jimmy talk about Carmen like this shed an entirely new light on her and made him want to know more about her. “I didn’t know. She hasn’t told me anything.”
Jimmy gave him a look that meant serious business. “It’s not my place to tell her story. Just . . . if you’re interested, don’t give up on her. She’s worth it.”
“Okay. I won’t.” He sat up straighter after that lecture, leaning into this conversation. Jimmy had given him a lot to think about.
Despite getting his ass handed to him in poker, Rafe found the day enlightening.
And he changed his mind about asking Carmen out again.
CHAPTER 6
“I WANT YOU TO MONITOR THE PATIENT IN SEVEN. HIS breathing is uneven, his white cell count is elevated and his BP is through the roof. No history of asthma or COPD. We’re waiting on blood test results, and I need to make sure that now that he’s had a treatment, his breathing improves. I asked for a report every thirty minutes. If you don’t mind actually doing your job, make sure you give me those reports.”
Carmen counted slowly to three in her head before answering the doctor. “I’ll make sure that’s taken care of, Dr. Ventura.”
The doctor turned and walked away while Carmen took her internal count all the way to ten to avoid throwing her extremely expensive portable netbook at Dr. Ventura’s head.
Brody Anderson was thirty-three years old, had never smoked, held a job as a grocery store manager and had a wife and three little boys. He seemed very nice. He was also very sick right now. She checked his vitals, which seemed stable, and his blood pressure appeared to be coming down, which was a good sign. His wife, Ka
ren, sat at his bedside, looking almost as pale as Brody.
“The fact that he’s resting right now is good,” Carmen told her.
“I just don’t know what happened. He never gets sick. Then he woke up this morning short of breath and looking deathly pale. It came out of nowhere.”
“Don’t worry. We’ll get it figured out. You should try to rest, too.”
Karen shook her head. “I can’t. All I want to do is . . . watch him breathe.”
Karen’s eyes filled with tears.
Carmen had seen a lot of crying in the ER over the years and steeled herself against the emotional aspect of her job. If she didn’t, she’d fall apart every day. But that didn’t mean she’d lost all sense of empathy.
“We’re doing everything we can to find out what’s wrong, Mrs. Anderson. And you should try to rest. If you tax yourself too much with worry, you won’t be able to help your husband.”
She nodded. “You’re right. Thank you. Everyone here is so nice.”
Carmen smiled at her, then left the room.
Almost everyone here was nice.
She sent her report in, though she doubted Ventura would pay attention. The man had a typical God complex. She’d seen it countless times over the years. Some doctors would come in, do their jobs and get along well with everyone. But every now and then there’d be one like Forrest Ventura who thought he was owed something. He had a connected family, came from money, and because his father was a big name in the city, he thought everyone should bow down to him.
To Carmen, the only way you earned respect in the ER was to do your damn job, just like everyone else. If you cared about the patients, if you worked as hard as everyone else, you were appreciated. If you didn’t, you needed to get the hell out of everyone else’s way.
Her responsibility was to monitor what her nurses were doing, which included all the patients on her wing. Because she hired exceptional nurses, she rarely had anything to worry about. Today, everything was running smoothly, which meant she had more time to concentrate on the one patient who needed extra care—Mr. Anderson.
“Front desk said someone’s asking for you,” Bonita, the unit clerk, said.
She frowned. “For me?”
“Yes. Some good-looking guy in a firefighter’s uniform.”
He wouldn’t . . . Well, maybe he would. “Okay, send him on back.”
She would have gone out to the front, but she wanted to stay close to her patient in case anything changed.
Rafe walked through the double doors a few minutes later. He looked amazing in his dark blue firefighter pants and T-shirt.
“Back to work?”
“Just left the doctor and got a clean bill of health, so I’m released to full duties. And since I was next door at the medical offices, I thought I’d stop off here and say hello.”
She pushed back the giddy sensation in her stomach. “I’m kind of busy.”
“I know you are. But I wanted to take a few seconds to ask you out to dinner tomorrow night.”
“Rafe, I already said—”
“Just as a friendly thank-you for being there for me the night I got hurt. It gave me peace of mind to have you taking care of me. You made me relax.”
“I just did my job.”
“But I knew you. If you hadn’t been there, I’d have fought the whole thing.”
“Still, I—”
“Just let me take you to dinner to thank you. Kind of like you make me casseroles when I help take care of your grandpa? Only I’m not cooking.”
She couldn’t argue with that. Well, she could, but what harm would a thank-you dinner do? “Okay, sure. Dinner tomorrow night.”
“Great. Are you on shift tomorrow?”
“Yes. I get off at six.”
“You just let me know what time I can pick you up.”
“Seven thirty?”
He gave her a grin that made her tingle all over. “Sure. Seven thirty sounds great. I’ll see you then.”
“I didn’t get a report thirty minutes ago, Ms. Lewis.”
Just the sound of Dr. Ventura’s voice sent electric rage surging through her nerve endings. But she turned and smiled at him. “I’ve sent you two reports in the past thirty minutes, Dr. Ventura. Mr. Anderson’s vitals are stable, and the blood reports are in.”
He looked at her with a tight-lipped expression. “Fine. But you can entertain your boyfriends on your own time.”
He walked away.
Rafe frowned. “Who’s the dickhead?”
“Chief resident and resident pain in my ass.”
“Want me to go kick the shit out of him?”
“No, thanks. I can handle him.”
Rafe gave her a knowing smile. “I’ll just bet you can. I gotta run. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Okay. See you, Rafe.”
She leaned against the nurses station desk and watched him walk away.
That man had a very fine ass.
“Did I hear right?” Tess asked, coming up to stand next to her as Rafe disappeared through the double doors. “You have a date with hottie McFireman?”
Carmen shook her head. “Not a date. Just dinner.”
“He asked you out to dinner, right?”
“Yes, but just to thank me for taking care of him when he was here in the ER.”
“Uh-huh.”
“What does that mean?”
“Nothing. Very nice of him. I hope he takes you to a good place for dinner.”
She knew Tess. And the one thing she knew was that Tess always spoke her mind. She definitely had something to say, and whatever it was, she wasn’t saying it.
“Okay, spill.”
Tess looked around. They were currently alone at the desk. “Fine. He likes you, Carmen. It’s obvious. So why not enjoy him? Go out to dinner, and then see what happens.”
“Nothing’s going to happen.”
“Why not? You don’t have to make him your forever and ever. No commitment required. But aren’t you tired of sleeping alone at night?”
She had to admit the answer to that was a resounding yes. But the thought of dating again made her shudder. Tod had made such a mess of their marriage, leaving a sour taste in her mouth for all things love.
“I don’t know, Tess. I don’t associate dating with anything pleasant.”
“Which is your ex’s fault. You can’t blame the entire male population for his mistakes. Give men another chance.”
Since she was tired of this conversation, and mainly because she knew Tess was right, she nodded. “Fine. I’ll have dinner with Rafe. But just dinner. Nothing else.”
Tess’s lips curved. “Of course. Just dinner. But I’m coming over after work tomorrow to help you choose an outfit.”
“You don’t trust me to dress appropriately?”
“I think you’d toss on a pair of capris and a random shirt and call it good. I’m going to make sure you’re dressed to kill.”
Ridiculous. “I’m not Cinderella, Rafe isn’t the prince and we’re not going to a ball. It’s just dinner, Tess.”
“Maybe it’s just dinner, and maybe there’ll be dessert. I aim to make sure you’re dressed for dessert.”
Carmen rolled her eyes at Tess’s insinuation that there would be any fooling around. She could barely bring herself to have dinner with a guy, let alone have sex with him. “I’m not having dessert.”
“Depending on how dinner goes, you might be interested in whatever decadent dessert Rafe is offering.”
“Whatever. You can come help me pick out clothes, okay?” Tess grinned. “Outstanding. Now I need to go check on Mrs. Fillipo.”
“You do that.”
Carmen was going to go do her job and not think about dinner with Rafe tomorrow night.
Where there would absolutely be no dessert.
CHAPTER 7
AFTER NEARLY A WEEK OF NO ACTIVITY, WALKING INTO the fire station felt exhilarating. And the welcome from Rafe’s firefighter brothers and sisters made h
is heart swell. It felt like coming home again. These people were part of his family. He’d missed them.
Rafe never took his job for granted. He knew what it took to be a firefighter. He also knew the risks. His dad had taught him that from an early age, when he came to live with the Donovans. After he came off shift, Dad would tell him stories about what had gone down. His father had never shied away from honesty, and when they asked questions about the fires, he’d always been honest with them.
After all, Rafe and his brothers had lived through one. He figured that’s probably why they had all joined the squad. Not only surviving a fire but being rescued by an amazing man.
Being lucky enough to be adopted into that world was something Rafe was incredibly grateful for, especially considering where he’d come from.
He walked down the hall and stopped as he saw Captain Kendall Mathias. The captain shook his hand.
“Welcome back,” Captain Mathias said.
“Thank you, sir.”
“Got your release?”
“Yes, sir.” He handed the paperwork to the captain.
“You took a hell of a hit from that backdraft. Glad your injury wasn’t more serious.”
“Me, too.”
“Don’t let it happen again. Good firefighters like you are hard to come by.”
It was a warm compliment, shrouded in an admonishment. But Rafe took it for what it was—his gruff captain’s welcome back.
“I’ll be more careful in the future, sir.”
Captain Mathias nodded and disappeared down the hall. His captain was a man of few words, but Rafe respected him. He got the job done and wasn’t afraid to put himself on the front lines with his team.
He found the rest of the squad in the kitchen. With the welcome he got, he felt like he’d been gone for months, instead of just a couple of shifts. They had even held breakfast so they could all eat together.
“Glad you didn’t die,” Tommy Rodriguez said, winking at him.
“He’s just glad you took the blast instead of him since you were in front of him,” Zep Richards said.
Rafe laughed and scooped the egg-and-ham casserole onto his plate. “Hey, that’s what a firefighter brother does for another.”
