by Zoe York
I like you just fine. What the hell did that mean? He objectively did not like her. He didn’t want to work with her, he didn’t like the way she took care of his daughter, he didn’t like the way she bought celery.
He grabbed a piece of paper and scrawled on it in black marker. “Good. You should be there.”
“What?”
He stood up, slowly, and handed the paper across the desk. It had a date, time and location on it.
She stared at the paper, then up at him, then back to the paper. “Just like that?”
“I won’t go.” Was that an offer, or a statement?
Wordlessly, she reached out and took the paper. Then she swallowed hard. “We bring different perspectives. We should both go.”
The tight, hesitant beat he waited before responding just about killed her. “All right.”
Yeah. Relief flooded through her, bringing a delayed onset of hot, complicated tears to her eyes, so she spun on her heel and left before he could notice them.
She went back to the clinic, put the meeting on her calendar, then checked her schedule for the rest of the week. She laughed out loud when she saw that Becca had an appointment on the calendar for Saturday—but Jenna was going to see her, not Kerry. She hated that she felt relief at that, but after her run in with Owen right now, it was for the best.
But avoiding Kincaids wasn’t that easy. That night, when she’d had enough of lying on her couch and watching the giant clock on her wall not move, she went over to the Green Hedgehog to find some of the soccer players.
Lore was behind the bar, but the only other person Kerry recognized in the place was Adam Kincaid, who was at a table with his friend Silent Stevie. He waved, and she returned the gesture, then took a seat at the bar.
“What’s the drink of the day?” Kerry asked.
Lore gave her a wicked grin. “A Michelada. The Canuck Edition, if you will.”
Kerry didn’t know what a Michelada was, but she was in. Lore’s concoctions were always worth the gamble. “I will.”
When the bartender reached for the Caesar rim mix, Kerry thought she should warn her to make it not too strong, because she was driving, but as the drink building progressed, she realized it wasn’t a shot of vodka that would be the base of the drink, but…beer from the tap.
“Just try it,” Lore said as she pushed the cocktail across the bar. “It tastes like summer.”
She was three sips in when Adam appeared beside her. “I’ll have one of those, too.”
Kerry glanced over her shoulder. Silent Stevie was nowhere to be seen. “How’s it going, Adam?”
“You know. Work. Play.” He winked.
She laughed. “In equal measure?”
“For now.” He shrugged. “How about you? How’s it going?”
I stormed into your brother’s office and yelled at him. “You know.”
“Work and play?”
She lifted her glass. “Mostly work. Although soccer practice is ramping up, so…”
Adam accepted his own drink from Lore, who leaned in. They chatted about the state of the soccer fields—still wet from the heavy spring rainfall—and the co-ed team Lore and Adam had tried to get going, and before Kerry knew it, she was at the bottom of her glass.
Lore tapped her fingernails on the bar top. “Do you want another?”
Kerry thought about her lack of a social life, and her light schedule for the next day. Then she glanced at the drive-home service number on the wall and nodded. “Yep.”
Adam shrugged. “I’ll take another, too.”
“Maybe there would be more interest in a co-ed indoor soccer league come next winter,” Lore said after she set their next round in front of them. “So we don’t have to compete with the existing teams. What do you think?”
Adam shrugged.
Someone waved at Lore from across the room, and she excused herself.
Kerry took a long sip. “What don’t you like about the indoor soccer idea?”
He paused.
Kerry held up her hands. “If it’s none of my business, just tell me. I’m the new girl, just here to have some fun.”
“It’s nothing. It’s a good idea, I just don’t know if I can commit to it.” Adam squeezed his lime garnish into the drink. “Who knows where I’ll be come the winter.”
“Nothing wrong with keeping things open,” Kerry said lightly. “I moved here on a complete whim and it’s turned out to be a pretty good idea.”
Adam glanced at her sideways. “But it’s mostly work.”
“That’s all right.” The truth of that reply surprised her. For all her self-talk about needing to get out there and have some fun, maybe meet a new friend to take to bed, this was all the socializing she actually wanted right now. Friends to share a drink with so she didn’t have to stew on being grumpy with Owen.
He was grumpy enough for the both of them, thank you very much.
The door to the bar swung open, and in walked Bailey Patel. Kerry waved her over, and Adam got up. “I’ll give Bailey my seat. Nice to see you again, Kerry.”
Bailey gave her a silent, raised eyebrow inquisition as the youngest Kincaid brother sauntered in the direction of the back room where there were pool tables.
“Look at you, hanging with the Canadian Hemsworths.”
It was a mistake for Kerry to try to take a sip of her drink as Bailey got settled. The fizzy beer and clamato cocktail was not pleasant to snort. “What?”
“You know. The Hemsworths. Australia’s finest.”
“I’m familiar.” Kerry wiped her face with a napkin.
“Adam is Liam, of course.”
“And which one is Owen?”
“Luke. The bad boy oldest.” Bailey paused. “There are more Kincaids, though. They don’t map exactly.”
Kerry was pretty sure that Owen wasn’t that much of a bad boy. He was more like the stern, uptight dad type—who just happened to look like a darker Hemsworth, okay, she could see that now.
“Will is the one who isn’t an actor,” Bailey said confidently. “He’s the elementary school principal.”
Kerry frowned. “One of the Hemsworth brothers is a school principal?”
Bailey giggled. “No. One of the Kincaid brothers is. Will.”
“Oh. Right. You said that. But then you called him an actor.”
“It was a metaphor.”
“I don’t think that’s a metaphor.”
“A simile?”
Kerry snorted. She was definitely tipsy. “I don’t know.”
“If one of the Hemsworth brothers didn’t act, is what I meant. Will is the one who is not like the others. The others are all your classic bad boys. Join the army, see the world. Come back occasionally to charm some of us out of our panties.”
Kerry sat up straighter. “You?”
Bailey shook her head. “I’ve never had the pleasure, but rumour has it Adam has been having a good time since he’s moved back. So you can see why I did the eyebrow wiggle.”
Kerry shook her head. “It’s definitely not that. He’s cute, but not my type.” Too young. Too flirty. “He moved me into my apartment. That’s how we met. We’re just friends.”
Bailey looked disappointed.
“He’s so young to be an Army veteran,” Kerry murmured, thinking about Silent Stevie and Too-Charming Adam. Maybe they were two sides to the same coin. “You said they all joined the army?”
“Pretty much. One of them—Seth—he joined the Air Force.”
“Interesting. Owen was in the army, huh?”
“Still is. He does the army reserve once a week. Have you seen him around town in his uniform?”
No, she hadn’t. Kerry tried and failed to ignore the mental picture. She already had a robust catalogue of Owen images in her head, despite all conscious efforts to not be attracted to him. Owen in a t-shirt, revealing his tattoo. Owen in his paramedics uniform, sprawled out in his office chair, passively watching as she yelled at him. That last one was really we
ird, because it shouldn’t be hot, and yet it was. And then there was the best/worst one, Owen holding her wrist and telling her he liked her just fine. She swallowed hard.
“I know, right? A Hemsworth in camouflage. Almost irresistible, if it weren’t for Becca. With that salt and pepper in his beard…”
Kerry frowned. She knew what her friend meant all right. If it weren’t for Becca, she’d go for Owen too, and it would be a terrible mistake.
But it didn’t take much for her imagination to run away with the way his hand had felt on her wrist, the tight squeeze of his fingers, and the hot glare he’d given her—just for a second—before he announced he liked her. Just fine.
She shivered.
It was one thing to have a forbidden crush on the guy, because he was an asshole and she liked that a little in her fantasies. She liked his brittle crust, the way he wore it like a Viking going into battle.
She liked it—from a distance. She liked it in all the ways people usually liked bad boys. She could twist the way he’d said I like you just fine and give it a hard edge that made her wild. He could say it as he stroked his big, rough hands over her body, as he raked his gaze across her naked flesh.
“Oh, Kerry.” Bailey’s eyes were wide.
“No.” Kerry shook her head vigorously. “Nope.”
“Do you like Owen?” her friend whispered, but it was the kind of stage whisper Kerry worried people might hear. Nobody else was paying them any attention, but that could change in a heartbeat.
“I genuinely do not like Owen.” Kerry could say that firmly because it was the truth.
She didn’t like him. She might want him sometimes. That had zip-fork-all to do with liking a person.
Chapter Nine
Owen frowned at the note on the calendar, which caught his eye as he slugged back his first coffee of the day. “Do you have an appointment today?”
Becca didn’t answer as she moved around the kitchen getting ready. It was Saturday, but they both had to work.
She didn’t usually have appointments on the weekend.
“Bec?”
“Uh…yeah.”
“Do you want company? I can come with you after I check in at the station.”
“No, I’m good. Thanks.”
“All right.” He pulled open the fridge. “Chicken for dinner?”
“If you can cook it while I’m at work.”
“Slow cooker it is.” He threw some sauce in with the meat, turned it on low, and put the lid on it. “I have to work some nights this coming week. Can you feed yourself?”
“Yeah. Or I’ll go to Mom’s, get a visit in. Between work and school, suddenly weeks go by without seeing her, and she likes to rub the belly.”
Owen laughed. Then he frowned. “Isn’t she going to your appointment with you?”
Becca made a face. “Dad…”
“What?”
“Never mind.” Then she sighed heavily. “No, not never mind. Look, I’m taking Hayden to the appointment. That’s why it’s today, so he can go and not miss school or work.”
Owen dropped the lettuce on the counter. “What?”
“I told you we’ve been talking. He wants to be involved. A bit.”
“That’s not how parenting works.”
She ignored that barb. “It’s just an appointment. And he has a right to be a part of the pregnancy.”
Owen grabbed his sandwich and shoved it into his bag. He’d promised to be supportive and have Becca’s back, but the “a bit” grated at him.
“Dad—”
“Thanks for being honest with me,” he said, stopping and looking right at her. Eye contact. “I appreciate it. I do. But that’s all you’re getting.”
“Thanks for being honest,” she parroted back.
He gave her a quick hug. “I gotta run. If he dodges the appointment, text me and I can meet you there.”
“He won’t.” She said it with all the innocent confidence an eighteen-year-old could muster, her chin jutted proudly in the air.
Owen wanted desperately for her to be right.
But when she was, when she texted him a picture of her leg next to a skinny-assed eighteen-year-old boy’s leg, sitting together on the couch in the waiting room at the clinic, the feeling that swept through him wasn’t relief that she hadn’t been stood up. It wasn’t any kind of pain or worry that this would end badly for her, either.
It was regret that he didn’t have an excuse to go and see Kerry, to maybe hang back and apologize if he could get the words out of his mouth in the right order. The need to see her and fix things pulsed inside him, thick and complicated. He’d wanted to use his daughter’s appointment to get into the midwife’s good graces. Ah, hell.
He would see her in a few weeks at the first interagency working group meeting. Somehow that thought didn’t make him feel better. If anything, it chipped away at him. The chances of him making a good impression on her at that meeting were slim to fucking none and he knew it. He just couldn’t get his act together around Kerry.
When he arrived at the station, he parked his truck around back, checked the schedule to see who should be in, and then went into the ambulance bay to keep an eye on the team hand offs from one shift to the next. On weekend shifts he tried to avoid doing the office admin work that often kept him behind a desk, so when the team was all set for the day, he hopped in his supervisor SUV and headed up the peninsula, putting himself in the field for a bit.
His loop took him into Lion’s Head, and as he pulled into the centre of town, a call came in from dispatch. An unconscious woman, injury unknown. A soccer team practice near the lighthouse. He was the closest vehicle, and an ambulance was ten minutes out.
“10-4,” he acknowledged, then flipped on his lights and siren.
He saw the group as soon as he turned the corner. He recognized one of them, Lore D’Angelo, a bartender and former troop of his. She was waving to get his attention, and he stopped right in front of her.
“Report?” He asked her as he hopped out and grabbed his gear from the back.
“Bailey fainted. We were running hill repeats, got to the top, and she keeled over. She’s a good runner, Owen.”
He nodded, listening to her, but his gaze was locked on the crowd, his focus on getting to the middle of it. The women parted for him, revealing Bailey Patel unconscious on the ground—and Kerry kneeling next to her, her fingers on the younger woman’s wrist and neck.
What are you doing here? But it wasn’t the time or place, and the answer was obvious. Becca’s appointment must have been with Jenna, and Owen felt like an idiot for wanting to shove himself into the middle of that.
The midwife was dressed like the others, in running shorts and a long-sleeved technical shirt. She had one sleeve shoved up her arm, revealing her watch, and she only spared him a cool, split-second glance before she looked back at her wrist. “Pulse is strong and regular, skin is pale and cold.” She rattled off a vital signs report that included observed respiration rate and a rough oxygen assessment based on extremities colour, which hadn’t changed. “She’s been unconscious now for three minutes without stirring. We called 911 right away because she’s never had an incident like this before, according to the rest of the team.”
Three minutes was a long time, especially for a patient who didn’t have a history of syncopal episodes. The strong pulse was a good sign, though. Owen set down his bag and snapped on a pair of gloves, checked her pulse for himself to confirm Kerry’s assessment, then grabbed his pen light. “Hey Bailey, can you hear me? What happened, kiddo?” He checked her pupils, and as soon as he flashed the light in her eyes, she stirred with a weak groan.
Kerry murmured encouraging words, and Owen sat back on his heels. Bailey lifted one hand, but it flopped back to the ground.
“Hey there, take it easy. Keep your head down for me, okay? Did she hit her head on the way down?” He looked across at Kerry, who met his gaze with detached professionalism.
“I don’t
think so. I was at the back of the pack, but Lore was right there, and I think she caught Bailey on the way down.” She looked around, and the bartender stepped forward, her face worried and pinched. “Is that right, Lore?”
“Yeah. She fell back into me, and I couldn’t hold her.”
“Sounds like you broke her fall. That’s great.” Didn’t sound like there was a risk of a neck injury. Owen hovered over Bailey, who blinked her eyes open, but then closed them again. “Hey, there. Take your time. But in a minute, an ambulance is going to pull up, very exciting stuff.”
“Nooo,” she groaned. “I’m fine.”
“How does your head feel?”
She made a weak face. “It hurts.”
“Anything else uncomfortable?”
“No.”
He rocked back on his heels. “Let’s try to sit you up, then. Careful.”
Kerry took one side and he took the other, and they eased her up to sitting—just in time for Matt Foster and Dani Minelli to pull up with their lights going, too.
“Hey, boss,” Dani said as she got out of the ambulance. “What do we have here?”
Bailey waved at her. “Nothing.”
“We’re still figuring that out,” Owen said. “Syncopal episode, LOC duration of three minutes—”
“Three minutes and thirty three seconds,” Kerry interjected.
He corrected himself, then finished giving his paramedics the report. Dani took over from there, getting a history from Bailey as the young woman adjusted to sitting, then standing.
Owen stepped away from the group and reported in to dispatch. He could leave now, and maybe he should, but he didn’t. Instead, he went back to the circle, where Bailey was insisting she was fine.
“We can transport you to hospital,” Dani offered. “Let the docs take a look at you. Or you can sign off saying you’re good to go home, but you shouldn’t be alone for the next few hours.”
“I’ll stay with her,” Kerry offered.
Owen bit his lower lip, but Dani was on it. She listed the potential causes of a syncopal episode, quickly and without drama, and reiterated that if this was a first instance, it might represent a new medical condition worth getting checked out.
