Between the eggnog and covering his ass, Nick hadn’t been too clear on the details of who. It had sounded like he’d know who they were, even if they hadn’t gotten an invite.
Alice looked surprised. “Was her face like that when she got here?” she asked.
“Don’t know,” Dylan said. “Probably not, though. Nick said she didn’t want to be here at first…”
“She’s definitely not dressed for a party,” Alice said.
“I hadn’t noticed.”
Alice rolled her eyes. “You wouldn’t,” she muttered under her breath.
Dylan ignored that.
“Things got worse when they were asked to leave, Irene refused to go with him—the man who brought her—and that’s when he got rough with her. And when her new admirer stepped in.”
Alice grimaced, the corners of her mouth turned down. “Now I feel bad for having an attitude with him,” she said. “And for Irene. Even if she’s not being fair to you, she’s had the worst Christmas two years in a row.”
There might be some who could argue with that. Not Dylan. He might not be too happy about being roped into the family business, and he was definitely in over his head, but there were…some perks.
Dylan’s lips tingled at the memory of frost-chilled kisses and hunger. He had to cough to clear his suddenly dry throat before he could get back to the problem inhand.
“Go check on Irene,” he said. “See if she’ll get in the ambulance if I’m driving. I’ll get on Med Control.”
Alice nodded and turned to go. She stopped after a few steps and spun back around.
“Oh, and happy birthday,” she said with a grin. “In advance, since I probably won’t see you on the day.”
“No one ever does,” Dylan said. It was meant to be a joke, but the problem with inside jokes was that…sometimes…they just sounded unnecessarily dark. Especially when you’d grown up in foster care and the only one “inside” the joke was you. Alice looked as if Dylan’s throwaway line had knocked the wind out of her. Dylan racked his brain quickly for a takeback. He chuckled awkwardly and went with, “Now you know why I hate Christmas.”
That didnotwork. Alice just creased her face up like she’d seen a sick puppy.
“I never thought of that,” she said.
Oh, this was going to follow him. Dylan held up his hand to stem the wave of sympathy headed his way.
“It was a joke,” he said. “It’s fine. Go.”
Alice hesitated, but finally did as she was told. As she walked away, Dylan sighed to himself and rubbed the back of his neck.
He couldn’t even pull off “jolly.” One year in and the whole Santa gig still didn’t come naturally to him, bloodline or not.
It was one of those sour-grape thoughts that came and went. This time, though, the bad taste lingered as it occurred to Dylan that Irene might have a point. Just because he’d not done anything to her, didn’t mean her problems hadn’t started because of him.
He could try and pass the buck to the person who’d murdered Dylan’s estranged grandfather, the incumbent Santa Claus. It was usually easy to pin things on someone who’d commit violence against the most beloved of seasonal avatars. The time, though, it didn’t work. The killer might have set the ball rolling when he…did whatever he did…but it was Dylan who’d brought it into Irene’s life.
Not on purpose, but if he’d not been at theJust-as-Highthat night then maybe she’d have been happily married.
Or, Dylan thought dryly as he remembered the unprepossessing drunk whose head he’d stitched up,married, at least.
One way or another.
It was a mean enough thought that Dylan felt awkwardly exposed.
“Dispatch, this is medic eighteen,” he said. “We’ve had a soft refusal here based on previous contact. Can you free up any other team to transport an expectant woman to Belling General?”
They could not, as it turned out.
Between brawls, car accidents, and alcohol poisoning, the Belling paramedics were all occupied. Either Irene got in the bus with Dylan or she signed a waiver that she was refusing the ride against medical advice.
