"She will be," Nash says with more confidence than I think any of us feel. He hangs up, closes the apartment door firmly so nobody can peek in or see what's happening. The click of the lock is oddly reassuring.
He's at my side immediately. "Is she actually okay? Or do we need to take her to the emergency room?"
I look up at him. Nash's face is tight with worry—more worried than I've seen him in years. His jaw is clenched, his hands are fisted at his sides, and his scent is spiked with anxiety that's making the air feel thicker.
I sigh. "She should be okay. But she did hit her head pretty hard, so I'll need to monitor her when she wakes up. Check for signs of internal bleeding or brain swelling. Concussion symptoms."
I pause, then add: "Sorry. It's the habit. From when I was a paramedic."
Past tense. Was. I was a paramedic for exactly six months and fourteen days before one traumatic ride set me careening out of that career path far too fast for anyone's comfort including my own.
Before I responded to a multi-vehicle accident on the highway where we had seven critical patients and only two ambulances. Before I had to decide who got transported first based on who had the best chance of survival instead of who needed help most urgently. Before I watched a nineteen-year-old girl die because we made the call to take the middle-aged man with better vitals first.
Before I realized that triage protocols and survival statistics don't account for the weight of those choices. For the nightmares. For the way you start seeing every car ride as a potential disaster and every person as a collection of vital signs that could fail at any moment.
So I decided that maybe ranching and writing romance novels was a safer way to spend my life. Safer for me. Safer for the people who might have depended on me making clear-headed decisions in crisis situations when I was barely holding it together.
Sure, I help out here and there when the local ambulance service is truly short-staffed and desperate enough to call me. But never again as a career. Never again putting myself in situations where I have to play god and decide who lives and who dies based on training that can't account for humanity.
But the training never leaves. The muscle memory. The clinical assessment skills. The ability to shut down emotion and just do what needs to be done. It's both a blessing and a curse.
"Can you get her some pajamas or something?" I ask Nash, refocusing. "So we can change her out of this wet towel. Check her closet or dresser."
He nods, moving immediately toward what I assume is her sleeping area in this tiny studio apartment.
I take the opportunity to remove the wet towel. Try very, very hard not to look. Not to admire. Not to let my eyes linger on curves and soft skin and everything my hindbrain is screaming about with increasing urgency.
She's beautiful. Objectively, undeniably, breathtakingly beautiful in a way that makes my chest tight and my hands shake. Soft everywhere—curves that beg to be touched, skin that looks like cream and honey mixed together with starlight. Her scent without the towel barrier is overwhelming, filling my nose and lungs until I can barely think straight. Vanilla buttercream and caramel and citrus so bright and cheerful it makes my mouth water and my cock twitch inappropriately.
Her breasts are perfect. Her waist dips in just right. Her hips flare in a way that screams Omega, screams fertile, screams mine in a voice so primal I almost don't recognize it as my own thought.
I grab one of the dry towels Nash brought and quickly cover her. Wrap it around her body like armor. Protection from the cold apartment air and from my own wandering eyes that have no business looking at an unconscious woman like she's a feast spread out for my consumption.
Don't blush. You're thirty years old and you've seen naked Omegas before. You've written detailed love scenes in your novels that would make most people blush. This is medical. Professional. You're helping her because she's hurt and vulnerable, not because you're hoping for anything in return.
But this is different. This isn't some casual encounter or a scene I'm writing from the safety of my laptop. This is Reverie—the Omega who smiled at me in the bookstore, who lit up when I bought her those extra books, who seemed genuinely grateful instead of entitled. The Omega Nash signed us up to bea temporary pack for. The Omega who might actually be ours, even if just for a little while.
How do circumstances work like this? One day you're alone, settled into your routine of ranching and writing and existing alongside your packmates. The next day there's an Omega unconscious on her couch and you're holding her in nothing but a towel wondering how your life got so complicated so fast.
But I care more about her being okay than anything else right now. More than the contract. More than the arrangement. More than the fact that she's gorgeous and smells like every fantasy I've ever had. I need her to wake up. I need her to be okay. I need to know I didn't fail someone else.
Nash returns with pajamas. Christmas-themed—pink fabric covered in candy canes and lollipops in cheerful reds and greens and whites, looking brand new with the tags still attached and the crisp fold lines from packaging visible. Perfect. He probably found them in a drawer still in their original wrapping, didn't have to scrounge through worn clothes or invade her privacy more than necessary.
She probably bought them for herself as a little treat. Something festive and fun for the holidays. Maybe on sale somewhere because she's clearly on a tight budget. And now here we are using them in an emergency instead of her wearing them for a cozy Christmas morning.
"These work?" he asks, holding them up.
"Perfect. I'll change her." I take the pajamas, their fabric soft against my hands. "Can you work on the flooding situation? See if you can minimize damage to the apartment below? Last thing she needs is angry neighbors or a lawsuit from the shop owner downstairs. Check if there's a mop or towels we can use."
Nash nods, already moving with that focused energy he gets when he has a problem to solve. "On it. I'll see what I can do."
I get to work dressing her. It's significantly harder than it should be—trying to maintain some semblance of modesty while getting unconscious limbs into clothing that doesn't want to cooperate. Trying not to jostle her head because you're never supposed to move someone with a head injury unnecessarily. Trying to keep that towel positioned strategically while also needing to remove it to get the pajamas on.
Romance novels make this look easy and even sexy. The hero dressing the unconscious heroine with one hand while fighting off bad guys with the other, all smooth competence and smoldering looks. Reality is awkward and clumsy and I'm pretty sure I'm doing this wrong but she's decent and warm and that's what matters.
Her arms are limp when I try to thread them through sleeves. Her body is completely dead weight, making everything exponentially harder. I have to support her head with one hand while maneuvering fabric with the other, all while trying not to think about how soft her skin is or how she fits against me or how protective I feel right now.
The pajamas fit well once I finally get them on—soft cotton that looks warm and comfortable. The candy cane pattern is cheerful and innocent and somehow makes her look even more vulnerable. She looks younger like this. Smaller. Like someone who needs protecting more than she'd ever admit.
