She glanced up to see Dane regarding her with a knowing look on his face and a twinkle in his eyes. Crap, he hadn’t noticed how incredibly thorough that exam had been, had he?
Dane leaned in a little closer and chuckled softly in her ear. “You know there are easier ways to get me strapped down to a bed, right?”
She felt her face heat as she realized she’d definitely been caught. But instead of feeling embarrassed, she kind of felt…challenged. It was like Dane was playing with her, waiting to see how she’d react to his over-the-top line.
Lexi was still trying to come up with a snappy comeback, which she had to admit wasn’t her strong suit, when Captain Earl Stewart—their boss at Station 58—walked over to them. Nearing sixty and whipcord lean, he looked like he could still fight fires alongside the men and women under his command.
“I heard what happened,” the captain said. “How bad is it?”
He was looking at Lexi as he asked the question, but it was Dane who answered. “I’m good. Ready to get back in there.”
Stewart glanced at him, a scowl on his weathered face. “Was I talking to you?”
Dane opened his mouth to complain, but the captain had already turned back to Lexi. “Is he good?”
Lexi didn’t even have to think about it. She wasn’t going to let Dane go back in that building, no matter how much he wanted to.
“No, he’s not good,” she said, shaking her head. “It’s nothing serious, but he needs to go to a hospital and get checked out for possible cracked ribs and neck damage.”
“Captain—” Dane began, but Captain Stewart interrupted him.
“Put him in the next rescue vehicle heading to the hospital,” he said to Lexi, then jabbed a finger at Dane. “That’s an order.”
That ended the argument. Jax told Dane that he’d come pick him up later if he needed a ride, and less than a minute later, Lexi had him in the back of the rescue vehicle with her and Wayne while Trent drove. She would have preferred Dane on a gurney, but that would have meant waiting for another vehicle and she wasn’t willing to do that. So, instead, he sat beside her, listening as the older man told them about a piece of the ceiling falling down and hitting him on the head. She sat there and monitored both men’s vitals as they talked about what Wayne was going to do now.
“I don’t really know.” The older man’s face clouded. “Everything I owned was in that apartment. I don’t even have any fresh clothes to put on.”
“I think I can help with that,” Dane said. “We have plenty of clothes people donate to our firehouse for situations like this. I’ll make sure you get something to wear. Is there anyone you want me to call? Family, maybe…or friends?”
Wayne shook his head, his blue eyes sad. “Not really. Family’s all gone. Friends, too. Only me, now. I don’t even have any pictures of anybody anymore. They were all in my apartment.”
Dane gave him a small smile. “Don’t be too sure of that. Not all of the apartments are completely destroyed. There’s a good chance we’ll be able to get some of your stuff out of there.”
Lexi wasn’t too sure of that, but it was nice of Dane to give the older man some hope. It sounded like he really needed some of that right then.
As they drove to the hospital, she filled the intake forms out on the station-issued iPad, and listened in as Wayne told them about his family, friends, and a long life of travel and adventure as a sports reporter. Dane smiled at her once or twice, but mostly he sat there and listened to Wayne talk, occasionally asking questions the older man obviously wanted to answer. Wayne clearly enjoyed talking to Dane. Lexi could understand why. The big firefighter was the kind of person others were immediately drawn to. Lexi should know. She’d moved her butt all the way across town for a chance to work in the same station as Dane.
She’d had a thing for Dane from the moment she’d seen him at one of her first multi-alarm fires. Even dressed like every other firefighter there, he’d stood out. There was simply something special about him. Something more than the good looks, great body, and quick, boyish smile. After running into him at dozens of incident scenes and citywide department functions, she’d wanted to get to know him better. The problem had been getting him to notice her. She’d flirted when she’d gotten the chance, but he was a guy—which meant clueless. It didn’t help that her uniform wasn’t exactly the most alluring outfit she’d ever worn, and the department kind of frowned on wearing dresses and high heels during duty hours. So after talking to some of the female firefighters and paramedics at his station to make sure he wasn’t involved with anyone seriously, she’d asked for a transfer to 58.
Dane hadn’t been the only reason she’d requested the move, though. She wasn’t that insane. Moving to Station 58 was also a good career move.
Lexi had spent the past two years working at Station 44 over on Frank Street. It was a good station with great people, but it was one of the smaller stations in the DF&R, servicing mostly single-story residential homes. The work had been okay, but she’d become a paramedic so she could help people and use the skills she’d been taught. The best way to do that was to work at a station that went on a lot of calls, and Station 58 was one of the busiest squads in the city. Their area of responsibility covered everything from small homes to fifteen-story condos, and everything in between.
Then there were the facilities. Station 58 was one of the newer houses in the city, and the company had put a lot of work and effort into making the place amazing. They had state-of-the-art showers, an awesome dayroom with a big screen TV, a killer kitchen, and comfortable beds. It also didn’t hurt that Station 58 was much closer to her apartment.
So, she had a lot of good reasons for transferring to 58. But while she’d been here over two months, and had even managed to get on the same shift as Dane, she still hadn’t gotten him to notice her. In fact, checking him out after he’d fallen through the floor of a burning building was the closest she’d come to having a real moment with the man in two months.
Wow, that was sad.
Sighing, Lexi glanced out the front of the rescue vehicle to see that they’d arrived at the hospital. Trent pulled up to the sliding glass doors of the emergency center then came around to the back of the vehicle to help her with the gurney. Two nurses immediately met them inside. Trent explained the older man’s condition to one nurse while Lexi filled the other in on what had happened to Dane. A few minutes later, nurses whisked both patients to exam rooms, and she and Trent were left standing in the now empty hallway.
Well, crap. She’d missed her chance to talk to Dane again. Maybe she could convince Trent to hang around for a while so they could give Dane a ride back to the station. If they got a call, dispatch could still reach them on the radio.
“Hey, what’s up?”
Lexi turned to see her roommate and best friend, Melinda Turner, coming toward them. Petite, with blond hair and hazel eyes, Melinda was an emergency room nurse at the hospital.
“I’m going to check on the guy we brought in,” Trent said.
