His eyes bulge. Not a good sign.
“You’rewhat?” he gasps. His voice bounces off the ceiling. My face flushes as the guy he dismissed secondsearlier turns his head and takes this already anxiety-riddled moment to a whole new level.
Reed Morgan is here.
In the barracks.
With my dad and ex-best friend.
I circle back to everything we talked about on the plane. Not once did he mention his career to me. But judging by the sparkle in his eyes, he’s pleasantly surprised to see me. This was not part of the plan.
Jack clasps my arm. “Since when did you get an EMT license?”
My blood simmers beneath my skin. He’s not happy about it. I recoil from him.
“Since I moved to Utah. I tried to tell you a dozen different times, but you never pick up your phone,” I argue. A pointless dispute to bring up with a man married to his job.
“Karen never said?—”
“Anything, I know,” I finish for him.
I didn’t realize he talked to Aunt Karen about me all that much. I mean, he used to. When he brought me home from the hospital, alone, she moved in to help take care of me. He’d leave me with her for long periods of time while pursuing his career. When it came to parent/teacher conferences and annual checkups, she became the emergency contact. My full-time not-legal guardian.
“I told her not to,” I continue. “I wanted to be the one to tell you. I thought…” I push out an awkward laugh-breath and then shake it away. “Anyway, I can see now this was a very bad idea. I need to go unpack my things.”
I turn away and he does nothing to stop me.
I knew it was a risk coming here. One that I was willing to take, right up until a moment ago when he treated me like I wasjust another member of his crew, bossing me around about all of my life decisions.
What did I expect? A “Congratulations”? An “I’m proud of you”? He didn’t do that when I graduated high school.
But there’s no turning back now. He’ll have to get used to having me here, and I’ll have to get used to his constant state of disappointment.
“How’s the antiseptic stash looking?” Ben, my new coworker, says as I stare out the back window.
The EMT quarters face a wall of ponderosa pines. But that’s not what caught my eye three minutes ago. I’m gawking at the newest recruit of Iron Summit. He’s in a deep squat with his palms planted on his knees, and I get a full view of Reed Morgan’s backside pointed in my direction. If I thought the shirt he wore on the plane was tight around his biceps, these pants fuse to him.
“Hailey?” Ben repeats.
He’s the supervising paramedic I met when I arrived, and if it weren’t for needing to speak to my father, I would have stuck around and let him finish the tour he was giving me. Now I’ve been tasked with replenishing the medical supplies for the next fire, and I’m not making a very good first impression with the pace at which I’m accomplishing things. I don’t have a clue where anything is.
“Oh, uh…” I mumble, dropping my attention. I count three cans and report it to Ben.
“Huh, that’s funny. Because it looks to me like there are six,” he says, leaning over me and inspecting the case I’m holding.The center folds up like a kaboodle and—he’s right. There are three more cans I missed underneath.
I study my hands before looking up at his green eyes. “Sorry.”
Ben is good-looking. With dark-brown hair and a full five-o’clock shadow, there’s nothing unappealing about his face. But he’s also not squat-and-stretch-for-a-mile-long-hike attractive. And with that, I’m back to staring out the window.
“Who’s the guy?” Ben says, and takes a seat on the chair next to me, ready to organize a pile of gauze.
I still when I see Reed elbowing someone else. I’ve been spending so much time preparing to confront my father that I hadn’t considered Dean McCafferty. At this rate, it won’t be long before our paths cross and I’ll have to face my childhood best friend.
I pry my gaze away from the window and back to my hands. “Just someone I met once,” I say to Ben.
“What’s his secret?”
I look up at him, confused. “I’m sorry?”
