He blushes slightly. “To get you to smile like that. What did he do?”
Am I smiling? My fingers brush my lips, and sure enough, they’re lifted up at the corners.
What is it about Reed Morgan? I grinned like a little girl the entire way from the airport to the Ridley’s Family Market bus stop in McCall, the sound of his voice sayingRemember me, Redrunning on a chronic loop in my head. I shake it to clear the fog that descends over my thoughts even now.
“He doesn’t take life very seriously. Which is entertaining to be around.”
I let my gaze drift to the window once more. He’s picked up a shovel-like hand tool and is swinging it in the air like a lightsaber in front of Dean’s chest.
I didn’t realize how much I admired that about Reed when we met this morning. The fact that he’s so playful. All I could focus on was my skepticism of his intentions like I do with most guys these days.
But then he sang for me.
Something I know he did to get a laugh out of me and lighten my burden.
The same thing he’s trying to do for his squad leader right now. But it doesn’t look like Dean McCafferty thinksStar Warsreenactments are very funny.
“I didn’t take you as the type of girl who liked the class clown,” Ben says, like he knows me intimately and we didn’t just meet for the first time two hours ago.
“I never said I liked him. I said I met him once, and he was entertaining to be around. I like stability,” I tell him, like I’m reminding myself.
He smiles at that, but I don’t acknowledge it. I have zero intentions of leading a guy to believe I’m open to anything. Especially not one I work with. Not even if he’s attractive and has a quarter-sized dimple in his smile.
“Is it often this quiet around here?” I ask, needing a subject change.
He chuckles. “Are you bored already?”
“I guess I’m just used to… busier. I worked for the University of Utah’s Emergency Department before this.” On average, we treated anywhere from eighty to a hundred patients in a single twelve-hour shift.
He nods and tosses the gauze into a box at his side. “Fire is unpredictable,” he says. “Some days are slammed. Others are a waiting game. But this right here is what we want.” He waves his arm around the empty room, pointing to the two vacant beds and lack of wounded patients in them.
“Right.”
I panic on the inside. How will I ever keep busy enough to avoid my two biggest problems in this place: a father who isn’t speaking to me and a deceitful friend.
But then a six-foot-something frame dodges past my window. He makes his way over to an opening in the pine trees, and my attention paves the trail he’s walking.
On second thought… make that three.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
REED
“Iknow, baby, I’m sorry. I wish I could get out of it.” McCafferty paces in a figure eight, cooing into his phone. “Aw, come on. You know I hate being apart too. It’ll go by fast. I’ll see you in a couple of weeks.”
When Jack assigned the quarterback of the football team to train me, I thought we’d hit the ground running. Instead, I’ve been sitting on a cement ledge behind the barracks, waiting for him to finish his conversation. It’s giving me too much time to stew about the fact that it wasn’t my talent that got me this job but my father’s connections.
There’s a brief pause before he adds, “Love you, too, baby,” and I nearly vomit onto my boots before his call finally disconnects. Maybe it’s the ninety-degree heat before noon. More likely, it’s that I came here to get away from the opposite gender—never mind Hailey showing up—not follow around some lovesick puppy all day.
I jump off the wall. “Ball and chain troubles?”
He glares at me, but I don’t take it personally.
“None of your business,” he snaps. “I’m your squad leader, not your roommate.”
A smirk slithers across my face. I guess nobody told him that part.
He braces a stopwatch in front of his face and punches a couple of buttons on the side. “Standard PT test. Twenty-five push-ups. One minute. Go.”
