Soledad narrowed her eyes. “Let it go, maybe?”
“You know me better,” Sassy tossed back, opening the driver’s door of the Bronco. “I won, anyway.”
“And he never called me again,” Soledad concluded.
“If a man scares that easily,” Sassy said, tossing her purse across the driver’s seat into the passenger’s, “he’s not worth your time.”
“You have a point there.” Soledad’s smile warmed. “I think I really do like this one.”
“Then I advise you caution him against any grand declarations of food-related superiority. Unless, of course, he’s secure enough in his manhood to lose to someone of my stature,” she added, indicating her height limitations with a wave of her hand.
“I’ll be sure to warn him.” Soledad laughed. “Come on. Crank her up. Let’s see if she’s decided to run this afternoon.”
Sassy hopped up into the high driver’s seat with one foot on the running board and the other clutching the edge of the door jamb. She clambered into place, inserted the key into the ignition and gave it a twist.
The engine complained. It whined as it tried to turn over once…twice… On the third try, it caught. Sassy mashed on the accelerator until the engine responded readily. She beamed at Soledad. “Good as new.”
Soledad pointed to the back of the vehicle. “There’s black smoke coming out of your tailpipe.”
“The filter’s probably just clogged,” Sassy guessed. “I’ll run her by the mechanic’s shop on the way back from the hospital and see about getting it changed.”
Soledad nodded, but concern still knit her brow. “Call if you don’t make it.”
“She’ll make it,” Sassy said and shut the door. She refused to let her confidence wobble, even when she shifted into Park and the engine hesitated. “Stick with me, girl,” she murmured as she eased her foot off the brake. “We’ve been through too much together to fall apart now.”
* * *
She didn’t make it. The Bronco broke down three blocks from the hospital. Sassy had enough time to pull to the shoulder, coaxing the Wagon into a parallel parking space.
As she got out of the vehicle, she squatted down to see if the back tires had made it over the painted line and cursed when she saw that they hadn’t. She would have to walk the last few blocks to Baldwin Memorial Hospital and could only hope she didn’t return to find a double-parking ticket on her windshield.
As she lugged the paintings for the children’s wing down the sidewalk, wishing she’d remembered to grab her beanie from the truck to cover her ears from the chill breeze knifing through the streets, she passed Dark Canyon Fire Station.
The bays were open, the fire engines in full view. An ambulance had been parked out front, its rear doors spread open. As she watched, a man bent low into the patient bay.
Her feet slowed as she admired the way his trim waist angled down to meet his beltline. Part of his broad upper back was visible to her, the light blue material of his Dark Canyon Rescue shirt straining against working muscles. His black pants, turned up smartly at his ankles, formed nicely to the shape of his rear.
Her head canted in admiration even as her mother, Bly’s, voice wafted distantly between her ears.Look away, Haseya. It’s not nice to ogle…
The man stretched to his full height, a cleaning towel folded in one hand. He reached out to close one of the doors, turning his head just enough for her to see the angle of his profile.
Her steps halted altogether.What. The. Hell?
The paramedic was no mystery man. It was Nick.
A guilty flush sank into her cheeks faster than she could spurn it. She shook her head in automatic denial as her gaze arrested on the display of his biceps flaring against the short sleeve of his left arm and something low in her belly stirred. A frisson of warmth that spread slowly in all directions as his curly hair fell across his brow in the exact same way she’d seen it do since grade school, making her reaction disproportionate. The warmth spread outward in a circle of yearning that madeno flipping sense.
This is Nick, she thought.Robotics club Nick. Former D&D dungeon master Nick. Six-years of brace-face Nick. Tuba-playing, double-dog-daring, sci-fi movie–obsessedNick!
Her partner in crime. Her ride-or-die. Her pinkie promise best friend of almost twenty years. She knew the exact date of his tonsillectomy, how many teeth he’d lost in the fourth grade, how many times he’d puked during an unfortunate field trip to the Edge of the Cedars State Park Museum.
And still, as he turned to face the street where she froze like a deer in the headlights, the heat in her face reached a fever pitch and her panties…Dear God.Were they…melting?
Never in the last twenty years had she thought of Nick Malone and her underwear in the same breath.
This isnothappening.
As his gaze seized on her, the instinct to run hit her. She took a long step in retreat.
