Mark looked away as he considered her words. Daniel continued with the business of medicine. He could not participate in a conversation where a father needed to be goaded back to caring for his child.
Mark looked at Daniel. “You married?” Why did this guy feel the need to keep talking to him?
“Not anymore.” Daniel’s words were clipped. They had an IV going, and the bleeding was temporarily under control, but they needed to get Mark onto the chopper. He caught Crista’s eye and nodded, indicating that they were ready to move.
“Too bad. I loved my Lisa. She—she was everything,” Mark sobbed again as they moved him into the ambulance.
Daniel couldn’t hold his peace any longer. “Maybe she was—I don’t know,” he growled. “But what I do know is that you have a little boy. You’re a father. Nothing trumps that. Nothing.” His voice was gruff and filled with anger—not at all the comforting tone of a paramedic or a nurse practitioner. “You want your little boy in foster care?”
Crista glared at him, burning holes right through him. “Daniel!” Personal stuff had no place on the job. Besides, if there was no other family, little Nick was headed into the system for the foreseeable future, just based on Mark’s activities tonight.
But Mark was staring at him. “No—of course not!” He looked wildly around and tried to sit up. “I need to get to him.”
Daniel pushed him down. “You’re not going anywhere except into this ambulance and onto the helicopter. Your family will watch Nick until we get you patched up.”
“My brother. Call my brother.”
Crista took the brother’s information as Daniel did a sweep of the area to make sure they had gathered all of their equipment, and that was when he saw her. Annika Mehta. He would have missed her in the dark, except that she stood under a streetlight. For the third time that night, Daniel froze midjob. Her wild curls were pushed into a ponytail, but the curve of her jaw and cheekbones were already familiar to him. She was unmistakable. Was it possible that she was even more striking now?
She wore a dark apron withPhil’s Placeemblazoned across it. In the dim light of the street, her brown skin looked almost golden, and she didn’t smile at anyone. As he watched her, she folded her arms across the name and shivered in the cool air. An older man with salt and pepper in his beard started herding people back into the bar. Her gaze passed over Daniel, and he had the sensation of being scanned. She was too far away for him to know if she recognized him, but then how could she? She had never even opened her eyes that night. His stomach did a flip at the possibility.
The older man spoke. “All right, now. Nothing left to see. Come on back in. Next round’s on the house.”
Daniel was lost in her movements as she slowly turned and followed the customers back into the bar. She hung her head slightly, and as she passed the older man, he rested a hand on her shoulder. She lifted her face to him and smiled. Daniel just barely caught that smile in the faded light, but it put his heart in a viselike grip. He couldn’t remember ever having seen something so beautiful, yet so sad.
“Daniel!” Crista called out to him. “If I have to corral you in one more time tonight...!” Crista always looked out for Daniel, but she couldn’t be expected to save lives alone.
“Yeah, okay. I’m with you.” Daniel took an extra second and caught a quick glimpse of Annika Mehta through the large window of the bar. She was behind the bar, pouring beers, warmth exuding from her very being. A few pieces of hair escaped the ponytail, and she tucked them behind her ear. The movement was so casual, yet so intimate, that Daniel suddenly longed to be the one tucking back those rogue pieces of hair himself.
“Goddamn it, Daniel!”
The trance broken, Daniel forced himself to break his gaze. He followed Crista to the ambulance that took them and their patient to the chopper.
Once back in flight, Daniel focused on a now-compliant and regretful Mark and getting him safely to the surgeons who could help him.
Thoughts of Annika standing in the streetlight floated in and out of his mind, unbidden. Her smile warmed him. He could think of nothing else except what it might feel like to hold her again. A tiny amount of lightness crept into him. This was all new to him. He hadn’t felt anything like this in almost five years.
It felt like hope.
CHAPTER THREE
ANNIKA
ANNIKASHIVEREDINthe night chill while the EMTs tended to the gunshot victim. Well, the victim had fired first, clearly distraught by the death of his wife. He’d gone on and on about it inside the bar. Annika hadn’t really paid him much attention. Her mind was still reeling from the realization that one of her student’s parents had quite bluntly insulted her on the basis of her skin color. On her very first day teaching.
When the distraught man had pulled the gun on himself, Phil had pushed the button that he’d always had in his bar—the one that summoned the police. Phil managed to talk the man outside before the cops showed. One thing led to another, and before Annika knew what was happening, the man had fired his gun at the police, who were forced to return fire.
She glanced up in the night sky as she heard the helicopter, and shortly thereafter a fire engine arrived. Two flight medics disembarked the chopper. They approached the EMTs with the calm sense of urgency that was second nature to emergency personnel.
The one in the lead was tall and well built—that was apparent even in his flight suit. His stride was long and purposeful, and Annika could tell from where she stood that he was completely unaware of his own presence and was singularly focused on his patient. He called for light and began to prepare his patient for helicopter travel. He spoke to the EMT, then he froze.
Annika watched him with curiosity. Working in a bar, she had seen more than one paramedic administer care. But she’d rarely seen one falter at the scene. He had been listening to the EMT as he worked, and suddenly, in the middle of a life-saving situation, he’d stopped. It was only for a second or two, before he gathered himself. But by then it looked like his partner had taken over.
Once they stabilized their patient, the medics packed their stuff and made to leave. The one in charge looked in her direction and stopped. As if he knew her. Annika did not meet his gaze. Men often looked at her, and she found the easiest thing was to not make eye contact. Who had given him permission to look at her like that? Was he looking at her because she was brown? Was that something people noticed all the time? She’d never had these thoughts before today.
No, this man was looking at her like he knew her. Ridiculous. He didn’t know her.
No one really did.
