She didn’t know much about him, as she hadn’t gone into Hunt that often over the last few months. The times she had ventured to town had been for the odd trivia night at the new and improved Buck’s Roadhouse, and Brodie for sure hadn’t been there. No way would she have missed someone so attractive who had piercing blue eyes like he possessed. But if she’d known he was around town, she may have made more of an effort to get to know him.
No. Her best friend in the whole world might be getting married, but she didn’t have time for a relationship. Her focus was on something else—adoption. Even Nadia didn’t know how serious she was about adopting a child. Her friend thought it was something she may think about doing in the future. Like years down the track.
She wasn’t going to let a handsome firefighter distract her from her end goal, no matter how much her body reacted to him in a way she hadn’t had happen in her whole dating life.
A light touch on her arm pulled her focus back to the task at hand. Shit, she’d been so lost in her thoughts, anything could’ve happened to the patient.
Cerise looked and found Nadia studying her intently, before she pressed a button on her headset. “You okay?”
Wearing the headset gave the impression Nadia was whispering in her ear. It was kind of weird because if someone was going to whisper in her ear, she’d much prefer if it was Brodie.
Geez, she’d spent a harrowing forty minutes in a cramped space with the guy and they’d hardly spoken, but she’d been aware of his every move. The guy shouldn’t take up as much headspace as he appeared to be doing. Knowing that Nadia was still waiting for her answer, she pressed her button to be heard in Nadia’s ears. “I’m fine. Monitoring the patient.”
Nadia’s eyebrows rose, as if she didn’t believe Cerise’s claim. So what if she’d told a little white lie? She was now going to focus on the patient for the rest of the flight. Plus it would keep her mind off a guy she shouldn’t be giving her attention to, or the fact that her stomach somersaulted with every little dip or turn the helicopter made. Give her a big Boeing jet any day.
Ninety minutes later, back in the hospital, after having turned their patient over to surgery, Cerise headed into the break room, exhaustion biting at her heels. The large clock on the wall showed 3 a.m. She had another two hours before she could head home and collapse on her bed. Although going home to an empty house didn’t appeal. She missed having to watch where she stepped because Finn had left either his shoes or soccer ball on the ground.
Her heart ached for the little foster boy who’d lived with her off and on over the last few of months. He needed stability in his life and he wasn’t getting it from the person he should’ve been—his aunt. His only living relative. But Poppy treated him like he was a commodity that could be given back when it didn’t suit her to have him around. And then repossess him when she decided she did want her nephew after all.
Cerise shook off the thoughts. Maybe this time Poppy would step up to the plate, accept the responsibility of being a good aunt, and give Finn the loving home he needed.
“I hear you and Boston had your first life flight emergency tonight?” She jumped at the sound of Mitch Alexander’s voice coming from behind her.
“Geez, Mitch, give a girl some warning.”
He laughed. “Sorry. I’ll try and make more noise next time.”
“You are so not sorry,” she grumbled back.
The man standing near her was a completely different person to the one she’d always known. Nadia’s love and support had allowed him to face his demons from his time in the Army and get back to the job he was made for—being a surgeon. The medical center was happy to have him on their staff. It had been a very sad day when Nadia had moved out to live with him. It had been then that she’d decided she would become a foster mom. Sure, her hours didn’t make the task easy, but she worked around it and had a reliable babysitter on hand if she had to work the night shift.
“Nadia still in the ER?” he asked.
“Yeah. I’ve just come to grab a quick drink and then I’ll be back out there. They were bringing in more victims from the crash site.”
“I understand it was a pretty bad scene.”
Cerise thought back to the first look she got of the site from the air. It was like something from a movie, with the flashing lights of first responders vehicles as well as the wreckage that was strewn across the road. “Yeah, it was. There were two dead on the scene and we transported a critical patient.”
Mitch nodded as he grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge. “She’s still in surgery, I believe.”
“It was touch and go there for a while in the car.” She thought about how the three of them worked well together, as if they’dbeen doing it for years. “Brodie was a great help. Hunt VFD has lucked out with him on the team.”
“Oh, I wondered if Dice would be there. Makes sense he was called in, seeing he was a paramedic.”
“Dice? And was a paramedic?”
“Brodie. I call him Dice. And he works on my parents’ dude ranch now, but before he came to us, he was a paramedic.”
There was a bit of information there for her to decipher. Now Brodie’s calm demeanor in the face of a highly charged situation made sense. If he’d been a paramedic, he would’ve seen quite a bit of action. But why was he on a dude ranch now?
Cerise shook her head. She didn’t need to know, but she latched onto the one thing that had always intrigued her. “What is it with you guys and nicknames?”
“It’s something we do. I mean it’s pretty standard in the military to give out nicknames. Some guys’ names can be a mouthful, so it’s easier to come up with something shorter.” He swallowed some more water. “Just like you like glitter. We all have our thing.”
Cerise narrowed her eyes and placed her hands on her hips. “Watch it, Mitchell. You don’t disparage glitter and not expect consequences.”
Mitch laughed and held up his hands. “I surrender. Don’t glitter bomb me.”
