They made it three steps before her coughing and wheezing overtook her.
“I’m going to help you,” he said, leaning close. He thought he saw a minute nod, but he didn’t spare the time to analyze.
He hoped like hell she didn’t have any unseen injuries as he hoisted her into his arms. She weighed next to nothing; if he hadn’t looked into her eyes, he’d think she was a child by her size.
The smoke was already burning the inside of his nose and all the way down his air passages into his lungs. Which meant the vic must be in a hell of a lot of pain.
Nate kept as low as possible, focused on finding the most direct way back out — not an easy task when he had crawled methodically back and forth over every inch of space looking for her, the smoke messing with his orientation, and couldn’t see two inches in front of his face. He suspected — hoped — the door was about fifteen feet ahead, on the other side of the couch.
The woman tightened her death squeeze on his neck with surprising strength, which was a good sign. Her will to survive was strong. She was likely going to need that in spades once he got her out of here into the paramedics’ hands.
As he made his way around another piece of furniture, something popped in front of his face and would’ve drawn a curse from him had he had oxygen to waste on it. A split second later, he realized it was his mask. She was offering him a fresh breath. His heart pounded in gratitude that was probably less than heroic, and he held it to his face, not stopping their slow progress as he sucked in one long breath of clean air. The very second his lungs were full, the low-air warning beep went off. Five minutes left on his supply. He paused long enough to make sure the mask was over the woman’s face again and then set off, knowing they had to be close to the place he’d entered, trusting his instincts, praying they were right and he wouldn’t let this woman down.
They made it out in less than four minutes — the most excruciating four minutes of Nate’s life. Rafe and Niko, two of the paramedics, were waiting with a stretcher a few feet from the building. Nate paused in front of it, looked down into those brown eyes that seemed to implore him not to desert her. For a crazy second, he didn’t want to let her go.
“Rottinghaus?” Rafe shouted loudly enough to be heard over the racket.
It was enough to snap him out of his stupor.
“These guys are the best medics you could have,” he told the woman. “They’ll take good care of you.”
He lowered her to the stretcher, and they rushed her off before he could say another word.
Paige Hegel, another of the EMS team, hurried over to Nate and tried to usher him toward another ambulance.
“I’m fine,” he said, fighting not to cough, knowing it wouldn’t take much to get sent off to the hospital. “Just need to catch my breath.”
Chief Joe Mendoza approached with concern and purpose blazing from his eyes. He gestured to Nate and then to the ambulance, yelling something Nate couldn’t hear over all the commotion.
“He said you need to be checked,” Paige shouted, even though she was right next to him, her arm looped around his.
Nate opened his mouth to tell her what he thought of that, and damn if he didn’t start coughing.
He spotted a group around the brown-eyed woman he’d carried out, next to the first ambulance in line, and decided allowing Paige to smack some O2 on him would give him the chance to see how she was faring, check to see if she was still conscious or if her condition had worsened. He only wanted to check because she was his first rescue ever. Professional concern.
As Paige sat him down, hooked him up with a mask, and checked his vitals, he helplessly watched the paramedics work on the nameless woman about twenty feet away. He could only see the top of her dark head. Couldn’t tell whether she was moving or not.
His heart hammered, and he tried to convince himself it was just the rescue and the adrenaline rush that went with it. But as they loaded her in the box, their frantic pace telling him that every second was crucial, all he could see in his mind were those beautiful, terrified, determined eyes.
2
The next day, Nate made it almost three hours lying to himself after his shift ended at seven a.m. Telling himself he wasn’t going to check on the woman he’d helped out of the fire. Pretending he could get those brown eyes out of his mind.
Sophie Alexander. Age thirty-one. Owner of Green Systems Inc. That was the lump sum of the info he’d managed to glean between the time the crew had returned to the station after the fire and now. Not nearly enough. He was compelled to find out everything about her.
Dude, you sound like a psychopath or a stalker. Rein it in.
He entered the main door of the hospital instead of going through the ER department he was much more familiar with. No reason to call attention to the fact that he was visiting a woman he didn’t know. Sure, he’d heard of guys following up on the victims they rescued, but… He was afraid maybe he was too interested in seeing Sophie again. Nothing going on inside of him felt normal or acceptable. The need to see her again made no sense, at least not to the extent he felt it, and it meant one of two things: either he was acting like an overenthusiastic rookie about his first rescue, which wasn’t cool at all, especially for a guy who’d been fighting fires for fourteen years, or he had half a raging crush on a woman he’d never even had a conversation with before, which was, well … weird.
At the info desk, Nate whipped out his badge and flashed it at the fragile-looking but eager volunteer manning it, a woman who looked to be in her eighties. “I rescued a young woman from a fire last night and was wondering if you could give me her room number so I can check on her.”
The woman grinned warmly, as he’d expected. “I certainly can. Her name?”
Once he had the information he needed, he headed up to the third floor, wondering how many of Sophie’s family members and friends he’d have to reckon with. If her room was crowded, he’d just poke his head in, reassure himself that Sophie was okay, and get the hell out.
He needn’t have worried about it. Sophie’s room was empty of visitors.
He was momentarily stunned by that revelation, and it took him a good three seconds to focus on Sophie’s face and realize she was out cold. He backed out of the room, alarmed. Had she lost consciousness and failed to come to yet? He hadn’t had a clear view of her at the scene, only of the people surrounding her, working on her. How serious was her condition? Smoke inhalation could be damn serious, but he’d assumed her case wasn’t critical based on the sole fact that she’d been conscious when he’d gotten her out of the building.
