The kid comes in around six with a gash across his scalp that's pumping blood down his face and soaking the collar of his Star Wars t-shirt. His mother carries him through the front doorsideways, both of them drenched, the wind slamming the door shut behind them hard enough to rattle the frame.
Jess transforms.
I've seen it before. At Sarah's place when a neighbor's kid fell off the porch railing, at the Fourth of July cookout when a firework misfired and singed Colt's arm. The moment someone needs a medic, the guarded woman with the walls and the sharp tongue disappears, and this other version of Jess steps forward. Commanding. Steady. A force of nature that makes the actual hurricane outside feel like weather.
"On the table. Hold his hand and keep talking to him." She snaps her gloves on and tilts the boy's chin toward the light, parting the bloody hair with sure fingers. "Hey, buddy. What's your name?"
"J-Jayden." His lip trembles. Tears and blood mix on his cheeks.
"Jayden. Cool name. Did you know hurricanes have names too? This one's Maren. Pretty lame name for a hurricane, right?"
A wet hiccup. "Yeah."
"I bet you could name a way better hurricane. What would you call it?"
"Uh..." His face scrunches. "Destructo-nator."
"See? Way better. Hold still for me, Jayden. You're going to feel a pinch." She glances up, at me. "Gauze."
I'm already reaching for it. I have the packet open and the strip folded before her hand extends, and when she takes it our fingers brush and her scent spikes—surprise, warm and quick, because I knew what she needed before she asked.
She numbs the wound and starts stitching. Six neat sutures while Jayden tells her about his dog and his Lego collection and the treehouse his dad built that probably blew away, she listens to every word, asks follow-up questions, laughs at a joke about his dog eating homework. The kid stops crying by the second stitch. By the fourth, he's grinning.
His mother mouthsthank youacross the table, tears streaming, and Jess nods once without breaking stride.
I hand her the bandage before she reaches for it.
Afterward, the mother carries Jayden out to the waiting area where an evacuation volunteer will drive them to the shelter inland. Rain hammers the plywood we spent two hours bolting over every window on the ground floor, and the building groans under the wind.
Jess strips her gloves and drops them in the biohazard bin, washes her hands, and then rolls her shoulders like she's shaking off a weight.
"You were amazing."
She stiffens. Shakes her head. "I did my job."
"That kid came in terrified and you had him laughing while you stitched his scalp." I lean against the doorframe, arms crossed, keeping my voice steady. "That's not a job. That's a gift."
She turns. Her eyes narrow. She's trying to fit sincere-Finn into the box she's built for me. The flirt. The joker. The playboy VP who can't be serious about anything, least of all her.
"Don't do that." Her voice is quiet.
"Do what?"
"Be..." She gestures at me, frustrated. "This."
"Honest?"
She holds my gaze for two beats, and I watch the defensive anger thin out until all that's left is the curiosity she's been fighting since the garden. Her scent shifts—warmer, more open, a thread of heat winding through the caution that makes my hands itch to close the distance between us.
I don't. Because if I touch her now she'll bolt, and I'd rather stand in this hallway smelling her want and saying nothing than push her back behind a wall that took me months to get her to peek over.
The radio on the counter crackles.
"National Weather Service has upgraded Hurricane Maren to Category 4. Landfall expected within four hours. All residents in coastal zones are advised to seek immediate shelter."
My stomach drops. Not for the storm. For her. This building. The two of us alone inside it while a Cat 4 hurricane tears the coast apart, no evacuation route, no backup, no one coming until the wind dies. And if a single shingle flies through a window, if the roof buckles, if the storm surge floods the first floor—if anything happens to her—I'll tear this town apart with my bare hands and it won't matter because she'll already be gone and I'll already be done.
Jess reaches across the counter and clicks the radio off. Her hand trembles once before she flattens it against the surface.
