Authors: Jamie Denton
Cale’s grin widened. “A woman someone, no doubt.”
Drew frowned. “Yeah, so?” He knew he had a reputation within the department as a ladies’ man, however unfounded in his opinion, but it wasn’t like that this time. He’d been doing someone a favor, and well, when a woman fainted at his feet, his training took
over. Period. End of story. So what if he’d liked the way Emily Dugan’s big brown eyes sparkled when she’d looked at him? Was it a crime for him to appreciate a beautiful woman?
Cale’s laughter irritated Drew. “Only you, little brother, only you.”
Usually the ribbing he received from his brothers or the guys at Trinity Station failed to get a rise out of him. Unfortunately, today was a different story. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means that you don’t have enough women chasing after you, now you’ve got them falling at your feet.”
“It wasn’t like that.”
“Really?” Cale crossed his arms, his expression skeptical. “Then how was it? It’s not like you to wait around a hospital to find out about a patient.”
“Like I said, it’s a long story.” One he didn’t care to share with his brother at the moment, not when he had a hard time explaining his actions to himself.
“An interesting one, too, I’ll bet.” Cale sobered. “What’s her name?”
Drew let out a sigh. “Emily Dugan, not that it’s any of your business.”
“She was brought in for heat exhaustion, right?”
At Drew’s nod, Cale spun on his heel and headed toward the examination area.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Drew asked, following his brother.
“I wanna see her.”
“Why?”
Cale stopped and let out a stream of breath. “Curiosity. There’s a damn good reason if you’re hanging around a hospital when you don’t have to be here.” He repeated the words slowly, as if Drew was being deliberately obtuse. “I’m betting she’s one hot reason, too.”
Drew could continue to argue with Cale, thereby raising his brother’s suspicions and determination, or he could drop the subject as if it held little importance. Either way, he knew from a lifetime of experience, Cale wouldn’t back off until he’d thoroughly satisfied his curiosity.
Drew followed Cale through the electronic glass doors into the heart of the ER. Nurses, orderlies and physicians moved at a brisk pace between curtained partitions, through trauma room doors or hovered around a large horseshoe-shaped desk area, filling in charts, speaking on telephones or viewing lab reports in an efficient display of organized chaos. Positioned at the counter in a pair of mauve scrubs stood Tilly Jensen.
“Hey, Tils,” Cale called to their childhood friend and neighbor. “Where’s the woman Drew brought in? The heat exhaustion.”
“Curtain three,” she told Cale.
Tilly glanced up from the chart she’d been reading, her gaze intent on Drew. He and Tilly had been best buddies from the time he and his brothers first went to live with their aunt Debbie. Tilly’s mother had died in childbirth, and the Perry boys had not only lost their mother, but their father, who had passed away less than two years later. The Perrys and Tilly had been
kindred spirits, with Debbie Perry filling a void in all their lives.
“She’s going to be fine.” Tilly pushed a stray lock of her soft brown, chin-length hair behind her ear. “We don’t think it was the heat, but we’re waiting on labs just to be sure before we release her. It shouldn’t be much longer, then you can take her home.”
“Thanks,” Drew said, oddly relieved, yet frustrated with himself for even harboring the emotion. Heat exhaustion or heatstroke could easily be fatal if not immediately treated. He ignored the knowing lift of his brother’s eyebrows and attempted to convince himself the relief stemmed from the fact he’d been handy when Emily had needed someone with a modicum of medical training.
The argument was a hard sell, even to himself.
“What about her grandmother?” Drew asked. “Velma Norris?”
Tilly capped her pen and stuffed it into the front pocket of her scrubs. “She’s staying the night. Her burn isn’t too bad, but her doctor decided to keep her for observation as a precaution because of her age.”
A doctor motioned for Tilly. “Curtain three,” she said to Drew, pointing down a short corridor, before heading into another room.
Cale was unusually quiet as they neared Emily. Drew pushed through the opening in the curtain and his heart thumped heavily against his ribs.
Emily lay resting on a gurney. With her eyes closed and the cloud of wavy shoulder-length blond hair surrounding her face, she looked like something out of a
fairy tale, waiting for the right guy to come along and kiss her awake so they could live happily ever after.
He didn’t believe in fairy tales.
She must have sensed their presence. Her lashes fluttered, and then Drew found himself drawn into a pair of big soul-searching eyes the color of sweet, dark chocolate. Cale’s assessment of
hot
didn’t exactly sum up Drew’s impression.
Breathtaking
did, however.
She looked from Drew to Cale, then back at Drew. The barest hint of a smile curved her lips. “Please, tell me I’m not seeing double.”
“Nah.” Cale stepped up to the gurney. “There’s two of us. I’m Drew’s older, much better-looking brother.”
Drew ignored that comment and adjusted the head of the gurney for Emily as she attempted to sit upright. “Emily Dugan, my brother, Cale. The maladjusted middle child.”
“Middle? You mean there’s more of you?” Her gaze scanned them both again. “And you’re both firemen?”
“Paramedic,” Cale said. “Drew here likes to catch firebugs, and Ben, our oldest brother, he’s the firefighter.”
Emily frowned and looked at Drew. “You’re an arson inspector?”
Cale slapped a hand down on Drew’s shoulder. “Yup, he knows what a fire thinks.”
“Don’t you have somewhere to go?” Drew asked his brother.
“Not at the moment.” Cale never could take a hint.
Drew decided to continue ignoring him. “Have they told you about your grandmother?” he asked Emily.
She nodded. “I’m going up to see her as soon as they release me. Do you know how it happened?”
He had a pretty good idea. Someone was setting fires. Until today, no one had been injured. Velma Norris’s burns might not be life-threatening, but next time she might not be as fortunate.
“A fire was smoldering in the trash bin outside the school,” Drew told Emily. “When your grandmother opened the bin, oxygen fed the flames. Her right hand and part of her forearm were injured.”
Emily opened her mouth to say something just as a young doctor pushed through the curtain. He glanced at Emily, then at Drew and Cale. “Which one of you is responsible for the patient?”
“I am,” Drew said, before he could stop himself. He wasn’t
really
responsible for her, but he sure felt as if he’d been assigned the task of taking care of her. Exactly why, however, remained a mystery, especially since rescuing damsels in distress was Cale’s gig, not his.
The doctor looked down at the chart, then back at Emily. “We have good news. Your labs came back in good order, and there were no signs of heatstroke. But I do suggest you take it easy and be sure to drink plenty of liquids as a precaution.”
“May I leave now?” Emily asked, a hopeful note in her husky voice. The kind of voice that held the power to drift over a man’s heart.
The doctor nodded, then tucked the chart under his arm. He gave Drew a stern look. “Don’t leave her alone tonight. Just to be on the safe side…considering.”
Drew frowned. “Considering?”
“Yes, considering her condition.” The doctor smiled suddenly and extended his right hand to Drew. “You’re going to be a father, Mr. Dugan. Congratulations!”
P
REGNANT?
How on earth had that happened?
Emily wasn’t stupid or naive. She knew all about the
how
, but the
whys
and
why nows
had her more than a little dumbfounded.
Alone on her grandmother’s side of the semiprivate room, amid the get-well bouquets already arriving from friends and relatives, Emily lounged in the hard taupe vinyl chair and absently nibbled on her thumbnail while staring at the television screen where Pat Sajak interviewed the contestants on
Wheel of Fortune
. She hadn’t spent five minutes alone with Grandy when an orderly had come and taken her away for therapy on her hand and arm, which was probably a good thing. At least Emily had a few minutes to herself to try to absorb the news the doctor had given her.
Drew had left, too. Well, run away was more like it after the doctor had mistakenly assumed she and Drew were together, not that she could blame the gorgeous arson inspector. She’d been as shocked by the news as Drew had been horrified by the doctor’s assumption. Drew’s brother had been highly amused, something which had brought a nurse in to ask Cale to leave because his chuckles were disturbing the other patients.
Drew had really surprised her when, despite everything, he’d told her he’d come back for her in a couple of hours so she’d have some time to visit her grandmother, no matter how much she’d insisted otherwise. Didn’t she have enough problems without the unwanted attention of a handsome stranger, who was apparently very into playing Prince Valiant? Obviously someone thought her plate wasn’t quite full enough.
Not that she was all that worried about it since she’d sworn off men, effective immediately.
She let out a sigh, her third in as many minutes.
Pregnant?
How on earth had
that
happened?
Better yet, how had her life managed to spin so completely out of control in virtually the blink of her eyes. She’d been a successful advertising executive, leading a creative team through a multibillion dollar ad campaign for a major department-store chain. She’d believed she was in a secure, stable and very comfortable long-term relationship, living together with her own supposed Mr. Right in an absolutely perfect two-bedroom, rent-controlled apartment on the west side. The next thing she knew, she was not only unemployed and single, but homeless and now pregnant, as well. All in the space of twenty-four hours.
Forget lemons. Life had handed her a whole basketful of limes, which everyone knew were much more bitter-tasting. In her state of impending motherhood, she didn’t even have the luxury of being able to reach for the closest bottle of tequila and shaker of salt to make the best of a bad situation.
She nipped the skin surrounding her thumbnail and
winced. On the other side of the pink-and-gray striped curtain, Grandy’s roomy snored softly while a very enthusiastic young woman bought vowels on the television. If Emily was feeling sorry for herself, which she wasn’t, she figured even Shakespeare would be hard-pressed to write anything more tragic than the mess her life had become. Somehow, everything had managed to tilt so far off balance, she wondered if she dared tempt fate by holding even an ounce of hope that she might regain a modicum of control. She’d leapt from being a smart, savvy businesswoman with not only solid goals for her professional future, but with a finely detailed map of what she planned to accomplish in her personal life, onto an emotional roller coaster with more twists and turns than she could keep up with, even on a good day.
How in the world had
that
happened?
Before she did more damage to her thumb, she wrapped her arms around her middle and leaned forward in the chair. She was pregnant, something she figured would take her a little time to get used to.
But she’d been on birth control, for crying out loud. Why now, especially since her so-called boyfriend had dumped her for another woman just two hours before her flight to Los Angeles. For a junior partner in his law firm, he’d said. A woman more in tune with his professional needs.
Professional needs? The last time she’d looked, relationships were based on matters of the heart.
Charlie, now unaffectionately known as Cheatin’ Charlie, hadn’t even had the decency to end their relationship
in private, but in the passenger check-in area of JFK Airport, of all places. Correction, he’d ended their relationship
and
informed her he would have her stuff moved into storage while she was in L.A. Considering she’d just been handed a pink slip the day before, along with twenty percent of the work force at Anderson and McIntyre Advertising because of corporate downsizing, she hadn’t put up much of a fight. Yep, she’d gone from smart and savvy all right…straight to doormat.
Perhaps she’d just been too stunned to feel anything. With one striking blow after another, who could blame her? Even now, a dozen or so hours later, she still had a hard time mustering up anything close to an emotional outburst, angry, hurt or otherwise where Cheatin’ Charlie Pruitt was concerned. Well, other than the fact that she’d decided to swear off men for a good long while. And for good reason, too.
Charlie wasn’t the first bad choice she’d made in the relationship department. According to her small group of women friends, she was practically famous for her lousy choices. If she wanted to examine her twenty-seven-year history of relationships truthfully, which she most certainly did not, even she knew they were right. When it came to the opposite sex, she had a radar for men that were wrong for her, and the track record to substantiate the claim.
High school had been a series of dating disasters she’d tried hard to forget once she went away to college. She hadn’t dated much her first couple of years, but her junior year she’d met and fallen head over
heels for Rick Murdoch. He’d been premed, an all-American track star and vice president of the junior class. He’d also been stunningly gorgeous, just the kind of guy women spent hours drooling over in magazine ads. They’d had a lot in common, more than she’d ever imagined. Unfortunately, Rick turned out to be gay, something he decided right after she’d lost her virginity to him. How was she supposed to know the one thing they both
really
had in common was their attraction to men?
When she’d first moved to New York, after landing the account-rep job at Anderson and McIntyre, she’d actually met a wonderful guy who she was sure would make her forget about Rick. Jake was an actor, good-looking in a smooth pretty-boy sense. Attentive. A wicked sense of humor. And an absolutely incredible lover, which went a very long way in restoring the level of her battered sensuality-ego after the disaster of Rick.
She wasn’t a perfectionist, not by a long shot. She understood people weren’t perfect and came with quirks and baggage. Only there were some quirks she simply could not overlook. Jake turned out to have a taste for pornography she found a little too distasteful—like him being cast in the starring role of several X-rated films.
Then there’d been the guy who could never make a decision about anything unless he conferred with his mother first, followed by the borderline obsessive-compulsive who carried his own set of plastic ware to restaurants, something the maître d’ at the Tavern on
the Green had found so offensive, he’d asked them to leave. Alan Fontaine had had a few other idiosyncrasies regarding the physical aspect of relationships, as well, but she thought wearing surgical gloves while making love was taking things just a bit too far.
Finally a little over a year ago, she’d thought she’d finally found Mr. Right with Charles Pruitt, III. Tall, slender, with preppy Ken-doll good looks, he had a mesmerizing gaze filled with intelligence. He was a brilliant research attorney. Not a skin flick or latex glove in sight—that made him a plus. He had lacked any real sense of humor, but he had goals similar to her own, which made them work well together.
Turned out Cheatin’ Charlie was really Mr. Not-A-Chance
and
the father of her baby.
Well, she thought resolutely, she wasn’t the first woman to find herself pregnant and alone. As sure as the sun rose at dawn, she wouldn’t be the last, either.
She shook her head, still trying to wrap her mind around the fact she was going to have a baby. It wasn’t that she didn’t want children, she was just…well, stunned. Starting a family had been part of her most recent five-year plan, but she’d hoped to have a husband, a home and a job first. She still had another couple of years before she figured she was ready to purchase a house, but she did have enough money saved that it wouldn’t be a problem readjusting the real-estate portion of her plan. Provided she found another job first. The husband part, however, had just become moot. Good grief, she hadn’t even realized she and Charlie were having problems.
She sat up straight and slid her hand over her tummy. A baby. Boy or girl? she wondered. Would her child look like her, or like Charlie? She had to admit, other than his rotten sense of timing and the fact that he’d apparently been cheating on her with Ms. Junior Partner, Charles Pruitt, III, wasn’t all bad. A little too self-absorbed obviously, but not completely narcissistic. And they’d had a good time together. At least until she’d been assigned to lead the team of advertisers for the large ad campaign. She’d been keeping long hours for the last couple of months, and Charlie hadn’t seemed to mind. Of course, she hadn’t known he’d been otherwise occupied.
She hadn’t even realized she was pregnant, and she couldn’t help wondering what that said about her. When she’d become increasingly tired, she’d first suspected the long hours spent on the ad campaign had her run-down. She’d caught that wicked cold, followed by the flu, and had just never seemed to regain her usual verve. With her hectic and demanding work schedule, there hadn’t been time to take off work to see a doctor for antibiotics, so Charlie had stocked her up on over-the-counter cold relievers. She’d managed to muddle through the cold, but the flu had left her feeling weak and tired much of the time.
“Oh my God,” she whispered. That was it! That was the
how
—the antihistamines in all those over-the-counter flu and cold medications she’d been taking must have counteracted her birth-control pills.
A hysterical laugh bubbled up inside her, but she tamped it down lest she wake Grandy’s roomy and the
poor woman thought a lunatic was loose in the room. It might take two to tango, as the centuries-old saying went, but it looked as if Charlie was even more responsible for her newly acquired status as mother-to-be than she’d originally believed.
Cheatin’ Charlie might have a skewed version of the meaning of monogamy, but he did know about responsibility. Of course, she couldn’t tell him. He might be the father and he did deserve to know, but not now. Later, when he wouldn’t dream of accusing her of stooping low enough to make a desperate attempt to hang on to a relationship that had gone south.
As for a place to live and finding gainful employment, she knew all she had to do was ask and she could temporarily room with either of her two dearest friends, Susan or Annie, until she found a job. She and Susan Carlson had been roommates in college, so it really wouldn’t be much of an adjustment for either of them, especially since Susan traveled a great deal, thanks to her recent promotion in the public relations firm where she worked. Annie Pickett, on the other hand, a struggling actress who waited tables in between plays to pay the rent, would no doubt appreciate the financial assistance of a roommate.
Emily wasn’t exactly destitute, but finding a job that paid as well as Anderson’s would be difficult in the current job market. And an employer willing to hire a pregnant woman would be virtually nonexistent. Equal opportunities and discriminatory laws aside, when it came down to a final decision, why would someone hire her when she’d be taking a couple of
months off for maternity leave within six or seven months of being hired?
She had a lot of thinking and planning to do. A natural list-maker, she reached into her purse for the small pad and pen she always carried with her and started making notes.
She was out of her home, out of a job and her man had dumped her.
Home, she wrote, followed by, Call Annie.
Job…Call headhunters.
Man. She made a noise and crossed that one off her list.
Baby. She tapped her pen, staring at the word, not having a clue where to begin.
A small smile curved her lips as she put pen to paper again.
Ashley, Adam.
Brandi, Brandon.
Chloe, Charles.
She drew a line through Charles. Carter.
Daisy, Drummond.
Eleanor, Ethan.
Fiona, Franklin.
Georgia…
D
REW PARKED
the state-issued, red Dodge Dynasty in the lot behind the firehouse, then took the rear entrance into Trinity Station. He headed up the back stairs to the second floor, avoided the bunkroom and walked straight to the deserted locker room. The guys who weren’t out on calls would either be playing a few
rounds of pinochle, watching the tube or catching some Z’s before the next alarm sounded. Since he’d promised Emily he’d come back for her in a couple of hours, he didn’t have time to guzzle coffee and shoot the breeze the way he usually did at the end of his shift. All he wanted was to change out of his uniform and take Emily back to her grandmother’s house.
What came next, he couldn’t say. He agreed with the doctor’s opinion that Emily shouldn’t be left alone tonight. She’d suffered a shock to her system, physically and definitely emotionally based on her stunned reaction to the announcement of her pregnancy. When he’d asked her if there was anyone he could call for her, she’d recovered enough from her surprise to give him a hard stare and emphatically state there was no one in her life to call.
He wasn’t exactly certain what that meant, but one thing he did know, Emily Dugan was not his responsibility. Unfortunately that didn’t prevent him from feeling otherwise. Not only had she fainted on him, but he’d gone and promised her grandmother he’d look after her. And a Perry’s word was like oak—solid and unbreakable.