Emergency Reunion

Cole held his ground for another thirty seconds, his glare burning a hole through the cruiser’s rear window, before he finally took a step back and let the deputy climb in his car.

“What are you doing here?” Sherri allowed herself a moment to relish the sight of him back on his feet. He wasn’t in uniform, but that didn’t diminish his commanding presence one iota. And only intensified her wholly inappropriate pleasure at seeing him here looking so protective of her. “You’re supposed to be resting.”

His surreptitious visual sweep of the surrounding park and streets before he joined her on the sidewalk chilled her a hundred times more than Harold’s empty threats. “Who was that guy? Has he threatened you like that before?”

“He’s harmless,” Dan assured, slamming the ambulance’s rear doors shut. “He has a psychotic episode every once in a while, but he doesn’t have the power to back up his threats. And he doesn’t remember them by the time he comes back to his senses.”

Cole searched her eyes, clearly not ready to take Dan or the deputy’s word for it.

Sherri shrugged. “What did you expect? This is an ordinary day in the life of a paramedic. Last week, I got a marriage proposal from a prisoner we transported.”

Dan guffawed. “Oh, yeah. A real winner. Missing half his front teeth but sporting a six-pack.”

Cole tensed. “Is he still in jail? How did he take your refusal?”

Sherri reached for the passenger door handle with a teasing grin. “What makes you think I refused?”

Cole pressed his fingertips to his forehead and temple. “Sherri, you’re not taking this serious enough.”

She squeezed his arm, secretly pleased by his concern even though it was his brother he should have been focusing on. “I’m fine. But you look like you should be in bed. Head injuries are nothing to mess with. Just because the MRI was clear doesn’t mean you won’t have any problems if you try to do too much too soon. What are you doing here anyway?”

“Making sure that guy didn’t come after you.”

“The homeless guy?”

“No, the guy in the hoodie I spotted skulking outside the ambulance base as you came out to get coffees.”

Her heart hopscotched over a few beats, but she managed to keep her expression neutral. “That’s why you shouted and pulled the kamikaze routine through traffic?”

His hands fisted again and he looked ready to blow a gasket. “He was seconds away from ambushing you. If that call hadn’t come in when it did—” he glanced around again, scraping his hand across his forehead “—who knows what he might have tried. He must’ve run off when he heard me shout. I searched the area, but couldn’t track him, so I followed you here to make sure he didn’t show up.”

“Cole, you shouldn’t be out racing around after me.” Oh, boy, not something she’d ever thought she’d hear herself say to Cole. But she couldn’t him let him get any closer for both their sakes. His brother needed him. And she needed not to need him. His mile-wide, protective streak was entirely too attractive, and if she wasn’t careful, she’d start admitting things he didn’t need to know. She opened the side door of the ambulance and pressed him to sit on the step. Then flicked her penlight over his eyes, trying not to notice the intriguing shades of blue radiating from his shrinking pupils.

“I’m fine. I need to be out there finding that punk before he shows up on your doorstep.”

She checked his blood pressure, her own spiking at the notion that some creep might show up at her apartment. “The deputies are following all our calls, and Dan is with me. I will be perfectly safe. You need to rest.”

“I’ve rested enough,” he said in a growl.

She lost her patience. “Then spend time with your brother. Considering where he turned up Friday night, he clearly needs help sooner rather than later.”

* * *

The next afternoon Cole shifted in his truck seat, trying to get comfortable. He was still on sick leave, so he’d been parked in the coffee shop’s back lot with a bird’s eye view of the ambulance base since Sherri arrived for her shift this morning. She’d been right about him needing to spend time with his brother, and as much as her scolding had stung, Cole appreciated her concern. He’d kind of enjoyed her playing paramedic on him again, too— looking so intently at his eyes that he’d started to feel as if she could see into his very soul. He hadn’t been able to get her deep blue eyes off his mind since. He just wished she exhibited half as much concern for herself.

Thankfully, the punk hadn’t come back, and so far not even an ambulance call had come in to break up the monotony. He couldn’t help but admire how easily she’d sloughed off the homeless guy’s threat yesterday and joked about a prisoner’s marriage proposal.

Yeah, it was how most frontline workers dealt with the junk, but she’d seemed genuinely unaffected.

Cole glanced at his watch. Eddie would be getting out of school in another forty-five minutes, and he didn’t want to miss him again. Unfortunately, if the kid he’d spotted skulking around the ambulance base yesterday was also in school, he might show up just when Cole needed to leave.

Cole unscrewed his thermos cap and eyeballed the last few ounces of day-old coffee. Forget it. Time to grab a fresh cup. As he pushed open the door, movement along the fence behind the ambulance base caught his eye.

He soundlessly pushed his truck door closed and hunched down behind the hood.

A kid clambered over the chain-link fence. Same black hoodie hiding his face.

The instant he moved toward the ambulance base’s side door, Cole dashed forward and face-planted him into the dirt. Wrestling the guy’s arm behind his back, he hissed, “What are you doing here?”

The punk stopped fighting. “Cole?”

Cole’s stomach tanked. “Eddie?” He grabbed a fistful of his brother’s hoodie and hauled him to his feet, scarcely restraining the urge to connect his fist with Eddie’s nose. He clearly didn’t know him anymore. “How could you?”

Eddie’s eyes ballooned. “How could I what? I came to apologize to Sherri.”

“Right.” Cole felt sick. “That’s why you’re skulking over the fence, instead of walking up from the street.”

“I didn’t want the other guys to see me. I wanted to catch her alone.”

Cole swallowed a rush of bile at how that sounded. He shoved his brother through the hedge flanking the parking lot toward the coffee shop next door. “We need to talk.”

“I’m telling the truth!”

Cole opened the coffee shop door and motioned Eddie to a window seat.

“I always liked Sherri. She was nice to us.”

A waitress sashayed over, clunked two empty mugs on the table, and flashed Cole a welcoming whatcha-doing-later smile. “You must be new here. I never forget a face.” She had pouty lips and an over-the-top makeup job that he supposed some guys would find attractive.

“That’s right.” He pushed his cup toward the pot in her hand.

“What can I get you boys?” she asked as she filled both mugs.

“A couple of the specials,” Cole ordered to expedite her exit.

“Two specials coming up.” She winked and flounced away, leaving a trail of fragrance lingering behind her.

Eddie snagged the sugar dispenser and dosed his coffee with a steady stream. “Still a chick magnet, I see.”

Cole popped a couple of ibuprofen to take the edge off the headache that had returned with a vengeance thanks to their scuffle, and tried to decide if he heard derision or jealousy in Eddie’s tone. Probably a little of both. If Eddie spent half his time tripping out, Cole couldn’t imagine too many girls being interested in hanging with him. At least no one who wasn’t stoned herself.

Eddie stirred his coffee so hard it swirled over the brim. “C’mon, why don’t you just get the lecture over so we can both go home?”

“You expect me to believe you came here to apologize to Sherri?”

“Yes.”

“The guy who lured you to the drug house didn’t send you here?”

“What? No!”

Cole exhaled, unfortunately believing him, which meant he was back to square one. “Okay, I’m sorry I doubted you. I’m afraid we didn’t get off to a good start, but believe it or not, I came back to Stalwart because I want to spend time with you, not lecture you.”

“Don’t do me any favors. I got over my case of big brother worship a long time ago.”

Yeah, Eddie hadn’t appreciated Cole’s opinion on his choice of who to live with after the divorce. Almost a year had passed before they’d even talked to each other again. “I’m sorry. I was wrong to stay away so long. I’m hoping we can make up for lost time.”

Eddie snorted. “Face-planting me into the sidewalk is a great way to start.” He lifted his mug in a toast. “Thanks.”

The waitress slipped their soup bowls onto the table, allowing him to let the remark pass without comment. Clearly it would take a lot more than a few shared dinners to chisel that boulder-sized chip from Eddie’s shoulder.

Sirens cut through the silence. An ambulance whipped out the bay next door, but with hedges blocking a good part of the view, Cole couldn’t tell if Sherri was inside. He breathed a silent prayer for her protection that only partially quelled the urgent desire to follow the ambulance and do the job himself. Okay, time to stop worrying about treading on his brother’s feelings. He locked gazes with Eddie. “If you want me to trust you, you need to be straight with me. ’Cause I’ll tell you, across the street is an office full of deputies that think you should be sitting in jail. Are you stalking Sherri?”

“What?” Eddie’s head jolted back, his eyes wide with shock that looked pretty believable, unless it was shock that Cole had clued into his double life. If Eddie was trying to exact revenge for the way Cole had ignored him, terrorizing Sherri was a sickeningly smart way to go.

“You heard me,” Cole said through gritted teeth, not wanting to believe the worst about Eddie despite appearances.

“No, man, I just needed a fix.” He raked his fingers through his hair. “I thought you of all people would believe me.”

“I want to, Eddie. But you’re not giving me anything to go on. You say some guy told you to do these things, but you don’t have a name, a location and scarcely a description. And her partner’s got it in for you now.” Cole had checked the guy’s background. A former army medic, the man had a little too much righteous warrior in him for Cole’s comfort level.

“I’m telling you, that day in the ambulance is the first time I’d seen her in, like—” he hesitated, the flick of his gaze betraying his deception “—like, forever.”

Cole let it slide. For now. If he wanted to earn Eddie’s trust, he needed his brother to at least think he believed him. “And where were you when this guy told you to raid her ambulance?”

“Around.”

“Around where?”

“I don’t remember. The park maybe.”

“The park downtown?” Where psycho homeless guy hung out.

“Yeah, maybe. I hang there sometimes. It’s not like I go looking for him.” Eddie slurped his soup. “He finds me.”

Cole didn’t like the sound of that. “He finds you?”

“Yeah, you know. We just kind of run into each other.”

Yeah, Cole could imagine the kind of places they ran into each other. If anyone had asked him seven years ago if there was a booming drug culture in Stalwart, he would’ve laughed. Now...he wasn’t so sure. “You hang out together?”

“No, but he knows what it’s like to, you know, need a fix.”

Needing to get his own fix on the guy’s whereabouts, Cole resisted the urge to point out that the guys at Teen Challenge knew, too, and cared a whole lot more about helping him. Eddie wasn’t ready to hear it yet.

“He sometimes gives me tips on where I can get stuff free,” Eddie went on.

“You mean steal it?”

Eddie shrugged again.

“What’s he drive?”

“Never paid attention.”

“But he does drive? He’s not some homeless guy living on the street?”

“He doesn’t look like one.” Eddie pushed away his empty soup bowl. “We done?”

Cole’s cell phone buzzed. He glanced at the screen. Zeke? He’d thought his partner would be happy to have another day off from being saddled with him. Probably calling to rub in that his nephew wouldn’t be taking a sick day if he were on the job. Cole held up a finger to signal Eddie to wait a minute and clicked Talk. “What’s up?”

“You know where your brother is?” Zeke’s voice grated. Why the sheriff had partnered Cole with the one guy who resented him filling the new opening, he’d never know.

“Here with me. Why?”

Eddie’s wary gaze snapped to his.

“You’re lucky. Dispatch just got a call of a savage dog attacking a female paramedic.”

Cole’s pulse jumped. Sherri was the only female paramedic in Stalwart. “Where? Is she okay?”

“I don’t know what her condition is. I’m on my way. So’s animal control. She’s at Line One near Third.”

“Thanks for letting me know.”

Zeke’s snort punctuated the click of him hanging up. Clearly his intention hadn’t been friendly.

Cole threw cash on the table and grabbed Eddie’s arm. “We’ve got to go.” Zeke may have taken his word that Eddie was with him, but he wanted Sherri to see it for herself.

“Me?” Eddie looked as if he thought Cole was taking him to a lynching—his.

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