Blazing Hot: Californian Wildfire Fighters Book Two Page 2

  He nodded. "Speaking of every day." Scott finally segued into what the meeting was really about. His eyes slid from her chest, and he picked up a copy of the work schedule from his desk.

  Her work schedule. Sudden understanding struck her like a bolt of lightning between the eyes.

  Scott didn't even need to go on, but he did, of course. "You're working too many hours. The hospital can't afford to pay you this much overtime with the ongoing crisis."

  Alex gritted her teeth. "I'm sorry?" she responded eventually. Sometimes it was just easier to pretend as if she hadn't heard right, especially where her boss's more lecherous comments were concerned. "I'm the most qualified nurse on your staff. If this is a crisis, then you need me here."

  "At the rate things are going, this whole town could go up any day like a matchstick," Scott said callously. "But the hospital still needs to turn a profit. You knew what you were signing up for when you came onboard with us, Lex. We're a private facility. We don't do charity work, and we definitely don't love paying you this much overtime."

  Ales wanted to scream at him. It wasn't just the use of her late husband's nickname for her, "Lex," that made her stomach turn and the bitter bile rise in her throat. She was needed, and what's more, she needed this. She couldn't go home to her empty house and be alone with her thoughts. She had tried that once, and the experience, the grief, had nearly killed her.

  "If you want to work more hours, I have a volunteer form you can fill out. It's nice to see just how deeply people believe in their scruples. Volunteer hours obviously mean unpaid hours. Comprende?" Scott inquired when Alex's silence stretched between them. "Are we . . . simpatico?"

  "Perfectly." Alex thought she hated herself more in that moment than she had ever hated the man standing across from her. "And I will fill out the form." She reached for the paper, and Scott's sausage fingers slid along hers as he passed it off.

  A red warning light flashed in her head. She whirled, intent on leaving while she still had some scraps of dignity left.

  "Oh, and Lex?" Scott called after her. Alex froze in the doorway. "Don't think that means I don't enjoy seeing you around the hospital. I've got to look out for the bottom line, that's all. As for my bottom line—"

  Alex didn't turn. She didn't want to see what Scott's trailing words meant, or what part of his body he might be favoring in presentation to her. Who knew what signal she had sent already by standing here a split second longer than necessary?

  She walked out of his office and shut the door behind her, knowing he always liked to keep it open. Like he thought his domain was a pot of honey that was bound to attract him something sweet, sooner or later.

  Alex paused at the nurses' station to fill out the volunteer slip.

  Gabriella, the receptionist, was just coming back from the breakroom. She glanced over Alex's shoulder as she passed. "He got you too, huh?"

  Alex jumped. "He . . . what?"

  "Scott." Gabby nodded to the form. "He's been dressing everyone down today and handing those out like Halloween candy. You're the first to actually agree to his bullshit."

  "I don't agree with it," Alex said. "I just don't see any other choice." She passed the form to Gabby. "The sooner you can process this, the better."

  "Mmhmmm." Gabby gazed at her sympathetically, dark eyes penetrating over the frames of her readers.

  Alex wanted to say more, but her tongue might as well have been a paperweight between her teeth. She couldn't shake the sensation that Gabby knew that more was going on with Scott, but as always, Alex kept her discomfort to herself. She hadn't given herself adequate time to process yet. As soon as she figured out how to articulate what was going on—and as soon as she had assured herself beyond a doubt that it was inappropriate—she would go through the proper channels.

  She would say something.

  Henry would have stood up to him. Henry would have said something the minute Scott made you question if any action was required.

  But Henry wasn't here now. It was only Alex, alone with her chart, pinned beneath the eyes of the all-knowing receptionist.

  Alex broke from her reverie, flexed a wan smile, and started toward intake.

  Today, at least, there was definitely going to be overtime, and there was nothing to be done about it. The bottom line can kiss my ass, she thought vengefully as she pulled open the door that led to her first patient.

  The room was dimly lit. Orange sunlight filtered in through the drawn blinds, hinting at a time later in the day than it actually was. The gilded sky over Cedar Springs seemed in a state of permanent sunset these days. It would have been enchanting if it didn't bode such a bad omen.

  The figure on the bed lay quiet. Landon Brenner. It helped to think of him in terms of his injuries. A few cracked ribs, a dislocated right shoulder, and second-degree burns. He was lucky that was all he’d escaped with.

  Alex gazed down at her patient, tucking a stray strand of blonde hair behind her ear. Any unconscious preening was ridiculous and useless, considering the man was out like a light. The sedatives should be wearing off soon, but for now, Landon slumbered peacefully.

  She had seen him before, when his cocksure buddy from Alaska had gotten himself hospitalized ten days earlier. Though she hadn't known anything about him at the time, much less his name, Landon had struck her as quieter, more even-tempered than his squad mates, but now she could see she had been mistaken. No matter how cool the head, every man in uniform was cut from the same cloth: He rose to the occasion, sought out the action, and burned a blazing path to his own self-destruction.

  She closed her eyes, summoned a breath, and pushed all thoughts of Henry from her mind. Letting her husband's death intrude into the room with her now did nothing to help her present patient. Later, when she was alone, she could deal with the torrent of memories threatening to burst the dam . . . but of course, Alex knew there wouldn't be a later. She had a shift after this one, and after that, only half a night's sleep ahead of her before her regular clinic hours kicked back in.

  If she kept herself busy enough, she could keep the specters of the past at bay. At least, she hoped she could.

  She checked the patient's stats, checked his drip, and ensured everything else was in order. She hovered by the instruments and tried not to number the times her gaze drifted back to the form sleeping on the bed.

  She could see every hard hill and valley of his body outlined beneath the thin blanket. His shoulders were almost broader than the bed that held him, and his biceps were boulders of hard-packed muscle.

  The blood pressure cuff dangled loosely in her hands as she considered the task before her. Then, shaking her head to dispel some very unprofessional thoughts, she gingerly took up his left arm and wrapped it in the cuff. She pumped the bulb, increasing the cuff's constriction, holding his arm steady all the while.

  The firefighter's eyes snapped open.

  His irises were a bright hazel, brown with a starburst of green around the pupil. Meeting his eyes, she saw they were unfocused, likely due to the drugs, but Alex reminded herself to retest for a concussion as soon as he seemed relatively lucid—

  —and as soon as she could tear herself away from gazing back at him.

  Cut it out, you idiot, her inner voice remonstrated. Don't go gaga for the man in uniform. You've been down this road before. You know where it leads.

  But there was no harm in looking, right? And there was no harm in being looked at—at least, that's what she told herself, every time Scott's inappropriate leers started to creep under her skin. And really, there was nothing comparable about the way her boss stared at her and the way this handsome patient stared. Whatever mental haze he was struggling up out of, he fixed on her like she was a beacon on the shores of his consciousness

  Don't look at me that way, she pleaded. I can patch you up, but I can't fix you.

  Even though something in those eyes desperately made her want to try.

  Chapter 3

  Landon

&nb
sp; He woke in a hospital bed. At least he could still tell that much. Whatever they had given him—morphine?—made his entire body feel heavy and slowed his thoughts to a snail crawl.

  But the meds were wearing off now, and pain was his new unpleasant companion. Landon clenched his teeth over a hiss, trapping it and swallowing it back down. Every inch of him was on fire.

  He tried to convince himself that the pain was a good thing. It meant that he was alive. It meant no nerve damage. It meant that, unlike the wilderness of California, he wasn't really burning.

  It all came rip-roaring through him then in an avalanche of memory. Keller's tank. The dog. The tree.

  The woman.

  But it wasn't just a distant morphine memory hovering over him now. Landon blinked once and watched as the face above him sharpened into stunning detail.

  It was the woman, the same woman—the nurse, a vague recollection told him—looking down on him. Her lips were parted slightly in surprise, and there was a strand of golden blonde hair trailing down the left side of her face. Her eyes were wide-set and intelligent—and blue. God, how he missed that color. Used to be, he could just look up at the sky and lose himself in blue for a bit. Now, with the fire raging, he was lucky if he could get a clear fix on the sun.

  "Would you look at that?" His voice was cracked and dry from disuse. He was surprised when actual human words came out and not a puff of ash. "My angel's back. Guess this must be Heaven."

  "You're not in heaven, Mr. Brenner," the nurse said as she reached behind her for a glass of water. "You're in the hospital."

  "Huh." Landon made a show of glancing around himself as if he hadn't noticed. She passed him the glass, eyes betraying honest amusement at his act, though her serious mouth remained unmoved. "So you're saying I lived?"

  "You lived, despite your best efforts."

  "You think I brought that tree down on myself—with efforts?"

  The stern mouth melted into a chuckle, a bubbling laugh that almost struck Landon as a giggle. It was surprisingly girlish, light and airy, and seemed to slip past her lips without her noticing. If her own laugh took her by surprise, her face didn't register it; Landon wondered if she realized she had made the sound at all.

  There was a certain severity about her, a no-nonsense firmness that just begged to be tested. Maybe it was simply the drugs and the too-bright hospital light that made him think this.

  "And I'm a nurse. Not an angel. We've met before, you know.”

  "How could I forget?" He had just needed to cut through the drug haze to remember. "Back when Kingston was laid up after the helicopter accident. Didn't catch your name that time."

  "I didn't offer it."

  "I didn't ask." He was sure to convey the proper amount of regret in his tone. "Now that I'm the patient, do I get a do-over?"

  The nurse smiled in amusement and then proceeded to tap the nametag fixed above her left breast pocket.

  Landon squinted. The letters swam a bit in his vision, but thankfully it was a short name. Alex. "Nice to meet you, Alex."

  "Nice to meet you as well, Landon. I wish our paths had crossed again under better circumstances."

  "You and me both." He groaned as he sat up, but next thing he knew, there was a gentle hand at his back to guide him. "What's the damage?"

  "Physically? You've got a lot of second-degree burns. You'll be in pain for a bit, but we'll keep you numb to the worst of it. You may notice some chest pain when you breathe too deeply. That's because a tree fell on you."

  "Wait a minute.” He narrowed his eyes. “What do you mean by 'physically'?"

  Alex chuckled and shook her head. "Sorry. I just mean there's nothing I can do about the death wish."

  "Death wish?" Landon echoed in amusement. "What makes you think I've got one of those?"

  "Just my medical opinion." Alex sat down in the chair beside him. Landon realized it had been there all along, and he wondered who would have bothered keeping vigil at his bedside while he was out. The chief, maybe, or Chase. Or . . .

  "You say you're not an angel, but something tells me you're the one who’s been watching over me," he said as she took hold of his arm to check the bandages there. He winced and was rewarded by the sight of Alex pulling her plump bottom lip between her teeth in concern. He hated to betray weakness, but if she was going to look at him like that . . .

  "Did that hurt just now?"

  "No."

  "Don't lie to me, Mr. Brenner," she chastised lightly. "I know your type, and every single one of you plays down your injuries so you can rush back out there into the fire."

  "Okay now, that hurts," he emphasized. " 'Mr. Brenner'? I thought we were already on a first-name basis, you and me. And if you think I'm cut from a mold just because I wear a department-issued helmet and carry a big tank to work, you're wrong."

  "Am I?" Alex was busy prepping his morphine dose, and Landon had the sudden impression he wasn't being listened to. "I have an insight into this sort of thing that might surprise you."

  "Surprise me."

  "Lie back now, please, Landon."

  How could he resist when that soothing voice said his name? Landon did as instructed and let her ease him back down fully into his pillow. "Kinda nice, knowing someone's looking out for me," he murmured as the drugs began to flood his system.

  He hated riding the sudden feeling of inebriation, fighting it until he was too doped to hate anything, anymore. He gazed up into Alex's face, and she gazed back. He could spend forever counting every silky lash that fringed those baby-blue eyes of hers, before moving on to number those little silver flecks in each iris.

  "I'll stay right here," she promised, and he believed her. He watched the way her ruby-red lips moved sensuously and knew no morphine dream could compare to his new reality.

  The wildfire can wait, he thought as he sank down into utter bliss. I've got a new fixation, and something tells me she's even more feisty and unpredictable.

  He looked forward to seeing her when he woke up.

  * * *

  "Where's Alex?" was the immediate question out of his mouth when he was wakened from sound sleep a few days later. Up until now, she’d always been the one to wake him, taking his vitals this time of day.

  "Who wants to know?" This new night nurse, Cherise, sounded like a total ballbuster.

  Landon grimaced as she laid her ice-cold hands on him. Cherise was practically old enough to be his grandmother, but her strength was formidable—and her bedside manner, at least with him, left something to be desired.

  "Her favorite patient wants to know."

  "Even Alex needs a day off every once in a while,” she rasped, in a voice that would have done justice to a pack-a-day habit. “You can't expect her to be here every day."

  "You're making me feel like a needy asshole, Cherise."

  "Well, if the boot fits," Cherise clucked as she pivoted away to write his latest vitals on the white board near the head of his bed.

  Landon hated how petulant he sounded. Maybe it was just because of Cherise's more mature age that he suddenly felt like a kid again.

  He had gotten so used to seeing Alex every day, making her laugh while she treated his burns and wrapped his arms, that even a single lonely night spent without her felt like the first time they’d unhooked him from the morphine drip all over again. "Listen—between you and me—is Alex single?" He pitched his voice low and raised a conspiratory eyebrow.

  When Cherise turned back from her writing and fixed him with a look of disbelief, Landon reached for her hand and took it. "Please, Cherise. This is a matter of life or death."

  "Is it, now?" She sounded understandably unconvinced.

  "Nobody understands matters of life or death better than I do."

  "I bet you do, Mr. Brenner. Wouldn't be here sittin' with me now if you didn't!"

  "So come on," he pleaded. "What's the harm in telling me? Help a poor man who’s been downed in the line of duty, will you?

  "She's single, all rig
ht," Cherise said as she reclaimed her hand from him. Landon lay back and refrained from pumping his fist in victory. "But she'll want nothing to do with you, make no mistake about it."

  "I've made plenty of mistakes before."

  "Again, wouldn't be here sittin' with me now if you didn't," Cherise noted as she snugged the bandages around his arm. "You're a patient at our hospital, Mr. Brenner. It would do you good to remember that."

  Well, he wouldn't be a patient forever. The pain in his body, and the drugs administered to numb it, dwindled by the day. Any smarting shifts or sharp aches were to be taken as good signs. He was getting stronger by the day, and his recovery was progressing faster than Cherise and the others had anticipated. He knew it was only a matter of time before they discharged him . . . which meant his time to win Alex over was running out.

  Cherise left soon after, abandoning Landon to his thoughts. Five minutes later, he craned himself forward to try and get a good look at a nurse passing outside his window, then dropped back down onto the hospital bed with a disappointed sigh. Every pair of pink scrubs made him think of her; hell, even his room by itself was a stark reminder of Alex. The boredom he felt when she wasn’t hovering by his instrument panel, or by his bedside as she touched him teasingly, was excruciating. Landon couldn't think of a more effective torture.

  So he thought about something else. He stared so hard at the door that he practically went cross-eyed . . . and watched it open slowly in his mind's eye. Alex slipped in through the crack, darting a quick glance back over her shoulder into the hallway, before closing it softly behind her. Her hair was down, and she wore . . . wait for it . . . Landon hadn't seen her outside of her scrubs, so it took him a moment to conjure up what he wanted. A . . . sundress?

  Yeah, that worked. It had a tight flowered bodice, and a flared skirt that swished several inches above her bare knees as she turned back to him. Her lush red lips were pursed, and her eyes caught the light from the hallway and twinkled wickedly.

  "Hey, big guy. I know it's my night off, but I thought I'd come visit you anyway," she said as she came closer. "I think it's time for your sponge bath, don't you?"