Charlotte Maclay - With Valor And Devotion

“You promise?”

“Yeah, I promise.” When the boy still looked skeptical, Mike said, “I went back in and got Suzie, didn’t I?”

That seemed to convince Randy. He gave his dog another hug, burying his face in Suzie’s fur. “You be good, Suzie. I’ll come back and get you as soon as I can.”

Setting Suzie on the ground where the paramedic could grab the dog’s collar, Mike hefted the boy into his arms. “You want me to fix it so the guys in the ambulance use their siren?”

Randy’s expression brightened. “Can you do that?”

Mike grinned. “Sure. Firefighters can do anything.” He took off his helmet and plopped it on Randy’s head.

“Cool,” the boy said and settled comfortably to ride on Mike’s hip to the ambulance.

“Hey, Mike,” Brett called after him. “You’d better get checked out at the hospital, too. You were in that house a long time. You could have some inhalation problems.”

Mike looked at the paramedic in surprise. He’d been coughing a bit but he didn’t think he’d sucked in too much smoke. No big deal.

But then, there were a lot of good-looking nurses who worked at Paseo del Real Community Hospital. He might as well drop by to see how they were doing.

THE PHONE woke Kristin McCoy at 1:02 a.m. Groaning, she rolled over and stared at the instrument. Unless it was a drunk who’d dialed the wrong number, a call at this hour did not bode well. At the very least it meant she’d drawn the short straw tonight as the Immediate Response Social Worker for Children’s Services assigned to handle emergencies.

Moments later she discovered that was the case. A child in the hospital, no parents or guardians in sight. She’d be acting in loco parentis for the boy and trying to figure out where he belonged.

Dressing hastily, she brushed her unruly auburn curls into a loose ponytail and got in her car for the drive to the hospital. Suddenly a wave of grief swept over her, blindsiding her like a tsunami. The dark streets, the stillness of the hour, had triggered a memory of another time, a frantic drive to the hospital, ambulance siren blaring. Fear clawing at her with razor-sharp talons, so painful she thought her chest was being ripped open.

Her baby. Just two months old. Not breathing. His soft skin icy cold to the touch. His sweet little body limp. How was it possible? He’d been fine only hours before, despite a runny nose. Laughing at her. Squirming, feet kicking while she changed his diaper.

Bobby! A victim of SIDS—Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. Dead before he’d had a chance to really live.

Her throat clogged, and she had to blink away the tears that blurred her vision. Six years and the grief still hadn’t gone away. It lay there in her gut, twisting through her at unexpected moments. When she saw a child the age Bobby would have been if he had lived. When she heard an infant cry with a desperate hungry sound. Or simply when she woke to find her arms empty of the burden she had so lovingly carried.

Dear God, she missed him so much!

Forcing her anguish aside, she focused on the nearly empty streets of Paseo del Real en route to the hospital. Forced herself to think of something mundane. Something that didn’t tear up her insides and make her want to weep.

A college town in central California just east of the coastal range of mountains, Paseo del Real’s population had exploded during the eighties and nineties as people fled the Los Angeles area in search of a quieter lifestyle. They’d brought with them traffic congestion, miles of tract houses, and most of the problems of big cities—including abandoned children, Kristin mused as she pulled into the parking lot of the hospital.

She angled her Volkswagen convertible into a spot near the emergency entrance. The lot was only half full at this hour, mostly vehicles of employees working the eleven-to-seven shift.

Inside, a couple with an infant were waiting in the lobby, an older man was dozing nearby. Kristin waved to the security guard who was lounging against a faux-granite pillar in the center of the room and went through the automatic doors to the nursing station. Adrian Goodfellow was the charge nurse on duty, a woman with brassy-blond hair, a quick silver smile and a heart made of gold.

“Understand you have someone for me, Addy,” Kristin said.

The nurse looked up from the chart she’d been checking and gave a bright smile that lit her eyes. “Sakes, woman, this is Saturday night. Why aren’t you out on the town having a high ol’ time?”

“Same reason you’re here. I’m working.” Both she and Addy were single, but despite Addy’s twelve-hour shifts, she managed to have more dates in a week than Kristin had in a year. Not that Kristin was envious. She’d been burned once by a man and had learned to be wary.

“We gotta do somethin’ about your social life, girlfriend. It’s not healthy for a woman your age—”

“I’m not that old,” she objected. Though granted, between the heart-wrenching cases she handled and her own personal history, she sometimes felt ancient compared to her twenty-four years.

“Shoot, honey, by the time I was your—”

“Addy, there’s a child here,” Kristin interrupted. “No parents, no guardian. I’m supposed to leap into action.”

“Oh, right.” She pulled a chart from the pile on her desk. “You’re gonna love this one. Randy Marshall, a six-year-old minx if I ever saw one. A real charmer. Claims his mother is dead, and he can’t quite remember who he’s been living with.”

Kristin took the chart from her. “Is he hurt?”

“A little smoke inhalation. Doc Plum wants to keep him overnight for observation. They’ll move him upstairs pretty soon.”

“Okay, I’ll go meet our young minx.”

Addy gestured over her shoulder toward a curtained examining room and waggled her eyebrows. “Mike Gables is in there with him now.”

Kristin blinked, confused. “A relative?”

“Lord, no, honey. You really gotta get out more. Mike Gables is the most studly firefighter in town. He’s probably dated every single nurse in the hospital—yours truly included—plus a few of the married ones, would be my guess. In a world of hunks, he rates a solid ten. He’s the guy that rescued the little boy and ended up needing to be checked out himself.”

While it was all very noble that the firefighter had risked his own life to rescue a child, Kristin bristled at the thought of a man who dated every woman he met. She’d fallen once for a sweet-talker who hadn’t believed in commitment, a regular Prince Charming who’d walked out on her at the most critical moment of her life. She didn’t plan to go down that path again.

Squaring her shoulders, she headed for the examining room. As she reached for the curtain, a childish giggle greeted her, followed by the low rumble of baritone laughter.

A disquieting shiver of awareness rolled down her spine and she mentally chided herself. A deep, seductive voice did not make him a ten on her scale.

She pulled back the curtain and was met by two sets of dark brown eyes that flashed with amusement and intelligence. The owner of the older set stood, a slow smile curling lips that could only be described as dangerously kissable. Still dressed in his turnout coat and pants, his jacket hung open revealing a T-shirt pulled taut over a well-muscled chest. His mussed saddle-brown hair invited a woman to tame the rebellious waves.

Damn! An eleven!

Forcing her gaze away from the firefighter, Kristin smiled at the child. “You must be Randy. I’m Kristin McCoy from Children’s Services.”

“Did you bring Suzie?”

Her gaze darted to Mike for an explanation. What she got was a thousand-watt smile.

“His dog. Suzie’s real special to Randy. We rescued her from the fire, too. Had to give her oxygen.”