Emmitt didn’t know which was older, the town of Rome or Rosalie Kowalski. As far as he knew, she had been the office manager since before Dr. Tanner Senior hung out his shield sometime in the sixties.
Most people had assumed that when Gray graduated from med school he would come back to Rome and join the family practice. Anyone who knew Gray, like really knew him, would explain he was the kind of guy who liked to earn his accolades. Who always took the right path, even when it was the hardest.
Emmitt respected that. Respected him even more when, after his grandfather had a stroke, Gray gave up a lofty position in Boston to help his father with the practice until he could find another partner.
Then he’d met Michelle and decided Rome was where he wanted to be after all. Love was funny that way.
“Well, look who’s here,” Rosalie said, managing two phones at once. At first glance, the silver bun and perpetually nose-perched glasses brought to mind a plumper Professor McGonagall from Hogwarts. But while Rosalie had played Mrs. Claus in every Rome Christmas parade since the beginning of time, she was also the leader of Grannie Pack, a motorcycle club for people fifty-five and older. “Our own hometown hero.”
“I don’t know about that.”
“I bet those women you pulled from the fire would disagree.” Rosalie placed a pudgy hand to her chest. “Putting their lives before your own. We couldn’t be prouder.”
Emmitt itched the back of his neck. “The women?”
“Yes, the group of Future Female Engineers of the World who were visiting the plant the day of the explosion. I heard you saved them all in one fell swoop.”
Emmitt cringed. The only way to keep his condition quiet was to say as little as possible. But instead of slowing the gossip, people took his silence as permission to fill in whatever holes were missing from his story.
In small town speak, people were flat-out lying.
“The lengths I’ll go through to get a pretty lady’s number.” The only numbers he’d received were from his doctor. The number of ribs fractured. Number of shrapnel pieces extracted. The number of days he’d been unresponsive. The number of months it would take to recover.
And the number of ways he was damned lucky to still be alive. Twenty-two women, eleven men, and nine children couldn’t say the same.
Emmitt had reported on a lot of disasters over his career. One of the worst was a story he’d covered in Iraq when a truck bomb detonated three feet from the walls of a Marine base. It took seventy-three soldiers two weeks to locate all the genetic material belonging to the fourteen downed Marines, twenty-one civilian contractors, nine local workers, and six naval hospital corpsmen caught in the blast.
Soldiers go into a war zone trained to keep atrocities from happening, but equally trained in case the worst happens. In China, these were day laborers in a concrete plant. Moms and dads who felt safe enough that many of them brought their young children to the day care located just outside the factory.
The knot in his stomach tightened and squeezed, which made his eyes burn with grit and his head pound double time.
Rosalie watched him with growing concern.
He was tempted to tell her it wasn’t necessary. He was concerned enough for the two of them. And, before she got it in her head that he needed feeling sorry for, he flashed her enough pearly whites to thoroughly rattle her. It was one of those half-smile, half-grin deals that released a set of double-barreled dimples he’d hated as a kid but came to appreciate the moment he started appreciating women.
“I’m still waiting for your number, Rosalie,” he said and, would you look at that, it worked like a charm.
He’d rather be home rattling his new roomie, but she’d snuck out of the house before he could see what color scrubs she had on today. And wasn’t that a damn shame.
“Why are you sweet-talking me, Emmitt?”
“If you have to ask, then you’re long overdue for some sweet talk and pampering. So why don’t you call that uptight boss of yours out here. I’ll set him straight.”
“My boss treats me just fine. And he’s too busy to be bothered by you.”
“So the doc in, then?”
“Depends. You have an appointment?” Rosalie’s smile vanished.
“No, but—”
“No appointment. No entry. You know the rules.”
Emmitt liked to bend the rules whenever possible, and if he happened to screw with Gray’s schedule in the process, all the better. “It will just take a minute.”
“Dr. Tanner doesn’t have a minute. You see this waiting room?” She pointed to the overly full room of patients. “He has a packed schedule, one of the nurses called in sick, and there’s an outbreak of scabies going around the elementary school.”
On second glance, Emmitt noticed that the room was filled with moms and kids. Itching and scratching kids. “Trust me, I’ll make it quick.”
Emmitt had slept in some of the worst conditions humanity had to offer, dined on crickets before it was a delicacy, and covered every pandemic from malaria to Ebola and a recent outbreak of H1N1. But there was something about little bugs feasting on his skin that wigged him out.
Rosalie shook her head. “It’s a no.”
“I just need a minute.”
“I heard you the first time.” Rosalie crossed her arms and looked ready to take him down if necessary.
“Look, golden boy told me to stop by today.”
“I have two PhDs,” Gray said from the hallway. Glasses on, face buried in a file, he looked to be treating the scabies breakout singlehandedly. “I’m not a boy. And why are you here?” He paused. “Jesus, don’t tell me it’s because you can’t pick up Paisley anymore? You can’t bail thirty minutes before on me.”
“I’m not bailing,” Emmitt said, the Fuck you, dickwad clear in his tone. He might have lost a little track of time, but he’d never bail last minute on his kid. Especially not four months after losing her mom. “You told me to drop by. So here I am.”
“I told you to drop by this morning.” Gray pointed to his watch. “I don’t know how time works in your world, but for the rest of us, morning comes after sunrise and before lunch. Come back tomorrow. Morning.”
Emmitt didn’t have a big brother. Growing up, it was just him and his pops. If he’d had one, though, he imagined the guy would be as annoying as Gray.
“Can’t. And I don’t want to be late picking up Paisley. That would be... what did you guys call it the other day? Oh yeah, a bad dad move.” Repeating the comment stung, almost as much as it had when the guys had uttered it last night. “So we’d better make this quick, Doc.”
They exchanged glances. Neither one gave.
Gray crossed his arms. Emmitt followed suit. Same went for the glare. But when the boy with the ketchup stain on his upper lip—who’d been scratching his junk a moment ago—dropped his Matchbox car and it started rolling toward Emmitt, he pointed to Gray’s watch.
“Tick tock.” He tapped with his middle finger.
“Fine.” Gray handed a stack of files to Rosalie. “Could you push back Tommy Harper by five minutes. And if that five turns into six, buzz in and pretend I have a call so I can kick him out.”
Offended, Him said, “I’m right here.”
Gray ignored him and began walking back toward his office. “Five minutes. I’ll be watching my clock,” Rosalie said to Emmitt.
He