Santi refocused on his hands. “He’s a vet.”
“You, too?”
Wasn’t much of a stretch to make the link. One life wasn’t worth more than another, but some prodded at your conscience a bit harder.
“Marines.” He never gave much more information than that. He nodded toward the unconscious man. “Diego Gonzalez. That’s the name on his tags, anyhow. Thirty!” He gave the two breaths as she applied the monitoring pads to the heavily tattooed chest.
“Joe! How’re you coming with the AED?” she shouted over her shoulder, a swish of short blond hair following in her wake as she began peppering Santi with questions. “Have you sprayed nitroglycerin, injected epinephrine, anything?”
“Yeah. I keep it just here in my invisible magic bag of tricks.”
“Easy there, cowboy. It was just a question.”
He checked his tone before he continued. She was just doing her job. He needed to do his.
“I saw him stagger at the side of the road when I was riding past. Then he fell down the embankment. I’m an off-duty doc—paramedic,” he quickly corrected. Coming to Miami was about looking forward, not what he’d left behind. “I was on my bike so...no run bag. That’s why I called you guys. There are some cuts and bruises that’ll need looking at and I’m pretty sure he could do with a saline drip.” He nodded down at Diego’s dry skin. “Dehydrated. Big time.”
“Right. Guess we’d better get to it, then.” She raked around in her bag as her partner skidded to the bottom of the hill in a slow-motion version of—what was her name anyway? He hadn’t seen her around the depot when he’d checked in to get his schedule. Santi’s eyes flicked to her badge.
Murphy.
He gave a satisfied smile. Irish. He’d thought that was what her accent was. Hopefully she’d brought some of that fabled Irish luck along with her, too.
“Open wide, Diego.”
Santi watched as she swiftly carried out the tracheal intubation and attached the airbag and oxygen tanks together. The woman was no stranger to a cardiac arrest. That was for sure.
“Joe! Have you got that AED ready or not? And how about some epinephrine for the poor lad?”
“Give a man a chance, woman!” her partner huffed as he handed over the paddles for the AED unit after he’d pressed the power button. “I’ll load you up some epinephrine.”
“Thanks, Joe. You’re the best tutor a girl could ask for.” Her eyes zapped to Santi as the AED began its telltale charging noise. “Are you clear? Wouldn’t want you getting shocked, now. Would we?”
He lifted his hands away from Diego’s chest and, once again their eyes met. More of a lightning strike than a tiny click of connection. He didn’t know what she was seeing in his eyes, but the triumphant glint in hers made his raised hands feel more like a surrender than a safety measure.
“Clear!”
The corners of her lips twitched into a smile at his microscopic flinch. She’d cranked up the volume on purpose. It was easy enough to see she wasn’t flirting, but not so simple to put a finger on the rise she was trying to get out of him. The day was pulsing with tropical heat, but this woman didn’t sweat. But, válgame Dios, did she ever have a glow.
He followed her gaze to the portable heart monitor. Nothing.
“Joe?”
Her colleague wordlessly handed her a syringe loaded with a one-milligram dose of epinephrine as Santi recommenced compressions.
“Want me to get the backboard?” Joe asked with an unenthusiastic glance up the steep embankment. The poor guy looked like he could’ve done with an iced coffee in the shade. January wasn’t usually this hot, but it’s what the weather man had brought.
“Don’t worry, we don’t need it for this phase. Too uncomfortable for the patient while we’re doing compressions.” Santi threw the guy a get-out-of-hard-labor option. “When I finish this round, why don’t you take over compressions and I’ll get it—”
“Hey! You’ll stay exactly where you are, big shot,” Murphy jumped in. “You’re not raking round our ambulance. We don’t know you from Adam.”
“He said he’s a paramedic,” Joe interjected, obviously still hopeful he wouldn’t have to clamber up the embankment. “Who are you with?”
“No one today. I’m what they call in between positions.” He saw Murphy’s eyes narrow at his words. She didn’t need to know he’d already polished his boots in advance of his first day at Seaside Hospital. “Twenty-nine. Thirty.”
He raised his hands away from Diego’s chest and looked directly into Murphy’s eyes as she pressed the charge button on the AED. Through the high-pitched whine of the charging defibrillator he felt an otherworldly surge of electricity hit him in the solar plexus. That indefinable connection that made a man cross a crowded room when his eyes lit on a perfect stranger and the organic laws of chemistry did their explosive best to bring them together. He hadn’t felt that charge of attraction in a while. On a roadside, giving CPR to a vet, wasn’t exactly where he’d thought he’d feel it next, but...he hadn’t really thought there’d be a “next.” Too many ducks already waiting to be put in a row. He scraped a tooth along the length of his lower lip, eyes still glued to hers... The hot Miami sun wasn’t the only thing warming him up.
And then—she blinked.
Ah...so he wasn’t alone here. She felt it, too.
“Huh.”
He heard the sound—an instinctual response to disbelief—come from her throat, but her lips hadn’t even parted. Just pushed forward in a disapproving moue that disappeared as she pulled her lips in on themselves and swallowed whatever words were roiling around her mind.
Santi fought his own features, trying to maintain his best neutral face when all he wanted to do was grin.
His first chink in her Gaelic armor.
He wasn’t a flirter and this sure as hell wasn’t flirting, but—electricity was hard to ignore. The automated voice of the AED broke through the static in his head. Verbal sparring would have to wait. He watched as her eyes flicked to the monitor at the sound of the electric charge making the connection.
A thin flat line.
Her fingers shot down to Diego’s carotid artery and, as if she was an angel delivering the healing touch...beep, beep, the flat line re-formed into the graphic mountainscape that was a beating heart. It was a far cry from a match to the Rocky Mountains—more like the rolling hills of South Dakota—but with a bit of luck and a stint in the hospital he’d get there. The triumphant glint returned.
“Guess you’d better get away up that hill for a backboard, then.” She jutted her chin toward Joe. “It’s my partner’s last day. We don’t want the old fella slipping a disk or anything, now, do we?”
“Watch it, girlie. I still have plenty of time to file a grievance against you and get you shipped back to where you came from,” Joe cautioned, as he all but proved her point by performing the stretch and twist only a stiff back could bring.
A jag of discord took hold of her features and just as quickly was lifted away with a bright smile. There was a story there. But she hid it well, cleverly tucking it away behind a sharp wit and a winning smile. Miles better than his go-to scowl.
“That’d be about right, Joe. Picking on a poor wee girl fresh off the boat from Ireland. Now, quit your faffing about and get me another dose of epi, would you?”