Sherri stepped out the front door, calling “Double? Double?” over her shoulder, oblivious to the threat lurking around the corner.
“Watch out!” Raising his hand stop-sign style, Cole dodged traffic, narrowly escaping being hit by a horn-blaring car. He glanced at it only a moment, but when he turned back to the ambulance base, Sherri was gone.
So was the punk.
Sherri braced her hand on the door as Dan careened the ambulance onto Park Street. “Dispatch said he was on the north side of the park.” She glanced in the side mirror as a patrol car turned onto the street behind them, and wondered what Cole had been shouting about when the call blared over the loudspeakers and she’d had to dash back inside. Her mind flashed to the sight of him cupping his forehead as they’d blasted out of the ambulance bay. He should still be on bed rest.
Dan pulled to the curb next to the four-acre park in the center of town. “He’s over there.” Dan pointed to a homeless man ranting at a rose bush. He wore several layers of filthy shirts and pants that once might have been tan in color. “It’s Harold again.”
“Yay,” Sherri said mockingly. He was one of their frequent flyers and it was always a toss-up as to which personality they’d be dealing with. To make matters worse, he was borderline diabetic and lately he’d been spending more time over the line than not. They unloaded their gurney from the back of the truck.
The deputies met them at the curb. “Maybe we should handle this.”
Harold’s gaze snapped their way and his entreaties to the rose bush grew louder. “Watch out. Hide. They’re coming. They’re coming.”
Sherri felt sorry for the poor man. He wasn’t enough of a threat to himself or others to warrant locking him up, but he refused to stay at the shelter, where staff could help him monitor his blood sugar and his meds, if he’d take them. “Let’s see what we’re dealing with first. He’s usually harmless enough when he’s only ranting at vegetation.”
Dan wrinkled his nose. “At least the roses might mask his BO. Last time we transported him to the ER it took half a can of air freshener to kill the smell afterward.”
At that reminder the deputies looked a little too happy to step back and let them take the lead.
A couple of blond-haired youngsters raced over to them from the playground and gaped up at the deputies in wide-eyed awe. “Are you going to arrest that man? He’s scary.”
Their mother caught up to them a moment later and caught their hands. “I’m sorry. I told them to stay on the playground. I’m the one that made the call. I’ve seen him here a lot, but never like this.”
“Thank you, ma’am,” Deputy Vail said. “We’ll see to him. It’d be best if you take the children home now.”
Sherri circled upwind of Harold so he’d see her approach and lifted her hands palms out to appear unthreatening. “Good morning, Harold. What’s bothering you today?”
His nostrils flared. “I’m not going with you.”
She patted the air. “That’s okay, Harold. Let’s just talk.” His breathing appeared normal. He wasn’t clutching his chest. His eyes seemed to focus on her okay, although they immediately darted back to the rosebush.
“Don’t let her take you,” he hissed to the bush. It would’ve been comical if he weren’t dead serious.
“He doesn’t seem disoriented,” Dan said. “Or aggressive like the last time his blood sugar nosedived. We’re likely not looking at a diabetic issue, and something tells me he’s not going to willingly let us take a sample anyway.”
“Harold, have you had anything to eat this morning?” She took a step closer. “Can we get you something? You guys have any extra donuts in the cruiser,” she called over her shoulder to a grumbled chorus of “Ha-ha.” Harold didn’t seem to think the quip was funny, either.
In a blur of motion he pulled a knife from his pocket—a dinner knife—but it was startling enough that the deputies closed in.
“Get her, officers,” Harold ordered them. “She’s an alien. She’s trying to abduct me.”
Deputy Vail motioned her back. “Okay, Harold. Take it easy.” As Vail kept him distracted, the other deputy skirted behind him and easily commandeered the knife, then cuffed him.
Harold went berserk. “Not me. Not me.” He jerked from side to side, trying to break out of the deputy’s hold. “She’s the one you have to stop.”
“Take it easy, Harold. We’ll make sure she doesn’t get you.” Deputy Vail winked at Sherri. “I guess we’d better deliver him to the ER.”
The other deputy approached with Harold.
“Whoa.” Vail stepped back and pinched his nostrils. “On second thought—”
“Nope.” Dan started pushing the gurney back to the truck. “He’s all yours.”
The deputies escorted Harold to their cruiser, but when he spotted her helping Dan load the gurney on the truck, he went berserk.
“You won’t get away with it. I know what you are. They told me. They told me.”
Terrific. He was hearing the voices again. She should’ve figured. Across the street passersby stopped to stare at her. Cole pulled up in his pickup. What was he doing here?
“I’m going to get you,” Harold vowed. “As soon as I get out, I’m going to kill you!”
The deputy shoved him into the back of the cruiser. “You don’t want to do that.”
Cole stalked across the street, fists clenched, expression fierce, looking ready to tear the poor man limb from limb.
My hero.
Deputy Vail intercepted him with a palm to his chest. “This isn’t your man. He’s a regular. Made the same threat to me four weeks ago, and today I’m his best friend. Why don’t you follow the ambulance back to the base?”
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