Two firefighters rushed to help him, but he fell to the ground before they could catch him. The man he carried rolled off his back to lie unmoving beside him, smoke smoldering from his clothes.
“You take Captain Lawson. I’ll see to the man,” Sally said to James as she ran to them.
Ross jerked off his helmet and came up on his hands and knees, coughing.
Placing the portable oxygen tank on the ground, she went to her knees beside the rescued man, clearly homeless and using the warehouse to sleep in, and leaned over, putting her cheek close to his mouth. As the senior paramedic at the scene, she needed to check the more seriously injured person. Ross had been using oxygen while the homeless man had not.
Her patient was breathing, barely. She quickly positioned the face mask over his mouth and nose, then turned the valve on the tank so that two liters of oxygen flowed. By rote she found and checked his pulse. Next, she searched for any injuries, especially burns. She located a couple on his hands and face. Using the radio, she called all the information in to the hospital.
“We need to get this man transported STAT,” Sally called to her partner.
Another ambulance had arrived and took over the care of Ross, leaving James free to pull a gurney her way. With the efficiency of years of practice, they loaded the man and started toward the ambulance. She called to the EMT now taking care of Ross. “How’s he doing?”
The EMT didn’t take his eyes off Ross as he said, “He’s taken in a lot of smoke but otherwise he’s good.”
“Get him in a box. I still want him seen,” she ordered.
Ross shook his head. “I’m fine.” He coughed several times.
“I’m the medic in charge. You’re going to the hospital to be checked out, Captain.”
He went into another coughing fit as she hurried away. She left the EMT to see that the stubborn captain was transported back to the hospital.
Minutes later she was in the back of the ambulance—the box, as it was affectionately known—with the homeless man. While they moved at a rapid speed, she kept busy checking his vitals and relaying to the hospital emergency room the latest stats. The staff would be prepared for the patient’s arrival.
The ambulance pulled to a stop and moments later the back doors were opened. They had arrived at the hospital. A couple of the staff had been waiting outside for them. Sally and one of the techs removed the gurney with the man on it.
As other medical personnel began hooking him up to monitors, she reported quickly to the young staff nurse, “This is a John Doe for now. He was in a burning warehouse. Acute smoke inhalation is the place to start.”
Just as she was finishing up her report, the gurney with Ross went by. She followed it into the examination room next to the John Doe. Ross’s coat had been removed and his T-shirt pulled up. He still wore his yellow firefighter pants that were blackened in places. Square stickers with monitoring wires had been placed on his chest connecting him to machines nearby. Aware of how inappropriate it was for her to admire the contours of his well-defined chest and abdomen, she couldn’t stop herself. The man kept himself in top physical shape. It was necessary with his field of work but his physique suggested he strove to surpass the norm. No wonder he’d been able to carry the man out of the burning building.
His gaze met hers. Heated embarrassment washed over her and she averted her eyes. Ogling a man, especially one that she worked with, wasn’t what she should be doing.
Ross went into another round of heavy coughing that sent her attention to the amount of oxygen he was receiving. The bubble in the meter indicated one liter, which was good. Still, at this rate it would take him days to clear the smoke from his lungs.
Sally stepped closer to his side and spoke to no one in particular. “How’s he doing?”
One of the nurses responded. “He seems to be recovering well. We’re going to continue to give him oxygen and get a chest X-ray just to be sure that he didn’t inhale any more smoke than we anticipated.”
“I’m right here, you know.” Ross’s voice was a rusty muffled sound beneath the mask. He glared at her. This time her look remained on him.
“You need to save your voice.”
He grimaced as a doctor entered. What was that look about? Surely, he wasn’t afraid of doctors.
Slipping out of the room as the woman started her examination, Sally stepped to the department desk and signed papers releasing Ross and the John Doe as her patients into the hospital’s care. Done, she joined the EMTs at her ambulance.
She gave James a wry smile. “Good work out there this morning.”
“You too,” he replied as he pulled out of the drive.
In the passenger seat, she buckled up, glad to be out of the back of the box. She wasn’t a big fan of riding there.
She shivered now at the memory of when she’d been locked in a trunk and forgotten while playing a childhood game. To this day she didn’t like tight spaces or the dark. Being in the square box of the ambulance reminded her too much of that experience. It was one of those things she just dealt with because she loved her job.
Sally leaned her head back and closed her eyes. Ross’s light blue gaze over the oxygen mask came to mind. She’d met Ross Lawson soon after she had moved to Austin and gone to work for the Austin Medical Emergency Service, the medical service arm that worked in conjunction with the fire department that shared the same stations and sometimes the same personnel when a fireman was also qualified to work the medical side. As an advanced paramedic, she was assigned Station Twelve, one of the busiest houses of Austin’s forty-eight stations. It just happened that it was the same station where her brother and Ross worked. She hadn’t missed that twinge of attraction when she and Ross had first met any more than she had this morning. But she had never acted on it and never would.
A relationship, of any kind, was no longer a priority for her. She’d had that. Her brief marriage had been both sad and disappointing. Now she was no longer married, all she wanted to do was focus on getting into medical school. It had been her dream before she’d married, and it was still her dream. At this point in her life a relationship would just be a distraction, even if she wanted one. She was done making concessions for a man. Going after what she wanted was what mattered.
The ambulance reversed with a beep, beep, beep. It alerted her to the fact that they had arrived at the firehouse. When they stopped, she hopped out onto the spotless floor.
She loved the look of the fire station. It was a modern version of the old traditional fire halls with its redbrick exterior and high arched glass doors. A ceramic dalmatian dog even sat next to the main entrance. The firefighters worked on one side of the building and the emergency crew on the other. They shared a kitchen, workout room and TV room on the firefighter side. They were a station family.
James had backed into the bay closest to the medical side of the building. The other two bays were for the engine, quint truck and rescue truck. They hadn’t returned yet. The company would still be at the warehouse fire mopping up. When they did return, they would also pull in backward, ready for the next run.
Before she could even think about cleaning up and heading home, she would have to restock the ambulance and write a report. The ambulance must always be ready to roll out. More than once in the last year she’d returned from a call only to turn around and make another one.
“Hey, Sweet Pea.”
She groaned and turned to see Kody loping toward her. “I told you not to call me that,” she whispered. “Especially not here.”
He gave her a contrite look. “Sorry, I forgot.”
“What’re you doing here anyway?”
“I left something in my locker and had to stop by and