“Yeah, I guess. Maybe we’ll grab a bite if I get back in time?” He gave her a weird, halfhearted pat on the back, a distracted peck on the cheek—one you’d give your grandmother—and wandered off, lost in the deepest of thought.
She grabbed hold of the door and sank onto the thick lip of the ambulance’s bumper as a sour cramping sensation rushed into her gut so violently she gasped.
He wanted out.
Now that he had his brothers in his life again—brothers he had fastidiously avoided introducing her to—he didn’t need to do good deeds anymore.
“Hey, Valentino!” she shouted after his retreating figure, hands pressed to her knees in a facsimile of looking good, feeling good. “Don’t worry about dinner. I think I’m going to try and grab another shift. I heard they’re short tonight.”
“Oh! All right.” He nodded as if really taking the news on board and finding it difficult to digest. “Good. Good. See you later, then.”
“Santi?” she called out again.
When he turned around the look of hope and expectation on his face all but took her breath away.
Those eyes of his, amber-flecked portals to all the answers of the universe. His beautiful mouth, lips slightly parted as if he were about to ask her a question. That dark hair she’d become addicted to running her fingers through could’ve done with a bit of a tweak right now. Not that devilishly rakish didn’t work for the man. Far from it. She felt a small tremor begin to take hold of her fingers, spreading and gaining traction throughout her body. The sum of this man’s parts was now adding up to one terrifying reality: she was in trouble. And in the one way she’d vowed never to get hurt again.
“Drive safe.”
It came out as more of a whisper than the cheery goodbye she’d been aiming for.
“Will do.” Santi gave her a half wave and, if she wasn’t mistaken, a confused shake of the head as he turned and picked up his long-legged stride toward his motorcycle.
The physical ache she felt as she watched him leave threatened to consume her on the spot. Head down, shoulders tightly hunched up toward her ears so that they all but blocked out the roar of Santi’s motorcycle being shifted from low to high gear as he swept out of Seaside Hospital’s parking lot and off into the glowing remains of the evening light.
An emptiness began to fill her like darkness.
She shook her head again and again. She hadn’t traveled this far and worked as hard as she had only to become a victim again.
This time she was in charge of her destiny.
This time she held the reins.
* * *
It was worth it. At least it would be. Wearing the emotional flak jacket to stave off Saoirse’s death glares and poorly disguised disappointment in him.
He knew he was being protective of her meeting his brothers. But not for the reasons she thought.
The number of times he’d thought of telling them about her...he just couldn’t pick where to begin when they were still working their way around their newfound relationships.
“So...there’s this girl I met...”
“Funny thing happened at work the other day.”
“What do you get when you put an Irish paramedic and a Heliconian Marine in a courthouse?”
An arranged marriage!
It wasn’t funny. And it certainly wasn’t a joke.
A tug at his conscience reminded him of the streak of sadness in Saoirse’s voice when he’d left tonight.
He’d caused that. And he’d be the one to fix it. Turn her frown upside down.
Dios!
What a dork.
He opened the throttle on his bike just to remind himself of his own virility.
Taking the turn into town instead of off to the Keys was equally satisfying.
He was putting down roots. Building a new future.
All that was left to discover was how big a role Saoirse was going to play in it.
* * *
“Hey! Where’s the fire?”
“Amanda! Sorry, I didn’t see you there.” Saoirse’s focus had been so intent she’d marched straight past her friend. “You off shift?”
“Yeah, how did you guess?” Her friend gave her trademark smirk as she retied the bikini neck strings looping over the back of her baggy sweatshirt.
“Meeting James at the beach?”
“And the observational powers prize goes to Saoirse Murphy!”
Saoirse’s jaw dropped.
“What? What did I say?” Amanda looked over her shoulder as if the words were still lingering there.
“You got it right.”
“What right?”
“My name. It’s the first time you’ve got my name right!”
“Really?” Amanda beamed. “I wasn’t even trying! Hooray for me!” She grabbed hold of Saoirse’s elbow with both hands and tugged. “Why don’t you come along? We’ll have a swim, and then we’ll ditch James. He’s always working at night anyway so we can go to Mad Ron’s and drink mojitos.”
A wave of nausea lurched across Saoirse’s midriff. She’d been giving Mad Ron’s a wide berth since “the reunion.”
“What’s wrong?” Amanda’s forehead crinkled. “You love Mad Ron’s and we haven’t been for ages.”
“I know, I was just...” Oh, no. Oh, please...oh, please, no. Tears were stinging at the back of her throat. She held her breath. She swallowed. She held her breath again.
“Oh, Murph! C’mon. I have a good guess where you were heading so let’s get there and fast.” Amanda steered her around past the main check-in counter and headed toward the elevators, proving she knew her friend well.
“What about James?”
Her voice cracked horribly and the tears she’d been valiantly holding at bay lurched up to balance precariously on the rims of her eyes.
You idiot! Tip your head back. Tip your head back and make them go away.
“I’ll send him a text. He never actually wants to go, but I make him because otherwise I don’t think he’d ever leave the office. Enforced date night,” she added, all the while jabbing the elevator buttons. “All work and no play makes James a dull boy.”
Mercifully,
