into fists. “I don’t know what to think, sir. But I assure you I can handle whatever curveballs are thrown at me.” Because there was no way she’d let Luke down a second time.
“Unfortunately, some of those curveballs are turning into boomerangs that are beating us upside the head.”
Tension hummed along her nerves. “Pardon me?”
“Reinhart, the widower whose wife died of a heart attack last month, is demanding an inquest. Claims your refusal to come up to his apartment without a police escort cost too many minutes. Minutes that could’ve saved his wife.”
“Sir, I’m deeply sorry for his loss, but the building was flagged for multiple drug-related incidents. I followed protocol.”
“Yes,” he said, but didn’t sound pleased about it. No doubt thinking if it hadn’t been her in that ambulance, he wouldn’t be facing an inquest.
“Any paramedic would have done the same. Did Dan say otherwise?” The men liked to be cowboys, but she’d thought they’d learned their lesson after what had happened to Luke. If she and Luke had followed protocol that morning, he might still be alive. Her chest tightened at thoughts of other choices that might have kept him alive.
Her boss shrugged. “Not in so many words.”
A rap on the door made her jump, but not nearly as fitfully as her insides trampolined when Cole stepped into view.
His gaze narrowed in on her cheek and his eyes darkened.
She finger-combed her hair over the butterfly bandage binding the cut his brother had given her.
“You must be Donovan.” Her boss beckoned Cole in. “You can use my office to question Sherri. Her shift is covered, so take as long as you need.”
Sherri nodded, straining to appear cooperative when everything inside her wanted to bolt.
He stepped through the door, and the room seemed to shrink, much like the crisply ironed shirt straining at his muscular shoulders.
She looked away, not wanting to notice how good he looked in a uniform. Not wanting to imagine that concern for her had etched those creases into his brow.
He might say her welfare came first, but she’d stopped believing in fairy tales long ago. Never mind how princelike he’d seemed today. He’d do the same for any innocent person. He was here to question her about the incidents, not to get reacquainted.
The sooner she told him what he wanted to know, the sooner he’d be on his way.
As her boss stepped out of the room, she sank into a chair and grasped for a light tone. “You’re his dream come true. If everything that’s happened goes on the record, he’ll claim I should be put on administrative leave for my own safety until you can figure out who’s behind everything.”
“Sounds like a smart move to me.”
“No,” she said firmly. “It’s not.”
His eyebrow arched curiously. “Why’s that?”
She tapped her fingers to her lips, fighting to rein in her galloping pulse. She couldn’t tell him that her days off were worse. That she’d rather fight off a drug-crazed kid than— She cut off the thought and casually slid her fingers from her mouth to tame an invisible strand of wayward hair. “Because I need every shift I can get if I’m going to qualify for the next flight medic job that opens up,” she improvised with the same story she’d used on her parents to justify taking extra shifts. Once she got the flight medic job, things would get better. There wouldn’t be so many reminders.
Cole smiled, the corners of his eyes crinkling in that way that used to make her heart flutter.
She silently groaned at the realization that it still did.
“A flight medic, wow! I can’t help feeling a little proud that you took my advice.”
The warmth in his voice did funny things to her insides. That and the fact he remembered his murmured, “You’d make a good paramedic,” that day she’d treated his swollen knuckles.
“It’s good to see you doing so well.”
She pasted on a smile and nodded. “So what brings you back to Stalwart?” She glanced at his left hand, but his fingers were tucked out of sight. “You married? Come back to settle down?” Her cheeks heated. Why on earth had she asked him that?
His gaze darkened. “No, working law enforcement and marriage aren’t a good mix.”
“Hah,” she scoffed. “I have several happily married uncles and cousins who would loudly disagree.”
“Appearances can be deceptive.”
Resisting the urge to massage her bruised throat, she sat up straighter. Yeah, she knew all about keeping up appearances. “Then you’ll understand why I don’t want these incidents blown out of proportion. Because, between you and me, I’m pretty sure I’m just being hazed.”
“Hazed?” Cole’s eyes widened. “But you’ve already been on the job a couple of years. Haven’t you?”
“Almost three.” She pressed her lips together, wishing she’d kept her mouth shut. Hazing had seemed like an innocuous way to say her colleagues didn’t want to work with her.
Cole studied her too intently as he pulled a notepad and pencil from his shirt pocket. “How about you tell me what you remember about each incident?”
She exhaled, relieved that at least he hadn’t pressed for reasons for her hazing suspicions. “I’m not convinced they can be called incidents. Dan is overreacting. Nothing has happened to me that hasn’t happened to any other paramedic at one time or another.”
“Difference is they keep happening to you.”
Yeah, okay. There was that. “They were incidental things like being called to an address that didn’t exist or being propositioned by a half-doped patient who claimed he’d never called an ambulance.”
Cole flinched as if the thought of some creep pawing her made him feel sick.
“Nothing I couldn’t handle,” she stressed, trying not to squirm under the intensity of his troubled gaze. The reaction of the other paramedics, who’d slapped her on the back and complimented the Ice Queen for kneeing the loser in the groin, had been easier to handle. Ironically, their hazing probably had helped her tough it out when she’d felt like quitting as much as they wanted her to.
“When did the incidents start?”
“I can’t say for sure.” The whispering had started first. Luke’s death had been the tipping point for her colleagues. He’d been a good man, a true friend. And the only paramedic who hadn’t griped about teaming with her after she’d gotten her first partner fired for drinking on the job.
“You did the right thing,” he’d said the first time they’d driven to a call together. He hadn’t said what he was referring to. Hadn’t needed to. She wasn’t sure if he’d ever known how much those five little words had meant to her, because they’d
