you help me?” he said, his voice barely audible.
“Are you sick? Injured?” She fished for her cell phone and had just found it when a thirty-something man appeared from the edge of the oleander hedge along the street. Like the first, he, too, was dressed in a police uniform. But his hair was long and stringy, he’d done a poor job of shaving that morning, and part of his uniform shirt wasn’t tucked in. Her gaze caught on his shoes. He wore a pair of worn-out sneakers.
Lorna felt her first real sense of fear. This man, she thought as he ran toward her, was not a policeman. Before she could react, the first man straightened a little, reached out and grabbed her wrist.
She swung her bag with her lunch, the pint-size thermos and the container of cookies in it, catching the older of the two on the side of his head. He yelped and stumbled back, bumping into the disheveled-looking man. Lorna had stepped backward into the building with the swing of her bag. Now she fought to close the door, but the younger man was faster and stronger.
He drove the door back. She turned and ran deeper into the building, her cell phone still in her hand, her fingers punching out 91—
The younger man was on her before she could get out the last number.
7:18 a.m.
ANNA FELT ALL the breath knocked out of her as she looked past Max and saw Flint. She was shocked at how little he had changed. For a moment it was as if the last five years hadn’t happened and at any moment he would smile and she would step into his strong arms.
But then she saw his expression, a mixture of anger, bitterness and hurt, assuring her the years had been real, just like her reason for leaving.
His gaze turned colder than even she had expected. But it was her own reaction that surprised her. She had wondered what it would be like to see him again. She’d told herself she was over Flint Mauro. That there were no feelings left. For the past five years, she’d worked hard to forget him and get on with her life. She thought she’d done just that.
But she’d never expected it would hurt this much just seeing him.
“Anna,” Max said warmly. “Flint, Anna is our new SWAT team paramedic. Anna, Flint is our SWAT team commander.”
Anna could only stare in disbelief. Flint had always said he was going to be a detective and work his way to chief of police. He wanted to be one of those cops who used his brain instead of brawn, who didn’t have a job where he was always in the line of fire.
“I want to be able to come home to my wife and kids at night,” he had said. “I don’t want to be out there risking my life any more than I have to.”
Now he wore SWAT fatigues and a T-shirt with Do Whatever It Takes printed across the chest. What had happened in the last five years to change his mind?
“Please come in and sit down,” Max said to her, cutting through her painful memories.
Behind him, Flint was shaking his head. “What the hell? Max, you can’t be serious. This isn’t going to work.”
Max acted as if he hadn’t heard him. “Anna, are you all settled in?”
She nodded, afraid she couldn’t find her voice to speak.
Flint had turned away, anger in every line of his body. “I can’t believe you kept this from me.”
“Both of you—sit down,” Max ordered.
“Max, I had no idea that Flint was the SWAT commander,” Anna finally managed to say.
“Sit.”
They sat in the two chairs in front of his desk, neither looking at the other. But Anna couldn’t have been more aware of Flint. This close she could smell the light scent of his aftershave, the same kind he’d used when they’d been together. He exuded an energy that seemed to hum in the air around him, that buzzed through her, reminding her of what it was like being in that force field, the excitement, the dynamism.
“One of the reasons I had the two of you come in early is so that we could get this over with,” Max said. “Bitch and moan and then get past it. Flint, that’s why I didn’t tell you until now that I’d hired Anna. I didn’t want you stewing for weeks over this. The two of you will be working together. You have the jobs you do because you’re the best at what you do.”
“Why Anna?” Flint demanded as if she wasn’t in the room. “Anyone but Anna.”
“Excuse me?” she said, turning in her chair to look at him. “Is it possible I qualify for the job?”
Flint shot her a withering look. “I’m sure there are dozens, if not hundreds, of other paramedics who also qualify for the job.”
“For the past three years,” Max said, an edge to his voice, “Anna has excelled at this position in Washington, D.C., where she was in tougher situations than we’ve had in Courage Bay. She knows what she’s doing and she’s damned good at it.”
Flint was shaking his head. “Does it matter how I feel about this?”
“No,” Max said. “Anna’s good and she knows how our SWAT team operates because of her earlier experience as a paramedic with the Courage Bay fire department. She’s the perfect person for the job. That’s what’s important here. Not any petty differences the two of you might have.”
“Petty differences?” Flint snapped. “You might remember, Max, we were engaged to be married. Hell, you were going to be my best man. This is what tore us apart. Her insisting on endangering herself by training to go in with the SWAT team.”
“You endanger yourself with your job every day,” Anna pointed out. “I don’t see the difference.”
“You know damned well what the difference is.” Flint swung his gaze from her to Max. “She’s a woman. She needs to be there for our children.”
“You have children?” Max asked.
Flint shook his head in obvious frustration. “You know what I’m saying.”
Anna stared at Flint. When she’d first seen him after five years, all those old loving feelings had washed over her like a rogue wave, drowning her in wonderful memories of the two of them together, making her question how she’d ever been able to leave him.
But now as she looked at his obstinate expression, listened to him go on about a woman’s place, she knew she’d made the right decision five years ago. The man was from the Stone Age.
“Anna was the best candidate for this job. She can handle it. So don’t fight me on this, Flint.”
Max turned his attention to her. “Flint has excelled with the SWAT team. He’s shown himself a leader. That’s how he got the job of commander. There is only one question I want answered here this morning. Can you work together, or are you going to let your differences make it impossible? I have to know right now. Is your past relationship going to interfere with your performance?”
“As you pointed out, we have no relationship anymore,” Flint said. “Anna made that quite clear five years ago.”
Max
