filled with the rapidly disappearing vision of the handsome stranger, until the lights finally dimmed.
DREW HAD BECOME an arson inspector for a reason—he absolutely detested hospitals. In his opinion, emergency rooms were the worst. But here he was, at the UCLA Medical Center for the second time in one day, hanging around a place he didn’t like, keeping a promise to an old woman he didn’t even know. A sweet old woman who could very well be an arson suspect.
He leaned against the wall nearest the electronic doors a few feet away from the ER’s waiting area. The space was crowded for a Thursday afternoon, with people hoping to be seen soon or anxious for word on the status of a loved one. A pair of sunshine-blond little boys played with plastic trucks on the asphalt-tile floor near the feet of a man Drew assumed was their father. The kids made car engine sounds and scooted their toys around in circles, seemingly oblivious to the worried expression on their father’s face, or the fear and despair mingled in the guy’s eyes.
Drew looked away as an old memory nudged him. He’d seen that look before, on his own dad’s face as the family had waited to hear if his mother was going to pull through. But Drew had known. He might have only been a little squirt at the time, but he’d known that he and his older brothers would never see their mother again. The score of firefighters that had hovered around the emergency room that night pretty much told a story that even Drew, at the tender age of six, had known would not hold a happy ending. As an adult, twenty-three years later, he understood that Joanna Perry had died doing what she loved, fighting fires and saving lives. As a kid, he hadn’t been quite so wise or understanding.
Like his oldest brother Ben, Drew had done his best to avoid doctors and hospitals ever since. As third-generation firefighters, they found visits to emergency rooms came with the job, but at least were somewhat minimal. Their brother, Cale, however, worked as a paramedic and passed through the electronic doors of the ER numerous times during each pull of duty. Since transferring to arson two years ago, Drew’s trips here were slim to none unless he needed to question a witness with regard to an arson investigation. He couldn’t avoid the sterile, antiseptic halls completely, but any time spent in hospitals now was routinely confined to the morgue or the medical examiner’s office.
“Hey, what are you doing here? Come to ask that new ER nurse out on a date?”
Drew looked up and acknowledged his brother. “Cale,” he said, straightening. “Speak of the devil.”
“And the devil appears,” Cale countered with a wide grin, something he’d been doing a lot of lately. Drew gave all the credit to Cale’s fiancée, Maggie. Or was it Amanda? Amanda, he corrected. Maggie had been her persona when she’d been suffering amnesia. He really liked Amanda, but it had been a lot of fun to watch Maggie keeping his brother on his toes.
“So why are you hangin’ around this place?” Cale asked. “Don’t you have a firebug to catch?”
Drew let out a sigh. How exactly did he explain his presence in the ER, especially when he wasn’t really sure himself how he came to be playing the role of knight in shining armor, not once, but twice in the same day? “Long story,” he said, hoping Cale would leave it alone, because he had no easy answers.
Earlier today he’d come to the ER to question Velma Norris, the eighty-year-old owner of the Norris Culinary Academy, regarding the outbreak of recent fires at the school. While the fires themselves were relatively harmless in nature, Drew had his suspicions. First, a grease fire inside a deserted classroom, seemingly caused by a grease spill and a faulty pilot light. Then, a short tower of crates filled with newspapers behind the school had caught fire, caused, at first glance, by a careless smoker. The most recent incident—involving a Dumpster—had also looked innocuous on the surface, except the fire had been the third in two weeks. With the blazes occurring so close together, Drew didn’t plan on dismissing the last case as accidental without proof.
To complicate matters, he’d never expected to be cajoled by Velma into returning to the school to meet her granddaughter, Emily, and bring her to the hospital. When Emily had literally fainted at his feet, he’d had no other choice but to bring her to the ER. With the record high temperatures, dehydration or heatstroke were real possibilities, and he didn’t believe in taking chances.
Cale stuffed his hands in the front pockets of his navy uniform trousers. “Give me the condensed version. I’ve got a couple minutes until Brady finishes up.”
Just his luck, Cale wouldn’t be going anywhere anytime soon because his partner was damned thorough when it came to paperwork. “Someone passed out, and I was handy.” Drew opted for a minimal exchange of information. “Heat exhaustion, I think.”
Cale’s grin widened. “A woman someone, no doubt.”
Drew frowned. “Yeah, so?” He knew he had a reputation within the department as a ladies’ man, however unfounded in his opinion, but it wasn’t like that this time. He’d been doing someone a favor, and well, when a woman fainted at his feet, his training took over. Period. End of story. So what if he’d liked the way Emily Dugan’s big brown eyes sparkled when she’d looked at him? Was it a crime for him to appreciate a beautiful woman?
Cale’s laughter irritated Drew. “Only you, little brother, only you.”
Usually the ribbing he received from his brothers or the guys at Trinity Station failed to get a rise out of him. Unfortunately, today was a different story. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means that you don’t have enough women chasing after you, now you’ve got them falling at your feet.”
“It wasn’t like that.”
“Really?” Cale crossed his arms, his expression skeptical. “Then how was it? It’s not like you to wait around a hospital to find out about a patient.”
“Like I said, it’s a long story.” One he didn’t care to share with his brother at the moment, not when he had a hard time explaining his actions to himself.
“An interesting one, too, I’ll bet.” Cale sobered. “What’s her name?”
Drew let out a sigh. “Emily Dugan, not that it’s any of your business.”
“She was brought in for heat exhaustion, right?”
At Drew’s nod, Cale spun on his heel and headed toward the examination area.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Drew asked, following his brother.
“I wanna see her.”
“Why?”
Cale stopped and let out a stream of breath. “Curiosity. There’s a damn good reason if you’re hanging around a hospital when you don’t have to be here.” He repeated the words slowly, as if Drew was being deliberately obtuse. “I’m betting she’s one hot reason, too.”
Drew could continue to argue with Cale, thereby raising his brother’s suspicions and determination, or he could drop the subject as if it held little importance. Either way, he knew from a lifetime of experience, Cale wouldn’t back off until he’d thoroughly satisfied his curiosity.
Drew followed Cale through the electronic glass doors into the heart of the ER. Nurses, orderlies and physicians moved at a brisk pace between curtained partitions, through trauma room doors or hovered around a large horseshoe-shaped desk area, filling in charts, speaking on telephones or viewing lab reports in an efficient display of
