glanced down at Xavier. “What are you doing now?”
“Saving this kid’s life.” His voice was embarrassingly thick with emotion.
“You moved him?”
“Had to.”
Isaac’s eyes went from the boy’s small body to a spot over Remo’s shoulder to the shattered vehicle. He opened his mouth. Before he could speak, though, a thunderous rattle came from all around. Something popped. And from the corner of his eye, Remo spotted the source.
The electrical pole.
A crack as wide as his arm split the damned thing down the middle. Its two pieces shuddered, then tilted. One went backward, but the other came forward, and as they watched, it fell fast and hard. Straight into the car.
Remo wished he could feel smug. Instead, he just felt relieved. Maybe a bit stunned. He swung back to Isaac, but the other man didn’t acknowledge the fortuitous result of his rule breaking.
“Guess you moved the woman, too?” he asked.
“She would’ve been electrocuted otherwise.”
“Fine. What’s done is done. I’ll get a gurney over here so you can put the kid down.”
Xavier buried himself in Remo’s chest, his small hands gripping his shirt tightly.
“I don’t need a gurney. I’ll hold him in the back.”
Isaac blinked. “What?”
Remo shook his head, not buying the ignorant act for a second. “You heard me.”
The older man narrowed his eyes. “You want to keep ignoring protocol?”
“Done it twice in the last twenty minutes. Saved a woman and a kid. Think I’ll stick to my own rules for just a little while longer.”
“I’ll have to put it in the report.”
“Go for it.”
Isaac’s expression didn’t change, but the tightness in his jaw told Remo he was annoyed. The irritation rolled off him, and the seconds ticked by with neither of them backing down. Finally, the second EMT—a younger, part-time kid named Tyler—called out, breaking the tension that radiated through the air.
“Isaac! Need a hand over here, please!”
The older man twitched, then spun to offer his assistance. Remo didn’t bother to gloat. All he cared about was keeping his promise to Celia and making the kid feel safe. He stepped over to the ambulance, murmuring that Xavier’s mom would be fine, and explaining that he’d made sure himself that she’d be safe.
“It might be a little scary in the ambulance,” he said, “but it’s just science, and there’s nothing really scary about that, right?”
For the first time, Xavier pulled back and looked up into Remo’s face. His eyes were the same unusual shade of gray as Celia’s, and he had a smattering of freckles that matched hers, too. There was no doubt that the kid was her son.
“Science?” he repeated in a small, curious voice.
“Science,” Remo confirmed. “Do you like science?”
“Yes.”
“Me, too. Do you want me to take you inside so you can see?”
“Yes, please.”
“Okay. Let’s get in before they bring your mom around, okay?”
Xavier nodded, and Remo used his height—six foot four, and sometimes an inconvenience but right that second an advantage—to propel them up together.
“One,” he grunted. “Two.”
“Three!” added the little boy, quiet, but almost gleeful, too.
“Wow.” Remo put some extra awe into the exclamation.
“What?”
“You can count.”
“Yeah.”
“I dunno. Are you old enough to count?”
“I’m five!”
Remo suppressed a chuckle and let out a whistle instead. “Holy cow.”
“How old are you?” the boy asked.
“Old.”
“That’s not a number.”
“Maybe I’m so old that I don’t remember.”
“A hundred?”
“Hey, now. Do I look like I’m a hundred?”
Xavier leaned back and studied Remo’s face like he really had to think about it. “I dunno.”
Remo suppressed a grin. “Is my hair gray? Or falling out?”
“No.”
“Is my face wrinkly?”
The kid lifted a hand and pressed a finger to Remo’s forehead. “A little right here. The same kind of wrinkly my mom gets when she worries about me.”
“Yeah, I’m a bit of a worrier myself.”
“Do you have a boy like me at home, too?”
“’Fraid not.”
“How come?”
“Well. For starters, I don’t have a wife.”
“My mom doesn’t have a husband.”
Remo couldn’t quite block out a trickle of interest at the statement. “No?”
Xavier shook his head. “My dad isn’t in the picture.”
It had the ring of something oft-repeated, and this time, Remo couldn’t stop a smile. “Well. I guess that makes you the man of the house, hmm?”
“That’s what my mom says, too.”
“Glad she and I agree.”
The little boy’s gaze flicked toward the open doors at the back of the ambulance. “Is she okay?”
Remo considered the question and how to answer it. Over the course of his career, he’d learned more than a bit about how to read people. Some wanted a gloss-over. Others wanted the worst case scenario presented in black-and-white. A kid, though, was a bit of a curveball. Protectiveness was a reflex, spurred on by the solemn, needy gaze zeroed in on him. No dad in the picture. Celia could be all the boy had. But Remo’s own history made it hard
