distract her from her training mission.
“Careful. Don’t cut yourself.”
“I know how to use a knife.”
“Do you cut clothes off yourself on a regular basis? Pretty sure that’s harder than cutting a sandwich.”
“Funny.” She struggled to move the knife down through the pants leg without gouging herself in the process, and as she did so heard an impatient sound come from Mateo.
“Let me.”
“I’m doing fine.”
“Yeah? Well, every second is time John isn’t at the hospital for pain meds and treatment, and we’re all still down here.”
“There hasn’t been any debris for a while. Right?” She paused in her cutting to look up at the dark tunnel ceiling again, wishing he’d stop pointing out the possibility of impending collapse.
A snorting humph was his only response as he tugged the knife from her hand and took over, getting it through the cloth in mere seconds, then hacking it off from around her knee before tearing it into strips. For some reason, having the blade so close to her skin didn’t worry her when it was Mateo doing the cutting. Maybe it was because the touch of his fingers on her skin as he moved them down her leg distracted her from being scared. “Rule number one is to get the hell out of any collapsed building ASAP. Which you’re going to do right now, to get a crew down here with a stretcher. I’m surprised someone hasn’t already come in here.”
“Okay.” She knew he was right, that trying to move John, even with his injury splinted and in a sling, would be painful and dangerous if he had to try to walk, especially after all the blood he’d lost. “I’ll be right back.”
“Back?” His focus was on finishing tying the last strip over the book then fashioning a sling from her scarf, but his scowl was most definitely directly at her. “Don’t be stupid. Just tell them where we are.”
And again he was right. Why she was feeling this weird need to actually see both of them make it out, she didn’t know. But she wasn’t needed here, and might well be needed at the hospital. “Okay,” she repeated as she stood, ridiculously feeling a need to brush some of the powdery dirt from her coat. “Since I definitely am not stupid, I’ll see you at—”
“Anybody in here?”
Miranda sagged in relief at the voices and the sight of two bobbing flashlights.
“Back here! About thirty feet. Bring a stretcher,” Mateo called. “Just one victim. No access to the subway platform. He came in because he was trying to get his dog out.”
“Got a stretcher right outside.” In mere moments two medics were there, Mateo helping them get John settled on the stretcher as he shared details of the patient’s condition and treatment. They wore full gear—reflective coats, hard hats, gloves, and various tools dangled from their belts. Which made Miranda wonder, for the first time, why Mateo was in street clothes. Or, actually, at that moment, very few clothes, with his shirt destroyed and his coat still off, and she found herself staring at his wide, muscled chest and broad shoulders.
“Are you off duty?” she asked.
“Yes. I was on my way to the main collapse when I saw John run in after Benny, then get hit by a chunk of concrete.”
“My little dog...” The two men picked up the stretcher, ready to carry him out, and John’s words were bitten off as he moaned.
“You get out of here too, Mateo,” one of the rescuers said. “You’re not equipped. I’ll send some guys in to check for anyone else, just in case, but the good news is that it looks like a structural collapse, nothing else. We’ve got plenty of crew on the scene and if no one else is in here, that means everyone’s out and clear both places. So you can go on home.”
“I have make sure a certain stubborn doctor gets to the hospital first.”
“Tough job you have,” one said, laughing, as they made their way toward daylight.
Miranda bent to casually retrieve her purse and flashlight from the ground, not wanting to show him how eager she was to get the heck out of there now that John was taken care of. Not wanting him to see how she’d been staring at his beautiful body. “You know, I’m not stubborn. It just seemed like I should help if I could, just like you did.”
“It’s my job to run into harm’s way when necessary. Don’t think that’s in your job description. Come on.”
He slid the filthy coat back on over his naked torso, then reached for her elbow. As they stepped over chunks of concrete, Miranda suddenly longed to be outside in the cold air and out of the dark gloom. Which she wouldn’t admit to Mateo for the world. “You don’t need to hold me up. I’m perfectly capable—”
“I just want to get outside, and if you fall and gash open your head we’ll be stuck in here all that much longer.”
“I’m sorry if I’ve made the situation more difficult,” she said, her stomach churning a little that he seemed to still think she’d done exactly that, and what did that make her? A pain in the neck, that’s what, just like her stepmother had told her for years. “I should have thought it through better and gotten a firefighter instead of coming in here myself.”
“Yes, you should’ve. But I have to admire how brave you are. And you were a big help, even though I hate to admit it.”
Even in the darkness she could see the smile in his eyes, which put a warm little glow in her chest and had her smiling back.
“That’s much better than telling me I’m annoying and stubborn,” she said. “You—”
A deep, ground-shaking rumble was followed instantly by sharp cracks and the thud of chunks of concrete hitting the ground. Miranda gasped, instinctively covering her head with her arms, as though that flimsy barrier could protect her in any way, when a heavy weight slammed straight into her.
MATEO’S HARD BODY took her down like a football linebacker, as he somehow managed to wrap his arms around her before they hit the earth. The sharp pebbles they landed on stabbed and scraped her one bare leg, a bigger chunk of concrete jabbed into her ribs, and her face landed on the hard pillow of Mateo’s muscled forearm before sliding off it into a pile of silty debris.
His weight smashed her down so hard she couldn’t get her mouth clear to breathe, and his body jerked at the same time as he grunted loudly in her ear. Lifting her head half an inch to suck in a chokingly dusty breath, she twisted and pushed at him, blinded by the dirt in her eyes, which sent tears streaming down her cheeks. “Get off! Can’t breathe...”
He didn’t move, and she jabbed her elbow into his ribs, which sent another low grunt into her ear. “Hold still a minute,” he said. “I just took a boulder for you and you’re trying to hurt me more?”
“What?” His weight lifted slightly off her, and she twisted around fully to lie on her back, sucking in deep breaths as she stared up at his grim face. Her hands decided on their own to grab at him, landing inside his coat on his shoulders,
