Chapter 5
TWO DAYS LATER, Allie was sitting at her desk staring down at the mountain of paperwork and invoices in front of her. The hospital needed so many updates, it seemed as if all she’d done since getting to Bear Mountain was sign checks.
The only bright spot in all the mundane tasks were the few times Hunter Gracin would walk by her open door with a smile or a wave. Not that she was looking for a boyfriend, but she’d be pretty well off with a guy like Hunter. He was successful, grounded, handsome, and nice, and much better than any other candidates she’d met.
Like Dex Belmont.
No, Dex wasn’t even in the running. He was too cocky, he’d already proved he was a little shady, and he was totally the kind of guy who would love her and then leave her high and dry. She didn’t need another jerk to rock her world; she needed a partner with his shit together.
It was why she needed to really think about every move she made here. Her past was filled with regrettable career choices, and a string of bad relationships. Her mother liked to throw them in her face whenever she mentioned Allie’s two older, happily married sisters. Both had married men with impeccable New York pedigrees and were loaded to boot.
While Allie was happy her sisters had found love with men her parents approved of, Allie wanted more than what life had to offer in the city. She still wanted the right guy, which is why she started a checklist of all the qualities she was looking for in a man. Hunter matched it perfectly.
Dex, not so much.
Her desk phone rang, and she picked it up on the second ring. “Allison Fairchild.”
“Hello, Ms. Fairchild,” her assistant, Rebecca Kirkland, said. “If you still want to lend a hand, they’re short a surgical nurse and have a family coming in with multiple injuries. Car accident.”
Allie hesitated for a brief moment, taking in the mess she’d be leaving behind. But it would all be waiting when she got back in an hour or two.
“I’ll be right down.” Allie quickly shrugged out of her business casual attire and changed into the purple scrubs she kept in her desk drawer. With her stethoscope in hand, she ran for the stairs. When she finally burst into the emergency area, gurneys were being wheeled in, one after another. Hunter was directing people and Allie made her way toward him without even thinking about it. Maybe it was because he seemed to be the only one besides Rebecca who hadn’t hated her on sight, or perhaps it was watching him with that patient’s wife, but she liked him.
And it didn’t hurt to make friends.
“Hey, I heard you needed some help down here,” she said, coming up alongside him.
He glanced her way with a puzzled look. “I thought you were our administrator?”
“Well, I’m also a trauma nurse, and a pretty decent one, actually.”
Hunter gave her a wide grin, his blue eyes dancing with amusement. “Is that a fact?”
“It is a fact, so if you can use me … ”
“I can use you. Dex should be coming with another critical case any minute.”
“Dex?”
Crap, please don’t let it be—
The automatic doors opened and in rolled a gurney manned by two paramedics ….
And her jerk of a landlord sitting astride the patient, administering chest compressions. Against her will, her gaze was drawn to those strong, corded arms as he pressed down hard with each compression, his face tight with concentration. Tiny beads of sweat gathered at his temples and she had the craziest urge to dab his forehead.
“What do we have?” Hunter asked.
Shaking herself, she slapped on her all-business face. Old habits die hard, but she was determined to focus on cute, reliable men like Hunter, and not dishonest, sneaky, hot, sexy men like …
“Fifty-six-year-old male, suspected heart attack,” Dex said breathlessly. “He was unconscious in the field, and his pulse was weak and thready up until a minute ago—”
“Are you a paramedic?” Allie asked abruptly.
Dex paused in his compressions as he glanced her way, piercing her with those intense green eyes. “No.”
“Then maybe you should get off our patient and let us take over.”
Allie realized that she’d said the wrong thing the minute the air chilled around her. The two paramedics looked at her as if she were an insect, and even Hunter frowned at her.
Dex climbed off, and let one of the paramedics climb up. “Whatever the boss wants.”
Damn it, she’d let her emotions get the better of her and acted like an elitist bitch. She’d wanted him gone, but she hadn’t meant to sound so cutting.
“All right, Trauma Two, let’s go,” Hunter said.
As they rushed the man off, Allie hesitated, opening her mouth to apologize.
“Shouldn’t you go with them? Make sure they’re doing their job right?”
Allie’s cheeks burned. Of course he probably thought she was some kind of tyrant, but she really wasn’t. She had no idea what it was about Dex that made her want to prick him with every barb in her arsenal. She wasn’t usually like this.
But she couldn’t tell Dex any of that, because he was already walking out the door.
Pushing him from her mind, she hurried to Trauma Two and found the patient surrounded by Hunter and several nurses.
“We’ve got it covered,” he called out, barely glancing at her while he charged the paddles. Then he yelled, “Clear.”
His brush-off was so painful that Allie felt as if he had put the paddles to her. So much for having one ally.
Dex found his truck in the parking lot with Bluebell waiting patiently in the backseat. He’d asked Brian Darcy, one of Bear Mountain’s firefighters, to follow behind the ambulance in it, and Dex was definitely thankful to live in a small town where people could be trusted. Where people knew him and his background.
Everyone except Allie.
Dex slammed his palm against the steering wheel, letting loose a string of curses that would have made his grandma blush. It had taken all of his self-control not to lay into Allie Fairchild and her snotty, condescending attitude, but he’d been the bigger man, turned the other cheek.
For all the good it did him. He knew he’d be stewing for days about this incident.
Bluebell leaned over the back of the seat and nuzzled his ear. It was the hound’s attempt to calm him, but Dex was too fired up. It wasn’t as if he didn’t have any medical training, didn’t know how to administer CPR, yet he’d let her treat him like an idiot.
He hated that. Growing up with parents like his hadn’t been easy. He’d been an ordinary kid who preferred fishing to calculus, and their disapproval had given him a bit of an inferiority complex. He could admit that. And Miss High-and-Mighty New York Princess had hit the nerve like a dart to a bull’s-eye.
The only reason he had been at the scene of the accident was that he was driving behind them when the car had swerved off the road and hit a tree. Dex stopped to check on them and found the husband unresponsive, with a weak heartbeat. The wife was crying in the front seat with a head wound, and their two teenagers were in the back with minor injuries. Dex called it in and started on the husband, which was probably what had kept him alive until the ambulance arrived.
But he couldn’t tell Allie that or she might have thought he cared about her opinion of him. Which he didn’t. At all.
Heading out toward the Bear Mountain Search and Rescue building, he cracked his neck and rolled his shoulders, trying to relieve some of the tension plaguing him.
Suddenly, something small and brown ran out in front of his truck. Swerving, he glanced back to see the little fur ball in the road, unhurt. Few cars came out this way, so Dex stopped and got out, making his way back toward the animal. He wasn’t sure what it was until it lifted its head and he saw the floppy ears and long snout.
It was a puppy, and not a very old one by the looks of it. The dog cowered as Dex got closer, and started to slink away.
“Hey, buddy. It’s okay.” Dex kneeled down a few feet away and held out a hand. “I promise you’ll be safe with me.”
The puppy responded to his voice by submissively moving forward, and Dex saw the wet trail of urine it left behind. When it was finally within reach, Dex picked up the pup, noting its smelly, matted fur, and looked around. No one lived out this way, which made Dex suspect the little dude had been dumped in the forest.
Dex headed into the woods where the pup had come from, whistling, but there wasn’t another sound. Fairly confident the pup was alone, he headed back to the truck and climbed into the driver’s side, setting the pup on the passenger seat. Bluebell whined and tried to climb over the backseat, but a firm “Stay” from Dex had her sitting back, her long ears perked as she eyed the puppy.
And as the pup sat back, Dex got a good look at the little guy’s stumpy left front paw. Dex couldn’t tell what breed it was, but he had a feeling that its owners hadn’t been pleased by the pup’s deformity, most likely something it had been born with. But why let it live to be six, seven weeks before they dumped it?
Grabbing a blanket from the back, he tucked it around the little guy. “What do you say we get you a bath and some grub?”
The puppy cocked its head and whimpered.
Dex took that as a yes. Pleased to have something to focus on besides Allie Fairchild, he started up the truck and headed to work.