CHAPTER 6
PRESENT DAY
Dawson woke to an odd throaty sound and what sounded like foot tapping amidst all the beeping he had managed to sleep through. Briefly confused by his surroundings, the events of the previous night rushed quickly to the forefront of his mind. Sitting up straight in the chair he slept in, he found himself toe to toe with a sassy looking sprite of a little girl, all three feet of her. Long dark hair that ended in corkscrew curls and familiar slate blue eyes stared back at him with a twisted grin and slight glare, aimed right at him. Hands on her hips, the most raggedy stuffed something or other under her arm, wearing a baseball cap, Spiderman t-shirt, Converse sneakers and what appeared to be a tutu, she leaned in and raised her brows in question.
“Uh, are you lost?” he asked, a little lost himself.
“No sir, are you lost? Even grownups get lost; my Granny does all the time. Why are you holding her hand when she’s sleeping?” she replied with a confused smile. Dawson was used to working with children in his line of work—this one was cute, in a saucy kind of way. He grinned at her brassy comeback; she’s sharp.
“I suppose grownups can get lost, but no, I’m not lost. I, uh, I’m holding her hand because, well, she’s my friend,” he said with a confident nod and smile. “Nice hat. I like that team too. You like football?”
The little spitfire’s face lit up and she shot back, excited as could be, “They are my very favorite team. Football is my favorite, but I love hockey too, my favorite team is the Toronto Maple Leafs. Gran says that it’s un-American to love Toronto, but I looove maple syrup, so the Maple team is my favorite too. Plus my favorite color is red, like the Maple Leafs, but only because pink is my other favorite color, and boys don’t wear pink at the football games or when they play hockey. Just I wear pink. I don’t wear pink when I play kickball ’cause that’s for girls.”
“But you are a girl.”
“I know, silly. Pink is only for when you are being a girl.”
“So, you aren’t a girl when you play kickball?” This was getting funny; he was dealing with some kind of tomboy who sometimes wore pink, but only when she felt like being a girl, which was apparently always? He liked this kid; she was confusing but cute as hell.
“I’m always a girl; boys are yucky. They pick their noses and spit and can’t wear tutus ‘cause tutus are for girls. I don’t wear my pink tutu when I play kickball or tee-ball. I wear my blue one, or my yellow one, or my red one; red is my favorite.” She rolled her eyes as if this was too much to share and got to the point confidently listing what not to wear, which was a much shorter list. “Just not my pink one, or my purple one, and no sparkles.”
“Wow, thaaaat’s good to know, I think,” he stammered, not sure how else to reply. About all he got out of that was that she had a lot of favorites.
He wasn’t sure, but apparently tutus work in kickball, just not pink, purple, or sparkles. She was a spirited little thing. He was amused but having trouble keeping up and was certain someone must be looking for her. Sam’s room wasn’t the place for a random, meandering, stray child.
“So, what’s your name? Maybe I can help you find your mom so this lady here can rest. She isn’t feeling too good.”
She was cute and most definitely poised, but he wasn’t here to babysit. This was no place for a little girl to be wandering. Sam needed privacy. He wanted privacy while he figured out why he was even here and so affected by Sam and what had happened.
The cutest giggle erupted when she stated with a head shake, “My name is Elliot Louise Taylor. I’m four years old, and I already know where my mama is, silly!”
Quieting her voice, she continued, “She’s sleeping, so I haf’ta be quiet. Granny said everyone in’da hospital is resting, so use my ‘quiet as the church mouse’ voice and quiet, sneaky feet.”
“Well, your Granny is a smart lady. How about I walk you back to her so I know you got there safe, and my friend here can rest.” He stood and held out his hand to her, ready to walk her back to wherever she came from.
She grabbed his hand, shaking her head again with an eye roll. Ellie pointed to Sam and declared, “My mama’s right there. She’s sleeping ’cause she had an accident, and her head hurts, so she needs a long nap so it can get all better. Gran said it could take a long time or a little time, but we don’t know.”
The walls seemed to close in, and the floor began to shift. Had he heard her right? Did she really just say Sam was her mom? Sam didn’t have a daughter. She never mentioned a child, not even a hint. They talked about everything. Why wouldn’t she tell him this? He glanced back and forth between Sam and the girl, completely taken aback. How could he miss the resemblance, both with matching dark hair and steely grey-blue eyes? Elliot Louise Taylor…Taylor; of course, she’s Sam’s. As if on cue, Louise, otherwise known as Granny Lou, and Everly Shaw walked through the door—Sam’s family.
“Ellie Lou! Girl, you just about gave me a heart attack. I told you to stay put while I talked to Auntie Evie ‘bout your mama. Honey, you can’t be runnin’ off like that. You had me scared half to hell, little lady!”
Ellie Lou, Granny Lou, it was all adding up. Elliot, or Ellie, had been talking about Granny Lou this whole time. Dawson looked from Ellie to Granny Lou and Everly, opened his mouth to say something, but nothing came out. He glanced at Sam again, then back to the ladies still in the doorway, completely lost for words.
“I’m sorry, Gran. You were talkin’ for very long, and sitting still was so hard I was gettin’ some ants in my pants, so I used my super sneaky, quiet feet, and I found mommy. I was quiet. I didn’t wake her, promise. Huh, mister?”
Dawson looked down as Ellie Lou tugged his hand, gave him her best smile and batted her long lashes at him. Those were going to work well for her when she got older. “Um, ya, uh, she was very quiet. I didn’t even hear her come in. I didn’t know she, uh, I-I thought she was lost and…”
Granny and Evie both looked at each other in question before returning to him with doleful expressions, when Evie finally said, in a consoling tone, “You didn’t know.”
It wasn’t a question, it was statement, and she wasn’t surprised by the realization. He had been stunned by the discovery; it even stung a little. It must have been obvious because he was getting sympathetic eyes from Granny Lou and Evie.
Elliot Louise Taylor, or Ellie Lou, was a four-year-old tomboy in a tutu was and Sam’s life. She was the air her mama breathed and the joy they all thrived on. She was named after the most important people in her life besides her mama. Louise, was the name shared by Granny and Evie and now connected that sweet sunshine to them always. Elliot, originally thought to be a boy, was always covered in dirt and a whole lot of sass. That little sprite of a girl was known for her baseball caps and tutus, an unlikely combination but completely Ellie Lou. Sling shots, baby dolls, horses, all things naughty, and of course tutus were here signature.
“I better get going, let you all have time with Sam, privately.”
As he rushed the door, little feet barreled up behind him, and little fingers squeezed his hand. “Are you coming back to see my mama?”
“Uh, I’m not sure, Elliot. I uh, have to work later, and uh, she probably needs time to rest.” He stumbled over his words, not sure what he was doing next other than getting the hell out of there so he can toss this idea around and figure out what it even meant.
Not satisfied with his answer, her charming smile turned to a serious scowl. “You said my mama was your friend though. Gran says mommy needs all her important peoples around her, so she gets better. I want the bump on her head to get better so she can wake up and tell me about the rodeo she went to with her friend.”
Her words hit him hard. This child really had no idea how serious her mother’s injuries were. How could she at four years old? All she wanted was for her to wake up and thought he could help with that. What’s more is, Sam may not have told him about her daughter, but she was telling her daughter about him, even if in an indirect way. What did that mean?
Everly cleared her throat and stepped forward, reaching for Ellie’s little hand. “Honey, Mr. Tayler has to go to work. He helps people just like your mommy. He drives the ambulance, so we need to let him go do that, okay?”
Ellie’s smile flooded back, eyes growing wide and bright. “Mr. Tayler? I’m a Taylor too! You’re a Tayler, mommy’s a Taylor, and I’m a Taylor! You will come back ’cause mama says we Taylor’s stick together; that’ll make her head feel better.” She dropped her voice to a whisper, a hand at one side of her face as if to keep the next words between just the two of them, “Plus I know your secret powers; you drive the ambli-ance.”
Completely lost for words, Dawson looked to Everly first, who only gave him a pleading look and a shrug, and then to Granny Lou, who had a sly smile and wink for him. With no help from the ladies, it was all him and this little one.
“I’ll tell ya what…I will do my best to come back. And Mr. Tayler was my dad; you can call me Dawson, deal?”
Ellie giggled, grinning ear to ear when she did what he least expected—she hugged him. “Okay, Mr. Dawson, see ya later!”
With that, she ran back over to her mother’s bedside, sat in the chair that had been occupied by Dawson earlier, and blew him a kiss followed by a wink before turning all her attention to her sleeping mama.
Down at the House, Dawson found himself in between real emergencies and having a bit of his own personal ‘emergency.’ He was literally sharing his feelings with his colleagues like a love struck teenage girl who was just screwed in the back of a pickup truck and then dumped by the captain of the football team. What the hell was wrong with him? He cared about Sam—he knew he did. She was special to him, but the feeling her accident and current state left in his gut was heavy and painful and hard to reconcile. He was hurting for her and her family, but disappointed at the same time that she didn’t share that she had a child. He was a mixed bag of emotions, something he thought he’d buried a decade ago with his family.
He sat at the table with his ‘crew,’ as they all referred to themselves—Carigan O’Reilly, his partner, was as Irish as she sounded; Colton Sparks and Jessie Clarke from Fire; and Blake Cooper and Morgan Jameson from Police. This group was tight. Though everyone in the House was close, this particular group was especially so; they were family. Each with their own skeletons and secrets, they all understood each other without saying a word.
Usually on the same shifts and on the same calls, they spent most of their time together, even outside of work. It wasn’t uncommon for the crew to finish their night or morning, depending on their shift, at The Pump House for drinks or Baker’s for a sweet treat breakfast. They relied on each other, trusted each other, and came to each other when something wasn’t right in their world.
Sam and Evie were a part of their assemblage; both worked closely with this tightly knit faction and often found themselves in the middle of the same crisis as it ended in the ER. This furthered Dawson’s confusion that had transpired in the last 48 hours. He was absolutely lost. Angry that Sam didn’t trust him enough to share something as noteworthy as having a child but did trust him enough to have sex with him? It didn’t make sense. They had become friends, really good friends of the naked kind, and he hoped that she cared for him as he did her. So why didn’t she tell him?
On the other hand, he was guilt ridden for being angry; she was lying in a hospital bed in a coma, fighting for her life, while her four-year-old daughter thought she was ‘napping’ so her head would feel better. Dawson couldn’t get Sam off his mind, nor could he stop worrying. To make matters worse or maybe more confusing, depending on how you looked at it, why was that little tomboy in a tutu stuck in his thoughts too? Ellie Lou Taylor was something else. She blew him a kiss before he left and asked him to come back—seems the four-year-old trusts him more than her mom.
“What’s the problem, Tayler?” Colton was a cut to the chase kind of guy. He didn’t always tell you what you wanted to hear, but he told you what you needed to hear, even if it ended with a headlock or sock to the arm. “Would it have made a difference if you knew about Ellie? Remember, you don’t do relationships. You don’t do love
. You just do it
if ya know what I mean? Eh, see what I did there?”
He wiggled his eyebrows, which earned him a sock to the ribs from Morgan. She could hang with the guys but drew the line when they crossed that
line. “Way to keep it classy, Sparks. It’s a wonder you’re still single.”
Morgan’s words stung as much as the jab hurt. Everyone knew that Colton Sparks’ lifelong dream was to fight fires, save the animals, get married, and have a big family. He was popular amongst the ladies—dark skin, light eyes, full lips, shaved head, built like a hulk—he was the reason they all bought the annual firehouse calendar. He was one of the good guys though. As virile and macho as he was, he spent his spare time at the animal rescue and had his own little zoo at home. He was a sucker for anything soft and fury. Colton was saving himself for the right woman, at least that’s what he said after each midnight tryst with the lady of the hour. He was a born-again virgin, declaring celibacy at least once a week or so.
“What? I’m just saying, Dawson is a between the sheets kind of guy, not a family movie night kind of guy. The kid doesn’t really change anything does it? Sam has turned every guy in town down, so clearly it doesn’t change anything for her either. She isn’t looking for a step daddy, or she might have mentioned the squirt to begin with. Right?”
Colton had a point; Sam didn’t date. Dawson was the only guy any of them had ever known her to non-date
or date, but she still had a secret. A really big secret in a tutu and a baseball cap. Would it have changed anything? As much as she wasn’t looking for a stepdad for Ellie, as Sparks put it, he wasn’t looking for a ready-made family. Still, he now had two Taylor girls on his mind with more emotions than he knew he even possessed.
“I’m not saying it would have mattered, and you’re right; I don’t do relationships. They are too complicated and just more trouble than they’re worth. With Sam, it’s different; it’s just easy. She is fun to be around, easy to talk to. We have fun together, like each other. It’s nice to have someone to do things with, more than the night time visitor type, ya know?” His honesty was as shocking to him as it was the rest of the gang, but it was true, and saying it out loud helped him make sense of it.
“Dude, that’s a friggin’ relationship! Come on, pull your head out of your ass, Tayler, and man up! You like her! She’s a nice girl; good for you, man! I’d say you even care about her, or you wouldn’t be so bitchy over her little surprise
.” Jessie Clarke was always the voice of reason and had a serious lack of filter; it came with being a girl in a man’s world, fighting fires. Her foul mouth could make any guy blush, and she could probably even make them cry. As beautiful as she was, in her own way, she was tough as any guy she crossed, a real hard ass.
“Jesus, Jessie, tell me what you really think. Of course I like her, we’re…friends.”
“Nice try, jackass, but we’re your friends.”
Jessie said with an eye roll and disgusted head shake, motioning her arms, indicating the gang around them. She finished with, “You aren’t sticking your tongue down our throats or pining away for any of us like a little butt-hurt princess.”
“She’s got a point, bro. You like her. I think it’s cool. She’s cool, might be real good for you. If the kid doesn’t bother you, then give it a chance,” Blake reasoned.
He was a good ol’ all American type, hunky, previous military, although no one really knew much about his military career. He had probably seen more than any of them would in a lifetime, which is probably what made him the quiet, humble, and honest cop he was. Blake Cooper was the guy everyone went to when they had a problem. He was trustworthy, compassionate, and would give anyone the shirt off his back, a true friend to everyone, committed to his friends, town, and career.
“The kid doesn’t bother me; the part where she’s a secret does. She’s funny as hell, actually. Never seen a kid quite like her, a little tomboy, but wears those little fluffy tutu things and loves pink and sparkles? What kind of contradiction is that? It suits her though,” Dawson said with a smile as he recalled his first impression of the child.
“Oh, Ellie Lou, she’s spit and vinegar, that girl. A doll, she is. She loves to go out and ride the horses at Morgan’s with me,” Carigan shared. “When she’s not riding at Sugar Pine Stables for riding camp or lessons, she is out at Morgie’s ranch, tending to the beasts.”
Horses, of course. At lunch in the park, Sam acted peculiar when the topic came up of why she was there that day. Carigan might have just shed some light on that mystery. Her attraction and attendance likely had more to do with Ellie riding horses than Sam hanging out with the girls.
“You knew, O’Reilly? You never said anything,” he questioned, a little disappointed that his partner and closest friend hadn’t clued him in.
“I assumed you knew, Daws. Not really my place to interfere any way, not my style. I leave the meddling to my big Irish family.” With a wink and flip of her copper red hair, Carigan O’Reilly, nudged her partner and continued, “Some things we just need to figure out for ourselves.”
The bell rang and intercom lit up, dispatching orders for the next call. Everyone moved at once, leaving the conversation at the table.
“Dry up your tears, buttercup, and get your big girl panties on. We got work to do! Work out that denial you’re tossing around and your problem will solve itself. You’re welcome, ace. I won’t even charge you for that one!” Jessie could be a real pain in the ass, bordering on bitch, but she was usually right, and that had Dawson hard-pressed. Was he really in a relationship? Is that really what had him hung up today? He honestly didn’t care about Sam’s secret, but that she was hurting and he couldn’t help her. All be damned; Jessie was right. He was in a relationship, with a girl in a coma.