Cooper (Station 47)

Chapter 1

1

Cooper

“Hurry up, Hawk! She’s bleeding out, and there’s a kid still strapped!” I shout, motioning with my arm to him so they can get the car pulled out. We arrived on scene just as the sun went down to find the Buick upside down about ten feet into Old Hickory Lake, and as soon as I was suited up, they sent me into the water to access the situation.

“Pulling back in three, two, one…” Grayson Hawk grabs a hold of the roping attached to the front of our engine, and makes sure it’s secure while Jamie Wyman backs the rig up, and in a matter of minutes the Buick begins its decent from the water.

“What are we looking at?” Rhett “Hollywood” Ferguson asks as I step out of the water to where he’s waiting with the jaws. He’s not only one of the most respected firefighters in Nashville, but he’s been my best friend since we were ten years old.

“Female vic, looks like a serious head wound, barely conscious. Seems like she crawled into the backseat after the crash to try and free the child.”

“Hold!” Hawk shouts, and the vehicle stops moving. Rhett and I work together to get the back door torn open, and we turn to find the paramedics waiting on us.

“We’re good!” I holler, waving my arm, and they come rushing over with the back board. The male EMT hands me the neck brace, and I carefully climb into the vehicle to better assess what we’re dealing with here.

It’s a tight squeeze, fitting into a crushed car at six foot one, with two other people in the same seat, but I make it work. Checking for a pulse, I find a faint one, and get the neck brace stabilized on her.

“Hollywood, on the count of three, we’re gonna slide the backboard under her. I’ll keep her stable, and then we can get her over to the medics. One, two, three!” In a well-practiced maneuver, I roll her onto her side, while keeping her head and neck aligned with her back, while Rhett slides the bright yellow board under her. We get her strapped down before we get her extracted.

As the medics begin assessing her, I roll onto my back so that I can reach the small child still buckled into their seat, hanging seemingly lifeless from the back seat. I feel for a pulse, but I’m having trouble finding it. Fucking shit.

“Rhett!” I scream, scrambling for my knife attached to my waist. “I can’t find a pulse. Radio to the second ambo, female child around three, not conscious. We need them down here.”

“Coop, we gotta wait for them to check her vitals.”

“She’s gonna die if we don’t get her out.”

“You know the drill, man. She could have spinal injuries; we can’t move her?—”

“Cutting her out now,” I interrupt. I know it’s risky to just yank the child out, but she’s been upside down with the blood rushing to her head for who knows how long, and for all we know, she could be dying as we speak. Not on my fucking watch.

“Sonofabitch,” Rhett curses, before sliding his upper half into the car with me. I know he’ll give me hell later, but I ignore that and work on getting the little girl out of the car. Rhett cradles her in his arms, being as careful as possible. He slides out of the car, with me hot on his heels. Laying her down on the ground, I brush her dirty blonde hair off her face, and make sure to protect her airway. I let out a deep sigh of relief when I check her pulse again and find it beating steady.

Rubbing my closed fist over her chest, I try to get her to respond to my motions, but it isn’t working. The other EMTs come over to us, and they start an IV on her. As soon as they start pushing fluids, the startling scream that comes out of her mouth has all our hearts racing.

I drop my head in thanks to whoever was looking over us tonight, and Rhett reaches out to squeeze my shoulder tight. “Damn good save, Coop.”

“Thanks. I’m sure Chief is gonna chew my ass out though.”

“Nah, I wouldn’t be too worried about that,” he says, pointing up to where he’s currently standing. He’s next to his buggy parked beside the Engine, and he’s beaming with pride.

“Then you’re next,” I remind him, and he holds up his hands palms out, eyebrows raised in mock seriousness.

“Please. In our almost twenty years of friendship, I have never once given you shit.”

“And now you need a pair of boots to wade through that line of it,” I joke. As they get the girl rushed away to the second ambulance, I look over my shoulder at the half crushed and broken car.

“Jesus Christ,” I mutter under my breath, knowing just how close those two came to losing their lives tonight. But we got the save, and now we can move on to the next call.

That’s how this job works, right? Save who we can and then move on.

Sometimes I think that might be the hardest part.

I’ve been off shift for all of an hour, and I want nothing more than to go home and take a nap. But I have a bunch of errands to get run, and then I can sleep. While it wasn’t an overly busy call, Rhett’s insomnia decided to rear its head, so I spent most of the night keeping him company, watching old reruns of Supernatural on the common room’s television.

Spinning my baseball hat backwards, I continue pushing my cart up and down the aisles of the grocery store. I just want to get in and out, but my mind keeps drifting to that woman and child we saved last night. When our ambo got back to the station, they let us know that they were both expected to make a full recovery.

They were both being kept overnight for observation, the mother having a concussion. I guess she was talking to her husband through Apple CarPlay and he heard the entire thing go down. She blew a front tire and over steered to correct, and when she came around the corner, she flipped several times before sinking down the steep embankment to the lake.

Luckily, someone was out for a run and saw it happen, and was able to get it called in immediately. I just can’t imagine her poor husband, being on the phone and possibly hearing your family being killed. One of the EMTs told us he showed up just as they were finishing up paperwork, and he was absolutely frantic.

If that was me, I would have burned everything down to get to my family.

But I don’t have a wife or kids. Yet.

At twenty-eight, it’s something that is often on my mind, and what I want the most in this world. For almost a decade, being a firefighter was my only priority. Then my younger brothers and I opened up Ruby’s only a few blocks over from Station 47. It’s a bar that also has a corner for local bands to play -- it is Nashville, after all-- and it’s taken off in the last four years or so. We named it after our mom, who passed away from breast cancer when I was in high school. So, between the station and the bar, I don’t have a lot of time to go out and meet people. But fuck, is it all I want.

To come home from a long shift to a bunch of silly kids and my beautiful wife, their smiles enough to drive out even the darkest of shifts.

I’m a romantic at heart, what can I say?

Moving into the baking aisle, I’m reaching for a bag of flour when I hear a high pitch crying start from somewhere near me, most likely a small child or baby. Tossing in the closest bag, I spin my cart around and at the end of the aisle I find a young woman with long auburn hair holding a blond toddler who is currently testing out the sound barrier with his cries. Moving over toward them, I make myself known and give her a smile.

“I’m sorry to bother you, Miss, but I just wanted to make sure everything is okay?”

Her blue eyes widen and then narrow, most likely at my forwardness. I hold my hands up in a placating gesture. “Sorry, maybe I should introduce myself. Hi, I’m Cooper March, and I’m a firefighter over at Station 47. Is everything okay?”

Her son’s crying doesn’t ease up, and she situates him on her hip, which only upsets him more. “Shh, sweet boy, it’s okay.” Her voice is sweet and melodic, but sounds exhausted. She tries bouncing him up and down, and shushing him, but he only cries harder. “I’m sorry,” she apologizes, and I shake my head.

“Don’t be. Is there anything I can do?”

“I’m not sure what you could possibly do. He’s getting his top molars in, and he’s miserable. I have tried everything including Tylenol and numbing gel, but nothing makes him feel better. He hasn’t slept in days and I’m exhausted. I don’t know—” Her voice cracks, and it tugs on my heart.

“Come with me,” I offer, and before she can protest, I abandon my own cart and grab hers, steering her toward the frozen foods section. She follows along, although she keeps a safe distance between us, which I can’t blame her for. Despite my being a firefighter and having introduced myself, I’m still a virtual stranger. I pull her cart over to where the frozen waffles are and pull out a box.

She watches me with wide eyes as I tear the box open, and then the plastic wrapping inside before pulling out a waffle. I step closer and offer it to her son, and she allows him to take it in his chubby hand. Still crying with snot streaming from his nose, he takes it and tries to throw it. “Do you mind if I try?” I ask, and she nods.

“His name is Roman,” she tells me softly.

“Roman,” I start, testing how his name sounds coming from my deep rasp, and it catches his attention immediately. “Hey Rome, buddy. My name is Cooper, and I have an idea.”

His big blue eyes, so much like his momma’s, latch onto mine, and he calms down only slightly. Holding up the waffle, I take a small bite from it before offering it to him. He blows an impressive snot bubble, and I grin when he finally takes the waffle again, this time stuffing it into his mouth.

He chews at it, not able to bite off a piece, and we both watch as his eyes close in relief, his tears drying up almost instantly.

“How did you know how to fix that?”

I just give her a sheepish smile, rocking back on my heels. “Like I said, I’m a firefighter. But I work with many dads and have helped many in the past. You pick up some tricks here and there over the years.”

Smiling, she tucks a lock of red hair behind her ear before holding out her small hand to mine. “Well, Cooper March. I’m Haley Jacobs, and I’m glad you were able to break the law to help my baby.”

“Break the law?” I laugh, and she gestures to the open box of waffles.

“Pretty sure you shouldn’t open food before buying it. How do you know I had the money to buy them?”

“Oh,” I say, shrugging a shoulder at her. “I would have just bought them for myself then if you hadn’t wanted them.”

Her eyes look me up and down, and fuck, I can feel my cheeks heating with her perusal. “Yeah, you don’t exactly look like a guy who relies on Eggo to feed himself.”

“Oh please, it’s a meal for the ages.”

Together we laugh as Roman continues to chew down on his waffle. I take a moment to really drink her in, and I find myself more enraptured as the seconds tick by.

Big blue eyes. Bare shoulders with a smattering of freckles on her fair skin. Her teeth are nice and straight, and she has freckles all over her face, too. And Haley is much shorter than my height, probably around five foot two. She’s a breath of fucking fresh air, and I find myself lingering, not wanting to leave them yet, despite knowing nothing about her. She looks young, but for all I know she has a husband waiting for her at home.

But I have to take a risk, right? At this point I’m a damn professional at risk taking.

“Thank you, Cooper, for helping us out today. But I need to get him home for a nap, and then I need to get us ready for our work week. But I appreciate it. Just let me grab those.” Haley reaches around me to grab for the open box of waffles, and a waft of her sweet perfume or lotion invades my scent, and I take a deep inhale of it.

Fucking vanilla.

“Haley,” I begin, watching as she settles the box in her cart before turning to me.

“Yeah?”

“Can I help you finish shopping? You have your hands full with this little turkey, and I’d love to be able to help.”

“Oh no, that’s okay. You were in the middle of your own errands and we’ve already taken enough of your time. Please, we’re okay.”

“You aren’t keeping me from anything. I’m off for the next forty-eight hours, so it’s no hardship. Plus, little man here clearly likes me,” I tell her, reaching out to brush a blond lock off Roman’s forehead. He gives me a toothy smile before going back to gnawing.

“If you’re sure we aren’t taking you away from anything, then thank you. The help would be wonderful.”

“Unless you have a husband who will beat my ass for helping his family out. I’m already a civil servant. I don’t need to short staff my station over a jealous spouse.”

Haley bursts out laughing, and I find myself joining in at how comfortable she is to just laugh and be herself so loudly in public. It’s is such a change from the quiet woman I first met only ten minutes ago.

“No,” she assures me. “No husband or boyfriend. It’s just us.”

I thumb over my shoulder. “Do you need anything else or should we head to checkout?”

Haley settles Roman back in the carriage and looks at a small piece of paper with some messy writing scrawled across it. I just need sugar and chocolate chips.”

“And here I dragged you away from that aisle to get this little guy his waffles,” I say, and she reaches out to touch my forearm, her skin against mine causing it to tingle.

“You gave my baby relief from his pain, Cooper. I can’t tell you how much that means.”

“If you’re sure.”

In silence, we head back over to where we were, and sure enough my carriage is still sitting there untouched. She laughs when I grab it from its spot against the shelf as she selects her remaining items. It’s not until ten minutes later when I’m putting all her groceries in the trunk of her small older model Ford that I decide to go with my gut.

Haley comes around to the trunk as I’m closing it, Roman settled on her hip and no more waffle in sight. “Well, Cooper March, this has been quite the morning. But it was wonderful getting to spend the morning in frozen foods aisle two together. Hopefully we never have to meet like this again.”

Resting my hip against the trunk, I shove my hands in my pockets and give her my best smile. “And what if I want to meet like this again?”

Her eyebrow raises and I push off her car so I can hold my hand out to give Roman my best baby high five. “I don’t want to be too presumptuous, but could I get your number? I’d really like to take you out sometime.”

“Oh.” Kissing Roman on the forehead, she fidgets for a moment before righting his shirt and, in my heart, I already know what’s coming next. “I’m not really in a place to get involved with someone, Cooper. I’m sorry. But if you still want my number, I do have a place in my life for a friend.”

Without hesitation, I pull out my phone and hand it over, keeping my smile firmly in place. “I’m in.”

Five minutes later, when I’m alone in my SUV driving home, I can’t help wishing that had turned out differently, and yet somehow comforted that I was able to get her number.

You might not be ready for me, Haley girl, but I promise, one day you will be.