Young Buck: A Slow Burn Small Town Romance (Green Valley Heroes Book 5)

Chapter 6

You could tell a lot about the culinary standards of a firehouse by the state of the kitchen cupboards. Green Valley needed a little work. No buttermilk meant no breakfast. No fish sauce meant no burgers. No smoked paprika and cut-rate Dijon meant sweet potato salad that did not measure up.

“Where do we keep the cider vinegar?” I called out over my shoulder.

“The vinegar’s left of the microwave,” Sebastian Kirkwood called. He stood in front of the flat screen, attention on ESPN. “The hard cider’s in the beer fridge.”

“No, not hard cider. Cider vinegar,” I clarified. “As in, vinegar made of apple cider.”

I looked toward where he and Jed Lawson were watching TV. Both stared back with blank looks.

“I’m going to the Piggly Wiggly,” I concluded, surprising no one at this point. I hadn’t cooked a single meal in this house yet without heading to the market for more supplies.

Eleven minutes later, I was in the condiment aisle plucking up my fourth bottle of vinegar. Cider vinegar for my marinade. Malt vinegar for fish and chips. Champagne vinegar for salad dressing. And red wine vinegar for braising. If I planned to win the hearts of my men through their stomachs, white vinegar wouldn’t do. Firehouse relationships were built when guys came together to break bread. Even people who had their differences couldn’t be mad at good food.

“Buck, you at the Piggly Wiggly yet or are you still on the road?”

The radio at my hip crackled to life with the voice of a night dispatcher.

“At the store already,” I answered right away. “What’s going on?”

“I’ve got a medical emergency at Green Valley Library. The patient’s in anaphylactic shock. A rig’s on its way from the station—Kirkwood and Lawson—but they’re seven minutes out.”

I doubled back toward the front of the store and pressed the button on my receiver. “I can be there in two.” I threw the cashier an apologetic look as I parked my cart next to customer service. Firefighters abandoned more shopping trips than people thought.

“Copy.” The dispatcher’s voice crackled through again. “Fastest way to the patient is through a back entrance—a basement room with an exit to the outside.”

Given the simple nature of my outing, I’d taken the lightest rig, a customized F-150 with a utility cap. It wasn’t outfitted like an ambulance but I had a medical kit with Epi. With sirens on and lights flashing, and a few taps on the horn, I got to the library in a minute and a half.

The easy part of my job was running into burning buildings and hosing water. The hard part was being an EMT. Knowing someone’s life hung in the balance of your individual response was a lot of pressure. My heart rate sped as it always did the closer I got to a scene. The calm never set in until I saw the patient with my own eyes.

“Hurry. Please!”

The woman who waved me down was sobbing. She wore the kind of paper crown they pass out at parties on New Year’s Eve. Her face was streaked with black eyeliner and she wore a ribbon sash diagonally from shoulder to waist. She resembled a disgraced pageant queen.

Just behind her were wide concrete steps flanked by weathered steel railings that led down to a landing. A heavy steel door had a window to peep through.

“Can you tell me what happened, ma’am?”

She stood in profile looking between my truck and the door as I jogged to retrieve my bag. She didn’t answer until I slung it over my shoulder and began to follow.

“No one knew there were nuts in the nuts.”

I frowned. “Come again?”

She turned to half face me as she led me down. “Nobody knew there were nuts in the nuts of the cake.”

“I’m sorry?—”

“The testicles,” she sobbed frantically. “She was fine after the first piece but what set her off was the second. The shaft was fine, but there were nuts in the balls. Now she might die because she ate my divorce cake!”

On her final word, we reached the landing and she swung the heavy door open. It took me less than a second to locate the patient. She was surrounded by onlookers—all festively dressed women—with her legs up against the wall. Dispatch would have kept the caller on the line until EMTs arrived. They would have given her friends instructions to elevate her legs.

The crowd parted and I set down my bag, sinking to my knees in front of the patient. I touched her wrist to take her pulse and scanned her with my gaze. Her pale skin was blotchy, her cheeks reddening from hives. Her lips and one eye had begun to swell. Her breathing was labored but even. It told me this wasn’t her first time going into anaphylaxis. She’d practiced the art of staying calm.

“I’m Fire Lieutenant Buck Rogers. I’m also a paramedic. I’m trained to help you, ma’am. Are you able to answer yes and no questions?”

The woman nodded and I smiled.

“That’s a good sign. For anything you can’t communicate or decide on your own, is it okay if I ask your friend?”

I followed the arm line of the one who held her hand, the one who I hadn’t spared a glance until now. My hand worked to unzip the pocket of my bag as my gaze fell upon said friend’s face.

“Loretta?”

My hand stopped for a moment longer than my patient deserved. It wasn’t just seeing my neighbor out of context that gave me pause. The same thing had happened the other two times I’d seen her face-to-face. There was no denying, I found her to be haltingly beautiful. It was something visceral, something I couldn’t control.

“Please,” she managed on a whisper. “Help my friend.”

If something stirred inside me at her loveliness, something else ached to see her like this, her eyes wide with terror and her face streaked with tears.

“I’m here to help,” I repeated. “Now, you just keep on holding her hand. When I give her the shot, it’s gonna hurt.”

Loretta nodded and seemed to tighten her hold.

“What’s your friend’s name?”

“Peggy,” Loretta’s voice was stronger now.

By now, my needle was prepped. EpiPens were straightforward. The shot went into the upper thigh muscle of the leg.

“Ready?” I threw Peggy a reassuring nod, then sent it down with a firm jab that cut through the fabric of her jeans. With practiced speed, I depressed the plunger until the medicine was fully injected. Then, I removed the needle and used my hand to massage it into her muscle. When I’d done all I could on that front, I made quick work of checking her vitals while the drug began to work.

“You okay?” I asked Loretta, my brain half focused on her while I waited for the blood pressure cuff to read.

“I—I think so,” Loretta stammered in a way I didn’t believe.

And now I had two patients, the one lying supine, in anaphylaxis, and the one who looked close to passing out.

“You’re doing great.” I threw her a reassuring smile. “Don’t forget to breathe.”

I glanced down at Peggy. She didn’t seem to be getting worse. I craned my neck behind me, to look for the pageant queen, to ask her to guide in the guys coming in on the second rig. Epi was just the first step in hours of treatment and observation. Peggy was one gurney strap and an ambulance ride away from the Merryville ER.

I turned back to my patient just in time to see Loretta rising wobbly. I shot up and circled her just in time to catch her before she hit the floor. Based on my training, my next step should have been to lay her down safely and loosen any tight clothing. What I actually did went completely against protocol.

“Loretta?” I spoke her name quietly, which made zero medical sense. Attempts to rouse an unconscious person required speaking loudly. Most honest-to-goodness fainting spells could be resolved in a few seconds with a shoulder shake. But I didn’t try to jar her out of it. Instead, I kept her in my arms. Something told me to give her a little time.

“Loretta.” I repeated her name. This time, it wasn’t a question. I couldn’t explain why I tightened my hold. Being so close to her gave me that halting feeling again, like time was moving slower. It let me take in new things, like the magnificence of her crown of curls, the darkness of her long lashes, and the perfection of her lips.

“Buck.” She said my name before her eyes fluttered open, and damn if it didn’t kick me in the feels. Out of a dead faint, she’d recognized my voice.

“I got you,” I reassured her. It was a phrase I’d never used with a patient. What the hell was this woman doing to me?

And then, her eyes were fully open, and she blinked dazedly at me. I watched and waited for her brain to clear the fog. Her unfocused look gradually took on more awareness. Finally, I remembered myself and set her down gently, still bracing her body close to mine. I put the back of my hand to her forehead, then her cheek, which couldn’t have been less medically necessary. That’s when the room broke into applause.