Elf-ish (Holiday HOTTIES #4)

chapter 1

[Angelica]

“Possible heart attack. Ashford’s. Eighth floor.”

When the call came through from dispatch, I was eager to take the ride.

Alongside my ambulance driving partner, Maddix, I wiggle in my seat at the prospect of entering Ashford’s iconic department store located in the middle of the pulsing beat of retail in downtown Chicago.

Shopping at Ashford’s is an experience, and I have fond memories of visiting the seven floors of retail heaven.

However, I understand my assignment.

I’ll be entering the building to save the owner’s life.

Jude Ashford is a bit of a novelty. At twenty-something, he inherited his great-grandfather’s retail mecca, which had been reduced to one flagship store after decades of being a major department store chain with multiple locations throughout the world.

Everyone knows how the old man left the family’s heritage—the original store—out of any buyout arrangements and willed the place to his grandson, who by thirty-something had turned this historical landmark into a glorious shopping destination.

Not that the place hadn’t been great prior to Jude’s rule.

As a child, my grandmother would make the entire family dress up in our church-going clothes for a special dinner in the Oak Room, where we’d sit underneath a two-story tree that sparkled and glittered beneath the low lights of the dark-paneled dining space.

On other occasions, she’d take us to a formal breakfast with Santa, often themed with holiday bears or popular children’s stories.

A highlight of any visit was viewing the windows along State Street that told a story with automatons.

For me, I loved just standing on the bright red carpet on the first floor, staring up the middle of the store, where six higher floors were surrounded by shiny gilded railings, and the ceiling seven stories up offers a dream-like glass canopy.

Today, I wouldn’t have time to stop and gaze.

Again—job to do—which was a job I loved. I wasn’t some adrenaline junky or danger seeker, but more like an I-want-to-help-others kind of person.

Once parked beside the store, Maddix and I raced through the main floor, guiding a stretcher through the Black Friday doorbuster crowds, until we reached the elevator bank that would take us to the executive level.

A small group of employees is gathered outside the owner’s office.

“Let us through,” Maddix hollers, forcing people to part like the Red Sea.

Inside the office, we find a man, slumped in a high-backed office chair behind a massive wooden desk.

With his white dress shirt unbuttoned to his waist, suit coat still on, and pants slung low at his hip, unbuttoned and unzipped, the hint of a tattoo along his side peeks out from the parted clothing.

His face is ashen and his eyes wide as his gaze pings from me to Maddix. “I’m having a heart attack.”

His speech is slurred but still strong, which is a good sign.

“Can you tell me what your symptoms are?” I address the store’s owner, who continues to ignore me and stares at Maddix.

Unfortunately, this kind of behavior comes with the job.

Older gents can be bitter that women hold positions once predominantly held by men, such as first responders.

Some men are threatened by the strength and confidence of a female in such roles.

I might be average height, but I am solid and curvy.

My uniform isn’t flattering to my body, but it isn’t meant to be.

“My chest. My heart is racing.” Jude weakly slaps his hand over a firm looking pec, while still looking at Maddix. “I feel like a vise is squeezing my ribs. I can’t take a deep breath.”

Sounds like a panic attack, but I don’t mention it.

“Any other symptoms?” I question.

The patient keeps his focus on Maddix as if I haven’t spoken.

“Don’t look at me. I’m just here for the muscle,” Maddix teases.

I snort, knowing my partner is kidding.

With a glove-covered hand, I check Jude’s pulse at his wrist. He flinches beneath my touch, and our gazes clash a second before he yanks his eyes away from me. Then tugs his wrist free from my fingers.

Maddix stands behind the large, leather office chair while I move to Jude’s ankles.

“On three,” Maddix states before counting down, and we lift Jude onto the stretcher.

With a quick glance at a woman standing just off the corner of the oversized desk, my earlier suspicions about what caused his heart palpitations appear confirmed. Being an EMT, we encounter the strangest things. Heart attacks induced by sex are not a novelty.

A mix of guilt and concern dust the sharp cheekbones of the lithe raven-haired beauty while she chews a polished fingernail.

“I’ll be right behind the ambulance,” she eventually states.

“No,” Jude grunts, a little too strongly. He closes his eyes and rolls his head on the pillow. He doesn’t want her to follow him.

Maddix and I meet eyes only briefly, speaking a silent conversation we’ve mastered after years of being partners. Then, we hastily get to work administering oxygen, which our patient sluggishly attempts to remove while shaking his head back and forth in agitation.

“Sir, I need you to remain calm.” Yet I understand the oxygen mask can cause feelings of claustrophobia in some patients, and the last thing I want is to further exacerbate his panic.

With the oxygen mask eventually over his mouth and nose, any additional grumblings are muffled.

Next, heart monitors are placed on his chest. I typically don’t notice the physical features of a patient. The human body is an incredible machine, and I’ve been conditioned to remove salacious thoughts about the flesh and bones making up a person.

But the beauty of Jude cannot be denied. Ripped abs. Smooth pecs. That side tattoo. And a smattering of hair on his chest. Not to mention a trail of darkness that leads below his dipping suit pants.

“You might have some drool there, Angie,” Maddix quietly mocks me, despite the severity of our position, which is wheeling a patient to the elevator bank.

“Shut up.”

Once locked and loaded in the ambulance, the lights flash, but the siren doesn’t blare, as the noise can increase the anxiety of patients within the back.

I sit in the back with Jude on a stretcher while Maddix drives the rig. Raising his voice because of our proximity to each other, Maddix picks up on a conversation we’d been having when the original call came through.

“So, you still don’t have a date?”

“Now isn’t the time for this,” I groan, checking Jude’s vitals, when his eyes open quickly before closing again. His coloring still isn’t right. He’s more putrid-green than ashen. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen this shade on someone’s skin, but there’s always a first.

“I told ya, I’d go with ya,” Maddix continues, skillfully maneuvering the ambulance through the day after Thanksgiving, early-morning traffic in downtown Chicago.

“And I told you thanks but no thanks.” Genuine gratitude mingles with my rejection.

Trey Maddix is a great guy and hot in the way best friends are not. He’s good-looking to a multitude of women, which makes him physically unattractive to me. He’s my friend, honest and true, and generously offering to ease my suffering.

My younger brother is getting married in a few weeks during the holiday season.

Santa, stab me with a peppermint stick.

I love Christmas, but I don’t have time for a family wedding, especially when the announcement triggered my well-meaning grandmother and great aunt to ask when I’m getting married.

Why don’t I have a fella, or a baby, or three, while at the same time, preaching independence for women and keeping your man in line. I can’t keep up.

It isn’t that I don’t want marriage or babies. It just hasn’t happened for me. I haven’t experienced that all-consuming, can’t-live-without-you feeling that leads to happily-ever-after and babies in a carriage. The kind of love my parents had.

I swallow thickly at the brief thought of my parents and return to the business at hand.

As the heart monitor begins to erratically beat, a wave of panic sets in for me. That niggling sensation I have within me right before things go bad.

And my patient crashes.

“Shit.” On automatic, I react, ripping the oxygen mask off his mouth and start chest compressions, then check for his breath. Repeating the motions one more time, I’m prepared to reach for the defibrillator if I can’t revive him after my next compression pass.

Leaning over Jude, I lower inches from his face, determined to save him.

“Don’t you leave me, Jude.”

My jaw is clenched while the words aren’t anything more than a whisper. A desperate plea.

With another series of rhythmic pressure against his firm chest, Jude gasps.

Relief instantly fills me.

His eyes fling open, wild and icy. The coolest blue I’ve ever seen latches onto mine.

While I often find tear-filled appreciation in a gaze, these eyes are like icicles, sharp and pointed, and glaring at me like saving his life was the devil’s work instead of an angelic calling.

A certain something deep within me that likes to help others.

I reach for the cantilever, intending to return it to his nose and mouth region, but Jude lifts his arm, limp and jerkily, before catching my hand.

“Don’t move,” I warn, attempting to remove my hand from his grasp.

He’s surprisingly strong and ignores my request, dragging my hand to his bare chest and flattening my palm over his heart. Then he grouses, “You shouldn’t have. . .”

I shouldn’t have what? Saved his life?

“But I did,” I counter, without pride. This is what I do.

With my hand plastered beneath his larger one, pressed firmly against his chest, the coolness of his skin prickles through my latex glove. My arm strangely tingles from the sensation.

A beat passes before I ask him, “Is there anyone I can call for you? Let them know which hospital we are taking you to?”

Those cold eyes shift away, looking confused, almost lost. He rolls his head once before he states low, “There’s . . . no one.”

The quiet admission pierces my soft heart. This big, powerful, wealthy man has no one to call in the case of an emergency? The thought makes me feel sorry for him.

He closes his eyes while his frigid hand remains over mine, like he’s afraid to let go of me. Despite the inappropriateness, I allow our position—my hand over his heart—assuming this is a rare gesture of gratitude from Jude Ashford.

The well-known millionaire. The society playboy. The retail tycoon.

Who, at the end of the day, is only a man, albeit probably a selfish one.