Book 22 Rescue After Dark #8
“I’m so happy to hear that. He’s such a great guy.” Nikki practically bounces on the bed as she celebrates Jordan getting laid. “I love this!”
“So you said. Twice now.”
“You’re not excited?”
“I’m trying to keep it real, Nik. He lives here. I live in LA. We’re having fun, but that’s all it is.”
“How can you know that’s all it is when you’ve only known him a few days?”
“Because, eventually, I’m going to have to go home and deal with my life.”
“Maybe not.”
“What are you talking about? Of course I’m going home. I live there.”
“Who says you can’t live somewhere else?”
“I appreciate what you’re saying, and I love how things have worked out for you here with Riley and the Wayfarer and the house. But that’s not going to happen for me.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because! I do not live on Gansett. I live in LA. That’s where my life is.”
“It’s where it was. Who’s to say that couldn’t change?”
Jordan puts down the coffee, gets up from the bed and turns to face her sister. “Nik, honestly, get real.”
“Mason is a great guy, the kind of guy who doesn’t come along every day. Why couldn’t you make something of this thing with him and figure out a whole new life for yourself?”
As she tries to form a logical response to her sister’s question, an odd feeling of elation comes over her, along with vivid images of what it would be like to live here with Mason, near her sister and Riley, to make new friends who genuinely care about her and not about what she can do for them like so many of the people she associates with in LA.
To find work that’s meaningful to her, to be far away from the madness that is her former life, to have babies and a family of her own.
The flood of emotion that comes over her as each new image presents itself in high-definition precision leaves her feeling gut-punched and breathless.
Nikki, worried about another asthma attack, asks Jordan what’s wrong.
For the first time in a very long time, nothing is wrong.
Blaine comes to see Mason. Nikki told him that Jordan’s ex is out of rehab and is looking for her.
Mason feels an urgent need to protect her. While he and Blaine are talking, both their radios convey urgent appeals for help at McCarthy’s Marina. A car has driven off the pier into the water. They run for their vehicles with firefighters and EMTs right behind them.
Mason arrives less than three minutes after the call came in to find a frantic scene unfolding in the parking area.
Big Mac McCarthy and Luke Harris are both in chest-deep water as they frantically try to open the door to a sedan.
“Windows won’t open,” Big Mac calls to him, sounding grim as they note the water flooding into the car.
Mason grabs a window-breaking tool from his truck and jumps in after them. “Watch out. Let me in.”
The cab of the car is filling fast with water. Inside, he sees Luke’s wife, Sydney, her eyes wide with terror as a cut on her forehead has blood running down her face.
“The baby’s in the back,” Luke says, sounding as terrified as his wife looks.
Blaine jumps into the water and comes up next to Mason. “After we break the window, it’s going to fill up fast, so we need to be ready.” He bangs on the window. “Syd, can you get to the back seat and get Lily unstrapped from her seat?”
She repositions herself so she can reach the baby, who’s crying as the water creeps ever closer to the bottom of her seat.
“Mason, please.” Luke’s on the verge of hysteria.
“You got her, Syd?” Mason yells so she can hear him through the closed windows.
Syd nods and raises the baby higher as the water continues to pour into the car.
“Okay, listen up. We’re going to break the window and get you out. Stay back against the other side. Ready?”
She gives a thumbs-up.
Mason smashes the tool against the window until it shatters, then uses his hands to push on the glass.
“Mason!” Blaine cries. “Your hands.”
Mason is like a man possessed as he creates an opening big enough for Syd and the baby. “Give me the baby. Hurry.”
For a second, Sydney seems frozen as the water comes closer to her chin.
“Syd! The baby!” Mason’s body is half in the car and half out as he struggles to keep his head above the rising water.
She hands over the child, and he backs out, handing the baby to her father.
“Give her to Blaine, Luke.” The water stays cold on Gansett well into July, so hypothermia is a concern. Mason goes back for Sydney, who’s moved to the window to follow her daughter out of the car. Mason helps her, but Luke is right there to grab his wife.
She cries hysterically as her husband holds her. “I’m so sorry. I don’t know what happened.”
“It’s okay, baby,” Luke says as tears run unchecked down his face. “It’s okay.”
“Let’s get her out of the water, Luke.” In addition to the wound on her forehead, Mason notices that Sydney’s lips have taken on a bluish tone, and her teeth are chattering violently.
Working with Mason’s team, Luke half carries Sydney to the ladder and hands her over to Dermot.
“Too close,” Big Mac says when he, Blaine and Mason are the only ones left in the water. “Far too close.”
“Let’s get you out of the water, Mac.” When Mason raises his hands to help the older man, he notices they’re shredded and bleeding profusely. “Shit.”
Jordan hears about the accident at the marina when she’s coming out of the grocery store.
“A car went right off the pier into the water at McCarthy’s. A mother and baby were in the car, but the police and fire chief got them out.”
Mason.
Is he all right? His arm is already injured. He shouldn’t be rescuing people! As soon as she’s in the car, she calls him, but it goes straight to voicemail. “Hi, it’s me. Jordan. I heard you rescued the lady and baby in the car. I’m just hoping you’re all right. Call me when you can.”
She goes to look for him and finds his truck at the marina. Big Mac tells her that Blaine took Mason to the clinic to get his hands looked at.
Oh, no. He’s hurt. Again. “I, um, do you think it would be okay if I went to check on him? He saved my life the other night.” She doesn’t know what else to say to justify her desire to see him.
“I heard about that, and I think it’d be fine if you checked on him. In fact, would you mind giving me a lift over there, so I can check on Syd and baby Lily? I’m a little too shook up to drive.”
“Of course. I’d be happy to.” Jordan leads him to the car, casting a glance at the car still in the water as she walks by. How terrifying it must’ve been to be trapped in a car filling with water while your baby is strapped in a car seat.
When they arrive at the clinic, Mason is standing with Blaine, who leaves Mason in Jordan’s care to return to work.
Jordan leads Mason to a chair and sits next to him, taking his right hand into her lap.
She steeled herself and unwrapped the blood-soaked towel to reveal his pulpy palm and fingers. “Oh, God, Mason. What did you do?”
“It’s okay. Doesn’t hurt at all.”
“It will.”
“I’m okay. Really.”
Jordan uses the unsoiled portion of the towel to wipe away new blood.
“Don’t get it on your dress. You look so pretty.”
“I don’t care about the dress.” She dabs at the wounds on his right hand and then reaches for the left one. “How about your elbow?”
“It’s fine.”
Jordan catches him watching her with an unexpected level of intensity. “What?”
“I’ve never had anyone come looking for me before.”
Touched by his sweetness, she says, “Never?”
“Not once ever.”
“Well, now you have.”
“Now I have.”
In just a few days, she’s become the sun that lights his life with warmth and affection and a kind of pleasure he’s rarely experienced—and not just in bed. He raises his hand to her face, thankful his fingertips are mostly unscathed so he can touch her. “Jordan.”
“Yes, Mason?”
“You’re beautiful. Inside and out.”
“Thank you.” She kisses him, and he wants to stay right there all day with her sweet lips attached to his. “Let’s get you home.”
“I should go to the station.”
“No work for three days. Doctor’s orders. You need to give your wounds the chance to heal.”
“All right, then. Let’s go home.”
When they get to Mason’s house, Dermot is there with another department vehicle. “Hey, Chief, we brought your truck home for you.” As he hands the keys to Mason, Dermot’s eyes bug. “You’re that girl on TV!”
“Hi, I’m Jordan.”
“Oh, my God,” Dermot says as he shakes her hand with unbridled enthusiasm.
“Enough.” Mason’s tone and the pointed look he gives his lieutenant compel the younger man to release Jordan’s hand.
“Are you guys… Holy crap! You and Jordan Stokes?”
Mason glares at him. “If you breathe one word of that to anyone, I’ll remove your tongue with tin snips. You got me?”
Dermot flashes a big dopey grin. “Yes, sir. You got it, sir. Nice to meet you, ma’am. I’m a big fan of your show. Can’t wait for it to come back on. You and Gigi are so funny and so hot and—”
“Leave now, Dermot.”
“Going now, sir.” He salutes as he grins and trips over his own feet on his way to the other vehicle, where he’ll absolutely tell whoever has followed him here that Mason is in there with Jordan Stokes. It’ll be all over the island before sunset.
After Jordan makes him something to eat, they take a rest in his bed. Ignoring the pain in his elbow and hands, which pales in comparison to the need to keep her close, Mason is on his way to dozing off when her cell rings.
“Ugh, I should get that.”
He withdraws from her, lets her go and watches her cross the room to where she left her purse and notices when her entire body goes rigid. “What?”
“I think it’s my ex.”
“You don’t know for sure?”
She shakes her head. “I blocked him. He’s been calling from other phones.”
That news alarms Mason. “How often is he calling you?”
“At least once a week.”
“Do you want to talk to him?”
“Absolutely not.”
Mason appreciates the emphatic way she says that. “Is he out of rehab?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, so you already knew that?”
She nods as she rejoins him in bed. “His manager reached out to Nik and me to ask where I was.”
“You guys didn’t tell him, did you?”