Chapter 5
ANGELIE
“Oh my God, I’m so sorry,” I mumble, as I perch at the edge of the bed, head in my hands, feeling like the biggest drama queen on the damn planet.
“It’s all good,” Joe replies. He opens the first aid kit on the bed beside me, pulling out a small light and holding it up to my eyes. “Can you look here? And follow the light for me…?”
I do my best to follow his instructions, hoping that if I just focus hard enough, I’ll be able to put aside all the stress and terror that’s running through my mind right now.
It’s not exactly an easy feat, given the current circumstances—it feels like my head is going to burst, the sheer enormity of everything that’s happening threatening to tear a chunk out of me at any moment.
“Okay, looks like your pupils are dilating normally,” he murmurs, clicking off the light once more. “I’d like to take your pulse—you mind if I touch your arm?”
I shake my head, holding out my arm for him; he takes it and lays it on his knee, pressing his fingers into my wrist and looking at his watch as he takes my pulse.
I don’t take my eyes off of him, wondering if he remembers that we’ve done a whole lot more than just go skin-to-skin like this in the past, but I figure none of us need to bring that up right now, huh?
“Your heart rate is higher than I’d like,” he remarks, and he plants a hand on his chest, drawing in a deep breath. “See if you can take a few belly breaths, like this, okay? That should get you back in hand again…”
I do my best to follow his instructions, but my mind is still spinning out, even as I sit here in the quiet of one of the cabin bedrooms while the others tend to the toddlers.
God, that alone is enough to make me feel a little woozy all over again.
I had a complete meltdown after the guys left the safe house, everything catching up to me before I could get it under control again.
I hate showing this much emotion in front of the kids, but what choice do I have?
I’ve just been confronted by the men I never thought I would see again, the people who I was sure would live as nothing more than a memory for the rest of my life.
That’s not the kind of thing you can just brush off like it’s nothing.
“Don’t worry about the children,” Joe tells me, as he guides me through a few more breaths. “The guys know what they’re doing.”
“They do?” I reply, digging my brows together, and he nods.
“We dealt with a few—we handled a few evacuations when we were in the force,” he replies, his voice dropping, slightly gruff. “They know how to keep them comfortable and calm, at least for a while.”
I feel my heart rate begin to approach something close to normal again as I search his face.
I can sense that there’s more to that story than he’s letting me know, and my curiosity nags at the back of my mind, practically aching for more.
It’s been so long since I’ve seen them, and so much has happened—I thought they were still in the military, but now they turn up out of the blue as some renegade firefighting force?
“Well, that’s something,” I murmur. It’s hard to imagine those guys, the ones I knew before, being capable with kids.
But then, people can change a lot in a few years.
I know from personal experience how just a few little things can flip your entire understanding of yourself and the world entirely on its head, leaving you a different person than you ever thought you could be.
“Your pulse is starting to come down,” Joe adds as he checks my wrist again.
I can’t help but notice how small my arm looks in comparison to his hand, and for a moment, my mind is thrown back to the night we spent together, the way he felt so close to me, inside of me.
Breath in my ear, hands on my hips, puling me against him again and again and—
I swallow hard, pushing that thought to the side.
Okay, I need to get my shit together and stop acting like some sex-starved maniac just because it’s been what feels like a lifetime since I’ve been with anyone in that way.
I haven’t had time to find a new man since we were together—hell, I could hardly string the time together, all things considered.
First, I was dragging my ass through college before the quads came along, then I was in the newborn trenches before I started work again, and had to balance raising four babies with working part-time as a kindergarten teacher.
It turns out, not many guys are all that interested in dating someone with a single child, let alone four.
“Yeah, I—I think I’m starting to feel a bit better,” I concede, leaning back on the bed slightly.
He nods, holding out a bottle of water. “Drink this,” he tells me, and I take it as he begins to pack away his medical supplies. “We can head downstairs once you’ve had the whole thing. And then you can get something to eat, panic burns off a lot of calories…”
I rub a hand over my face. I can already feel the guilt stirring inside of me, knowing that the kids are likely as freaked as I am but have even fewer healthy ways to process it.
“I should be—”
“You should be right here,” Joe tells me firmly, as though he can already sense what’s going on inside my head. “You’re not going to do them any good if you’re freaking out. They’ll pick up on your attitude—the calmer you are, the easier it’s going to be to calm them down too.”
“When did you learn so much about children?” I ask him, gulping back some of the water.
The coolness sweeps over my tongue and I close my eyes, trying to ground myself by focusing on how it feels.
I feel like one of my kindergartners right now, just trying to keep myself from tipping over the edge and losing it entirely.
“Long story.”
His voice is low but not curt. There’s almost an edge of sadness to it that makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up, some part of me recognizing that there’s something going on there that he doesn’t want to talk about.
I know I would be better off keeping my mouth shut but, unable to help myself, I push a little more.
“You said that you got some practice in the military,” I remark, cocking my head to the side with interest. “Evacuating families…”
I see him tense, even with his back to me, as he slips the first aid kit back into the drawer in front of him. When he turns to me, there’s a heavy darkness settled over his expression, like he wants nothing more than to forget the very thing that I’m skirting around right now.
“It doesn’t matter.”
I search his gaze for a moment. I would guess, from the way he looks right now, that that’s anything but the truth.
He doesn’t say a word, but he doesn’t have to.
It’s obvious. The man I last saw four years ago is not the same one who stands before me now, and it strikes me that he’s not the only one who will have changed.
It makes the hair at the back of my neck stand on end, the sudden shock of realizing that none of them are the people they once were—that all of us have changed, perhaps beyond recognition.
“If you ever need to talk about that stuff…I mean, I know it’s none of my business but—”
“I don’t think you want to hear it.”
He leans in the doorway, arms crossed over his chest, and I chew my lip as I look back at him.
There’s so much I want to ask him, so much I want to say to him—to all of them, if I’m being honest, but I have no idea where to start or what, exactly, it will look like.
Because there is one question, one enormous question, that none of them have dared to come out with yet.
I know they must want to, but how exactly do you broach that question?
Oh, Angelie, by the way, while you’re here, do those four children have anything to do with us… ?
“I didn’t know that you left for the military till I got back from college,” I offer, looking for something to break the silence. “I never put you guys down for military types—especially Dylan, I didn’t think he could live with being told what to do like that…”
Joe chuckles, finally, his face brightening for a moment. “Yeah, he didn’t always get on with our superiors as well as he could,” he admits, running a hand over his shaven head. “He never grew out of that. But then, not sure I did either.”
I begin to relax a little, now that we’re actually talking like normal people.
“So how did you end up joining, if you don’t mind me asking?” I continue. “I mean, did you all go together, or…?”
“It was Carlisle’s idea,” he replies. “We all went. Got us out of Devin Ridge, gave us some direction.”
“What a kick in the teeth you ended up back here, then,” I joke lightly. “All that time you tried to get a start somewhere new, and you wind up right back where you started.”
“Not all bad.”
His gaze lingers on mine for a moment longer than it has to, and I feel a flush rise to my cheeks, taking another swig of water to distract myself as soon as I get the chance.
“When did you get back?” he asks. “After college?”
“Uh, within a year,” I admit. “Didn’t exactly last long outside of this place. Guess I always wanted to come back, on some level, but I didn’t exactly picture it like—”
I stop myself. We’re skirting up to it now, the point that neither of us seem to want to broach, but I get the feeling that he’s been sent here to be alone with me so he can get to the bottom of what is actually going on with these kids.
“Uh, coming back so soon,” I swiftly finish up, hoping that I can cover for what was really on my mind.
“Right,” he murmurs, lifting his chin slightly. “When I last saw you, it didn’t exactly seem like you were in any rush to come back.”
I draw in a sharp breath. It’s the first time any of them have acknowledged that night with me, and I don’t know where that leaves me—if I should try to come out with something that brushes it all off, makes it sound like they haven’t been on my mind ever since.