Chapter 3
Silas
I grabbed my radio as I headed for the rig. “Copy, dispatch. En route.”
My partner today was Emma Reyes, a competent beta EMT who’d been with the service for a year. She was already starting the engine when I climbed into the passenger seat.
“Maple Street,” she said as she pulled out of the station. “That’s the Brennan place, isn’t it?”
“Mr. Brennan. Widower, lives alone, has a history of vertigo.” I pulled up his records on my tablet.
The beautiful thing about small-town medicine was that you actually knew your patients.
The terrible thing about small-town medicine was that you actually knew your patients. “This is his second fall this year.”
“Should probably have someone checking on him daily.”
“Should probably have a lot of things, but he’s stubborn.” I liked Mr. Brennan. He was sharp, opinionated, and determined to maintain his independence even as his body insisted otherwise. He reminded me of half the people in this town, actually.
The drive took seven minutes through streets lined with autumn colors that were just starting to peak.
Hollow Haven in October was something special, all gold and crimson against the backdrop of pine-covered mountains.
I’d moved here two years ago specifically because the beauty of the place felt like it might balance out the weight of carrying everyone’s emotions everywhere I went.
It helped. Sometimes.
We found Mr. Brennan on his front porch, sitting propped against the railing with a neighbor kneeling beside him. The neighbor, Mrs. Milton from next door, looked relieved when she saw us pull up.
“He won’t let me call his daughter,” she said as Emma and I approached with our gear. “Says she worries too much.”
“She does worry too much,” Mr. Brennan grumbled.
His face was tight with pain, but his eyes were clear and alert.
“And before you start lecturing me, Vance, I already know I should have called sooner. The vertigo hit, I went down, and I’ve been sitting here for twenty minutes trying to decide if my pride or my hip hurt worse. ”
I knelt beside him, already assessing. Alert, oriented, obviously in pain but managing it with the kind of stoicism that came from seventy-nine years of life. “Going to guess the hip won.”
“By a narrow margin.”
“All right, Mr. Brennan. Let’s get you checked out. Can you tell me exactly what happened?” I pulled on gloves while Emma set up the backboard behind me.
“Came out to get the mail, got about three steps, and the world decided to spin sideways. Grabbed for the railing, missed, went down hard on my left side.” He winced as I gently palpated around his hip. “Heard something pop. That’s not good, is it?”
“Could be a lot of things. That’s why we’re going to get you to the hospital and let them take pictures.” I made eye contact with Emma, who was already preparing the stretcher. “I’m going to start an IV for pain management before we move you. It’ll help.”
“Will it make me loopy?”
“Probably a little.”
“Good. I hate being sensible all the time.” He paused, then added, “And yes, you can call Margaret. But tell her I’m fine and she doesn’t need to drive up from Boulder tonight.”
“I’ll tell her you’re being well cared for and she can call the hospital for updates,” I said, which was diplomatic and also true. I administered the pain medication and waited for it to take effect, watching his face relax slightly as the edge came off.
Moving him was delicate work. Left hip, possible fracture, elderly patient with brittle bones. Emma and I worked together with the kind of practiced coordination that came from doing this hundreds of times, getting him onto the backboard and secured with minimal movement to the injury site.
Mr. Brennan bore it with remarkable patience, only hissing once when we had to shift his hip angle to get him properly positioned.
“You’re doing great,” I told him as we loaded him into the ambulance. “We’ll have you at the hospital in fifteen minutes.”
“That new doctor still working there? The one with the terrible bedside manner?”
“Dr. Morrison has excellent clinical skills.”
“That’s what people say about doctors who can’t talk to patients.”
I couldn’t help but grin. “I’ll make sure to mention you’d prefer someone chatty.”
The drive to Hollow Haven Regional Hospital was smooth, and I spent it monitoring Mr. Brennan’s vitals and keeping him talking.
One of the first things I’d learned in this job was that people healed better when they felt heard.
When someone actually paid attention to them as humans instead of just problems to solve.
“You’re good at this,” Mr. Brennan said as we pulled up to the emergency entrance. “Making people feel like they matter.”
Something in my chest went warm but uncomfortable. “That’s the job.”
“No, it’s not. Lots of people do this job without giving a damn about anything but the paycheck.” He studied me with those sharp eyes that probably missed very little. “You actually care. That’s rare.”
“Or maybe I’m just nosy,” I said lightly, deflecting the way I always did when someone got too close to seeing the truth.
“Maybe.” But he didn’t sound convinced.
We transferred him to the ER team, and I spent the next twenty minutes doing paperwork in the ambulance bay. Emma went to restock the rig while I filed the incident report, documented medications, and updated Mr. Brennan’s care records.
My phone buzzed with a text from my station captain: Good call on the Brennan transport. His daughter already called to thank us.
I smiled and texted back: Tell her he’s going to be fine and he’s complaining about Dr. Morrison’s bedside manner, so his spirits are good.
The response came quickly: That’s our Mr. Brennan.
I finished the paperwork and was about to head back to the station when I caught a familiar scent on the wind. Cedar smoke and autumn rain, distinctive even in the hospital parking lot’s usual mix of antiseptic and exhaust fumes.
I looked up and spotted her immediately.
Sable Wynn, the emergency coordinator from this morning’s drill, was walking from the parking lot toward the hospital’s administrative entrance.
She had her tablet tucked under one arm and her radio still clipped to her belt even though it was mid-afternoon and she should have been done with work hours ago.
But of course she wasn’t done. Women like Sable Wynn didn’t clock out at five. They kept going until the work was finished or they collapsed, whichever came first.
I recognized that instinct because I had the same one.
Before I could talk myself out of it, I was moving to intercept her path. “Coordinator Wynn. Didn’t expect to see you here.”
She looked up, startled, and I watched her expression shift through surprise, recognition, and then that careful neutrality she seemed to wear like armor. “Vance, right? Medical call?”
“Yeah, Silas Vance.” The fact that she’d remembered felt significant, even if it wasn’t in reality. “Hip fracture, elderly patient. You?”
“Following up on safety inspection reports.” She gestured toward the administrative wing with her tablet. “The county requires documentation on all public facilities, and the hospital keeps dragging their feet on submitting updated floor plans.”
“Thrilling work.”
“Someone has to do it.” But there was a hint of dry humor in her tone that suggested she knew exactly how boring it sounded.
We stood there for a moment in the kind of silence that should have been awkward but somehow wasn’t.
Her scent was stronger up close, and I could feel my sensitivity picking up on the layers underneath the suppressants.
Exhaustion, for one. Determination, for another.
And underneath all of that, something sharp and wounded that made every protective instinct I had sit up and pay attention.
Which was dangerous for someone like me.
“That was good work this morning,” I said, because I needed to fill the silence with something that wasn’t me asking questions I had no right to ask. “The drill scenarios are getting more complex.”
“Emergency situations are complex. The training should match.”
“Most coordinators don’t see it that way. They go for simple, clean scenarios that look good on paper but don’t actually prepare anyone for reality.”
She tilted her head slightly, studying me with those dark amber eyes that seemed to see more than I wanted them to. “You sound like you’ve worked with a lot of coordinators.”
“Enough to know the difference between someone going through the motions and someone who actually cares about getting it right.” I paused, then added, “You care about getting it right.”
Something flickered in her expression, there and gone too fast to name. “That’s the job.”
“No, it’s not.” I echoed Mr. Brennan’s words from earlier, because they felt true in this context too. “Lots of people do that job without giving a damn about anything but checking boxes. You actually care.”
Her jaw tightened slightly, and I watched her defenses slam back into place. “I should get inside. The hospital administrator is expecting me.”
“Right. Of course.” I stepped back, giving her space.
But before she could leave, I heard myself say, “There’s a coffee shop downtown.
The Brew. Best coffee in Hollow Haven, and they have actual food, not just hospital cafeteria sadness.
If you ever need a break from bureaucratic paperwork, I’m usually there around four on weekdays. ”
She was very still, and I could see her trying to decide if that was a professional courtesy or something else. “Why are you telling me this?”
“Because you strike me as someone who doesn’t take enough breaks, and I’m someone who takes too many. Figured maybe we could balance each other out.” I kept my tone light, easy, the same way I did with everyone. But my sensitivity was screaming at me that this mattered more than I was letting on.
“I’m not looking for anything,” she said carefully.
“Neither am I,” I lied. “Just offering coffee and conversation to someone who understands what this job does to you. No pressure. No expectations.”
She studied me for a long moment, and I could practically see her weighing the risks against the benefits. Finally, she said, “I’ll think about it.”
“Fair enough.” I pulled out one of my cards, the professional ones with the ambulance service logo and my contact information. “If you change your mind.”
She took the card with careful fingers, making sure we didn’t touch in the process. “Thank you.”
“Anytime, Coordinator Wynn.”
“Sable,” she corrected, surprising both of us. “If we’re going to potentially have coffee, you should probably call me Sable.”
“Silas,” I offered back. “And for what it’s worth, I hope you do change your mind.”
She nodded once and walked away, disappearing into the hospital’s administrative entrance without looking back. I stood there for a moment longer than necessary, watching the space where she’d been and trying to figure out what the hell I was doing.
I was scent-sensitive. I could read people’s emotions like other people read books. I knew better than to get involved with someone who broadcast that much carefully controlled pain, because feeling her hurt on top of my own would be overwhelming.
But I also knew that sometimes the people carrying the most pain were the ones who needed someone to see them most.
And I’d seen Sable Wynn clearly. Seen past the coordinator and the competence and the carefully maintained walls. Seen the person underneath who was just as lonely and just as careful as I was.
Emma appeared from the rig, medical bag restocked and ready for the next call. “You ready to head back?”
“Yeah.” I climbed into the passenger seat, but my mind was still on cedar smoke and autumn rain, and the way Sable had said my name like she was testing it out.
“You okay?” Emma asked as she pulled out of the parking lot. “You look distracted.”
“Just thinking.”
“About the cute coordinator from this morning’s drill?”
I shot her a look. “How did you know about that?”
“Small town. Small service. Someone from fire crew mentioned you were making eyes at the emergency coordinator during the debrief.” She grinned. “So, were you?”
“I was doing my job.”
“Uh-huh. And offering her your card at the hospital was also doing your job?”
“Professional networking.”
“Right.” Emma didn’t sound convinced. “And I’m the Queen of England.”
I didn’t respond, just stared out the window at the autumn colors blurring past and tried not to think about the fact that I’d given my number to an omega who probably wouldn’t call.
But maybe, just maybe, she would.
And that possibility felt dangerous and hopeful in equal measure.