Chapter 9
The medical alarm sounded throughout the station, and Clay’s heart started thundering at the mention of a child in distress. When he heard his own address from the speaker, he lost his fucking mind.
“That’s my kid!” He sprinted to the truck, yelling the whole way, not sure what he was even saying.
The firefighters on San Amaro Island routinely went on medical calls with the ambulance and vice versa.
This time the ambulance was coming from a different location than the station.
Clay had no recollection from where and frankly didn’t give a fuck as long as they got to his house in about ten seconds flat and did whatever they needed to do for his daughter.
“Let’s go! Get your ass on the truck!” The others were moving like goddamn senior citizens.
He shut up once the four of them were ready to go, all his energy focused on getting to Payton. Hopefully the ambulance was closer than they were. If this thing didn’t start rolling in about five seconds, he was going to jump out and run for his little girl.
Derek was riding backward next to him, looking gravely at him. “We’ll get there. She’ll be all right, Clay.”
He should never have come to work today. All his trusted babysitters were unavailable, so he should’ve been the one to stay home with Payton. That was his responsibility now. She was his priority. What the fuck had he been thinking?
God, let her be okay, please. He’d never leave her with anyone again if she could just be okay right now. He twisted around and urged Evan to step on it.
The ninety seconds it took them to drive there seemed more like ten minutes, too much precious time ticking by.
When the truck finally stopped, he jumped out, relieved that the ambulance was already there.
Scott and Blake were on the grass bent over Payton—he was sure of it even though he couldn’t see her clearly.
Andie knelt next to her, but he couldn’t waste a millisecond deciding if she was to blame. He had to be with his daughter.
“Payton.” He bent down next to Scott. “What’s happening? How is she?” He could see she was conscious but she didn’t say anything to him, just looked at him with scared eyes. She was dazed.
“Bee sting reaction. Just gave her epinephrine and she’s starting to respond. She called right away,” Scott said, indicating Andie with a nod. “Fast reaction. Makes all the difference.”
“Payton, Daddy’s here,” he said, afraid to take his eyes off her, as if, in looking away, something could go seriously wrong. He took her little hand in both of his and summoned up an everything’s-going-to-be-fine facade.
He moved around to his daughter’s head, next to where Andie crouched over her, robotically brushing Payton’s hair back from her face again and again.
Scott handed him the equipment to prep the oxygen, and Clay realized his hands were shaking so badly he could hardly function.
The guys, who normally stayed out of the way until they were needed during medical calls, had crowded around to see how Payton was and if they could do anything. Evan leaned over Clay from beside him. “You all right, man? Want me to do that?”
“I got it.”
Once the oxygen was hooked up and Scott was checking her blood pressure again, Clay bent over Payton and pressed his lips to her forehead. “It’s okay, girly. We’re going to make you all better.”
As he continued to talk to Payton, reassuring her, trying to keep her calm and relaxed, he noticed Andie had walked away and was sitting on the bottom step. She leaned over her knees and held her head with both hands, her hair draped over her face.
Somewhere in his mind, it registered that she was scared to death too, that she needed someone to comfort her. But Clay couldn’t be that person. His concern was his daughter. It wasn’t his place to worry about Andie.
“She’s stabilizing,” Scott said at last. “Blood pressure is improving. Let’s take her in.”
Clay felt as if he was breathing for the first time since the alarm had come in and he’d heard his address blasted out over the speaker at the station.
Blake had grabbed the stretcher from the ambulance, and he and Evan lifted Payton onto it.
The sight of her little body on the large sterile equipment, such an everyday part of his job, twisted him up inside.
The two weren’t supposed to be together.
She wasn’t ever supposed to be the one lying there helplessly.
He held Payton’s hand and walked beside her to the ambulance. Andie was suddenly keeping pace with him.
“Can I ride with you?” she asked. “I know you don’t want me around, but I don’t have any other way to get there.”
At the back end of the ambulance, he stared down at her, at the anguish on her face, the tears in her eyes. It was more emotion than he’d seen from her in all the time he’d known her.
“I’m going, Clay. To the hospital. One way or another.”
He nodded. “I’m riding in back,” he told Scott. “She’s coming with me.”
Clay was never letting Payton outside again. He’d lock her in the house and let her out when she turned thirty. Maybe.
The terror of the day had receded—she’d just received the okay to go home, and now they were waiting on the formalities—but he’d aged a couple of decades in the past few hours.
Payton was asleep on the exam table, curled up on her side beneath a thin hospital blanket, still wearing her leotard and skirt. Her expression seemed peaceful now. Clay repeated the mantra of gratitude he’d been saying to himself all evening and slumped in the uncomfortable chair next to her bed.
“Here’s the prescription for the EpiPen she’ll need to have with her at all times,” Joanna, one of the nurses he’d refused to play with at Evan and Selena’s party, said softly when she came back in.
“Still waiting on Dr. Milton to sign off and finish the paperwork, but it shouldn’t be long.
Isn’t the tall brunette in the lobby with you? ”
Clay frowned. “Andie? Is she still here?”
“If she’s not with you, I’m not sure who she’s here for. Think she was with you at the Drakes’ party. Straight, dark hair past her shoulders, skinny. Wearing some god-awful boots?”
That was Andie. His pulse picked up speed. He’d assumed she’d left hours ago.
He watched Payton sleep, thankful for every rise and fall of her little body. He couldn’t leave her now.
“I can bring her back here,” Joanna said. “She doesn’t look like she’s doing too well herself.”
Clay nodded, telling himself the only thing he felt for Andie right now, the only thing he could allow himself to feel, was gratitude. “Thank you.”
After all, he’d fallen for Payton’s mother.
That mistake, that lapse in judgment, was still hurting the people he loved today—Payton, his family.
He knew his mom worried about her granddaughter all the time, wishing for more normal circumstances for her.
Payton had paid with more than three years of God knew what from her mother.
Andie was a drifter. She was used to watching out for herself and would do what she had to for number one.
She carried everything she owned on the back of a motorcycle, and yet…she seemed to have more baggage than a loaded cruise liner.
They should put cots in the ER waiting area, Andie thought as she turned to her side on one of those uncomfortable double chairs with no armrest between them.
Her legs were draped over the armrest that separated this double chair from the next one.
Pain shot through her hip—damn things had virtually no cushioning.
She could’ve gotten up and walked home at any time. Called a taxi even. But she had to know that Payton was going to be all right. Had to see with her own eyes that she’d recovered.
She knew waiting to see Payton meant she’d have a run-in with Clay too.
That could be ugly. She’d seen his animosity when he’d arrived on the scene to find his daughter laid out in the front yard.
His fury had been directed at Andie—rightly so.
She’d been responsible for Payton and the girl had almost died.
Nausea rose in her throat for the hundredth time today. What if she had died? Andie would never have been able to live with herself.
“Are you with Clay Marlow?” A nurse had come out from the back without Andie noticing.
Andie sat up. “Um, I guess so.”
“I can show you to where he is.”
She stood and followed the woman—a blonde wearing scrubs with pugs all over them.
“Is Payton okay?” Andie choked out, exhausted and starving. She hadn’t grabbed her purse or anything else when they’d left.
“She’s going to be fine, thank goodness,” the nurse said.
Andie let out a long breath and nodded.
“Here you go.” The nurse pushed the door of the exam room open a few more inches.
Andie noticed Clay in her peripheral vision, but she zoomed in on the bed, on Payton.
She took a couple of steps forward, not feeling as if she had the right to get too close, and drank in the sight of the girl.
Her coloring was much better, and the fear that had torn Andie up was gone from her angelic face.
Her body rose and fell in even, non-raspy breaths. Payton was really okay.
Andie’s eyes filled with tears.
“She’s going to be fine,” Clay whispered. He stood a foot away, smiling.
Smiling?
“Clay…” Andie began in a low voice. “I’m so sorry. I should never have agreed to watch her for you. I don’t have a lot of experience with kids or emergencies or bees or anything. I was so focused on getting a temporary bike I didn’t really think about it and I almost—”
“Shh.” Clay took her by the elbow and directed her to the far corner of the room.
He leaned against the counter and pulled Andie in front of him, facing him, their thighs touching.
“Everything’s fine.” His voice was just above a whisper, still soothing and lacking any trace of the anger she’d expected.
He brushed his fingers under her chin, forcing her to make eye contact with him.