Chapter 3
Three
The coffee in the nurses’ station was terrible, but Ethan drank it anyway.
Many hours into a long shift, and he’d learned early on that terrible coffee was better than no coffee.
He stood at the counter, his paramedic uniform rumpled and smelling faintly of smoke despite having changed during the shift, and let the bitter liquid burn down his throat while his body tried to remember what sleep felt like.
He should go home. Clock out, drive the fifteen minutes to his house, fall into bed and try not to dream about Sarah or burning buildings or the man in the white shirt that may or may not have existed. That’s what he should do.
Instead, he was standing in the fourth-floor nurses’ station at Willow Glen Regional Medical Center, pretending he’d come up here for the coffee.
“You checking on the Harpers?” Brenda, the charge nurse, asked from her station. She was in her late fifties, had been working this floor since before Ethan joined the service, and had a reputation for knowing everything that happened in her domain.
Ethan turned, surprised. “How’d you know?”
“You brought them in.” Brenda smiled, the kind of knowing smile that said she’d seen right through his casual act. “And you’ve been doing this job long enough that I know you don’t just drop off and forget. Especially not the dramatic ones.”
Dramatic. That was one word for it. Ethan took another sip of coffee, using the moment to organize his thoughts. “How are they doing?”
“Surprisingly well, all things considered.” Brenda pulled up a chart on her computer, even though Ethan suspected she already knew everything on it by heart.
“Mother has a mild concussion and significant smoke inhalation, but she’s stable.
The kids are even better off. Some minor smoke exposure, but their oxygen levels are good.
They’re keeping them all overnight for observation, but Dr. Wilson says they’ll probably discharge in the morning. ”
Ethan felt tension he didn’t know he’d been carrying ease from his shoulders.
They were okay. The children and the woman, the one who’d appeared impossibly beside a burning building, who’d been rescued by a stranger who ran into flames twice.
They were going to be okay. It seemed a miracle considering what they had seen when arriving at the farmhouse.
“That’s good,” he said, and meant it. “The vitals taken at the scene made it seem worse.”
“They got lucky.” Another nurse, Kelly, younger and relatively new to the floor, joined the conversation.
“I heard the guy who pulled them out went in two separate times. Can you imagine? No gear, no breathing apparatus, just—” She shook her head.
“That’s either incredibly brave or incredibly stupid. ”
“Sometimes there’s not much difference,” Ethan said quietly, thinking of soldiers running into gunfire to save their buddies, of every call he’d ever run where someone had made a choice between safe and right.
“Well, either way, those kids are alive because of him.” Kelly pulled up her own station at the computer. “And speaking of lucky, did you hear they’re new to town? Lydia Harper inherited that farmhouse from a relative. They’ve only been here a week or two.”
Ethan shook his head. A week or two. They’d barely unpacked, barely started to settle in, and now everything was gone.
“Poor woman,” Brenda said, shaking her head. “Loses her home before she’s even had a chance to make it one. And with Thanksgiving coming up too.”
“Where will they go when you discharge them?” Ethan heard himself ask.
The two nurses exchanged glances, and Ethan recognized the look. It was the same one he’d seen on his own face in the mirror too many times. The helpless frustration of wanting to fix something but not knowing how.
“That’s the problem,” Kelly said. “We called around trying to help. The Willow Glen Inn is closed for termite tenting, and won’t be open until after the new year.
And the Lakeside Lodge is completely booked.
Thanksgiving week, you know, plus all the Dollywood holiday events have all the local towns booked out. People come from all over.”
“What about the motels on Route 11?” Ethan asked, already knowing the answer.
“Full up,” Brenda confirmed. “We tried everywhere within a thirty-mile radius. Everything’s booked solid. Holiday travelers, people visiting family. It’s the worst possible time to need emergency housing.”
“Social services?” Even as Ethan said it, he knew it was a long shot.
“They’re working on it, but emergency family shelters are limited out here.
Might have to send them to Knoxville, and even that’s not guaranteed.
” Kelly’s face was troubled. “If we didn’t have family visiting for Thanksgiving, I’d offer to put them up myself.
My guest room’s not much, but it’s better than nothing. ”
“Same,” Brenda agreed. “But my sister and her kids are flying in from Ohio tomorrow. I’ve got a full house.”
Ethan stared down into his coffee cup, watching the dark liquid ripple slightly from the tremor in his hand.
He had space. A four-bedroom house on five acres just outside town, bought three years ago for a future that never materialized.
Sarah had loved that house, had spent hours planning how they’d furnish it, which room would be the nursery, where they’d put the Christmas tree.
Now it sat mostly empty. Three bedrooms that never got used. A kitchen that only saw frozen dinners. A living room where Ethan spent his evenings alone, trying not to think about the life he’d planned and lost.
He had space. No family visiting. No obligations. No reason not to offer help.
Except that he’d spent three years carefully building walls around himself, keeping people at arm’s length, existing in the careful isolation that came with grief.
His house was his sanctuary, the one place where he didn’t have to pretend to be okay, didn’t have to smile and tell people he was healing.
The thought of opening that up to strangers, to a woman and two children who would fill those empty rooms with noise and life and need?—
It made his chest tight and his hands shake.
But what kind of man would he be if he let a woman and two kids go to a far-off shelter, or worse, just because he preferred being alone with his ghosts?
“I could—” Ethan started, then stopped. Cleared his throat. Tried again. “I have space. At my place. If they need somewhere to stay.”
Both nurses turned to look at him with identical expressions of surprise.
“Ethan,” Brenda said gently, “that’s incredibly generous, but you don’t have to?—”
“I know I don’t have to.” He set down his coffee cup before his hands could betray him. “But it sounds like there aren’t any other options. And I’ve got three extra bedrooms sitting empty. Seems selfish to keep them that way when people need help.”
The truth of it settled in his chest like a weight. He didn’t want to do this. Didn’t want to share his space, his grief, his carefully maintained solitude. But Sarah would have been appalled if he’d turned away a family in need just because it made him uncomfortable.
Sarah. Who’d been a nurse. Who’d spent her life taking care of people. Who would have already offered up their home without a second thought.
The thought of her made his chest ache, but it also steadied him. He could do this. It was temporary. A few days, maybe a week, until social services found them something permanent, or until Lydia Harper had time to form a plan. He could handle a week.
“Are you sure?” Kelly asked. “I mean, that’s … that’s really above and beyond.”
“I’m sure,” Ethan said, before he could talk himself out of it. “Can you let Ms. Harper know I’d like to speak with her? I’ll make the offer official.”
“Room 412,” Brenda said, her eyes warm with approval. “And Ethan? That’s a good thing you’re doing.”
Ethan nodded, not trusting himself to speak, and headed for the ward.
The fourth floor was quiet this late at night.
Just past midnight now, the graveyard shift settling in.
Ethan’s boots were soft on the linoleum as he walked down the hallway, his heart beating faster than it should have been.
This was just an offer of help. A temporary arrangement. Nothing to be nervous about.
So why did his palms feel sweaty?
Room 412 was at the end of the hall, the door slightly ajar. Ethan paused outside, suddenly uncertain. What if she said no? What if she didn’t want help from a stranger? What if?—
A soft sound from inside the room stopped his spiraling thoughts. A child’s voice, small and scared.
“Mommy, I’m thirsty.”
Ethan knocked gently on the doorframe, then pushed the door open a few more inches. “Ms. Harper? It’s Ethan Cole. I was one of the paramedics from earlier. Is it okay if I come in?”
There was a pause, then a woman’s voice, hoarse and tired. “Yes. Please.”
Ethan stepped into the room and had to pause to let his eyes adjust to the dim lighting.
One of the overhead lights was on, casting a soft glow over the space.
The room held three hospital beds, positioned close together.
In the nearer bed, a woman lay propped up on pillows with two children tucked against her sides like baby birds in a nest.
Lydia Harper.
Ethan had seen her last night, had started an IV, checked her vitals, loaded her into the ambulance, but it had all been through the lens of professional detachment, the practiced distance of a paramedic doing his job.
Now, seeing her in the quiet of the hospital room, he found himself actually looking at her for the first time.