Chapter 4
CHAPTER FOUR
TUCKER
After running several calls at work, I went back to the hospital, pausing in the doorway of Hazel’s ER cubicle.
Cheeks pale, eyes closed, Hazel looked so damn vulnerable in that hospital bed, but I soaked up the sight of her, exhaling for the first time in hours.
Even as I reminded myself, You will not fall for this woman again. Not now, not ever.
Nurse Allie was finishing up checking vitals and gave me a subtle nod. Hazel was going to be okay.
I nodded back, my shoulders easing a fraction.
Allie gave me a second look, this one less subtle, eyebrows raised. Her silent question: You two a thing?
I opened my mouth to give an unequivocal no. But the image of Hazel sitting on top of her van, bloodied and fierce, wielding her EpiPen like Badass Barbie, surged through me again. Something deep in my chest stirred, like my heart was saying, I’ll take that one.
“Wait a minute,” Hazel said, voice gravelly. “What was that?”
“What was what?” Allie was fussing with the blanket keeping Hazel warm like it’d offended her.
“The little nod you gave the Human Thundercloud over there.”
Allie grinned. “Just telling…the Human Thundercloud that your vitals are looking good.”
Hazel blinked. “Why?”
“Why?”
“Yeah. You dating him or something?” Hazel gestured to me, as if there were any doubt who the him in question was.
Allie burst out laughing. Loud.
I crossed my arms, giving her my best unimpressed-firefighter stare.
She laughed harder. “Lord, no. He’s a complication wrapped in sin, sure, but I don’t do complicated.”
“I’m not that complicated,” I muttered.
Hazel snorted, her expression saying I was the King of Complicated. Then she laughed, the sound unexpected and beautiful.
I felt my armor crack. “I’m not,” I insisted.
“Oh, please,” Hazel said, waving the IV-free hand. “You have rules for everything.”
Rules kept people safe. And the alternative—chaos, loss—tore holes in people that never healed. “It’s just good sense.”
Allie exchanged a look with Hazel, who almost smiled but caught my gaze and glowered instead.
Felt about right.
Allie patted Hazel’s arm. “You know, you’re lucky this guy showed up so quickly today. He saved your life.”
“She saved herself,” I said, and yeah, my voice was gruff with pride. She was brave. Reckless. And still the most beautiful goddamn disaster I’d ever seen.
Allie cocked her head, studying us. “I feel like I’m missing something.”
“You’re not,” Hazel said. “Unless you count him abusing the PA system to publicly shame me into getting in his truck.”
“Oh, that.” Allie grinned. “That must’ve been a fun walk down memory lane.”
Hazel sighed dramatically.
“Honey,” Allie said sympathetically, “what teenager makes good decisions?”
Hazel shrugged, then closed her eyes.
I stepped closer before I could stop myself, worry jamming up my throat.
“Doc’ll be in any second,” Allie said, patting Hazel’s shoulder. “You hanging in there?”
“I get to leave soon, right?”
“Why?” I asked. “You in a hurry to kill another wasp?”
She cracked one eye open. “Is this what we’re doing now?”
Allie leaned in and stage-whispered, “He uses sarcasm to deflect from the fact that he cares deeply.”
“Thanks, Allie,” I muttered.
“Anytime.”
“I’m really fine,” Hazel said. “Can’t you break me outta here?”
Allie shook her head. “Hospital rules. Observation for a few more hours. But I can offer you some lime Jell-O.”
“Awesome.” Hazel eyed me. “But he can go, right?”
Everyone in the room looked at me.
“Your call,” Allie told her.
I took a step back.
“Wait,” Hazel said.
It was ridiculous how fast I paused.
“I…um…want to thank you,” she said. “For getting my van handled. I really appreciate it.” She offered a small smile, and damn if my damn heart didn’t seize up like a rusted valve.
Her wild hair was barely tamed in a ponytail, that hospital gown not doing much to hide those sweet curves I remembered all too well, and don’t get me started on those baby blues, which could ice or warm in a single heartbeat.
“No big deal,” I finally said. Lie. I’d called in favors to get it done so fast.
“It’s a big deal to me.” She lifted her gaze to mine. “You were there when no one else was.”
Her voice was quiet, but it hit hard. She didn’t have to explain.
I’d seen inside her van. It was not new by any means, but other than the muddy exterior from the swim in the creek and the small dent in the front bumper, it was in good shape.
It was also her sanctuary. Tools perfectly stored, interior spotless, shelves built with a kind of care that said it mattered.
It wasn’t just her livelihood. It was her home away from home.
“The interior was untouched,” I said. “Only the bumper took a hit, a small one. Mo’s already on it.”
Relief poured off her like a wave. “Seriously. Thank you.”
I should’ve left it there. But something about her getting emotional over the van instead of for herself, for surviving what could have killed her, flipped a switch. So, sue me, I poked the bear. “Do your thanks include the actual rescue?”
Her eyes flashed. “You mean the public-humiliation part?”
Okay, so I’d definitely taken that too far. But keeping her angry had kept the adrenaline flowing during the time it’d taken me to convince her to go to the hospital with me. I shrugged. “Or the part where I pulled you out of the water.”
“I saved myself.”
“Fact,” I said simply.
She blinked in surprise as Dr. Ortiz parted the curtain like he was entering a party. “Well, if it isn’t two of Star Falls’s biggest troublemakers.”
Hazel muttered something under her breath that sounded like “Next time I’m faking amnesia.”
He winked at me. The guy had stitched me up more times than I could count.
“I half expected it to be you on that bed,” he said, then looked at Hazel. “Heard you had quite the adventure. Still letting this guy rub off on you, huh?”
Allie snorted.
Hazel rolled her eyes.
Doc laughed. “I don’t know who was wilder growing up, you or him.”
“Him,” Hazel and Allie said in perfect unison.
“Standing right here,” I said.
Doc clamped a hand on my shoulder. “And now you’re one of the good ones.”
“Cue his savior complex,” Allie said.
Hazel choked on her water.
Doc grinned as he reviewed the chart. “Vitals look good. We’ll keep you a little longer, then send you off with two epinephrine pens. No repeat visits, yeah?”
“How much longer?” Hazel asked.
“In a hurry to escape us?”
She offered him a smile. The kind of warm, genuine smile she hadn’t given me in a very, very long time. “Don’t take it personally.”
He grinned and left.
Hazel held out her arm expectantly.
Allie moved to disconnect her IV. “Glad you’re okay. Big guy here was beside himself.”
Another fact. My first-responder composure vanished around Hazel. Allie patted my arm, adding a knowing wink, acknowledging the fact that in all the times I’d delivered patients to this hospital, she’d never seen me anything but focused, in control, and levelheaded.
I was exactly none of those today.
“You’ve got a crowd waiting on you,” Allie told Hazel.
Hazel blinked, slow as an owl. “What? Who?”
“Your dad,” Allie said. “And your entire family.”
“My dad’s my only family.”
Allie raised a brow. “Ryder and Caleb aren’t your brothers? Penny, Kiera, Emma—figments of my imagination? Hank’s here too; Kiera picked him up for Tucker from his daycare.”
Hazel glanced at me, stunned. That she still had no idea how much she meant to people slayed me.
She bit her bottom lip, taking it in, trying to decide how she felt about being claimed.
I almost laughed. Hazel Pierce, fierce and brave and tough as they came, undone by people caring about her: Ryder, Caleb, and Kiera, for starters, along with Penny and Emma—Ryder’s and Caleb’s better halves, Hazel’s best friends.
“They all tried to pile in here,” Allie said. “Front desk kicked them out. So they ordered pizza for the whole staff as a bribe.” The nurse grinned. “We love pizza.”
Hazel looked like she’d won the lottery, then found out she owed taxes on it.
“I’m going to go work on discharge papers.” Allie leaned in. “Try to go easy on him. He’s not used to being emotionally attached to the people he rescues.”
“He’s not emotionally attached.” Hazel shook her head. “Not to me.”
“I feel emotionally mugged,” I muttered.
Allie chuckled but paused to look at me. “How’s your knuckle-head brother?”
“Which one?”
“Ha.” Allie had briefly dated Caleb years ago. He’d ghosted her long before meeting Emma, and these days he walked around like he’d swallowed a Disney soundtrack. “Still a knucklehead then,” I said.
“At least he made the most of seeing the three stars fall.”
I groaned. “Please don’t.”
“The legend’s real, Tucker.”
The Legend of Star Falls was just that: a tale, lore that said if you were lucky enough to see the rare phenomenon of three stars falling in an arch together across the sky, your soulmate would find you. “It’s a bedtime story some lovesick teenager made up to avoid their algebra homework.”
“Both Ryder and Caleb saw it, then fell in love.” Allie smiled. “And rumor is that Ryder and Penny sneaked off last month, flew to Hawaii, got married, honeymooned, and got pregnant all on the same trip.”
True story. We were still giving them shit about it.
“And,” Allie went on, “Caleb and Emma are planning a big wedding bash for next summer. Coincidence? I think not.”
I sighed, and she laughed and left.
Hazel’s eyes were closed, face still pale as death, but I could read the sardonic curve of her mouth. She might be down, but she was not out.
Silence reigned, and I realized it was the first time we’d been alone in a room since she’d been back. I needed to make good use of it before she kicked me to the curb and went back to not speaking to me. “You ever going to tell me what really happened?”
Without opening her eyes, she pointed to the welt in the center of her forehead. “Wasp tried to kill me.”
“You know that’s not what I mean.”
She rolled her eyes, then winced and gingerly touched the sting. “Ow.”
I took a step toward her, but she shook her head, holding me off.
“Okay,” I said, “how about this? I’ll answer any question you want if you just tell me why you’ve been ignoring me since you got back.”
The slightest flicker of emotion crossed her face. Then: “Go away.”
“No can do,” I said.
“Sure you can. Just turn that admittedly very fine ass around and walk out. You’ve done it before.”
Her voice wasn’t loud, but it landed like a punch. I didn’t have a comeback, not one that wouldn’t bleed. I exhaled slowly. “I’m not walking away. That’s not what people who care about each other do. We stick.”
“I’m not surprised you think that. You always assume people care about you.”
“People care about you too, you know.”
Silence.
“We should talk, Haze. Like really talk.”
“No, thank you,” she said politely.
“Fine.” I shook my head. “Bad idea. Forget it.”
“Done.”
My phone buzzed. Emergency tone. Fire call.
“Saved by the bell,” she said. “You gotta go.”
Shit. I did. It was the job. Always had been. But this was the first time I didn’t want to walk away. And that’s what scared me most. Because if I didn’t walk away, it meant maybe I never really had.
Hours later, after a fire call involving a backyard bonfire, two tipsy teenagers, and a very flammable inflatable Santa, I stared at my phone and gave in to temptation.
Me: Can I call you?
Hazel: You can.
I called and got her voicemail.
Me: You don’t pick up?
Hazel: I never said I’d pick up.
Me: What is wrong with you?
Hazel: Unfortunately, too many things to name.
Hazel: Hazel has left this chat.
Me: That’s not how that works.
No response. Clearly, she had no interest in what we’d once had. She’d been the one real thing in my life.
Hell of a time for me to realize I still wasn’t over her.