Chapter 4
DIEGO
The night after the Fourth had its own kind of hangover—that peculiar stillness that settles over a town once the last firework has fizzled out and the cleanup crews have swept away the remnants of celebration.
The streets stretched empty and dark beyond the station windows, broken only by the occasional flicker of a porch light or the distant hum of a late-night delivery truck making its rounds.
Inside our firehouse, the quiet felt even more pronounced, like the building itself was catching its breath after yesterday’s chaos.
We were parked around the scarred wooden kitchen table that had seen more poker games than any of us could count, cards fanned in our hands, the familiar ritual of a slow shift settling around us like an old blanket.
The ancient air conditioning unit wheezed and rattled overhead, working overtime in its valiant but losing battle against the oppressive July heat that seemed determined to seep through every crack and crevice, threatening to melt us right into the mismatched chairs we’d salvaged from various garage sales over the years.
The humidity hung thick enough to cut with a knife, making our turnout gear stick to the hooks on the wall and turning every breath into a conscious effort.
Even with the AC cranked as high as it would go, beads of sweat still gathered at the back of my neck, and the others shifted uncomfortably in their seats, tugging at shirt collars and reaching for water bottles with the kind of frequency that marked a truly miserable summer night.
“I’m telling you—” Twitch threw down a card. “Deep fryers send more people to the ER than fireworks. Guaranteed.”
“That’s because you don’t know how to work one,” Donkey shot back.
“I know exactly how to work one. You drop the turkey in slow, and you don’t—”
“—set your porch on fire,” I cut in, leaning back in my chair. “Which you did. Twice.”
“That was once, and it was barely a fire.” Twitch pointed at me like the distinction mattered.
“Barely a fire still gets you on the evening news,” Moose said.
The table cracked up, and Twitch just shook his head, muttering something about ungrateful teammates as he dealt the next hand.
The station alert cut through it, loud enough to jolt all of us upright.
“Medical emergency. Male, collapsed. Huckleberry Saloon. Breathing, not responsive.”
Cards hit the table. Chairs scraped. We were out to the bay before the last word finished echoing.
The doors rolled open, and the night slapped us in the face—thick, wet heat that clung to our skin.
Siren up, lights flashing, we tore down Main past dark storefronts and faded bunting still hanging from yesterday’s parade.
A handful of people on the sidewalks turned to watch us pass, faces flickering red-white-red in the strobe.
Five minutes ago we’d been giving each other hell over porch fires. Now it was all forward lean and silent calculation, the easy rhythm replaced by the tight, electric hum that came with knowing somebody’s worst moment was waiting for us to walk through the door.
The neon script of the saloon pulsed in the heat, a washed-out yellow barely cutting through the glare of our reds. Even from half a block out, I saw the knot of people on the sidewalk, shoulders hunched, heads turning in unison toward us.
The siren cut off, leaving a hollow, ringing quiet in my ears.
Twitch hit the ground running with the med bag, Donkey on his heels with the monitor.
I slid the stretcher from its mount, the metal warm against my palms, and followed.
The crowd shifted quickly, a ripple of movement, all eyes on us.
A few people murmured “Back up, give them space,” but most just stared.
I pushed through the swinging doors, squinting as my eyes adjusted from the flashing reds outside to the muted turquoise glow inside the saloon entryway.
The place looked frozen in time—exposed brick walls, scarred wooden bar running the length of the room, Val Kilmer’s watchful eyes from the Tombstone poster framed in a place of honor.
“Make way,” I called, and the crowd parted like water around a stone.
Doc himself was on the ground, one arm braced, trying to push himself upright, but his body wasn’t cooperating. His face was pale under the flush, mouth working like he had words but they were taking the long way out.
Gillian knelt beside him, hair a coppery spill against her shoulders, one hand flat on his chest. Her knuckles were bloodless. She was locked in tight, all that restless energy I remembered from her now braced into a single point of contact.
Our eyes locked for half a second before training kicked in. I moved past her.
Twitch was already down on one knee, checking vitals.
The crowd pressed in closer, whispering. Someone was crying softly. The air felt thick with beer and fear.
“Give us space.” At my order, the onlookers retreated a step.
I knelt opposite Gillian, her hands gripping Doc’s like she could anchor him to this world through sheer force of will. Her face was even paler than her knuckles.
“We’ve got him.” I kept my voice steady. Professional. Like I hadn’t lost hours of sleep last night thinking about her after the town picnic. Like I hadn’t spent four years trying to forget her. “Can you tell us what happened?”
“He just went down. One second he was talking to me, and then—he couldn’t stand up, and he wouldn’t stay down—”
I nodded, already slipping into assessment mode. “Doc? Can you hear me?”
His eyes found mine, recognition flickering. The pupils were even, but his gaze drifted.
“Doc, squeeze my fingers.” I slid my hand into his. His right hand gripped back—weak but there. When I tried his left, the response was barely a flutter.
“I’m fine.” Doc’s words slid into each other like melting ice. “Just got dizzy.” He tried to push himself up again.
I placed a hand on his shoulder. “Doc, stay with me. I need you to sit tight while we check you out.”
Something in my tone must have reached him because he stopped fighting, his eyes fixing on my face with frustration and something that looked like fear.
“Don’t make a fuss, Diego.”
“No fuss. Just doing my job.” I kept my voice calm.
Donkey had the blood pressure cuff around Doc’s arm, the monitor beeping as it inflated. “BP one-seventy over ninety-five,” he reported. “Pulse eighty-eight.”
I leaned closer. “Doc, smile for me.”
He tried, but the left side of his face barely moved. The right side lifted in a crooked attempt.
“Now raise both arms for me.”
His right arm lifted. His left barely cleared the floor.
“What’s the date today?” I watched his eyes.
Doc’s brow furrowed. “It’s…July?” He stopped, confusion clouding his features.
I glanced at Gillian. Her face had gone from pale to bloodless, but she wasn’t falling apart. She’d always been stronger than she knew.
Twitch checked the glucometer. “Blood sugar’s normal. Oxygen’s good.”
I nodded, pieces clicking into place. “Likely TIA or stroke.” In which case, every minute mattered. “Let’s move.”
Donkey was already prepping the stretcher I’d set aside. The crowd parted as we transferred Doc, his body suddenly looking frail under the bright lights of the bar.
“Is he—?” Gillian’s voice cracked as she followed beside us. “Is he going to be okay?”
Her eyes locked onto mine, green and fierce and terrified. The same eyes that used to light up when I’d walk into this same bar years ago. Now they were pleading for something I couldn’t guarantee.
I met her gaze, steadying myself. “We’re going to take care of him. I promise.”
That was all I could give her right now.
No false reassurances, no medical predictions I couldn’t back up with certainty.
Just the unvarnished truth that we would do everything in our power, which was more than most promises people made in moments like these.
It was the kind of honesty that mattered when someone’s world was tilting sideways.
Something tightened in my chest—that old, familiar instinct to comfort her, to reach out and put a steady hand on her shoulder, to pull her close and tell her everything would be alright the way I used to when we were young and believed the world was conquerable.
The urge was so strong I had to consciously keep my hands on the equipment, fingers gripping the rails of the stretcher instead of reaching for her.
But years of training and hard-earned discipline held me in check.
I had a job to do, a patient to stabilize and transport, and emotional entanglements weren’t part of the protocol.
Not when lives hung in the balance. Especially not with the one woman who’d walked away four years ago and left a crack in my carefully constructed armor that had never quite sealed, no matter how many calls I’d run or how many people I’d helped since then.
“We’ve got it from here.” My voice was steadier than I felt.
She backed up just enough, hands fisted at her sides, eyes never leaving her grandfather. The crowd had thinned, most customers moving outside to watch from the sidewalk, but she remained, a fixed point in the chaos.
“I can walk, dammit.” Doc tried to push himself upright against the restraints. Even pale and disoriented, the stubborn set of his jaw remained unchanged from all the years I’d known him.
“Not tonight.” I placed a firm hand on his shoulder. “We’ve got you.”
For a moment, his eyes cleared, and he looked at me with the same sharp assessment I’d seen him use on rowdy college kids who tried to sneak fake IDs past him. Then he sank back, something in his expression surrendering.
“Fine,” he muttered. “But this is ridiculous.”
We secured him to the stretcher, Twitch checking the straps while Donkey gathered the monitoring equipment. Every move efficient, practiced. Outside, the ambulance waited, back doors open, interior lit like an operating room.
As we wheeled Doc toward the front, the saloon door swung open, letting in a blast of humid night air. The crowd outside had grown, faces tight with concern. In a town this size, Doc Holliday wasn’t just a business owner—he was a fixture, a cornerstone.
Gillian followed right behind us, staying close enough that I felt her presence like heat on the back of my neck. She’d grabbed her purse and phone, clearly planning to follow us to the hospital.
I heard the soft catch in her breathing as we loaded Doc into the ambulance, saw the tremble in her fingers as she pushed her hair back from her face.
“I’ll be right behind you,” she said to Doc, voice stronger than her shaking hands suggested.
He managed a weak smile. “Don’t speed.”
As Twitch climbed in behind the stretcher and Donkey headed for the driver’s seat, I turned to Gillian. “Ride with us. You’re in no shape to drive.” Not with the way her hands shook.
For a long moment, Gillian hesitated, her eyes searching mine. Behind the panic, I saw the steel I remembered—the girl who’d always calculated every move, weighed every risk. Even now, with her world tilting sideways, that brain of hers was running the math.
“You shouldn’t be alone,” I said, soft enough for her ears alone. “And he shouldn’t be either.”
Something shifted in her expression—relief, maybe, or surrender—and she nodded.
“Okay.” She tucked her phone into her back pocket.
I held out my hand to help her up into the rig. She took it, her fingers cool and surprisingly steady against mine. Just that brief contact sent an unwelcome spark up my arm, a ghost of old memories. I let go the instant she was stable.
Gillian settled near Doc’s head, careful to keep clear of the monitors and IV lines Twitch was setting up.
She brushed her fingers through her grandfather’s thin hair, murmuring something I didn’t catch.
The tenderness in that gesture hit me somewhere unexpected.
This was the Gillian I’d known before law school and corporate life had claimed her.
Cutting off the thought, I shut the doors with a solid thunk and called out to Donkey up front, “Roll out.”