Chapter Five #2
“Nah. I did forty-eight-hour shifts back in the military. It doesn’t take much to keep me rested.”
My brows narrow and I lean in. “I didn’t know you were in the military. What did you do?”
“Army medivac unit. We’d get called out in the middle of the night to the middle of nowhere. Sometimes we didn’t even know what we were flying into, just that someone needed help.”
I don’t interrupt. His tone is calm, but there’s weight behind it and I want to know more.
“There was this one time,” he says, exhaling loudly, “we landed in a field that was still hot from mortar fire. Smoke was everywhere. I had to crawl through it to get to this twenty-year-old kid who was bleeding out from a chest wound. I remember thinking that if I stopped moving, he dies.”
I swallow hard, the blanket forgotten now. “Did he make it?”
He nods slowly. “Barely. But yeah, he did. I did the medic thing here for a while, but,” he reaches back and massages his shoulder, “I fucked my shoulder joint up pretty bad a few years back. Nothing major, but… age. Anyway, they offered me this job, and then I met you. Not sure we ever talked about what brought you to the dispatch center.”
“Money.” I laugh and swallow hard as I stare at the flickering flames set behind the pretty, stone fireplace.
The entire cabin looks hand-built, and I wonder how much of it he’s done himself.
“Money and a sense of purpose. I’ve always wanted to be a paramedic but the timing for school was always off.
I’m hoping after the baby is born I can find time to get my training, but—”
“I know a lot of guys over at the training center. I can help get you set up. They offer a lot of lectures online. You’d meet up for the clinical portion once or twice a week. I think it’s a twelve-month program.”
How did I go from fucking this man in my dreams to talking about the twelve-month paramedic program? Oh yeah, he’s my boss!
I’m such a mess!
The sun rises over the horizon and sends rays of light into the room, highlighting the knotted wood floors and the empty fireplace mantel.
I’ve known this man for two years and I still don’t understand how he’s not married.
I mean, I’ve really only known him in the context of work, but he’s so sweet, so down to earth, so…
hot. Up here, in the middle of nowhere, a man like that is usually snatched up and married before the sun sets on his eighteenth birthday.
Then again, maybe he wants to be alone. Maybe he likes the minimalism of an empty fireplace mantel.
“Do you ever think about getting married and having kids?” I regret the question the second it slips out.
Why did I do that? It’s none of my business! Apparently, when a man drinks your breastmilk in Dreamland, it gives you liberties you’d never have taken before.
Have I said I’m a mess?
He pauses, the silence stretching just long enough to make my pulse quicken. Then he shifts in the chair, the leather creaking beneath him as he leans back, one arm draped casually over the side.
“Sometimes,” he says, voice low and thoughtful.
His gaze drifts toward the ceiling, as if the answer lives somewhere up there, tucked between the shadows and the quiet hum of the early morning light.
“It comes in swells, like when I see a dad teaching his kid how to ride a bike, or when I see a happy couple holding hands by the lake or something. I guess I figure it’d be nice to know someone like that, share secrets…
and miseries,” he laughs, “but I’m pretty sure that part of life has passed me by. ”
“Why?”
“I’m forty-nine this year. At this point, I think I’ve aged out of the family thing.”
Forty-nine. Okay, there’s a solid twenty plus years between us. That’s a lot.
The thought flickers through my mind like a warning light, that I ignore in favor of the rough handed fantasy I was having earlier. “Age is just a number. You can still have those things.”
He brushes his hand over his beard. “Easy for a… twenty something?”
“Twenty-four. I’m twenty-four.”
“Twenty-four,” he repeats, almost like he’s tasting the number for the first time. “God, you’re just a kid.”
His words are heavy, like they’ve landed with more force than he expected. His hand drifts to his beard again, absently.
“I didn’t mean that the way it sounded,” he adds quickly. “It’s just… you’ve got your whole life ahead of you, and I’m already halfway through mine.”
I don’t respond right away. I’m watching him. The way his shoulders tense, and the way his eyes avoid mine. It’s like he’s not just thinking about the age gap. He’s thinking about what it means.
“I don’t feel like a kid,” I say softly, rubbing my hand over my stomach. “I feel like a whole damn adult, like I’ve had three lifetimes already.”
He exhales a slow, conflicted breath. “That’s fucked up, everything you’ve been through. Why’d you stay so long with that guy?”
I draw in a breath and exhale slowly, my eyes wide.
“He could be this really nice guy at times. Like, really attentive, caring, affectionate… everything I needed, but it never lasted. I’d have a feeling, and I’d talk about it.
Talking about my feelings would set him off, and he became a man I didn’t know.
Screaming, hollering, shifting blame, the whole nine.
” I shrug. “Then the next day, back to greatness like nothing happened. The whole thing threw me off guard, and I had so much empathy for him that I let a lot of it go.” I stare down at my fingertips as I fiddle with the edge of the soft knotted blanket I don’t remember covering myself with. “I know how stupid that sounds.”
“You’re not stupid. You’re strong. You wanted to believe the person you loved was good. That’s human.” His eyes hold on mine as his voice resonates somewhere deep in my chest. “I’m just glad you’re here.”
Why does it feel so good when he talks? Why do I want to imagine myself here, with pictures of us on that fireplace mantel? Even better, us tangled up in his bed after a long night of hard, rough sex.
God, I really need to stop letting all this fantasy stuff take over. It’s clearly gone to an unhealthy level.
A heavy knock hits the front door, and Beau leans forward in his chair. “Shit, that’s my buddy. He’s dropping off a bike part he’d worked on for me. You mind if I run down to the barn with him quickly?”
I shake my head. “No, not at all. I’m desperate for a shower, anyway.”
He nods, stands from the chair, and slides out into the early morning light, and for once, I’m thankful he’s left the room because I have an ache I need to take care of or I’m not sure I’ll make it through the day.