Page 50 of Love Again

I asked permission to see her, which they granted when I told them we were both firefighters in the same unit.

It was a small lie, but totally worth it.

When I saw Devon, she was cleaned up and resting comfortably. She had long, straight black hair that shined even in the fluorescent lights. Her lashes were thick and dark and curled before they touched her lower lid. She was sleeping when I walked into the room. I snuck a peek at her charts. Her blood chemistry looked good, and they noted how much oxygen she’d been given prior to arrival.

When I glanced up, she was looking at me.

“That was risky business,” she said, her voice still hoarse. She reached for a waxy paper cup full of water and, with a bendy straw, took a sip, wincing.

“Could I get tap?” she asked and pointed to the sink.

I reached up, took the cup, dumped all the ice out, and ran room temperature tap water for her. After snapping the lid back on, I then poked the straw back through and handed it to her.

“Why did you come after me?” She swallowed, and with her head tipped up slightly, I could see her throat, the small pulse in her neck, and a quiver of fear in her eyes. I thought she was suffering from trauma. She was, I found out later, but a different kind.

The self-inflicted kind. The most damaging kind.

I answered truthfully. “You never leave a man behind.”

“But that fire . . . no perimeters were contained.” She swallowed again, and I suddenly wanted to lift her head and kiss her, feel her give way under my fingers.

Her eyelids opened again, this time not so lazily as some realization seemed to hit her. “And you stayed all night?”

My smile was instant. “They gave me an empty paramedic’s bed. It’s not as selfless as it seems. I was well taken care of.”

Actually, they checked me out as well and found a burn on my right palm. I had no idea how that had happened. Maybe when we were batting embers off her shoulder, but I have no memory of this.

“Well. Thanks. For everything,” she said, and there was something so final in her statement. I glanced up into her face, searching for some small hint she didn’t mean to make it sound so terminal.

It was there. I can’t explain it, but I knew I needed to stay. “Do you have family you want me to contact?”

She shook her head. “No. I have some family on the East Coast, but no . . .”

“Where?”

“Maine?” she said, as if I might not have ever heard of Maine.

“I’m from Maine. What part?”

She started clearing her throat and then coughed a little more. I reached for a small plastic bowl on the hospital tray and held it as she spat. I handed her a towel to wipe her mouth.

“I’m sorry,” she said and leaned back. “I can’t seem to get over this.”

I laughed. “Well, you don’t have to be irritated. You’re lucky to be alive.

Those green eyes held my gaze. “You’re lucky to be alive. That was a big risk, coming down that road with no way out.”

“You got us out of there,” I said.

“Right before I coughed up my lung.”

“Hey.” Somehow the gap between us shrank in that moment, and it seemed perfectly natural for me put my hand up to her face and stroke back her hair. “You need to be patient with yourself.” Then I tried again. “What part of Maine?”

“I’m sure you’ve never heard of it. It’s a little fishing village called Echo Bay? It’s part of a larger township. Saxton’s Bay?”

“I’m from Orono, and I know exactly where Echo Bay is. I’ve got a brother on the coast. How did you end up out here?”

Devon reached for the tall cup of water and took two or three long sips through the straw while wiggling an index finger. She was done with talking.