Page 31 of True North

I didn’t bother responding as I pushed past him. He wasn’t worth it, and I had no intention of being any closer to the prick than was necessary.

“What happened?” I asked the first guy I came across, a man in an Ashland Fire Department uniform.

“Call came in that the patient was struggling to breathe. Looks like it might be a reaction to cancer treatment.” The firefighter turned to me, his expression awash with sympathy. “Stage three breast cancer, from what I hear. Poor woman’s been going through it.”

There was another mental flash then, only this one was a little different. It was from the bar I’d been at the night Iris and I hooked up. The guy’s mention of cancer hit me like déjà vu. Almost as if I’d heard it somewhere before.

“Jesus. That sucks.” It was an understatement for damn sure, but I didn’t know what the hell else to say.

“Tell me about it.” Just then, the front door opened and more firefighters and EMTs funneled out the front door, guiding a gurney carrying a woman hooked up to an oxygen mask. Iris was right there in the middle of the fray, at her mother’s side, clenching her hand tightly as she rushed along the side of the stretcher. Her lips were moving, and though I couldn’t make out the words over the din of noise coming from every direction, I could tell from the look on her face she was trying her best to reassure her mother. Even while I could see the stress and anxiety twisting her muscles into knots.

I moved without giving it a single thought, my feet carrying me to her like a moth drawn toward a fire.

“Please, I have to come with her.” She was in the middle of pleading with the paramedic when I stepped up beside her.

I could feel Simmons’s beady little eyes on me, but I couldn’t have given less of a shit about that little worm in the moment. All I could focus on was one person. “What seems to be the problem?”

Iris’s entire frame jolted at the sound of my voice. She’d been so overwhelmed and worried for her mother she wasn’t giving a single mind to her surroundings.

“I was trying to explain to Ms. Maxwell here that there is no room in the back of the ambulance for another person. She’ll have to follow behind us to the hospital.”

“I can’t leave her.”

The panic in Iris’s voice tore my chest clean open, and when I looked at her, I could have sworn those warm amber eyes (now so full of fear) were pleading with me to help.

“I’ll drive you.”

It sure as hell wasn’t what I expected to say, but all I wanted to do was wipe that look off her beautiful face. There wasn’t anything I wouldn’t have done in that moment to make everything better for her.

“Come on, Little Flower—” The way that nickname jumped into my head made my steps stutter for a second, but the use of it felt right, and I knew the memory of how that came about was still locked behind those doors where I’d kept most of that night at bay. I could only hope more of them would start to open with time. “I’ve got you.”

And, Christ, but there was a part of me who wanted that last statement to be true.

FIFTEEN

IRIS

The chair beneath me creaked as I shifted, trying in vain to find a more comfortable position on the hard, unforgiving plastic.

“Rissy, baby. You look exhausted. You really should go home. Get some sleep,” my mother argued for the fifth time in I didn’t know how many hours. I’d lost all track of time the moment my mom looked at me, sheer terror in her eyes, and croaked that she couldn’t breathe.

Everything after my call to 911 was a blur. I wasn’t sure how much time had passed from that moment to this one. It could have been five minutes, or it could have been three days and I wouldn’t have known.

I shot her a hardened look and leaned back in the seat with my arms crossed over my chest. “Not a chance in hell.” Unfortunately, that move caused the cracked piece of plastic on the back rest to jab into my ribs. I didn’t do a good enough job of hiding my wince, and my mother caught it.

“Honey, you keep sitting in that chair and you’re going to give yourself scoliosis.”

I arched a brow at her as one side of my mouth hooked up in a smirk. “I don’t think that’s how it works.”

She tried her best to look bossy and intimidating, but the effect was lost thanks to the oxygen tubes stuffed in her nostrils. We entered our usual standoff, staring each other down in silence until one of us eventually cracked.

“Fine,” she finally relented fifteen seconds (I counted) later. “You can be a stubborn pain in my rear end. You know that?”

I smiled, feeling a million times better now that I’d gotten my way. “What can I say? I came by it honestly.”

She rolled her eyes at me. “At least go and grab yourself a cup of coffee or something. Stretch your legs for a bit.” My indecision was written on my face in the way I chewed anxiously at my bottom lip. But the fear I’d just lived through was still very fresh at the forefront of my mind, and the idea of leaving her after what happened made my skin crawl.

Her expression washed with sympathy and understanding. “Baby, you heard what the doctors said. I’m going to be okay. I know you’re worried, but I swear, I’ll be fine. At least for as long as it takes you to get some fresh air. For me?” she pushed when she saw I was about to argue. “Please? For me. The energy is so stagnant in here. You need a break.”