First

***

I despise hospitals. It’s normally an irrational dislike, but this time I feel justified. The glass doors slide open and I rush toward the main desk.

A no-nonsense woman looks me over as I approach. I’m sure she’s seen hundreds like me before. People shocked and horrified and panicked and now invading her personal space to get any scrap of news.

‘How can I help you?’ she asks.

‘Jake Jacobs. The firefighter who was brought in.’

She glances down at her computer. ‘Are you family?’

Bless my acting skills. The lie comes far too easily. ‘I’m his fiancée.’ Now, don’t embellish. Refocus her on what you want. ‘Where is he?’

She doesn’t bother to look at my ring finger. Instead, she taps a few things into the keyboard. ‘He’s in room 701.’

‘Thank you!’

It takes me a few hallways to realise I probably should have looked at a map. A passing nurse stops and gives me directions, so it doesn’t take me too much longer to reach his room. Every step closer makes my anxiety spike.

What if he’s really hurt this time? Dallas didn’t have much information to share. He said Jake had fallen through a roof and was going to hospital. What if when he fell, he got hit on the head and has amnesia and won’t remember me? Worse, what if seeing me brings up so much hate that he does remember me and throws me out of his room?

I’m maybe five steps away when a familiar, angry voice sounds.

‘As I told the first nurse who came in here, the orderly she called, the doctor, and now you, I am fine! I want my discharge papers. Now.’

The fear coursing through me doesn’t abate completely at Jake’s voice, but it certainly lessens. I push open the cracked door to his room in time to jump aside for the huffy medical person exiting. The man I came here to see sits up in his bed. His hair sticks out in crazy directions, partially plastered to his head in some places. A bandage runs from his left eyebrow up onto his forehead, eventually disappearing back into his hair. He must have been cut.

His hospital gown stretches tightly across his chest, a challenge considering the billowing fabric. Without his boots and turnouts, he looks surprisingly normal. The drip line taped into his hand is the only other thing that doesn’t fit the specimen of physical perfection in front of me.

Dallas sprawls in a nearby chair, eyeing Jake with a mixture of amusement and irritation. When I step inside the room, he grins.

‘Here to play Cat’s pinch bitcher?’ he quips. ‘I didn’t think she’d call you that fast.’

‘I’m here for something like that,’ I say. Too bad my voice shakes.

Dallas’s eyes widen minutely. He stands and stuffs his hands in his back pockets. ‘I’m gonna go to the cafeteria.’

Jake glances up at that abrupt announcement. His eyes meet mine and we both stare. As Dallas passes me, he says in a low voice, ‘Just don’t kill him, okay? They’re waiting on the CT results and he’s being a pain in the ass about wanting to leave. The guy’s been through enough already.’

It isn’t until the door clicks shut behind Dallas that I rouse the courage to speak. ‘You’re hurt.’

‘Not bad. I’ll be fine. They just need to discharge me.’

‘They need to make sure you don’t die on them first.’

He snorts at that. How is it that the moment I step into the same room as him my patience runs out and my libid

o soars? Even now, I can’t decide if I want to choke him or rip off his hospital gown and console myself with his body.

Instead, I revert to the conversation Doctor Blathe and I practiced. In light of the circumstances, I think I can skip the basic formalities of friendly greetings. ‘I talked to my therapist about you today.’

He blinks. I cross my arms over my chest and hope I can say everything I practiced on the panicked trip over in the car.

‘Yes. I have a therapist. I’ve been seeing her for almost ten years. I’ve made a lot of progress.’

‘Good.’ The rough, honeyed purr of that word gives me hope. He’s not running away. Not yet.

‘You scare me.’