Second Chances: The Seahaven Series - Book One (15 page)

“You've got to listen to the doctors. You'll only hurt yourself if you don't stay calm. Not your wrists but your insides. You got stitched up pretty good yesterday. You need to heal.”

“Why the cuffs?” he says. “He stuck a knife in me! I didn't do anything!”

Danny looks over at me. “When I came into the room I heard what they were saying. They slapped these on right after he woke up.”

“What does that mean, 'what they were saying'?” says Cesar. “What were they saying?”

I exhale and hang my head for a second. “They know who knifed you—”

“Big deal,” he says, “I know him, too. I can tell them exactly where he is.”

Danny and I look at each other, not sure how to do this and keep Cesar calm at the same time.

“They already found him,” I say. “He's dead.”

Cesar stares at me. He looks a little bit shaken, but not guilty. “Well, I'm not sad about it. He tried to kill me. I don't have to like him.”

Danny looks down at his own hands. “They think you did it, bro. They want you for his murder.”

“What?” Cesar tries to bolt upright but can't. His wrists tug against the handcuffs. “I didn't do it! The last time I saw him he had a knife in his hand and he used it on me, and then I ran away to find you! Why do they think I did it?”

“Because you get in fights sometimes,” I say. “And take drugs. And because somebody says they saw you do it.”

Cesar shakes his head like he can't believe it. “Saw me do it? They're lying! It's impossible because it didn't happen! Who says they saw me?”

I put a hand on his chest to try to settle him down. “I don't know. An eyewitness. Somebody who must have been there when he stabbed you.”

Cesar looks up to the sky. “I can't believe this. I've been in the wrong place at the wrong time before, but this is crazy. I would never kill anybody! You gotta figure this out, Sis. You gotta help me.”

Danny catches my eye and looks at his watch. Time for us to go to work.

I lean in and kiss Cesar on the forehead. “I will. You rest and heal, and I'll be back later. The less you pull on those things the less it will hurt. And the nurses are your friends, they can help you. Don't piss them off.”

He looks at me, a trapped animal. He looks like he's on the verge of tears.

“I'll be back later,” I say again. “I love you.”

“Stay strong, man,” says Danny.

Cesar turns his head to the side and looks out the window as we leave.

Outside the room I find the detective in charge.

“I'm his sister, Eleanor,” I say. “He did not do this, and he will cooperate, and I'm going to get him a lawyer. Please don't interrogate him until his lawyer arrives.”

The detective frowns and stands up straighter, trying to intimidate me.

“You sure you want to go that way, ma'am? It doesn't look good to lawyer up before we've even had the chance to chat. Might be harder for him if he does that.”

I look around the group of large white men with their guns and badges.

“We want to go that way,” I say.

I leave the officer and walk to the nurses' station. I know the nurse a little bit; she's one of Maria's friends.

I say quietly to her, “If you see any officers go into the room or if you hear them asking my brother questions about the case, will you call me?” I find a piece of paper in my bag and write down my number.

“Sure,” she says. “You're Ellie, right? I heard about you and Dr. Runyon saving him yesterday. Sounded like a miracle. You make a good team.”

I smile. I push my phone number toward her. “Thanks.” Then I walk over to the stairwell and join Danny for the walk down to the ambulance.

As soon as the stairwell door closes behind us, Danny abruptly stops his descent a step lower than me and turns around. I stop, too.

“I've been wracking my brain trying to figure out what to say to you,” he says. He looks up at me with sincere, open eyes.

This is it. The conversation. It's terrible timing. But there will never be a good time.

“Danny—” I start.

“No. Wait a minute. Let me get it out.” He takes a deep breath.

“I think you know how I feel about you, but I have to say it out loud right now. I need to be clear and get everything on the table. I saw you guys together yesterday, and if something happens there and I feel like I didn't do everything I could...” He shakes his head.

I study my hands and wait. This is going to be hard for both of us, but I can see that he needs to do it.

He takes a step up onto my step, so our faces are close. He looks me in the eyes and takes my hands.

“Ellie, I've loved you forever. I know you've got to know it by now. Back in high school we were kids, and you needed to go do things, and I got that. Not that you being gone for fifteen years and getting married didn't kill me. But now that we're older, and a little balder and a little fatter in some cases...”

I laugh and he laughs too. Then he does what I wasn't expecting. He kisses me.

It's sweet, and tender, and heartfelt, so I don't jerk away, but I break it off after a quick moment.

He shakes his head at himself. “I'm sorry. I've wanted to do that forever. So really, actually, I'm not that sorry.” He smiles, happy.

I look at him. I'm smiling a sad sort of smile, I guess, because his face changes as he's watching me.

“Danny,” I say.

“No, no, I know,” he says.

“I can't be with you,” I say.

He's nodding. He isn't looking at me. He's studying his shoes.

“I wish I loved you like you love me because you're such a great guy,” I say. “And I'm not just saying that. I missed you when I was gone.”

He looks up, hopeful.

“But now I'm the one who has to say it so there's no misunderstanding. I missed our friendship when I was gone.”

He deflates a little. I keep going because I have to make sure he gets it. “I can't be with you the way you want, but please, please, please don't stop being my friend.”

I smile at him hopefully. He thinks about it, kicks his feet a little, and then nods. “I get it. I don't want to lose you,” he says. “I just had to know. I'll work it out.”

“My life will have a giant empty hole if you aren't in it,” I say. “I want us to be okay.”

He shrugs and nods. “I had to know.”

Then he smiles in a way that makes me hope he understands and that he'll be all right. Then he says, “We'll be okay.”

I hug him, and it's a good hug. I realize then that I haven't mentioned Matt, but it's beside the point anyway. Even if Matt wasn't around I still wouldn't be with Danny, because it wouldn't be fair to him. He deserves someone who loves him completely, not just as a friend.

I make a mental note to find Danny a girl worthy of him, and that's going to be hard, because he keeps proving again and again what a special guy he is.

He pulls out of the hug and squeezes my hand. He turns and starts down the stairwell.

“Can you feel it in the air that tonight's going to be a weird one? A beer says we see something we've never seen before.”

“Tall order,” I say. “We've seen it all.”

He smiles. “All right, we're on.”

He pushes the door open for me and the two of us empty out into the evening air, both of us okay with being just friends, and ready for whatever adventure the night holds.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Now it's midnight, and I've just lost the bet. The truth is, in emergency services you don't want to see things you haven't seen before, because you might not be equipped to handle it, either tools-wise, or emotionally. You either won't have what you need to do the job physically, or what you see will scar you for life.

Thankfully, tonight's new experience wasn't a tragedy. It was way more on the comedy side, and Danny and I were having a hard time keeping a straight face during it, which I'll admit is totally unprofessional.

It started in the ambulance when the call came in.

“Unit 93, we have an... entanglement at 10289 Cedar Street, please respond.”

Danny and I looked at each other. “Entanglement?” he said.

I picked up the radio and said, “Base, please clarify. Did you say 'entanglement'?”

“Copy that, 9-3,” said the operator.

“Is she messing with us?” I asked. “What does that even mean?”

Danny shrugged as I picked up the radio again.

“Base, requesting additional information. Does 'entanglement' mean assault?” I clicked off and waited.

The radio was silent for longer than usual. “Come on,” I said, frustrated. “What the heck is going on.”

When the operator clicked back on there was a muffled sound behind her voice. Was she crying? Or laughing?

“Negative, 9-3, 'entanglement' does not mean assault. You are first on scene.” She clicked off.

“All right,” I said, frustrated, putting down the radio. “I guess we'll find out in a minute.”

We pulled up to the house and got out, and it was quiet. I grabbed the medical kit and we walked to the front door and knocked. No answer. Danny knocked louder, and then we heard a male voice from around the house in the backyard yell, “Back here!”

We trotted around the house, through the fence, and into the backyard. We were careful and a little hesitant because we still didn't know what to expect after dispatch had been so uncharacteristically cagey with details.

It was dark except for the moon and a dim strand of old Christmas lights, and we were looking all around for the voice and couldn't see anything.

Danny called out, “Hello? Emergency services.”

Then a voice came from the darkness. “Over here.”

Danny and I spun around and squinted toward it. And then we heard water running, and a mechanical hum. A jacuzzi.

“Sir,” said Danny, walking toward the voice. “Are you injured?”

“Can you turn on a light?” I asked.

From the dark the man's voice came again. “Yes, I'm injured.” He paused, and then said, “Light switch is on the patio post.”

I walked to the switch and flipped it, and the whole back patio lit up. And what was in front of us made Danny smile and turn away quickly, and made me stare and say, “You don't look injured.”

In front of us was a jacuzzi with a man and a woman in it. She looked deeply embarrassed and wasn't saying a word. With a quick glance around I noted the steam from the very hot water, several empty wine bottles, and bits of white powder on a plate on the edge of the hot tub.

“Okay, okay,” he said. “Stop staring already and get us out of here.”

It turned out they'd been having sex in the hot tub and got stuck. Stuck together. They were entangled. The base operator had known exactly what was going on and had sent Danny and I in with as little information as possible so that we'd be caught off guard.

Danny was having a hard time keeping his laughter under control.

“Let me get this straight,” I asked. “You had sex, you tried to separate from each other, and you can't.”

“Correct,” said the man.

“It's stuck,” said the woman.

So after several awkward attempts at helping them lubricate themselves to try to extricate from one another, Danny and I called for firetruck support (a small truck, only two firemen, for cases requiring discretion) and together we all loaded this man and this woman, stuck together, onto a stretcher.

Now we're driving back to the hospital and Danny is pretty excited about the fact that he just saw something he hasn't seen in his whole fifteen years on the job. I'm in the back with them and he's in the front shooting me goofy looks in the rearview.

“You two still doing okay?” I ask, making sure the sheet is covering them both.

“This can't be good for me,” the man says. “The blood flow. The circulation. It can't be good.” He's pretty worried he's going to need a penis amputation, I think.

Danny calls out from the front, “We once had a guy who took Viagra and had a nine-hour boner and he turned out fine. Try not to worry.”

This placates the man a little bit. He seems to calm down.

The woman says to me, “You won't tell the newspaper about this, will you?”

“No,” I say. “What happens in the ambulance stays in the ambulance.”

Danny chuckles in the front seat.

We get to the hospital and unload the couple very carefully, and we do our best to be discreet as an ER doctor meets us in the hallway. But it turns out it's very hard to keep things under wraps and stay HIPPA compliant when you have two people together on a stretcher, their heads at opposite ends, with one sheet covering both of them.

I'm thinking that in a few minutes most of the cases they'll be treating in this ER will be whiplash from people craning their necks and doing doubletakes to get a better look.

By the time we roll the couple into a private ER room the whole staff is whispering and trying not to giggle. The patients who've figured it out are laughing outright. They don't have to worry about losing their jobs like we do.

I see Matt go into their room and confer with the initial ER doctor. As he listens to the case history he nods his head seriously, asks the couple for permission to look under the sheet, and then studies their attachment. He doesn't show even a hint of bemusement, and suddenly I love him even more. Yes, I've been trying not to laugh, which is unprofessional and I should probably feel bad about it, but Matt is such a pro that he doesn't even blink. He just wants to help them. I watch him finish talking with the other Doctor and then they send the nurses off for supplies.

I'm waiting at the nurses' station for paperwork, watching all of this, watching him, and then he looks up and sees me. He smiles and comes over.

“Did you bring them in?” he asks.

“I did,” I say. “I thought I'd seen everything.”

“It's not a common occurrence,” he says. “Conditions have to be just right. They told me a jacuzzi was involved, plus some alcohol.”

“And the white powder near them could have been sugar, but I'm guessing cocaine.”

“Right,” says Matt. “So put it all together and you have a vascular, very muscular organ that was hyper activated and won't relax and let go. Poor man. We'll give her a shot and he'll be released from her vaginal chokehold.”