Out of Nowhere (The Immortal Vagabond Healer Book 1) (10 page)

How many guys can beat up armed thugs and still garnish?

She came out of the bathroom and sat down. I put a plate in front of her. ‘Coffee?’

‘Please.’ She looked at the plate and then up at me. ‘OK, where’d you learn to cook? Honest this time. Your mom didn’t make breakfast like this.’

‘I had a friend who was a chef. I picked up a few things.’

‘How long were you sleeping with this friend?’ The smile took the sting out of the accusation.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Come on. The chicken and pasta I can see, but this is a booty breakfast. This is what you cook to build up somebody’s strength for round two. Not that I’m complaining. Who doesn’t love pancakes with fruit and whipped cream?’ She picked up a fork. ‘No judgement, I know you had a life before this week, but I don’t need to worry about a jealous ex who packs knives, do I?’

‘Nothing so dramatic,’ I said. ‘It was a long time ago. I dated a chef, she knew I liked good food, she taught me a few tricks.’

‘Any that involve cooking?’ she asked. There didn’t seem to be any jealous psycho vibe coming from her.

‘I used to use that same joke. We dated for a while. It didn’t work out. Her memory pales in comparison to you.’

‘Sweet talk will get you nowhere,’ she said. ‘But you’re cute, you can cook and you’re not bad in the sack.’ She finished her breakfast. ‘These pancakes have restored my energy.’ She stood up from the table. ‘If, in fact, that was your nefarious plan, it worked.’

She walked toward the bedroom with an exaggerated sway of her hips. ‘You coming?’

‘Just breathing hard,’ I muttered, rising to follow her. ‘For the moment.’

Chapter 10

FRIDAY I RETURNED TO WORK. I endured the usual ribbing: the box of gloves in the ambulance cut in half and labeled “Right only”; the set of cutlery with my name on it, the knife replaced with a plastic one, “Hold this end” written on the handle.

I love my co-workers.

I shook my head and walked out to the garage to check out the truck. Nique was already there, going through the jump kit, shaking her head and rearranging it to her liking.

‘Hey, you,’ I said as I walked up. ‘Nice to see the place hasn’t fallen down without me.’

‘Sean!’ She hugged me, then stood back at arm’s length, looking into my face with an expression of deep concern. ‘How’re you feeling?’

‘Doing fine,’ I replied. ‘The hand is OK, just wearing the bandage to protect the stitches.’

‘You OK to work? Really?’

‘I’m fine. Honest. I’ll flash my bandage at the hose-draggers, get them to do my heavy lifting. They’re gonna be there getting in the way anyway. Other than that, it’s my left hand; I can start IVs, take vitals and everything else with the right.’

‘I heard Marty gave you the “going to bat for you” speech.’

‘That he did,’ I replied. ‘Because he’s got my back. Unlike the suits.’

‘This company has suits?’

‘Well, I’m sure they’re cheap polyester. HR can play hardball right now. The latest class of medics just graduated. I get pissed and walk, they can hire a replacement from the bottom of the pay scale and keep the shifts filled.’

‘This company sucks.’

‘Yeah, but we all knew that,’ I said. ‘None of us are working for the glory of Flatline Ambulance. I’m spoiled for real work and where else can I get such a hot partner?’

‘I didn’t think Pete was your type.’

‘Eh,’ I shrugged. ‘In the right light he’s not bad-looking. How’re you doing?’

‘Devastated by your absence,’ she said, ‘but soldiering on bravely.’

‘I had suspected. Not shaken up by that fight?’

‘You think that’s all it’d take to scare me?’

‘It was enough for me. How’d Joe feel when you told him about it?’

‘He freaked.’ Her eyes flashed. ‘Said he didn’t like me working the street. He actually tried to talk me into going to school for my RN.’

‘What’d you say?’

‘That I will wipe ass for no man.’

‘Your tact is matched only by your beauty. How’d he take that?’

‘He saw it my way,’ she said, looking shocked that I might have thought otherwise. ‘Besides, I think he’s secretly turned on that I’m such a badass.’ She smiled wickedly.

‘I think he’s openly turned on ’cause you’ve got such a good ass.’ I replied.

‘You think?’ She pirouetted, pausing to look back over her shoulder at me as she displayed the derriere in question. ‘You don’t think I’ve lost it?’

‘My dear, if Helen of Troy could launch a thousand ships with her face, your ass could empty every port in the world.’

‘You sweet talker,’ she said. ‘It’s good to have you back.’

‘Good to be back,’ I replied. ‘For a given value of “good”. Let’s grab some coffee.’

‘Sure. By the way, we need to steal some supplies from the hospital, since Flatline doesn’t believe in stocking the truck.’

‘I figured they gave us pants with big cargo pockets so we could swipe stuff from the ER. What are we short on?’

‘O2 supplies, IV drip sets and EKG electrodes.’

‘Is that all?’ I asked. ‘Have you turned into a prima donna in my absence? You actually want to be able to treat patients?’

‘I want it all.’ She smiled.

‘But you have me back.’

‘And in return for keeping an eye on you, I think the company can at least give me a truck with some supplies on it.’

As we pulled the truck out, she turned to me. ‘So, how’d you spend your mini vacation?’

‘I met someone.’

‘You did?’ She studied me closely. ‘Oh my God, you did. You’re glowing. ’Bout time you got some action.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘Oh, don’t take it like that, you were just getting really tense. You needed a roll in the hay.’ She cupped her chin in her hand, regarding me as I drove. ‘Come on, let’s hear it. What’s she like?’

‘Her name is Sarah. She teaches at the college. She’s funny and smart and way too pretty to be hanging with me.’

‘Oh,’ she cooed, ‘you really
like
her.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘You put pretty third. And she isn’t a waitress, bartender or nurse, which means you were talking to someone outside your regular circle, so you must really care to bother. I think that’s sweet.’

‘That I care about a woman I’m sleeping with?’

‘That she isn’t just some convenient piece of ass.’

‘You think I’m like that?’

‘Sean, you know I love you dearly, in a completely platonic way, but you are a paramedic.’

‘Says the medic who’s engaged to a medic.’

She waved a hand in airy dismissal. ‘He’s one in a million. It goes without saying. I’m just proud of you that you aren’t a pig like most of the rest of the profession.’

I wasn’t sure what to say to that, but I was spared the need as we were dispatched to an unresponsive male in an alley.

He turned out to be just very, very drunk. He was confused, incoherent, and spoke only Spanish, and not very clear Spanish at that, but he was breathing fine, his vitals were OK, and since he was homeless and wearing all the clothes he owned, he wasn’t soaked through to the skin yet even though we found him lying in the snow.

We got him out of his wet stuff, examined him the best we could, covered him in dry blankets, and started an IV to dilute the blood in his alcohol stream. He objected incoherently to pretty much all our treatment, but he wasn’t lucid enough for us to leave him, so we tied his hands, wrapped the rest of him in blankets and brought him to the ER. It was a bit like veterinary medicine.

We dropped our patient off, putting him in a room where he babbled at the ER staff and peed on their cot. We were making bets on what his blood alcohol would come back at when Brenda, the world’s angriest charge nurse, walked over. She was a tall woman, maybe just a bit too thin, her hair dyed an aggressive blonde. She might have been attractive, in a cold, domineering, she-wolf-of-the-SS kind of way, but her eyes were too dead, her expression too hard and her heart too flinty. One good look through those frosty grey eyes into her even frostier soul could kill the libido of better men than me.

‘Why didn’t you do a blood sugar on that guy?’ she demanded, her mouth compressed in frustration at having to accept a report from mere ambulance drivers.

‘We did,’ Nique replied. ‘It was 106.’

‘You could have let us know that,’ she said, speaking slowly, as if to a wayward two-year-old.

‘We did,’ said Nique, all sweetness. ‘I saw Trish write it down with the vitals. Maybe you didn’t hear it,’ she added in her most calming voice, ‘what with all the confusion in there.’

Brenda maintained her stony expression, nodded curtly, forced out ‘Oh. OK,’ in a tone conciliatory enough to cut glass, and walked off.

‘She’s sexy when she scowls like that,’ I said.

Nique faced me, her placid expression still in place. ‘You know,’ she observed sweetly, ‘I think she really should just have the word “cunt” tattooed on her forehead.’

Not having anything to say to that, I just finished making up the cot.

On our way out to the truck, a disheveled man on a stretcher in the hallway hailed me. ‘Hey,
Paramedico
.’

I recognized him immediately. ‘
Jose! Que pasa?
’ I shook his grubby hand. ‘What’re you doing here? Racking up the frequent flyer miles?’

‘My asthma,’ he replied. ‘It make my heart attack worse.’

‘Sleeping in the parked buses at the station is making your asthma worse,
amigo
. You need to find a place. And get your own prescription for an inhaler. Stop using the ones you find in the trash.’

‘What’s you name?’ he asked, ignoring the indispensable medical wisdom I was giving him free of charge.

‘What? You know me, Jose.’ I tapped the company-mandated name tag, the one which ensured every psych patient, drunk and heroin addict in Philips Mills knew me on a first-name basis. ‘It’s Sean.’

‘What’s you las’ name?’

‘Why you want to know that?’ I smiled. ‘I’m pretty sure we aren’t family, unless there are Montreal Gutierezes. Even if there are, I don’t plan on coming over for Thanksgiving dinner.’

‘Just tell me you name.’

‘It’s Sean. My last name is The Medic, and my phone number is 911. I never let it go to voice mail,’ I said in my all-business, no-longer-fucking-around tone. ‘Now, why the interest in my name?’

Jose shrugged, smiling sheepishly. ‘This guy, he say he pay if anybody know you. He ask for the gringo
Paramedico
who work with the partner
mas bonita
.’

‘What did this guy look like?’

Jose’s look morphed from sheepish to calculating. ‘He the one pay for information.’

‘Jose.’ I tried to look hurt. ‘How many times have I come out to find you grey and barely breathing and helped you out? That’s not payment?’

‘That’s you job.’ He crossed his arms.

I sighed. ‘You’re breaking my heart,
hermano
.’ I pulled a five out of my wallet and put it in the pocket of his filthy flannel jacket. ‘I’d tell you not to spend it on booze, but I’m a realist.’

‘He was some big gringo,’ said Jose, narrowing it down quite a bit in Philips Mills. ‘He wear a long black coat. He speak English funny.’

‘Not good like us, eh?’ I replied. ‘
Gracias
, Jose.’ I patted his shoulder. ‘If he asks, tell him my name is Niemand.’

‘OK.’ He smiled. ‘
Gracias
.’

I walked back to Nique, who looked at me with a raised eyebrow. ‘What was that about?’

‘Our friend with the ankle is still asking about me. He’s canvassing the homeless now.’

‘Seriously?’

‘He offered Jose there money for any info.’

‘What’d you tell him?’

‘That my name is Niemand.’

She shook her head blankly.

‘That’s “nobody” in German. Either our buddy will know I’m on to him, or he’ll spend time chasing nobody, quite literally.’

‘So what do we do now?’

‘We violate the shit out of some patient confidentiality laws,’ I replied. ‘We need a hazelnut latte and my most charming smile.’

‘Why?’

‘Tiffany is working in medical records today, and she has a weakness for both.’

‘Which one is Tiffany?’

‘Not the old bat with the funny eye. Although it would be hilarious if
her
name was Tiffany. More like an Agnes, really. Tiffany’s the little brunette with the nose ring and the rack.’

‘Oh. Her,’ she said, her voice thick with Gallic disdain. ‘The one who thinks a neckline that ends at her navel is appropriate for the office.’

‘Yep, that’s the one.’