Shock Advised (Kilgore Fire #1) (3 page)

“Yeah, I got a call from a number I don’t know. Why?” He pushed.

Instead of listening to the voicemail he knew I would explain, he waited to hear it from me.

“You’re a match for that little boy,” I said.

He blinked, then his face became contemplative.

“That’s good. What’s the time frame here?” He asked.

No backing out for my brother.

He was always the hero.

He had to be when it came to me.

I was the bad boy. The one who couldn’t take care of himself. Jack, however, cared for me when nobody, not even I, could.

And, unfortunately, I’d been too caught up in my own crap to save. I had to
want
to be saved, and I hadn’t been ready to do that until after Adam had died.

My mind, however, shied away from thinking about Adam.

The man I was supposed to protect but didn’t.

My firefighter partner.

My brother’s best friend.

The man I’d watched blow apart into tiny fleshy pieces…

“Tai!” Winter said. “What are you thinking about? Your heart is racing.”

I shook my head, hoping the shaking would physically force those wayward thoughts from my brain.

“Nothing. The doc told me that on Monday you’ll go in for the testing to confirm that you are the perfect match.” I said. Once that’s all done, he said we’d move on to scheduling the donation and transplantation procedures,”

“You do realize, right, that you’re going to have to take it easy for at least a week. You’ll probably have some pain for that first week or so, and you might be tired, too. You can forget going to the gym for a while, too, buddy. It’ll be a month and a half at least before your body replaces that marrow. While you’re recovering from that, I’ll have my eyes on you,” Winter said, pulling her knees to her chest while leaning her head in my direction in a silent request for me to scratch it.

I did.

Winter and I had a weird relationship.

I’d begun to be a lot more open with my feelings for Winter.

I’d thought I’d lost her once, and I wasn’t going to waste life’s precious moments anymore.

If she liked it when I played with her hair – and I wasn’t special here, she liked it when her husband and son played with her hair, too – then I’d do it.

Why?

Because a little over six years ago, I’d thought she was dead.

For all intents and purposes, she had been.

She’d lost her memory and then was assumed dead when a body had been found that they thought was her.

Without going into all of the reasons why that whole situation was beyond fucked up, I’d learned two things.

One, I needed to get my head out of my ass and step up to the plate of life.

And two, I owed it to my family to start living my life the way I should have been doing from the very start.

“It won’t be that bad, baby. I’ll be good to go in week, tops,” Jack said.

I grinned.

“That’s not quite what the doctor said,” I offered.

He sneered at me.

“Nobody asked you, baby brother,” he snapped. “So, you never told me about the woman. She had to be hot to illicit this sort of a reaction from you.”

I flipped him off, and Catori repeated the gesture, causing Winter to snort.

“Seriously,” Jack said. “Y’all need to stop. The bus driver sent a note home with her today telling me that she was cursing out the kids in the back seats.”

I laughed.

“Catori, are you saying bad names?” Winter asked, ignoring me.

“No, mommy. I’m not,” Catori lied.

“Alright,” Winter said, believing her. “What does everyone want for dinner?”

I shook my head and stood up, dislodging Winter and Catori at the same time.

“I can’t. I have to be on shift tomorrow morning, and I’ve been up a solid forty-eight hours trying to drum up donors,” I said. “Which, as it turns out I didn’t need to do since you’ve magically produced the correct perfectness without me having to go further than a couple feet.”

“That’s because I
am
perfect,” Jack said, standing now as well.

“Whatever,” Winter snorted. “Go check on that other kid of yours.”

“That other kid?” I asked.

Winter shrugged.

“I’m mad at him,” she said.

I raised a brow at her.

“Why?” I asked.

“Mommy doesn’t like it when Adam calls her ‘mom’ instead of ‘mommy’, so she’s mad at him,” Catori explained in that way that only a five-year-old could.

“What’s wrong with him calling you mom?” I asked.

Winter glared.

“You don’t have kids. You wouldn’t understand,” she challenged.

I held up my hands in a placating gesture.

“Okay. You have my permission to bring this up in fifteen years,” I teased.

“Don’t worry,” Jack said, coming into the room with Adam on his hip. “She likes to bring up things that happened ten years ago. Shit I can’t even remember happening, and she doesn’t need permission.”

Winter punched him in the stomach, causing him to laugh.

“Shut up!” She yelled.

Jack grinned unrepentantly.

With that, I left.

I had to be at work early in the morning, and the Kilgore Fire Department had a little boy to go see.

I see firefighters.

-Coffee Cup

Mia

“So, tell me about this man that you met,” my mother said, turning her smile on me.

I grinned.

I’d only known Taima – Tai – for less than a week, and I was seriously falling head over heels in love with him.

It was crazy and way too soon.

It would probably end up in heartbreak for me because it was obvious that he was a heartbreaker.

In the short time he’d been at the hospital visiting Colton yesterday, he’d been hit on by no less than ten nurses.

Nine of whom weren’t even on Colton’s rotation.

On the positive side of that, though, Colton had gotten some really great care. Not once did his ice melt, and I swear, I had more than enough pillows and blankets to last me for weeks.

“He’s really great,” I said.

I wasn’t able to put into words exactly what Tai meant to me.

He’d somehow managed to pull together around a thousand possible donors for me in less than a week.

His efforts paid off big time, because he found Colton a donor. That alone garnered him hero status in my book.

He was making it possible for my baby to get a second chance.

And for that alone…I’d do absolutely anything for him.

When I approached him, he didn’t hesitate to offer his help – even if it was in a different form than what I had been asking for – and that spoke volumes to the kind of person that Tai was. Besides, no one could argue with the fact that his suggestion got results

Rough and gruff on the outside, and a ball of marshmallow fluff on the inside.

“You look like you’re in love with him,” my mother said.

I smiled dreamily.

“I wouldn’t say it’s love…yet. But it’s something,” I admitted. “I could fall for him easily…very easily.”

Colt woke then, crying, and I hurriedly moved to his bed and cradled him up to my chest.

He’d lost a lot of weight, but at least today he was taking food from me, unlike the day before.

“Hey, baby,” I whispered to him.

His blue eyes were brighter today, more full of life than they had been.

He pulled his spread hand, thumb forward, to his forehead and tapped it, causing me to smile.

“Oh, Mr. Tai said he’d come visit you if he had a chance, but I’m not sure when that’ll be, baby,” I whispered.

He’d been doing that a lot since Tai had left yesterday to go speak to his brother, and I found that I didn’t mind the idea of Tai being Colton’s daddy.

Although, pretty much anyone would be better than his biological father.

“What’s he saying?” My mom asked, getting up to mix Colton a bottle.

I don’t know what I’d do without my mother. It was like she was my right hand.

She handed the bottle to me before I answered her.

“Yesterday when Tai came to visit, he gave Colton the firefighter bear,” I pointed at the little stuffed animal Colt had yet to put down. “And Colt called him ‘daddy.’”

My mom smiled.

“Anyone’s better than the piece of shit that is his father,” my mother said parroting my thoughts.

I snorted and sat down, taking the bottle that my mother offered me.

Colt grabbed at the bottle, tried to hold it, and failed.

I maneuvered him into a more comfortable position on my arm and held the bottle for him. Something I hadn’t had to do for him since he was a little over five months old.

It was weird.

There were things that I hadn’t done in a very long time, such as rock him to sleep.

Although, I still held him a lot, I hadn’t had to rock him in a long time because he just plain didn’t like me to do it.

He was a very inquisitive child, and hated being hampered by what I thought of as the ‘cage of my arms.’

My son, though, had needed me a lot more lately to do things he’d been doing on his own for a while. Which made my mind wander to a time later on down the road when he wouldn’t need me at all anymore.

One day I would put him down to walk on his own, and the next day he wouldn’t let me pick him back up again.

Or one day I’d give him his bath, and the next he’d refuse to let me stay while he showered.

It was something I tried not to think about.

Colton’s time wasn’t promised, and I didn’t want to think that I would ever lose a single minute with him.

“He’s doing so well,” my mother said, watching as Colton inhaled his bottle.

This was the baby I was used to.

Eating me out of house and home even at eight months old.

“Ohhh,” my mother said, jolting me out of my contemplation of his improved eating pattern.

I looked up, a grin immediately splitting my face.

“Hey!” I said, smiling happily at who was at the door.

I had a reason to be happy today.

But, then again, I always tried to keep a positive attitude.

It was a mindset I’d adopted at sixteen, when I’d been dealing with the first painful experiences of my young life: the loss of my father followed almost immediately by my first break up with a serious boyfriend.

Tai’s beautiful bronzed skin wrinkled at the corners of his eyes as he stood at the door taking in the room.

He wasn’t alone, though.

There were about six other firemen directly behind him.

“Good morning,” he said. “How’s he doing?”

I waved him inside and looked down when I felt movement from Colton.

Colton was frantically tapping his forehead with his thumb, repeatedly saying ‘daddy’ over and over.

I grinned.

“I think he’s much better today,” I laughed.

He nodded. “That I can see. And he’s taking a bottle, too.”

I nodded in confirmation.

“He is, and he did. Started last night about an hour after you left,” I agreed.

He turned and motioned to the other guys to come into the room.

“And who are these men?” I asked.

Tai pointed to a taller blonde man directly to his right.

“This is Drew. He’s the oldest of the bunch in case you can’t tell,” Tai said laughingly. “He’s the FAO for Truck 3 and a stickler for the rules, so be careful what you say around him.”

I smiled.

“Nice to meet you,” Drew said in a delicious Southern drawl.

He was obviously from Texas with that accent. He was tall and blonde and had arms the size of tree trunks. His eyes were a sharp, stormy gray, and he had a great smile.

“Nice to meet you, too. What’s an FAO?” I asked.

“Fire apparatus operator,” he answered immediately. “I drive the big red truck.”

I grinned.

“I know what the big red trucks are,” I teased back.

Tai cleared his throat.

“This man right here,” he pointed to a man with dark brown, nearly black hair that hung beautifully around his face, highlighting his chiseled cheekbones and dark brown eyes. “Is Bowe, our resident chef for all things Italian.”

I blinked, surprised at how beautiful the man was.

He was serious eye candy.

Not that Drew wasn’t, but Bowe was captivating.

“Nice to meet you,” Bowe said in a deep voice that practically had goosebumps breaking out across my skin.

“Lord have mercy,” my mother tried to whisper under her breath.

She didn’t accomplish what she’d tried to do because Bowe smiled like he’d heard exactly what she’d said.

“This is our chief, Allen Shepherd, and his wife, Linnie,” he said, pointing to an older woman that was hanging back in the doorway.

“And these two buggers are Fatbaby and PD,” he said.

“Fatbaby and PD?” I asked, a smile in my voice.

“They call me Paula Deen, PD for short,” the tall one said.

He was tall, too. At least six and a half feet, if not more.

He’d had to crouch when he came through the doorway.

“Ahh,” I said. “Gotcha. Does that mean you cook well?”

He grinned unabashedly. “I get by.”

The one called ‘Fatbaby’ snorted. “He’s being humble. He can cook like a motherfuc…err…like Paula Deen.”

I giggled. “Gotcha.”

“And don’t ask about Fatbaby. It’s not a pretty story,” he said, a somberness now tinting his voice.

I could sense a sore subject when I heard one, so I decided to turn my attention back to the man I was most excited about being there.

Tai.

He came closer once I looked back at him, and Colt practically flew out of my arms in his haste to get at Tai.

Tai grinned and held out his hands, Colt weakly fell into his arms, and Tai picked him up as if he weighed nothing more than air.

He expertly cradled Colt into his arms, pulling him to his chest like he’d done it a half million times before, and I fell deeper.

“My brother’s going to try to stop by tonight to meet you,” he said, looking in Colt’s direction, but directing his words toward me.

I nodded, but at my mom and not towards Tai.

She’d started squeezing my shoulder around the time that Tai had cradled Colt to his chest, and I brought my hand up to hers.