Emergency: Parents Needed

Her regular partner, Robert MacArthur, had missed a step at home and fallen down a flight of stairs, breaking an ankle. He’d undergone two surgeries and developed an infection after the second. Bill Reeves, Joe’s partner at Station Two, had torn a rotator cuff in his shoulder, playing baseball with his teenage son. After surgery, he wasn’t healing as fast as his doctor had hoped. As a result, both Joe and Maggie had been “orphaned” and rather than play musical partners, the chief had matched them on the paramedic duty roster.

In Maggie’s opinion, it wasn’t a match made in heaven.

“A few months,” she echoed with a weak smile. She could handle anything for that length of time. Or so she hoped.

“You’re both off for the next couple of days,” Keller reminded her. “If I were you, I’d use the time to figure out a way to resolve your differences. Otherwise the next couple of months will stretch out mighty long for all of us. I don’t want to referee your little skirmishes for the entire time.”

Once again, the captain was right. Four months, less two weeks, could stretch out interminably, even with their twenty-four-hours-on, forty-eight-hours-off schedule.

“Yes, sir,” she said, hoping he’d given Joe the same pep talk when he’d called in to take his personal day.

Maggie thought about the situation throughout her entire shift. Resolving their differences when they were rooted within completely different philosophies seemed an impossible task, but she had to do something.

The answer came in the late night hours as they often did when she was about to drift off to sleep. If Joe had called in to take an unscheduled personal day, he had to be sick. What man wouldn’t appreciate someone giving him a little sympathy when he was suffering? Yes, she thought with some satisfaction, a bit of TLC was in order…

Joe saw the familiar older-model sedan with its front end folded like an accordion against a light pole. He jumped from his ambulance and ran forward, only to find Dee’s head resting against the steering-wheel. Eyes closed, blood ran down her face from the cut on her forehead.

“Dee?” he urged, feeling a familiar panic as he recognized his victim was a friend. “Hang on and we’ll get you out of there.”

Her pale eyelids fluttered open. “Joe?”

He clasped her hand, noticing how cold her skin felt. “Yeah?”

“I’m glad you’re here.”

“Me, too.” He turned to yell at the firefighters swarming over the vehicle. “Hurry up. We need to get her out of there, now.”

“Joe?”

He met her gaze, determined to hide his worry in spite of the fear gripping his chest. “Yeah?”

“I can’t feel my legs or my arms.”

“Don’t panic,” he told her, trying to follow his own advice. “We’ll take care of you. I promise.”

“O…K.” Dee’s eyes closed, then burst open. “The baby. Look after…the baby, Joe.”

Immediately Joe glanced into the backseat. Empty. No infant car seat, no baby paraphernalia. “What baby, Dee?” he asked. “Whose baby?”

“Mine,” Deanna mumbled.

“Where is it?” he urged. “I don’t see a baby.”

“Take care…of…her.” Dee gasped for air and began to act agitated. “Promise.”

Trying to keep her calm and certain she was hallucinating, he said the only thing he could to a friend. “I promise, but where is she?”

Dee cocked her head. “Can’t you hear her, Joe?”

He listened. “I can’t.”

“You have to, Joe. You’re all she has.”

This time, a distant wail of a baby caught his attention and he knew it was imperative that he locate this child. But where should he look? “I hear her, Dee, but where is she?”

“She’s right here.”

He glanced around the scene, afraid to find the broken body of a child thrown from the vehicle. Nothing. “I don’t see her, Dee…”

Joe bolted upright in his easy chair, awakening to the now-familiar sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach before he realized he’d been dreaming again. He wasn’t reliving a modified version of the accident that had taken the life of his old friend, Deanna Delacourt, and he wasn’t frantically searching for a baby. He was at home, dozing in his easy chair, and Dee’s daughter was sleeping in his spare bedroom, although at this particular moment she was wailing loud enough to wake the neighbors.

Muscles protesting as he unfolded his body to stand, he rubbed his gritty eyes before checking the time. 9:00 a.m. He’d gotten exactly three hours of uninterrupted sleep all night, which wasn’t remarkable by itself. Working long stretches without a break wasn’t uncommon when he was on duty because emergencies didn’t occur on a schedule. He simply went home at the end of his shift, fell into his bed and caught up the hours he’d missed.

Unfortunately, his life wasn’t as accommodating since little Breanna Delacourt had moved into his house. She was his to care for 24/7 whether he was exhausted or not, which meant his days of solitude had come to a swift end. Hell, at this rate, he’d have to go to work just so he could get some shut-eye.

Breanna’s wails pierced his eardrums. “I’m coming, I’m coming,” he said aloud to the empty room as he walked down the short hallway, rolling his shoulders to ease the ache and rubbing the last vestiges of sleep from his eyes.

“Good morning, little Bee,” he told the eleven-month-old, who was sitting on her makeshift bed of blankets and a sleeping bag in the middle of the bedroom floor. “What’s wrong?”

Breanna’s mouth quivered as tears glistened on her eyelashes. From the way she eyed him, she’d obviously felt as if she were living her worst nightmare, too. And she probably was. Wanting her mother and getting him instead had to be as stressful for her as the situation was for him. He, at least, had the advantage of understanding what had happened but Breanna did not. She only knew that she wanted her old life with her mother, not this new one with a man she’d never met.

What were you thinking, Dee? he silently railed. You knew I wasn’t cut out to be the sort of father figure a kid needed.

But whatever plane in the universe where Dee had gone didn’t allow for two-way communication. He was on his own, left to devise a plan for a situation he hadn’t anticipated in his wildest dreams. And at the moment the first thing to do was to sort out what Breanna wanted…

Uncomfortable in his new role as father, Joe had learned enough in his crash ‘daddy’ course to change her diaper and he did so with clumsy hands. He’d never felt as helpless as he did now—as he had for the past thirty-six hours. Nothing he did made the little girl happy and he’d already exhausted his small store of parenting ideas. He needed help…and fast. But who could he call?

Honestly, Dee, what made you think I was the best candidate to take care of your daughter?

His little voice corrected him. Dee said you were all she had, remember?

“She was wrong,” he said aloud, ignoring the idea that denying Dee’s claim didn’t make it so.

The doorbell pealed and he frowned at the interruption. Dressing Breanna for the day would have to wait.

He freed her snuggle bunny from being buried in the blankets and tucked it next to her, hoping he could deal with his early morning guest before Breanna realized he’d left the room and raised the roof again.

A minute later, to Joe’s amazement, he saw his fellow paramedic, Maggie Randall, fidgeting on his porch. She’d obviously come directly on her way home from the fire station because she still wore her blue uniform. Her long, tawny hair was restrained in her customary braid and her expression reflected the wariness he was coming to expect when she spoke to him.

He wasn’t so physically and emotionally exhausted not to realize that he was responsible for the caution in her chocolate-brown eyes, but what could he expect? They’d butted heads from the very beginning and all because it was the only way he could counteract the electrical jolt a single, innocent and accidental touch had given his system. Right now, though, she was a familiar face and a welcome sight.

“Am I glad to see you,” he said fervently.

She blinked, clearly taken aback by his declaration. “You are? Oh. Well, good morning to you, too.” Her gaze swept over him, making him conscious of his babyfood-stained T-shirt, tousled hair and bare feet. “Sorry to show up unannounced, but you missed a shift so I thought I’d check on you and make sure everything was OK.”

The concept of anyone questioning his absence and worrying about him was foreign and completely disconcerting, especially when Maggie was the one worrying. She was an attractive woman with a vivacious, caring personality that he found very appealing. For the hundredth time, he wished Maggie had chosen another field because she stirred him in ways he shouldn’t be stirred if he wanted to keep their relationship on a professional footing.

“Actually, things aren’t OK,” he began.