Once a Father

He had no reasonable explanation, even for himself. All he knew was that the frightened look he’d seen in the boy’s wide blue eyes when they had stared up into his had transcended any logic Adam could offer either to himself or to his superior when the time came.

It wasn’t like him to get all wound up like this about someone he’d pulled to safety.

And yet, here he was, wound up tighter than a timpani drum.

The door opened and Adam snapped to attention, his body rigid. He was at the doctor’s side, his six-three frame looming over her five-foot five-inch one before the door had a chance to swing closed.

Adam didn’t attempt to second-guess the expression on her face. “How is he?” he demanded.

His tone had taken him out of the realm in which her assumption had placed him: that of rescuer and rescuee. For the firefighter to look so concerned, when rescuing people out of burning buildings was, if not a daily, then at least an occupational occurrence, there had to be something more going on.

Maybe they actually were related somehow and for his own reasons he just didn’t want to admit it. Even given the boy’s age, there seemed to be no other explanation for why one of the county’s firefighters would have accompanied someone he’d rescued and then hung around the hallway, waiting to hear about his condition.

She was too tired to make an educated guess and almost too tired to ask.

Tracy pulled off her mask, letting it hang from its strings about her neck. “He’s still in shock. Pretty harrowing experience for a kid to go through. But his wounds aren’t quite as extensive or serious as they first appeared. I was afraid some of them were third-degree, but most of them are second-degree and some are even first.” She knew she didn’t have to explain the difference or the significance to this man. “But any number you assign to them, they hurt like hell.” Summoning her energy, she framed a question for him. “Is it true?”

With everything that happened, he couldn’t help wondering if he’d done the boy a favor, saving him. The kid was in pain, about to undergo surgical procedures that were undoubtedly excruciating and the bomb had made him an orphan on top of that. It was a huge load for someone so small.

He frowned. Adam had no idea what the doctor was talking about. “Is what true?”

She had to concentrate not to wrap her arms around herself in a bid for comfort. Although she’d never been close to her, she’d lost her mother when she was twenty-two. It had hurt then. How much worse did it feel to be so young when that happened? And to be completely orphaned on top of that?

Did the boy even know his parents were dead?

Maybe she’d misheard. A glimmer of hope flashed for a moment. “You said his parents were killed in the blast?”

The firefighter’s chiseled chin hardened even more. “Yeah.”

She’d navigated life’s rougher seas by clinging to optimism. “Then I guess he was lucky.”

While he’d waited, Adam’d had time to call back to the station house to tell them that he’d be at County General for awhile. McGuire had told him that according to the manager of the club, the boy had gone off to the men’s room minutes before the blast. The woman had volunteered that he was an only child. That left him alone.

“Depends on your definition of luck.”

What a strange, somber man, Tracy thought. She wondered if there was someone in his life, or if being alone had made him so bitter sounding.

“I’d say being alive is lucky.” She glanced back toward the trauma room. She’d given the boy a sedative to help him rest. “Being alive is always better than the alternative.”

Adam thought of his own life, a life that had been empty and bleak these past two years despite all the efforts of his siblings and extended family to bring him around. “I suppose that really depends on your point of view.”

Turning toward him, Tracy studied his face thoughtfully. He was younger than he sounded, she realized. But his eyes were old. And angry. “Rather a fatalistic attitude for a firefighter.”

He shrugged carelessly. “It’s what sees me through the day.”

Tracy prided herself on being a decent judge of people. She’d sized him up and decided that this man wasn’t quite as emotionless as he would have liked to believe himself to be. If he were, he wouldn’t be standing here now, waiting to hear how the boy was.

Playing devil’s advocate, she asked, “Then what are you doing here?”

His expression became unreadable. “Seeing about the boy.”

She wanted him to say why. “You saved him.”

He wouldn’t have put it that way. “I pulled him out of the fire.”

Tracy was far too tired to butt heads. “That you did, Mr.—?”

“Collins. Adam,” he added after a beat.

Adam was surprised when she put out her hand to him and then took his when he made no move to do the same. “Tracy Walker. You wouldn’t happen to know his name, would you?”

He’d overheard the blonde with the listing beehive hairdo, Bonnie something he recalled, say the boy’s name when she was talking to the chief.

“Jake Anderson, I think.”

Tracy nodded, taking in the information. “Well, no matter how you choose to put it, Collins, Jake owes his life to you.”

The boy didn’t owe him anything. It was he who owed the boy something for pulling him out of the jaws of death only to fling him back into a life that was filled with pain.

He nodded toward the trauma room. “What’ll happen to him?”

Tracy assumed the firefighter was asking about treatment.

“Fortunately, we’re prepared for his kind of case here at County General. A lot of hospitals aren’t. We’ll see to his wounds, help him heal.” At least physically, she thought. “I might be wrong, but I don’t think any skin grafts’ll be necessary, so that’s good.”

She didn’t look as if she should be dealing with things like burnt flesh and peeling skin. He could more readily see her indulging in a game of tennis or riding horses at the club, rather than leaning over an operating table trying to graft skin over a charred body. “And then?”

She didn’t quite understand. “Then?”

He was thinking about the orphan part. Where did Jake go after he was released? “After you do your job and he’s well, what happens to him then?”

She paused for a second to think. “Social services, I guess, until we can locate a relative.”

Adam had a bad feeling about this. “And if there’s no relative?”

“He goes into the system.” Tracy crossed her arms in front of her, trying to get a handle on what was going on in Collins’s head. “Are you usually this concerned about people you save from burning buildings?”

Adam had never cared for being questioned or analyzed. And he’d seen the woman’s tears just before she’d withdrawn into the trauma room. “Do you usually cry over your patients?”

Tracy saw no shame in empathizing with her patients. The way she saw it, it made her human.

“All the time, Mr. Collins, all the time. When I can help them, when I can’t. And when I hear about a little boy who has lost the two most precious people in his life at such a young age.” She leveled her gaze at him. “What’s your excuse?”

The woman’s very body language challenged him. Scooping up the heavy yellow jacket from the chair where he’d left it, Adam punched his arms through the sleeves and pulled it closed. “I’ve got to be going.”

Rather than let him go, Tracy hurried after him. The man had done something sensitive, it hadn’t been her intent to chase him away.

“Wait.” Adam stopped and turned around. Free of her surgical cap, her dark curly hair swirled around her face as she caught up to him. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to sound as if I was being combative. It’s just been one of those very long mornings, that’s all. You were being a good guy, even if you weren’t being very communicative, and I was being—” Tracy paused and then smiled as she concluded, “Me, I guess. They tell me I talk before I think. Sometimes, they’re right.”