The Demon's Forbidden Passion

Tina smirked. “I know, Gus. You’re the bee’s knees, the cream-of-the-crop, the best nurse on my staff,” she said, repeating all of Gus’s usual lines. This wasn’t the first time he’d called her back in after giving her the night off. But his words did have some merit to them. Tina had never lost a single patient—even the ones with the grisliest injuries. She had managed to help heal them all—everything from stage-three pancreatic cancer to a drowning victim who’d been pronounced dead for seven full minutes. And Gus knew this.

He barked a short laugh. “Damn right you are. Now get your butt over to 52 Crawford Place in Saunville,” he instructed. “The Mezza Estates.”

Demon territory, Tina realized. She bit her lip. “A residence?” she asked, her voice quavering slightly. “But Gus, you never have me go directly to the scene.”

“I know, but tonight we can’t waste any time. This one’s bad, honey. Real bad. I need you to get there as soon as you can.”

“What happened?”

“Another fire,” Gus replied. Tina heard a flick and the crackling incineration of the end of a fresh cigarette.

“But that’s the like—what? Sixth one this week?” Tina asked incredulously.

“It’s summertime in Los Angeles, doll. The trees and grass are dry and all it takes is one little incident—a flash of lightning, even—and poof. And these estates also happen to border on a national park that caught fire ten times within the last year alone.”

Tina considered for a moment. “Throw in a box of your famous éclairs and you don’t have to start a chain of unwelcomed phone calls tonight.”

“Done,” Gus laughed throatily. “I’ll even raise you a butter tart for your trouble.”

Tina removed her opposite hand from her pocket and opened her fist. She looked at the car keys she had been gripping so tightly that they had left little indentations in her palm—she had been so close to having the night off. She placed the keys on the roof of her car and sighed. Pinching the bridge of her nose with her thumb and forefinger, she said, “I’m heading over there now.”

Chapter Two

When Tina eyed her dashboard and saw the green line on the screen of her GPS get shorter and shorter as the blue dot of her car approached her destination, a tightness started to grow in her chest. She stopped at a red light and glanced at her hands, which were now trembling fiercely as they rested on the steering wheel. What is going on with me, she thought. Nothing about tonight was out of the ordinary, aside from Gus requesting that she go directly to the scene. She’d seen fires—and their resulting burn victims—dozens of times and never lost her cool, calm demeanor. Sure, there were always the nerves that riddled her before pulling back the curtain of an exam room, the buzz of anticipation of what she’d have to do for her next patient. But this time it was as if her body was trying to tell her something. To warn her.

Though she was still a few miles away, Tina could see the black mass come into view through a thick patch of evergreen trees, the smoke pluming upward and outward across the now darkened sky. “Wow” was all she could manage to say. It had to be one hell of a fire to create such an incredible amount of swirling smoke, the black clouds so large they looked like an entity. A living, breathing monster. Unsurprisingly, when she finally arrived on the scene, there were dozens of firefighters. They were still armed with hoses, eliminating what were presumably the remaining hot spots in the ash, while three ambulances sat parked across the street, out of harm’s way. There must have been only a few residents in the house, Tina thought with a sigh of relief. She searched the ambulances for any kind of flurry of activity, but the first two appeared to be empty. The third held a small, vague outline of a patient sitting on its gurney. Tina threw her car into Park and jogged over to it.

The child inside the only occupied ambulance looked to be about five, Tina guessed. The shirt of his cowboy pajamas, its edges charred and sooty, was unbuttoned to accommodate the panels of a heart rate monitor that beeped like a metronome in the corner of the ambulance. His short black hair was mussed and his crystal blue eyes—which peered from above an oxygen mask that slightly concealed the rest of his face—looked bright with wonder. Tina thought of the resilience of kids until she saw that his left hand was pressing down into his right forearm; the gauze under his fingertips was stained deep red with blood.

Tina stole a glance over her shoulder at what was once this boy’s home and shook her head, astonished that he made it out alive, that only his arm was injured.

She recognized the EMT taking the boy’s vitals. “Hey, Nikki.”

Nikki’s short gray curls bounced when she glanced up from the stethoscope pressed to the patient’s back once she had finished listening to his breathing. Her silver-framed glasses sat low on her nose, making her look like Mrs. Claus, which was quite fitting, Tina thought, as Nikki was just as cheerful. “Hey, Tina! Surprised to see you here, girl. But happy none the less.” She smiled.

“Gus said you’d be needing back up,” Tina explained.

“And Gus would’ve been right.” Nikki nodded to the crumbling house. “With these giant mansions, you can never tell if there’s one person inside or fifty. But luckily there were only three people, including my friend here.”

Tina turned to the boy. “And who’s this fine, young patient?”

He smiled up at her, beaming at the compliment.

“Name’s Danny,” Nikki answered. “Vitals are stable. Third-degree burn on his arm. Pretty bad—the bleeding hasn’t stopped yet. I don’t hear signs of any serious smoke inhalation, but I’m giving him a little oxygen to be on the safe side. We’re definitely going to keep him overnight for observation.”

“Gotcha. It’s nice to meet you, Danny. I’m Tina. I’m going to be your nurse when we get back to the hospital.”

“My cowboy PJs are ruined,” Danny said mournfully, sticking out his bottom lip.

Tina gestured to her frizzed hair and the grungy pair of sneakers she now noticed had a spot of baby spit-up on the toe. “Well, I’m not looking so fancy tonight myself.”

The boy laughed softly.

“I’m looking a little ugly tonight, huh, Danny?” Tina teased.

“No,” Danny giggled as his face blushed, cheeks burning. “You’re not ugly.” He looked down.

“Thanks, bud. Do you mind if I take a look at your arm?” Tina asked.

Danny, still bashful and smiling at the ground, stuck out his arm.

Tina carefully removed the gauze, revealing a patch of bubbling skin slick with blood. She could see Danny’s eyes well up when he turned to look at his injury; she knew it must hurt so badly. After slipping on a pair of gloves, she removed the bloodied gauze from his arm and replaced it with a fresh piece.

“You’re being such a brave boy. Now are you sure you’re not feeling any pain besides your arm?”

He shook his head. “Nope.”

“So the only casualty is the cowboy pajamas. We can work with that. I’ll see if your parents can get you another....” Tina bit her lip, stopping herself.

“It’s okay,” Nikki said. “His parents were taken to the hospital about an hour ago. Critical but stable condition. They’re going to be okay.”

“The fireman saved them!” Danny interjected, his eyes lighting up. “He saved them right after he saved me.”

“He must be a really awesome fireman then,” said Tina.

“He is!” Danny agreed. “And Nikki said he’s a hunk!”

“Nikki!” Tina laughed in surprise. “What about Bill? You know, your husband of thirty years? Does the name ring any bells?”

She put her hands out in front of her in mock surrender. “Hey, I can look!”

“But not touch,” Tina playfully admonished.

Nikki waved a hand. “Yeah, yeah, yeah.”

She tugged on Tina’s sleeve and leaned in. “But seriously though, I’ve seen him at the scene of a couple of other accidents and girl, he is fine,” she stage whispered.

Tina rolled her eyes and put a hand on Danny’s shoulder. “Which one is he, sweetie?”

“He’s over there!” Danny pointed emphatically to a group of fifteen firemen.

“The tall one with the black hair,” Nikki added. “I think his name is Ethan.”

Tina followed Nikki and Danny’s gazes and gaped despite her best efforts. Like Nikki said, the man was fine. Strike that, Tina thought, the man was gorgeous. Though he was standing far away, Tina could tell he had the same striking blue eyes as Danny, which was curious. Ethan stood with arms crossed, his eyes pinned on the ambulance he knew held the boy he rescued. His face had sharp features; his nose was straight and narrow, his cheekbones were high and strong, and his jaw line could cut glass. With his olive complexion and raven hair, he was the definition of tall, dark and handsome.

He had the impressive muscular build that most firefighters had. Although his uniform obscured most of it, Tina could tell that underneath, Ethan’s body must’ve been nothing more than one hundred and seventy-five pounds of pure muscle. And, oh, that uniform, she thought. Though she adored a man in uniform, she found herself wondering how much fun it would be to remove all doubt of what lay underneath the thick, yellow-brown garb. To feel the strength of all the perfect body parts that allowed him to save the world night after night. A tight, rippled abdomen, biceps so beefy she wouldn’t be able to wrap both her hands completely around them, two sharp hipbones, that thin trail of hair between them—her favorite part of a man—that would direct her gaze downward, teasing at what it led to... Tina shuddered with naughty thoughts.

But she was jolted from her fantasy when she realized that Ethan’s eyes were now fixed upon hers. She quickly averted her gaze, her cheeks flushing with embarrassment. Just before turning her back to him and burying her chin to her chest, she noticed a smirk lingering on Ethan’s face.