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  I shoved my phone into my pocket and winced when I took my first step.

  I’d had therapy today, and the therapist had pushed me harder than she normally did.

  A year ago, when I’d had my spinal stroke, I never thought I’d walk again.

  Now, here I was walking...without my cane.

  I hadn’t had to use it at all this week, which had been the deciding factor in my therapist handing out the ass whoopin’ she’d given me.

  It felt good to have sore muscles, and, as I made my way down the steps with no help there, either, I was smiling.

  My smile dropped as soon as I talked to Steel and asked him to take me with him.

  ***

  Steel

  “I’m not taking you,” I said as I packed up my truck.

  “But why?” She pouted, propping both hands on her shapely hips. “Matt has Cody and will have him for the week since it’s fall break. Conleigh is spending the time with Matt’s parents.”

  “Because you’re…”

  “Don’t you dare say that I’m a cripple,” she snapped. “I’m NOT a cripple.”

  My eyes narrowed.

  “I wasn’t going to say that you’re a cripple,” I informed her. “I was going to say a civilian. You have no experience dealing with water rescue or even boats.”

  She narrowed her eyes.

  “Both of my kids are taken care of,” she said. “I’m going because work asked me to and my EMT skills are needed at the hospital. And, honestly, I will be sitting in the truck with you on the drive down there. Nothing else. I swear I won’t say a word if you don’t want me to. Not to mention all you’ll have to do is drop me off at the hospital. Seriously, that’s it. I won’t be riding around with you. I will be there, safe, helping people that you bring in.”

  I sighed, long and loud.

  “Honey…”

  “You know,” she growled. “Matt used to think that I was useless.”

  My brows rose.

  “He did?”

  Winnie was anything but useless. Sure, now she was a little slower getting around since she’d had that spinal stroke, but that didn’t stop her from doing what she wanted to do. She walked faster with her cane at times than I walked.

  I felt every single one of my numerous years catching up to me, especially when it rained.

  Like fuckin’ today.

  Mobile, Gulf Shores, and the rest of the coast had gotten hammered with a hurricane the likes of which I’d never seen before. The huge, category five Hurricane Matt—which still cracked me up that it was the same name as her POS ex-husband—spanned nearly the entire state. It dumped so much fucking rain on us that we’d be feeling its effects for months.

  “Yep,” she said. “He said I was a useless pile of skin once after my stroke. It was when we were meeting with our lawyers about who would get what.” She looked down at where she was standing. “So I started going to the gym. Tried to get my ass back in shape…it’s hard, though. I don’t know what I’m doing. But at least I can walk now.”

  I narrowed my eyes.

  “He did not. Please, tell me he didn’t.”

  She smiled sadly. “He did.”

  I’d known Matt Holyfield for a long time now. He’d been on the force with us for so long that he was just as much family as my own family—whether I liked him or not. You couldn’t pick family.

  But he’d pulled away from us after he’d met his wife and had his first kid. I had known about Winnie, but I hadn’t actually met her until she moved in across the street from me, newly single, with two children in tow.

  It just plain surprised me that Matt Holyfield was such a fucking asshole.

  “I’ll give you a ride, but only to the hospital. Understand?”

  She grinned at me, then bounced slightly on her toes as she clapped her hands.

  “You won’t regret this!” she breathed.

  That was a lie.

  I was already regretting it.

  Having her this near to me, that smile aimed my way, was doing things to my heart.

  I didn’t want to feel like this about her.

  I didn’t want to deal with another woman with a shit ton of problems.

  And I wasn’t saying that Winnie was a problem, just that she had a lot of baggage that I wasn’t sure that I could take on.

  Not at this point in my life, anyway.

  I was well past the age that I should be thinking with my dick.

  I would not, under any circumstances, touch one single hair on Winnie’s pretty little head. No matter how much I may want to.

  All I had to do to cement that fact was think about my exes. Tracy. Lizzibeth. Lila. Terrel. Kay.

  All of them I’d given tiny pieces of my heart and every last one of them had broken what little I’d trusted them with.

  I had a feeling that if Winnie got anything from me, she would likely hold onto it and never let go.

  And I’d have to break it off because I wasn’t willing to let her get too close. Not to mention it was highly unlikely she’d want an old man like me for the rest of her life. She’d want things that I just couldn’t give her.

  Not with what I had on my plate.

  Something that I would have to deal with when I got home.

  But, the farther and farther we drove together, the more I realized that it might already be too late.

  She was under my skin, and I didn’t know what to do about it.

  Chapter 9

  Sorry I didn’t answer your call. I don’t really use my cell phone for that.

  -Winnie to Steel

  Winnie

  After checking once more on my children, I put my phone in my pocket and walked into the hospital with my name badge clipped to my scrub pants and Steel at my back.

  He was directly behind me mostly because the halls of the hospital were jam packed with people. The halls had been turned into makeshift hospital wards. People were literally in every single inch of available space.

  Some guy flew out from behind one of the hastily put together paper partitions and nearly knocked me over.

  Steel had me before I so much as stumbled when the man nearly took me out.

  “Sorry, sorry,” the man, obviously a harried nurse, apologized.

  Then he saw my name badge and grinned. “Hi! My name is Tex!”

  I blinked. “Hi, Tex.”

  “Who are you?”

  His eyes went from mine to Steel’s, and then back again. “Yum.”

  I started to grin as I said, “I’m here to meet up with the hospital staffer who is doing the emergency staff orientations. Do you happen to know where I should be going?”

  Tex snapped his fingers.

  “Oh!” Tex said. “That’s me! That’s so me! I’m here intercepting people to point them in the right direction.” He leveled me with a look. “This is a fucking nightmare, by the way. Oh, I’m also not supposed to curse, so we’ll just fucking overlook that, okay?”

  My lips twitched, and I felt Steel’s hand tighten on my hip.

  I looked at him over my shoulder.

  His beard was dotted with raindrops, and I wanted to lick them off.

  I turned back around and sighed.

  “So, what do you want me to do, and where can I put my stuff?”

  Tex’s smile was wide.

  “You can put it in the breakroom, but honestly, we really don’t have anywhere for you to put anything. Just remember what hours you work and write them down. Send them in when you leave to the email address that we sent out to all the volunteers. Make sure you specify what you do. Now, where I want you is more of a tough question. You’re a paramedic?”

  He eyed my name badge. “Yes, sir.”

  Tex’s grin was wide. “Not sir. I prefer just Tex. I’m a California guy. We don’t say sir and ma’am there. Now, you have your own escort?”

  I looked over my shoulder at Steel again.

  �
��Well,” I turned back around, trying to ignore the way Tex wouldn’t take his eyes off of Steel. “He’s a cop and is here because he’s helping with search and rescue…”

  “What would help tremendously is for a person to be out in the field triaging these patients, directing them to where they need to be.” He looked at the man at my back. Steel didn’t say a word. “Could you take her? You’re going to be in the rescue epi-center anyway. It would work. You could tell the responders whether any of the patients actually need to go to the hospital. And if they don’t, then you can direct them to a shelter where they can be checked out there. Would that be okay?”

  Would spending more time with Steel be okay? Hell yes!

  Did Steel want me to be spending more time with him? Hell no.

  I could tell that he was on edge. Something was bothering him, and I didn’t know what.

  “I don’t know…” I hedged.

  Just then, a fight broke out behind Steel’s back between a mother of a child on one side of the hallway, and the patient in the bed directly across from them.

  “No!” one woman screamed. “I will not allow you to be seen in front of my son. You cut us off on the way into the parking lot. My son has a broken arm.”

  “I have a fucking broken leg!” the man countered.

  Then he emphasized his anger by picking up the IV pole and launching it.

  Steel was there before the pole could make contact with the woman.

  He had it in his hand and was turning to the man who’d thrown the pole. “I realize,” Steel said with a deathly silent voice. “That you are hurting. I realize that you’re scared, but you’re arguing with a woman over a child. You’re packed in here like sardines, so unless you want to be tossed out on your ass, I suggest you stop actin’ like a dumbass and control yourself. Capiche?”

  The man nodded once, and Steel placed the IV pole back where it was before turning to the woman.

  “Your son may have a broken arm, but this man has a goddamn bone sticking out of his leg.”

  The woman’s eyes widened.

  “That’s a medical emergency.”

  The woman didn’t say anything.

  “Stay away from him. Wait your turn.”

  Then he turned back to me.

  His face was hard and unyielding.

  “You’re coming with me,” he said through clenched teeth. “This place is a disaster. There’s no way in hell you’d be able to protect yourself in all of this. If he lets you come with me, and you still get paid, I think you should do it.”

  I licked my lips, then turned back to where Tex was standing in the middle of the cluttered hallway, eyes wide. “That’s fine with me. I’m going to give you my number, though, so we can coordinate, okay?”

  And that was how I found myself going along with Steel.

  Let’s just say he wasn’t very happy about it.

  ***

  An hour later, and we found ourselves in the middle of a partially flooded parking lot after spending hours trying to get into downtown. The roads were terrible. Most of them were unpassable. There was so much debris, and crap in the road that the ones that weren’t blocked by water were still nearly impossible to utilize.

  And this parking lot was one of the better parking lots, according to the man who was directly in front of me, talking strategy with Steel.

  “You’re one of the first ten boats here in this area, so we’d like to get you out on the water as soon as we can. We’re always going to have someone staying behind since the water is still rising. If it gets too close to your truck, we’ll have someone move it.”

  Steel nodded. “Fine with me. How are they getting the boats into the water?”

  “Some are just backing them up there,” he pointed to the parking lot’s entrance that almost descended straight into the water like a boat ramp would.

  Only, it wasn’t a boat ramp. It was really one of those god-awful driveways that you’d normally scrape the bottom of your car on as you were pulling into it.

  “Sounds fine…” he looked over to me. “You know how to drive a boat?”

  I shook my head. “Negative.”

  His lips twitched.

  That ‘negative’ had come straight from his mouth every time I’d asked to stop on the way down here.

  The one and only time he’d deigned to stop was when I told him I was going to pee on his leather seats if he didn’t find me accommodations pronto.

  And I was fairly sure he hadn’t even gotten out of the truck to pee at all our entire trip.

  In fact, I was eyeing the waders he’d slipped on as we’d gotten out of the truck and wondered if he’d gone at all since we’d left. Maybe he had a catheter placed, who knew?

  “You got somewhere she can stay?” Steel suddenly asked. “They told her to go to the command tent. That this one?”

  The man nodded and then gestured for us to follow.

  We did, and I tried not to look down at the disgusting water.

  At least I’d brought boots—at Steel’s urging.

  They were cute, pink, and neoprene. I’d spent about eighty-five dollars on them the week before I’d found out about my husband cheating on me. I’d also bought the kids a pair—which had been the last big purchase for them that I’d been able to make since.

  “Yeah, here’s as good as any,” the man informed me. “That’s what we have set up so far. This is the central hub, so they’re bringing everyone here first. If you want, you can set your stuff up in that corner and we’ll start funneling them toward you.”

  And that was how the next four hours went until another paramedic, this one from Texas, came to relieve me.

  I’d had to pee for the last hour, and it was the best thing ever to see the beautiful redhead.

  “Hi!” she chirped. “I’m Winter. Where do you want me?”

  I quickly explained what was going on, and then I bowed out. “I have to pee something fierce. I hope you don’t mind, but I’m going to head out and find a bathroom.”

  Winter gestured with a thumb up. “I’ll be here when you get back.”

  I quickly hurried out of the tent and found the first official person I saw. It was a man in a cowboy hat.

  “Excuse me,” I said.

  The man turned, and I was struck with a feeling deep in my gut.

  Holy shit, the man was hot.

  Like a Viking. And oh, man. His beard! That cowboy hat! Yum. A Viking cowboy. I never knew I had those kinds of fetishes, but here we were. I had the hots for a biker cop, and now there was this really yummy looking Viking cowboy…who also happened to be a cop.

  The shiny badge pinned on his shirt said so.

  Texas Ranger.

  Rawr.

  “Yeah?”

  “Do you know where the nearest bathrooms are?”

  He studied me for a few short seconds, then nodded.

  “Yeah, they’re that way.” He pointed across the parking lot that we were in.

  I grinned. “Thank you, Mr. Texas Ranger.”

  The Texas Ranger winked. “Griffin.”

  I held up a thumb.

  It didn’t matter how hot the guy was. I had to pee, and peeing trumped checking out hot guys…at least at this stage in my life.

  I rushed as fast as my legs would allow me to rush in the direction that he’d pointed, and made it about halfway across the parking lot to the Boot Barn front doors when I nearly went down flat on my ass.

  A man that was leaning against the glass doors started to chuckle, causing me to look up from my crouch.

  I’d been able to save myself from hitting the water, but just barely.

  By doing so, I’d had to plant my hands onto the grimy asphalt that was covered in about an inch of water.

  I grimaced and stood up, carefully checking out my legs.

  I felt fine.

  In fact, the entire day, my legs had done exactly what I’d wanted them to do—mov
e.

  I had no weakness, which was a miracle in and of itself, and I was able to hold my weight.

  I would’ve fist pumped had the guy not still been watching me.

  As I shuffled more carefully to the front doors of Boot Barn, I stayed as far away from the man—who seemed vaguely familiar—standing at the door as I could.

  He didn’t look creepy, really, but he gave off a creepy vibe, which meant that I would stay away from him as much as I could.

  I opened the door and felt my heart fall when I saw that there was water inside as well as outside.

  “Hi,” I said to the man behind the counter. “I need to use the facilities.”

  The older man smiled.

  He was old enough to be my grandfather.

  “All the way to the back of the store and to the left. If you’re hungry, I have some food out on the counter, too,” he said. “Cajun food, jambalaya, red beans and rice. Shrimp. You name it, it’s in there. I told my Mimi to cook it all up since it was going to go bad anyway with the freezer being off. You’re more than welcome to a cup.”

  I grinned and gave him a heartfelt smile. “I’ll take a look. I can smell it from here. It smells amazing.”

  The old man winked. “Go on, dear.”

  I did, stopping first at the bathroom before washing my hands and pulling out my phone.

  Me (7:12 PM): Are you back yet?

  Me (7:16 PM): I’m gonna grab a cup of this yummy smelling jambalaya for you. I’ll have it in the tent with me if you get back before I decide to eat it.

  Smiling to myself, I looked around for something to serve the food with and realized there wasn’t anything.

  I eyed the cups that were standing in a stack next to the metal tins of food and shrugged.

  Scooping it up in the cup, I juggled both cups and made my way out into the main room again.

  This time the creepy man was there talking to the older man.

  My stomach clenched as I made my way past the racks of clothes to the front doors.

  I smiled at the old man whose eyes were on me.

  I intentionally kept my gaze from skittering to the creepy dude.

  “Thank you so much for the food. It’s amazing.”

  The old man nodded and waited until I was nearly out of the door before returning his gaze back to the man in front of him.