Series: Fever Falls Series by Riley Hart
Total pages in book: 101
Estimated words: 96922 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 485(@200wpm)___ 388(@250wpm)___ 323(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 96922 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 485(@200wpm)___ 388(@250wpm)___ 323(@300wpm)
“You can curse today,” she said as she sobbed.
As I pulled away, I saw his eyes fixed on hers as he teared up too. I could only imagine what this brought up for them all, considering their past with Crawford. Even Keegan was having a hard time not getting emotional.
“I think we’re just gonna step out for a second, give you all some space,” Beau said, and he, Ash, and Zed slipped out the door.
The nurse who’d been in the room with Jace already, an attractive blond, approached me. He lowered the clipboard in his left hand to his side and shook my hand with his right. “Hi, I’m Linc. Wish we could be meeting under better circumstances.”
“Tell me about it.”
“How’s he doing, Lincoln?” Nance asked.
We took seats beside Jace’s bed, and Linc explained his condition. “He has a fibula fracture and needs a boot for his leg right now, but he should be good as new in no time. However, we’re keeping him until we can get an MRI and scan for more severe ligament damage that might have occurred during the fall he took on the job.”
He turned his attention to Jace. “In the meantime, enjoy the pain management and free food, but don’t be scaring us like that anymore, okay, Hottie Firefighter?”
A boisterous laugh erupted from Jace at the play on his celebrity nickname. “Thanks, Doc,” he said with a wink. “Go on now to the patients who really need the help…and maybe some eye candy.”
Linc snickered. “Alright. You guys let me know if any of you need anything. Nance, I trust he’s in good hands.”
By the way she inhaled, it seemed as though she’d taken her first decent breath since we’d heard the news. The nurse’s cool bedside manner had gone a long way in calming us down.
“Thank you, Lincoln,” Nance said, and he saw himself out.
As soon as the door closed, she turned her worried gaze back to Jace and asked, “What happened?”
It was the question lingering on all our minds.
Jace took a prolonged breath, and I could tell he didn’t want to get into it, but surely he knew there was no way Nance was going to let him get away with that. “The fire was creeping through the house pretty fast,” he said. “It got up under the bedroom we were in, and as Zed was scanning the rest of the room with the thermal-imaging camera, his foot pushed through the floor and must’ve gotten stuck in some wiring. He was panicking, and while the crew was working on a window removal for a victim, I headed over to help him. I managed to get his leg free, and as he lurched to get out, he sort of shoved me. I lost my balance, and there was a bed nearby, and my foot slammed against the edge of this wooden frame. Hit it just wrong before I took a fall. It was more like the Two Stooges of Firefighting than anything else.”
I could tell he was trying to make light of it for our benefit, something I could more than understand considering how wrecked Nance looked over it.
“The woman we were rescuing is in a room here too, and as you can see, Zed made it out just fine.”
“He should have been more careful,” she said.
“We all have our moments. Any other day, that could have been me.”
She nodded, likely knowing he was right, but it must’ve been hard for her to see her son injured in that hospital bed.
“Anyway, we can all be appreciative that they’re only keeping me for observation, so we got lucky.”
Luck? What kind of fucking luck was that?
Although, knowing the details of how they’d lost Crawford, I knew luck was right. It could have been so much worse. He could have been gone.
And that thought tore through my heart, terrorized my soul.
In the time we’d been together, I hadn’t had to deal with the real consequences of his job. Sure, I’d known he was working, but he’d always been fine. So in my mind, he could have had any job, and while I was nervous, until that moment, it hadn’t really registered for me.
I could only imagine what it did to Nance and Keegan, who still looked rattled but as though trying to mentally assure themselves he was still with us, and that was what mattered. Zed swung by, profusely apologizing to Jace again, who generously talked him down from his guilt as they swapped stories about errors Jace had made in his early days. I called Carter and Elliott to give them a heads-up about the news, and the hours ticked on by before I headed out to grab coffee for everyone. I noticed Beau and Ash in the waiting area, chatting with Serena. I checked my phone to see if she’d messaged. She hadn’t.