Protecting What's Mine(44)

“I’m sorry I wasn’t faster,” he said.

“It’s not your job to protect me,” she reminded him.

“I think if we tag team the responsibility, we’ll do better.” He caged her knees between his hands.

She sighed. “I can’t with the full-court press today, Hotshot.”

“Because you’re feeling frustrated and vulnerable and pissed off that some dumb fuck made shitty choices that are rippling out into consequences that never should have happened. That girl should be heading into work today, not breathing through a tube. You shouldn’t be laid up in a boot, suddenly available for dog-watching. His mother will lose her son to prison because he couldn’t be responsible for himself. And it was all preventable.”

The tension sagged out of her shoulders.

“How do you get over it?” she asked.

“I don’t. But I also don’t forget the good.” He reached into his back pocket and produced a card. “This is why we do what we do.”

She took it, opened it. “A wedding invite?” Her face softened as she read the note inside. “You’re walking the bride down the aisle?”

He took the invite, tucked it back in his pocket. His own treasure, he supposed. “She was my first save. I was a rookie, fresh out of college. House fire on Christmas Eve. She was ten years old and trapped on the second floor with a big-ass family cat that she saved.”

He picked up Mack’s mug and sampled the tea. Wincing, he slid it back to her. “Her parents and her brother were out. Her mom begged us to find her. We weren’t sure if we would in time. It was a big house. Her brother told us to look in the upstairs TV room.”

He still remembered it. Seeing that face peep out from the corner, skinny arms wrapped around a pissed-off cat. He wasn’t sure who was protecting who.

“She made me take the cat to the window first,” Linc remembered. “She wouldn’t come near me until he was safe.”

He remembered it. The weight of the yowling tomcat in his arms as he handed him out the window to the can man who was on the ladder.

The house was fully engulfed inside, yet the Christmas lights lining the gutters remained lit. Hotter than hell despite the frigid December temperatures outside.

“Okay, let’s go,” she’d said to him, coughing but smiling at him when he returned to her on the floor.

“I stayed in touch with her, with the family, over the years. You don’t forget your first,” he said with a shrug. “Her dad died a few years back.”

“And she asked you to walk her down the aisle,” Mack said.

“Yeah. I could use a wedding date.”

“Damn it, Linc!”

He grinned.

“You’re the literal worst.”

“We could be town sweethearts,” he mused.

“As appealing as that sounds, you know I’m not looking for romance or any more small-town attention.”

“About that. You’re going to have visitors today.”

“You mean besides the four-legged variety?”

“The casserole-bearing kind. The ‘just checking in’ kind.”

She looked horrified at the idea. “Why?”

“Because you put yourself between a patient and a criminal and got roughed up for your trouble. Because you’re a hero, doc.”

She picked up his hand, and he tried hard not to think about how good the physical contact felt. “I’m not the only one who took some damage,” she said, examining his bruised and split knuckles.

“No one messes with my girl.”

She shot him the look but didn’t bother arguing with him this time.

Progress. Hard-fought progress.

“Listen,” he said, rising. “I’ve gotta go. Shift change at seven. Text me if you need anything. I’ll be back to make you dinner and take Sunny off your hands.” He dropped a kiss on the top of her head, liking how natural it felt.

“You could have just asked me,” she called after him.

“You would have said no,” he called back. “Be a good girl for the doc, Sunshine.”





21





“What? What do you want?” Mack asked Sunshine while she unloaded the contents of the dog-sitting bag onto the dining room table. Treats. Dog food. Water and food dishes. A leash and some harness thing that looked like it would fit a Clydesdale. And a note. With—even in her grumpy, pity party state—pretty amusing stick figure drawings.

The dog scooched closer and closer until she was attached to her leg and whimpered hopefully.

“Are you hungry? Because according to this note from your father, you already had breakfast, and you don’t get dinner until seven.” She showed Sunshine the paper. Sunshine immediately took a bite out of it.

“Hey! I don’t think that’s good for you. Spit it out.”

Sunshine swallowed, then made a horking noise and deposited what was essentially a spitball on the blue woven rug next to Mack’s boot.

“Good girl,” she said dryly.

The dog’s tail swished across the floor in a windshield wiper rhythm.

Mack read the last item on Linc’s note.

She likes to eat paper. Don’t let her.