Love on the Outskirts of Town Read online

The question took her by such surprise that she burst out laughing. He looked genuinely confused by her reaction, which only made her laugh more. “Yeah,” she finally said with a sigh. “I’m…fine. Truly. I just… This is kind of stressful for me. I’m not sure what to expect, and we haven’t talked a lot, so…”

  He nodded. “Got it. Well, we really did have a good night with her.”

  “Good.”

  They exchanged slightly-less-awkward nods, and she added a genuinely pleasant, “See you at Christmas,” before closing the door.

  Upstairs, she found Emily checking to make sure her pink room was exactly as she left it.

  “Are you hungry, baby?”

  “A little,” Emily said, hugging her dolls.

  They ate quickly, then Emily just wanted to go back upstairs. They read a few stories, but Emily kept interrupting to put her dolls to bed, and finally Tasha took the hint.

  “I think it’s bedtime for you, too. Let’s go brush your teeth.”

  Once Emily was asleep, Tasha thought about dragging herself to the apartments to do some work, but the call of her own bed was too strong. She plodded down the hall and turned on her light.

  Her eyes immediately tracked to a flash of white just under her bed.

  Matt’s t-shirt.

  She picked it up and brought it to her face, breathing in the scent of him. She took off her clothes and slid the shirt over her body.

  She grabbed her phone and crawled into bed, happy for an early bedtime herself, just as Matt texted her.

  Matt: Made it safe and sound. Stopped to do some grocery shopping on the way.

  Natasha: I just found your shirt. I put it on to sleep in.

  Matt: Excellent call.

  Natasha: Glad you got home safely. And thank you for keeping me company yesterday and last night.

  Matt: Always. When are we painting next?

  Her heart slammed against her ribcage. She was painting again tomorrow. Just her, because as nice as the help was, she couldn’t ask him to help her that much.

  Natasha: Maybe we can do something more fun next time. On your next day off?

  Matt: Definitely. But painting is fun, so if you want me to come over at night…

  Oh, she wanted him to come over at night, all right. But was that too much, too soon? The last thing she wanted was to cling to him and cross a line into taking advantage of his kindness. She took a deep breath and sent him a smiling emoticon instead of a real response.

  Taking things slow was a new kind of dangerous. She dreamt of him all night, and when she woke up, restlessness jangled at her nerves.

  She channeled it into her house.

  Instead of art, she plastered the walls with lists for the Big Dream Plan, drawings, and clippings. She wrote and re-wrote the to-do lists, trying hard to stick to a logical sequence of events. First the bones of the apartments had to be made amazing. Then she could furnish them. But the rational side of her brain couldn’t stop her heart from imagining what they’d look like when she was finished—or her fingers from searching the used buy-and-sell sites for deals.

  And that was how she ended up buying a couch a few days later.

  It started with a crazy deal on some hairpin coffee table legs. They were free, as long as they were picked up immediately. The person who was looking to get rid of their stuff was moving the next day. Everything had to go. So Tasha buckled Emily into her seat and off they went.

  When they arrived, it was just in time to witness a disagreement over a red velvet sofa from the safety of her car. Tasha was only there for the metal coffee table legs, which presumably the moving owners had always intended to do something with, but never quite got there. Her win.

  But this other person was haggling over a couch.

  “The price is firm,” the owner said, frustrated enough that Tasha heard it from the curb and through her open window.

  The other guy left.

  She hopped out of her Jeep. “Hey,” she said, holding up her hand. “I’m here for the coffee table legs. But how much do you want for the sofa?”

  “Two hundred bucks.”

  It was fair, but it was more than she had in her purse. She opened her wallet and pulled out all her cash. “I have a hundred and sixty. I could go and get more.”

  He shook his head. “That’s fine. I just want it gone.”

  And this was why she always carried bungee cords and rope in her trunk.

  He helped her get it up on top of her car and battened down. She grabbed the coffee table legs she’d come for, as well as an ornate birdcage and an oversized clock, and told the man he’d made her week.

  Then she had the very real dilemma of how to get the couch off her car and into her house when they arrived back. Technically she did have multiple options. She could call Meredith, or post on the buy-and-sell boards for two burly guys.

  But she only needed one guy, really, and she was pretty sure he’d be happy to help. Ask him. Don’t be afraid. She had to psych herself up for it before she texted him a picture of the top of her car.

  Natasha: Any chance you want to come over and make out on my new couch?

  He called her back immediately. “You got a couch.”

  “I did.”

  “I like couches. I can be there in an hour.”

  He made it in forty-five minutes, and he brought food with him. Sandwich fixings, nothing fancy, but Emily was happy to see him and very proud to help him assemble sandwiches for dinner after they got the couch into place facing the wall of Big Ideas.

  As they “cooked”, Natasha set up their picnic blanket with water bottles, napkins, and a bowl of pretzels.

  At some point, she’d like to take Matt on a real date. Dress-up clothes, fine china. Even just a table would be an improvement.

  Maybe they should have gone to the pub, not that she could afford to eat out regularly.

  She went back into the kitchen just in time to see Emily grab her phone off the table.

  “Whatcha doing, baby?” Emily had discovered games and apps, which was useful sometimes, but also dangerous.

  Tonight, though, she wanted music. “Mommy, play the Havana song.” It was her favourite lately. It made their hips wiggle, Emily liked to say.

  They didn’t usually have an audience for that, though.

  Natasha put it on, tapping the mini Bluetooth speaker on the shelf so the sound filled the kitchen.

  Emily twirled around for Matt. “I’m a dance-y-pantsy.”

  He laughed. “So you are.”

  “I like dancing. So does Mommy.”

  Natasha’s face heated up as Matt caught her eye. “I know.”

  He’d already seen how much she liked to dance when he caught her dancing to the same song at the bar.

  “I need Polly!” Emily sprinted from the room.

  Matt gave Tasha a dirty grin and closed the gap between them.

  Her breath froze in her chest as he set his hands on her hips, moving her to the music. “I like to dance, too,” he murmured, his breath warm and intoxicating.

  Instantly, she felt herself go all hot and limber. A roll of the hip under his touch, a step of her foot, and they were dancing, their bodies in contact from chest to thigh.

  He moved like liquid grace, effortlessly turning a grind in her kitchen into something hotter than any club night she’d ever had. When the trumpet solo started, he spun her around, tugging her ass against his pelvis.

  But the bounce of little feet bounding down the stairs ended that before it really got a chance to begin, and Tasha buried herself in the fridge, looking for something—anything—to cool her face down.

  Emily danced with Polly twice, then they sat down in the no-longer-bare living room and ate their sandwiches. When they finished, Matt hung around for Emily’s bedtime, but then he said an early goodnight.

  “I have to go,” he grumbled into her hair. “I have a day shift tomorrow.”

  She ignored the tug of frustrated desire deep inside her. “Of course.�
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  “I’ll be back soon.”

  “I have no doubt. Who could resist basic sandwiches and interrupted kitchen dancing?”

  “Not me,” he whispered, hauling her against him again. “Not me.”

  Matt slept like shit, but that wasn’t anything new. He’d wished he could have slept with Natasha, because that single night with her had been the best sleep he’d had in six months, but he wasn’t going to ask for that while Emily was in the house.

  So he pounded out a run at dawn, then got to the station early. The shift started just fine. They headed up to Tobermory at the tip of the peninsula to cover that area while another bus did a long transport to Toronto.

  All good.

  Right up until it wasn’t.

  They got a call about a woman with breathing difficulties. No history of asthma, but a recent respiratory infection, and the call was being placed by the patient’s daughter, who had come for a visit and found her mother struggling.

  Lights on, siren on, and they got to the house, a bungalow on the edge of town, really quickly. The last report was that the patient was still talking, but just in case that changed, they put the bags on the gurney and rolled it inside.

  The woman was in her late fifties, maybe early sixties, and had two younger women with her. Mother and daughters, probably.

  They introduced themselves, one of the daughters talking over the other. Matt took the history while Will did the vitals.

  The quieter daughter handed over a nebulizer. “We got this thing at the hospital two days ago, but her colour is still not good, and she sounds terrible.”

  “Okay, we can help you use this.” Will showed them how, having to interrupt the talkative daughter a few times to get the instruction clear. But even after administering the drugs, he didn’t like the numbers. “Sat’s not coming up, let’s give her some oxygen,” he said to Matt.

  They hooked her up with a nasal cannula, then Will stepped aside to call in to dispatch and find out which Emerg could take her.

  Matt crouched down in front of the patient. “Do you have a bag to bring with you? A pair of pyjamas, your health card, some toiletries?”

  “I…don’t need to go…to the hospital.” She inhaled painfully through her nose. Even the extra hit of oxygen wasn’t helping her colour.

  “And you said you haven’t ever had asthma before?” He glanced at her daughters as she shook her head.

  The chatty one agreed with her, but Matt noticed the other daughter bit her lip.

  “Any history of colds getting into her chest, trouble breathing?”

  Shrugs. He didn’t know what the weird dynamic was here, but it was possible they didn’t have time to sort that out.

  He turned back to the patient. “Okay, so right now it might feel like you’re just having a bit of trouble breathing. And maybe that’s been going on for a few days, so it feels like a temporary normal. But this increased difficulty is actually pretty dangerous.”

  Fred Carleton flashed through his mind, and his chest tightened up.

  “Really dangerous,” he amended. “Honestly, it’s a no-brainer. You need to be admitted for the night, get proper care.”

  That wasn’t the right thing to say. Her face tightened up. “They didn’t do anything for my flu, did they?”

  He took a deep breath. “Right. I hear that was frustrating. Hopefully this will be different.”

  “Hopefully.” The bossy daughter snorted, and Matt wondered how much she was contributing to her mother’s negative thoughts about the hospital.

  “No,” her mother wheezed.

  “Just help her with the medication,” the daughter said. “It’s not getting in her lungs.”

  Yeah, because her lungs weren’t working. What the fuck did she think they could do with their gear? They weren’t a walking hospital, and she could stop breathing at any moment. Heat crawled up his neck. “Honestly, I don’t want her life or your blame on my hands.”

  As soon as it was out of his mouth, he knew he’d gone too far.

  Over the patient’s head, he saw Will give him a sharp look.

  God. Fucking. Damn. It.

  He forced a smile onto his face and shoved down the intense and unexpected panic in his chest. Not now. This isn’t about you. “Let me re-phrase,” he heard himself say. He heard the tremor in his voice, too. “Is there anything I can do that will make that transfer easier?”

  The woman started to shake her head, but before she could answer, she started coughing again. Shallow, weak, unproductive. Her lips turned blue, and Matt didn’t need to take another pulse-ox to know it was too low.

  Will stepped in, gesturing for Matt to ready the stretcher. “There are risks to staying home,” his partner said. “We want to make sure you’re clear on that, and we want to help you get more treatment at the hospital than you did last time. How does that sound?”

  It sounded fucking professional, unlike the bullshit he’d spit out a minute earlier.

  Quietly, one of the daughters crouched down next to her mother and whispered something.

  The woman closed her eyes.

  Maybe she didn’t want to think about the risks. Or maybe she was tired of them. Who knew what else was going on in her life, her head. Matt had lost sight of those possibilities—and a myriad of other unseen factors he usually understood.

  He glanced at Will, who shrugged. Yeah, they weren’t going anywhere, but they couldn’t force her to transfer to the hospital, either.

  And if they were lucky, she wouldn’t die today.

  Another flash of Fred through his mind, another tight pinch in his chest.

  Finally, she consented to transport, and they headed off, with the daughters following behind in their own vehicle. Will gave him the keys, the message clear. Matt had failed on patient communication today, and there’d be some follow up on that sooner than later.

  He white-knuckled the wheel the entire way to the hospital.

  This time, Owen wouldn’t be sending him a text message as a friend. And Matt knew that he’d probably burned his chances to have that conversation off the record.

  “I was there, remember?”

  Yeah. Now he remembered. Every joke, every casual aside. An endless parade of opportunities missed where he could have been more of a professional and less cocky, and maybe saved Fred Carleton’s life.

  But that guilt had been shoved aside because the days that had followed had yawned wide with their own horror. Fear about Sean’s injuries, confusion about his recovery. And then when he was flown home, the agonizingly slow recovery. Anger. Frustration.

  It had consumed his family.

  And in the midst of all of that, Matt had forgotten about Fred—and that made him doubly an asshole all over again.

  Chapter Nineteen

  After they handed over the asthma patient to the Emerg staff, Will did the post-call paperwork and Matt texted Owen, giving him a heads-up he had an incident on a call that he needed to report. His boss wasn’t working today, but apparently that wasn’t going to postpone a discussion about what just happened, because he texted back a terse, short message.

  Owen: Understood. Meet you at the station.

  They went on air again, but after an hour of no calls, dispatch returned them to the station. When they got back, Owen’s truck was in the parking lot.

  Matt guessed his shift was done a bit early.

  Will clapped him on the shoulder before disappearing, a tight squeeze that said a lot. He knew he’d earned a lot of goodwill with both men over the years, but he’d burned some of it up over the last little while, too.

  Fuck.

  He knocked on the supervisor’s door and nudged it open after a growled instruction from the other side.

  “Hey,” he said with a sigh.

  Owen didn’t say anything back, but gestured for Matt to first close the door, then sit down.

  “So…” Matt took a deep breath. “I snapped at a patient today.”

  His boss just look
ed at him.

  “It was inappropriate, and in hindsight, I can see how I ignored some warning signs in my behaviour that led to it.”

  That got a nod, but still no words.

  Fuck.

  He dragged in another deep breath. His chest was tight, and the constriction was growing. “What else do you want me to say? I know I crossed a line. It won’t happen again.”

  “How did it happen this time?”

  Matt shook his head. “I was worried, and frustrated. I lost track of the boundaries a bit.”

  “So you’re just going to be better in the future? That’s your solution?” Owen shook his head. “This is going to happen again, unfortunately. Because it’s not about you saying the wrong thing.”

  “Then what the hell do you think it’s about?” It was a stupid question to ask. Matt knew the answer. Fred Carleton. The name bounced around in his head like a bullet. It thudded against the inside of his skull, back and forth, until it landed heavily in the middle of his mind and sat there, ready to explode at any second.

  Owen just looked at him.

  Matt shifted uncomfortably. “I know you’ve tried to talk to me before.”

  “You didn’t want to hear it then, and you don’t look like you want to hear it now.”

  “I don’t.”

  “I’m worried that you’re depressed.”

  Matt jerked back in his chair. “What?” He’d expected PTSD or an operational stress injury concern. “I’m not depressed. I’m fine. Maybe just burned out. It’s been a complicated year.”

  “You aren’t fine. You acted unprofessionally and this isn’t the first time I’ve wondered if something was going on with you.”

  Damn it. “Then write me up.”

  Owen cocked his jaw to the side and scowled. “You’d rather I make this a disciplinary matter than talk about your feelings?”

  Was he really that defensive? Fuck, Matt didn’t like that, either. He crossed his arms over his chest and shrugged. “No.”

  “You need to take a break. You’re stretching yourself to the limit.”

  “It doesn’t feel like I am. Honestly.”