Page 8 of Crushing on the Mountain Men

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No. The answer was, I couldn’t.

“But if you use a backboard, you can move faster.” Davin and Kailee were discussing rescue techniques, and I was adding my two cents.

“These curly fries are amazing. How did I not know about this place?” Kailee asked.

She didn’t seem put off by my intense discussion of rescues. Or else I’d spent too much time on the mountain with Davin recently.

“Curly fries should be a food group,” Davin agreed.

“So you two live in a cabin? Who cooks?”

“I do.” I loved to cook. It was something my Dad and I did when my lawyer mom worked late and my sisters were at activities. With his MS it was harder for him by the time I was in college, but when I was home from breaks, he would hang out with me in the kitchen.

“I love it. What do you like to cook?”

“Healthy. He really eats mostly healthy food.”

“Dude.” I motioned to my burger. “Not all the time. I didn’t eat healthy when we worked at the firm.” I did order in some salads, but mostly ate whatever everyone else wanted to order in.

“We used to work for a financial firm in the city.”

“Really?”

I nodded. “We did, right out of college, with our friend. He left us the cabin in his will when he died in a car accident.”

It was awkward to blurt it out like that, I knew, but it got all that out of the way.

“I’m sorry.” She looked at me, then Davin, and I knew she meant it.

I tracked her as she put a fry in ketchup and then bit into it, humming in pleasure. I felt my body tighten. Creed, man, get it together. It’s a lunch date.

Then we heard a scream.

“Call 9-1-1! My sister is having a baby!” A woman in a business suit and heels was outside of a booth, looking at a woman gripping the table from her seat.

The waitress went over, her phone at the ready.

Kailee stood up. “I’ve helped with some, but call your group if they are so close. Unless you’ve done this?”

We’d helped rescue a pregnant woman who was dehydrated on a hike, but we hadn’t delivered a baby.

Davin was already calling, and I followed Kailee.

She was kneeling next to the booth, calmly asking the woman some questions.

“Do you know what you’re doing?” The sister was still shouting.

“Hi,” I said. “I’m Creed. Help is on the way, and Kailee is an EMT. Why don’t we sit over there?” I motioned to a nearby table.

Kailee was looking at her watch. “Her contractions are pretty close,” she said to me.

I could see she was nervous.

“Do you have a staff room?” I asked the waitress, who was still on the phone with the paramedics.

“More like a table and chairs. But we can go back there.”

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