Page 20 of Protecting What's Mine
Kelly gave her brows a wiggle. “With a hundred bucks at stake, I’m willing to draw on a mustache.”
“A hundred bucks?” Linc mused. “Maybe I need to get in on this action.”
Hearing his voice, Sunshine lifted her head from where she’d buried it in the couch cushions, surfing for dropped food. She bolted off the couch and ran to his side.
“That dog loves you more than anything in this universe,” Zane noted wistfully. The guy was working on six months of single and was starting to make noises about wanting to meet a nice girl and settle down.
“Speaking of action and l-o-v-e,” Kelly said with a pointed look at Linc. “How was dinner with hotshot air doc?”
“It was a professional face-stuffing,” Linc said. He didn’t kiss and tell, and he certainly didn’t talk about getting shot down from kissing.
“Professional? I heard she’s sixty shades of gorgeous and you practically choked on your tongue when she popped her pretty face out of the helicopter,” Kelly said.
“I heard he threw out his shoulder begging her to give him the time of day,” Zane said, miming falling to his knees and clasping his hands.
“I’m happy to put you both on toilet scrubbing duty for the rest of the week,” Linc mused.
“Aw, chief. Why’d you do a thing like that when we’ve got ourselves a rookie?” Zane asked.
“That rookie hauled my ass out of a flaming car yesterday.”
“After you heroically saved a bouquet of flowers,” Kelly pointed out. “For what it’s worth, that would have scored points with me if I were in the market for a hotty mchotterson guy. I can make sure the pretty doc hears about your heroism, give her a nudge about what a catch you are.”
“You’re off toilet duty,” Linc decided.
Zane took a bite of bagel under Sunshine’s watchful eyes. “The chief doesn’t need our help. He’s nevernotlanded the girl.”
Linc shoved a hand through his hair. He didn’t know what this feeling was. It felt like the opposite of confidence, and he didn’t much care for it. There was something about Doc Dreamy that unsettled him. Made him doubt himself. It tightened up his glib tongue, made his flirting rusty. She was a challenge, and he didn’t have the best track record with challenges.
Sunshine, bored with the conversation and lack of treats, trotted down the hallway and into his office.
“Maybe we can get to that briefing, Wu?” Linc hinted.
She snatched a bagel off the tray on the table. “Be there in a minute,” she promised. “You want half?”
He eyed the bagel. Thought of the piece of pizza. “Nah. Thanks.”
He ambled into the chief’s office. Sunshine was perched on the dog bed, looking out the sole skinny window the room offered. Her tail swished happily across the carpet at whatever held her attention outside.
Linc flopped down in the desk chair and booted up the computer. His desk was littered with hand-written notes and papers. All waiting to be compiled neatly, concisely into his daily report, the bane of his existence.
Being chief had its perks. But the avalanche of paperwork was not one of them.
“Seriously, how are you feeling?” Kelly asked. She dropped into the chair across from him and bit into her bagel slathered with a half-inch layer of cream cheese.
“Fine,” he said, opening his email program and wincing when he saw the number of unread messages.
“Chief.” Her mom voice required an answer.
“Hurts like a son of a bitch. There. Happy?”
She smirked at him. “That my chief was injured on a call? Yeah, I’m ecstatic. Ass.”
“That’s Chief Ass to you,” he groused.
“Okay, Chief Ass, let’s catch up.”
She walked him through the night shift and the accident clean-up. Still only one fatality.
