Page 1 of Hot Response
Chapter One
“Change of plans, boys,” Rick Gullotti announced from the shotgun seat of Ladder 37.
Gavin Boudreau sighed and kissed his plans for a sandwich stacked with about three inches of deli meats goodbye as the siren started wailing again. They’d just finished an overhaul, making sure there were no hot spots that might flare up again, and he was starving.
“PD’s requested possible medical assistance and EMS doesn’t have an available truck yet. We’re closest, so we win,” Gullotti continued because they’d been talking sports and he figured they hadn’t been paying attention to the radio. And he was right.
“Possible medical assistance?” Jeff Porter looked at Gavin and shook his head. “They don’t even know if they need help yet?”
“A woman screaming somewhere in the building is all they know, although a second caller reports there is a very pregnant woman who lives on the third floor and it sounds more like pain screaming than fear screaming.”
Chris Eriksson, who did the driving, pulled to the curb while the LT was talking, coming to a stop behind Engine 59. There were several cruisers there already, and Gavin could see a couple of officers standing in front of the building. The firefighters gathered, looking for an update, and Gavin rolled his eyes at Grant Cutter, who looked as annoyed by this lunch delay as he was. They were the two youngest guys in the three-story brick fire station that housed L-37 and E-59 so, even though they hadn’t known each other before they landed assignments there, they’d become the best of friends. They’d gotten pretty good at nonverbal communication.
They were held up at the front door until more information came through and the reason for the screaming was confirmed. Police officers had located a woman in labor in the hallway on the third floor and she wasnothappy about this detour in her birthing plan.
Gavin hustled up the stairs, the other guys on his heels—though some were closer than others. If they could get her down to the ground floor by the time EMS arrived, it increased her chances of giving birth in the hospital. Or at least in the ambulance, which wasn’t ideal but was better than having her baby delivered on a floor by firefighters.
He reached the top of the stairs first, with Grant right behind him. Aidan Hunt and Scott Kincaid from E-59 were right there, too, but Gavin had the most advanced and recent first aid training, so he took the lead.
The police officer who had been talking to the woman stood as the firefighters approached, the relief so plain on his face it would have been comical under other circumstances. “Her name’s Kelly. She wants us to take her to the hospital, but she can’t move and she refuses to let us help her up.”
The officer was young, and Gavin assumed he was still pretty fresh if he hadn’t yet figured out that sometimes you couldn’t let the terrified people in pain be the ones in charge. You couldn’t make them do anything they didn’t want to do, but there were ways of being persuasive and exuding calm and confidence helped.
Ignoring him, Gavin dumped his coat on the floor before kneeling next to the woman and taking her hand in his, giving it a squeeze. She looked at him, her eyes wide with fear and pain, and he gave her a warm smile. “My name’s Gavin and I’m with the fire department.”
“I should have...more time.” She could barely get the words out through panicked breaths. “First babies are supposed to take forever. My husband. He’s at work and...it’ll take him almost an hour to get to the hospital.”
He wasn’t going to make it to the hospital in time.Sheprobably wasn’t even going to make it to the hospital in time, but he wasn’t going to tell her that right now. He didn’t need a cuff to tell him her blood pressure was jacked up, and that wasn’t good for her or for the baby.
“I need you to calm down for me, Kelly.”
“Calm down? I canfeelthis baby. I’m going to have my baby in this stupid, ugly hallway.”
“You can feel the baby? Try to describe exactly how that feels right now.” He felt like an idiot saying it, but feeling the baby could mean she felt increased pressure, or it might mean she literally felt the baby exiting the birth canal and that made everything a lot more urgent.
“Like if I stop clenching my muscles, a bowling ball will fall out of me.”
“Okay, so the good news is that means the baby’s probably still in there, but probably not for much longer.”
Her fingers biting into his arm so hard he expected her nails to perforate his skin gave him a few seconds’ heads-up before she wailed again. Gavin winced against the sound and the grip on his arm, wishing he’d kept the thick turnout coat on, but he did his best to keep his voice comforting and calm as he gave her breathing instructions she either couldn’t hear or couldn’t follow.
When the contraction passed, he led with the important stuff. How far along she was. No gestational diabetes. No preeclampsia, or any other complications anticipated by her doctor.
Then another contraction hit her and by the timing and the severity, he knew they were pretty much out of time. Kelly was probably having this baby on the hallway floor, and he needed to make sure things looked copacetic down below.
The wailing stopped, but the grip on his arm didn’t loosen. “I need to push.”
“Pant through it anddo not push.” When she tried to look away, he moved his head to keep his face in her line of vision. “I need to look and see what’s going on first. If it’s time, then you’ll push. But we don’t want to push before the little one’s ready.”
“No,” she said, shaking her head. “I donotwant a hot guy seeing my vagina like this.”
He knew it would only be a matter of minutes before she didn’t care if her vagina went viral on the internet as long as the baby came out. “I could put out a call for an ugly firefighter to assist and see who shows up.”
“Oh!” Scott Kincaid snapped his fingers. “That guy from Haz Mat. What’s his name? You know, the one who looks like he did the Snapchat face-switch thing with an English mastiff.”
Kelly actually managed a smile, which Gavin took as a good sign. The smile was a little pinched and he could tell by her eyes she was still in a lot of pain, but at least she wasn’t in a full-blown panic anymore.
“I don’t think we can wait anymore, Kelly.”
