Page 12 of Hot Response
So there was a very small chance Cait didn’t know he’d watched her walk away. There had been noOMG, he’s Ladder 37 with my dadfrom Jeff’s daughter to her brother. And maybe Carter didn’t want his sister to know he was taking pictures of strangers—and her—and sending them to his friends to make fun of on the internet, so she might not even know the photo existed.
“I would have looked, too,” Grant said, making ayeah, I’d hit thatface toward the framed picture. “I mean check out—”
He let the words die when Gavin gave him a look, but the other guys laughed. “She’s hot. I checked out her ass. End of story.”
But it wasn’t the end of the story, of course. They didn’t miss even the slightest opening to crack a joke about pictures, asses, EMTs, markets or pretty much anything, since they didn’t even care if the jokes made sense. He did his best not to give them a reaction, but it got old fast.
It was almost a relief when the tones sounded for a second alarm and they ran for the apparatus bay.
For some reason yet to be determined, a truck’s engine had caught fire. The driver panicked and drove it into the corner of a house, and now the truckandthe house were on fire.
They got set up and waited to see if they’d be sent in now, as relief for the crews already on it, or held for the overhauling. It didn’t look too bad and he knew they’d already gotten the mother—who’d been knocked unconscious in the initial impact—out of the building, so Gavin assumed they’d go in after and poke around, making sure it was fully extinguished and no longer a hazard.
He glanced over to where they’d staged the EMS for fire standby. And, of course, it was just his luck to see Cait and her partner standing next to their ambulance in their turnout gear.
She was totally focused on the house, her profile to him. Her dark hair was pulled back into the ponytail she always seemed to wear and she had no makeup on, though he wasn’t sure if that was by choice or she just didn’t for work. Either way, he liked it. She was a beautiful woman, even if she was a pain in the ass.
“Do you think if you stare at her long enough she’ll turn around so you can check out her butt again?”
Gavin tore his gaze away from Cait and turned to scowl at Scott. “You need some new material, Kincaid.”
“I bet if we stand here long enough, you’ll give me some.”
They did end up standing around for longer than Gavin liked, especially in fucking January. But eventually the fire was knocked down and the building deemed stable enough for them to go in and make sure it was fully extinguished.
He glanced over to see if EMS was still on scene. The paramedic unit was gone but not the EMTs, and he caught Cait looking at him. Their eyes met and he wasn’t sure what to make of it, so he gave her a cocky smile, since that seemed to annoy her. Sure enough, she rolled her eyes and turned back to face her partner.
They went inside and poked and prodded at the house, looking for potential hot spots. Gavin was pulling Sheetrock upstairs to check for fire in the walls when another call came over the radio.
Possibility of a second victim in residence. The six-year-old boy got sick and was dismissed to his mother before lunch, according to the school. His name is Hunter. Current location unknown.
He froze for a few seconds, processing that information, and saw Jeff do the same at the other end of the hall. The neighbor who’d told the first crew on the scene that the mother was in the house must have seen the kids all leave for school, but not noticed the mom leaving and returning home with the boy.
“Okay,” Jeff said calmly over the radio. “Likely locations for a sick kid would be the couch, his bed, the bathroom or maybe Mom’s bed. Listen hard and check the usual hiding places.”
They called out his name, listening for even the faintest cry for help. Gavin ran down the hall, glancing into rooms until he spotted the decor of a six-year-old boy. A quick look got him nothing, and Jeff was right on his heels.
“I’ll check under the bed and in the closet. Go to the master bedroom but be careful because it’s fucked up.”
Hunter must have tried to get to his mom when the truck crashed into that corner of the house because he wasn’t in the bed. Through the lingering smoke and Sheetrock dust, Gavin saw a pale white hand sticking out from a tall, heavy bookcase. Books and smashed knick-knacks were everywhere, so as he updated the others, he had to dig to find the boy.
His head was bleeding and he was so white—even in the lips—that Gavin was afraid he was dead. He had an open compound fracture in the leg and he’d lost a lot of blood, but he had a pulse.
“I need a paramedic now,” he told the others.
* * *
The paramedic had been released to a cardiac arrest call, so Cait checked her gear and grabbed her bag. “I got this.”
They never talked about it, but Cait always took the lead when a call involved kids about the same age as Tony’s kids. He did his job, but it was tough on him and the emotional fallout worse for him if they lost a child.
“Be careful,” he said, staying behind in case she needed something from the truck.
“Always.”
Danny Walsh met her at the front door and guided her through the house to the upstairs master bedroom. It was like something from a carnival house of horrors. The floor was slanted toward the crumpled outside wall, and the ceiling was half caved in. A couple of firefighters were lifting a bookcase off her patient and she started to move, but Gavin—who was kneeling next to the boy—held up a hand.
“Let them out first. I want as few people in here as possible. It doesn’t feel solid.”
