Every Little Kiss (Sequoia Lake Book 2) Read online

  “We both needed a break,” Ford admitted. “And we’ll both be back on our A-game, ready for Canyon Ridge before the summer ends.”

  Harris studied him for a long, hard moment. Ford didn’t know what he was looking for, but clearly he didn’t find it, because he said, “Well then, you might want to grab your notebook. Looks like you’ve got a missing dog to sniff out.”

  Ford held up his hands in surrender. “I should have told you about the connection to the town, but if I limited jobs based on distance to past subjects, I’d be living in Alaska.” He paused. “No, wait, spent five weeks there during that avalanche.”

  “Point taken.”

  “Good, then can you drop the hazing bullshit and give me a real job?”

  “Since you’re no longer a high-mountain rescue officer, this is as real as it will get for you,” Harris pointed out. “As for the hazing, as soon as you find LuLu, I need you to pay a visit to the assisted-living home on the west side of Lake Street. Mr. Gordon in room 34 has wandered off again.”

  “Alzheimer’s?” Ford asked, because although it wasn’t the kind of search he usually headed up, at least this subject walked on two legs. “I’ll get right on it.”

  “Oh, and you might want to check the senior center. It’s casino day.”

  Ford made a note. “Is he a gambler?”

  “Nope. Bring a blanket, though,” Harris said with a tip of his hat, then headed toward his department-issued Jeep. “The last time this happened, he forgot his pants and ended up mooning the ladies. From the front.”

  CHAPTER 3

  Liv had become a pro at making lemonade out of all of the lemons life had thrown her way. But today, she was certain she’d need something much stronger.

  She’d made it through a six-car pileup that backed up the ER for most of the day, a child-neglect case that resulted in casting a four-year-old’s arm and making a call that she was sure would rip apart a family. Then spent her lunch finishing up paperwork and brainstorming how, between the hours of midnight and three a.m., Liv was to become Mercy General’s social liaison without breaking down.

  But after receiving a call from home, Carolyn explaining how Paxton had barricaded himself in his room after camp, not even coming out for one of his grandma’s famous peanut butter cookies, Liv realized how close she was to tears.

  Especially right then, with only a stubborn vending machine separating her from the last Hostess cupcake in the entire hospital. She’d checked. Which was why she’d dug up her last four quarters from the depths of her purse and put them in the machine.

  “I paid the toll, now give me my cupcake,” she said to the machine, even giving it a little shake. But the cupcake didn’t move, just sat there, all alone, stuck between the Plexiglas and the faulty release coil.

  The rational thing to do would be to inform maintenance that the machine next to urgent care was broken. They’d file a report and send someone down to fix it—in the next few hours, if she was lucky.

  Liv didn’t have a few hours. And she wasn’t feeling very rational. Nope, rational had flown out the window the moment her mother-in-law had called and Liv realized that her son needed her at home but she was stuck here at work. Normally, she’d ask to leave early. But today wasn’t a normal day.

  Not only was the hospital short-staffed, but Liv had just thrown herself into a professional ring where the competition was racking up endless hours of OT, not requesting family emergency TO. Leaving her with ten minutes left of her break and her sugar fix just out of reach.

  Which was why she enlisted her foot. A few swift kicks to the bottom corner of the machine shook the cupcake until it was dangling from the end of the coil release, but it wasn’t enough to break free.

  Liv glared at the machine, punched in the buttons again for good measure, and then stared longingly at the lonely cupcake. She shook the machine. Nothing.

  Shook it harder—still nothing.

  Dang it.

  This was going to require a more direct approach. And possibly a set of medical forceps. Which was how Liv ended up on her knees, right arm jammed into the dispenser door, the metal tongs a scant inch from the plastic wrapper of the cupcake.

  She worked quickly, hoping to finish before a patient noticed her on the floor, performing surgery on a vending machine. Given how packed urgent care was today, the odds were against her. Which meant she might have to admit defeat.

  Only Liv was tired of feeling defeated. She needed a win. Even if it was in the form of chocolate cake with marshmallow-cream filling.

  Liv quickly scanned the waiting room, nearly wrenching her arm out of the socket when she caught a glimpse of the officer standing at the nurses’ station. Dressed in a crisp pair of uniform pants, a matching shirt that had the Sequoia Elite Mountain Rescue logo on the pocket, a department-issued gun on his hip, and a set of well-toned arms that had been wrapped around her just hours earlier.

  Liv swallowed hard as he approached the counter. Because it wasn’t just any officer. It was Officer Cub Candy, and he was chatting up Nurse Brandy, a recent graduate who was finishing up her residency at Mercy General. Brandy was twenty-three, perky, and the perfect cub-size treat.

  Liv was long past perky. A mature woman who was down on all fours wearing cupcake scrubs and fighting with a vending machine.

  Ford said something cheeky, Brandy giggled, and Liv rolled her eyes. Not at Brandy, but at herself.

  With a smile that said, Hey, big guy, Brandy looked at the monitor and clicked away on the keyboard. Ford offered her up a smile and rested a casual hip against the counter—as if he had all day.

  Liv had less than a few seconds before he noticed her.

  With one last snap of the forceps, she went after the cupcake, catching the lower edge of the wrapper—and Ford’s attention, which zeroed in like a heat-seeking missile.

  One look into those intense eyes and a rush of heat lit her cheeks—and other, more concerning, places. The former wasn’t all that surprising, seeing as she was facing down an armed officer with her hand stuck in the proverbial cookie jar. The latter was as irritating as it was liberating.

  Her first reaction was to ignore him—she’d paid for the cupcake, after all—but since that was as likely as tuning out a Chippendale at a ladies’ luncheon, she ignored the tingles and gave him a cool smile. “Afternoon, Officer Jamison.”

  “Nurse Cupcake,” he said, all kinds of professional, even though his eyes were filled with warmth and amusement. The closer he came, the louder his boots clicked against the tile floor, and the faster her heart raced. “Are you okay?”

  Liv was tempted to ask him what he defined as okay, then remembered she had roughly seven minutes left of me-time and didn’t want to spend it trying to read between the lines. She’d had a day full of that.

  “Medical emergency,” she said, giving a gentle tug, which did nothing more than lodge the cupcake farther.

  He looked at the cupcake and grinned. “I can see that. Lucky for you, I’ve had extensive medical training.”

  She remembered just how skilled his hands were. Just like she remembered how he’d asked her to coffee and then gone cold the second she’d mentioned her son. “Not necessary. One more tug and I’ve got it.”

  “Why fight when all it takes is a little nudge in the right direction?” Ford said with a clarity that made him seem a decade wiser and capable of handling anything that came his way. He might look like a playboy, but Officer Jamison was a full-fledged badass who put his life on the line regularly.

  He pulled a bill from his pocket and slid it in the machine.

  “I already paid for it,” she explained, going silent when he pushed the button and the coil receded, freeing the cupcake.

  It dropped to the bottom of the machine with a small thud. Then he stuck another bill in the coffee machine. “Decaf or regular?”

  “I’m fine,” she said, pulling her arm free.

  “You were trying to pry a cupcake out of a vending machine wit
h a set of tongs. I think we passed fine.”

  Liv was so far past fine that when he offered her the cupcake and one of those smiles he seemed to give out so freely, her body quivered.

  Stupid body.

  “Thank you,” Liv said, taking the treat.

  Their fingers brushed and—wham! That quiver became a racing current of electricity that sparked.

  Liv didn’t move. Heck, she could barely breathe through the tsunami of sex-starved hormones flooding her body as if the levee had finally given way.

  Clearing her throat, Liv dusted off her knees and told herself to get a grip. He was just doing what heroes did—saving a damsel in distress. And while the idea of being a damsel had once appealed to her, she no longer needed anyone to save her. Liv was more than capable of saving herself.

  “Like I said, medical emergency.” She opened the cupcake and took a bite, moaning when the sugary goodness melted in her mouth.

  Ford’s deep brown eyes met hers and held. “Long day?”

  “The longest.” She took another bite and struck absolute heaven in the form of marshmallow-cream filling. “But nothing a cupcake can’t fix.”

  It was going to take a hell of a lot more than a cupcake to fix what was wrong with Ford.

  He hadn’t set foot in this hospital in a long time, in any place that had to do with the accident, for that matter. Not once since making the call that took Sam’s life.

  And then Paxton’s voice.

  Which had been numero uno on his list of reasons to avoid type-one searches in this area. But today it wasn’t the lingering what-ifs messing with his head. No, that honor went to the stubborn and sexy woman licking frosting off her lips. Leaving him to wonder if his attraction to her had something to do with their up-close-and-personal meeting earlier or the fact that as Sam’s widow she was off-limits.

  Ford had always had a hard time with limits. The harder the limits, the less time it took to break them. But this was a line Ford didn’t want to test.

  “Sorry,” Liv said as she licked the icing off her fingers. “I should have offered to share, but it was a whole-cupcake kind of emergency.”

  “What kind of man would stand between a woman and her medicinal sugar fix?”

  She snorted. “You’d be surprised.”

  “I’m full of surprises,” he said, and she released a startled laugh. It was a great laugh, Ford decided. Raw, unexpected, and so bright his chest lightened. Damn, she was beautiful.

  Add that to the playful smile she sent his way, and sparks ignited in places that had no business heating up. He didn’t understand what was causing the strange pull, and he wondered if it was a one-sided deal.

  “You’re full of something,” she finally said, tossing the wrapper in the trash can next to the machine, proving that, clearly, Nurse Cupcake wasn’t buying what he was selling. “What are you doing here?”

  Excellent question. One he wasn’t ready to answer. “I was dropping Mr. Gordon off—”

  “Ohmigod. You were Flash Gordoned?”

  “Flash Gordoned?”

  “Yeah, Flash Gordon is what we call him. He’s a regular,” she said. “Used to be some kind of exotic go-go dancer in Vegas back in the sixties. He usually comes in with one of the trainees, though.” She looked him up and down. “Are you a summer trainee?”

  He crossed his arms and might have flexed a little. “Do I look like a rookie to you?” Liv’s expression said she wasn’t sure. “I’m not a rookie.”

  In fact, he had a reputation for being one of the most skilled type-one SAR officers in the Sierra Nevada. Had more successful high-risk rescue cases under his belt than anyone in the country. When shit got real, guys like Harris looked to Ford for direction.

  He’d worked hundreds of rescues over the past eight years—most of them dangerous, a few of them suicide missions. Ford never gave up, never backed down, and never doubted his decisions.

  Until he was forced to sacrifice one for the safety of many. For Liv, that would be the only decision that mattered. So why did he care if she thought of him as a rookie?

  Because it did. And now that he’d met the woman whose life he’d inadvertently changed, her opinion of him mattered as much as fulfilling the promise he’d made to Sam. And wasn’t that one hell of a fubar in the making.

  “And for your information, I got stuck with Flash because I assisted in an emergency surgery and missed morning briefing,” he informed her.

  She bit her lip. “Oh.”

  “Yeah, oh.”

  “I’m sorry about making you late.” She sounded genuine, but it was hard to tell since she was still grinning over him getting stuck with Flash Gordon. “Had he gone full monty, or did you get to him before he started singing ‘Flash Gordon’?”

  “The boom box was going strong, but he was struggling with a pair of shimmery booty shorts that could double for a headband when I got there,” Ford said.

  “The gold ones?” she asked, and he closed his eyes and gagged a little. “You’re lucky it’s not Fourth of July. He brings out the Let Freedom Ring banana-hammock,” she said, and to her credit, she didn’t laugh. “You were Flashed because you were helping me.” Her elegant hand rested on his forearm. “I feel bad.”

  Bad was the last thing Ford felt. Not when her soft fingers were touching his skin, radiating through his body and waking up every nerve ending.

  “I was Flashed because Harris is a prick,” he said, taking a step closer. “And even if I’d known the consequences for missing the morning briefing, I still would have helped you.”

  “Because you like being the hero?” she asked quietly, tilting her head closer until he could smell the light floral scent of her shampoo.

  “I go where I’m needed because it’s my job,” he said, delivering the same old explanation in the same old No biggie tone he used when it came to women.

  But he had a feeling Liv wasn’t like other women. She focused on the small things other people tended to dismiss, and she was perceptive as hell. So when she silently studied him, her discerning gaze so intense, Ford felt as if she were filtering out the bits of truth he kept hidden behind the cold, hard facts.

  And when he was about to break eye contact, her lips curled slightly and she shook her head. “You picked your job because you need to be needed,” she said, but there was no judgment in her statement. Just a deep appreciation, as if she too understood the calling that drove him. That instinctive response to rush toward the fire when everyone else was running away. “Mr. Gordon is all settled, yet you’re still here.”

  And she was still touching him. “I’m here to find out how our patient fared from this morning.” His answer was light, breezy—and not what Liv was looking for.

  Sticking her hands in her pocket, she gave him an equally light and breezy smile. “He made a full recovery, just in time for the first day of superhero camp. Did I thank you?”

  “You did. Then there was the rookie comment.”

  “An honest mistake,” she said sweetly, leaning closer. And damn she smelled good. Like sunshine, frosting, and hot-woman good. “But I must admit, I’m impressed. Emergency surgery, cupcake extraction, and elderly care all in one day.”

  “Don’t forget finding Ms. Moberly’s missing maltipoo, LuLu.”

  That got a grin from her. “Is there anything you can’t do?”

  “Besides convince a pretty nurse to have a cup of coffee with me?” he asked. “I’m not all that good with open wounds.”

  She studied him from those insightful, warm caramel eyes that seemed to hide as much as they revealed. Good thing Ford’s secrets were buried too deep to be found. “Then I guess a career change into medicine isn’t in your future?”

  “I’ve been told I give a stellar sponge bath,” he teased, but she didn’t laugh. She was too busy trying to figure out what wounds he was hiding.

  “Nurse Preston to exam room six. Nurse Preston. To exam room six,” a voice came over the intercom. “Code Flash in exam room s
ix.”

  “Thanks for the cupcake,” she said.

  “What about the coffee?”

  Liv pushed the button on the coffee machine for leaded and then handed him the cup. “It’s not Shelia’s coffee, but it’ll keep you wired until midnight. And lucky for you, there are lots of pretty nurses here.”

  Feeling decidedly put in his place, he watched her scrub-clad backside disappear down the hallway, and he admitted that while that might be true, there was only one Nurse Cupcake.

  CHAPTER 4

  “I’m sure he was just testing his boundaries,” Liv said to the 120 pounds of coiffed hair and When I was a mother censure staring her down from the other side of the kitchen island.

  Carolyn Preston was as known for her generous nature as she was for her unsolicited advice. She’d give a stranger her last dollar—and then her opinion on how to fix his life. She was an expert in every field, quoted Wikipedia as if it were delivered on stone tablets, and insisted on making tuna casserole even though she knew Liv hated tuna.

  She was Paxton’s biggest advocate, Liv’s biggest critic—and back from Palm Beach for the summer. When word reached her that Liv needed a sitter, Carolyn had packed up and rented a place across town—even though Liv had offered her the guest room. Liv appreciated the help, but the self-help pamphlets, which were strategically placed throughout the house, she could do without. Saturday night, after a particularly craptastic day at the hospital, she’d reached for her secret stash of red velvet cupcakes only to find a bag of gluten-free bagel chips in their place—and an article on the deadly history of Red Dye No. 5. That morning she’d found her laundry clean and folded on her bed, with a book titled The Proper Widow’s Handbook to Grieving lying atop her black lace nightie.

  “I considered bringing the cookie to Paxton’s room, but what would that teach him?” Carolyn threw her hands in the air as if this one cookie was the difference between Paxton speaking or not.

  “It was just his first day of camp,” Liv said, hanging her bag off the back of a kitchen chair and heading straight for the fridge. “You know Pax—he has to warm up to the idea.”