Therese Beharrie – Her Festive Flirtation (страница 3)

It gave a low meow—a warning, he thought—but he didn’t pay much attention to it. His goal now was to get back to safety.

He was already back at the front door before he realised he couldn’t let the cat go out into the smoke. And shortly afterwards he realised the same thing about himself.

He knew that the cat—which was already wriggling in his arms—would run away the second he put him down. And so, taking a deep breath—and once again rethinking all his decisions in life—Noah stuffed the cat inside his open jacket before buttoning it up.

There was some struggling—and a sharp pain as the cat’s claws stuck into his belly—but eventually the cat stilled. He looked around for something he could use to cover his face before he braved the smoke again, but instead his eyes rested on a picture that stood on the mantelpiece. A picture of all the people he’d cared about growing up.

And among all their faces, his own.

If she’d ever wanted to discover how to upset a paramedic, she’d found out that evening.

‘You have to go to the hospital.’

‘No.’

‘Ma’am—’ The woman cut herself off and hissed out a breath. ‘Look, your heart rate is still high, and one of the things that can happen with smoke inhalation is—’

‘Cardiac arrest. Yeah, I know. I watched that TV show, too.’

‘It’s not from a show.’ The paramedic wasn’t even trying to hide her annoyance now. ‘I’m a medical professional and I know that—’

Ava didn’t hear the rest of the woman’s speech. She’d stopped listening the moment she saw a man emerge from the smoke. Ignoring the now protesting woman, she stood and pushed forward.

And then stopped when she saw who the man was.

‘Noah?’

She watched as he tossed aside a cloth—no, not a cloth; the throw that had once been over her couch—and then bend over and brace himself on his knees.

‘Hey, paramedic lady!’ Ava said, turning around in panic. But the woman was way ahead of her, and brushed past Ava with the oxygen mask and tank Ava had been using minutes before.

Just as they had with her, the men rallied around Noah. Though this time, of course, it was because Noah was their colleague, and not some foolish woman who’d run into the line of fire—literally—to save a cat.

She watched helplessly as they guided Noah towards the ambulance, and then, when they were there, tried to get him out of his suit. But he shook his head and made eye contact with her.

It jolted her heart. Had the poor thing sprinting as if it were in a life-and-death race it had to win.

So, nothing’s changed in the seven years since you’ve seen him, then?

Clearing her throat—her mind—she took a step forward, her legs shaking though her strides were steady.

When she reached him, he pulled the oxygen mask from his face, coughed, and then said, ‘Are we going to have to talk about why you decided to run into a fire to rescue a cat, Avalanche?’

His words were said with a crooked half-smile, and then he began to unbutton the jacket she’d only just noticed was moving to reveal a squirming Zorro.

There had been a pause before she’d even realised it was her cat. And that pause came because she’d been distracted by the muscular chest under the white vest Noah had just uncovered.

No, she thought. It had been years since she’d seen Noah. Years since she’d even thought about the silly crush she’d had on her brother’s best friend. Or about the kisses they’d once shared.

There was no way any remnants of that crush were still there. She’d been in a five-year relationship since then. She’d almost got married.

But you didn’t get married, a voice in her head said enticingly.

So clearly, there was a way.

CHAPTER TWO

AVA REACHED OVER and pulled the cat into her arms. Noah noted the squirming stopped immediately. Go figure.

‘No one calls me Avalanche any more.’

It was exactly the kind of thing he’d expected her to say. And even though he didn’t know what to do about the nostalgia surging in his chest, he smiled.

‘You used to love it.’

‘I never loved it.’

‘Why would I keep calling you that if you didn’t love it?’

‘I’ve asked myself that question for most of my life.’

He smirked. Then heard the next words come out of his mouth before he could stop them. ‘I’ve missed you, Avalanche.’

Her eyes softened, and she reached out and placed the oxygen mask back over his nose and mouth. ‘It’s nice to see you, too, Noah—’

Her voice broke and he frowned, pulling the mask away again.

‘Has someone checked you out?’

‘I’m fine.’

‘I told her she needed to go to the hospital,’ said the paramedic he hadn’t even realised was still there. ‘But she doesn’t believe me.’

‘Why? What’s wrong?’

‘Nothing,’ Ava said with a roll of her eyes. ‘I’m fine.’

‘Elevated heart rate,’ the paramedic told him.

‘She’s at risk for cardiac arrest?’

‘I am a healthy twenty-five-year-old,’ Ava interrupted as the paramedic was about to give an answer. ‘I have a healthy heart. In fact, I had a check-up at the doctor’s last week and she confirmed it.’

Twenty-five. The last time he’d seen her she’d been eighteen. A kid, really. Not that that stopped you from treating her like a woman.

He clenched his jaw. Told himself to ignore the unwelcome voice in his head. But when his eyes moved over her—when they told him she was very much a woman now—the memories that voice evoked became a hell of a lot harder to ignore.

He shook his head. ‘Smoke inhalation is dangerous.’

‘Which is why you should be going to the hospital and not me. I was in there a fraction of the time you were.’

‘But my heart rate is okay.’ The paramedic nodded when he looked over, and he gave Ava a winning smile. ‘See?’

‘Smoke inhalation is dangerous,’ she replied thinly, with a smile of her own, though hers was remarkably more fake than his.

It made nostalgia pulse again, but memories of the way things had been before he’d left made him wonder if nostalgia was really what he was feeling.

But she was right about the smoke inhalation, and because of it—and because he knew his team wouldn’t let him work unless he got checked out—he agreed.

‘Fine. But if I’m going, you’re going, too.’

She opened her mouth, but he shot her a look and she nodded.

‘Okay. But we’re stopping at the veterinary hospital first. I need to make sure Zorro’s okay.’

The fierceness of her voice softened as she said the cat’s name, and he watched as she pressed a kiss into its fur. It stumped him—one, that she could show more affection to a cat than she could to a man she’d basically grown up with and, two, that she could show affection to that cat.

It was the ugliest cat he’d ever seen.

He assumed Ava had named him Zorro because of the black, almost mask-like patches on his face. And he supposed in some way those patches were cute. But he couldn’t say the same for the rest of the cat’s body. The orange, brown and white splotches looked as if the cat was the result of a scientific experiment gone wrong.

He’d never really been one for cats, and perhaps he was just biased against them. But, he thought, eyeing the cat again, he didn’t think so.

He would never have said the cat was ugly as he looked at Ava, though. Her brown eyes were filled with emotion—love, affection, he couldn’t quite tell—and her tall frame had relaxed.

And he realised that if he wanted her to get checked out he was going to have to agree to take the ugly cat to the veterinary hospital.

‘He’s sitting in the back.’