Florida Fling with the Single Dad, page 5
“I don’t know. I can’t imagine the flights you get. I’m afraid I couldn’t keep up with the pace. I don’t know how you do it. Especially after what happened.”
The monitor alarmed and they both saw the six-beat run of SVT, but once again the man’s heart rhythm returned back to the nineties.
Katie checked his vital signs again and charted, glad to have something to keep her busy so she didn’t have to continue her conversation with Summer. It seemed her new coworker was just as open about things as Katie was normally. But this was different. She didn’t talk about what had happened with anyone except for her counselor and she only did that because she hadn’t been given a choice.
“Going in for final landing,” Jackie announced into the headsets while Summer was on a different radio station calling ahead with report that dispatch would forward to the receiving hospital.
They began preparations to unload their patient as soon as the skids touched down.
Later, Katie steered the conversation toward work as they made their way back to the Keys. Summer had only been a part of the flight crew for two years, but she had a wealth of information concerning the workings of the local hospital and the helicopter services Heli-Care provided for the community.
They were back in time to order a lunch delivery and after eating agreed that though the shift had been a cakewalk up to then, it could change at any time. It was best for them to get some rest then before the night calls began to come in. With a twenty-four-hour shift, you had to take it when you had a chance.
“How’d it go?” Dylan asked as he came out of the office and met them in the hall. “Good flight?”
“No problems,” Summer said as she headed into her assigned room for the shift.
“Katie?” he asked. “Any problems?”
“Simple pack-up and deliver flight. Our patient was stable. He probably could have gone by ground.” Was he going to question her every time she went out on a flight? “If you’re asking if I behaved myself, I can assure you that I did.”
“I wasn’t worried about you behaving yourself. I was just making sure that you didn’t need anything. It’s only your second flight in a new location. I would check on anyone who had just arrived here. Unfortunately, until Alex gets back that’s my job,” Dylan added, his lips pulled down into a grim line that she hadn’t seen on him before. It had to be stressful having to manage the crew by himself.
And here she was giving him grief because the only thing she had been concentrating on since she got here was herself. She hadn’t thought about how much Alex’s unexpected leave had burdened Dylan. As a single dad he had a lot of demands on him already, she didn’t need to make things harder for him.
“I apologize. I know you’re just doing your job. It’s just hard feeling like I’m starting over with someone constantly checking on me after being a flight nurse for almost six years.” She started opening the door to her room and his hand covered hers, its warmth calming and exciting at the same time. Her heart rate sped up, but it wasn’t from fear or anxiety. No, this was even more frightening. This was a spine-tingling sexual attraction in its purest form. She wanted to pull her hand away. She wanted to stand there with him touching her forever.
“I’m sorry. I’m just starting to get worried about Alex. He’s never been gone this long without checking in,” he said, and then his eyes met hers and locked. “That’s all it is.”
Without waiting for her to say anything, he lifted his hand and walked past her, leaving her to wonder what exactly had just happened. Had he not felt that? Did she just imagine a spark between the two of them? Was it just her own mixed-up emotions that had tricked her into thinking something had passed between them when he’d touched her? It had to be.
* * *
Dylan shut the door of the office before running his hands through his hair. Why had he touched her? He’d decided he wouldn’t let himself get caught up in his desire to protect Katie, but she brought out all of the old instincts he felt when someone he cared for needed to be comforted. Only, it wasn’t just his protectiveness causing him problems. Ever since the other night, when she’d shown up on his doorstep with her eyes sparkling with excitement over a simple white bird, he could think of nothing but her.
He’d hoped it was merely one of those small attractions that would pass. He’d get to know her, spend some more time with her, and all the excitement he felt when she was around would fade. But after touching her hand, feeling her soft skin against his rough calluses, he was afraid that it could be more than the usual male and female sexual attraction.
And he didn’t need more. He had all the stress he could handle with Violet and his job. He didn’t need to get involved with any woman, especially not one that was only passing through. One like Lilly, who would only complicate his life with feelings and desires that he knew had no future.
Not that he’d known that about Lilly until the day she had explained to him what they had was just a passing fling and that it was time for her to move on to her next great adventure.
Pulling out his phone, he tried to get Alex, but the phone went to voice mail again. Whatever was going on with his friend, it was keeping him busy.
Which reminded Dylan of all the things he needed to get done himself before he left to pick up Violet from her after-school care.
Turning on his computer, he started work on the monthly reports that needed to be filed with the corporate office. But no matter how he tried to focus on the screen in front of him, his mind kept wandering back to Katie.
He picked up his phone.
Are you sleeping?
He only had to wait a few seconds for her response.
No, why?
He tried to think of an excuse for disturbing her, then remembered his conversation with his daughter than morning.
Violet asked this morning if she could come over tomorrow after school.
Sure.
Okay, I’ll let her know.
He forced himself to set the phone down on the desk then grabbed it up as soon as it dinged with a new message.
I’m sorry I gave you a hard time. It’s just hard feeling as if there is someone hovering over you all the time.
What do you mean?
You can’t deny that if it wasn’t for me having been shot that you wouldn’t be checking up on me. Everyone acts like I’m a different person after the shooting. My home crew, my family, everyone acts like I could have a breakdown at any point. I’m not made of glass. I worked hard to get back up in the air. I’m a good flight nurse.
He stared at the screen while he tried to figure out the best way to respond to her text. He could take her side. Agree that she should be treated as she had been before. Or he could play the devil’s advocate and give her the opportunity to open up more.
But doesn’t everything that happens to us change us in some way? Having Violet come into my life has changed me in ways I never imagined.
But that was a good change. You didn’t mind changing because you love your daughter. It’s not the same. No one acts like you can’t handle yourself because you’re a single father now? Not that it isn’t hard. It has to be.
So you’re saying you haven’t changed at all? Or are you saying you don’t like the changes?
When she didn’t respond, he put his phone down. He hadn’t meant to take their conversation into such murky waters. Hopefully he hadn’t scared her away with his questions, because his instincts were telling him that she needed to talk to someone. And as a paramedic, he’d bet money on his instincts every time.
CHAPTER FIVE
THE ONLY REASON Katie had agreed to come to the party was because she knew if she didn’t show up, Dylan would want to know why, which would just lead to more questions she didn’t want to deal with. Now looking at the crowd of people that were there, she considered disappearing back over to her own cottage and locking the doors.
Almost the whole Key West flight crew, along with other local emergency responders, had turned out. Dylan’s deck, much bigger than the one at her cottage, was overflowing with men and women, some still dressed in uniforms from jobs they’d just left.
In the middle of the deck two large pots were being heated on top of open flames where she had just been told several pounds of shrimp and crabs would soon be boiling.
She’d managed to keep to the edge of the crowd so far, not daring to chance any reaction she might have if she suddenly felt penned by the large and rowdy group.
“It can be a bit much, can’t it?” said Jo, a flight nurse from the Key West crew, who had joined Katie the moment she’d walked through the back gate. “I mean, the amount of testosterone at these cookouts can be over-the-top. Take that clown over there.”
Jo pointed to a man who had rolled up his shirtsleeves to show all the other men his “guns.”
“He’s one of the flight crew I met at shift change last week. Casey, right? Boyfriend?” Katie asked.
“Casey, also known as ‘Casanova’ Johnson. He’s my best friend, not my boyfriend,” Jo said.
But Katie noticed that the young woman’s eyes lingered on her handsome friend a little more than she would have considered just friendly.
“I grew up with four brothers. That,” Katie said, as they both looked on where a bunch of grown men were arguing over a game of cornhole, “was my life when I was growing up.”
“You poor thing. And still you made it out alive.” Jo shook her head at the scene where the men were now making wagers on what had been a friendly game.
“It wasn’t so bad. I learned a lot from them. And I never had to worry about the bully at school.” Katie counted herself lucky to have such supportive brothers, even though she hadn’t leveled with them on how messed up her mind was before she’d left town.
“Hey, Katie. Hey, Jo,” Violet greeted them.
It surprised Katie to see how Dylan’s daughter seemed to gravitate to the adults at the party, though there were some other children playing in a side yard away from the hot boiling pots. She’d spent a lot of time with the little girl after school in the last week and Violet acted a bit more mature than what Katie would have expected from a child her age. And questions. The child was so full of them.
“What’s new, Miss Violet?” Jo said.
“Not much. I checked out another book on birds from the library yesterday, but you weren’t home, Katie. Want to come inside and see it?”
“Sure,” Katie said. She gladly excused herself from the noisy crowd. Violet led her into a house whose layout was very much like her own rental. The rooms had been enlarged and the colors were much brighter, something she was sure could be attributed to Violet’s influence, but it was basically the same layout.
“My room is this way,” Violet said, leading her down the hallway and into a room of rose pink where the little girl climbed up on the bed and opened a large book. “See, there’s more pictures in this book than the other one.”
Sitting down beside the little girl, Katie studied the picture of a majestic white bird with long black legs and a bright yellow beak then read the name listed at the bottom of the page. “It’s a lovely painting. I’m hoping to finish some of my own paintings before I go home.”
Katie had shared some of her sketches and paintings with the little girl on her almost daily visits after school.
“Daddy says that there are a lot of birds here because they like the sun and the sand, just like him. He knows a lot of things about the islands. He says it’s because he’s lived here all his life,” Violet said as she turned the pages of the book to another bird. “Have you lived in New York all your life?”
“All of my life. I even lived in the same house until I got out of college and started working in my first hospital,” Katie told the little girl. “How about you?”
“We lived in all kinds of places before my momma brought me here to meet my daddy. Once we even lived in this school bus that a friend of hers had fixed up.” The little girl jumped down off her bed and went into her closet, coming out seconds later with a large shoebox. “Momma left these with me so that I could remember all the places we went together.”
As the little girl pulled out maps and brochures, postcards and pictures, it became obvious to Katie that during Violet’s short life she had traveled all across the country. From the number of locations Violet said she had lived she couldn’t have been in any one place for more than a few months. What had that been like for the little girl? Always moving. Never settling down long enough to make friends.
And now she was here in a different world without her mother.
Yet somehow, the little girl seemed to be taking all the changes in her life well. Wouldn’t it be nice to be as adaptable as a child?
“I wondered where you two were. The food’s ready.” Dylan’s voice came from the doorway.
Looking up from a picture Violet was showing her of a beach in California where the little girl spent her sixth birthday, Katie was struck once again by the fact that Dylan Maddox was the most striking man she had ever seen. Dressed in casual shorts and a button-up shirt, she couldn’t look away if she wanted to.
How was it that some woman hadn’t grabbed this man up by now? Or maybe they had. She didn’t really know much about his past or what part Violet’s mother had played in it.
“Violet has been showing me some memorabilia of her adventures,” Katie said, sitting up on the bed where she and Violet had been lounging. “She’s very well-traveled. I think she’s been in more states than I have.”
“I know. Everyone says that,” Violet said, as she jumped off her bed and headed out the door.
Katie followed her and paused in the hall, where Dylan was waiting. “Nice party.”
“Thanks. It’s good to get the group together. We all work so closely and a lot of us grew up together,” Dylan said as he followed her down the hallway.
“Violet says you’ve lived in the Keys all your life. Do your parents live close by?” she asked, then realized she sounded like his daughter. The little girl’s inquisitiveness was rubbing off on her. Or was it just that she was curious about Dylan?
“I grew up in Islamorada on a houseboat in a marina my parents owned,” Dylan said.
“A houseboat? You lived in the water?” She couldn’t imagine it.
“It was a perfectly fine boat. I had a loft bedroom until I was in middle school when my mother insisted that my father build a house beside the marina. They still live there, though if my dad had his way they’d be back on the houseboat.”
“You and Violet have lived such adventurous lives,” she said as he started to open one of the French doors leading out onto the balcony.
“Violet had more than enough adventure by the time I found out about her,” Dylan muttered as he stopped in front of the door.
“What do you mean, when you found out about her? You didn’t know you had a daughter?”
“Not until her mother showed up with her. She never told me she was pregnant. I think she panicked when she found out she was having Violet. I think she thought I would hold her here if I knew about the baby. One night I came home and she was packed up and on her way out the door. I don’t know if I would have ever heard from her again if it hadn’t been for Violet.”
She could see the pain in his eyes as he spoke about his past, but she didn’t know if it was because of the time he’d lost with his daughter or the way he’d been treated by Violet’s mother.
“Violet was getting too old to be dragged from school to school. She’s a smart child and even at eight she knew that she needed to attend a school on a regular basis. That’s hard to do when your mother can’t seem to stay in the same place more than four months at a time.”
She didn’t hear the bitterness she would have expected toward his ex. Could it be that he still had feelings for Violet’s mother? Or maybe he’d just accepted the past and moved on?
She found herself wanting to know the answer to those questions.
“Violet’s very lucky that she made it back to you. You’re doing a great job with her. I would never have known she’d been in and out of different schools from the way she was reading that book on birds to me.”
“She’s been the center of my world since she moved here. I wish I could have been there when she was born, but... I can’t undo that,” Dylan said as he went back to opening the door then stopped again. “What I’ve never understood is why Lilly thought that I would make her stay somewhere she didn’t want to be. I’d never do that to a woman.”
“Of course you wouldn’t,” Katie said as they stepped out into the crowd, though it was the last thing she wanted to do. She had forgotten about all the other people being here while she’d been talking to Violet and then Dylan.
For the rest of the evening, she made excuses for going in and out of the house as she carried out drinks and gathered up trash. At other times, she’d wander off into the garden and pretend to be studying the bright blooms if someone came too close.
Since she didn’t have the drive home that the other guests did, she offered to stay and help clean up. She’d learned several things as the night continued, besides all the ways to avoid a crowd of people. One, crab boils were messy and delicious, and two, the group of hardworking emergency responders were all loud and competitive, much like the men and women she was used to working with in NYC.
The quiet that descended after the last guest left was very welcomed. Violet had been put to bed earlier in the night, leaving Katie alone with Dylan.
“This is the last of it,” she said as she walked into the house where they had been loading the dishwasher with utensils and serving plates.
“Thanks for staying to help,” Dylan said.
“Just trying to make points with my boss,” Katie teased, knowing that the man hated to be referred to as anyone’s boss.
