Moving Forward, page 22
She smiled at him gratefully. Then, unable to help herself, she added, “Promise to stay near? I mean, will you come back in when Dr. Gonzales leaves?”
“Yep. I’m not going anywhere.”
When the door closed behind Greg, Dr. Gonzales lifted her wrist to feel her pulse. “That man’s a keeper.”
“I think so, too.”
Still holding her wrist, he looked at the monitor, then punched a couple of buttons to read her chart. Next, he put the stethoscope to his ears and listened to her heart and lungs.
She did as he asked, breathing, coughing, shifting so he could listen to her lungs from the back as well.
At last, he helped her lean back against the pillows and helped rearrange the covers over her.
“What do you think?” she asked.
“I think your heart is doing better.” He wrote a couple of notes in her chart. “I’m going to let you leave tomorrow morning.”
“That’s great news.”
“I’m pleased you’ve recovered so well.”
“I wonder what’s wrong with my eyes, then. I shouldn’t be crying so much, right?”
He smiled softly. “Dear, it’s my medical opinion that you’ve got a common ailment that’s causing those tears.”
“What?”
“I believe you’re in love.”
She was so startled, she started laughing. “Come on.”
“I’m serious. All the signs are there.” Playfully, he wagged a finger at her. “And take it from me, I know what I’m talking about. I deal with hearts all day long.”
He was being silly but he’d certainly helped her feel better. “You really are the best doctor in the world.”
“You come see me in the office in two weeks. But I’m warning you now that I’m not going to be as nice if you aren’t following my orders.”
“Understood.”
“Good. I’m going to send your man in now.”
When Greg came in, he looked worried—and slightly confused. “Your doctor just shook my hand and said that it was good to meet me. Do you think that’s weird?”
“Not at all. He knows you’re special to me.”
Sitting back down beside her, his gaze warmed. “He does, huh? I wonder how he knew that.”
Not even caring that her face was likely turning pink, she said, “I think it’s pretty obvious to everyone that you mean a lot to me, Greg. A whole lot.”
“I feel the same way about you.” He leaned over and pressed his lips to hers. “I’m glad we got everything sorted and out in the open.”
“Me, too.” She reached for his hand and smiled.
When he sat back down, his brown eyes were so full of love they took her breath away. He was everything she’d ever wanted.
She just wished that she was the woman he’d always wanted. When he found out the whole truth about her health, she feared she was going to lose him.
Just like Clark.
Chapter 29
Now that she’d made the decision to become a firefighter, Jen’s life had gotten even busier. The first thing she’d done after speaking to the chief was talk to Emme and Bill and Brittany about everything she was going to need to do. The fire chief and Samantha had recommended some night classes to help her learn all the material in the manual. The chief had also handed her a pamphlet outlining the basic physical qualifications she was going to need in order to pass the physical exams.
Both Bill and Emme suggested that she work no more than fifteen or twenty hours at Werner’s Garden Center. So, she’d also had to speak to Kristen there.
In the middle of all of that, Bill had come over to help her talk with their mom about her plans. Emme had volunteered to come, too, but the three of them had decided that their mother would take Jen’s news about firefighting—and moving in with Bill and Brittany—better if all three of them weren’t there.
They were wrong. Their mother had cried, argued, and yelled at Jen, calling her all sorts of names. Jen had ended up going into her room and packing as much as she could into two suitcases. Devastated by how upset their mother had been, she’d cried the whole way to Bill’s.
When they got to his house, Bill hugged her tight. After they filled Emme in, she promised to check on Mom daily.
It rattled her, but within a week, she was starting to be at peace with her choices, especially since she’d also been talking to Ryan about it all.
At the moment, however, Jen was beginning to wonder if she’d upended her whole life for nothing. From the moment she’d arrived at the firehouse at seven that morning, Jen felt like she’d been doing everything wrong.
Maybe because she had been.
Brittany had insisted Jen do the driving from their house to the fire station. Along the way, she’d had to do a tricky left-hand turn and had gotten rattled. By the time she’d finally turned, the car behind her was honking angrily.
At Brittany’s suggestion, she turned into a church parking lot to get herself under control, and then to get back behind the wheel again.
All of which meant Jen had walked into the station five minutes late, which had been noted.
And then she hadn’t remembered how Dave Oringer wanted her to fold the towels in the laundry area. Or the answer to his questions about grass fires. Or what to do first when someone was choking.
She’d ended up feeling like the worst candidate they’d ever had.
Dave hadn’t been shy in making it clear that he felt the same way. “I don’t want her going on any calls today,” he announced the moment the captain had ended the day’s meeting and gone back to his office.
“It’s standard for recruits to ride along,” Mark said.
“You can have her, then. I don’t want her with me.”
Sam frowned. “She won’t be doing anything. All she’s allowed to do is observe.”
“I know. I still don’t want her.”
“Why?” Mark asked, all while Jen was standing there, feeling invisible.
Dave shrugged. “Does it matter?”
“Uh, yeah.” Sam looked at Chip and Mark. “Do all of you feel the same way?”
“No,” Chip said. He smiled sympathetically at Jen. “She’s young but she tries hard. Besides, we all have to start somewhere, right?” He winked at Jen. “Plus, you helped me with all those dinner dishes the other night. That was awesome.”
Jen smiled at him before looking away.
“Oringer, I’m sorry, but I don’t agree with you, either,” Mark added. “Yesterday she ran a nine-minute mile. She’s on the right track.”
“There’s more to this job than running a mile,” Dave said.
“I know.” Mark folded his arms over his chest. “But Chip’s right. The girl is working hard and getting better every day.” He grinned at her. “She’s getting stronger, too.”
Jen cast him a grateful smile.
“So, it looks like that’s three out of four of us who are okay with Jennifer,” Sam said. “What’s the problem, Dave?” Sam asked.
Dave shot Jen another look, causing her to practically shrink in front of him. “I don’t need to have a reason, Carter. I’m driving the rig, so I’m making the call. When the bell rings, the girl is staying.”
Though Chip and Mark didn’t look happy, they remained silent.
Sam did not. “Dave, you’re being ridiculous. You know she’s not going to get in the way or put anyone in harm’s way. What’s the problem? Do you not want another woman on the squad?”
“Things happen, and I don’t wanna have to worry about some girl either making a mistake or getting caught in the fray.”
“I’d understand if it was like last year, when we were out fighting that brush fire for days. But we both know the likelihood of that reoccurring is slim.”
“It doesn’t matter. I’ve made the call.” He glared at Jen. “No hard feelings, kid. Right?”
Jen nodded, though she felt stupid about it because of course she did have hard feelings. How could she not? It took effort, but she didn’t let her lip tremble. No way was she going to give everyone a reason to say she couldn’t handle criticism.
Dave raised an eyebrow at Sam before walking outside to the bays.
“I’m sorry about Oringer,” Sam said. “He must have woken up on the wrong side of the bed or something.”
That was unlikely, since it was obvious that she’d done things he didn’t like. Or he just didn’t like her.
But she wasn’t going to say that out loud. “Yeah,” she mumbled.
Chip placed a hand on her arm. “Jen, listen, I’m sorry about that, but don’t let him get you down. Don’t take him personally, okay? I know he’s being a jerk, but I don’t think it’s you. It’s probably just something going on at home. You learn real quick that as much as you try to keep home stuff at home and work stuff here, one or the other bleeds through. It’s inevitable.”
Jen nodded again. “I’m going to practice pulling hoses. Is that okay?”
“Yep. Go for it.”
“I’ll be out in a minute,” Sam said.
After Sam walked inside, Jen released her breath. She walked to the oldest truck. It was rarely used, so her practicing wouldn’t interfere if the bells rang.
A good fire department candidate could pull fifty to a hundred feet of hose in about a minute. She liked to think she was strong, but she was vertically challenged, which meant that she had to use a different set of arm muscles to pull the first section of hose down.
Most everyone else in the fire department was nice and seemed to have her back.
Even some of the scary guys, like Mark Oldum, had given her a hand when she was trying to scale the wall in the obstacle course. Others had been more standoffish but warmed up when they realized she was tougher than she looked. Yesterday, Mick had invited Jen to sit with him at lunch.
So, it seemed like she was making strides. With everyone but Dave. There was no doubt about it. Dave didn’t like her. He left her his dishes to wash, he got on her if she ever was just sitting, telling her to clean or do the laundry or to go back out to the bays and ask how she could help.
But the way he’d just made his opinion about her known—and the way no one but Sam had come right out and said he was wrong—hurt. Going up on the first metal step of the truck, she grabbed a nozzle with one hand and a loop with the other. Holding them securely, she hopped down and started walking, but immediately hit a snag.
Her frustration grew as she realized that barely a foot had released. She yanked again, but it felt like the hose was purposely trying to make her life difficult. Or someone hadn’t put it in properly and it was now—as Greg liked to call it—a spaghetti nightmare.
Had she rolled it up wrong?
Tears filled her eyes. Which, of course, made her even more frustrated and upset with herself. She shook her head and dug deep. She had survived her father dying and her mother going off the rails. She could handle a knotted-up hose.
She tugged again. It didn’t budge.
Knowing there was nothing to do but lift the entire hose out and reroll it, she hopped back on the step. Unfortunately, she couldn’t seem to grasp the hose properly.
She felt like stomping her foot. Why couldn’t she do this? Why did her arms hurt so much? Was it all just because she was too short? If that was the case, she was never going to be able to pull the hoses well enough to be a firefighter. If she couldn’t do this, she wasn’t going to be able to do all the really difficult things, like carry someone out of a burning building or fight a forest fire for hours or even days at a time.
She’d been an idiot to think she could.
Maybe it really was all too much. Learning how to yield on left turns. Her father’s death. Her mother’s drinking and depression. Graduating. Falling in love with Ryan—all while realizing he was about to be living on a campus over an hour away. He was moving on, and she didn’t blame him one bit.
Despite her best efforts, the tears started to fall. And then it was like a dam breaking. She started crying hard, then harder, until she was sitting on the cement floor of the garage bays and crying like she hadn’t since she learned her father had died.
“Hey. Hey, now.”
Startled, Jen glanced up. And then felt even worse, which she hadn’t thought was possible. Greg Tebo had found her. Which, unfortunately, had just made everything even worse. She swiped a hand over her face and attempted to scramble to her feet. “Sorry.”
He stilled her with a hand. “Settle down, Jen. I’m not upset and you shouldn’t be embarrassed. Sit back down.”
She did as he asked, mainly because she didn’t know what to do if she did stand up. Where would she go?
To her surprise, he sat down beside her and rested his arms on his knees. “Mark told me about Dave. I would’ve been surprised if you didn’t start crying.”
“I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”
“No offense, but it’s kind of obvious what is.” When she raised an eyebrow, he continued. “You just graduated high school, you’ve got a part-time job that’s sometimes stressful, your boss was in the hospital, and now one of the guys here is acting like an idiot.”
“You can’t say that!”
“Sure I can. I mean, it’s true, right?”
“Kind of.”
“You’re trying something new that isn’t easy for anyone and your whole body hurts. And I know this because mine hurt when I was training to pass my physical—and I’d been in the freaking army!”
“Really?”
“Absolutely.”
“I am sore,” she admitted.
He lowered his voice. “Plus, not to overstep, but Kristen let it slip that there’s a chance you might be dealing with some crappy stuff at home. Yeah?”
“I didn’t know she remembered me telling her.”
“Kristen cares about you. She told me that your mom isn’t doing well. And no, we weren’t sitting around gossiping about you. Kristen was sharing with me how guilty she felt because you had to do so much at the garden center.”
“She shouldn’t feel guilty. Kristen can’t help getting sick.”
“No, she sure can’t,” Greg replied. “But Kristen might have told me about you for a reason.” When Jen met his eyes again, he continued in a soft tone. “Kristen knew I would understand some of what you were going through, because my dad died, too.”
“Has he been gone a long time?”
“About ten years.”
“I’m sorry.”
He shrugged. “Me, too. I still miss him.”
Jen knew she could either brush off this moment or take a chance and let down her guard a little bit more. “Did your mother fall apart after your dad died?”
“No. At least, I don’t think she did.”
“Oh.”
“But things were a little different for her. I’ve got a slew of brothers and sisters. She had her hands full with all of us.”
“If you have sisters, I guess you’re used to girls crying from time to time?”
“Yep, though if you ever tell one of them that, I’ll deny it. They like to remind me that they’re smarter—and stronger—than I ever was.”
She smiled. “I find that hard to believe.” He was way over six feet and had muscles on top of muscles.
“They might not be able to bench-press as much weight as me, but they are strong as all get-out.” He pressed the center of his chest. “They’re strong in here, Jen. Just like Kristen is. And just like you.”
“I don’t know about that. I just lost it in the middle of a fire station garage because of a stupid hose.” She winced. “Sam is going to be so disappointed. She’s been standing up for me and now I’ve just shown her that Dave was right. I shouldn’t be here.”
“Honey, I don’t know why Dave is so determined not to work with you. But I don’t think for a moment you shouldn’t be here. And, as far as Sam is concerned, she’s still fired up about Dave. When she saw you struggling with the hose, she was going to come out here to give you a hand, but I asked her if I could talk to you instead.”
“Because of Kristen?”
“Yeah. And because I have little sisters. And because when I went off to boot camp I was sure I was going to sail through it, since I was used to playing sports and being pushed myself. But one day, about three weeks in, I started bawling.”
“What happened?”
“A sergeant told me to accept that I was fallible. I wasn’t perfect and it was wrong of me to imagine that I was.”
“Did it help?”
Greg’s eyes lit up. “Honestly?”
She nodded.
“Nope. Not right then, anyway. But it did later.” He pulled up his long legs and rested his elbows on his knees. “I’m no Sergeant Velasquez, but maybe something I said helped? Or, at the very least . . . maybe you know that you aren’t alone here? I’ve got your six, Jen.”
“Thank you.”
He stood up and held out a hand to help her up. “Now, what’s gotten you and these hoses in such a tizzy?”
“They’re tangled in a spaghetti nightmare. I’m worried I didn’t roll them back properly.”
“Maybe you did. Maybe you didn’t. Just fix them, yeah?”
“Yes. But, um, I also can’t seem to pull them out fast enough. I don’t know why.”
“Speed counts, but making sure the hose is free of kinks matters more. First, show me how to roll them properly.”
“Fast?”
“No. Don’t worry about the speed. Or anyone else here. Just focus on one thing at a time. Worry about the task you are asked to do. That’s it.”
Taking a deep breath, she rolled the hoses up carefully like Sam and Greg had shown her the other day.
“Good,” he said as he deposited them easily back in the truck. “Now, show me what you’ve got.”
Pulling her gloves back on, she glanced at the clock, mentally preparing herself to go faster than she had so far.
