Firefighter With A Frozen Heart. Dianne Drake

they’re not drinking. Stay as long as you like.”

      It was a friendly invitation, and Jess appreciated it. But by the time he’d polished off his third cup of coffee, he was restless again. Even the noise and activity weren’t enough tonight. Problem was, he wasn’t sure what was. No point in staying here, though. Not when the night was young and someone paying for more than a cup of coffee might want his seat. So Jess dropped a generous tip in the tip jar, saluted his farewell to Will, and headed for the door. But before he got there, a shout above the crowd stopped him.

      “We’ve got a run, Jess. Grease fire in the kitchen, out at the lodge. Care to join us?”

      Jess’s heart lurched. Did he care to join them? Hell, yes, he cared. In fact, the adrenalin was already pumping.

      “May have a couple of minor casualties we have to run into the emergency room,” Will responded. “How about you being our medic on this run?”

      Hadn’t Julie said she was working Emergency tonight? Suddenly, he wanted to see her again. He wasn’t sure why, and didn’t have time to think about it as Will tossed his bartender apron to one of the waitresses and leaped over the bar. So maybe this wasn’t going to be a bad vacation, after all. At least, not this part of it.

      CHAPTER THREE

      “IS EVERYBODY out?” Will Brassard shouted across the ruckus of firefighters struggling to get through the line of bystanders watching the flames shooting out the kitchen roof. Set against the backdrop of the black night, the orange glow was an astounding work of art, mesmerizing its watchers, stalling them in place, causing congestion in the area. Also, the hundred or so patrons evacuated from the restaurant, combined with the two hundred guests at the lodge hotel and various guest cabins who were leaving by a sundry of exits, were causing quite a commotion, some in shock, some confused, some simply looking for a safe place to go. Consequently, by the time the Lilly Lake volunteer firefighters had arrived and readied their equipment to face down the fire, about a third of the population of Lilly Lake was either there, or on their way to watch the show.

      “Not yet!” one of the volunteers practically screamed at the top of her lungs. “I think we’ve got three more people still in the kitchen, doing God only knows what. Manager of the lodge says they’re trying to account for everybody registered right now, and they’ll let us know in a minute if we’ve got to worry about that.”

      “Like we have a minute,” Jess snorted. He was suited up and heading in through the cluster of people. Not thrilled, though, to be called to paramedic duty. Of course, Will probably thought he was a natural, maybe even assumed that’s what he did in the city. But it wasn’t. He shunned medicine now. Yet here he was, carting medical equipment through a crush of gawkers, getting ready to do something he didn’t want to do. Except there was no way he could turn his back on these people. No way to tell Will he wouldn’t do it. It wasn’t in him. Wasn’t like him to turn his back. Probably one of the few good character traits in him, thanks to Aunt Grace. “So, where are the injuries? And do we know what we have so far?”

      “We’ve got them in a couple of places. The less serious injuries are out back in the caretaker’s cottage,” Will shouted. “We have a couple of more serious ones going to the third guest cabin down from the pool. Decided to put them there because transport out will be easier, and we’re clearing the parking lot and road in right now for the ambulances. Got five coming in, by the way. The one from here has an ETA of less than five minutes, and the other four coming in from Jasper and Hutchings are still twenty to thirty minutes out. And, Jess … one of my men just radioed, and we’ve got what looks to be a bad injury on the way down. Burns, maybe something else cardiac. They couldn’t tell, but he’s going in and out of consciousness.”

      “Okay.” Jess took a harder grip on the medical kit Will had thrust at him once he’d climbed out of Will’s SUV. Serious injuries, one ambulance in town and the possibility of a long response time. “What about a helicopter, if we need it?”

      “We can get one, but time out on that’s going to be forty-five minutes, if we’re lucky.” Will was running hard to keep pace with Jess. “Give me the word, and I’ll get it ordered.”

      “So that’s all we’ve got in the way of transportation?” It wasn’t good enough and, frankly, he was surprised he hadn’t known the status. But what did he know about anything concerning the medical or emergency needs in Lilly Lake?

      “Well, we can get them into the hospital here pretty fast, but until the expansion on the emergency department begins, they’re limited in what they can do.”

      Which frustrated the hell out of Jess. He wanted, no, he’d always demanded immediate response and the best facilities, yet he owned a hospital that wasn’t yet ready to offer what he would demand … if he still practiced as a doctor. He needed to talk to Rafe about it, see what they could do to fix it, in a hurry. Back away from his plans to not get involved and get involved in this one thing. “But the hospital’s ready to receive, what? The less serious injuries?”

      “It’s ready to receive whatever we send them. They’re a good bunch there, and they’ll do whatever they can to get those we can’t keep out to facilities that can handle them. So, don’t worry about that end of it. It’ll work.” The voice answering wasn’t that of Will, though. It was Julie, and she was following on Jess’s heels, running just as hard toward the guest cabin as he was.

      “What are you doing here?” he shouted at her.

      “Came to help. Like I said, I’ve got everything well covered at the hospital, got staff that came back in the minute they heard about the fire, so Rick … Dr. Navarro … asked me to come out to the field and coordinate efforts here. They do that in Lilly Lake, send hospital personnel out when there’s a need.”

      A klatsch of women too busy watching to notice the rescue operation in progress swarmed over the path leading to the guest cottages, essentially swallowing up the passageway. Jess swerved to avoid them, but Julie pushed her way right through. “Look, ladies, you’re going to have to move back,” she said, stopping for a moment. “All the way to the other side of the building.”

      “Anything we can do?” one of the women asked.

      “As a matter of fact …” Julie motioned them closer to her. “We’ve got a lot of personnel coming through here now, with more on the way. Maybe you ladies could keep the area clear for me, make sure people stay back, sort of take control of the pedestrian traffic flow.”

      Jess smiled, hearing the words. She was, essentially, turning part of the problem into the solution. Smart gal. Natural leader. He admired that.

      “I didn’t know you were so resourceful,” he said, once she caught back up to him.

      “I was living on the street when Grace took me in. You get to be very resourceful when you don’t have a roof over your head or a meal in your belly.”

      Apparently, there were a lot of things about Julie he didn’t know. “I guess I never knew that either.” What, exactly, had he known about her back then, other than she’d attracted him like crazy? He thought about it for a moment, and came up with nothing.

      “Nobody knew. I didn’t want anybody’s pity, and Grace was respectful that way, not telling anyone.”

      That, she had been. And he missed her more and more each day. “She was,” he agreed, still fixed on the image of Julie being homeless. He’d been young, but how could he have not known?

      Arriving at the guest cabin where the more serious of injuries were being brought, Jess was first in the door. Greeted by several volunteers, townspeople who all stepped away when he strode in, he looked first at the log rail bed in the corner of the room where a middle-aged man was being attended by a woman still clad in her black-and-white checkered chef pants and a white jacket. She was putting cold compresses on his head, and a second appraisal showed he was the only patient in there, so far. Meaning the bad one was still en route.