Once a Father. Marie Ferrarella

be standing here now, waiting to hear how the boy was.

      Playing devil’s advocate, she asked, “Then what are you doing here?”

      His expression became unreadable. “Seeing about the boy.”

      She wanted him to say why. “You saved him.”

      He wouldn’t have put it that way. “I pulled him out of the fire.”

      Tracy was far too tired to butt heads. “That you did, Mr.—?”

      “Collins. Adam,” he added after a beat.

      Adam was surprised when she put out her hand to him and then took his when he made no move to do the same. “Tracy Walker. You wouldn’t happen to know his name, would you?”

      He’d overheard the blonde with the listing beehive hairdo, Bonnie something he recalled, say the boy’s name when she was talking to the chief.

      “Jake Anderson, I think.”

      Tracy nodded, taking in the information. “Well, no matter how you choose to put it, Collins, Jake owes his life to you.”

      The boy didn’t owe him anything. It was he who owed the boy something for pulling him out of the jaws of death only to fling him back into a life that was filled with pain.

      He nodded toward the trauma room. “What’ll happen to him?”

      Tracy assumed the firefighter was asking about treatment.

      “Fortunately, we’re prepared for his kind of case here at County General. A lot of hospitals aren’t. We’ll see to his wounds, help him heal.” At least physically, she thought. “I might be wrong, but I don’t think any skin grafts’ll be necessary, so that’s good.”

      She didn’t look as if she should be dealing with things like burnt flesh and peeling skin. He could more readily see her indulging in a game of tennis or riding horses at the club, rather than leaning over an operating table trying to graft skin over a charred body. “And then?”

      She didn’t quite understand. “Then?”

      He was thinking about the orphan part. Where did Jake go after he was released? “After you do your job and he’s well, what happens to him then?”

      She paused for a second to think. “Social services, I guess, until we can locate a relative.”

      Adam had a bad feeling about this. “And if there’s no relative?”

      “He goes into the system.” Tracy crossed her arms in front of her, trying to get a handle on what was going on in Collins’s head. “Are you usually this concerned about people you save from burning buildings?”

      Adam had never cared for being questioned or analyzed. And he’d seen the woman’s tears just before she’d withdrawn into the trauma room. “Do you usually cry over your patients?”

      Tracy saw no shame in empathizing with her patients. The way she saw it, it made her human.

      “All the time, Mr. Collins, all the time. When I can help them, when I can’t. And when I hear about a little boy who has lost the two most precious people in his life at such a young age.” She leveled her gaze at him. “What’s your excuse?”

      The woman’s very body language challenged him. Scooping up the heavy yellow jacket from the chair where he’d left it, Adam punched his arms through the sleeves and pulled it closed. “I’ve got to be going.”

      Rather than let him go, Tracy hurried after him. The man had done something sensitive, it hadn’t been her intent to chase him away.

      “Wait.” Adam stopped and turned around. Free of her surgical cap, her dark curly hair swirled around her face as she caught up to him. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to sound as if I was being combative. It’s just been one of those very long mornings, that’s all. You were being a good guy, even if you weren’t being very communicative, and I was being—” Tracy paused and then smiled as she concluded, “Me, I guess. They tell me I talk before I think. Sometimes, they’re right.”

      His eyes narrowed. “They?”

      “My friends.” Her mouth softened as an almost pixieish smile graced her face. “You did good today, Adam Collins.” And then, because something told her that the words were more applicable to him than to the child she had just worked over, she added, “And no matter how black the situation looks, it’ll get better.”

      How could she say something like that? How could she believe it? Doing what she did, day in, day out, seeing what she saw, how could she possibly pretend to believe what she’d just said?

      The look he gave her made Tracy feel as if she were being X-rayed.

      “You’re sure about that?”

      She was a firm believer in meeting darkness with sunshine. “As sure as I am that God made little green apples.”

      His expression was incredulous. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

      “I really don’t know, but I heard it somewhere and I thought it sounded nice.” She glanced at her watch. Trained pig or not, Petunia was going to start nibbling on the furniture legs any second now, if she hadn’t already. She was a good little animal, as obedient as they came, but she was a pig and pigs ate anything when they were very, very hungry. Tracy knew she’d more than exceeded her grace period with Petunia. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a pig to feed.”

      The woman was beginning to sound positively weird. “Is that some kind of an encrypted message?”

      She cocked her head, as if to review her words and think. “Not that I’m aware of.”

      “You have a farm?” That would be the logical explanation. The hospital was in the heart of town, but maybe she lived beyond the city limits and was going home.

      “No.” Her grin widened. “I have a pig. A very sweet little Vietnamese potbellied pig who’s as smart as a whip and right now, as hungry as a bear. I didn’t have time to feed her this morning and if I don’t get back to her soon, I might not have anything left in the apartment when I get home.” About to dash off, Tracy stopped abruptly as a thought occurred to her. “Do you need a lift?”

      Coming out of nowhere, her question caught him off guard. “What?”

      “You came in with the boy in an ambulance,” she recalled. “I don’t figure the paramedics hung around waiting for you all this time. Do you want a lift to your fire station?”

      He did, but he’d already decided to call a cab. Her offer, tendered so guilelessly, left him momentarily speechless. It just wasn’t rational. “You don’t even know me. Do you always give rides to strange men you don’t know?”

      She supposed if she had a choice, she would rather be too trusting than not trusting at all. “We both saved the same boy—in our own way,” she allowed. Her eyes smiled at him. They were hazel, with sunshine in them. “I know you.”

      He had no idea how to respond to that. With a shrug, Adam fell into step beside her.

      “How the hell did that bomb go off before they got inside?” Stone demanded of the short, squat head of security for the Lone Star Country Club. He towered over the older man who had once sent fear into his own heart. But that was back when he was a wet-behind-the-ears marine recruit. The tables had now turned. Now Yance Ingram reported to him. And the report wasn’t good. “I thought you said you knew what you were doing.”

      Yance tugged on the ends of his graying mustache, working to contain his anger. He wasn’t accustomed to being spoken to this way. “Don’t take that tone with me, boy. I wasn’t the one who screwed up.”

      Huffing his displeasure like a runaway locomotive, Stone circled around the offending man, one of his handpicked, chosen inner circle.

      Served him right for not seeing to it