The Rescue Doc's Christmas Miracle. Amalie Berlin

sank. Off. She hadn’t turned it on during her pre-flight checks.

      He said nothing, just turned the radio on while she started the massive rotors spinning.

      “Where are we going?” she asked, buckling in, and by the time he’d answered she was ready to lift off. That was part of why she went through the pre-flight checks—it was set up to go from nothing to flight in under a minute.

      “Is everything all right?” he asked through the comm once they were in the air. It wasn’t concern she heard so much as that hint of frustration that appeared in his voice every time things didn’t happen when he expected.

      To lie, or not to lie...

      “Can’t complain.”

      She really couldn’t, at least not right now. And complaining was something she tried to only do inside her head. Complaining about anything could still trigger her loved ones trying to rescue her, which she could appreciate on an intellectual level even if she couldn’t abide it anymore. Complaining about anything related to health? That might even bring her whole family out in full flailing fit mode, maybe even with questions about whether she was healthy enough to gestate a human life.

      The shape of the test in her thigh pocket stood out, and she prayed Dr. Notices Everything didn’t notice until she was ready to share.

      “You’re pale. Are you sick?”

      * * *

      Gabriel might not understand much about what went on inside Penny’s head but he understood her body unfortunately well, beyond just what his training had taught him about her physiological signs of distress.

      Pale face and darkness under blue eyes so bright the blackness beneath them seemed blacker. Some kind of unsteadiness in her hands. The silent call radio. No music either during her pre-flight routine, and she always listened to music when on standby. Tight-lipped when normally talkative...

      She squinted at him, then adjusted something amid the toggles and switches without answering him. Not right.

      Despite the somewhat fumbling quality her hands had taken with switches, on the controls everything went smoothly. The flight was steady, a straight line, something he could appreciate since his life depended on it, but something was wrong. And if she stayed true to form, he was going to have to shake it out of her. Later. They were already in the air, so his chance to swap out a focused pilot had gone.

      The two months since their...mistake...hadn’t been entirely easy months. The first couple of weeks had been the worst. Awkward enough that she’d barely looked him in the eye any particular day, which had been rougher than he’d have thought. But with a little willpower, and a pact of mutual amnesia, they’d worked through it and things had found a new normal, somewhat off-center from the way things had been before.

      Like when they bumped into one another changing in the locker room. She’d been wearing the same kind of simple and somehow ungodly sexy cotton things, and when she’d looked at him, he’d seen his thoughts reflected back at him. The pink that had infused every inch of her pale flesh had backed it up.

      Not embarrassed. Aroused. And unhappily so.

      Awkward.

      Now he changed in the men’s room and avoided the locker room unless he had to, or unless she’d gone home for the day. His initial plan had just been to keep everything as low-key and low-stress as he could so that she could forget. He knew he couldn’t forget, but he wasn’t as prone to impetuousness as she was—he could resist. When he found himself watching the way she tapped the end of her pen on her lower lip while filling out paperwork, he could shake himself out of it. Stop thinking about her mouth. Not give in to temptation. But that seemed harder for Penny to do, so he just tried to keep temptation from coming up.

      It had worked at first when they’d started working together and just had to ignore a spark, and it had even worked briefly in the middle of the time since their night, but a couple of weeks ago things had started getting tense again. Made no sense, and he didn’t know what to do about it. Time was supposed to take care of things like this, but their agreement not to discuss it meant he couldn’t even act as he would’ve in the past. Ask her what was wrong. Offer her an ear for her troubles. Just suss out symptoms and determine whether her oddness was physical or emotional... No easy course of action.

      If this was attached to the desire for another night, he couldn’t blame her, even if he would turn her down.

      “How long?” he asked through the comm, since he already had one patient to focus on, righting his thoughts. If she wanted his help, she’d ask for it.

      Normally he wouldn’t have to ask how long. Normally his chattering partner freely gave information during flight.

      She still didn’t look at him, but she did let go of the controls with one hand to point. “There. We’re landing on the roof next door.”

      Taciturn. Definitely something wrong. If he didn’t expect to need her paramedic skills, he’d put her on light duty for this run. But the patient they were flying to was a steel worker who’d fallen from the beams of a new construction site. Since they’d called for an ambulance rather than a coroner, all he knew for sure was that he’d need her at her best.

      “We’re bypassing the stretcher. I don’t know what the site looks like, the board is the only safe bet. Are you well enough to carry it?”

      She did look at him then, her eyes narrowing to slits. “I can do my job. I’m fine.”

      Gabriel didn’t argue with her, but he’d never heard the words “I’m fine” and had it be anything near fine. Even if she put up a fight to stay on the job anytime she was ill, she’d never looked so put out with him over asking.

      With an easy touch, she put the chopper down atop the neighboring building, and he unstrapped and went to grab bags.

      “Get the board,” he ordered, wrenching open the sliding door and hopping out to make a run for the roof access door.

      It always took her a moment longer to disembark due to having to power down the chopper. Him running ahead to the patient was part of their usual routine as every second mattered and he did whatever he could as she brought up the rear.

      He hit the stairs running, and took all eighteen stories down on foot. Waiting for the elevator always slowed them down.

      Across the lobby with a nod to Security, he bustled out the door and rounded the building. Just as he reached the construction site, the manager met him, slapped a hard hat onto his head and led the way across the dirt and gravel lot, around piles of construction material, to the concrete pad beneath steel beams, and his patient.

      No blood haloing his head, a good sign and something he’d seen enough on the job with jumpers and falls from great height. Heads didn’t stand up well to concrete, unless they didn’t hit first. The man had landed on his feet, at least briefly, and his head had probably hit last.

      Gabriel fell to the man’s side.

      Unconscious.

      Breathing fast.

      He felt for a pulse, found a rapid rate to go with the breathing.

      “How long ago was it?” He began gathering information as he fished out a penlight to check pupils. One responsive, the other fixed.

      “Less than ten minutes.”

      “How far did he fall?” Gabriel looked up again at the open beams for one that would align with the man’s location.

      “About thirty feet. That beam there.”

      Onto concrete.

      When he lowered his eyes again, he saw Penny running full tilt across the construction site—without a hard hat but with the backboard held over her head. That would help a little if someone dropped something on her.

      “Get her a hat,” he said to the manager, then went back to his patient.

      When