A Paramedic to Tempt Her - chapter 1

“Think this run will be different than the last one?” Paramedic training taught that some patients called because they were bored, or sad, or lonely, rather than for a true medical emergency. It was expected…but Mia Laury hadn’t expected to visit the same older lady every few days for chest pain that was just her needing help getting something or wanting a chat.

“I hope it’s the same. I don’t want her to have chest pain.” Lacey, her partner, good friend and crush, sighed as Mrs. Ports’s tiny house, which was once bright blue, came into view. “But I do wish she had someone to call when she was lonely. I guess she didn’t look at the pamphlets you gave her last week.”

“Guess not.” Mia hadn’t really expected her to. Still, she had to try to deliver the handouts on local senior activities and how to deal with grief and loneliness. Who knew, maybe one day Mrs. Ports would take a look.

“It was a nice attempt.” Lacey’s hand patted her knee, then yanked back.

Heat stole up Mia’s cheeks, and she didn’t dare look at her partner. The woman was gorgeous. A petite blonde—who didn’t try to hide the fact that the color came from a salon—with bright green eyes. A laugh that filled rooms when she let it loose, which wasn’t often enough.

Lacey hopped out of the ambulance before Mia fully stopped. Even though they were both sure Mrs. Ports wasn’t having a heart attack, Lacey wouldn’t treat this as a nonemergency call until she was certain. It was one of the many things that made her an amazing paramedic.

Climbing out of the ambulance, Mia wasn’t shocked to see Mrs. Ports open her front door and wave. Some doctors believed loneliness was a chronic condition. Mia was inclined to agree.

“I need you to sit down.” Lacey’s normally gentle tone was authoritative. “You called for chest pain.”

“Oh. That passed a few minutes ago. Probably just something I ate.” Mrs. Ports laughed as she sipped from the teacup that seemed to always be in her hand.

“Please.” Mia nodded toward Lacey. “We need to be sure, ma’am.”

“You ladies are so cute.” Mrs. Ports sighed as she led them to her ancient reclining chair and sank into it. “Makes me wish I’d had a few daughters like you.”

Lacey made some encouraging noises as she unhooked the blood pressure cuff. “Your blood pressure is normal.”

“Told you. Indigestion.” Mrs. Ports looked back at Mia. “Do you want a cup of tea?”

“No, thank you. We are going to run an ECG, and if you were having chest pain, we recommend transport to Hope Hospital.”

Lacey gave the same explanation each week while Mia placed the leads for the ECG machine on Mrs. Ports’s chest.

“You girls are too good to me.” The older woman sighed as her well-worn armchair creaked as she leaned back. “How is your family, Mia?”

“Loud and noisy! But I wouldn’t have it any other way. My youngest brother is planning his wedding, and my mother is super excited to help. Thankfully my future sister-in-law loves the aid since my mother says I am nowhere near settling down. Calls me the family tumbleweed, always running to the next thing.”

A family joke that was a little too close to accurate for Mia’s comfort.

It was the same questions every week. Mia fielded Mrs. Ports’s questions on family and supplied her with tales of her brothers and their lives. The cookouts, nieces and nephews, and life with her chaotic family.

“If you need set up, there is a nice boy in the condo on the other side of the street, Jackson something or other. He is a nurse at—at—” The older lady tapped her head.

“At Hope Hospital,” Lacey supplied. “We know Jackson.”

“He’s very handsome.” Mrs. Ports made a silly hand wave over her cheek. “If I were twenty years younger.”

Lacey chuckled, then glanced at Mia. “Jackson is very nice, but he isn’t Mia’s type.”

“Really? A sexy man like that? Then what is your type?”

“Your ECG reading is fine.” Mia kept her eyes trained on the screen printout. No issue with Mrs. Ports’s heart. That was good. But she was not about to describe her “type” because the woman currently unhooking the leads fit right into it.

“She prefers blondes.” Lacey winked, then her cheeks lit up. “At least I think.”

“Oh. Blondes are fun. How is your dog, my dear?”

***

Only six weeks of “treating” Mrs. Ports’s heart condition and answering the same question repeatedly allowed Lacey to switch from her comment about Mia to her dog, Pepper. The woman loved hearing about Pepper’s antics; the bully mix was a giant sweetheart who wore sweaters that had to be specially made for the over-one-hundred-pound cutie.

Maybe Mia wouldn’t pick up on the fact that she was studiously avoiding her partner’s gaze.

Ha ha. Good one, Lacey.

Mia picked up on everything. It was what had allowed her to be on her third career at twenty-nine. The woman was a walking jack-of-all-trades. She’d run a photography business and a bakery, and now she was a paramedic. And she hadn’t even hit thirty yet.

Lacey had fallen into paramedic training because she wanted to be in the medical field, but life had led her down a path that made traditional college difficult.

At least when she was an eighteen-year-old high school failure who’d been kicked out of her parents’ house.

Now she could go to school become an RN, choose her own path, but fear that somehow she’d fail at that dream kept her from ever hitting the submit button on her applications.

Mia always wanted more, and she chased it. It was inspiring, sexy and intimidating as hell.

“I do think you should go to the ER—”

Mrs. Ports held up a hand, and Lacey knew the battle was lost. She’d called because she was lonely and probably had had heartburn.

Getting old alone was the path Lacey was pretty sure she was on. She’d cut her parents off…or rather they’d cut her off when she’d failed out of high school, something that wouldn’t be surprising if they’d paid any attention to her at all.

Her mother had reached out last year. Lacey had blocked the number. The woman threw her out and didn’t care about her whereabouts for more than a decade. She did not get to crawl back into her life now that she was settled.

“You should listen to Lacey. With chest pain, even with a clear ECG—”

“Just let me sign the paper, Mia. We have been down this road before.” Mrs. Ports held out her hand for the clipboard where Mia had attached the refusal of service paperwork.

They had to have her sign the form agreeing that they’d recommended transportation, which they always would if she complained of chest pain. But Lacey wasn’t overly worried. The pain was in Mrs. Ports’s heart, but it wasn’t anything a physician could fix.

“There are some excellent resources in the pamphlet Mia gave you.” Lacey looked to her partner and saw her looking at the water-ring-stained pamphlets on the little table next to the chair where they’d checked out Mrs. Ports.

“Tut tut.” The elderly woman waved them away. “Thank you, gals.”

Mia and Lacey nodded in unison and exited through the front door.

“At least she didn’t say see you next week, this time.” Lacey bumped Mia’s hip as they headed back to the ambulance.

The woman was hot, and she was upset that the reach-out she’d done for this patient wasn’t helping. Lacey wasn’t great at putting smiles on others’ faces, but she’d do just about anything to see Mia grin when she was down.

“We both know we will be back here next. She needs a community, not two paramedics who go through the same routine each week.” Mia let out a sigh as she slid into the driver’s seat of the ambulance.

They drove in silence back to the fire station.

When they got to the station, Mia shook herself. The woman’s ability to drop the uncomfortable feelings and move on was a skill Lacey wished she could learn.

“Sooo—” Mia leaned across the dash “—before we go in and start paperwork, I want you to know that you are right. My type is blondes.”

Heat flooded Lacey’s system. If she were wearing a heart rate monitor, it would be exploding. “Right.”

Right? Right? My crush flirts and I say, “right”?

“Want to get dinner Friday night, as a date?” Mia’s dark gaze was gorgeous.

Buzzing rang in Lacey’s ears. Mia was asking her out!

“You can say no.” Mia let out an uncomfortable laugh. “I’ve been working up the courage—”

“Working up the courage? For what?” Mia was amazing. She was a go-getter. She was perfection, and Lacey…Lacey was none of those things.

Color coated Mia’s cheeks. “To ask you out. You’re gorgeous and funny and sweet, and when you said I liked blondes I thought maybe it was a sign, but—”

“Yes.” She let out a breath. So it was possible to hold your breath without knowing it when a hot woman was asking you out. “Yes, I will go out with you.”