Expectant Father Read Online Free PDF Page A

himself, Spider grinned. He was jaded and suspicious by nature, a product of a father who’d made too many empty promises. His grin faded. He’d met the Fire Behavior Analyst before. Sooner or later, he’d figure out where and when. Until then, he wasn’t trusting her as far as he could throw her…so to speak.

    “S O YOU HAD NO WARNING ? No wind kicked up?” Carl was trying to probe the crew into saying weather had nothing to do with the dangerous situation they’d found themselves in.
    Half of the Silver Bend Hot Shots were crowded into the Medical tent. The other half had already been questioned, examined, observed by a stress counselor and released to the chow line. Becca had been smart to meet the team up on the mountain. The mood in the tent was more like that of an interrogation than a debrief, thanks mostly to Carl.
    “We noticed the wind about the time we noticed the flames were riled up,” the broad man they called Chainsaw answered. The rest of the firefighters had grown silent the more Carl questioned them.
    “So the wind did blow.” Carl nodded, scribbling something onto his notepad. “And then what happened?”
    “We ran like hell was on our heels.” Aiden stood with his arms crossed, only giving Carl half his attention. The other half kept lasering over to Becca.
    “And what do you mean by that?” Carl was persistent. Getting on everyone’s nerves, but persistent.
    Aiden pushed up his shirt sleeves with sharp movements. “I mean we had no time to stop and take a reading of the wind speed. It was as if someone flipped the toaster switch to on, and we were the toast.”
    “You’ll need to head into town for a sonogram and anX ray,” Maxine, the paramedic on duty said softly, staring at Becca over the rim of her bifocals.
    Becca avoided acknowledging the ache in her head, avoided looking at Aiden. The way he kept staring at her had her jumpy enough to want to disappear. Her gaze fell upon a woman in Aiden’s Hot Shot crew who had bright red hair and burns on her wrists.
    “I fell on my butt, Maxine, not my belly. The only thing bruised is my behind. I’ll pass on the hospital,” Becca whispered back, because other than her head, she did feel fine. That’s all she needed was a trip to the hospital during a fire. She’d be branded as weak and ineffective quicker than she could refresh her parched lips with Chapstick.
    Near enough to hear their discussion, the female Hot Shot smiled as if in approval of Becca’s decision. Becca smiled back. The two women shared something unique—both operated in a man’s world where any reminder that they were the weaker sex was unwelcome.
    “What about your head?” Maxine snapped off her gloves and put her hands on her hips, no longer quiet now.
    It hurt, but Becca would never admit it, or the way her stomach was starting to rumble with hunger.
    “It’ll take more than a bonk on a boulder to send me to the hospital in the middle of a fire.” Becca slid off the examining table—almost gracefully—and with a nod in the female Hot Shot’s direction, made to leave. “If you’ll excuse me, I need to get back to work. The evening briefing is in about ninety minutes.”
    “I’ll need to run this by Sirus,” Maxine warned, clearly not approving.
    “Of course.” Becca understood about liability and, if ordered by the Incident Commander, she’d go to the doctor.
    But until then, it was business as usual.
    “I’m off as well,” the Hot Shot with the burns on her wrists announced.
    “Not much I can do for you anyway. Doc did a good job on your bandages.” Maxine patted Doc on the back as she went to greet a man limping into the tent. “Make sure you wear those gloves properly in the future.”
    With a brief thank you to Doc for cleaning her up on the mountainside, Becca was out of there, somehow managing to exit the tent without having to look at Aiden again. Her head pounded, her back ached and her ankles were swollen. She’d gotten much