Read Online Emergency: Parents Needed by Jessica Matthews - Free Book Online

in on such short notice didn’t sit well with him. On the flip side, though, he had Breanna to consider. It didn’t seem right for him to disappear so soon after he’d walked into her life. Already he felt the squeeze of choosing between the responsibilities of his career with those of Dee’s daughter. He suddenly developed new respect for the men who managed to juggle both, although those same men with children also had wives or partners to share the load.
    “Little Bee will be better off spending the day with your friend, the nanny,” he stated firmly.
    “She needs to grow accustomed to you before you introduce her to someone else new.”
    “In an ideal situation, yes, but we both know this isn’t ideal,” he said flatly. “Besides, who knows how long it might take for her to realize I’m one of the good guys? You said yourself we couldn’t put a timeframe on her getting acclimated to me. It could happen today and it might take months. I can’t put my life on hold indefinitely.”
    “Maybe not, but she certainly needs more than two days.”
    As he saw the frown on Maggie’s face, he conceded.“OK, I’ll talk to the Captain, but I won’t put an extra burden on the department.”
    “But you will call him?” she pressed.
    “I will,” he promised. With luck, Captain Keller would need him on duty and he could have a normal day in the middle of the chaos his life had become.
    “Great.” She headed for the hallway. “You two have fun while I take my turn in the bathroom.”
    He wanted to protest, but he couldn’t demand that she never leave him alone with Breanna. Instead, he watched her disappear, heard her feet pad down the hall until the bathroom door clicked in the distance. Fortunately, her honeysuckle fragrance remained to remind him that he wasn’t the only adult in the house.
    “OK, kid,” he said as he eyed the little girl. “It’s you and me.”
    Breanna looked at him. “Mama?”
    The hope in her voice made him feel completely inadequate. “Mama’s gone,” he said softly, reaching out to stroke her fine curls. “I’m here.”
    Apparently satisfied that he would fill the gap, at least temporarily, she raised her arms and wiggled, her signal that she wanted to be picked up.
    After a few struggles with the tray latch, he extricated her from the highchair and carried her into the living room where he held her on his lap. Immediately, she squirmed and he set her on the floor, next to the laundry basket containing her toys.
    For the next fifteen minutes he watched her as she squeezed her squeaky toys, chewed on others, and played with some contraption that made various animal noises when he pulled the string. By the time Maggie returned, he’d been so intent on watching over the little girl so she didn’t hurt herself on anything that he felt as if he’d gone ten rounds with a prizefighter.
    “How are you two doing?” she asked.
    “No blood, no bruises and no tears, so I guess we did OK.” It was ridiculous how relieved he was to see her, even though she’d only been a few feet away. How would he manage if she ever left them alone for hours? Or, worse yet, an entire day?

CHAPTER FOUR
    “M AGGIE , a word, please.”
    At Captain Keller’s command, Maggie looked up from her task of disinfecting their ambulance equipment after their last call involving a formerly spry eighty-year-old woman who’d tripped over another resident’s cane at a nearby nursing home and broken her hip. The old gal couldn’t have weighed more than her age and she’d barely made a wrinkle in their sheets, but protocol was still protocol.
    She clambered out of the back of the ambulance to find her boss waiting for her, his expression serious. “Sir,” she acknowledged cautiously. “What’s up?”
    Keller motioned her to the opposite of the ambulance where they wouldn’t be visible to anyone passing by. “Watch Joe’s back today, will you?”
    She studied her superior, surprised by his request.