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

will.” Yet, as she went back to work, she knew she’d only been lying to her captain. Helping Joe wasn’t the same as helping her family because her thoughts concerning her partner weren’t brotherly at all. His kisses were too potent to even remotely put him in the same category.
    As she returned to her task, two more firemen, Gary Shepherd and Jim Bowman, affectionately known as Shep and Jimbo, stuck their heads in the back of the ambulance. “Yo, Maggie. Do you have a minute?”
    She paused once again. “Only until Joe gets back.”
    “He’ll be a while. The lieutenant has him looking up some report.”
    “Then what can I do for you?”
    “Is the story true? He’s got a kid?” Jimbo asked.
    “Who told you?”
    “No one. We overheard him talking to the Captain.”
    Maggie chose to carefully edit Joe’s story. If he wanted to give specifics and more details, he could do it himself.
    “He does,” she agreed as she sprayed, then wiped down the gurney railings. “Remember the lady whose car slid into the tree? She was a friend of Joe’s. Being a single mom, she’d appointed Joe as her daughter’s legal guardian if anything ever happened to her.”
    “So now he’s a daddy.” Shep shook his head. “Man, oh, man. Poor dude. I know how petrified I was with our first one and I had nine months to get used to the idea before we brought her home. It has to be worse for Joe, being a single guy and all.”
    Jimbo nodded. “It’ll definitely cramp his style.”
    Maggie concentrated on cleaning the stainless-steel surfaces. She wouldn’t ruin Joe’s reputation as a ladies’ man. If he wanted to admit he spent most evenings alone, that was his secret to divulge, not hers.
    “Nah, it won’t,” Shep said, sounding like the forty-eight-year-old voice of experience that he was. “Women flock to single fathers. It’s all part of that nurturing, nesting instinct they have. He’ll be married within the year, mark my words.”
    The idea stung, although it shouldn’t. Their off-duty relationship revolved only around Breanna. If not for the little girl, they wouldn’t even have an off-duty relationship. ButBreanna or not, this arrangement would only last for a few weeks.
    “Whatever happens, he’ll need your support,” she said. “He’s feeling overwhelmed right now.”
    Both men nodded. “Understandable.”
    Shep’s gaze landed on her. “You’re his partner. Are you giving him a hand?”
    It was an unspoken rule—partners covered for each other, followed by the rest of the shift’s crew, then the entire department. Letting her “other half” bear a burden alone was like a betrayal of their code of honor. But even if she wanted to minimize her role because of the potential for ugly gossip, she couldn’t deny the truth—everyone would eventually discover it.
    “He’s asked me to help him for a few weeks,” she admitted, “until he gets his feet wet.” She purposely kept the paternity-test issue to herself. That information was also Joe’s to share, not hers. “It seemed the least I could do.”
    Satisfaction appeared on Shep’s lean face. She got the distinct impression that he approved, and if he approved, no one else would dare argue with the most senior firefighter on their crew. “Yeah. You’re perfect for the job. If you ask me, this shows there’s a Man Upstairs orchestrating behind the scenes. Heaven help Donatelli if he’d gotten stuck with Klaxton as his partner.”
    George Klaxton was a nice enough fellow, but he had problems. Financial, marital, family—it didn’t matter. He moved from one crisis to another and as such, needed more support from his coworkers than he gave. He wouldn’t have been much help to Joe except to share horror stories and drag him to bars so they could cry in their beers together.
    The two men moved off, but oddly enough Shep’s comment about marriage burrowed under her skin. Why, she didn’t know. Their kiss hadn’t been a declaration ofromance,