Pregnant With The Paramedic's Baby. Amy Ruttan

recognized that voice. It was Sally calling him. He got up, trying not to disturb Sandra, and his back protested after having spent the night on a hardwood floor. He went to the door and walked outside. The temperature had dropped, breaking the heat wave that had been plaguing Austin the last couple of days. The breeze was cool and earthy, but also there was not a cloud in the sky, which meant the risk of flash flooding was past them.

      He saw a team of first responders and a fire truck down the hill. And part of the first responders was his sister, Sally, who was calling his name frantically.

      “Sweet Pea! Here!” He waved and Sally came running up the hill. She ran straight into his arms.

      “Oh, thank God!” she said. “When I saw your truck... I was worried you were washed away, like the other one farther down the creek.”

      “The SUV?”

      Sally nodded, stepping back. “Yeah, we couldn’t find a body, though. Ross has his team looking farther downstream of Burl’s Creek.”

      “That’s Dr. Fraser’s SUV. She was hit by a mudslide and I got her out.” Kody turned and saw that Sandra was standing in the door, looking just as confused as he first was when he’d woken up this morning.

      “What’s going on?” Sandra asked.

      “We’re being rescued,” he said over his shoulder before turning back to Sally. “You can call off Ross’s search party. Dr. Fraser is fine.”

      “Is she hurt?” Sally asked, noticing his crude bandage job on Sandra.

      “She was hurt, but it was superficial.”

      “Still, it should be looked at. Both of you need to be checked out. If you have any cuts, you’ll need a course of antibiotics. You know mudslides contain bacteria that can contain flesh-eating properties,” Sally stated.

      “Right,” Kody said, exhausted. He ran his hand through his hair and winced.

      “You okay?” Sally asked, worried.

      “Just stiff. Please take care of Dr. Fraser.”

      Sally nodded and approached Sandra. He could hear them talking—Sandra was a bit standoffish. More like her old self, but he couldn’t shake the image of how it had been last night. When it had been just the two of them, as one.

      His blood heated as he thought about her in his arms. The way her lips had felt on his and how tender she’d been.

      It had been a long time since he’d been with anyone.

      There hadn’t been anyone since Jenny, and in a way he felt guilty. Even though Jenny had told him to move on, to find happiness after she died, there was a part of him that still felt guilty. As if he had cheated on her memory.

       You didn’t. Jenny’s been gone for five years.

      And it was a one-time thing. He had to keep reminding himself of that. It was a one-time thing. Only he was fooling himself. Why did he ever think that once would be enough?

      Either way, it had to be.

      He’d promised Sandra that.

      Sally helped Sandra out of the cabin.

      “Let’s just go to the hospital to get checked out, Dr. Fraser,” Sally said gently.

      Sandra nodded and briefly glanced at him.

      “I’ll come too,” Kody assured her. “We both should be checked out.”

      Sandra didn’t say much. It was almost as if she was angry with him. He had promised that there would be no awkwardness between them, but that seemed to be the opposite of what was happening here.

      And he didn’t like it one bit.

      They were taken to the hospital where Sandra worked. She was immediately taken off to have a CT scan; even if she was constantly insisting to the trauma doctors on duty that the wound was superficial, they wouldn’t listen to her. It was protocol, and she had some symptoms of a concussion.

      Kody was checked over and Sally went off to tell his in-laws and Lucy that he was okay and had been found. They were eventually placed side by side in the same trauma pod, just a curtain separating them.

      He snuck out of his bed and opened the curtain next to him. Sandra was lying in bed and waiting for test results. She looked highly annoyed. Those delicious lips of hers were pursed and she was staring up at the ceiling, her hands folded across her stomach.

      “Hey,” he said gently.

      She glanced at him. “I told them it was nothing, but they won’t listen to me.”

      He chuckled. “I told you that doctors are the worst patients.”

      She smiled quickly then, before it disappeared. “Are you okay?”

      “They ran a blood test to see. I had a scrape on my leg. I didn’t even feel it, but it was dirty...wading around in the mud trying to save people’s lives.” He winked at her. “I’ll probably get some antibiotics via IV.”

      She nodded and held up her hand that had an IV started. “Probably, like me. Just waiting until they tell me the CT was clear and I can get a cab to take me home since my car was washed down Burl’s Creek.”

      “They found it and are retrieving it. Your insurance should cover it.”

      Sandra sighed. “So that female paramedic, is she your partner?”

      “Sally? No, I don’t work with her.”

      Sandra frowned. “She seemed so worried about you. More than a colleague should be...”

      He grinned then. “Dr. Fraser, are you jealous of my baby sister?”

      Her eyes widened. “Your sister? You called her Sweet Pea!”

      “It’s a name my entire family calls her.” He chuckled. “She’s my sister, which is why we’re not partners and why we never work on the same shift. She moved out here after her divorce and she helps with my daughter as well. Also, she’s stolen my best friend, Ross, out from under me too.”

      “Oh.” He thought that he saw a brief moment of relief there.

      “You were jealous, weren’t you?” he teased.

      She glared at him indignantly. “I was not. Okay, perhaps just a bit. I was worried that I...”

      “What?” he asked.

      She lowered her voice. “That I slept with someone else’s partner. I never want to be the other woman.”

      “No need to worry,” he said gently.

      That struck a chord with him. He couldn’t blame her for feeling guilty. Heck, he felt guilty for what had happened, and he was a widower, but there was a part of him, deep down, that thought she sort of was another woman compared to Jenny. He had never felt this way about someone since Jenny died. It scared him that she’d got under his skin.