Hard to Resist - By Kara Lennox Page 0,6
started to answer, but Samantha’s eyes widened when she saw him and she gasped in a deep breath. Her sharp scream split the air.
Panic rising in Kat’s throat, she whirled around, her hands locked into fists, and saw only Ethan. Confused, she turned back to Samantha, who was crying and still clearly terrified.
Kat gathered the child against her. “Sam, shhh, it’s okay. What’s wrong? Are you hurting?”
Samantha clung to Kat and buried her face in her mother’s shirt. “That man. Make him leave!”
CHAPTER TWO
ETHAN BACKED OUT of the room as quickly as he could. What was going on? Maybe he wasn’t a pretty boy like Tony, but he didn’t normally scare small children.
A nurse and two doctors rushed past him into the room, and as Ethan listened at the door, Samantha’s crying quieted. Muffled voices said something about Samantha associating a firefighter with the trauma of the fire. How had the child even recognized him? She couldn’t have gotten a good look at him in all that smoke, and she’d only seen his face for maybe a second as he’d passed her through the window. Perhaps she’d recognized his voice.
He waited a few more minutes, hoping Kat would come out of the room so he could apologize for upsetting her daughter. But she didn’t appear and he didn’t dare go back in. Exhaustion was catching up with him. He decided the best route for him was a strategic retreat, a soft bed and several hours of sleep.
He’d done what he’d set out to do. He’d made sure the woman and child were okay. He left his number with one of the nurses, so Kathryn could call when she was ready to reclaim her kitten, who was happily installed in his utility room with food, water and litter.
During training, Ethan had been told by a wise, old captain, now retired, that you should never look a fire victim in the eye. Your heart couldn’t go out to every single one or you’d tear yourself to pieces, he’d said. It was a lesson every rookie had to learn—toughen up or get very depressed.
But maybe it had to be learned through experience. Ethan hadn’t been able to avoid looking down into Kat’s beautiful dark eyes, so frightened, so trusting.
Was this how it would be? Would he feel this urge to involve himself in the lives of every person he helped during a fire? Yeah, he had a soft spot for anyone or anything in trouble. Given the mother he’d been born to, how could he not? He was still close to her, and he would not be able to look her in the eye if he walked away from someone in a jam.
He’d always thought wanting to help people was a good thing.
Reaching for the handle of the glass doors at the front of Methodist Medical Center, Ethan did a double take. Tony was strolling through the adjacent door, looking confident, a certain swagger in his step. He carried a small bunch of grocery-store flowers.
Ethan recognized the signs. His best friend was on the prowl. It had been a few weeks since Tony and his most recent girlfriend had called it quits, and he was a man who liked having a woman in his life. He got antsy when he was unattached, casting around for a likely candidate everywhere he went.
Once he found a woman he was interested in, it didn’t take much. A little flirtation, some flowers and wham. They usually fell as hard and fast as Tony did.
“Tony.”
Tony stopped, and did his own double take. “What are you doing here?”
“I wanted to let Kathryn Holiday know I had her kitten. What’s your excuse?”
“Hey, when a woman’s that good-looking, do you need an excuse?” But then his cocky grin faded. “She’s okay, isn’t she? And the little girl?”
“I saw them and they’re fine. But Tony…” Ethan thought it prudent to warn his friend. “The little girl wasn’t too happy to see me. She was apparently traumatized by the fire, and I reminded her of it. And since you were the one sticking needles in her…”
“I’ll go easy. I can at least say hi to Kat.”
Kat. The way Tony said it made it sound as if they were already close. “You aren’t going to hit on her, are you?”
“Any particular reason I shouldn’t?”
Ethan shrugged. It was awful having a best friend who looked like a Gap model and who could charm butterflies out of their cocoons.
“If you’ve got a thing for this girl,”