Rory (Hope City #7) - Maryann Jordan Page 0,38

to the firemen and climbed into the ambulance.

Driving to the hospital, Shania called in their location and ETA. Once there, they made the transfer of Chloe and the baby into the emergency room. “You did real good, Chloe,” Rory said, patting her shoulder before gently touching her baby’s cheek. After completing the paperwork, Bobby climbed back into the back of the ambulance and Rory and Shania swung up into the front.

Driving back to the station, he glanced to the side and saw Shania grinning widely. “Are you remembering becoming a mom?”

She chuckled and nodded. “We see a lot of shit in this job, Rory. It’s always nice when you can see something as wonderful as a healthy baby being born.”

He nodded.

“What about you? Do you want to have children?”

Startled at her question, he nodded again. “Yeah, someday. After I find the right person and the timing is right.”

She barked out a laugh and shook her head. “First of all, the time is never right. There’s never enough money, never enough energy, never enough time. And when it comes to the right person, make sure to find someone who can make you laugh. A woman whose smile is wide, whose eyes are pinned on you when you talk, and won’t put up with your shit. That makes a good wife, and in my opinion, would make a good mom.”

He had no response, so he kept his mouth shut. But for the rest of the drive to the station, the image of Sandy filled his mind.

“I think you should just take an office here, it’d be easier on you,” Heather laughed, handing Sandy a hard hat.

Smiling, she nodded before walking to the elevator. She left Todd on the first floor to meet with Dave to go over the office plans for that level. She and Barbara were getting off on the fourth floor to look over the work that had been completed. She wanted to assure that the design elements were being implemented correctly and check to see if any adjustments needed to be made. Barbara would ascertain if her decorating choices still felt correct for the space and light. Being able to see the natural light coming through the windows could change the aesthetics.

With plans in front of her, Sandy carefully inspected the interior walls, doors, and windows. She loved the flow of the rooms, pleased that the individual clients had allowed her to lead them through the process of designing their offices.

“Sandy? Can you come into the workroom?”

Following Barbara’s voice, she stepped into the area that would be the workroom. “Did you need me?”

“Look at this!”

Stepping over to one of the inner walls, she looked in the direction Barbara was pointing. Cabinets would be placed along the wall, both on the floor and higher, leaving an area for a counter. The client had indicated that this room would be a break room and multiple electrical outlets would be needed for an industrial-sized coffee maker and large microwave as well as a refrigerator and any other appliances the employees would want to be plugged in. At this time, the walls were bare except for the open outlets filled with wires.

Leaning closer, she observed there were no copper ground wires. Instead of two black wires and two white wires, there was a mess of other multicolored wires crammed inside the small box. “Well, I’m not an electrician, but that doesn’t look right.”

She pulled out her phone and snapped a picture, then said, “Whenever you get finished up here, you can go on down with Todd. I’m going to see if I can find someone from Perkins Electrical Company and see if they can tell me what’s going on here.”

She walked out of the office-to-be area and down the hall to an empty space with just the outer walls complete. Seeing several men around, she moved to them, looking for anyone with the electrical company logo on their shirt. “Do you know where I might find someone from Perkins Electrical?”

“Last I saw, Jonny was on the fifth floor,” one of the men replied. “That was about half an hour ago.”

Smiling her thanks, she skipped the elevator and walked up the stairs to the next floor. Walking around for several minutes, she finally found a short, heavy-set man sitting on an upturned bucket in the middle of the floor with his lunch spread on his lap and his drink sitting on the floor next to him. Seeing the Perkins Electrical logo on his shirt,