them. The boy—who looked to be twelve or thirteen—held a younger, unconscious girl against the rock while struggling to keep her head out of the water.
“Nay, Wolfe!” Niall shouted when the chief braced his feet on either side of the children and shoved Shep away. “Have the boy grab Shep’s vest and let the dog tow him to us.” Niall gestured at the two firefighters Wolfe had called Higgins and Welles—one of whom Katy realized was the truck-scrubbing intern—now standing at intervals in the stream between him and shore. “We’ll catch him if he loses his grip.”
Katy saw Chief Wolfe say something to the boy, and her heart raced as the kid let Wolfe take the girl. The boy lunged toward Shep when the dog swam past again.
Immediately, they both sank out of sight, and Katy’s heart stopped.
A second later, dog and boy popped up several yards downstream, the boy firmly gripping Shep’s vest. The dog power-stroked straight toward Niall.
She let out a thick sigh of relief as Niall plucked the kid free and swung him up onto his shoulder with a whoop of triumph. The three made their way to shore just as the other two firefighters intercepted their chief, who swam cross-current on his back while holding the listless girl.
Katy rushed to them, grabbing the chief’s arm and guiding him to a grassy spot. “Set her down here,” she instructed, shrugging off the jump bag and dropping to her knees. “No, move away!” she snapped when a woman, dressed in paramedic blues, knelt beside her and reached for the girl.
“Go check the boy,” the woman snapped back as she crowded Katy out of the way and clasped the girl’s neck to check for a pulse. “Welles!” the interloper shouted without looking up. “Go get the damn bus. Somebody find this kid’s parents! We’re leaving in five minutes with or without them!”
The petite, middle-aged woman glanced up and spotted Katy glaring at her. “You waiting for hell to freeze over?” she drawled as she turned back to the girl.
Reminding herself they were part of the same team, Katy tamped down her impulse to shove the woman out of the way. There’d be time for her to explain her behavior later. “I don’t know if the girl speaks English,” she said as she stood and backed in the direction of the older boy. “But I think Chief—”
A loud feminine scream came from the onlookers lining the side lane. People hurried out of the way as a woman and man rushed forward, only to be intercepted by Niall and Chief Wolfe. The little boy Katy had carried across the road bolted toward them and threw himself at the man with a loud sob. Chief Wolfe moved over to the frantic woman, and whatever he said seemed to take the wind out of her hysteria.
“Good to see some people are doing their job,” the aggressive medic muttered as she glowered at Katy.
A sharp response—consisting of many four-letter words—swept into Katy’s mind, but she took a breath and headed for the boy who sat on the ground cuddled inside a police officer’s jacket and hugging Shep as the dog licked his face. Shivering and looking exhausted, but definitely not in distress, the boy darted worried glances between the girl and the two people Katy assumed were his parents. She knelt in front of him and caught Shep’s snout to make the dog stop licking. “A little early in the day for a swim, don’t you think?” she said, warmly. “It’s barely above sixty degrees.”
“He’s Danish,” a man said as he crouched down beside her.
Not about to have another patient stolen, Katy moved to block him, then stopped when she saw he was the police officer who likely belonged to the jacket.
He held up his hands in surrender. He had broad, attractive features, and a hint of a smirk that Katy figured was part of his daily attire. “I swear I didn’t push them in.” He grinned and extended one of his hands. “Jake Sheppard.”
“Katy MacBain.”
Jake’s grin slackened, and his eyes widened. “You’re Niall’s paramedic cousin?”
“Guilty.”
“Yes. Well, if you need to ask Evan anything, I speak passable Danish. That’s his name—Evan. He’s twelve and a strong swimmer, and he hasn’t been coughing, so I don’t think he swallowed any water. He got banged up a bit, though,” Jake went on, slipping the jacket off one of Evan’s shoulders to reveal a long red welt beneath a torn sleeve. “The girl is his little sister,