Finding Chris Evans: The 9-1-1 Edition (3 page)

“Britt! Son of a bitch!” Chris went for her as Lance stepped up to the woman and, using his cool, deep voice, told the woman to calm down.

But Chris was all about Britt. He knelt next to her. “You okay?”

She took a breath and seemed to do a mental inventory. “Yeah. I guess. My thumb hurts.” She shook her hand, then winced.

He started to reach for her, but Britt scrambled to her feet. “I’m fine.”

“Let me—”

“I gotta go. Your office after shift.”

Yeah, he still needed to yell at her. He’d been too concerned to think about being mad. God, the woman attracted trouble and caused him indigestion. But he didn’t miss how she cradled her hand against her stomach, and he couldn’t ignore the thump of his heart or the urge to go after her and insist that she let him check her hand. He preferred to think the knot in his gut when he was around her was frustration rather than…desire. Or worse. Something like affection. But in that moment, he couldn’t do it. He wanted to be sure she was okay. He wanted to be the one to make her okay.
Fuck
.

“Yeah. Fine.” He got to his feet and watched her wheel the victim out with Lance. Using her right hand only.

Chris shoved a hand through his hair. He needed to look into what it would take to transfer her. That would be best. He couldn’t be so mixed up over an employee.

“Chris?”

Oh,
damn
. He turned to face Ellie.

He’d completely forgotten her. He’d had no idea that she’d followed him to Ducky’s. “Oh, hey. Shit.” He grimaced. “Sorry.”

“About the swearing or about forgetting me?”

He grimaced again. “Both.”

She gave him a small smile. “I wasn’t sure—I don’t really know why I came down here. Probably the…”

“The fortune teller,” he filled in.

She nodded. “I know it’s crazy.”

His feelings for Britt were crazy. Going out and meeting a few guys because of a fortune teller’s prediction? In that moment, his blood still humming with Britt-induced-adrenaline, Chris had to admit that the fortune teller made more sense to him . “Maybe we should try this over dinner?”

Her smile widened slightly, but she shook her head. “No matter what Esmerelda said, I’m not going out with someone who’s obviously involved with someone else.”

Chris straightened. “Involved with someone else?”

“That EMT, right?”

He glanced at the door, his gut tightening. “Britt? No. She’s… She drives me nuts.”

Ellie nodded. “Exactly.”

“That’s not—” He frowned. “I’m not— It’s not like that. She’s an…employee. I’m her boss.”

“You didn’t even glance at your other employee.”

“He’s—”

“And do you always show up at the scenes where your employees are working?”

He sighed.

Ellie smiled. “I didn’t think so. You came down here because you knew she was here and you were worried.”

“It’s…complicated. I came down here because…she makes me mad.”

“You sure that’s what she makes you?” Ellie asked, eyebrows up.

“Yes.” He was definitely sure that Britt made him mad. If she made him other things as well…that was something he wasn’t prepared to think about, not to mention talk about with a virtual stranger.

“Okay,” Ellie said.

But there was something in her tone that made him ask, “What?”

“I didn’t realize you didn’t know that you’re in love with her.”

Chris felt like Ellie had just slapped him across the face. He was shocked. And…yeah, shocked. That was pretty much it.

“I’m…that’s not…”

Ellie lifted on tiptoe and pressed a kiss to his cheek. “Good luck, Cap. I think you’re going to need it.”

Then she turned and left before Chris could even pull in a full breath.

Britt flinched as the door to the locker room banged against the wall. As if someone had pushed it open with a combination of anger and frustration.

“Britt!”

And that someone was exactly who she’d expected to come in with a combination of anger and frustration.

“Britt! I know you’re in here!”

She sighed. Chris Evans was a huge pain in her butt. Mostly because he seemed to have a big
stick
up
his
butt. But also because he was her boss and she had a little problem with authority figures. And strictness. And rules and schedules and…pretty much everything that made Chris Evans tick.

“Dammit, Britt! Get your ass out here or I’m coming in.”

Now
that
could be interesting. Chris was a really good-looking guy. Like,
really
good-looking. Annoyingly good-looking. But she had a really hard time imagining him in a shower with a woman. At least, doing the things that
she
would be doing if she was in a shower with a really good-looking guy.

“Give me one damned minute!” she yelled back.

The thing was, she
could
imagine Chris stomping back here and giving her hell about the call today, even while she was wet and naked, and not even blinking. Or looking below her chin. The stomping-stoic thing fit him better than stripping off his own clothes as he stomped in, putting her up against the wall of the shower, and really showing her who was boss…

“You have
one
minute! Sixty seconds!” he bellowed.

“I know how long a minute is, Evans!” she yelled back.

Yeah, right. Chris Evans would get wild and wet with her when hell froze over, opened a ski resort, and held a snowman-building contest.

Fine. He was going to be an ass and stomp in here while she was showering? Fine. She’d show up front and center.

Britt shut the water off and grabbed her towel. The EMTs all shared the same locker room. Guys and gals all within the same tiled floor and walls. They took turns and stayed out of the naked-areas when the opposite gender was using it. Mostly. And if they caught a peek, no one really cared. They saw a lot of awful stuff together. If they got a chance to look at body parts that weren’t bleeding or swollen or impaled with something, they took it. And appreciated it. Most of the EMTs were young and in pretty good shape. If you got a glimpse of something good, it was just a perk of the job. No one did any touching, and the teasing was only within everyone’s comfort zone. They were friends. They respected one another. Showering and dressing alongside one another wasn’t an issue. Usually.

“And don’t you dare come out here naked either!” Chris hollered as Britt secured the towel between her breasts.

In that moment, she realized that the headache she had whenever Chris was around was because of her eyes constantly rolling in their sockets.

He was such a stick-in-the-mud.

But she wasn’t.

She padded across the tile toward the lockers.

Chris was standing in the middle of the doorway between the showers and the locker area, hands on his hips, scowl on his face, looking big and mad. And hot.

“Told you to get dressed.”

Sure enough, his eyes never left her face.

Maybe he was a robot. That would explain…a few things. For one, why he hadn’t wanted to come storming all the way into the showers. Water and electronics didn’t mix. And this wasn’t the first time the robot thing had crossed her mind. She wasn’t conceited. She wasn’t the hottest woman he’d ever seen. She wasn’t even the hottest woman to shower in this very locker room. But she was half-naked and just out of the shower. And he was single. And heterosexual. As far as anyone around here knew anyway.

Whatever.

“You said to not come out naked,” she told him.

“I didn’t mean you should come out in only a towel.”

“You’re standing between me and anything but a towel.”

That succeeded in making him look even more pissed off. Yeah, well, she was tired and her thumb hurt, and she wasn’t looking forward to getting chewed out. So, she didn’t really care if he was less than happy.

He turned, giving her space to pass. She did—as close to him as she could without actually touching him. Just because there was something about riling Chris Evans up that got her going. He was so cool, so in control, so
rigid
all the time about everything. Seeing his temper—his eyes flashing, his jaw tightening, his big hands gripped into fists—was at least
something
. It also seemed that she was the only one who could elicit those reactions.

She did really like his eyes and his jaw and his big hands. And that was a huge problem. She could
not
have a thing for her boss. Her stick-in-the-mud, uptight, no-fun boss.

But she did. She had a big thing. It made no sense—she liked fun-loving, charming, laid-back guys who could get along with anyone, who knew how to kick back and have a good time, who could fucking
relax
once in a while.

But she was having dirty dreams about Chris.

She went to her locker, which was around the corner from where he was standing. He stayed where he was, but he didn’t stay quiet.

“What the hell were you thinking?” he demanded as she pulled her locker door open with her right hand and gripped her towel with her left, minus her thumb.

She’d dislocated it. She was pretty sure. Or broken it. Either way, it was swollen and painful and not working right, and she was in trouble. She needed her thumb. Every day, of course, but tonight and tomorrow more than usual. She could maybe start an IV with a sore and splinted thumb. But she couldn’t decorate her mother’s birthday cake without it. And that was possibly even more life and death than the IV thing at the moment.

“Britt!”

Dammit. Chris. The call. Right. She thought about playing dumb, but she knew what he was talking about and, no matter how stubborn she was, she had yet to successfully out-stubborn Chris Evans.

“I was doing my job. A job
you
trained me for, incidentally.”

“You promised me you wouldn’t just charge in anymore!”

“Someone had been stabbed!” She yanked her clothes out of her locker, looked at her bra, realized she would have a hard time hooking it without hurting her thumb, and decided to go without.

It was just Chris after all. He wouldn’t notice anyway.

“You could have been victim number two!”

She rounded the corner and nearly ran into him as he, apparently, had started to move around the end of the lockers. She glared up at him. Even if she had run into him, her nose would have hit him mid-sternum. He was tall. So tall. And big. Whenever he was close to her, she was acutely aware of her size. And his. And how they would have a really hard time fitting together. And who thought about that kind of stuff anyway? It’s not like she always immediately analyzed how other guys’ bodies matched up with hers or imagined what they’d have to do to line things up for sex. But with Chris Evans she already knew that their best bet was her on a countertop with him between her knees. Though that would be a little high. More like the back of her couch. Or the short dresser with the mirror that she had in her bedroom. The couch would be better though. She’d hate to break that mirror. Then again, the mirror could be fun.

All of that tripped through her mind as she stood frowning up at Chris. But she was used to it, so she knew nothing was showing on her face.

Her pulse and her body temperature were another story.

“I’m fine,” she finally managed. “And more importantly, everyone from Ducky’s is fine.”

Chris shook his head. “Not more importantly,” he said firmly. “It’s
very
important that you’re fine.”

When he said stuff like that, she had to admit that she melted a little. Until she remembered that he meant it was important so that he didn’t have to do a bunch of extra paperwork.

“Chris, I’m careful. I’m smart. I’m well trained and I’m prepared. Every time.” Britt tried to plant her hands on her hips, but as she did, the pain in her thumb shot up her arm to her shoulder and she grimaced. “What I’m not,” she went on, ignoring the pain, “is scared. Why does it seem like you wish I was?”

“Because being scared keeps you safe,” he said, his gaze no longer on her face, but on her left hand. “How’s your thumb?”

“It’s fine.”

“Uh-huh. Let me see.”

“No way.” She didn’t want Chris checking her thumb. For one thing, she already knew what was wrong with it. For another, it was really best if he didn’t touch her. At all.

“Britt,” Chris said firmly, “let me see your hand.”

She shouldn’t worry about controlling her physical reactions to him. She’d never worried about that before. Lust and attraction were simple. They were biological and chemical and explainable. Most especially the last one. They could also come and go without really impacting her life. She’d never shied away from an attraction before. But Chris Evans was a first for her. In a lot of ways. He wasn’t the first guy she’d wanted from nearly minute one. But he was the first guy to really get under her skin. Because he was the first guy who had an opinion she really cared about.

Her father, the man who had abandoned her mom when she got sick, had cured Britt of caring what men thought a long time ago. That wasn’t to say she never had relationships, but she never had relationships where she let a guy actually influence her opinions or actions or feelings.