His Touch (2 page)

“Bye-bye, Milk Dud. Be a good girl. Call me if you need anything, Beth.” Kara collected her bags and strode to the door.

“Hang on.” Beth paused in her egg scrambling to put a to-go cup in Kara’s hand. “Bought you a present.”

Kara stared at the cup and then flung her arms around the angel disguised as a nanny. “You are so getting a raise.”

*

It looked like
a tiny coffin.

Reid Bennett swallowed down the sour ball that clogged his throat and tugged the infant CPR dummy’s case out of the locker with a muttered curse. He hated these classes. Hated having to teach them, hated practicing on the dummy.

There was something far too real in practicing CPR on a lifeless child-size body.

His mind shot to Erin and his stomach pitched and rolled but he managed to keep down the donut and cup of bad coffee he’d scarfed for breakfast on his way to the fire house. He killed the light, shut and locked the door. He squeezed his eyes shut, gave himself a minute to make sure all thoughts of Erin were firmly locked behind a door of their own where he couldn’t reach them.

“You ready, Reid?”

He whipped around, found Gene Brooks, his partner watching him carefully. “Yeah, let’s get this over with.”

“You look like crap. What’s wrong? You and Alison have a fight?”

Reid shrugged. Alison had kicked him to the curb a few nights back. If he were being honest with himself, he was relieved. “Alison’s history. You got any antacids or something? My stomach is rolling like a wave pool.”

Gene’s narrowed dark eyes and angled head told Reid he wasn’t buying the upset stomach crap, but he merely nodded and pulled out a roll of TUMS from his pocket. “Sure thing.”

“Thanks.” Reid popped two into his mouth, chewed the chalky tablets and handed back the roll.

“So what happened?”

Reid flicked a look at Gene. “What makes you think I have any idea?”

“Sorry, sorry.” Gene raised both hands. “I figured you ended it.”

He wasn’t sure if she ended it or he did. He’d thought they were hanging out, having fun, but suddenly, Alison had wanted more. The white dress, the baby carriage, the happily ever after.

All he wanted was… to forget.

“So how many signed up today?” He changed the subject.

Gene grinned. “Full house. We’ve got twelve.” He made sure his uniform shirt was tucked into his waistband and grabbed one of the two rolling dummy cases Reid had pulled from the storeroom. “Wait ’til you see the triplets.”

Reid heard the note of interest in his partner’s voice. “What triplets?”

“Oh, not really triplets. Three ladies. All wearing dresses up to here,” Gene said with a hand just under his butt. “And plunging to there,” he finished with his hand hovering just above his belly button. “God, I love summer in the city,” he said with wink. “Women hoping to hook a firefighter.”

Reid’s lips twitched. Three more groupies. This could be fun. Perking up a bit, he nodded and craned his neck, trying to get a peek.

“Oh, hey, we’re meeting Friday night at seven, okay?” Gene held a door open, stepped aside for Reid to step through, but Reid stopped.

“Meeting who where?”

Gene looked at him sideways. “Hell, Bennett, you swore you weren’t gonna forget.”

Forget what?

Gene stepped closer, put a hand on Reid’s shoulder. “You. Me. Vickie and her visiting cousin.”

He shut his eyes and groaned. “Uh. Yeah. Vickie’s cousin. Atlanta. I remember.”

No, he hadn’t.

Gene laughed. “Don’t forget to bring a shirt, okay? Vickie’s cousin hates the uniform.”

Hates the uniform? Already, Reid wasn’t liking Vickie’s cousin much. He followed Gene’s lanky form to the conference room just off the apparatus floor. Chairs had already been set up for class, the coffee and Danish arranged at the back of the room. Participants were filing in so he popped the latches on the small case, removed “Trevor,” the infant CPR dummy, and put it on the table at the front of the room. Gene did the same with “Travis,” the child form. Reid took the cap off his head, ran a hand over his buzzed hair and replaced the cap.

Gene’s eyebrows climbed. “Relax, Reid. It’s a CPR class. You’ve taught dozens of these things.”

Yeah. He had. And knew—better than anybody—just what happened when the training wasn’t enough. Again, his mind stubbornly turned to Erin and again, he stubbornly locked away those thoughts.

“Show time,” Gene murmured when the first parents arrived.

This session was mostly women. Three women came in at once, carrying Starbucks to-go cups, wearing matching sun dresses and eyeballing him like he was a slab of cake at the bakery. So these were Gene’s Triplets. Two blonds and a brunette with a mile of legs. Yep, this was going to be a good class.

A pregnant woman came in next, and his sour stomach kinked into a tight coil. She was with a guy—her husband, maybe? Quickly, the room filled up, the trio of friends chattering loudly. He turned his back, gave all the participants some time to settle, to get acquainted with each other, and tried fruitlessly not to think about the pregnant woman in the first row.

“Um,” a throat cleared and Reid tensed. “Excuse me, but are you the instructor?”

He turned, his mouth in a tight line, and met the direct gaze of a triplet—a brunette poured into a pink sun dress. She made no attempt to disguise her blatant scan of his body and it took all of Reid’s focus not to squirm. Jeez, he was wearing a paramedic’s uniform for God’s sake, not a thong. He waited for a beat, but there was nothing. No spark. No chemistry.

No interest.

“Yeah.” He all but shot the word at her and her face twisted into annoyance for a moment.

One of the blonds with her immediately detected her friend’s failure and stepped forward. “Well, when do you plan to get started?” She pressed him, tapping the watch on her wrist for emphasis. Her sun dress was a blue and white checked thing. It reminded Reid of the tablecloth his grandma used to put on the patio table.

“We got time yet.” He smiled at her. She was tall, almost as tall as he was. He glanced down and discovered why.

She’d worn six-inch spiked heels to a CPR class. He managed to stop the eye roll just in time.

The blond held out her hand. “I’m Candace. But you can call me Candy.”

God help him, if she said
Candi with an I
, he was going to lose it. Another eye roll threatened but he manned up and smiled wider. “Reid Bennett.”

Behind him, he could hear the rest of the class getting a bit restless. The sounds of
Tsks
of annoyance, huffs of indignation, and drumming fingers could be heard plain as day. He cleared his throat to call the class to order, but his attention was diverted by the distinctly disgusted look on the face of a beautiful blond in the back of the room. Her hair was a mess of waves that just skimmed her jaw. A pair of sunglasses perched on top of her head. In one hand, she had a cup of coffee and in the other, a cell phone. She wore pants and holy crap—flat shoes. It had been so long so he’d come across a woman who didn’t dress to impress and he had to admit, it was nice imagining what the curves under that outfit looked like.

She caught his gaze, held it. And smiled. His lips twitched in response. “Good morning. I’m Reid Bennett, paramedic. Please silence your cell phones.” That was a pet peeve of his… people interrupting his class to take calls, or worse, wasting half of it sending texts. “Today, we’re going to learn proper CPR techniques for infants—” he indicated one dummy. “And for older kids.” He put his hand over the other, gulping hard when his voice cracked.

“Hi, Reid,” the trio said in unison and laughed.

He paid them no attention. The stunning blond in the back rolled her eyes. And then to his surprise, she whipped a gold chain out of her pocket and slipped it around her neck. Suddenly, he wanted one thing—to learn this quirky blond woman’s name.

He continued on with his lesson, explaining the ABCs of CPR, under what circumstances to perform it, and then launched into the differences in anatomy that made learning on different size dummies so important. Every time he glanced back, he noted the pretty blond paying careful attention and on at least one occasion, checking out his butt.

Finally, it was time for the demonstration. Reid stepped over to the infant dummy. “Okay. This is Trevor. We walk in, discover baby Trevor isn’t breathing. The first thing we should do is try to rouse him. Tap his feet and shout. Even a sleeping baby should show a startle reflex by this.”

Reid tapped Trevor’s feet. “Trevor! Wake up, Trevor!” He shouted. “If there’s no response, go through your ABCs. Airway, Breathing, Compressions. Trevor is an infant under a year old. You’ll put one hand here and the other here,” he said, demonstrating with a hand on the dummy’s head and just under its chin. “This opens the airway. Look and listen. Do you see the chest rising and falling?”

“My chest is rising and falling,” Triplet Two stage-whispered to her cohorts.

Reid ignored her. “Do you hear or feel breath on your face? If not, you’ll move to Breathing. Give the baby two rescue breaths by covering his mouth and nose with your mouth and gently blowing in only enough air to make the chest rise.”

Reid blew two quick breaths into Trevor the dummy.

“Oo. Blowing can make other things rise,” Candy said.

Reid shot her a glare. Why couldn’t she be more like the woman in the back of the room? Still glaring, he continued. “Next, you’ll start compressions. You want to do about thirty compressions. Because Trevor’s so little, under a year old, you’re going to use two fingers, not your entire hand. You’ll put those two fingers right here, on the breast bone, just under his nipples.” Reid put his two fingers on the spot indicated. “Press down only about this far,” he said, demonstrating on the dummy’s chest. “Compress fast. It helps to think of the song
Staying Alive
and do compressions to that beat.”

This time, whatever one of the triplets said had all three of them dissolving into bawdy laughter. Reid snapped up straight, but before he could say anything, the blond in the back stood up. “Excuse me but some of us would actually like to learn how to save a child’s life today.”

Reid’s heart almost stopped. The woman was pretty enough as it was, but when she was all riled up like she was now, she was breathtaking.

“Oh, okay there, Buffy.” Candy sneered.

To Reid’s astonishment, the blond charged down the aisle with fire in her eyes. He managed to quickly step between the little spitfire and the three Weird Sisters before first blood was drawn. Gene came to his rescue. “Ladies, ladies, I have an idea. Since this class doesn’t seem to be what you expected, maybe you’d like to take a tour of the fire house with me, meet some of the crew?”

Predictably, all three pairs of eyes lit up at the prospect of fresh man meat. Gene grinned at Reid as he escorted the women out of the conference room. The pregnant woman fanned her face. “Thank God.”

“I’m sorry for that. Let’s start again.” Reid attempted to redirect everyone’s attention, but an eardrum-shattering scream pierced the air and for a moment, he thought they were under attack. Then, he discovered the source.

It was the tiny occupant of a baby stroller that had just been pushed into the room.

Reid’s spit dried up.

He stared at the baby’s round blue eyes and light brown curls, his vision fading and his throat constricting.
Erin
. His heart said.
She’s gone
, his brain reminded his heart a second before it twisted inside his chest. The pretty blond was suddenly in front of him and he nearly grabbed her to steady his cracked and splintered heart, but his arms were weighted with lead.

“Beth? What’s wrong?” She addressed the girl pushing the stroller. He was only dimly aware that the girl called Beth was upset. He heard bits and pieces of their conversation. “Tried to call you” and “My mother” and that was it before the two women hugged tightly and the girl was gone, leaving the baby in the stroller behind.

Reid shook his head. He heard words, but they just weren’t penetrating the scream in his mind. Slowly, he shook his head. “No kids. You need to leave. No kids.” His voice was a croak.

The baby’s mother looked up at him with enormous brown eyes filled with frustration. “Do you have any idea what kind of schedule juggling I had to do to be here today? She stays. I’ll remove her if she acts up.” When the baby grinned and leaned forward to snatch the teething biscuit her mother handed her, Reid’s heart twisted behind his ribs.

Okay. Okay, he had to do this. He spun on his heel and barked out an order. “Gather around Trevor. Each of you needs to demonstrate proper CPR technique to earn your certificate. Then, we’ll move on to…” He paused to gulp down the lump in his throat, glanced at the older dummy. “To Travis.”

*