Breaking Her No-Dating Rule. Amalie Berlin
something for the pain.”
“My fiancé is still out there,” she whispered, clarifying in those simple words what hurt worse right now.
Ellory put one arm around Chelsea’s shoulders, giving her a squeeze. “Let’s get your insides warmed up and see if we can beat the shivering.” She took the cocoa Chelsea hadn’t been drinking and held it to her lips. “We’ll help you with this until your fingers stop smarting and you can do it yourself, okay?”
“Ohh … chocolate,” Chelsea said.
“That’s pretty much how I feel about chocolate too.” Ellory lifted the cup to the woman’s mouth. “Sometimes it’s the only thing that makes the stuff we have to go through bearable. Though I do feel like I should apologize for not making it from better ingredients.” A nervous laugh bubbled up. “You didn’t do anything wrong, that’s not why I’m making you drink preservative juice.” She was doing that thing again, where she lost control of her mouth because she was nervous.
Chelsea looked at her strangely. “Preservative juice?”
She named the popular brand of cocoa everyone knew, then added, “I’m sure it’s fine. I’m just …” What could she say to explain that? “I’m big on organic.”
“Ahh.” Chelsea nodded, relaxing back in her chair.
Great bedside manner. Most of her patients worked with her for a long stretch of time so they got to know her quirks and oddities, and only had to suffer her help with exercise and a program that their physiotherapist designed. All Ellory did was help them through it and massage away pain, she didn’t need to be trusted to make decisions.
Ellory added in what she hoped was a more agreeable tone, “Ignore me. It’s a throwback to childhood.”
“You were big on organic in childhood?” Anson asked from down where he crouched, examining the feet of another patient. Which meant he was listening, and probably losing faith in her with every word that tumbled out of her mouth.
“Yes. In a manner of speaking.”
His eyes were focused on the patient, but it still felt like he was staring at her. “Which is?”
The only way out of this conversation was to pretend it wasn’t happening.
Stop. Talking.
Handing Chelsea’s cup to another staff member, she said, “Please assist Chelsea with her cocoa. I should assist Dr. Graves.” The man needed a different last name. Which she wouldn’t bring up. She probably already sounded like an incompetent idiot to them.
She caught up with him kneeling before the last of the rescued, checking extremities.
As she stepped to his side he looked up, locking eyes with her in a way that said he knew she’d heard him and that he wasn’t going to press the matter.
Message delivered, he got back to work and the potency of his stare dissipated. “Get all their feet into the water. But Chelsea’s the only one you have to keep in the temperature range.”
“What about the sauna?” She rolled with his return to business. As out of her depth as she felt, she did want to do a good job, take good care of them all.
“Maybe later, or if they don’t get warm enough to stop shivering soon, but I’d rather you not put them into the stress of a sauna until a doctor is on hand should things get hairy.”
Ellory nodded.
“I’m going to check on my crew. And Max.”
Hearing his name, the fuzzy black dog currently stretched in front of the fire popped up and looked at Anson.
“Or maybe I’ll get him some water first …” He called to the rescuers to check their feet and while they peeled off boots he took care of himself and the big bushy dog.
Ellory organized the helpers with instructions on the water, her shoulders growing tighter and tighter every time she looked through the door or the windows at the worsening storm. After assigning two people to Chelsea and getting them another round of hot blankets, she finally went to find Anson.
And Max—maybe the dog would listen to her concerns.
“WHAT IF YOU’RE not back in half an hour, when they come out of the warm water? And isn’t that weird, a doctor moonlighting as a rescuer?” She’d always considered Mira to be an unusual doctor—fabulous and outdoorsy—so Anson seemed like an anomaly. He had the bossy bit down, at least. But he could be safe and inside during this weather, or out driving his four wheel drive and … smoking cigars. Whatever people did in four wheeled drives, she wasn’t sure.
“Dry them gently and wrap them in loose gauze.” He answered that first, then added, “I don’t moonlight. I work in the ER six months of the year, and the rescue team is my life during ski season.”
His admission surprised her. Adrenaline junkie? Extreme sports wackadoo? Both those fit the idea of returning to the outdoors in this weather. Once more, her gaze was pulled to the glass doors. The snow, already heavy before they’d returned, had picked up even worse since. “Are you sure it wouldn’t be better for you all to wait until the storm passes?”
The sharpness that came to his green eyes shut down that thought process completely. Right. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t need to.
Anson turned to his crew instead. “Five minutes.” He pulled a plastic baggie from his pocket and extracted some kind of jerky to give to the big shaggy dog.
One of the group asked, “Where are we going?”
“Blue Mine and South Mine,” Anson answered, then looked at Ellory. “Why are you not dressed for the weather?”
“I haven’t bought clothes for being home yet, and all the winters in the past decade, I guess, have been in warm places. Before New Year’s Eve I was in Peru. It’s summer there right now. I wasn’t sure if I was going to stay, so I didn’t want to buy clothes I might not wear very long. It’s wasteful.”
He shook his head. “Rent a snow suit when you’re going to be out in the elements … what’s your name?”
“Ellory. And I have one.” It’s the one thing she did have, but it was old, hopelessly out of fashion and not nearly as well suited to the winter as the suits these people wore because she didn’t wear manufactured materials. So it was bulky, and kind of itchy. And she left it at her parents’ after every New Year … so it was musty from storage and …
She didn’t need to share that with Anson. He was covered in layers of modern insulating materials, and while she could understand it and tried not to be jealous of his warmth and mobility, he wouldn’t understand if she explained. Not that his opinion should matter. “I wasn’t going out to stay in the weather earlier, just to meet you all. And I have thermal underwear under this.”
Like he would think well of her if she’d been wearing wool and a parka in her short jaunt into the weather to meet them. She was a flake. That’s how normal people viewed her. So today she was a flake who didn’t dress properly. What else was new?
“Go put it on.”
Ellory didn’t know how to respond to a direct order like that. And she really didn’t like it that the bossiness made her tingle again … Wrong time, wrong place, wrong feelings.
She wanted to blame them on her nerves too, like being nervous amplified all her other emotions, but she couldn’t even lie to herself on that. Ruggedly handsome wasn’t a look the man was going for—he just had it. Some combination of good genes, lifestyle and that voice gave it to him. She tried to ignore that, and the squirmy feeling in her belly she got when his mossy hazel eyes focused on her.
“Anson.” She went with