Up by Five Read Free

I really hit you and then we don’t have to match our stories up at all?”
    Conner didn’t think Mac would actually hit him…but if he did, it would freaking hurt .
    “Gee, look at the time,” Conner said, heading for the door. He had a shift to get downstairs for anyway.
    “Sorry you couldn’t stay longer,” Mac said dryly.
    “Bye, Conner,” Sara said sweetly.
    He pulled the door open then blew her a kiss. “See ya, gorgeous.”
    The door bumped shut before he could hear Mac’s response.
     
     
    Gabrielle Evans came up short as she stepped into the break room. Conner Dixon was bending over the little sink in the corner, applying butterfly sutures to his eyebrow line.
    The paramedic in her made a quick note of the cut, blood and sutures, but the woman in her simply could not ignore the bending-over thing for the first thirty seconds.
    The guy really did very nice things to a pair of pants.
    Then she got back to the blood thing. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
    “Why do people keep saying that to me today?” Conner asked.
    “You’re bleeding ? And treating yourself?”
    “Yes.” He muttered an expletive as the box of sutures fell off the edge of the tiny countertop and scattered.
    “Here.” She crossed to him and knocked his hand out of the way when he reached for the strips. She gathered them up and slipped them into the box, then looked up at him. “Let me.”
    He started to protest and she paused, a strip in hand, eyebrows up. “Really?”
    “I’ve got it,” he muttered.
    “Don’t be dumb.”
    He dropped his hand from his head. “Fine.”
    She opened a strip and stepped close to apply it. She reached for his forehead, then noticed the two strips he’d already stuck in place. They were terrible.
    She sighed and gripped the end of one, pulling it off quickly.
    “Hey! Ow!”
    “ I’ve got this,” she told him. “Those were sloppy.”
    She tossed the used ones away, then leaned in to apply a new one. She pinched the edges of the cut together while laying the adhesive strip over it.
    And ignored that Conner smelled really good. Or tried to anyway.
    “Dammit.”
    “What?” Conner asked.
    She realized she’d said it out loud. She met his eyes—and it hit her that she’d never been this close to him before. Well, maybe in the field working on a victim or something, but never somewhere she’d noticed how he smelled.
    “Um…”
    “Gabby?”
    He frowned, which pulled his cut skin away from her fingers.
    “Dammit…what?” he asked.
    “Oh. Um…” she thought fast, “…glue.”
    The last thing she needed was to make some stupid you’re-so-cute-Conner blunder. All the women at St. Anthony’s fawned over him—well, except for her and Sierra Katz, the two female paramedics on his crew.
    She liked Conner. He was a good guy deep down, an ace paramedic and pretty damned funny a lot of the time—sometimes intentionally, sometimes not. And of course she found him attractive. He was one of those guys any woman would have to admit was attractive. Because even if slender but solid, football-playing blonds with big green eyes and an easy smile weren’t your type, he saved lives for a living and oozed charm like he exhaled carbon dioxide.
    But she didn’t giggle when he smiled at her and she didn’t forget what she was going to say when he spoke to her and she didn’t trip over her own feet when he came into a room.
    At least, not usually.
    She’d seen all of that happen with other women. And she’d seen the effect it had on Conner.
    He was cocky all the time. He became downright insufferable when a woman acted stupid over him.
    But he really did smell good.
    “It needs glue?” he asked. “Damn.”
    It maybe didn’t technically need glue, but it wouldn’t hurt him and it would save her pride.
    She was not the type of girl to stumble over a guy. And even if she were, the guy would not be Conner.
    She’d grown up with three men like Conner. Her brothers were also handsome,