Dare She Date Again?
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Amy Ruttan
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16
Chapter One
JUST ONE MORE training session.
Another two months. That was it.
Samantha Doxtator took a deep breath and looked at the roster. She only had to mentor one more paramedic in training and she could leave her Health Air training job behind and move on to their air program in Thunder Bay.
Thunder Bay was her dream. She’d bought a house there. She’d finally give her son the life he deserved and best of all she’d be in the air, saving lives.
She walked over to where the dispatcher, Lizzie Bathurst, was handing out the prospective paramedics’ files to their mentors.
“Morning, Lizzie.”
Lizzie didn’t say anything, but that wasn’t unusual for her.
“So who am I mentoring for this last session?” Samantha asked eagerly, putting the emphasis on the word “last” as she clapped her hands and rubbed them together.
She was so ready to move up to Thunder Bay now. Most of her family had relocated up there when her father had died. In the north, her son Adam could grow up with cousins. He’d have a yard to play in instead of a patio off a ground-floor apartment.
Adam would be able to run and play outside, like she had been able to do when she’d been a kid growing up out in the country.
Adam may not have his dad any more, but he’d have a great, love-filled childhood. Thunder Bay had been her and her late husband’s dream since they’d started training to become paramedics fourteen years ago.
It had just taken her a lot longer as her training had been sidetracked when Adam had been born and then Cameron had died.
Don’t think about that.
Though she missed Cameron, he’d been gone for some time. She usually welcomed him into her thoughts, but not today.
Today she had a job to do and she was going to complete it perfectly, so that her credentials would shine.
Work and giving it her all was how she’d managed to get through the years since Cameron had died. She didn’t know any other way, or at least couldn’t remember.
Samantha forced a smile again, trying to think about the positive. In a couple of months she’d be piloting a plane.
“Who will be my last, glorious graduate?” she asked.
Lizzie looked down her nose through her half-moon glasses. “‘Glorious graduate’?”
Samantha frowned. “You’re giving me a tough one, aren’t you?”
Lizzie grinned. “You’re the best. You can crack the hard nuts.” She handed Samantha the file, which Samantha took with trepidation. She flipped it open to read the information.
“George Atavik. Wow, he’s a long way from home.” Samantha was impressed. They hadn’t had anyone from so far north come down this far south to take this program. “Wait, this says he’s a pilot, with a heck of a lot of air time, but he wants to work in an ambulance?”
“I told you. A hard nut. He’s got an impressive résumé and I want him in the air. You need to convince him to take Health Land and Air’s training to become a pilot with them. I hate seeing talent go to waste.”
Samantha worried her bottom lip. Drat. Why couldn’t her last student be an easy one? Then again, she’d never been given the “easy” ones and she couldn’t help but wonder if there was some kind of conspiracy against her.
“Hey, you’re not sticking him with me because of our shared heritage, are you?” Samantha teased.
Lizzie’s gaze narrowed. “Don’t play that with me. You just want someone else.”
Samantha chuckled. “Okay, you got me.”
“You’re the best, Samantha. You have the most experience working in ambulances.”
“You’re just buttering me up now. You’re never this nice.”
Lizzie grinned, one of those evil grins, and then it disappeared. “I don’t know why he won’t fly.”
Samantha glanced at his file. “Maybe he wants to diversify. There aren’t many ambulances up in Nunavut.”
“Health Land and Air would like him to pilot, but if you can’t convince him, we’ll take him any way we can get him. Thunder Bay is short on ambulance operators so when he gets there at the end of the course he’ll be snapped right up. By the way, you’re working solo on this too.”
“Solo?” Samantha asked. Now she really was shocked. “Usually we work in threes.”
“Usually, but George Atavik has experience and he doesn’t need the extra attention. Besides, as I said, you’re the best.”
Samantha nodded. “All right. I’ll try.”
“Don’t try. Do. Now, go out there and meet him. The new recruits are meeting their mentors now.”
Samantha tucked the file under her arm and headed into the other room, where about ten new recruits for the advance care program were arriving and their mentors were meeting them.
She spotted him from across the room. Well, the back of him as he was the only recruit standing by himself. The only one who looked completely at ease and didn’t seem to be giving off a nervous energy.
“Atavik, George,” she called out.
He turned around and she had to take a step back to catch her breath. His copper skin was flawless. He stood there dumbstruck at first as they surveyed each other, but then he smiled, and two deep dimples appeared, accentuating his brilliant white teeth.
His dark eyes twinkled like he held a mischievous secret, one that would take some coaxing to pry from him. His short black hair was tousled up in a faux hawk. He was tall, muscular but not bulky, lean. He was in good shape and the white crisp shirt and navy blue pants of a paramedic suited him well. Samantha hoped she wasn’t staring at him with a gaping mouth.
It’d been some time since she’d appreciated a good-looking man. A really long time. Being a single mother didn’t leave much opportunity to date.
He walked over to her, since she hadn’t uttered a word since she’d called his name, and stuck out his hand. “I’m George Atavik.”
Samantha licked her lips and stuck the file under her arm again to take his hand. Clumsily. “I’m Doxtator...Samantha. I’m Samantha Doxtator.”
“Nice to meet you.” He was polite and reserved.
Good. Maybe he wouldn’t be as difficult as she’d originally thought.
Say something. You’re just staring at him.
“Are we going to get started?” he asked, looking at her like she’d lost her mind.
Samantha cleared her throat. “Sorry, it’s been a crazy day.”
George nodded. “I take it you’re one of the mentors I’m assigned to work with?”
“Yes, I’m your mentor. Your only mentor.”
He looked around. “How come the others have two mentors?”
“You have more experience.” Samantha cleared her throat and opened his file. “So we’re going to be working together over the course of eight weeks while you get your advanced care paramedic training. Of course, with a pilot license, in less time you could get your critical care training—”
“I’m not interested.” Suddenly the sparkle was gone from his eyes and the smile wiped away.
“Why not? You have a pilot—”
“I’m not interested. I’m here to work in an ambulance.” He crossed his arms and Samantha got the hint not to push him any further.
“Okay. That’s fine.” Samantha pulled out some papers. “Just read these release waivers through, fill them out and we’ll hit the road for your first day.”
George nodded and she handed him the papers and a pen. He took a seat at a nearby table and got straight to work on filling out the forms. Samantha moved away to give him some privacy.
As she went to get a cup of coffee she snuck a glance at him.
She wondered what made a pilot with so much air time give up flying. He had more air time than she did and she couldn’t even imagine giving up flying.
So what drove him to ground himself, as it were?
As if he knew she was watching him, he looked up and their gazes locked across the room. His eyes were intense and pinned her to the spot.
She turned away quickly, pretending to ignore him, only she could feel his eyes boring into the back of her neck. Like his eyes had leapt from his body and were drilling through her flesh. Heat bloomed in her cheeks and she wished her hair wasn’t pulled back in a ponytail. Maybe then her long hair would hide the inevitable blush she knew was creeping up her neck into her cheeks.
Her late husband Cameron had thought her blushing was cute. It was something she couldn’t control and she thought it was damn annoying. Control and order was everything to her.
When she glanced at him again, he had gone to his paperwork. He was so serious and focused. She respected it.
She had to get a grip on herself. She was his mentor, his teacher. It was her job to take him out and get a medic who was used to flying used to paramedic work in an ambulance instead.
Maybe a few times jostling in the back of an ambulance would change his tune.
Where he was from there weren’t many roads. Only airplanes and snowmobiles or ATVs, apparently, if you wanted to get from town to town. Not like here.
She grinned a secret smile to herself and set her coffee cup down.
She’d have to test out his driving abilities at some point. Whether he could handle an ambulance or not would determine his future being a rig driver, and maybe if he didn’t like it he would switch to air.
Not that she was going to sabotage him, but she was positive that someone not used to traffic would not enjoying driving an ambulance. It was only a matter of time before he was in the air again.
* * *
“Look alive, Atavik!”
“What?” George asked as he glanced up at Samantha. “What did you say?”
He was having a hard time focusing. He wasn’t expecting his mentor to be one foxy-looking lady.
Foxy, George? Really? He fought the urge to groan in frustration with himself.
He wasn’t sure what he’d been expecting when he’d arrived at the Health Land and Air training base in London, Ontario. It was sort of a mixer and meet-your-mentor kind of affair and then down to work. The other mentors were men. Big, beefy guys, and that’s who George had been expecting to be his mentor.
He hadn’t expected a gorgeous woman like Samantha Doxtator.
The idea of being here was to get away from women. Focus on his career, be the best paramedic he could be. Bring back the joy to his job by trying something new and different. He didn’t want any distractions from that.
Distractions like this vixen.
She was tall, slim, but with curves in all the right places. George didn’t like them thin as rails. It took all his willpower not to cock his head and check her out in her tight paramedic uniform.
Her ebony hair shone with purple undertones and was pulled back in a high ponytail, and she had olive-colored skin and almond-shaped eyes, which were the bluest he’d ever seen.
She was graceful, poised and also had a rod rammed up her backside.
Why was he always attracted to type-A women?
It was his curse.
Maybe because he’d grown up with so many type-A women. His sisters were workaholics, though Mentlana straddled types A and B. She was more type A when it came to his nephew Charlie’s schedule.
No one messed with nap time.
His girlfriend in college had been a total type A and underneath that coiled, rigid exterior had been hot, explosive passion.
Too bad she’d decided that career and life in Toronto was more important to her than him.
Oh, well. He hadn’t been too crushed when it had ended. It had been his last girlfriend who had crushed him. The woman he’d planned to marry. The woman who’d torn his heart in half, leaving his soul as battered and bruised as the outside of him was.
He wouldn’t think of Cheryl. He wouldn’t think of the one woman he ever thought of settling down with. The woman who was set to become his air paramedic partner once Ambrose moved away.
Thinking about Cheryl just reminded him why he didn’t fly any longer and why he’d sworn off women and relationships completely. And he especially didn’t want a relationship with another paramedic. The last time he’d done that, it hadn’t worked out well at all.
“Mayday. Mayday. Mayday. Iqaluit Centre. This is Medic Air 1254. We have engine failure. I repeat, engine failure. We are making a forced landing twenty kilometers north. Four thousand feet descending, heading one-eighty.”
Beads of sweat broke across his brow.
“Atavik, seriously, you look like you’re going to be sick.” Samantha was shaking her head.
George gave her a half-smile. “Sorry.” He stacked his papers and stood up, placing them in Samantha’s outstretched hand.
“You okay there?”
“Fine.”
“Are you sure? I don’t want you throwing up in here.”
“I’m fine. Really,” he snapped. He didn’t need her concern and he didn’t want it. He was here to do a job.
Samantha cocked a finely arched brow. He knew she didn’t believe him. “Okay. Then let’s hit the road. Are you ready for that?”
Only he wasn’t. He glanced covetously at the other trainees who had two mentors. Mentors who were male and were no temptation for him whatsoever. If there was someone else in the ambulance with them, then that person would be a buffer.
He didn’t want to be tempted. He had to get a hold on this.
“So, are you ready?” Samantha asked again.
“Totally.”
“Great!”
She looked a little gleeful about the prospect of taking him out. Oh, God. What did she have planned?
“Well, let me just file this away and we’ll head out.” She disappeared into an office and returned a minute later. “We’re going to be riding in ambulance seven.”
“Is it a good ambulance?” he asked, following her out to the garage.
George seriously doubted it, just by her eagerness.
She grinned. “You’ll see.”
“You’re out to torture me, aren’t you?” he mumbled under his breath, but she heard it because she was opening her mouth to say something when the ambulance beside the one they were heading for lit up, sirens blaring.
“Yo, shake a leg. There’s a pile-up on Highway 401,” someone shouted over the din.
“Come on, newbie.” Samantha jogged toward the ambulance. “Time to see what you’re made of.”
George swallowed the anxious lump in his throat and followed Samantha into the front of the ambulance. When the doors were shut she started the engine and they headed out of the garage at breakneck speed.
“Flip that switch for me,” she said, pointing to a red switch on the dash.
George flipped it up and the lights and sirens came on.
It was pretty awesome. His plane didn’t have a siren or lights.
“You okay, Atavik?” Samantha asked again, shouting over the sirens.
“Fine.”
Which was a lie.
He’d totally zoned out. He wasn’t sure if it was the rocking motion of the ambulance as they raced along the road to the crash scene or if it was the fact he was a bit nervous about what a pile-up would bring.
He’d never been in the thick of it. There weren’t large traffic accidents in Nunavut.
When he’d first come south the four hundred series of highways had been intimidating to him. In fact, London on the whole was a bit scary, though Charlotte’s husband Quinn had got him situated and settled when he’d arrived.
George knew how to drive. He just preferred back roads. Although Quinn had eased him into city life and driving regularly, highways were still sketchy.
The blare of the siren made his ears hurt. He wasn’t used to the sound. He didn’t know if he’d ever get used to the sounds of the city. Especially riding in the front of an ambulance racing through city streets.
His plane had been silent.
Until it hadn’t been.
Don’t think about it.
George gave his best grin to Samantha and swiped the back of his arm across his forehead to mop up the sweat.
“Are you really okay?” she asked. “I don’t want you to get sick on your first day.”
“It’s nothing.”
“Hopefully not my driving?”
Yes, you’re a menace, he wanted to say. To tease her. But he restrained himself.
“I’m fine,” he snapped, and then immediately regretted sniping at her.
“Arrival on scene in five minutes. Pretty big pile-up on the 401.”
George took a calming breath.
You’ve done this before. Countless times. Even if not on a grand scale like this.
Still, the idea of being a paramedic in a big city made him nervous. But he couldn’t go back to Cape Recluse. After the crash the army had opened a base there, thus setting up a permanent air ambulance flight through Health Air.
His job was redundant.
Was he stupid to come down to southern Ontario and try something as alien to him as being a paramedic in heavy city traffic? Could he really still cling to his dream of saving lives if he couldn’t fly?
He was older than the other students.
He was thirty-three.
What am I doing?
He was hoping that receiving this training would help him find the passion for saving lives again. That rush he used to feel before his accident.
Now he just went through the motions. It was an act that he did well, but he longed for that rush again.
The ambulance slowed and George craned his neck as they came slowly down the off-ramp onto the highway.
He could see the smoke rising from the wreckage. There were police cars with their lights flashing and firefighters already on the scene, and when George looked behind them he could see other ambulances barreling down the off-ramp and more coming off further down the highway.
“You ready, Atavik?” She reached over and touched his knee, giving it a squeeze and also sending a jolt of pure electricity through him. He liked her touching him, and he didn’t like that. He wanted to like it, but it was wrong.
“Ready.”
Samantha pulled the ambulance over. “Show time!”
She gave him an encouraging smile as she got out of the ambulance.
George leapt down from the passenger side and surveyed the damage. His adrenaline was pumping as he looked up and down the highway, which was a main artery through Ontario. Traffic was backed up for kilometers and there were more than five cars in the mangled wreck as well as a tanker truck, lying on its side across four lanes of the highway.
It was amazing to be in the thick of this. To do his job, but other than nerves he felt nothing and he couldn’t help but wonder if he was a bit dead inside.
