A Stranger She Can Trust. Regan Black

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СКАЧАТЬ he’d never been able to decipher, though his frequent nightmares gave him too many second chances to do just that.

      He scrubbed at the stubble on his jaw. What if it happened again and another call ended in gunshot wounds? Would he be able to live with himself if he failed another partner?

      “Carson?” Grant prompted.

      “I stay because I like the music here,” he replied.

      Grant gave a bark of laughter, drumming his fingers on the desk. “Come on. You can give me a better reason than that.”

      “Are you tossing me out?” Carson swallowed the lump in his throat. He would deal with it if he had to, but he hoped he hadn’t worn out his welcome. Money wasn’t an issue thanks to his substitute shifts as a paramedic and his occasional work with a construction crew, but shifts here filled a great many empty hours in his daily routine.

      “Not tossing you anywhere. I like having you here.” Grant’s brown eyes turned serious as he leaned forward. “You’ve spoken with the department chaplain about the incident and your recovery, right?”

      “Several times,” Carson said. Hell, several times last month. Although the counseling sessions helped, they didn’t keep the dread at bay for long. Nothing did. Not physical therapy, not a successful shift as a substitute on the rig. Not a beer with friends, not holiday dinners with family, not a house that was too damned big. In short, he was floundering. If the people around him were worried, he knew they had good reason. Hell, he’d told others the same thing he heard too often lately: get back in the saddle and lean on friends as needed. Too bad he couldn’t go back and retract those platitudes now that he understood just how useless they were.

      He’d been an excellent paramedic in no small part because of Sarah. While he could still do the job well—his substitute shifts proved that—he refused to go back full-time and put someone new at risk. What if—

      “Counseling is only one piece of it.” Grant’s voice cut into his downward-spiraling thoughts. The chair creaked as he rocked back. “What does help, son?”

      Carson bristled against the concerned tone that veered dangerously close to pity. He didn’t need help generating pity. Although he wanted to resist and deny, to push back and claim one final time that he was fine, he couldn’t muster the right words. “Would you believe I’m considering some different career options?”

      “That’s fair and reasonable.” Grant nodded. “There’s no judgment here,” he said after a few more beats of silence. “Is it true? Whatever you say stays right here, between us.”

      Carson knew that. He also understood the stress he was about to put on that promise. “When you were shot, did you hate the shooter?”

      Grant went absolutely still, quite a feat for the man who was always moving, tapping fingers or a foot in time with whatever beat the bands on stage were playing. “Yes.”

      “Given the chance, would you...would you have done something stupid?”

      “I’m not on the force anymore, but I do not want to hear your definition of stupid,” Grant replied. “I will admit my hate and frustrations eased when I found a new outlet and purpose.”

      “Even after the shooter was acquitted?” Carson queried.

      “That was a hard day,” Grant admitted. “Alcohol might have been involved in shaking off the news.”

      “He ended your career and irrevocably changed your life. How the hell do you get over that?” Carson realized too late he was shouting, and his hands were balled up into tight fists on Grant’s desk. He stretched his fingers wide and raised his hands, palms out in surrender as he sat back into the chair. “Sorry.”

      “No need for apologies.” Grant tapped out a quick syncopation on the desktop. “Neither you nor I was charged with negligence or any kind of errors in our unfortunate incidents.”

      Carson rolled his shoulders against the prickle of self-loathing sliding down his spine. Being cleared by an official report couldn’t bring Sarah back to life. If he hadn’t made a mistake somewhere during that call, Sarah and he would still be on the job together. Until he identified his mistake, he shouldn’t be trusted as a full-time partner.

      “What do you do when you’re not here or subbing on a rig?” Grant asked.

      “The police call me in as a sketch artist occasionally. I still help out a friend in the PFD who flips houses on the side.” On the days when his friend had work that didn’t aggravate Carson’s knee injury too much.

      “What do you do for yourself?”

      Carson shook his head. There was nothing else. What life did he deserve after letting Sarah die? Every time that night replayed through his mind, he searched for an alternate ending. If he’d taken a different route to the call, if he’d handled the victim differently, would she still be here? Maybe, technically speaking, they’d done everything right and yet Sarah had been killed when two other men stormed the ambulance and robbed it. He had to be sure he wouldn’t repeat the mistakes that got her killed.

      “I keep waking up,” Carson said at last. “Keep hauling myself out of bed.” It was a lousy answer, but he was pretty sure Grant, having been through something similar, could see right through his excuses. “Someone said it would get easier.”

      “Time heals all wounds?” Grant let loose a bark of laughter. “Yeah, that someone is full of crap if they didn’t finish that theoretical statement.”

      “What do you mean?”

      “It gets easier only when you start letting go.” Grant sat forward again. “You let go only when you start living again. I’m not you, son, and our experiences are different, but shifting the focus from the past, being in the present and finding something to look forward to, carried me through the worst of it.”

      Carson didn’t think that accounted for the fear and doubt that plagued him in those rare moments when he managed to shake off the worst of the guilt. “You’re suggesting I find a hobby or something?”

      “I’m suggesting you look for something outside my kitchen and your friends in the first responder circles,” Grant said. “And I want to hear how much you enjoy that something.”

      By the tone, Carson heard the words as an order rather than a suggestion. “Got it.” He pushed to his feet and left the office, returning to the kitchen to finish up the last responsibilities for his shift. As he went through the motions of closing and cleaning, he forced his mind to think about alternatives for tomorrow instead of dwelling in the past. Other than his family, he didn’t have close friends who weren’t connected to the police or fire departments. Where was he supposed to start searching for a new hobby?

      With the trash can loaded, he wheeled it through the back door to the big garbage bins out back. He paused on the way back inside, breathing in the cool spring air rolling off the Delaware River and sighing it out again in an attempt to let go of the past. Up and down the pier, businesses were bustling with customers cutting loose and making the most of Friday night. From this shore and on the far bank of New Jersey, lights sparkled and danced in the reflection of the water. Boats cruised slowly, leaving ghostly trails behind them. From Carson’s vantage point, the traffic on the bridge was little more than a murmur of white noise.

      Sarah had died СКАЧАТЬ