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She opened her mouth to ask, when someone yelled from right outside, startling them both. Tightening her grip on Chris’s head, she said, “The cavalry has arrived.”
“As far as I’m concerned, it was already here,” Chris told her, admiration and something she couldn’t read shining in his eyes.As crazy as it seemed, Chris was almost disappointed that his time with Sienna was interrupted. Twenty minutes ago, he would’ve done anything to get out of the car, but somehow, Sienna had been able to do something that no therapist had been able to…she’d brought him out of a panic attack simply by touching him and talking to him. She’d redirected his thoughts, which he recognized as a tactic others had tried. In the past, he couldn’t stop thinking about being buried alive or suffocating in that damn solitary confinement cell, but even though he was still immobile and still stuck in the damn car, he couldn’t think about anything other than her.
She’d begun to sweat and her hair was sticking to her forehead and the sides of her neck. She had to be uncomfortable, hunched over, holding his head and neck still. But her entire attention was focused on him, not on her own comfort, or lack thereof.
And he hadn’t missed the way her eyes lit up when she’d talked about her daughter. He hadn’t missed the way her thumb caressed his neck to try to soothe him. She was professional, as any paramedic would be, but there was definitely something between them. Something more than a public servant helping a citizen in distress.
After the firefighters arrived, things began to happen very quickly. They used their tools to peel back the hood of the car and to separate the body of the vehicle from the engine. Sienna kept him calm and explained what was going on every moment, so he wouldn’t get freaked out. The sound of the machines was loud and when they couldn’t talk, she kept eye contact with him and constantly brushed her thumb back and forth on his neck, letting him know she was right there.
The second the steering wheel was removed and the pressure was removed from his thighs, he breathed a sigh of relief. His toes were still tingling, but he was no longer trapped.
It wasn’t until Sienna’s hands around his head were replaced with a C-collar that he panicked.
Refusing to let go of her wrist, he said urgently, “Don’t go.”
“I’m right here,” she soothed. “But I need to get out the way so the paramedics can get you out of here.”
The second he had to let go of her wrist, all the other things Chris should be worrying about came crashing back to him. For the several minutes it took for them to carefully lift him out of the car and get him settled on a gurney, he did his best to keep his panic at bay. Once the firefighters began to wheel him toward an ambulance, he couldn’t resist the temptation to talk to his rescuer again. He tried to turn his head to look for Sienna, but the collar around his neck prevented it. “Sienna?” he called out.
“I’m right here, don’t panic,” she said.
He felt her hand on his shoulder as the firefighters and paramedics kept moving him toward the ambulance. “Will you find Tony? Tell him what happened? I don’t know when I’ll be able to get out of the hospital. I might miss him, and I don’t want him to think I just didn’t show up.”
“Of course I will,” she said. Sienna’s face appeared above his, and he felt her slip her hand into his own. He clutched at her and couldn’t believe how right it felt to have her hand in his.
“There’s a group of men who stopped to help direct traffic and who called the police. They were also the ones who chased down the jerk who hit you and decided to run. While you were being extracted, I talked to one of them briefly, and he said he’d do what he could to help make sure your son knows where you are and what happened.”
Chris glanced over to where Sienna was gesturing, and frowned. A group of six men were standing there. They were all younger than he was and extremely fit.
Irrationally, he didn’t like the thought of Sienna spending time with them…and possibly having them catch her eye before he had the chance.
He looked back up at her. “Go out with me,” he blurted.
She blinked in surprise. “What?”
“On a date. When I get out of the hospital, or if that’s too soon, when we get back to Tennessee. We both live in Nashville. I want to take you out. Maybe for New Year’s.” He held his breath, waiting for her answer.
“I was dreading this trip,” she told him quietly, staying out of the way of the paramedics. “I love my daughter, but I’m not really all that comfortable on the military base. I don’t know all the rules and stuff and I’m paranoid I’m going to make some huge faux pas. I hate doing things like this by myself. It’s awkward, and seeing all the other couples waiting for their kids makes me feel like a failure for not being in a relationship myself. But now I understand why I had to come. It was to meet you.”
