Page 3 of Recovered By Firefighter Daddy

CHAPTER THREE

Jamie

If I was perfectly honest with myself, I didn't even realize I had fallen asleep until I woke up after what I assumed was hours later in the emergency room, covered in a large amount of blankets and sweating up a storm thanks to the way the heater was blasting beside my bed. I wasn't sure how long it had officially been, but, after seeing the time on the TV, which was on and playing the news, I realized quickly that I had been unconscious for almost half the day and had obviously missed my flight. A growing sense of annoyance escaped me as I started to look around for the remote so that I could call the nurse and change the channel.

Surprisingly enough, the remote had been right under my arm the entire time, and I felt a bit embarrassed at how annoyed I had gotten when it took me longer than expected to find the remote. Without hesitating, I pressed the call button and started flicking through the channels looking for the first cartoon channel that was available so that I could keep myself distracted while I pieced together the memory of everything that had happened before I passed out. The only thing that bothered me was the fact that I could only remember a voice calling down asking if there was anybody in the vehicle.

"Oh good," the nurse said as she hurried into my room after rapidly knocking on the door quietly. "You're awake." Not exactly amused at the obviousness of the situation, I tilted my head to the side, shrugging my shoulders as I spoke.

"I would assume so," I said as she turned off the call light that had been going off outside my room. "Do you mind telling me where I am?" The nurse smiled as she turned to look at me.

"You're at Avalanche Gulch Medical Center," she informed me as she started checking the machinery that I had been hooked up to. "They brought you straight here as soon as they found you." As much as I hated to say it, I was still a bit aggravated, but I also blamed it on the fact that I was starting to overheat from the mountain of blankets that were piled on top of me as well as the high-set heater next to the bed.

"Do you think it's possible to get some of these blankets off?" I asked as I wiped off my brow while the nurse took notes on my vitals. "I feel like I'm being cooked in an oven." The nurse finished writing down my vitals before turning to look at me. There was a look of concern on her face as she looked me up and down.

"Are you sure you're comfortable with removing all those blankets?" she asked, annoying me even more as she came up to my bedside. "The doctor said that you're to be kept warm at all costs, especially considering the fact that you did end up with a mild case of hypothermia as a result of your accident." I was about to respond when I heard the knock on the door and turned just in time to see the doctor walk in.

"I saw the call light," he said as he entered the room, and the nurse immediately shot her mouth and moved to the side, allowing him to take her place by my bedside. "Hello, I'm Dr. Ryan O'Hare. Can you tell me your name, please?" Despite the fact that the nurse had already gotten on my nerves for the last time, I couldn't help but smile as I realized that this was the man who could clear the heater from my room or at least remove a few blankets from the bed.

"It's Jamie Hendricks," I informed him as I squirmed uncomfortably under the large number of blankets that had been covering me. "I'm actually from around here. I worked as the librarian here in town up until yesterday." The doctor smiled as he nodded his head, taking notes as he did so.

"I was wondering why you looked familiar," he said as he gave me a nod of acknowledgment. "I'm glad that you're safe, but I have to know why you decided driving through Avalanche Gulch was such a good idea." I lowered my gaze and shook my head, knowing that someone who had lived in town as long as this doctor clearly had would never understand the urge to get away from the small town.

"I needed to get to Nome," I explained as I twiddled my thumbs in my lap, trying to think of the best way to tell him the full truth without making him think any less of me because of it. "I was on my way to the airport to fly to the United States, and, because my tire chains had broken, I decided to drive through because it was a shortcut." I saw the knowing look pass between him and the nurse as the two of them sat there, judging me and knew that I was never going to hear the end of it if word got back to the rest of the town.

"I see," the doctor said as he politely smiled. "Well, I'm just glad that everything is okay and that your vital signs are normal. Are you cold or anything?" I immediately shook my head as I tried to uncover myself. I was growing impatient at this point.

"I'm actually overheating right now," I admitted to him as politely as humanly possible. "Do you think it's possible to get any of these blankets off? It's getting really uncomfortable here." The nurse started to protest when the doctor took his head off at her, clearly already aware of what she was about to say.

"Of course," he said as he hurried to pull some of the blankets off of me. "It's good to know that you're feeling a lot better, but we do need to keep an eye on your temperature. You did suffer from hypothermia, and, unless we take the necessary precautions following your condition, there's no telling how you might recover from it."

After a brief debate, I finally agreed to let him leave the heater on so long as I got a cup of ice water and ordered to stay hydrated. Originally, they wanted to keep me away from the ice, but, once they realized that I was, in fact, overheating, they reluctantly agreed. Within minutes, they had gone off to do a few tests and left me alone in my room, watching the cartoon movie was playing on the TV in the far corner while I sat comfortably in bed, trying to figure out what I was going to do from here, especially now that they had said that they wanted to keep me a few extra nights just to monitor my condition.

I was just in the process of plugging in my phone and checking to see if I could rebook my flight when I heard the knock on the door again. Scared that it was going to be the nurse coming to tell me that I needed to cover up with a few more blankets, I immediately tossed an extra blanket on top of myself, making it look like I was once more buried underneath the mountain, and smiled as I looked at the doorway.

"Come in," I called out to the person on the other side of the door. The door opened, and a tall man with huge muscles walked into the room, looking grim as he smiled at me.

"Hello there," he said in a gruff and sexy voice. "My name is Shane Brighton, and I need to ask you a few questions regarding your accident for my report."