Page 29 of Falling for My Grumpy Fireman

"Call 911," I shout at the sidewalk in general, and four phones come up. Small towns.

I reach the sedan. Fuel smell. Faint, not active. Airbag powder in the air like flour. The mom's saying his name over and over, Billie, Billie, baby, and reaching for him, and I catch her shoulder gentle.

"Ma'am. I'm a firefighter. Let me get to him."

"His arm—"

"I see it."

And then Nellie's on the other side of the car.

Didn't hear her follow. Didn't have to. Her door's open before mine, and she's folded down to the kid's eye level, and the voice coming out of her is one I've never heard. Low. Warm. Steady as a heartbeat.

"Hey, Billie. I'm Nellie. I'm a nurse, and that is a very loud car, huh? So loud. You're doing so good."

The screaming drops to sobbing. Just like that.

"Neck's clear," she says to me, different voice, flat and fast. "He's moving it fine. Belted, booster seat. It's the arm."

"Restraint's jammed." The buckle's bent where the seat frame shifted. "I got it."

"Left forearm, midshaft." She's got her hands moving over the kid light as sparrows, never touching the arm. "Deformity, no break in the skin. Billie, buddy, can you wiggle these fingers for me? Look at that. Good hand circulation, Peterson."

"Greenstick?"

"Greenstick," Nellie says. "See how it's bowed, not bent wrong? It cracked; it didn't snap."

The mom makes a sound.

"That's the good kind." Nellie's voice drops into something I haven't heard from her before. Soft. Sure. "Kid bones are green wood. He'll be swinging a bat by fall."

The mom sags. So does something in my chest.

She glances up. "I need it splinted before we move him or he'll fight us."

"I need something stiff. Menu, clipboard, anything."

I'm already moving. I come back with two laminated menus and a fistful of dish towels, and the waitress trailing me doesn't say a word about it.

"Perfect." Nellie pads the arm, sandwiches it between the menus. "Belt."

Mine's off before she finishes the word.

She doesn't look up. Doesn't have to. Her hands are steady and quick, and I hold what she tells me to hold, and somewhere in the middle of it I realize we haven't argued in four minutes. A personal record.

After that it's easy. It shouldn't be easy. I've run a hundred scenes with guys I trained with for years that didn't run this smooth.

She talks to Billie. I free the buckle. She calls for the splint and my hands are there with it before the sentence ends. I brace, she wraps. She says "sling" and I've got my flannel off and folded before she looks up. We move the kid out of the car in one slow piece, her taking the arm, me taking the weight, trading him between us like we've done it a thousand times, like we drilled this, like we're not two people who were flinging iced tea ten minutes ago.

The mom's crying easier now, the scared-relieved kind. Billie's down to hiccups, tucked against Nellie on the curb, inspecting his menu arm.

"It's got pancakes on it," he says.

"Sure does." Nellie tilts her head at it. "You hungry?"

He thinks about it the way kids do, with his whole face. "Kinda."

"That's a good sign, bud."