Part 1 - The Accident

The Accident

Sienna Bernfield didn’t even have time to scream. One moment she was driving toward Fort Hood Army post, and the next, the world exploded in front of her midsize rental car.

A huge pickup truck ran a red light and broadsided the Honda civic in front of her. She slammed on the brakes and watched in disbelief as the truck pushed the smaller car across the intersection and pinned it against the side of a brick building nearby.

Acting on instinct, Sienna pulled her car over and leaped out. She raced toward the accident, ignoring the bystanders yelling that the person driving the truck was fleeing the scene. Her only concern was whoever was inside the now crumpled car trapped between the truck’s grill and the wall of the building.

As a paramedic back home in Nashville, she knew how important it was to get an injured person help as soon as possible. The “golden hour” was the first sixty minutes after a traumatic injury and was considered the most critical for successful emergency treatment. If the person or persons in the car were hurt, their golden hour had already begun.

The entire passenger side of the car had been smashed in, and Sienna was relieved to find no one sitting there. Christmas music played eerily in the background from a nearby store as she sized up how to get to the driver.

The doors on either side of the car were inaccessible, the passenger side was blocked by the truck, and the driver’s side was butted up against the brick building. The windshield was cracked but not busted out, and there was loose glass all over the trunk from the back window.

The morning had been cool, especially for Texas, and Sienna was wearing a long-sleeve blouse and a jacket. Without stopping to think about what she was doing, she climbed up onto the trunk and brushed debris off of the roof, before lying on her belly and peering into the interior of the car through the sunroof.

A man was sitting in the driver’s seat, his head leaning against the brick of the building as the window next to him had shattered upon impact. Sienna could see blood trailing down the side of his face and dripping onto his chest. At first glance, she didn’t see any bones sticking out of his arms or legs, which was good. But that didn’t mean he didn’t have internal or spinal injuries.

The steering wheel was bent downward and the man was obviously pinned inside the vehicle. There was no way he’d be able to get his legs loose, not without mechanical assistance from the jaws of life.

Glad once more for her small five-foot-two size, Sienna wiggled her way through the sunroof until she was crouched on the crumbled seat next to the man. She couldn’t count the amount of times she’d been the one on the ambulance crew to crawl into storm drains, under vehicles, and into other tiny places. She didn’t even thick twice about small spaces anymore.

She reached out and put her fingers on the man’s carotid artery—and reflexively jerked her hand back when his eyes popped open.

Immediately, Sienna reached for him and grabbed both sides of his head as best she could in the limited space, trying to keep him still so he wouldn’t exacerbate any neck injury he might have. “You’re okay, sir. You’ve been in a car crash, but you’re okay,” she told him calmly.

He reached up with one hand and gripped her wrist, but didn’t try to jerk out of her hold or otherwise move.

Sienna could practically see his brain trying to process what had happened and where he was. She saw the second his situation registered because his breathing sped up and his eyes dilated further.

“I need to get out,” he said in a low, controlled voice.

“I’m sorry,” Sienna told him, “That’s just not possible right now. But you’re safe. Cars don’t blow up like they do in the movies and television shows. I’m sure the cops and firefighters are on their way. They’ll get you out as soon as they can.”

“You don’t understand,” he said in a tone Sienna couldn’t read. “I’m claustrophobic. I’m going to lose it if I don’t get out of here.”

Christopher King closed his eyes, trying to block out the fact that he was trapped in the ridiculously small rental car he’d picked up at the Austin airport. He’d reserved an SUV, but when he arrived, he’d been informed that there had been a clerical error and the only thing available for him was this Honda Civic. He made sure the employees knew he wasn’t happy, but in the end, there wasn’t anything he could do about it, and he’d driven away in the car way too small for his liking.

He was a tall man at six-one, and he couldn’t remember the last time he’d even been in a vehicle as small as this one. If it wasn’t for the fact his son would be arriving home that afternoon from a nine-month deployment in the Middle East, he would’ve refused to take the vehicle. But he had to get his ass to the Fort Hood area, check into his hotel, go to the base, and make sure he was at the reception area so he could greet Tony when he arrived with his unit.

It was Christmas Eve, and hearing that his son would be returning tonight had been the best present he could’ve received. Chris had divorced his ex when Tony was only five years old. He didn’t get to watch his son grow up as much as he wanted so he did his best to make the effort to stay involved with his life now, even if that meant traveling hundreds of miles to welcome him home from deployment.

Chris didn’t particularly like the holiday season. He wasn’t a Grinch, but it wasn’t fun decorating his apartment by himself. He didn’t have anyone special to buy presents for, other than his son, and no one bought him gifts either.

He worked hard and played hard. He loved to camp in the Smoky Mountains and had recently bought a small hunter’s cabin, where he went almost every weekend to relax and wind down from his day job.

He’d worked for the Department of Corrections for most of his life. His current assignment was the Riverbend Maximum Security Institution just outside of Nashville. He hadn’t started out wanting to be a prison guard, but over time, he’d found that he enjoyed it…for the most part. But after an incident a few years ago, a riot which had involved most of the prison and where he’d literally come face to face with his own mortality, Chris had made the decision to either change his occupation or figure out a way to retire early.

He was forty-nine. Too young to really retire, and way too old to start over with a new occupation, but since meeting with a therapist hadn’t helped his claustrobia, he was at a point where he had to make a decision.

His plan had been to come down to Texas, see his son, then make some changes in his life. Of course, life seemed to always throw him a curveball.

Chris knew he was seconds away from panicking at the thought of being trapped, but he couldn’t stop his reaction. He’d opened his eyes to see a brick wall on one side of him and crumpled metal all around. He couldn’t move his legs and just about everything on his body hurt. Nothing felt broken, thank God, but he knew he’d be sore for a long time.

He had no idea where the woman next to him had come from. She hadn’t been in the car minutes earlier, but at the moment he didn’t much care. He heard her tell him that he was all right, but the only thing he could think about was getting out. He had to getout.

“Look at me,” the woman ordered.

Chris didn’t want to open his eyes because then he’d see the spider-webbed windshield in front of him—which threw him right back to the prison on that fateful day—and the way he was trapped inside the stupid piece-of-shit car he’d been forced to drive.

Her voice gentled as she said, “My name is Sienna. I’m a paramedic. I’m not some crazy woman who decided on a whim to climb into a wrecked car.”

Chris heard the humor in her voice and wanted to respond to it, but he was having a hard time getting the violent images of the prison riot out of his head. “I’m Chris,” he finally said between pants. “Chris King.”

“Do you live around here?”

He knew she was trying to distract him, but it wasn’t working. “No. I’m from Tennessee.”

“Really? Me too. I live in Nashville. What about you?”

That made him open his eyes in surprise. He couldn’t turn his head because she was holding him still, but he moved his eyes in her direction. “Me too.” She grinned, and the thoughts of the riot he’d lived through suddenly faded from the forefront of his mind. “You’re really from Nashville? You aren’t just saying that to try to keep me calm?” he asked.

Sienna smiled. “Nope. I really live there. Have for twenty-five years or so.”

“Since you were little?” he asked.

She chuckled, and the low sound echoed around the small space they were occupying. It felt as if she’d wrapped a warm blanket around his shoulders. It was that comforting. He kept his eyes on her face, thankful that she was able to keep his mind occupied.

“Bless you. No. I moved there after I graduated from the University of Tennessee.”

“There’s no way,” Chris said.

“No way, what?” Sienna asked.

“That you’re in your forties. Thirty-five, tops.”

She laughed again, and once more, where he was and what was happening faded, and all he could see were her beautiful brown eyes. “Thanks. It’s my size. Being five-two makes me look younger.”

Chris tried to shake his head, but she had too firm a grip on him for him to move even an inch. “No. It’s you. You’re beautiful.”

She blushed, and he had the thought that it was a shame. A woman who looked like Sienna should be used to compliments. Should take them in stride. She had pretty light brown hair with blonde highlights. It was tumbled around her shoulders at the moment and she had a black streak smudged on one cheek. He frowned, wondering if she’d hurt herself climbing into this deathtrap with him.

Just as the thought hit him, he remembered where he was and that he was stuck. He tried to shift in the seat, but his legs were pinned under the steering wheel and dashboard. He felt the pressure of the wheel against his thighs.

Closing his eyes again, Chris felt the terror clawing its way up his throat once again.

“So if you’re from Tennessee, what are you doing in Texas? Are you lost?”

Chris desperately wanted her to be able to distract him with her questions. He was still holding on to her wrist and he could feel the steady pulse under his hand. He forced his eyes open once more and found that she’d shifted until she was practically sitting in his lap. The steering wheel was preventing her from actually doing so, but she’d done her best to put her face directly in his line of vision. He vaguely heard people talking from outside the car, but he concentrated on Sienna. She was the only thing keeping him from losing his mind.

“My son is coming home from deployment today.”

Her eyebrows shot up. “Really?”

“Really.”

“Mine is too. Well, it’s my daughter, not my son.”

Chris stared at her in disbelief. The thought crossed his mind that everything she was saying was a lie, just to keep him calm, but he doubted she’d lie about something like having a kid. “What are the odds?” he asked.

“Astrominical,” she replied dryly. “We’ve lived in the same city for years. We have kids who are probably around the same age. They’re both in the Army. They’re probably in the same unit and have been stationed together overseas. Then we were traveling at the same place, at the same time. I’m a paramedic and small and…here we are. It’s a Christmas miracle.”

When she put it like that, it seemed even more improbable, but he liked the thought of her being his Christmas miracle. She was a gift just for him.

It had been a long time since he’d enjoyed a gift as much as he enjoyed the thought of her being his.

“Guess that means when I get out of here, you have no choice but to let me take you out for lunch or coffee or something,” Chris said. His words were teasing and flippant, but he meant them. For some reason, he felt as if they were meant to find each other.

“Deal,” she said softly, a sheen of pink flooding her cheeks.

Someone pounded on the top of the car then, breaking the moment.

Sienna hated how easily she blushed. She blushed when she was embarrassed. She blushed when someone complimented her, when the guys at the station back in Tennessee teased her. She wanted to come off cool and sophisticated with Chris, but of course she probably looked like a blushing virgin or something instead.

She couldn’t believe they both had children in the same unit and they were in Texas for the same reason. It had to be fate…didn’t it?

“You guys okay in there?” a voice from above asked.

Sienna looked up and saw a civilian looking down at her from the open sunroof. She nodded. “We’re good. What’s the ETA on the paramedics?”

“Not sure, but they’re on their way. There’s a group of Army guys out here. They chased down and caught the other driver. They’re keeping him secure until the cops get here.”

“Someone needs to relay that the fire department is gonna need extraction tools to get the vic out. There’s a probable head or neck injury as well,” Sienna told the man, her training kicking in.

Without a word, the man’s head disappeared and it was just her and Chris once again. She could hear more people talking outside, but for the moment, it seemed like her and Chris were the only people in the world.

Shifting and ignoring the way her knees and hips were screaming in pain at the awkward position she was in, Sienna looked back at the man in front of her.

In the time it took for her to relay Chris’s condition to the other man, he’d sank back into his head. He was shaking and sweaty, and Sienna didn’t think it was because of his medical issues. He’d said he was claustrophobicm and being pinned in place, with her holding him immobile, couldn’t be fun.

“I remember this one time when we rolled up on a scene and realized a kid had crawled into a sewer pipe after a kitten and gotten stuck. Of course, the guys I work with are all big and brawny, there was no discussion about it, I knew I’d be the one who had to go in after him.”

Chris hadn’t opened his eyes again, but Sienna knew he was listening. Without thought, her thumb began to caress his jawline as she continued. “It was the day after Christmas, and his mom told me he’d been playing with his new handheld game all morning and she’d finally forced him outside for a break. I crawled into that sewer, and I’ve never been claustrophobic, but I struggled with being inside that tube. I reached the boy and, let me tell you, it was hell trying to back out of there while holding on to his leg. He was kicking and screaming and the sound echoed in that small drain pipe. I thought I would be deaf by the time I got him outside.

“Eventually, I made it to the opening and my team pulled me out by my boots, dragging that little boy with me. We were both covered in mud, and things I don’t even want to think about, and instead of thanking me, the boy turned and yelled at me, saying he was playing with the kitty, and I didn’t have the right to touch him. His mom hustled him into the house with barely even a thanks, probably to play that damn game he’d gotten from Santa.”

Chris’s eyes opened at last…and instead of laughing at her final line, he said, “I was working at my job at the maximum-security prison and there was a riot. I locked myself into the observation room, but the prisoners broke in. They busted out the glass, which looked a hell of a lot like the windshield does right now, until it finally broke. They beat the shit out of me then hauled me to solitary confinement and locked me in. It was dark, and I could hear the yelling and screaming of the riot around me. But the scariest thing was the smell of the smoke from the fires they lit. I knew no one knew where I was, and if the fire got out of control, I’d either be burned alive or would suffocate from the smoke. It felt as if I had been buried alive.”

Sienna couldn’t let go of his head, but she wanted to hug him more than she wanted anything else in her life. She settled for leaning forward and laying her forehead against his own.

He continued, his voice amazingly steady. “Eventually, the police and SWAT got everything under control and searched the prison cell by cell to secure it, and found me. I’m told I was in there for three hours. It felt like days. I’ve had issues with small spaces ever since.”

Sienna pulled back and looked into Chris’s dark blue eyes. He had blond hair that was beginning to turn gray at the temples. He had wrinkle lines around his eyes and mouth, meaning he probably laughed a lot. His nose was crooked, it had obviously been broken in the past, possibly even in the riot he’d talked about. He still held on to her wrist, as if she were a lifeline, and she supposed she was.

“I’m not leaving you until you’re out of here,” she vowed.

“I’m okay,” he said immediately, but Sienna could tell he wasn’t.

“Of course you are,” she agreed. “Tell me about Tony,” she demanded.

He hesitated, then one side of his mouth quirked upward. “You’re trying to distract me,” he accused.

“Yup,” she admitted without prevarication. “So…Tony?”

She watched Chris force himself to change gears and think about his son rather than his predicament. As he talked about how proud he was of Tony and what he did in the Army, she silently assessed him.

His heart rate was a little elevated, but that was normal under the circumstances. His skin had good color and he wasn’t cold, which was good. He was talking without issue, so he probably didn’t have a collapsed lung. The cut on the side of his head was sluggishly bleeding, but nothing that she was too concerned about. Head wounds typically bled a lot, and if nothing else, the bleeding would help clean it out. He’d need stitches, but those were simple enough to put in. His arms were moving just fine and he had a good grip on her wrist. She couldn’t assess his legs from her position and because the steering wheel was in her way, which concerned her somewhat.

“You’re not listening to anything I’m saying, are you?” Chris asked after a pause.

Sienna’s eyes flew up to his guiltily. “Of course I am.”

He chuckled—and she could only stare at him in shock. When he smiled, his entire face lit up. She loved the sound rumbling up from his chest as well.

Ashamed of herself for feeling even the smallest iota of attraction for the man when he was literally trapped by the tons of steel around them, she tried to control herself.

“How old was I when I found out I was going to be a father?” Chris quizzed.

Sienna grinned cockily at him. “Twenty-one. You liked Tony’s mom, but weren’t sure you wanted to spend the rest of your life with her. But you married her anyway and then your son was born.”

“Okay,” he agreed disgruntledly. “I guess you were listening.”

“I’m a woman,” Sienna said smugly. “We can do more than one thing at a time. How do your legs feel?”

“My feet are tingly,” he answered immediately. Then asked, “Is that bad?”

“I won’t lie. It’s not great, but it’s not terrible either. The fact that you can feel them is awesome.”

“But I’m stuck.”

Not wanting him to get fixated back on that and possibly make his claustrophobia flare again, she said, “I met Randy when I was thirteen and he was seventeen. I didn’t know it wasn’t appropriate then, and even if I did, I wouldn’t’ve cared. I loved him and thought he loved me too. Turns out, he loved having sex…it didn’t matter who he had it with. When I was eighteen, I moved in with him. We thought we were so grown up. When I turned up pregnant, he decided that maybe he didn’t want to be an adult after all.”

“He dumped you? That asshole,” Chris growled. “Miranda and I weren’t the best husband and wife, but we always worked together when it came to Tony.”

Sienna didn’t want to admit how good it made her feel to hear him get pissed off on her behalf. “Yeah, he dumped me. But don’t feel sorry for me or my daughter. I moved back in with my parents and they helped me raise Sarah. They encouraged me to go to our local community college. I had plans to be a nurse, but from the first ridealong I did on an ambulance, I was hooked. I loved how the paramedics swooped in to do what they could to keep the person alive until he or she reached the hospital. It was a huge adrenaline rush. I got my EMT license first, then went on to get certified as a paramedic. I haven’t looked back since.”

“From where I’m sitting, you’re good at what you do,” Chris said with a small smile.

Sienna returned the grin, but didn’t respond verbally. She couldn’t believe she was having as powerful feelings as she was toward this man. It was crazy. But she couldn’t deny that she wouldn’t mind getting to know him better once they went back to Tennessee.

“Thanks,” she said after a moment.

They sat there in the cocoon of the wrecked car, staring intently at each other, and Sienna wondered what Chris was thinking.

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.”

“We need to load him up, ma’am,” one of the paramedics said. “We’ll be going to Darnall Army Medical Center. It’s the closest hospital. He was very lucky that he wasn’t hurt more than he was.”

Sienna nodded and went to take a step back. Chris tightened his hold on her hand. “Wait!”

The paramedic looked put out, but he didn’t insist on getting him loaded right that second.

“You didn’t answer my question,” Chris told Sienna.

Then she smiled at him, the most beautiful smile he’d ever seen, and said, “Yes. I’d love to go out with you.”

“Best Christmas ever,” Chris said, and squeezed her hand, wishing he could bring it up to his lips and kiss it. The straps on the gurney kept him imbobile, but for once he wasn’t thinking about the fact that he was claustrophobic, he was thinking about where he should take Sienna on their date. The last thing he saw before the doors of the ambulance closed was her beautiful smile.