Fighting For Nadia (Police and Fire: Operation Alpha) (Tarpley VFD Book 6) Read online

  Fighting for Nadia (Police and Fire: Operation Alpha)

  Badge of Honor: Tarpley VFD #6

  Nicole Flockton

  Contents

  Foreword

  Letter From The Authors

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Also By Nicole Flockton

  More Special Forces: Operation Alpha World Books

  Books by Susan Stoker

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.

  © 2020 ACES PRESS, LLC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  No part of this work may be used, stored, reproduced or transmitted without written permission from the publisher except for brief quotations for review purposes as permitted by law.

  This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, please purchase your own copy.

  Cover design: Buoni Amici Press

  Dear Readers,

  Welcome to the Police and Fire: Operation Alpha Fan-Fiction world!

  If you are new to this amazing world, in a nutshell the author wrote a story using one or more of my characters in it. Sometimes that character has a major role in the story, and other times they are only mentioned briefly. This is perfectly legal and allowable because they are going through Aces Press to publish the story.

  This book is entirely the work of the author who wrote it. While I might have assisted with brainstorming and other ideas about which of my characters to use, I didn’t have any part in the process or writing or editing the story.

  I’m proud and excited that so many authors loved my characters enough that they wanted to write them into their own story. Thank you for supporting them, and me!

  READ ON!

  Xoxo

  Susan Stoker

  Letter From The Authors

  To our amazing readers:

  The Tarpley Volunteer Fire Department books have been a lot of fun for us to write, and we hope you enjoy them. Six talented authors came together to bring you these stories that take place in one small Texas town. With that in mind, please know that, although we tried very hard to consult with each other on details, there will be some minor differences in basic timelines, character portrayals, and storylines from book to book. While we take pride in our craft, it’s almost impossible to have all the details match in six different works by six different authors, and we hope that you’ll enjoy the uniqueness of each story rather than comparing them to each other. We ultimately wanted to bring you stories that you can enjoy, that will take you out of your world for a little while and drop you into another, and we know you'll appreciate them for the entertainment that they're intended to offer. Thanks for your support of us and happy reading!

  ~Silver, Deanndra, Haven, MJ, TL, and Nicole

  About the book

  A Fresh start. One Chance encounter. The storm of the century.

  Ex-Army surgeon, Mitchell ‘Buff’ Alexander has returned to his family ranch to try and rebuild his life. He lost a lot in the war, but not everything. He can still help at the Tarpley Volunteer Firefighter Department. Now, relationships, that’s a battle he’s not prepared to fight. He knows he’s better off alone. PTSD is the one thing Buff wished hadn’t followed him home. While in the throes of yet another attack, a stranger helps him in a way no other person has ever been able to. But she’s a complication he can’t deal with at the moment.

  ER Doctor, Nadia Fletcher wants more than this small town has to offer. She sets her sights on a dream job at a bigger hospital. After helping Buff through a PTSD episode, she wants to get to know him, but he won’t give her the time of day. As doors open and close, Nadia finds a new path and sees that the Texas Hill Country and the people might be what she needed all along.

  When the storm of the century hits their small town, Nadia and Buff reunite and work together to save lives, reigniting the spark between them. Buff wants to be the man Nadia deserves, but he’s drowning in his own hell. Will Nadia be the one to pull him to the surface or will fears keep them apart?

  Chapter 1

  April

  Mitchell ‘Buff’ Alexander sat in his late model pickup truck and closed his eyes. Memories slammed into him faster than a freight train. The heat from the flames shooting into the sky. The noise of the wild beast descending on them seconds before they’d all taken cover in their fire shelters. Anxiety clawing at him to escape.

  He bit back a moan and forced his eyes open, focusing on the scene in front of him. A crowd gathered in the massive field near the Tarpley Volunteer Fire Department building. He was at the town celebration. Lights whirled and people on rides twirled. Living a carefree life. He should’ve been there as a participant on the dunk tank, but he’d called Pops that morning and told him he couldn’t do it. Pops understood and hadn’t pressured him. Everyone in town, and surrounding areas, were there to celebrate the work the volunteer fire department had done to stop a massive wildfire last month. The fire he’d just been remembering. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t forget. At the end of the day it was another memory to add to all the ones he couldn’t say goodbye to.

  Why he thought becoming a volunteer fire fighter was a good idea, he’d never know. The back-breaking work in clearing scrub was mind-numbing. Sometimes the urge to ignore the call almost overwhelmed him, he never did though. He always answered. His innate sense to heal, protect and serve were as much a part of him as his blue eyes. He couldn’t shut it off. Perhaps he should’ve tried harder.

  He concentrated on his breathing. The slow inhalation of breath through his nose filling his lungs. The whoosh of the air out his mouth as he exhaled. He repeated the action a few times and slowly began to feel in control.

  As a former Army doctor he’d seen plenty of grotesque injuries, but the sight of the burned man, with his skin melted off his face, turned even Buff’s cast iron stomach. When they’d come across the woman suffering a major allergic reaction, he’d let his teammates take the bulk of the work. Still, it had been hard to stand on the sidelines and not push them aside so he could work on the woman. All he’d done was deal with the oxygen mask.

  Erin, her name is Erin.

  One of the reasons he’d left the Army and his medical career was because the injured had become objects instead of people. Oh, he said and did all the right things with his patients. He saved their lives with the surgeries he performed, but it was as if he was operating outside of himself. There, but not really.

  It hadn’t been a hard decision to not sign up for another stint when his papers arrived. Some days, though, when a situation the TVFD were called to required medical assistance, the urge to be the one who treated the victims was huge. But, always, when he wanted to move toward them his feet seemed to be glued to the ground. Fortunately
Dirty-D and Tank were also medics and they took the lead. All the men on his team were aware of his medical skills. They were also aware of his PTSD issues, not how deep they went, but that he had things he was working on. They never pushed him to act when they knew he could do a better job, and for that he was grateful. Occasionally, when his mind was clear and everything felt good within him, he’d take the lead. Those situations were very rare.

  A tap on his driver’s side window drew him out of the pit his thoughts had tumbled into. Pops, the Fire Chief for Tarpley Volunteer Fire Department, gazed at him. His brows furrowed in concern.

  Buff opened the door and stepped out of his truck. The scent of charcoal and grilling meat, laughter and squeals of delight from people on the rides he’d seen as he’d driven up, wafted around them. His stomach grumbled, reminding him that his last meal had been a long time ago.

  “Everything all right, son?” asked Pops. Every member on the team was Pops’ honorary son. It didn’t matter if their parents were alive, like his were, or they were parents themselves, Pops cared and looked after everyone. It made him a great leader for the team.

  “Yeah. Just, you know.” Buff didn’t need to elaborate, as he knew; Pops understood. Because of the way Pops was, Buff had shared all he was going through with the other man. Like his teammates, his family only had a surface understanding of the demons he battled. He hadn’t wanted to burden them, not when Mom and Dad were both so happy to see him back and elated that he was going to work on the family dude ranch. They’d accepted his explanation that he was taking some time off after he’d left the Army before trying to find a job as a doctor at one of the regional hospitals. What they didn’t know was that, right now, he had no plans to ever go back into the medical field.

  “Well, son,” Pops said, slapping him on the back. “Greasy, grilled food, beer and friends are a good way to get out of your head. Come on, let’s get something to eat and drink.”

  Buff allowed himself to be led away like a recalcitrant teenager and not a thirty five year old man.

  Some days it was good to let others take the lead.

  “Are you sure this looks okay?” Nadia Fletcher asked her roommate and work friend Cerise. Staring at herself, she didn’t quite recognize the woman looking back at her. She resembled nothing like the doctor that lived in scrubs every day.

  A pink sparkly cowboy hat sat atop her brown shoulder length hair. The black dress she wore had a low neckline, showing off a little more cleavage than she was used to baring. There was a large blue and silver crystal encrusted cross on the dress’s back and a smaller one on the front. To finish off the ensemble she had on black cowboy boots.

  If her fellow medical school friends from Boston could see her now they’d be laughing their asses off. Asking if she was now going to be a Cowboys’ fan instead of a Patriots’. Like that would ever happen. She may have left Boston, but when it came to sports, she was a New England girl through and through. No way would she change that.

  “Girl, you look perfect and you’ll fit right in. No one will ever know you’re not from around here.”

  “I look like a trussed up Christmas tree. I hate sparkles and glitter. I can’t believe you talked me into all of this. I’m going to make Dexter pay as well.”

  When Dexter or Dirty-D as he tried to get her to call him, which she refused to do, had invited her, Cerise and a few of the others from the Hill Country Medical Center ER department to a community event in the town where he was a volunteer fire fighter, she’d agreed to go. What she hadn’t agreed on was Cerise dragging her to a western outfitters store to get her some real Texas clothes instead of the clothes from home that graced her closet. Even Nadia had to admit that her clothes weren’t suited to the hot humid Texan climate, but she wasn’t going full cowgirl mode with her clothes. No way.

  “No you won’t, Dirty-D is a good guy.” Cerise laughed and donned her own cowboy hat, a black sparkly version of Nadia’s. Her friend was decked out head to toe with sparkles. Even her red cowboy boots had rhinestones on them. Nadia had drawn the sparkle line when Cerise wanted to put glitter gel on her cheeks. Her friend had pouted but then proceeded to apply the gel to herself. As much as she didn’t want to admit it, Nadia couldn’t deny it looked good.

  “Are you sure about that? Because I would’ve been quite happy sitting at home catching up on some reading. By myself.” She loved being alone. The byproduct of growing up in a house with two brothers and a sister. All older. All overachievers like her. Everything was a competition among the Fletcher siblings. As much as she missed them, moving to Kerrville in Texas had given her some much needed breathing space.

  Cerise propped her hands on her hips. “Nadia, I love you and I love sharing this house with you. You arriving into town when my other roommate left was fate, but girl, you spend too much time by yourself. Now come on, we’re going to a party where there will be smoking hot firefighters along with rough and ready cowboys. It’s going to be glorious.”

  Nadia chuckled at her friend’s enthusiasm. Cerise was as different from her friends back in Boston as night was to day. The difference being that Nadia had a feeling that Cerise would drop everything if Nadia called for help. Something she wasn’t sure her other friends would do.

  She shook off that thought. Cerise was right, today was all about having fun and the likelihood she’d meet anyone who would interest her wasn’t going to happen. Her focus was on establishing herself as the best ER doctor the Hill Country Medical Center had ever seen.

  A few hours later, Nadia sat on a bench with Cerise, and her fellow workmates who’d come along. Some of the members of Dex’s team joined them as well. The guys had been busy manning the dunk tank as well as other things. The day had been full of food, beer and laughter, although there had been a solemn moment when Erin, the woman the team had saved during the fire, had spoken to the gathered crowd. Nadia couldn’t believe the story she’d told. How she’d been kidnapped and had set the fire to save her life. How her allergic reaction to fire ant bites could have done what the crazed man she’d been escaping hadn’t been able to do—kill her.

  All the while Erin had been talking Nadia’s gaze had been drawn to a man at the far end of the table. Buff, she thought his name was. He looked handsome in his uniform. All of them had weird nicknames. Buff was part of Dexter’s team and joked with the guys. However, it was like he was there in body, but not in mind and soul. His eyes were hidden behind his sunglasses so she couldn’t tell if he was bored and wanted to get the hell out of there or there was something more and he was having an inner battle with himself.

  When Buff had joined his team on stage to receive their medals and plaques his shoulders were tense and he didn’t break a smile. As he’d walked off stage he yanked the medal over his head, stuffing it into his pocket. Like the rest of the team he’d changed out of his uniform and had returned to the event. He’d milled around for a bit before coming back to sit at the table. By himself—again.

  Now the music had recommenced after the formal proceedings of the day had ended and the noise level had risen, but Nadia didn’t want to leave. Which surprised her. Normally, all this noise would have her craving some peace and quiet.

  Once again she found herself looking for Buff to see how he was doing, only he wasn’t around anymore. She craned her neck but she couldn’t see him in close proximity to them. Nadia hoped he was okay.

  Man, she really needed to turn off the physician side of herself sometimes. What did it matter where he disappeared? He probably went and got another plate of food, he looked like he ate a lot. Not that he was overweight or anything, the guy was built. The fabric of his shirt stretched over his biceps every time he’d taken a sip of his beer.

  And she’d spent far too much time looking at him, if she could catalogue all that about him. She needed something new to focus on.

  “Hey Nadia, do you want to two-step with me?” She looked up to find Steve, one of the nurses from the hospital standing beside her.r />
  Well she’d been looking for a distraction, but dancing wasn’t her thing. “Umm I don’t dance and I don’t know how to two-step.”

  Steve waved his hand around. “Not a problem, it’s easy and I happen to be light on my feet so I can teach you everything you need to know.”

  “Yeah, you’re light on your feet, you’re always pretty quick when a patient is about to barf,” Cerise commented, while laughing. “You should see him, Nadia, he can deal with the bloodiest patient with the largest wound possible, but someone throws up, and he’s gagging like a champion.”

  The group around the table laughed, Steve joining in with them. “What can I say, I’ll take blood and gore any day over vomit. So how about it Dr. Nadia, do you wanna dance?”

  “I can vouch for him, he’s a pretty good dancer,” Dexter said mildly as he approached the table.

  “What? You and Steve have danced?” Nadia asked waggling her eyebrows at them. “If that’s the case, how about you show me how it’s done.”

  That caused the group to laugh even more and Nadia was glad she’d joined them. Being the new girl could’ve been tough, but Dexter and Cerise had rallied around her and made sure she hadn’t felt like an outsider. It was very refreshing.