A Sudden Response Re-Release
Excerpt from A Sudden Response
“What did you do?” Joe demanded as she narrowed her eyes on him. She was pretty sure that she wouldn’t forget being in the room when her best friend broke off his engagement. Call her crazy, but that was the kind of thing that she would remember.
No answer.
“Maybe we should talk about something else,” Alice suggested with a hopeful smile.
Joe turned her glare on Nathan, only to watch the bastard grin hugely. “Well, it seemed good old Beth, whom I like to point out that I never liked, tried to put her foot down where the two of you were concerned. Seems that she didn’t like all the touchy-feely crap between the two of you and wanted him to start treating her the way that he treats you.”
Joe nodded slowly. “Yeah, I know that she had a problem with that and I understood it and apologized if it made her uncomfortable. Hell, I even spent the second day by myself so that they could be alone.”
“Well, you may have spent the entire day apart, however…” Nathan said, letting his words trail off.
“What the hell are you talking about?” Joe demanded as she narrowed her eyes on the little bastard that better start talking.
Alice released a heartfelt sigh as she grabbed another roll while Camie continued glaring, which was seriously starting to freak her out. Caitlyn smiled shyly as she ate, obviously uncomfortable and Joe couldn’t blame her since she was starting to feel a little uncomfortable herself.
“What the hell don’t I know about?” Joe demanded when no one said anything as her glare shifted between Eric and Nathan with a look that told them that they better start talking.
Eric groaned loudly as he dropped his fork on his plate and sat up straight. “Fine! You want to know what happened? I’ll tell you. She wouldn’t stop bitching. Everywhere I went, she was there, bitching at me. I had enough and wanted to sleep on the couch. She demanded that I sleep with her and I put my foot down.”
Eric hated sharing a bed. The few times he’d tried spending the entire night in bed with a woman, he’d panicked. He was very particular about his sleep. He couldn’t handle snoring, bed hogs, or people that moved in their sleep. For some reason, he didn’t have a problem hogging her bed and doing all of those things to her.
“You had a problem sharing a bed with your fiancée?” Camie asked, looking unsure whether that news should please her or not.
“I’m a light sleeper, damn it!” Eric said defensively. “Everyone knows that.”
“Uh-huh,” Nathan said absently, still smiling. Bastard. “Tell her the rest.”
“If you don’t tell me what you did to cost me a hundred dollars, I swear to God that I am going to strap your ass to a backboard on Monday and let the guys shave your ass from head to toe,” she threatened, knowing the guys would happily do it.
“Fine, my little drama queen, if you must know. The couch was too goddamn lumpy, so I went to your room to get some sleep,” Eric said, shrugging it off.
“Wait. If you wouldn’t sleep in the same bed with your fiancée, then why would you sleep with her?” Camie asked, narrowing her eyes on the both of them.
Nathan sighed dramatically. “Because she’s his bitch. You really need to pay attention.”
“Nathan!” Alice gasped, even as she couldn’t help but smile and Caitlyn chuckled softly. Joe could tell that she was really going to like Caitlyn.
“Anyway,” Eric said, stretching out the word. “I fell asleep and sometime after two in the morning, Beth woke up and decided to come looking for me. When she didn’t find me on the couch, she went straight to Joe’s room and that’s where she found me.”
Joe held up her hand. “Wait a minute. I don’t remember any of this and I’m pretty sure since Beth was incapable of talking without screeching that she would have woken me up.”
Eric cringed as he looked away.
Nathan laughed his ass off.
Alice sighed, taking a sip of the wine she’d somehow managed to get without Joe noticing during this deeply disturbing conversation.
Camie put her fork down and crossed her arms defiantly over her chest while glaring at her and Eric. Seriously, was anyone else freaked out by this?
“Well?” Joe demanded.
Eric cleared his throat uncomfortably. “It’s really no big deal.”
That left Nathan struggling to breathe as he laughed his ass off.
Oh, she had a feeling that she wasn’t going to like this.
Not one bit.
“Care to explain how I was in the room with the two of you while you broke off your engagement without getting woken up by a woman who never said anything below a shriek?”
Nathan grabbed his chest as tears rolled down his cheeks, only to follow that up by falling out of his chair and hit the floor with a loud thud.
Sighing, Alice took another large sip of wine.
“How?” Joe demanded.
Eric gave her that bad boy smile that was going to get him killed. “I made sure you wouldn’t wake up.”
“How?”
Clearing his throat, Eric said, “I may have,” he cleared his throat again, “had to, um, place a pillow over your head just for a little bit there.”
She gasped. “You smothered me?”
“Yes!” Nathan somehow managed to get out as he continued laughing his ass off.
“You bastard,” Joe breathed. “Oh, come on! I made sure you were still breathing! You only turned blue once and that was because I was too busy defending you to notice!”
They never should have responded to that call.
From New York Times Best Selling Author of the Neighbor from Hell Series, R.L. Mathewson takes on the Emergency Medical Services…
Eric and Joe, the EMT crew of Echo 17, have been best friends since they were eight years old when Eric had taken it upon himself to improve the ugly dress that Joe was wearing with a handful of worms, only to have Joe force him to-
Well, it wasn’t important what Joe made him do with that handful of worms or the vow they made when they found themselves sitting outside the principal’s office after they were snitched on. The only thing that mattered was that they were always there for each other.
Until now.
Eric can’t stop thinking about just how close he came to losing her and-
He’s done playing this game, done watching Joe risk her life and he’s going to do whatever it takes to get the stubborn woman off the truck even if that means losing her forever.
There was only one problem with that plan.
Joe loved what she did and had absolutely no plans to quit. She doesn’t care what Eric says, she’s not going anywhere and the sooner he realized that, the sooner she could go back to pretending that everything was fine.
Eric needed to make a choice, risk everything or lose the one woman he couldn’t live without.
Note: This is a republished version of A Sudden Response. The story remains the same, but it has been thoroughly revised and edited for a better reading experience. If you have already purchased the original version, please be aware that this is not a new story.
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