Page 68 of A Sudden Response

They’d been having unprotected sex for three months and even though she was on birth control that was still a risk they should have considered. Birth control wasn’t a hundred percent and accidents happened. A baby with Joe? God, yes, but not now.

Not yet.

He wasn’t ready to share her yet.

“Bill called me last night,” Joe said, shooting him a nervous look as she worried her bottom lip between her teeth.

“And?” he said when it looked as though she was going to drag this out.

“You remember when we signed up for the city’s paramedic waitlist?”

“What about it?” Eric asked, leaning down to kiss her forehead.

They signed up six years ago knowing that they would probably never make it up the list before they decided to go to school on their own. Every two years, the city paid for two EMTs to attend paramedic school. It was a long waitlist, but it would save whoever won the spot twenty grand. It also meant that whoever was selected wouldn’t have to worry about losing their jobs while they went to school. As great as it would have been to be selected, they knew the chances of being picked were slim, so they’d started saving so that they could afford to pay for paramedic school and have enough money to cover their bills while they were in school. They had another year before they had enough money to-

“We got it this year.”

It took a moment for her words to sink in, and when they did, he couldn’t help but smile. “We got it?”

“Bill called last night and asked me to tell you,” Joe explained.

“We got it?” he asked, barely able to believe it.

When she nodded, Eric leaned down and-

“You got it,” Joe said, confusing the hell out of him before she added, “I turned it down.”

CHAPTER 29

“Just let me explain,” Joe said as she tried to climb off his lap, but the damn man pulled her back down and wrapped his arms around her, keeping her right where she was.

“That’s before I found out that you did something insanely stupid,” Eric snapped. “I’m calling Bill and telling him that you changed your mind,” he said, shifting her on his lap so that he could pull his phone out of his pocket.

She snatched the phone out of his hand before he could make that call and tossed it on her seat where he couldn’t reach it. She knew he’d be mad about this, but she couldn’t force herself to go through with this.

Six months ago, she would have done anything to become a paramedic, but now...

Now, she wanted something different. She loved working on the truck, probably always would, but now, thanks to Eric, she knew that she also loved working in dispatch. For the past few months, she’d been picking up extra shifts in dispatch and as much as it pained her to admit this, Joe realized that she loved dispatching more than she loved working on the truck. She alsoloved teaching. She taught CPR and first-aid at the community center and ran re-certification classes at the station.

She still loved working on the truck, but she didn’t want to do this full-time anymore. She wanted to work full-time in dispatch and teach, but for now, she’d work on the truck with Eric until he finished paramedic school. And then…

She’d move on.

“Give me the phone, Joe,” Eric said, trying to move her off his lap so that he could grab her phone.

“It’s not what I want anymore, Eric,” Joe admitted, still trying to figure out how she went from wanting this so badly to turning it down without a second thought.

“Explain,” Eric said as he shifted her on his lap so that she was facing him.

“It’s your fault,” Joe said with a heartfelt sigh, deciding that was the best way to go. When his eyes narrowed on her, she rethought that plan and went with another approach.

“I love working on the truck and I love working with you, but...”

“But?” Eric said quietly when she hesitated.

“But I want to try other things. I still plan on keeping my ticket and working on the truck with you part-time, but I think it’s time to move on,” Joe said, worrying her bottom lip between her teeth as she thought about the other reason that she wanted to move on.

She wanted all of those things that she always told herself that she would never have. She wanted to get married, have children, a family of her own, and she wanted that with him. The problem was, she had no idea what he wanted anymore.