Free Breaking Her No-Dating Rule by Amalie Berlin

fantastic compliment he’d ever been given. That overt honesty charmed him as much as her manner of speaking amused him. He shouldn’t be feeling this good. His job was unfinished and someone was out there waiting for the cavalry...
    Remembering that took the spirit out of it for him.
    “But the last piece is that you’re like...a normal man.”
    “And you like weird men who want to be shamans.” He filled in.
    “I like men who would like me. And you aren’t the kind of man who’d like me,” she explained, and her declaration grew stronger with every version she repeated. “I’m not your type. So we would never date. You’d never date someone like me. So it’s okay. It’s okay! Everything is okay. Sorry. I don’t process information quietly very well. It’s kind of got to be out loud or it doesn’t happen. I don’t know why. Because I’m strange! Oh, thank all the gods.”
    Anson opened his mouth to ask what she was going on to decide that she was not his type but a hurried request for help crackled through the radio, a voice he recognized.
    He grabbed the radio, “Go ahead, Duncan.” The most experienced EMT on the team, Duncan led it during the warm months, but stepped aside in the winter when Anson was around with his miracle dog.
    One of the rescued was having trouble breathing. He got the room number where the patients had all been relocated, pulled his snow suit on—it was the only clothing he had with him—stuffed his feet into his shoes and took off out the door. While he talked, Ellory blew out the candles, turned off the lights and grabbed her keys.
    Anson made a note to rile her up again later when the power went out...that could serve as hours of entertainment. Ask a question, make a statement, and then just watch her start spitting out random words that would eventually make sense.
    Conventional wisdom did say that to learn to speak a foreign language fast, submersion was the key.
    *
    The regular fireplace suites were all situated in the same place on the floor plan for each level of the lodge, blocks of four stacked up for several floors.
    The patient guests had been split into two groups and settled in side-by-side suites on the second floor—the closest to ground level, which was taken with communal and recreation areas, like the clinic and therapy rooms. With the frostbite to her toes and Anson’s ban on Chelsea walking, she couldn’t go anywhere without a wheelchair or being carried, so it made sense to locate them close to the ground in the event that the power went out and there were no elevators working. Easier to carry or roll her up one set of stairs than five.
    Anson said the gibberish names of two different medicines as they passed the office, and where to look, then left her as he took the stairs to get to the person in distress.
    She hadn’t written down the medicines. She’d have to do that. This inventory thing could get out of hand fast, and she couldn’t let Mira down. His kiss had done a brain scramble on her. So much for resolutions. She hadn’t even thought to protest when he’d gone all smoochy on her.
    She was officially a weak-willed kiss pushover.
    A kiss pushover who was obviously being given more responsibility than she should be.
    Ellory had never been an important part of any medical team in a medical crisis before. The knowledge that the rest of Anson’s crew was there helped her keep her cool, but her heart still pounded. If she failed to live up to people’s expectations now, someone could die.
    One of the orange-clad rescuers stood in the hallway, meeting her with an open door, which she rushed through. Anson was already at the window with Duncan and one of the patient guests, who was clinging to the windowsill, his head hanging out into the storm. Snow blew in around him, but even above the roar of the wind she could tell how labored his breathing was.
    The group rescued consisted of two males and two females, one other couple, and with