Jameson made it to the warehouse but it took fucking forever to find the door. Then no one answered. He tried to force the damn thing open but it was made of steel. If it hadn’t been locked, it probably would have frozen shut on him. The bear side of him had grown more and more anxious with every step farther away from Noelle, until Jameson felt half-crazy and about to jump out of his skin. Whether Noelle was there to see it or not.
He growled in agitation, scanning the blurry white surroundings for any sign that Sasha’s friends waited elsewhere. Only white surrounded him on all sides, until he wasn’t quite sure where the street was, where the building ended, and how far down his feet were. Since he couldn’t feel his feet from the cold, that was data he thought might become important.
Noelle had been right about doubling up on socks. He groaned and stared up at the swirling snow above him. Maybe he wouldn’t admit it. It seemed like the kind of thing she’d hold on to and use against him later.
If there was a ‘later.’ It didn’t seem guaranteed no matter how much the bear wanted it.
He sighed and tried to find some shelter in the minuscule door frame of the warehouse, cursing Sasha the whole time. Now what? He needed to get supplies, which were allegedly inside the locked building, and if he trudged back to the gym, there was no way in hell he’d have the energy to do it all again. Jameson pulled out his phone and tried to shield it from the snow. Un-fucking-believable.
He paused. A call from Noelle. Well, three calls from Noelle. In quick succession, no voicemails. The bear knew something was wrong. Three calls had to mean a problem. He barely managed to get his fingers to work to call her back, clenching his jaw so his teeth wouldn’t chatter.
“Thank God,” she said in a rush, the second she answered. Jameson preened a bit at how relieved she sounded to hear from him, but it was short-lived because she hardly even paused to breathe. “I don’t know what to do. Kara is in labor and needs the doctor, but the doc is stuck at the hospital and can’t make it through the snow, and Owen wants to go get her but he’s still too weak from being sick, and we’d take Kara to the hospital but she’s definitely too weak and I just —”
“Whoa,” he said. Jameson closed his eyes so he wouldn’t go snow-blind, and tried to keep up with what she’d just said despite his brain freezing up. “Hold on. You want to go out in this snow?”
“No, I don’t,” she said. Noelle sounded frustrated and on the verge of tears. “Kara’s in labor and there’s something wrong. I can’t treat her, I don’t know enough about labor and delivery. I don’t have the right stuff here, and I’m not going to watch my best friend and her baby die because I didn’t pay enough attention during the yucky parts of my OB rotation.”
“Uh, okay.” Jameson bent down to tip the sled on its side so it didn’t get buried in the snow. With his luck, he’d lose the damn thing in a drift and never find it again. “Then what —”
“And the doctor who might actually be able to help is stuck at the hospital and can’t make it here. Kara isn’t strong enough to make the trip there. There isn’t anyone that can bring the doctor from the hospital here, everyone is sick, and I don’t know what we’re going to do.”
Jameson frowned down at his mostly-numb legs. He should have worn better pants. “I can bring the doc over.”
A long pause greeted that. Noelle cleared her throat. “But you don’t know where the hospital is.”
“I can find it.” He had no idea how the fuck he would, with all the streets invisible and the signs covered in snow and zero landmarks to navigate by. If Noelle wanted it, he’d make it happen. Plus he wasn’t such a dick he’d let Kara and her baby suffer when he could do something about it. But it was mostly because Noelle asked him. “Tell the doc to get ready. I’m at the warehouse but Sasha’s pals didn’t show, so give that Russian bastard a kick in the nuts for me. Text the address of the hospital and I’ll get there as fast as I can.”
“Are you sure?” she whispered. “The blizzard is so terrible and you’ve already been gone so long… You’ve got to be frozen solid.”
“Well, I’m not warm.” Jameson smiled to himself, imagining the expression on her face and the way her hair was probably wrapped up out of the way but escaping the bun anyway. “Someone told me to bundle up and I was too dumb to listen, so… you know. I’ll need a lot of help thawing out when I get back.”
Another pause. He grinned more but tried not to get his hopes up. Noelle murmured, “I know someone who might be willing to help with that.”
“Do you? Care to introduce me?”
“You’ll just have to wait until you get back to find out.” Some of the worry had disappeared from her voice, replaced by a flirtatious sultriness that turned him on enough he almost forgot about being half-frozen. “Hurry up.”
“See you in five minutes, tops.” So at least she was laughing when the call ended.
Jameson took a deep breath and tried to orient himself despite the snow, waiting for the address to come through. He definitely had to get moving. He wasn’t going to have much fun if his dick froze off, and he didn’t want to disappoint Noelle, either. He rotated his shoulders and did a few squats, groaning already at the muscles that screamed from over-use. She might not get his best, but he’d give her everything he had left. He snorted. Great. He just had to hike across the city and back to pick up a doctor first. Easy.