Page 9 of Keeping Zita

He was taking a week’s leave for that time period, and as much as he enjoyed his job and his teammates, he was excited for a bit of time away from his routine on the base.

And if a tiny part of his brain said that he was also looking forward to getting to know Zita a little more—because she would surely be traveling to the second location as well, because of her job—Obi-Wan wasn’t ready to admit it to himself.

CHAPTER FOUR

Zita was more excited to be on set this morning than usual. It was the fifth day, and she’d spent part of each morning with Sage. It was silly, but she felt special that she was the only one who called him by his middle name. She would’ve felt weird calling him Obi-Wan. To her, the name simply didn’t fit the man she was getting to know. She understood it was a nickname, and that most pilots had some sort of call sign, but it felt odd for her to use it when addressing him.

Sage was also an unusual name. But then again, his first name, Obadiah, was even more unusual. The man was interesting in just about every way. Smart, funny, and very observant.

He was also doing everything in his power to avoid Carmen St. James. He’d admitted to her yesterday that she’d sent him a super-suggestive email, but didn’t say anything else about it, just that he was there to do his job and nothing else.

She admired him for that. Because it was Zita’s experience that most men presented with a sure thing like Carmen would’ve jumped at the chance. Not only because she was beautiful, but because she was famous. Zita never understood the appeal of sleeping with someone because of their job, but that was just her.

Still, she couldn’t help but feel a pang of…something—remorse?—at hearing Sage’s firm stance on professionalism. On not wanting to date. Zita had never had the urge to go out with anyone she worked with…until now. But then again, she and Sage weren’t exactly coworkers. He was a contract employee, and only on set for part of each day as it was. But there was something about him that drew Zita.

This morning, he’d shown up with two cups of to-go coffee. She’d been shocked when he’d handed her one, saying, “Heard you complaining about the break-room coffee yesterday, thought you might appreciate this.”

And she did. She loved a fancy, sugary, carmel-y cup of coffee as much as the next girl. And for him to bring her one was…kind. And very sweet. He’d wandered off immediately after, before she’d even had a chance to thank him properly.

Taking another sip of the coffee, Zita smiled. It was perfect. Exactly how she liked it. Which was impressive, considering how picky she was about her coffee.

During the last hour, he’d met with the script supervisor, and then Logan, and now he was ambling back toward her, ready to watch the scenes being filmed that morning. Thankfully, Carmen wasn’t on the schedule, so they both had a reprieve from dealing with her not-so-subtle flirting and almost desperate attempts to catch Sage’s attention.

“Thank you for the coffee,” she said the moment he sat beside her.

“You’re welcome.”

“How’d you know that I like the caramel stuff?” Zita asked.

Sage shrugged. “Lucky guess. My teammate’s woman loves it, so I took a chance that you might too.”

“She’s got good taste.”

“Yup.”

“Can you tell me about your teammates? I mean, I know you can’t say anything about your missions, but I’d love to hear more about them.”

Sage spent the next twenty minutes telling her all about the men he worked with. They all had interesting call signs, but Zita wasn’t exactly surprised. Casper, Buck, Pyro, Chaos, Edge…she was curious about the meanings behind their names but didn’t interrupt Sage to ask. It sounded like the men were as close as brothers, and she supposed they were. If you spent your career relying on them to keep you alive, a special bond had to form.

“What about you? You work with anyone on a regular basis?” Sage asked.

Zita shrugged. “When I’m not on set, I work part-time for an ambulance service, and I guess I’m somewhat friendly with some of my coworkers.”

“I’m guessing working in your profession, some people are better at handling the stress than others.”

“Sure. And some people you click with, while others can be a chore. Some medics and EMTs are lazy. They’d rather drive the ambulance and stand back and let others do all the decision-making than jump in and get their hands dirty. It’s annoying, but part of the job.”

Sage shook his head. “That’s hard for me to wrap my head around. I mean, pilots and copilots each have their specific jobs. But we can all do just about everything when we get behind the controls. We just know who’s supposed to do what, so we don’t trip over each other when things get hot. What’s your most memorable call…if you can talk about it without breaking any privacy laws?”

“We were called to a residence for a man ‘bleeding.’ That’s all the information the dispatcher could give us. When we got there, he was in the bathroom and there was literally blood everywhere. On the walls, the floor, dripping down his legs. Apparently, he’d had a colonoscopy the day before and had gotten up in the middle of the night to use the restroom, and something inside him ruptured. He was literally bleeding from his anus…not to be crude or anything. As a paramedic, there’s not a lot we can do for that except get him to the hospital as fast as possible. But it’s daunting as hell to walk into a room and see that much blood.”

“I bet.”

“You? I mean, again, if you can say.”

Sage stared into space, clearly thinking about the question. Zita appreciated that about him. That he took the time to really consider how to answer. “We were called in to extract three teams of special forces in a hot zone. Meaning, the bad guys were everywhere and using any fire power they had to keep us away. Casper and Pyro took point, using their ammo to try to give us a window to land and load up the teams.

“Everything was going according to plan…well, as close to a plan as we could get in a fluid situation like that. Just as we were taking off, our chopper took a few bullets to the radar system and FLIR system located on the underside of our chopper. We had twelve souls onboard, some of whom were severely injured and needed medical attention ASAP. And we were essentially flying blind. There was smoke and dust everywhere, and the wind was doing its best to fly us into the nearest mountain.