Fully Ignited (Boston Fire #3) (5 page)

It was a long time before she finally drifted off.

Because it had been Danny’s turn to go on a grocery store run, Jamie got up the next morning—usually an off day—and, after showering under cool water to force herself awake after a rough night of tossing and turning, headed to the station to meet Grant Cutter and one of the guys from another E-59 group, who typically worked Wednesdays and Saturdays. Grant had told her they could manage without her and she could have a pass, since she was new, but she not only didn’t shirk her duties, she had nothing better to do. If nothing else, it would keep her from thinking too much about kissing Scott in the back room of the bar.

It was all she’d thought about since she walked out of Kincaid’s Pub last night, including during the hours she should have been sleeping. Standing in front of him, she’d been stupid enough to think she could kiss him and then, curiosity satisfied, they could move on.

Instead, the kiss had jacked her sexual attraction up to sexual hunger and she didn’t have a lot of willpower when it came to denying herself something she
really
wanted.

“Hey, Jamie.” Grant waved to her from the back of the bay. “This is Derek Gilman.”

“Nice to meet you,” she said, extending her hand when she was close enough.

Tall and blond, with a scar down his jaw, the other man shook her hand. “Welcome to the house.”

“Thanks.” She didn’t see any sign of him having a problem with her gender, which was a relief. “Are we ready?”

“In a sec.” Grant looked over his shoulder. “I think I hear him coming now.”

She frowned. “Who? I thought it was just the three of us.”

“Oh, Scotty showed up because he got his wires crossed and thought you weren’t going. Since he doesn’t have anything better to do, he said he’d still tag along.”

Shit.
She’d thought she had another day before she’d have to see him again. Because his sister had yelled for the mop, there hadn’t really been a resolution between them. No
hey, what are we going to do about this
conversation so she could be absolutely sure they were on the same page. And that page was nobody on the job knowing there might be something going on between her and one of the firefighters in her company.

When Scott stepped out of the stairwell and into the bay, she swallowed hard and focused on keeping her expression neutral. He stopped when he saw her and their eyes locked for a few seconds, but then he lifted in his chin in a casual nod. “Morning, Jamie.”

“Good morning.”

He turned to the other guys. “Hey, Gilman. Good to see you.”

“You, too.”

“I guess I’ll drive,” Scott said. “My truck will fit all four of us and it’s a nice day, so we can throw the groceries in the back.”

“Shotgun,” Jamie said, smiling when Grant groaned.

She’d said it out of reflex, but it didn’t seem like such a good idea when she was sitting next to Scott, separated only by a center console between the bucket seats. Grant and Derek were talking hockey in the backseats, while silence and classic rock reigned in the front seats. Through the corner of her eye, Jamie could see Scott’s thumb tapping the steering wheel with the rhythm of the music, and she wondered if he was the kind to sing along if he’d been alone.

It took them almost forty minutes to drive to the big chain supermarket, but Jamie knew it would be worth the time. Supporting the local businesses and small markets in a fire station’s neighborhood was something they all tried to do on a day-by-day basis, but when it came to stocking up for the month, they had to try to keep the prices down.

As they walked across the parking lot, Jamie asked, “So how do we do this? Is the list divided up?”

Scott shook his head. “That would be far too organized. We wander up and down the aisles together, looking for the stuff on the list, and then eventually we’ll start splitting up as we remember things that aren’t on the list and they’re almost always back in aisles we already hit.”

She laughed. “That explains why we volunteer to come on our own time.”

“That and the probability we won’t have to abandon the carts to put out a fire.”

Scott and Derek each pushed a cart. Grant had the list, and he and Jamie kept an eye out for the items they were looking for. And she kept her mouth shut about the fact they were starting in the refrigeration section, which made no sense to her. But the fact they’d all turned to the left without a discussion told her it was just the backward way they always did it, and she didn’t want to nag. After grabbing a variety of sliced and shredded cheeses, a product on the list caught her eye, and she lifted the box out of the cooler with a frown.

“What is this stuff? Yogurt in squeeze tubes?” She’d seen some odd snack requests on house grocery lists, but this stuff looked like it was meant for the kindergarten crowd. “For the firefighters too lazy to wash a spoon?”

“Oh, we’re not getting those,” Derek said. “Mikey G. is the only one who eats those. His kid got him hooked on them, I guess. But he’s behind on throwing his share of money into the kitty, so if he wants them, he can bring them from home.”

“Harsh,” Grant said. “Poor guy won’t have his squeeze yogurt.”

“Third month in a row this has happened,” Derek replied. After a short pause, he chuckled. “He’s lucky we don’t make him eat bread and water at mealtime.”

“Is he doing okay?” Scott asked.

Jamie had been thinking the question, but she wasn’t sure how to phrase it. She liked that Scott was concerned being late on his firehouse fund payments three months in a row might indicate Mike G. was in some financial trouble. If he was and could swallow his pride enough to admit it, there were ways for him to get help.

“Yeah. We let him slide when he went through the divorce because getting his own place was expensive and then the child support and everything. But we get the feeling he’s taking advantage now, so we’ll start small. No yogurt for Mikey.”

Jamie put it back and leaned over Grant’s shoulder to see how much stuff was left on the list. “Maybe I should have packed a lunch.”

“We kill the supplies in March,” Grant said. “A lot of slow cooker meals because we get so many nuisance calls. People forget in March that it’s still winter and it can be slippery out there. Plus, around St. Patrick’s Day we’ve got extra guys on hand and we’re busy and the pantry suffers.”

“We should split the list,” Derek said. After scanning it, he carefully tore a chunk out of the side of the paper. “We’ll take these staple-type items. Coffees, spices, flour, sugar and crap. Plus paper goods. You guys keep working on the rest of it and then we’ll go from there.”

When Derek handed the paper to her, Jamie realized he’d naturally drawn the teams based on where they were standing at the time. Grant was standing next to him, while Jamie was in front of Scott’s cart.

Great. Unexpected alone time.

They made it to the cans of fruit, where they needed to grab pineapple rings for ham, according to the list. Then Scott leaned on the handle of the shopping cart while she was reading labels. “Hey, while we’re alone, I wanted to say something to you.”

She tensed, fighting an urge to look around and see if they really
were
alone. Just because Grant and Derek weren’t in Scott’s sight line didn’t mean they weren’t still in earshot. “In the grocery store?”

“Yeah. I wanted to apologize for losing my temper last night and hitting that guy.”

She hadn’t been expecting that, and had braced herself for talking about the kiss while standing in front of canned fruit. “Oh. I should probably apologize for pulling your hair, then.”

“I’ve worked on controlling my temper, but the way he was talking to you was... I should have let you handle it.” Then he looked sideways at her, grinning. “I didn’t mind the hair pulling too much, though.”

“Stop that,” she said in an urgent whisper.

He leaned closer to her and her fingers itched to bury themselves in his hair again. “We’re still not at work.”

“We’re here in a professional capacity, though.” She needed a stronger argument because the kiss at the bar was pretty solid evidence her current tactics weren’t working. “Besides, you’re supposed to be on a break from dating, remember?”

He shrugged. “Maybe I need a break from taking a break. A temporary relapse, like six to eight weeks long.”

It was incredibly tempting. And also incredibly risky, because that was treading dangerously close to real relationship territory. “There’s no possible way we could keep even a supercasual relationship a secret for two months, and it won’t be
you
who suffers the brunt of the gossip or ends up with the tarnished reputation. It’ll be me because I’m the officer and, most importantly, because I’m a woman.”

“You’re not good at secrets?”

“
Me?
Your company is like the freaking Brady Bunch or something. One big happy family—literally, almost—and I’d bet you a hundred dollars right now that some combination of Danny, Ashley, Lydia or Aidan have already had a conversation about us. Your life’s part of a family game of Telephone right now.”

It seemed as though he wanted to deny it for a few seconds, but then he gave her a chagrined look. “Yeah, secrets are tough.
But
, Aidan managed to date Lydia without me knowing for a while. It can be done.”

“Would he have been able to if she’d been working at the station and sharing living quarters with you guys for twenty-four-hour tours?”

“No. Shit, all you did was walk by me in the bar and Danny’s radar pinged.”

“You said at the bar it doesn’t have to be complicated, but it already
is.
We don’t need to make our jobs complicated on top of it.”

“But—”

“Hey, Kincaid! Catch!”

Scott turned and got his hands up in time to catch the bulk package of paper towels Grant threw at him.

“Did you hear me?” she asked quietly, while they still had a few seconds.

He looked at her, his gaze holding hers in an intense way that made her shiver. “Yeah, I heard you.”

It was for the best, Jamie knew. Their relationship needed to go back to being strictly business. But that determination she was doing the right thing didn’t stop her from sneaking a huge bag of chocolate candies into the cart. A woman could only deprive herself of so many delicious things.

FIVE

S
COTT
USUALLY
HUNG
out with his dad in the evening if it wasn’t a night Scott had anything going on and Tommy wasn’t going to the bar to sit and swap the same old stories with Fitz. It seemed stupid for Tommy to sit and watch television alone while Scott was one floor up, watching the same shows alone.

But tonight, Scott felt restless and he lingered in his own apartment. It didn’t have too much of a homey feel, with most of the personal touches being limited to the leather sofa and love seat in front of his enormous TV. But he’d redone the floors from carpet to wood laminate himself, and repainted the entire apartment. He’d also sunk a lot of money into the bathroom, but none of that made him feel particularly bonded to the place. It was just where he lived, and he got a great deal on the rent.

It wasn’t a home, though, and he wondered if that’s what was nagging at him. Was it stuff that made a home? Or was it the wife and kids he didn’t have? He was only twenty-seven, so he wasn’t sure why he felt such a strong desire to finally settle down, but he couldn’t deny it was there.

Maybe he should buy some stuff. He wasn’t sure what. Wicker baskets? Or maybe some plants. He’d get a pet, but it wasn’t like he was asking a dog to make it through an eight-hour workday without him. He was gone twenty-four hours at a time, and that wouldn’t be fair to anything except maybe a fish, and he didn’t see the point in that.

When he realized his dad was probably scowling up at his ceiling, wondering why he hadn’t come down, Scott stepped through the sliding glass doors onto his deck. One flight of stairs down, he walked through his dad’s back door.

“I was beginning to wonder if you were coming down tonight,” his dad called from his ancient recliner.

“Yeah, I was on the phone,” he lied. As he walked through the kitchen toward the living room, Scott looked around him.

Was it the stuff that made it feel like home, or just the fact he’d grown up in this house? Unlike the second and third floors, nothing had changed in the three-bedroom first-floor apartment, and there was definitely an ’80s feel about it.

He had really vague memories of his mom nagging his dad to start remodeling, room by room. He’d always promised he’d get around to it soon and she’d roll her eyes. Then she’d been diagnosed too late with breast cancer. Scott was nine when she died, and giving away her personal possessions had been heartbreaking enough. The remodeling never happened.

Scott plopped down on the sofa and put his feet up on the old wooden coffee table. “I’m beat. I almost went to bed instead of coming down. I volunteered for supermarket duty today.”

“I’d rather scrub floors. Speaking of the house, how’s Danny’s fill-in doing?”

“Jamie? Okay, I guess.” He wondered if his dad’s curiosity was related to the job, or if one of his sisters had said something to him.

“Pulling her weight?”

“Yeah. There hasn’t been much weight to pull, other than some odor and medical calls.”

His dad shook his head. “It’s never made sense to me for fire to respond to medical calls. Especially both trucks.”

Scott knew that, since they’d had this conversation many times at the bar. “I know, but E-59 and L-37 roll together, and we can be almost anywhere in four minutes. More fire truck coverage than ambulance coverage, which you know. But anyway, we haven’t worked an active fire yet, but I don’t have any doubts about her ability to pull her weight.”

“You sound pretty sure of that.”

Scott shrugged. “If I was worried about her doing her job, everybody would know.”

His dad chuckled. “Yeah, you’ve never been shy about giving your opinion. We should invite her over for dinner. I’d like to get to know her some.”

Oh, there was no way in hell could Scott let that happen. Jamie had made it pretty clear in the grocery store that she wanted to keep a wall of professionalism between them. Turning around and inviting her home to meet the parent probably wasn’t what she was going for.

“I’m sure she’ll stop by the bar some night and you can meet her,” he said.

“The bar’s loud and people are always interrupting my conversations to talk to me. Here we can have a nice meal and relax.”

“It’s just not a good idea, Pop. And she won’t be around long, anyway. Once Danny’s cleared to come back, she’ll be gone.”

“So? She’s here now. And I wouldn’t mind meeting the woman, seeing as how my son started a brawl in my bar over her.”

Dammit.
Somebody—maybe Lydia, or maybe anybody else who’d been there that night—had ratted him out. “It wasn’t a brawl.”

“I told you what would happen if you started a fight in the bar again.”

“Yeah. You’d throw me out. But that was years ago, and I didn’t start the fight. He threw the first punch.”

His dad turned the television down a couple of notches and turned to give him a stern look. “From what I heard, he threw the first punch because you went flying across the room, knocking Jamie’s beer out of her hand, and grabbed hold of him.”

Unless one of the douche bag’s friends had gone back to the bar when Tommy was there and complained, the only people who knew that were Danny and Jamie. Since Danny hadn’t ratted him out directly to the old man, he must have told Ashley the details. And either Ashley had told their dad, or Ashley had told Lydia, who told their dad. He was guessing the latter.

Jamie hadn’t been wrong about his life being the subject of a family game of Telephone.

“He had it coming.”

Tommy chuckled. “The only reason I’m not pissed is the sheer enjoyment I’m getting out of picturing you being hauled off the guy by a woman with a fistful of your hair.”

There was a time Scott would have leaped to his own defense, trying to protect his ego. But he just laughed with his dad. “I’m glad those security cameras in the pool room are just for show.”

“I’m not. I would have liked to see it.” His dad nodded. “She sounds like quite a woman, which is why I want to meet her.”

“Like I said, Pops, she’ll probably show up at the bar some night.”

“Okay.” Tommy shrugged, and Scott felt a rush of relief. “I’ll make it a group thing and tell your sister to have Aidan invite her.”

Scott wasn’t going to win this one. “Fine. Do what you want. You always do.”

“I think I’m going to like her.”

“You probably will, not that it matters one way or the other.”

His dad shrugged. “You never know.”

Scott wasn’t sure what he meant by that, but he was damn sure his family was a pain in the ass. His brother-in-law was trying to warn him off getting involved with Jamie, while his father sure seemed to think Jamie would fit right in. But whether he thought she’d fit in the company or in the family, Scott wasn’t sure. And if he pushed the subject, he was going to look like he was protesting too much and Tommy Kincaid would latch on to that like a dog with a bone.

The cop show they both liked started, and that ended the conversation. By the time a commercial break rolled around, Jamie would be forgotten and his dad would move on to something else.

She’d be forgotten by Tommy, anyway. The episode wasn’t good enough to keep Scott’s attention and his mind wandered to earlier, in the supermarket. Obviously she’d been right about his family’s inability to keep a secret.

Was she right about the fact she’d be the only one to face repercussions if their relationship became the talk of the station, too? He didn’t like to think so, but he’d heard enough talk about women in general and female firefighters in particular over the years to know there would be dirt flung and none of it would hit him. Or if it did, it wouldn’t stick. He was one of them—sixth-generation Boston Fire.

No matter how much he wanted her, he needed to pull back and leave Jamie Rutherford alone.

* * *

J
AMIE
SWUNG
THE
AX
, punching a hole to vent the roof of the two-story single-family home, cringing as she did it. It was a nice house, or had been, and she didn’t like inflicting even more damage on it. What the fire didn’t ruin, the water would, but at least nobody would get hurt and their neighbors would be spared.

The cause had come through with the call, since the homeowner watched the fire start. The origin was an overloaded power strip plugged into an overloaded circuit, and the strip had been sitting along the edge of the wall, under the long drapes.

The woman had grabbed her kids and her purse and run, which was the right thing to do. She’d called 911 from across the street and help had arrived a few minutes later. Unfortunately, it was a fast-moving fire thanks to flammable decor and an open floor plan, and all they could hope to do was knock it down before it spread. There wouldn’t be much left inside for the family to salvage.

“I don’t know what the hell they insulated the walls with, but the fire keeps popping up in random spots,” she heard over the radio. There were multiple companies on the scene now, so containment wouldn’t be an issue, but it was going to be a long day.

It took them hours to knock down the flames enough to sweep for hot spots and refires. It was hot, dirty work and there was a lot of climbing in and around charred piles of rubble. She knew, out on the street, there would be news cameras and cell phones capturing the drama. Their support volunteers with their truck stocked with beverages and high-energy snacks to keep the firefighters going. A cluster of guys around the incident command vehicle. None of that was her problem. Making sure there were no hot spots that would reignite when they turned their backs was her problem.

She did hope, however, that the Red Cross had already taken the family to the home of family or friends, or helped them find temporary shelter. They’d lost everything, and watching the firefighters poke around the remains of their home wouldn’t help them feel any better.

Her guys had done a damn fine job, though, she thought as she took her helmet off to wipe at the sweat gathered across her hairline. She and Rick worked well together, so there were no bumps in the road when it came to the two companies’ teamwork. While the majority of their calls might be medical or motor vehicle accidents, their first fire together was the true test, and she thought she’d passed it.

“We’re about done here,” Rick said from just behind her, and she turned to face him. “We’ll keep at it while the other companies clear out, since the trucks are blocked in anyway, but there’s nothing else we can do at this point.”

She nodded and looked around the mess. “We should probably check that south wall one more time and then we’ll start packing up.”

It was a quiet ride back to the house, but she wasn’t surprised. It had been a hot one, and between the sweat and the grime of crawling through a charred house, they were all pretty wiped out. When the trucks were parked and tended to and the gear stowed, they all trudged up the stairs.

“You want to shower first?” Rick asked her, but she shook her head.

“No sense in everybody sitting around getting the furniture dirty waiting on me. I’ll throw that chicken stew in the freezer into the pot and get it started. When you guys are done, you can take over and it should be hot just about the time I’m done.”

“Sounds like a plan.”

She washed her hands and arms before taking a couple of containers of the stew out of the freezer. Jamie had been told they were a gift from Chris’s wife, who would sometimes make extra of something and send it in for the station.

It took a long time for the guys to all shower, and she hoped there would be hot water left. She also felt as if every minute that went by increased the chances of the alarm sounding while she was in the shower. She’d gone on a call once, years before, with clothes yanked onto her wet body and the shampoo only half rinsed out of her hair. Her scalp had itched the entire afternoon.

When it was her turn, she hung the pink fabric wreath on the door of the shower room and went inside. She’d had it for so long she couldn’t even remember where she’d gotten it, but it had come in handy over the course of her career. After showering as quickly as possible, she put on a clean uniform and dumped the dirty stuff into her basket.

They were serving the stew when she walked into the kitchen, and she took a bowl from Gavin. “Thanks. It smells delicious.”

Since the seats around the table were full, she took her stew into the living room and sat in one of the chairs. Jeff had the other, and Aidan and Scott were on the couch. There was an old back-and-white Western on the television, which she’d already learned meant Jeff had the remote control.

“Glad you’re here, Lieutenant Rutherford,” Jeff said. “It was good today.”

Jamie let the warm rush of pride she felt show in her smile. “Thank you. It
was
good today, and I feel pretty lucky to work with you guys.”

“You fit in.”

“With this bunch I don’t know if that’s a compliment or not,” Scott said, and Jeff chuckled.

“Speaking of fitting in, Jamie,” Aidan said, “Lydia wanted me to pass along an invitation to her dad’s for dinner. Maybe Sunday. Tommy wants to meet you.”

She wasn’t sure what to say. Scott was focused on his chicken stew, and Jamie wasn’t sure if it was because he didn’t care that she’d been invited to his dad’s, or if he was uncomfortable with the idea and didn’t want to say it.

It wasn’t quite a royal decree, but she knew Tommy was important to the local firefighters and she didn’t really want to decline his invitation. And while Scott technically lived in the house, he had an apartment upstairs, so it really wasn’t any of his business.

“Who will be there?” she asked, when she realized Aidan was waiting for her to say something.

“Tommy, me, Lydia, Danny and Ashley that I know of for sure. And you’ll be there, Scotty?”

Scott lifted his gaze to meet Jamie’s for a few seconds, his expression unreadable. “Yeah. I’ll be there.”

“It sounds like fun,” she said to Aidan, since Scott was giving her nothing to work with as far as his thoughts on the matter. “Sunday works for me.”

“We eat about five when we do family dinners. I’ll text you the address later, and I think you’re in easy walking distance.”