Ellery Mountain 1 -The Fireman and the Cop

The Fireman and the Cop ISBN # 978-1-78184-217-1
©Copyright RJ Scott 2013
Cover Art by Posh Gosh ©Copyright January 2013 Edited by Tina Burns
Total-E-Bound Publishing
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This is a work of fiction. All characters, places and events are from the author’s imagination and should not be confused with fact. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, events or places is purely coincidental.

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Published in 2013 by Total-E-Bound Publishing, Think Tank, Ruston Way, Lincoln, LN6 7FL, United Kingdom.
Warning:
This book contains sexually explicit content which is only suitable for mature readers. This story has a
heat rating
of
Total-e-simmering
and a
sexometer
of
2.

 

This story contains 78 pages, additionally there is also a
free excerpt
at the end of the book containing 7 pages.
Ellery Mountain
THE FIREMAN AND THE COP
RJ Scott
Book one in the Ellery Mountain Series
Rescuing cop Finn Ryan from a burning precinct was easy—it’s keeping him alive after that that fireman Max Harrison finds difficult.

Ellery is a quiet town in the Smoky Mountains, at the base of Ellery Peak, where nothing ever happens. Max Harrison escaped from his firefighting job in the city to take up a role as assistant to the mayor, whilst also holding the position of a volunteer firefighter.

Finn Ryan is one of only three cops in the small town and it soon seems to Max that someone is out to hurt the sexy cop. Rescuing Finn from a burning precinct was the easy part—it’s keeping him alive after that that fireman Max Harrison finds difficult.

Dedication
For new beginnings. And always for my family.
Trademarks Acknowledgement
The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of the following wordmarks mentioned in this work of fiction:

Ducati: Ducati Motor Holding S.p.A
Days of Our Lives
: NBC Television Network Pringles: Kellogg Company

Chapter One
“Ready for your first fire, probie?”

Max Harrison sent the chief a narrow-eyed look and said nothing. He was focused on the call and they were only two minutes out. Parts of him wished to hell Chief Quinn would quit with the ‘probie’ shit. At thirty-two and with ten years of city fireman experience, he hadn’t been the new guy for a long while in the true sense of the word. He dismissed it most of the time as gentle teasing—in a small place like Ellery, with a fire team staffed by volunteers, he was the last one in. Unless someone else joined the half-permanent, halfvolunteer fire team then he would always be the probie, just by virtue of the fact no one had joined after him.

At least there was no malice or hate in Quinn’s ribbing, which was very different to what he had received back in the city. Didn’t matter that the whole crap about who he was or wasn’t dating had been dealt with, he couldn’t force himself to stay somewhere that his sexual identity was deemed a threat to the shift. Assholes.

“The precinct is an old place and burning high,” Duncan reported from the driver’s seat. They weren’t bothering with sirens, it was ass o’clock in the a.m. and there was little traffic on these windy back roads even in the daylight. “Fire inspections were cleared but I know for a fact no sprinklers.” Duncan turned the heavy engine past the last turn, and finally downtown Ellery—if it could be called downtown—came into sight.

A prickle of excitement started at the base of Max’s neck as adrenaline began to pump through his body. The glow of the fire could be seen over the mayor’s hall and beyond to where he knew the precinct was. He’d started work at the mayor’s office only yesterday. Immediately the rig stopped in front of the burning building, he was off and assessing what they had.

Quinn was feeding instructions to the crew, but this was clearly a fire well past being contained. Turning in a rough one-eighty, Finn assessed the exposure issue. The precinct was part of an older area of town. A jumble of gift shops, a couple of restaurants and the mayor’s building. Luckily, the precinct itself—little more than a large two-storey building—was separated from other structures close by with fifty feet to spare. The only endangered structures that could be subsequently damaged by the initial fire travelling to them were first on the list to hose down.

Like a well-oiled team the volunteer fighters stood next to the full-timers and began their work. A man fell out of the fire-ringed main door and onto his knees in front of Max. He stumbled about, dishevelled and coughing.

Max was there in an instant, manhandling the guy away from danger, and guiding him to the paramedics who had arrived a few seconds after the engine.
“Someone…” A coughing fit overtook the man. “Inside,” he finished when he could get his breath. He was pointing back the way he had come out.
Max stiffened. Someone was still inside? He focused on the chaos around him and on shouting.
“Finn’s still in there,” someone yelled. A tall man being held back by a group of onlookers was struggling to get free.
No way was a freaking civilian getting anywhere near this scene and Max didn’t even think before crossing to the struggling men.
“Where?” he snapped.
The guy blinked but didn’t falter. “Straight in. To the back and left rear. The lockup. He went in to get Mike.”
“That’s Mike?” Max asked, pointing to the old man who had just walked out of the fire.
“Yes.”
“Okay. Going in,” Max confirmed into his mic.
Quinn spun on his heel at the words to face Max and Max could see his chief’s expression of ‘what the fuck’ coupled with resignation. With a quick wave and no more thought than focusing on the job, Max ensured his face mask was secure and ran straight into the red and orange through the only space he had assessed as suitable ingress. The small area formed from an iron beam holding up the remains of the ceiling in the reception area.
The flames licked and reached for him as he forced his way into a wide corridor. Fire melted and burned at the ceilings and walls. This had been fast—material in the walls and ceilings had fed the monster and piles of folders and paperwork would have been fuel. Straight along the corridor…his heavy boots weighing him down…adrenaline kicking him into high gear. He was breathing heavily with the mix of fear and excitement that fed his veins and arteries, and the normal-use sixty-minute SCBA was going to be empty in a third of that time. Didn’t matter, because the building was disintegrating around him in great big flaming chunks of hell.
Fire, that fucking mistress of his, was a killer and he had every respect for her power. He reached a ‘T’ and took the left. The air thickened with smoke and he prayed he wasn’t too late. Anyone trapped in this kind of environment would be overcome and close to being out of it. He needed to find where the man was.
Finally, through the smoke and sparking flames he saw the man trapped under a broken table. He scrambled to him, dropping to his knees, and heaved the table unsuccessfully. The guy was a cop dressed in blues and semi-conscious. The table had clearly been moved by some unseen force of explosion and had pinned him to the wall by his arm and chest. Levering the axe in his hand, Max prised the wall where the table was embedded and sheltered the trapped guy as much as he could even as the ceiling descended a few feet with a sickening noise. Glancing back the way he’d come, he saw their way out was semiblocked but what was more disturbing was the dark, black smoke that was building and that wasn’t good—in any way. The heat was intense and the dense superheated cloud of fuel too rich to ignite. It was only a matter of time before there was a flashover and then it was end game for them both. Pushing and pulling as much as he could, he finally had enough leverage to allow the cop to slide down the wall into a heap on the floor. Not stopping for anything, Max scooped the heavy man up and over his shoulder and with staggering steps turned to face his nemesis. His muscles strained with the weight, heat, and lack of breathing. He went with his gut instinct. They needed out and this was a dead end. They only had one option—they had to go back the way they’d come.
There was no freaking finesse in this plan. Training kicked in and Max did the only thing he knew would work. He ran. Stumbling through debris and wincing as fire flicked at him, he forced his way through the crumbled parts of ceiling and was back in the main corridor. A sickening crash behind them left him very aware that this whole place was disintegrating around him.
The doorway was lit up like a fiery hoop that he had to leap and with a last push of whatever energy he had left in him he was through the entrance and out onto the street. Hands were there helping him, relieving him of his burden, and he could only watch as the whole building imploded and a huge explosion of dust and debris rose into the night.
There was screaming and shouting and consistent noise, but in Max’s head there was only peace. He had done his job.

* * * *

The paramedics insisted on checking him out and pulled him to their rig with a determination he couldn’t fight. The cop was there. Ready for transport to hospital, an oxygen mask over his nose and mouth. His eyes were open and for a second Max looked into the clearest green gaze and his breath hitched. He hadn’t really looked at the guy he was rescuing. Yeah, he had cursed that the man was over six foot and that he was near to dying in there, but the eyes and the strong features visible under the mask and the firm lips and jaw, he’d definitely missed those. The cop lifted his mask.

“I like firemen,” the cop whispered.

Max leaned in to hear him over the noise and chaos outside of the rig. “I can never find a gay one.”
“Well I like cops,” Max pointed out. Was the guy coming on to him. “And the way they use their weapons.”
“We should date…but…world is spinning.”
The guy was clearly delirious or oxygen-deprived or something. Max was used to this kind of reaction and he generally played along. The people he rescued being very thankful was kind of a given and Max always took their comments in good humour as did any fireman in his position.
“Your bodies are fiiiine,” the patient was slurring. His expression was less focused and more tending towards unconsciousness. “And your hoses, never find a gay one, though.” Then he started mumbling and suddenly the cop closed his eyes.
Max moved swiftly out of the way and found himself watching as the rig moved off with the cop inside—to St Martin’s hospital, he guessed.
A gay cop had come onto him and then slumped into unconsciousness. He tried to focus on the whole gay cop thing and resolved to go and visit the guy in hospital. Just to see if everything was okay. That was all. Nothing to do with the whole men-in-uniform thing. Or the fact that the
gay
cop had the greenest eyes against the bloodshot red.
“Look lively, Max,” Quinn instructed.
It was a long time until the ‘all clear’. Even longer back to his small rented house and to the shower. He’d fit in a visit before work tomorrow, which, according to the clock on the microwave, was less than three hours away. Downside of volunteering was showing up at normal work the next day. He knew the mayor would allow him some leeway, but it was only his second day and he hoped to hell the newness of it all would keep his feet moving and his brain alert. Otherwise he was fucked.