Fire at Dawn: The Firefighters of Darling Bay 2 (14 page)

“That or the fact that she slept with the mailman.”

He laughed again. “I still can’t believe that. That she actually left me for Tom the mailman. But at least that was after we had Serena. When I saw my baby girl for the first time, I knew. I just knew I wouldn’t be my father.”

Lexie scooted an inch closer so that their knees were almost touching. More scarlet rays streaked across the darkening sky behind him. “How did you know?”

“Because I knew that no matter what, when my mother gave birth to me, he would never have held me the same way I held my baby daughter.”

“How did you know? Did your mother tell you that?”

“I could feel it. If I’d ever been held by my dad like that, things would have been different. He wasn’t supposed to be a father. I’m glad he was, naturally, because that means I’m here, drinking wine next to his old dead bones with the prettiest girl in the state. And I was. Meant to be a father, I mean. I knew that as soon as I got my arms around her.”

Lexie set down her wine. She took his wine glass away and set it down.

“Hey, what—?”

“Hush,” she said. “Just for a minute. I want to try something.”

Then Lexie leaned forward and put her lips against his.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Lexie told herself was really only a test to see if he still tasted as good as he had in his kitchen. It was a test to see if they would feel the same heat.

It wasn’t the same. It was even hotter.

Coin initially seemed surprised, but it took him only a second to rev it up to super-heated, like she’d poured lighter fluid on a banked fire. He was with her, in the kiss, driving it. Twisting his body but not taking his mouth from hers, he pulled her into his lap so she lay across him. He smiled against her mouth and then nipped her bottom lip, eliciting a small gasp.

Lexie pulled back, suddenly worried. “Am I hurting you?”

“You? You’re perfect. Right where you are.”

“Are you sure?”

“Your body is perfect, Lex.” He kissed her again, and for the first time in her adult life, Lexie didn’t worry about her weight during a kiss. She didn’t wonder if he could detect a roll at the top of her jeans, and she didn’t worry whether her thighs were too wide. He’d pulled her into his lap like she didn’t weigh an ounce, and she could feel the strength in his arms as they wrapped around her.

His mouth was hot, his tongue slick. She panted against him, and he gasped as she deepened the kiss. When she moved against him, she could feel his hardness, and a fevered thrill shot through her.

Lexie wanted more.

“Coin,” she said against his mouth.

“Mmm?” He licked her top lip, sending another shiver down her spine.

“We’re making out on your father’s grave.”

“Screw him.”

“That’s gross. And he’s not the Keefe I want.”

Coin pulled back. “I swear this wasn’t the plan. We were just going to have a picnic, with wine and cheese and those double-stuffed Oreos you love.”

“I started this,” she said, trailing her fingers across his jawline, down his neck, tucking them under the neckline of his shirt. She wanted to touch more of him. All of him. “I want more.”

Coin’s dark eyes sparkled, even in the dark that was settling around them. “More of what?”

“More of you. More kisses. More skin.” Lexie touched his belt buckle. “Less clothing.”

“Where?”

“My house.”

“Are you sure?”

Lexie considered for a moment. Did she want to take this man home? To her bed? It had been so long since she had a man stay the night that she couldn’t remember the last time she’d brewed more than one cup of coffee in the morning. She didn’t do this. She didn’t take random men home with her.

But this wasn’t just some guy she’d met.

It was Coin. Her best friend.

A week ago, she would have thought that would make it weirder. But it didn’t.

It made it better.

“I’m sure. But before we go … Can we …?”

“You never ask for anything. Name it.” His voice was rough. He meant it, she knew. He’d do anything for her.

“Before we go can we look for my father’s grave?”

“You bet.”

It turned out her father wasn’t that far from Coin’s. He was just over a small rise in what must have been a cheaper section. There were no crypts there, just modest markers, none more than two feet high.

“Here,” said Coin.

Robert Tindall
. It was clean, and well maintained. A bouquet of flowers stood at the foot of it, and a small American flag moved slowly in the autumn breeze.

“Oh,” said Lexie. She had expected it would hurt to see it. That it would bring her to her knees. The reason she’d never gone to visit her father’s grave was because she didn’t want to cry again—ever—like she had when he died.

She’d never expected it would make her happy.

“Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.” She laughed and tasted tears on her tongue. “I’m actually fine.” She kneeled and touched the face of the stone. “Look. His name.” Under it was chiseled a fire service crest, and the words “Darling Bay Fire Department, Lost in Action, Always Remembered.”

“And the flowers.” She touched the edge of a white rose and was surprised to notice her hand was shaking. “Look. They’re real. Coin, they’re fresh.”

She turned to him. “Did you do this? Did you plan this?”

He held up his hands. “Not me, I swear. Is there a card with it?”

She explored at the base of the stems. “Yeah.” Pulling it out, she knew by the handwriting even before she read the words. “My mom. It’s from my mom.”

“Well, that makes sense, doesn’t it?”

Lexie sat back with a thump onto the grass. “No.”

“Why not?”

“She never acts like she loved him.”

“How?”

“She won’t talk about him. She started dating six months after he died.”

“Maybe she was lonely.”

“What’s wrong with
lonely
after your husband dies?”

“Everyone grieves in their own way.”

“But not her. She barely grieved at all. You remember,” said Lexie. It was suddenly incredibly important that he agree with her about this. “You remember, too. How it was.”

Beloved by so many, the whole town had mourned the loss of Lexie’s larger-than-life father. They’d actually hung black bunting—that hadn’t been used since JFK—around Mabel’s Cafe. City Hall had closed for the funeral. The fire department brought in engines from Eureka to cover the stations, and they’d borrowed a sheriff’s dispatcher to work the ComCen. Lexie had heard later that the woman had been terrified she would have to dispatch a fire, but Darling Bay during Chief Tindall’s funeral went completely silent, as if every single resident was grieving the loss. The worst thing Lexie had ever seen in her life was the line of fire trucks on First Street, their ladders up and stretched over the roadway, draped with giant flags, as she and her mother rode under them in the hearse from the church to the cemetery. And the men and women standing at attention in their Class As next to the rigs weren’t just her father’s employees to her. By then they were her coworkers. They were her friends. In a very real sense, her family.

Lexie could vividly remember Coin that day. He hadn’t met her eyes when they’d driven by, he’d stayed at attention, his face strong. But she’d seen the tears dripping from his chin, darkening his shirt.

“You remember how it was,” she said again.

“It was the worst loss Darling Bay Fire had ever had.”

“My mother didn’t act like the rest of the town. She didn’t act like
strangers
did. She just moved on.”

“Lexie, the last thing I want is to argue with you, but I know your mom. She loved him. Take it from someone whose parents didn’t have that together. She still loves him.”

“The last man she dated updated maps for the road service. A more boring man could never exist even if you cloned him and gave him a robot soul.”

“Huh,” said Coin, brushing off the top of the stone with his hand.

“What?”

“Seems to me like maybe that’s why she dated him.”

The thought was new, and somehow frightening. Could it be true that both she and Mira stayed away from men with high risk jobs because they were still too sad to risk their hearts? Lexie knew that’s what it was for her, even though she hated to admit it. But maybe that’s how her mother loved her father, too? Mira hadn’t dated a single man who had any characteristic in common with Robert Tindall, in either looks or personality. Every man she’d gone out with had been white collar with day jobs. She’d dated a banker, two lawyers, and an accountant. “Every single one of them was boring,” she said softly.

“What?”

“Oh, I’m just thinking … you’re right.”

Coin smiled. “Can I get you on record saying that?”

“No, really. All of them have been boring. And I’ve been so
mad
at her this whole time.”

“But …”

“But she’s been dating the exact opposite of Dad.”

“What does the note say?”

Lexie’s eyes widened. “I can’t look.”

“Too private. I get it.”

“No, it’s just that
I
can’t do it. Too weird. Will you read it for me?”

“You sure?”

Lexie nodded. She bit the inside of her lip hard, and for a moment the blood tasted like tears, too.

Coin squatted and opened the small, folded card. “It just says ‘Always.’”

A yellow bloom of pain glared against the back of Lexie’s eyelids, as if a flashbulb had gone off. And maybe one had, because it was clear now.
Always
. Lexie was sideswiped with a memory—when she was very young, she’d asked her mother why he said it instead of “goodbye,” like the other fathers did. “Because he wants to make sure that if he doesn’t make it home, that it was his last word to me.” When she’d asked why her father might not come home, she hadn’t understood why her mother just shook her head. Lexie was too young then to realize that not all firefighters did.

She stood, holding out her hand for her best friend to take. “Take me home, please,” said Lexie.

Coin broke the speed limit on the way to her house. Lexie found an old receipt in the truck’s door pocket and folded into a tiny square, over and over again, trying to ignore how anxious her stomach felt.

At home, as she fumbled with fingers made thick from excitement to get the front door unlocked, he asked, “Do you really want this?”

“Yes.”

“Lexie. We can still go backward. But if we go forward, I’m not going to be able to get over you. Do you understand that?”

In answer, she kissed him. “Forward,” she said against his mouth. “I want forward.”

In her head she heard the word she wanted to say,
Always
. She couldn’t say it. But she heard it.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Coin was used to waking up in strange beds.

At the station, they all had preferred dorm beds, but if you worked a shift with a guy on overtime who had more seniority and liked your bunk, you got booted to your second- or third-favorite. So when he opened his eyes to find himself looking at a bookshelf, he just blinked.

But he wasn’t at the station. There was no air filter running at high volume, no sound of early risers working out in the engine bay.

He wasn’t at home.

The wall behind the bookcase was yellow.

Lexie’s favorite color.

He grinned, memories from the night before flooding his mind. The look of her, underneath him, soft and warm and perfectly everything he’d ever imagined and a whole hell of a lot more. Her eyes when he made love to her. The way they’d clung to each other afterward, as if they’d both found exactly where they needed to be.

She’d fit into his arms like she’d come home, and Coin had wanted to stay there forever in the dark, his arms wrapped around her, keeping her safe.

He rolled over, wanting to see her, to touch her. She’d be there, sweet and gorgeous, and he’d kiss her again. And again. There was nothing in the whole wide world like kissing Lexie. He didn’t want to do anything else, ever.

But she wasn’t there. Her pillow was cool but her spot under the covers was still warm, so she couldn’t have gone far. He sat up, smelling coffee.

Coin helped himself to a mug and found Lexie on the front porch, wrapped in a yellow terry robe. Instead of sitting on the porch swing, she sat on the top step, as if waiting for someone. When the screen door closed behind him, she didn’t turn around.

“Good morning, darlin’,” he said.

She didn’t answer. Her shoulders were hunched, as if she was in pain.

“What’s wrong?” He set the mug on the rail and sat next to her.

She just shook her head. Her hair was a mess of red curls and her eyes had the shadows under them she got when she couldn’t sleep.