The Firefighter's Appeal (Harlequin Superromance) (8 page)

He flipped it open. “Yeah?”

Mikey’s voice burst through the phone. “Got your pager on? I know you’re off today, but we could use you....”

Garrett stood as Mikey related the information. A four-car pileup on the interstate, with one vehicle up in flames. He looked at Lily as his brain processed the information. The Throwing Aces was four miles from the fire department, too far for the guys to hold up a truck to wait for him. Lily was watching him intently, her expression hard to read.

“I’ll grab my gear and meet you on scene.” He ended the call.

Adrenaline shot through his blood like a potent combination of Red Bull and whiskey: burning and with a rush of energy. He looked down at the mess on the table, already sending off a text message to one of the bartenders on shift tonight to see if he could come in a bit early and clean up. Good thing it was Sunday and the bar didn’t open until five.

Garrett held up a finger to Lily, sorry that he had to rush about like this, but he was antsy as hell to get to the department to grab his turnout gear. He rushed into the kitchen and made sure the oven and all burners were off and threw the leftover food in the refrigerator. When he hurried back out, Lily was gone.

CHAPTER FIVE

F
IVE
MINUTES
AND
fifty-five seconds.

Metal popped and squealed as Garrett steadied the equipment in his hands. Good old Jaws of Life—they’d cut the car’s top in under six minutes. Had to be a new record.

The mangled piece of metal and plastic that had once been a Ford Taurus shuddered as Garrett cut the last support to free the top of the vehicle. “Popping the top” was the fastest way to get the victims out of the wreckage, and even though he’d done it more times than he could count, Garrett always loved slicing a vehicle apart. He was in work mode, yeah, but the little boy in him loved playing with big, cool toys like the Jaws of Life.

Four firemen removed the top of the vehicle and pulled away what was left of the passenger door. High speed meets guardrail wasn’t a good combination, and, from the looks of it, it had done a number on the human bodies inside, too.

Garrett handed off the jaws and registered silence for just a second as the loud, rattling grind of the equipment was turned off. That silence was quickly filled with moaning and crying—someone trying to scream but managing a gurgling yodel instead.

The three other vehicles involved in the pileup were being tended to by teams of other firemen, and the noises mixed into a chaotic blend. Sweat rolled down his back and matted his hair to his head. At eighty degrees outside, he was burning up inside his heavy turnout gear, but Garrett didn’t care.

He leaned into the vehicle and the smell of alcohol hit him like a wall. Two patients. Driver slumped over the center console, the passenger trying like a wild boar in a straitjacket to get out of the prison his seat belt had become. Blood and lots of it, covering them both. Empty beer cans were scattered all over the place. He reached across the screaming patient to the one who lay still—gave him a pinch on the meaty part of his shoulder. No response.

Traffic accidents were the worst part of this job. Fires could be tamed or not—either way, they could fight and try to win. If they couldn’t beat the fire, they could contain it; they could keep it from ravaging more than the timber and fiber it had already consumed. He knew how to jump in and wrangle the flaming beast—knew how to put every ounce of knowledge to work to try to fix it.

Accidents like this left him feeling helpless, useless sometimes, and he hated that. The faster and more effectively the firemen worked, the quicker the medics could get in and help the victims. It was all about time—the narrow window standing between the next breath and the last.

Once the car was cut apart and gas or other dangerous chemicals contained, Garrett could step back and let the medics in—watch as they put their impressive knowledge to work to try to wrangle whatever threatened to take life away.

He couldn’t fix people. Sometimes, many times, the medics couldn’t, either.

Like when his father had fallen through a fire-engulfed roof. It had taken too long for the firemen to find him—too many seconds had gone by as the fire grew stronger and whatever chance Teddy Mateo had had of survival ticked away. Every second counted. Every damn one.

“Let the medics in,” Garrett yelled over his shoulder, taking a pair of shears from his pocket. He held them up to the patient to show his intention. “Hold still, okay?”

He cut the seat belt to the sounds of boots behind him. Someone touched his shoulder, asked him to move back. It was the same old routine, one he’d been through a hundred times—secure the scene, cut the victim out, help the medics with moving patients and whatever else they needed.

The steps didn’t always follow the same pattern, but they were all there. And the end result would be the same, no matter if the patients lived or died—the high. Garrett was filled with an adrenaline rush and a potent sense of purpose that nothing else could re-create. Forget drugs—they had nothing on the pristine boost he got from pulling his turnout gear on and rushing into things other people backed away from.

He was on autopilot, his heart racing, his brain as sharp as it’d ever be. Chasing the high—it drove every fireman on this squad. This feeling, this sense of knowing what to do and when, the human connection in doing everything you could to help save a life and property was about as good as it got.

Going after that feeling, reaching for that high, kept them all working as hard as they could. It was what his father had been after the day he’d been swallowed from a rooftop into a belly of fire. Garrett figured that luck would keep him alive while he chased the high, but the absence of good fortune and enough seconds would see him out with honor the way his father had gone.

He wrinkled his nose at a stream of blood oozing from the unresponsive driver. He backed off, thankful it was the medic’s turn. A good adrenaline rush didn’t just keep him going, it helped block out, for a little while at least, that the lumps of flesh and bone were actually human, and that the tragic things in front of him were actually real.

Later, when the high wore off, Garrett would remember the grisly details and be flooded with the sickly reminder that bad things happened to tear people and families apart. It always served as a reminder of why he was alone and why it was easier that way.

“See that?” Mikey Cain wiped a soiled leather glove over his face and jerked his head toward the hazy August sky.

Garrett lifted the grimy eye shield on his helmet and glanced up. It had been overcast all day, with a slightly green hue coming and going. Everyone around these parts knew that could be bad or just a false alarm.

Given the heat and the balmy breeze that had only gotten stronger throughout the day, and now the massive swirl of gray and purplish clouds above their heads, Garrett was going with bad. Alabama had been hit with two tornadoes yesterday, Texas with a random handful earlier in the week. A system was always cooking this time of year.

“Been brewing all damn day,” Mikey muttered.

Garrett’s hand went reflexively to his pager. If a tornado had been spotted, the 911 personnel pagers were the first to go off. That it hadn’t, combined with the town’s quiet weather siren, made him feel a little better.

“Got that right. Did you hear the forecast?”

Mikey shrugged, his eyes trailing back to the wrecked car. “Nope. ’Nader coming, if I had to guess.”

The medics extracted the patient using a long orange board, and then placed him onto a cot positioned beside the wreckage. The patient wasn’t obeying the paramedic’s instructions and pushed frantically at the rigid splints they were trying to put on his arm. His right arm flopped at an unnatural angle. Garrett and Mikey cringed at the same time.

“Damn.” Garrett turned away and began gathering equipment.

“Yeah.” Mikey pulled in the hydraulic lines that connected to the Jaws of Life before slanting his head back up to the sky. “Reminds me of when that tornado hit right after we worked that wreck this same time last year. Remember? Engine One got tipped clear onto its side.”

Garrett paused a moment to think. “Nah, I was out of town then.” He’d heard about it, though. There were enough pictures of the overturned engine hanging up on the fire station bulletin board, and stories still floating around about it to make it feel like he’d witnessed it himself.

Mikey walked to the fire truck, his arms loaded. “Right—you were off prancing in your bikini in Hawaii then.”

Garrett smirked. At thirty-one, he was one of the youngest on the squad and was used to taking his share of razzing from the other firemen. Since he’d worked his way through the roster of much older and more experienced men to the role of assistant chief, the razzing had only gotten worse. But over the years, the comments had turned from a way to test him into a good-natured display of male respect. He took it with a smile. Mikey was only a couple of years older, but he acted like an old-timer, despite being the brunt of many jokes himself.

“Don’t be jealous of my bikini body, man.” Garrett patted Mikey’s belly over his heavy jacket. Mikey smirked and knocked Garrett’s hand away.

The scene was starting to wind down. The other firemen gathered equipment and tidied away bits of metal from the road. Garrett remembered the mess he’d left behind at the bar, his thoughts straying to the disappointment that his morning with Lily had been cut short. At least they’d gone over everything they’d needed to for her to get started on his bid, and that had been the point.

Garrett looked up at the sky just in time to see a streak of lightning glisten behind the azure clouds. The wind gave an impressive gust, considering it had been a relatively mild day. He was glad the vehicle fire had already been put out, because this wind was just strong enough to fan flames and make their job harder.

Mikey began pulling on the end of a rope coil. “That’s when you were in Hawaii for Cash after his accident, right?”

Garrett held his arms out for Mikey to wind rope around them into a neat oval and gave a tight nod in response.

The reminder of his brother’s accident gave him a pang. Cash Mateo had been the big, strong and silent type before a beam had fallen on his head during a fire rescue attempt and he’d suffered a traumatic brain injury. Now he was just big, strong and ornery as hell.

The seizure disorder and short-term memory loss he earned from that accident had turned Cash into a hollow man—one who’d slipped into a scary depression after his wife decided she couldn’t handle what had happened and divorced him. He was better now, seemed to have settled into the fact that his firefighting career was over and accepted that his new job as a fire investigator was a suitable replacement.

“You had a bad year, Mateo, between Brad getting sick and Cash. It’s time something good happened to you.”

Garrett couldn’t argue with that. His family had taken its share of hits, that was for sure. He was ready for...something else to happen, too. Something fun and good to remind him that there was more to life than disaster and death. Like a four-wheeling trip with lots of mud and beer involved. Garrett paused at that thought, but instead of mentioning it, he found himself saying something entirely different.

“Remember the woman from the bar the other night? The ‘I don’t get involved with firemen’ one?”

Mikey widened his eyes. “Yeah. Did she change her mind?”

Right.
“Ha, no. She’s my new contractor. Ashden Construction? Lily Ashden.”

Garrett eyeballed Mikey, who’d stopped looping rope, his face thoughtful. Mikey tipped back his helmet and wiped a dirty glove over his face. A couple of dark curls of his too-long bangs sneaked out from beneath his helmet.

“Got that
Twilight Zone
feeling?” Garrett asked, watching Mikey’s lips pull tighter. “Does she sound familiar to you, too?”

“Yes.” Mikey cocked his head, shrugged and went back to rope looping. “How do I know that name?”

“I don’t know,” Garrett replied. The adrenaline was starting to fade, leaving him tired, hot and wishing he could get out of his gear and let the breeze cool him off. He was ready to be done. “Ashden Construction is pretty well-known. I’m sure her name’s been thrown around here and there. Then again, I don’t really care as long as she can get the job done.”

Remembering their conversations as they’d walked the empty plot behind the bar, Garrett felt a bit guilty that he’d only given her two days to complete the draft, but Sylvia hadn’t given him much time to work with, either.

That was it. He couldn’t take it anymore. Garrett unstrapped his helmet and pulled it off. Sweat coursed over his face as he puffed out a tired breath and glanced around. The scene was pretty much cleared. All the patients had been taken away, the vehicles moved to the side of the road and debris cleared so traffic could get through. With any luck, he’d have enough time to stop by the hospital and see Brad before his shift at the fire station started at six.

“Anyway, Lily’s brother owns a shop in Nashville. She asked to meet Bodie to see if some of his work might be a fit for the store.”

Mikey’s expression perked up. “Yeah? Sure. Anytime. You know, you should take her to the Pit and show her all of Bodie’s work there.” Someone shouted from behind the engine. Frowning, Garrett pulled on his helmet, moving to the front to see what was going on.

“I was thinking that, too.” Not that he expected Lily would go anywhere with him unless it was related to the job. Did he even want her to? Hard to say. He was attracted to her, sure, but was it a good idea to mix personal aspects into business?

Another voice rang out, followed by the screech of brakes and tires. Garrett peered around the front of the fire engine just as a small red car whizzed past and slammed into one of the wrecked cars that had been pulled to the side of the road. The crunch of metal on metal cut through the air.

“Goddamn rubberneckers!” The curse preceded the stomp of boots as several firemen ran over to the fresh collision, Garrett included. It wasn’t the first time this had happened, people driving by too distracted from looking at the scene to realize they were about to crash themselves.

Garrett’s heart pumped with renewed vigor. Apparently he wasn’t done yet.

* * *

“T
HANKS
FOR
MEETING
ME
.” Macy smiled around the straw of her frappé. Mama’s Java was packed, everyone making a mad dash for midafternoon coffee. Lily popped the top of her to-go cup to let the steam out. It might be hot and humid outside, but coffee was akin to fresh air. Had to have it to live.

“Of course,” Lily replied. “Besides, you sounded weird on the phone.” Macy was a kindergarten teacher and usually spent her summers traveling, but since breaking up with her boyfriend a month ago, she had decided to cancel their joint travel plans and hang around Danbury instead.

“Well, I got a strange phone call last night.” Macy eyed her steadily. “From Rob.”

Lily curled her upper lip. “Rob? What did he want?”

Lily had already had two voice mails from her ex-fiancé, and she had no intention of calling him back. As far as she was concerned, there was nothing to say. The bastard had walked out on her at the lowest, most devastating time of her life. Instead of supporting her when Katja died, Rob had left.