The Perfect Match (5 page)

She’d better toughen up her defenses if she hoped to
eke out a smidgen of respect from the men she’d met today. She’d been mildly disappointed to discover that the Deep Haven Fire Department didn’t host even one woman. The two ladies who showed up to run the emergency dispatch felt like a cool drip in a hot spring.

She mentally categorized her crew—John Benson, Doug Miller, and Craig Boberg formed the backbone of the company. With ten years or more experience each, she’d be able to trust their gut instincts and would lean on them for leadership. She’d put probies Guthrie Jones, Lionel Parks, and Simon Sturgis through their paces, but with her slim crew, they’d have to man hydrants, drag hose, and fill in the gaps until they were ready to face a fire. A group of other lumberjack types formed the bulk of the crew, headed by Mitch Davis and Ernie Wilkes, who hated her guts if she read their body language correctly. That left Joe Michaels, Bruce Schultz, and Dan to win over. Joe seemed friendly enough with his wide smile and twinkling eyes. And Bruce Schultz had shaken her hand with a solid grip that told her he wasn’t afraid to let a woman lead. But what about Dan?

His words from their dismal meeting at the hospital still rang in her mind:
Over my dead body.
Dan wouldn’t seriously try and derail her job here, would he?

She shouldn’t let the preacher frighten her. Twice she’d caught him looking at her, grimacing. It didn’t help that he looked like a hero fresh off the pages of some sweet romance novel, with his dark hair raked by the wind and a slight stubble of whiskers on his chin. It nearly rocked her from her stoic emotional footing. She could admit that for a second, against the backdrop of adrenaline and fear, Pastor Dan had chipped a piece out
of her heart. She’d be better off to forget him. It wasn’t like they’d be taking strolls in the sunset. In fact, such strolls might unravel all her hard work. She could just imagine the ribbing they’d get from the firemen . . . ribbing she couldn’t afford in the heat of a fire. She’d have to maintain a professional distance if she hoped to etch respect in the eyes of her fire crew.

She finished her sandwich, glaring triumphantly at the seagulls, then wrapped her arms around her bent legs, staring into the waves. The wind played with her hair, now down and tangling. In track pants and a U of MN-Duluth sweatshirt, she felt nearly normal, free of the tightly strung fire-chief persona. Briefly she wondered why she worked so hard for a job she dreaded.

The sound of crunching rocks made her look up. She scowled as the man of her most recent thoughts tromped his way toward her. And wouldn’t you know it, he wore a U of MN hockey jersey over his sweatshirt, dredging up a spray of bittersweet memories.

“What are you doing here?”

“I thought you and I should have a talk.” Dan sat down beside her, obviously not at all ruffled by the lack of invitation. “You skipped out on me at the hospital.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. Weren’t you finished threatening me and telling me what a fool I am? I guess you rallied your pals. I had a regular fan club down at the firehouse today. Thanks.”

“Wow.” Dan’s eyes widened. “Okay, first of all, I didn’t ‘rally’ anyone. Mitch and Ernie have a genetic predisposition toward apelike behavior. It takes very little to whip them into a frenzy. And as for the other night, I was tired and most likely under the influence of
heavy painkillers. I didn’t mean what I said.” His voice turned dangerously soft. “I’m sorry.”

She looked away, afraid that her emotions might be written in her expression. How dare he make her feel like the villain. Her throat threatened to close. “You’re not forgiven.”

He drew in a long breath, then picked up a stick and began to draw in the rocks. The wind reaped his freshly showered scent and sent it back to her, picking at her sour mood.

She felt like a heel. “Okay. Fine. I forgive you.”

“Can we be friends?” He held out his hand, and that, along with his smile, demolished her last barriers of annoyance.

“Just friends, okay? No more dream girl declarations or he-man threats.”

Was it her imagination, or did he color slightly? It looked devastatingly cute with his tough hockey shirt and wind-whipped hair. “You got it.” His grip felt soft, wide, and strong. She let go almost immediately.

“So what do you want to talk about—besides my abhorrent profession?” She looked away before those way-too-piercing eyes drilled into her soul.

He laughed, and the sound of it, full and sweet, tugged a smile out of her.

“How’s your shoulder?” She gestured to the sling. “I guess you won’t be swinging a stick anytime soon, huh?”

He blinked at her, his gaze clouding.

“The hockey jersey. I just assumed—”

“Oh, right.” He looked at himself, as if stunned by his attire. “I’m a wing. Deep Haven Hotshots.” He shrugged, but his eyes lit up. “And I’ll be fine for practice.”

“Hotshots? As in forest firefighters?” She sunk her head into her hands. “I should have guessed. I’ll bet half my fire crew is on the hockey team, right?”

He shrugged. “We do have snow and ice for eight long months. Not a lot to do around here—”

“So, in other words, if we get a call I just need to phone the hockey rink?”

“Or the church. Most of those guys . . . well, with the exception of a few, are regular attendees. Like I said, not much to do around here.” He smiled and spiked an eyebrow. “Hey, you don’t sing, do you?”

She made a face. “Only in the shower, and even then Franklin howls.”

Her dog had decided to check out the comfort status of Dan’s tennis shoes. Dan rubbed the dog behind one of his floppy ears. “Franklin. As in . . . Ben?”

Why that question spiraled right to the soft tissue of her heart, she didn’t know, but she felt warm to her toes. “Good guess. I thought it appropriate to name him after the first firefighter.”

“I used to have a dog. Petey. Cocker spaniel and black Lab mix. Great dog.” Franklin opened an eye at Dan’s monologue and rolled over. “He was hit by a car a couple years ago. Never could bring myself to replace him. I guess I’m a one-dog fella.”

“Gets lonely that way, I’ll bet.” Oh, where did that come from? She wanted to wince, but suddenly she had to know. Why wasn’t he married? He was the town pastor—didn’t he have to take an oath that he’d get married straight out of seminary or something? Or . . . maybe he’d taken a different kind of oath, one that would ensure that her reputation was indeed safe as they sat on
shore, talking into the twilight. She suddenly felt a tad ill at even noticing his white smile, his dark, run-your-hands-through-me hair, and his gentleness with her dog.

“Oh, I keep busy,” he answered without a twinkle, as if her question—no, her
probing
—went right over his head. Good. She shouldn’t be—
wasn’t!
—interested anyway. “So, you’re from Duluth?” he asked.

“Yep. Born and raised in a little house on the hill. Woke up each morning to the foghorn. I used to love watching the boats motor into Canal Park. It seemed like such an exotic life. Forlorn, perhaps, but exotic.”

“And . . . you like exotic?” His eyes had darkened and his tone deflated, as if weighted by sadness.

“I guess so. Maybe. It’s better than forlorn.” She chuckled, and he responded with a one-sided smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “What’s it like—being a pastor? I suppose you hear a lot of sob stories.”

The sun had sunk beneath the western rim of the lake, leaving a trail of maroon in its wake. Dan threw a rock into the waves. “Now and then. I’m a pretty good listener if you ever need an ear.”

Oh no . . . that was the last thing she needed—to let the man go searching around her soul, only to discover her scarred heart. “Thanks. But . . . well, I have Franklin.”

“Yeah, he looks like the listening type.” Dan glanced her way, and there was friendship in his eyes.

It dragged the truth out of her before she knew it. “Well, he doesn’t preach at me, and that helps.”

When Dan winced, it was clear she’d hurt him. “I’ll try not to preach.”

She felt like an insensitive clod. “That didn’t come out right. I’m sorry. I just . . . well, let me just say it aloud.
I’m a Christian. But I work hard, and that means I don’t always make it to church. So don’t come around and start leaving blank attendance records on my desk. Got it?”

He narrowed his eyes slightly, and it gave him a way-too-dangerous, threaten-her-emotional-boundaries-type look. “Uh-huh.”

The air suddenly felt thick, and she fought the urge to get up and run. Fast.

He considered her for a long, painful moment before he spoke. “You know, being a pastor is a challenging job. I have to admit I struggle for words sometimes. I’m never quite sure if I’m making a difference, to tell the truth. It’s not like fighting a fire. When you’re done, you know if you’ve won or lost—if the fire has bested you, or if you’ve escaped. Sometimes you escape with burns, but you always learn something. It’s not like that in ministry.”

In the gathering darkness, his dark profile seemed young, his face fierce and passionate. “The man who died in the fire last week was one of my parishioners. I failed him, Ellie. Instead of confronting the man about his downward spiral, I let him struggle. I sidled up beside him and lobbed him spiritual truths when I should have waged a frontal attack. Stopped his head-on collision with despair . . . I don’t want that to happen again.”

“Dan, you can’t save everyone,” Ellie said, dodging the uncanny feeling that he had a finer point to his story, one that should make her squirm. Still, with his magically tender and even vulnerable voice, he’d moved her emotions from defensive to empathetic. The guy had a way of making her feel . . . soft. Aware of the gentler side of herself, the one she tried to ignore or even hide.

“No, Ellie; in fact I can’t save anyone. But I can point
them to their Savior, the only one who can save. And in this particular case, I blew it.” He tightened his jaw. “And I don’t want to make a habit of that.” While he looked at her, the passion in his eyes made her mouth run dry. Suddenly he wasn’t Dan the pastor, but a young smoke jumper with blond hair, loading his parachute. “I know I don’t know you well, but I don’t want you to get hurt.”

“I’m not so easily hurt, you know,” she said, but her voice caught. “I do know what I’m doing.”

“Do you? I hope so.”

She tried to answer, but nothing came out of her knotted throat. Seeking escape in watching the seagulls riding the waves, she rubbed her hands on her arms and wondered why she couldn’t unlock the dark chambers of her heart. He did say he wanted to be her friend. But some wounds were too deep for casual inspection.

“Listen, I didn’t come to Deep Haven to defend my profession to you or anyone else,” she finally said, knowing her voice sounded choked and way too vulnerable. “I have a job to do. And I’m good at it. If you want to stand in my way, you’re going to get trampled.”

“I’m not going to stand in your way.”

“Good.”

“But I am going to watch your back. And if you start to get into trouble, I’m going to be there to pull you out.”

“Oh, like when you went after the Simmons kids? You nearly got killed. And thanks, but I don’t need another death on my head.” She cringed at her sudden outburst, but the words were already out.

“You’re not going to let me forget that, are you?”

He looked so wretched, so sick at heart, it chipped
away at her anger. “Not if it will save your life,” she said, then managed a slight smile. “Listen, I’m here to watch your back, Pastor. And it would do you well to remember that.”

His expression changed, and those smoky eyes turned dark, intense. “And what if it’s
your
life that needs saving, Ellie? Who are you going to trust then?”

T
he church bell echoed against the pine and birch that embraced the city, its sound accentuating the beauty of the sun-drenched Sunday. Ellie paused her sleuthing through the soggy remains of the Simmons home and stared through the charred window frame, watching the family across the street hustle out of their house. It raised a spur of memory:

“Ellie, hurry; we’re already late!” Her mother’s voice would trumpet through their bungalow, followed by the smell of burning toast and the sound of her brother’s raucous laughter.

“Forget it, Ma. She can’t find the right tube socks to match her dress!”

The image faded on the sound of Seth’s laughter and left a burning trail of sorrow in its wake. Grief had the ability to pop up at the most unexpected times and grab her by the throat. She swallowed hard and turned back to her work, trying to ignore the residue of guilt. Just because she wasn’t a regular church attendee
didn’t mean that she should feel like a delinquent teenager.

She and God were on speaking terms, even if it did seem to be a rare conversation these days. Despite her attempts, she’d given up hoping she’d ever find that magical relationship with God that Seth had raved about. Perhaps that kind of connection with the Almighty of the universe was reserved for the
real
saints, with the majority of the world destined to stand on the fringes.

Ellie sighed, defeat rushing over her. Although her post as interim chief was less than twenty-four hours old, she felt like she’d been on the job for a decade, complete with fatigue and war wounds. After her way-too-revealing conversation with the pastor last night—one that had left her with an unsettling sense of longing and anger—she needed to focus on exactly why she’d moved to Deep Haven.

It certainly wasn’t to cultivate friends . . . well, not that she was inherently against the idea, but certainly not the type of “friends” who made her feel like fixing her hair and painting on makeup. And wouldn’t that portray the steely image she needed? The firehouse was a hotbed for rumors. The last thing she needed was someone even musing about her spending time with a firefighter on her crew under a lavender sunset. Suddenly her career would be in shreds. If not her career, her reputation.

Spending time alone sifting through the burned remains of the Simmons home would give her focus, help her hone in on her objective. And she could say she had spent the morning in useful activity.

There it went again, the unexpected spurt of guilt.

She tried to focus on her work. The first step in determining the cause of a fire was pinpointing its origin. The Simmons home groaned, and the hairs on Ellie’s neck rose. Walking through a fire-gutted house, relying on the strength of damaged foundation posts seemed slightly shy of smart, but she knew the risks when she signed on.

Starting at the door, armed with her camera and a short pike pole to help her negotiate over furniture and melted plastics, she traced the fire path from the least damaged to the deepest charred rooms, trying not to disturb any evidence that might reveal arson. From the entryway, which opened into the family room, she tracked the smoke line, the etching of where smoke and heat blazed down from the ceiling. She noted that the overhead lightbulb had melted in the direction of the family room, where the heat concentrated. Stopping at a light switch, she pried it off the wall. The wires were still intact so the fire here had licked along the lath-and-plaster wall, leaving the wiring unscathed. The fire hadn’t invaded the electrical system. Overhead, the ceiling had dripped water into pools of watery embers.

She wore her steel-toed, Kevlar-bottom rubber boots today, her turnouts, and a helmet; she realized that she’d forgotten, in the past year of management classes, how heavy her gear could be. In a fire, with the bunker pants and SCBA breathing gear, she often likened herself to a turtle trying to crawl through a black maze.

As she marched down the hall, the odors of burned plastics, wood, and fiber stung her nose, bit at her eyes. She stepped inside the decimated kitchen and treaded carefully over glass splinters, the remains of an overhead light. She shone her flashlight on what had been a brass
lamp, its arms now warped and tangled from the heat. The aluminum casing for the lightbulbs hung in frozen drips, hinting at the intense heat of the blaze. The top half of the room—wallpaper, cupboards, and wall clock—had been chewed up by flames and melted almost beyond recognition. The pattern, however, indicated that the fire had moved like a wave across the kitchen, seeking oxygen and a fresh fuel supply.

She approached the blackened window frame, examined the spray pattern of the glass shards. Splinters littered the floor as well as the ground outside. Obviously a casualty of the fire rather than an arsonist’s attempted entry.

As she moved across the adjoining room—a pantry?—her feet slapped through puddles and dug through debris—plaster, wood, insulation—torn open as the firefighters had overhauled the house, searching for smoldering heat. The door to the room hung only by its lower hinge, and the deeper surface burning at the top told her it had smoldered before fiery breath had blown it open, freeing the fire to consume the house.

She peered into the room—a bathroom. And, from its condition, the possible source. Only the porcelain toilet, badly blackened, and the tub remained. On the far wall, nothing but spaghetti-thin shards remained of the studs, betraying the fire’s desperate search for oxygen as it gulped air from the cracked window. From her vantage point she could look right through to the family room and beyond that to the street. To her right, on what remained of the bathroom wall, the wallpaper, or perhaps paint, curled down from the walls like chocolate curls. Just above a deformed mess beside the toilet, Ellie made
out a slight fire cone, the
V
of the fire. Below it, the tiny vanity, mirror, and what she guessed had been various cleansers and shampoos had melded into a pile, and next to it was a deformed mound of hardened black plastic.

When Ellie stepped closer, the floor groaned. She stilled and heard her father’s voice:
Don’t ever go into a fire without your buddy.
He’d been on the force long enough for his warning to resonate with wisdom. She had obviously discarded common sense this morning in favor of accelerating her career. She’d not only left her PAL but also her UHF radio on the seat of her Jeep. Not that she’d have anyone to call if she fell through the bathroom floor and broke her legs in the basement.

That thought stopped her heart cold in her chest.

Slowly she set down the pike tool and hoisted her camera. Taking a series of shots of the bathroom, she then crouched and carefully tugged at the melted plastic blob, which she surmised had been a garbage receptacle. The thing had hardened, and whatever was inside had been encased in its mass. A river of congealed plastic led to the vanity rubble.

Ellie sifted through it with gentleness. Whatever had started the fire had generated enough heat to melt plastic and chew through the wooden vanity without slowing to account for the different combustion temperatures. It had fed on the ample fuel under the sink in flammable cleaning supplies, breathing the scant oxygen from the open window, until it filled the room with enough gas to blow out the door and flashing over the kitchen, hunting breath and fuel. Still, if it had blown out through the kitchen, certainly the family would have heard the explosion.

But the lack of alligator scaling, the high-heat scars
left on the surface of wood, suggested a different story. Ellie guessed that the blaze had simply gobbled through the wall to the family room, exploding across the ceiling, gulping the air, and killing the victim instantly with toxic carbon monoxide. That would account for the carpet still intact in the corners and the fairly insignificant burning of the sofa and the recliner, despite the man’s condition.

Had Leo Simmons been a smoker? Perhaps he’d dropped his cigarette in the garbage, thinking it was extinguished. A cigarette would smolder among the tissue, building heat, melting the plastic until it finally ignited. But paper produced smoke—more smoke than wood and other fuels. Enough smoke to sneak out under a bathroom door and trigger the smoke alarm. No, this fire was fast and hungry. It ignited suddenly, reduced the litter basket to liquid, then almost immediately discovered the fuel under the sink. Within three minutes, the room would have been a fireball, more flame than smoke, and by the time the blaze gnawed through the wall and flashed over the family room, the smoke alarm would have been useless.

The burn patterns suggested an accelerant. An arsonist or a very fatal mistake?

A suicide arsonist would set the fire to smoldering, do his deadly deed, and wait for the blaze to cover up the results. He certainly wouldn’t set a fire, then retire for five short minutes in the family room to watch the Minnesota Twins lose a pre-playoff game, especially with his family sleeping upstairs.

Whoever had set the blaze had done so moments before he escaped . . . before his act could be discovered.

She’d have to interview the neighbors, see if they could recall who might have visited Leo Simmons Thursday night shortly before his house burst into flames.

Meanwhile, she had enough suspicions to call in the fire marshal from Duluth. A fire investigator with a computer system, canine units, and forensic techniques would help her track down the person who’d nearly killed an entire family.

And perhaps, then, she wouldn’t be seen as the invader in Deep Haven but a protector.

Ellie backed out of the bathroom, stepped carefully through the kitchen, and started down the hallway. The wind had picked up, scattering leaves and other debris across the family room. She hesitated near the door, thinking of Leo and his shock as flames rolled across the ceiling, devouring the oxygen and burning his lungs.

The house moaned and she felt it shudder, as if heaving a sigh. She had a split-second warning before the crack sounded. Throwing her arms up, she closed her eyes as the world caved in on top of her.

Dan stood in the vestibule, shaking hands with his parishioners. He couldn’t count how many times he’d summarized the event surrounding his injury and outlined his hopeful prognosis. He ought to place a sign over his head or take out an ad in the
Superior Times
.

Even so, it touched his heart that so many people cared. Edith Draper had promised to send over a casserole—a hearty Minnesotan cream-of-mushroom-soup, tater tot, and pulverized meat affair, as if his injured
shoulder had somehow impaired his taste buds. But he could hold out hope that the meal might include the woman’s rice pudding. Most of the congregation took him for the usual underfed, measly cook bachelor. He didn’t have the heart to tell them that he’d spent every summer during college in the sweaty kitchens of some of Minneapolis’s finest restaurants. Perhaps he should be hunting the want ads for line-cook positions.

Bruce Schultz stepped up, pumped his hand, thanked him for the sermon, and teased him about missing hockey practice. “Don’t tell me you can’t shoot with one arm.”

Joe, right behind Bruce, gave the man a light punch.

Mona looked more rested this morning and had developed a motherly glow. She still hadn’t donned maternity clothes, however, and Dan wondered when she’d announce her pregnancy to the congregation. As he chatted with the Michaelses, Dan noticed Liza lining up behind them, a saucy smile on her lips. She had her arms folded, but those dark eyes definitely simmered with trouble. When she stepped up to him, he braced himself.

The woman had a way of stripping down casual conversation to the bare essentials. “I met her, Dan.”

He worked to keep up.

“I’ll have you know, she’s not going to let you run her out of town.”

Who—?

“The new fire chief.” She answered his nonverbal question, obviously posed in his frown.

“I’m not trying to run her out of town.” His gaze darted past Liza, and he smiled at Doc Simpson. “Besides, we smoothed things over last night.”

“Oh?” Liza’s black eyebrows arched.

He winced. “That didn’t come out quite right. Let’s just say that she and I came to an agreement.”

“Like you staying out of her way? letting her do her job?”

“Like me doing mine.” He tracked back to Ellie’s face when he’d accused her of trying to run a one-woman show, not needing any help. She’d gone stark white, as if she’d been punched. And then abruptly she stood, wrenched her pooch to his feet, and coldly bid Dan good night. Okay, so it hadn’t exactly ended
well.
He’d hit upon a soft spot—or a dark fear. It had kept him sitting on the beach long after she’d retired to her hotel.

Something haunted Ellie—enough to make her want to keep Dan outside her private walls lest he get a good glimpse of it.

Obviously, the woman hadn’t unlocked her secrets for Liza either. “Well, I did try and tell her that you were a pretty good fella—” Liza’s warm smile appeared, and somehow it loosened the breath in his chest—“and . . . single.”

“Liza, you didn’t.”

She smirked. “I thought, you know, since I did such a good job with Joe and Mona, I’d move on to higher obstacles.”