Page 5 of Fire and Icing (The Firemen of Waterford TN #1)

Dustin

You never get a second chance to make a first impression,

but you can always make a lasting one.

~ Unknown

I’m washing the truck out front in the driveway of the fire station when a woman drives up and parks.

She bends in to pull something out of her front seat, and the moment her head appears over the roof of the car, I recognize her.

That red hair. Those piercing green eyes.

Am I imagining being able to see the color from here?

Emberleigh.

She rounds the car with a bakery box in her hands.

I haven’t seen her since the fire. I’ve wanted to pop by the bakery to check on her, but there’s a fine line between appearing compassionate and coming across unhinged.

I already rubbed her the wrong way the day of the fire. I need to tread lightly.

Emberleigh walks toward the station door with a familiarity and ease that tells me this isn’t her first visit.

“Good morning,” I call out with a welcoming smile on my face.

Emberleigh barely glances in my direction. At the last minute, she turns toward me, nods her head in acknowledgement, and then she keeps walking toward the station door.

“Here. Let me get that for you,” I offer, dropping my hose and running ahead of her to open the door.

She doesn't exactly glare at me, but she passes by with a look that’s less than grateful for my help. I’m sensing a theme here.

“Whatcha got in the pink box?” my mouth asks without consulting my brain.

Because if my mouth were to consult my brain, it would hear something like Shut it, Dustin. Give the woman some space! in a tone that very much resembles my sister, Mitzi.

“Snakes.” She keeps walking. “A box of snakes.”

She jerks the box in this quick forward motion toward me and then pulls it back and I think I glimpse the slightest upturn of amusement on her lips for a split second.

“I love snakes,” I say, following her into the kitchen of the firehouse like a lost puppy.

“Figures,” she says.

The kitchen noise stops at the sight of this fiery redhead appearing with a box of goodies.

Sweets. I love sweets. And something tells me Emberleigh makes the best sweets I’ve tasted in years.

The guys’ eyes flit between Emberleigh and me. The expressions they exchange make me more nervous than that list I have to carry around in my pocket—the one with that woman, Vanessa, at the top, the one my crewmates randomly add items to at whim.

"Hey, Emberleigh,” Patrick says with a smile—one she returns in full force.

“Is the one-boot wonder giving you trouble?”

“The one-boot wonder?” Emberleigh eyes me with amusement.

She’s not smiling at me, but she’s smiling.

“Yep,” Patrick says to her. Then he turns to me. “Go ahead, tell her why we call you that, Rookie.”

I feel the heat rise up my face. I’m not shy, and I rarely get embarrassed.

I’m not sure why this particular woman elicits such a strong urge to win her approval.

Maybe it was the rescue, seeing her vulnerable and flustered, but steely in her resolve to fight her own fire.

She’s a study in contradictions. There’s something exceedingly soft about her, and yet something incredibly strong woven right alongside the tenderness.

I look Emberleigh in the eyes.“I uh … shucked my boots when we were rushing to get to your place. We … uh … ran over one.”

“That was me,” Patrick says proudly.

Then he breaks into song, singing I Shot the Sheriff , but putting the word killed in place of shot and boot in place of sheriff and changing the rest of the words to match the scenario.

“But I didn’t shoot the rookie, oh no! I killed the boo-ooot. Ooh, ooh, ooh!”

The room erupts in laughter. I don’t laugh, but I’m smiling widely.

I’m going to be the brunt of most jokes for a while around here. It’s my rite of passage and I’ll gladly endure it, especially when I look over at Emberleigh and our eyes catch while she wipes a tear with her free hand, clutching the box of goodies gently to her hip.

“Here. Let me take that for you,” Cody offers.

Emberleigh hands the box to Cody.

“Fresh this morning,” she says. “To thank you guys for coming out and putting out the fire.”

She makes eye contact with each fireman, and then reluctantly acknowledges me.

Cody sets the box on the table and opens it.

It’s stuffed with donuts. Most of them are laying flat.

They look gourmet, if that’s such a thing.

And then there is a row of plain glazed standing up and tightly packed at the end of the box.

My mouth practically waters. Fresh donuts? Donuts that she made? Yes, please.

“The other boot’s in great condition, though,” Cody chirps with a wide grin on his face, circling back to a subject I had hoped would drift out of everyone’s awareness once the lid to the pink box had been opened.

The crew gathers around Emberleigh’s gift, grabbing out their favorites and naming them out loud.

“Oooh. You brought brown butter sugar? I could propose to you for this,” Cody says with a charming grin.

Emberleigh smiles good naturedly. “No need, Cody. I’m not marrying a man who’s only after my donuts.”

“Don’t you want to marry a firefighter?” Patrick teases her.

“Wrong baker,” Emberleigh retorts.

I don’t know what she means by that, but the guys crack up.

Small towns have inside jokes. I know that.

I grew up in one, on an island, but still it was a tight-knit community where you didn’t live down your mistakes, but they became fodder for life-long entertainment in most cases.

People have one another's backs here. I love that—more than I can express.

“Thanks,” Greyson says sincerely. He holds up something that’s got what looks like a lemon filling and powdered sugar on the outside. “My favorite.”

“I know, Grey,” Emberleigh’s smile at him is fond.

“Captain, donuts are here!” Patrick shouts through to the office. “Come get your chocolate donut before the rookie eats it.”

David steps through the doorway as quickly as if the alarm just went off. “Did I hear someone say donuts?” His smile is wide. “Emberleigh, you didn’t have to do this. We’re here to protect you from fires and whatever else you need. You know that.”

He walks toward the box, pulls out the chocolate cake donut with white glaze. It’s larger than a usual donut and when he bites down, I can tell it’s softer.

I step toward the box, realizing my error as soon as my hand is about an inch from a maple bar that’s covered in pieces of bacon—real bacon, not mamby-pamby bacon. No. This bacon looks like it came from a ranch.

“Eh. Eh. Eh,” Patrick tuts.

Cody follows him. “Let’s see if Emberleigh wants you to indulge in her gift.”

Cody looks at Emberleigh. “Do you want the rookie to have a donut?”

Emberleigh nearly looks as if she’s going to say no. She folds her arms across her chest and taps her finger to her chin, deliberating.

“I brought them for the station,” she finally says. “It’s up to y’all how you divvy them out.”

The guys look amongst themselves and after a beat, David says, “Help yourself, Dustin.”

I try to be cool, lifting the maple-bacon bar out of the box like I couldn’t care less whether I eat this or some leftovers in the fridge, but the moment the first bite hits my tongue, I actually moan.

“Oh, man,” I say around the bite. “This is good.”

The guys crack up. Emberleigh grins for a moment until she sees me noticing.

“Is he actually trying to puppy-dog his way into my good graces?” she asks Greyson.

Greyson cooly responds, “Probably trying to fix the botched first impression.”

“It’s going to take more than charm and boyish appreciation of my baked goods to fix that oafish first impression,” she declares, not even glancing at me.

“Oooh,” Cody and Patrick say in unison.

I take another bite of my donut, all the more determined to convince Emberleigh I’m not an oaf. I might be large and lack some self-control at times. But I’m not an oaf. She’ll see.

After Emberleigh leaves, everyone’s going back for their second donut.

I’ve got my eye on one that’s the color of berry juice with a dollop of thick whipped cream on top.

“I don’t think Emberleigh wanted you to have any of these,” Patrick teases, blocking my approach with an outstretched forearm.

“Yeah, it was pretty clear these were for everyone but you,” Cody agrees.

“It’s pretty hard to make Emberleigh your enemy,” Greyson quips quietly. “She’s basically the nicest person in town. Too nice for her own good.”

“Hey,” Patrick says, moving his arm back and tipping his chin toward me in a move that says I can go ahead and grab a donut. “I’ve got an idea.”

“Oh? Great,” I say, grabbing the berry donut before anyone else tries to stop me.

The guys chuckle.

“Yeah,” Patrick says. He turns and addresses Greyson and Cody. “Dustin needs to win Emberleigh over.”

I couldn’t agree more. But I have a feeling their idea of me winning her over isn’t going to line up with mine—at all.

“What if he had to pick up baked goods every day from Baker From Another Mother?” Patrick suggests.

That must be the name of her shop. Does she have a partner?

“Yeah! I like this,” Cody says with an enthusiasm that sets my nerves on edge.

Greyson nods his assent.

“Yeah, Rookie,” Patrick says with a friendly smile. “You’ll pick up donuts from Emberleigh every day we’re on shift. And you have to do something nice for her while you’re there.”

“I don’t think she likes me doing nice things for her,” I admit.

“Well, you’ll work it out,” Cody says. “And you have to say this on every visit: I’m truly sorry I manhandled you like an oaf, Emberleigh.”

The guys lose it. Well, Cody and Patrick lose it. Greyson looks amused, but you have to study him to see it.

“Don’t you men have work to do?” Captain’s voice shouts in from the office.

It’s a friendly reprimand, but it serves its purpose.

“I like that,” Patrick nudges Cody as they walk away from the kitchen together. “ I’m truly sorry … That’s rich. She’ll hate it.”

They both laugh.

Greyson shuts the box of donuts and stashes it on top of the fridge. He glances at me. “Hang in there, Rookie. Never let them see you sweat.”

“Who’s sweating?” I say with the most nonchalant shrug I can muster.

Greyson grins for a split second. “Exactly.”

Our day rolls on. The guys leave the box unattended at one point and I grab another one of the fluffiest, most delicious donuts I’ve ever eaten in my life.

It’s blueberry-lemon and it’s pretty much all I can think about the rest of my shift.

That and how to win Emberleigh over and prove to her I’m not an oaf or a misogynist or whatever she thinks I am—while declaring to her that I am, in fact, an oaf on my every-other-day visit to her shop.

Maybe donut duty won’t be so bad. At least I’ll have a reason to see her on a regular basis for a while.

By midday, I’m taking an extended break Captain approved.

I’m on a mission. I have to find a place to live that’s not in his spare bedroom.

He’s totally in favor of my mission. Not that he’s giving me the boot, but I know when I’ve overstayed my welcome, and I’m getting very, very close to that line.

This morning I woke to David’s five-year-old staring at me over the edge of my bed while his toddler crawled across me making zooming noises with his toy truck.

I love kids. Someday I hope to have a hundred—or at least four or so—of my own.

There’s something about waking to other people’s kids that makes it glaringly obvious you’re intruding on private moments of their life.

Patrick hooked me up with a realtor here named Rhett.

He sent me a list of rentals to check out.

I drive to several overpriced apartments and less-than-ideal rentals—one of which had questionable plumbing and another where the next-door neighbor was blasting loud music.

Back at the firehouse, the crew isn’t actually helping me figure out a living alternative.

They’re all on to the fact that I’m staying at our captain’s home.

Greyson offered his couch, and Patrick informed me that half the landlords in town have weird rules.

I set all thoughts of finding a place aside to go out with Cody to do an elementary school fire safety instruction. On the way back, we stop at a deli to grab a late lunch of sandwiches. Man can not live on donuts alone, unfortunately.

“Hey, check that board for any rentals,” Cody says to me while we’re waiting for our sandwiches to be prepared.

I glance over at a large bulletin board that says Buy * Sell * Trade * Whatever across the top.

“People post stuff there even when they don’t take out an ad in the paper or online. That’s Waterford. We’re more of a word of mouth type of town.”

“I get that. I grew up in a small town too.”

“On that island?”

“Yes. Marbella.” My heart clenches with an unexpected surge of homesickness.

I walk over to the bulletin board. A handwritten note catches my eye. It’s pinned up in the middle of a bunch of printed flyers. The note looks like it was written by someone who learned penmanship in elementary school, but has long since lost full control of their fine motor skills.

Room for Rent. Cozy, Quiet Home. Contact Mrs. Holt.