Page 9 of Fire and Icing (The Firemen of Waterford TN #1)

Dustin

I'm just doing my job, ma'am.

~ Ghosts of Mississippi

“Day two of mission Grovel to the Town Baker,” Cody laughs around a bite of donut.

“Ha ha,” I say, grabbing the blueberry-lemon before anyone else takes it.

There are other flavors I like, but none measures up to this one.

“What did Emberleigh say when you used the line on her?” Patrick asks, brushing a bit of powdered sugar off his station uniform shirt.

“The line?” I ask before my brain fully engages.

The guys chant in unison, “I’m truly sorry I manhandled you like an oaf, Emberleigh.”

They burst into collective laughter.

“Yeah. It didn’t go over as well today.”

“Details. We need details,” Greyson says. He’s so neutral, he could be auditioning to be one of those automated voices you hear when you call customer service and can’t reach a real human.

He’s not eating a donut. He’s in one of the recliners lined up along the wall of the dining area with his face buried in his laptop.

“As soon as half the sentence was out of my mouth, her eyes narrowed and she placed her hands on her hips.”

All eyes in the room are on me except Greyson’s. Cody’s suppressing a smirk. Patrick’s not even trying to subdue his amusement. Captain’s face is a mask of seriousness, but something tells me he’s as deeply entertained as the rest of the crew.

“That woman has spunk,” Patrick says.

“What’d she do next?” Greyson asks without looking up.

“She cut me off before I even said her name. She said, ‘Last time I thought you meant it. Now I’m pretty sure this is just a dare those boys at the station put you up to. And it can stop. You can tell them their donut supply hinges on how they decide to handle this.’”

I look each of the men in the room in the eyes, hoping they don’t mess up the donut situation. I really, really like Emberleigh’s donuts. For some reason, I like her too, even though she’s done nothing but tell me off and give me sideways looks since I got here.

“Fiery redhead,” Patrick says.

“Her hair’s got nothing to do with it,” Cody corrects him.

“She’s not always fiery,” Captain David says. “Only when she’s provoked.”

“True,” Greyson agrees. “She’s usually far too kind to everyone. Always giving away free food.”

“What am I supposed to do?” I ask the guys.

They glance at one another, sharing some sort of unspoken conversation.

Patrick nods at Cody. Greyson looks up. His brows are raised until Cody and he exchange a look that obviously confirms whatever they’re all agreeing on. Captain’s quiet.

Cody smiles at me and I’m sure he’s going to tell me I’m off the hook. We all love our morning run for baked goods. No one wants to upset Emberleigh.

“You’ve got your assignment, Rookie,” Cody says with a professional formality to his voice. “Keep apologizing. And come back with donuts.”

“Seriously?” I’m nearly whining. “Is there something else I can do instead?”

The guys don’t even consult one another.

Cody claps me on the shoulder. “I’m sure you’ll figure it out.”

I swallow hard and look him in the eyes. “I’ll figure it out.”

“Good man,” Greyson says.

I don’t know how I’ll do it, but the next time I’m on shift, I will deliver my apology and come back here with a box of Emberleigh’s donuts.

I’m not blowing my chance to prove myself to this crew of men.

And I’m not giving up my blueberry-lemon donut—or, more importantly, the opportunity to correct Emberleigh’s misperception of me.

Captain looks at the clock on the wall. “Time for workouts.”

Cody shuts the lid to the donuts.

We walk toward the weight room together. Patrick’s trailing behind us.

“How’s the new place?” Cody asks.

“I like it. I’ve only been there one night, but it’s clean and private. Mrs. Holt cooked me dinner. I’m planning to cook for her tomorrow just so she knows I’m not there to take advantage of her hospitality.”

Patrick takes a seat on the weight bench and grabs a dumbbell. Cody picks up the jump rope and begins skipping. I walk over to the TRX machine and start doing pull-ups.

Cody says, “Mrs. Holt’s not worried about you taking advantage of her. Trust me. She loves having the company.”

“That’s what she said,” I tell him.

Patrick gasps and then he chuckles. “Wait. You’re living with Emberleigh’s grandma?”

“What? No,” I say.

And then the photos on that shelf in the hallway come streaming back into my mind like a rapid-fire reel. Redhead. Baker. Her sunshine.

“You do know Mrs. Holt is Emberleigh’s grandma, don’t you?” Cody asks, a strong note of amusement in his voice.

“Uhhh …” I’m scrabbling for some way to cover my obvious ignorance.

“Oh. Wow. This is awesome. Rich. So rich,” Cody laughs good-naturedly.

“Please. I should have known,” I say, shaking my head and avoiding eye contact with either of them.

“She’s close with her grandma,” Patrick informs me.

“Great.” I say the word without any enthusiasm, so I repeat it. “Great! No. That’s really great. We all should be close to our grandmothers. I’m glad they’re close. Really.”

“You seem glad,” Patrick smirks.

“He’s toast, is what he is,” Cody aptly assesses.

“You could have warned me,” I tell him, looking into his eyes now that I realize I’m not the only guilty party in this scenario.

Cody was the one who encouraged me to rent the basement apartment.

“I thought you’d find out during the tour,” Cody says, casually. “Mrs. Holt is amazing. But you can barely spend five minutes with her without her raving about her granddaughter.”

I nod. Mrs. Holt did go on a bit over those photos.

She even said I’d hit it off with her granddaughter once we met.

I wouldn’t say we hit it off. Emberleigh did nearly try to hit me, so there’s that.

I smile, remembering the way Emberleigh chewed me out after I lifted her over my shoulder and carried her out of her home.

She’s got a kind heart, but she’s no pushover.

I stand by the fact that she wasn’t being safe. Maybe I overreacted, but I’d probably do it again if the situation repeated itself. Safety comes first and Emberleigh wasn’t leaving. Fire is unpredictable. Did our crew have it contained? Yes. But she had no protection. So I did what I did.

“To be fair,” Cody says with more compassion in his voice. “Emberleigh basically lives at her bakery. It’s not like she’s over at her gran’s daily or anything.”

I breathe out a sigh. “Yeah. Let’s hope that pattern continues.”

I glance at Patrick. His forehead is drawn in.

“I like Emberleigh,” I say. “Don’t get me wrong. We just got off on the wrong foot and I don’t need to keep stepping in it where she’s concerned. Knowing my luck, she’ll assume I rented from her grandmother just to bug her or get under her skin.”

“She’s not as awful as she’s been to you,” Cody says. “She’s genuinely one of the nicest people in town. You just …”

“... manhandled her like an oaf,” Patrick finishes with a chuckle.

“Yeah, I did.” I laugh too.

We’re interrupted by the alarm ringing through the station.

I don’t have another second to think about what Emberleigh would do if she found out I was the new tenant in her grandma’s house.

Patrick drops his weight on the floor next to the bench. Cody drops the jump rope. I release my grip on the pull-up bar.

Captain comes out into the bay. “Emergency at Sycamore Assisted Living.”

In a matter of moments, we’re all suiting up in our turnouts.

Cody shakes his head. “What is it this time?”

Patrick looks at me. “It’s always a false alarm there. It might not be, but so far we’ve never been called out for an actual fire.”

“We always assume it’s a fire until we know otherwise,” Greyson says.

I nod and follow the guys into the engine to take my seat behind the driver.

A few minutes later, we pull up in front of a three-story brick building with green shutters and white trim.

No smoke is evident. The front yard is filled with elderly people, some in wheelchairs, some in pajamas.

Nurses move between the residents, leading them to sit on benches or giving others assuring pats on the back.

We exit the engine. Patrick looks at me and I nod. We gear up, grabbing axes and our basic tools.

“Here goes nothing,” Patrick says to me.

We walk in together, passing the crowd of seniors. There’s no sign of smoke inside the entry. We stop at the fire alarm panel to determine which zone or floor of the building set off the alarm.

“Smoke detector, third floor, east wing. Looks like unit three-twenty,” Patrick says. “That would be Wilma Chesterton’s apartment.”

“You know who lives in each apartment?”

“Practice makes perfect,” Patrick says.

He leads the way to the stairwell and opens the door after testing it for heat and looking for signs of smoke.

We run up the stairs together, Patrick ahead of me by only a stride.

At the top of the stairs, he checks for heat again, opens the stairwell door and heads straight for apartment three-twenty.

Patrick opens the apartment door and we look around. Nothing seems to be amiss.

We do a final pass, and then I head downstairs to reset the alarm panel while Patrick relays the details to Cody so he can call dispatch to report a false alarm.

Then we give the assisted living staff the all clear to start sending everyone back into the building.

We’re on the porch as residents pass by to reenter.

“Well, well. So this is the new boy on the crew,” one older woman with pure white hair and a walker says. Her smile is bright and nearly childlike.

Another woman looks at Patrick and says, “We’ve been missing you boys. You don’t come by very often these days.”

Patrick smiles back at her. “A simple invite will usually suffice.”

“I didn’t pull the alarm,” she defends with a soft smile.

“We know, Ruth.”

A gentleman who is dressed in suit pants, an oxford, loafers and a tie comes past us. “Well done, young men. Well done.”