Page 29 of Fire Fight

“I haven’t even conducted the morning meeting yet.”

Lane turned and gestured to the door. “Then by all means, Captain.”

With a grumble, I led the way out of the locker room and down the short hall to our meeting room, where the entire company was already gathered, waiting for me.

Chief Madden was the highest ranking officer in this firehouse, but when I was promoted to captain, he asked me to take over morning meetings. Usually, there wasn’t much to say. Reminding the guys about completing incident reports, making sure they stopped throwing their dirty clothes on the floor of the bunk room, and telling them—again—to clean up after themselves in the kitchen. Scheduled maintenance on the trucks and tools. Housekeeping type shit.

Basically, I was more of a parent than a fire captain.

But this morning, we actually had some things to discuss, and the crowd silenced as Lane and I strode to the front of the room.

“Morning,” I said when I reached the little podium waiting for me in front of a massive whiteboard.

“Morning,” everyone murmured back.

“What’s he doing here?” Sutton asked, jerking her chin at my brother.

“I need to take statements from everyone who worked the shop fire on Saturday,” Lane said, shooting the paramedic a glare.

Ahh, at last, the real reason for his early arrival. It grated on me that he hadn’t just said that. He knew damn well we’d cooperate in whatever way we could.

Sutton stuck her tongue out in response, and I choked back alaugh. Those two had long since made an artform of needling each other.

“You’ll give the sheriff your full cooperation,” I told the room, meeting the gazes of each firefighter and paramedic individually, hoping to put the fear of God in them.

“Aye, aye, Cap,” Tuck said, giving me a mock salute.

The rest of the meeting was business as usual, and less than ten minutes later, I dismissed everyone, hanging back so Lane could take my statement first.

I really should’ve known my brother would give me the third degree—and not about the fire.

“Why were you at Miss McKay’s room the other night?”

Fuck.

“I wanted to check on her.”

My brother raised a brow. “Since when do you check on your saves after shipping them off to the hospital?”

“Always,” I deadpanned.

Lane snorted. “Get real, baby bro. Give me the real reason, no bullshit.”

“Like I said, I wanted to check on her.”

That much was the truth, if only part of it.

As usual, my brother saw too much.

“There’s more to it than that.”

Pulling out one of the chairs at a nearby table, I sat down and pushed my fingers through my floppy hair, destroying the work of the pomade I’d put in it that morning to keep it out of my face while I worked.

“I don’t know what to tell you,” I said at last, because I truly didn’t.

Lane sighed heavily, like this conversation with me was the most exhausting thing he’d do all day.

“Fair enough,” he said. “But I’m warning you—stay out of this.”