Page 69 of Protecting What's Mine

“Hey, buddy! How’s it going?”

“Shouldn’t you two be at work?” Mack asked wearily.

“We decided to forego our weekly scheduled afternoon delight to pop in and see how you’re doing,” Aldo said.

Gloria elbowed him. “Not everyone needs to know about our sex life, Moretta.”

“Oh, good! It’s a party!” Mrs. Washington called out, hauling a grocery bag up the walk.

It was barely one p.m. And it was already the longest day of Mack’s life.

22

Linc gave the incident report a cursory final glance before hitting submit.

How some yahoo managed to get his big toe stuck in a motel bathtub faucet was another one of life’s great mysteries.

Checking the time, he noted he could squeeze in another hour of paperwork before heading out. Or he could cut that to thirty minutes and check in with the crew downstairs for the remainder.

The latter sounded like a much better plan. He pulled up the department calendar to refresh his memory on the maintenance and training for the rest of the month.

Brody strolled in without knocking and planted himself on the narrow, rock-hard couch that squatted against one wall. “Tanker’s on E. Wanna ride shotgun on a gas run?”

“Hell yeah,” Linc said, gratefully pushing away from the computer.

He followed his captain downstairs into the bay. It was spotless thanks to several slow days. They’d trained hard on forcible entries and coordinated attack drills this week and then resealed the concrete floor. The apparatus all gleamed under a fresh coat of wax.

There was an almost tangible crackling in the air. Firefighters going stir crazy. Sure. There were the usual calls. The faulty alarm at the high school—twice—a few lift assists with EMS, the now infamous odor investigation on Pine Avenue that turned out to be a faulty bathroom exhaust fan and a whole lot of tacos. Then there was the ferret in the tree that required rescue. Par for the course in a small town.

But, historically, the longer the station went without a big call, the weirder his crew got. It was already happening, Linc noted, when he spotted a group of his volunteers sitting around a kid’s wading pool trying to flip quarters into floating cups. The men participating were sporting varying stages of facial hair. The women—well, he wasn’t close enough to tell, but in solidarity, most of them had committed to not shaving their legs.

The weird and wonderful camaraderie of a fire company.

“Hey, Cap’n!” Al, a fifteen-year volunteer and driver engineer, gave him a wave.

“What happened to your ’stache, Al?” Linc asked. The man stroked a hand over what was now only half of a sparse mustache.

“Lost a bet. Had to shave half of it.” He grinned. Betting and losing bets was a way of life in the BFD. Since making chief, Linc steered clear of the betting. Though he distinctly remembered the last one he’d lost. He’d had to dye his hair blue and call himself Papa Smurf.

“How’d Rocco take that?” Two years ago, Al had married his long-time boyfriend in a ceremony attended by the entire department. The happy couple was whisked away from the reception on the back of a ladder truck in an impromptu Benevolence parade. Linc had been prepared for flak from the city and was fully intending to cover the cost of gas on his own dime when the mayor showed up with a wedding gift and her congratulations for the happy couple.

“Rocco threatened to shave off the other half if it doesn’t look better by his niece’s quinceañera. I think the motivation will make it grow back faster,” Al said optimistically.

Linc climbed up to ride shotgun in the boxy tanker truck. Brody pulled the behemoth out of the bay doors and made a wide, slow turn onto the road. Two-thousand gallons of water sloshed behind them in the tank, ready and waiting to be put to good use.

“Your doc isn’t used to people being nice to her,” Brody said without preamble.

“Don’t I know it,” Linc said, sliding on a pair of sunglasses.

“Can’t help but wonder what that’s all about,” Brody mused. “She ever say where she got that scar?”

Linc shook his head, shot his buddy a glance. “You think they’re related?”

“Got a feeling,” Brody said, patting a hand over his heart.

Linc did, too.

“She’s pretty tight-lipped on where she’s from.”