Page 11 of Rescued Dreams (Last Chance Fire and Rescue #8)

ELEVEN

A melia stepped out of the conference room and turned to the right. Wrong way. This direction would take her to the office formerly known as hers.

She’d realized her mistake too late, and everyone would know it.

Ridge appeared beside her. “Going my way?”

Amelia had rolled her eyes plenty lately, and she wasn’t going to do it again right now. “Fine. I could use the steps.” A circuit of the hall would get her to the women’s bunkroom eventually.

She set off toward his office.

“Not often rescue squad gets a callout right in the middle of the briefing.”

She glanced over at him, half expecting him to use what she’d said to him the night before against her. Maliciously. She’d spilled her heart. Told him more than anyone else in her life knew—except Meg.

Instead, he seemed to be more interested in small talk.

Nicholas, her ex, would have used the information she’d spilled to have the upper hand. Strategically waiting until exactly the right time to use her vulnerability against her.

Ridge stopped at his office door. “I’m just trying to keep things light. You’ve had a rough few days.”

“I don’t need special consideration.” She was about to walk away when he moved fast, showing up in front of her. “What are you doing?”

His expression shifted, his demeanor pure innocence, and he thumbed over his shoulder. “Wanna go get some coffee? Right. You don’t drink coffee. Why don’t you drink coffee?”

The way he tipped his head to the side was adorable. She wanted to stand here and appreciate it. But when had attraction ever helped a person get their work done? When had it created quality productivity?

Time for more confessions. Amelia stuck her hands in her pockets. “I like coffee just fine.”

He frowned. “Then why don’t you drink it?”

“We could be training or waiting for the last shift to bring back the truck. You want to talk about getting coffee?”

“Humor me.”

She fought the urge to roll her eyes again. “I love coffee. I just had a…bad experience.”

Two guys came around the corner at the end of the hall, behind Ridge. The smell of ash and burnt wood preceded them. Lieutenant Morris and one of his truck firefighters.

Amelia wrinkled her nose.

“What’s up, Lieutenant?” Sean, a firefighter on the shift that came in before them, asked the question with sarcasm in his tone. “Never mind. You’re not an LT anymore. Guess that’s Foster’s office now.” He lifted his chin. “Lieutenant.”

Sean made a point of practically ignoring her.

Lieutenant Morris followed him over. “Gotta grab my stuff.”

Ridge nodded. “No problem. We just finished our briefing.”

Now these guys would hand off Truck 14 to Ridge and the rest of them.

“I’m gonna go get some coffee.” She eyed Ridge. He knew she had no intention of getting coffee, just not that her life had been upended by drinking it when it had been laced with something that made her lose her grip on herself.

Sean got in her way. “Heard about your demotion. How long were you gonna keep it a secret that you’ve been lying to the department? Pretending to be a firefighter.”

“Who’s pretending? You and I were in the same training class.” Amelia lifted her chin. “Or did you hit your head so many times you forgot?”

His eyes narrowed.

“Okay, this has been informative.” Ridge wanted to shut down the conversation? She didn’t blame him.

Amelia eased around Sean and headed down the hall so her lieutenant and Sean’s could deal with him, maybe even reprimand him over that comment.

She had no idea what they would say to Sean.

Or if he’d actually be reprimanded for getting in her face.

What she didn’t want to do was stick around to hear them laugh like the joke was funny.

That had happened too many times.

She could have chosen to get angry at Sean, but what would that achieve? She knew better than anyone that outbursts of emotion didn’t change people’s minds. They believed what they wanted to believe, no matter what she said.

“That was uncalled for.”

She heard Ridge continue behind her but didn’t catch what he said. She turned the corner without looking back. Not being in charge right now was a benefit.

She went into the women’s bunk and closed the door, leaning back against it. He’d listened last night. He hadn’t used the information against her—yet. Now he was standing up for her.

What on earth was she supposed to do with Ridge Foster?

“Hey…Amelia.” Della shifted on her bunk. “It’s weird not calling you Lieutenant.”

Amelia smiled and headed for her bed, on top over the other side. “It’s weird for me too.”

She dug in her backpack and pulled out a paperback she’d been reading lately.

Fantasy, because it was way better than real life.

The cover had a moon and stars, and a guy in furs with a sword.

Lord of Winter. Amelia intended to get lost in that world later if the shift was quiet.

She tossed the book on her bed. “Everything okay?”

Della shifted quickly, moving a paper beneath her own book. On the cover of the book was a hand-drawn image of an orange sky, green grass, and a pink-and-white lighthouse. Where I Found You. “Everything’s fine.”

There was definitely something off with her teammate.

Amelia might never have noticed if she’d been a lieutenant, still in her office.

She wouldn’t see Della in the women’s bunkroom, because she had a cot in the office.

Only by being here did she get a good impression of how things were with her colleagues.

Which made her wonder what else she had missed while she’d been lieutenant.

Amelia leaned her shoulders back against the bar under her mattress. “Will you let me know if there’s anything I can do? If there is something that will help you.”

Della looked a bit nonplussed. Finally, she said, “Sure. I can do that.”

“Great.” Amelia didn’t exactly make friends at work. She kept things professional because it was always better that way. But she didn’t want Della to suffer with no one to talk to.

Amelia said, “I should go see if there’s an update on how things are going with rescue squad’s callout.”

She was almost to the door when the chimes went off.

From the speaker high in the corner of the wall, she heard, “Truck 14, Belleview Junior High. Person trapped.”

Amelia grabbed the handle and flung the door open. They shucked on their gear. Della ran for the driver’s door, and Amelia climbed in the back.

Della pulled the truck out of the engine bay onto the street and flipped on the lights and sirens.

Ridge hit the keys on the dash laptop and said, “Dispatch reports a kid is missing. They were told by friends that he climbed up into the ceiling to hide from a teacher.”

“So one of us is gonna climb up between the ceiling panels and order him to get out?” Izan said, “If it was my brothers, they’d get down quick. It ain’t as good as Zoe’s mom voice, but it works for me.”

Amelia glanced at him and grinned. “I’ve heard that voice. Got the sudden urge to clean my room.”

Izan laughed.

Della pulled into the school parking lot. Several teachers and other staff members stood outside the front doors wearing office attire of slacks and shirts or blouses. Name badges on lanyards around their necks.

Della parked, and both Amelia and Ridge jumped out. Amelia hung back a second as he approached the staff and said, “You have a child trapped?”

“I’m the principal, Stacey Wallace.” The closest teacher shielded her eyes from the sun, up at a forty-five-degree angle as it made its way to being overhead.

She had curly hair in tight red spirals around her head.

“He was hiding from a math test. Apparently the kids go up there when they want to skip class.”

“And he won’t come down?” Ridge asked.

Principal Wallace nodded. “He has some allergies, and it’s dusty up there. Maybe he can’t breathe.” She worried her lip between her teeth. “He isn’t answering us, and we can’t get him down.”

“Show us the way.” Ridge turned back. “Nixon, Lewis, grab the med bag and tools.”

They had no idea what they needed until they got a look at the problem, but Amelia grabbed a fire axe because the kids would be impressed, and she’d get more cooperation than if she didn’t have it. She swung the axe onto her shoulder and steadied her helmet. “Lead the way.”

She caught the edge of Ridge’s smile, because he knew exactly what she was doing and why.

Amelia followed him and the teachers inside the building, and as soon as she did, it hit her. The smell. The feel of it. The sounds and sights of middle school.

One of the teachers glanced over at her. “Middle school. We never outgrow the trauma.”

Amelia’s eyes widened. She must’ve given away her reaction. “Is it me, or did I go here?” She’d actually attended a junior high across town, she was pretty sure.

“All the junior highs in the school district were constructed from the same basic floor plan,” the teacher said. “Been in one, been in them all.”

Amelia shook her head. “I guess I know how to find my way around, then. Though it’s been a while.” She spotted a couple of kids in the hall and called out, “Get back to class, guys.”

The teacher up front turned into the library.

“According to the student’s friends, they climb into the ceiling from the top of this stack.

” She stopped in the corner and pointed up at the ceiling, where a square panel had been slightly dislodged.

“He had a math test and didn’t want to take it, so he snuck up there.

One of the kids climbed up when he showed us, but he couldn’t get Ernie to respond. ”

And no one had been able to get him back down.

“He didn’t answer? You’re sure he’s up there?”

Principal Wallace nodded. “The student saw him.”

Amelia was used to hearing a story more than once. If the details didn’t change in a way that aroused suspicion, they didn’t need the police. Assuming nothing criminal had occurred.

“Patterson, care to do the honors?” Ridge glanced around.

Amelia spotted a shoe print on the shelf about waist height, where the child had climbed up.

“I’ll give you a boost.” Ridge laced his gloved fingers together and held his hands out.

Amelia set her axe on top of the bookshelf. She grabbed Ridge’s shoulder and spotted Della and Izan entering the library, followed by a few kids. Amelia put her boot in Ridge’s hands and grasped the top shelf.

He lifted her up, and she wedged herself to sit up there by her axe.

Amelia pushed the panel aside and wiggled over to stick her head through the opening. “You said his name is Ernie Halstead?”

The principal nodded.

Ridge said, “Did you call his parents in?”

Amelia clicked on her helmet light and lifted up on her knees while Ridge took care of the particulars. She looked around in the ceiling and spotted a form. Clothing and the color of skin. He’d crawled pretty far through.

She scanned the area. They might need to go up a different panel, from another classroom. They could lower the kid down near where he lay now if they accessed from the other side of him.

She heard the teacher say, “His mother is an accountant across town. Her office said she’s out at a meeting, but they’re going to track her down. I wasn’t getting an answer on her cell phone. Mr. Halstead is an anesthesiologist. He’s in surgery and will be here as soon as he’s finished.”

Amelia got her elbows through the opening. “Ernie? I’m Amelia. I’m a firefighter. Can you hear me?”

The kid didn’t respond or move.

She spotted a flash of skin that had to be his forehead. Clammy, dotted with sweat. Knowing Ridge would hear her over the comms, she said, “We’ll need the med kit, but I wanna get him down where he’s at. Which might be the next room.”

“I’ll call for the ambulance,” Izan said.

Ridge continued talking in her ear. “You see him?”

“He’s unconscious.” Amelia knelt on the top of the bookshelf, her upper body through the opening.

She looked around so her helmet lights lit up the space between the drop ceiling and the roof. Barely three feet above her, a lattice of triangular openings in the beams spread a couple of feet apart presented a problem.

Amelia wiggled off her jacket and dropped it back through the opening.

She moved from the first beam to the next. Each beam stretched in front of her from left to right, trusses that held up the ceiling. Her turnout pants snagged on a metal plate with screws, depositing some of the material behind her.

“Ernie?” Amelia grabbed a truss with both hands and used the wood beams to brace her as she wiggled over a ceiling tile that definitely wouldn’t hold her weight.

The student didn’t move.

She wormed her way closer to him. “It’s hot up here,” she said in the comms channel. “We’re going to have to get him out before we can give him medical attention. He might be over the next classroom.”

She’d climbed up here close to the corner of the library. Now she was several feet beyond that wall. What was the next room? “Lieutenant?”

Ridge responded, “We’re in the next room. Knock on a tile.”

“I’m more likely to bust through it. These things don’t hold any weight.” She gritted her teeth and shifted so she could have a free hand to knock and let them know where she was.

“Be careful.”

That was interesting.

She didn’t need to be distracted by him when a kid was potentially in medical distress. But it almost seemed as if Ridge cared about her.

Did he actually feel about her the way she felt about him?