Page 12 of Rescued Dreams (Last Chance Fire and Rescue #8)

TWELVE

R idge slid an arm under the kid’s knees. Amelia lowered him from the ceiling through one opening, sitting on a truss with her legs through the space where the neighboring ceiling tile should’ve been.

Trace and Kianna took the student from Ridge and laid him on the stretcher they’d wheeled in. Over by the classroom door, Izan and Della held back students who wanted to see what was going on. He’d heard one of them say “No, put your phone away” more than once.

Trace and Kianna got to work, assessing the unconscious child. The boy had sweat through his shirt, and his hair was matted to his forehead.

“Coming down.” Amelia lowered herself through the hole.

Ridge stood on the table under the opening. Her boots and pants lowered, and her hips came through the hole. Then her waist. She gripped something above her, like she was lowering herself down from doing a pull-up.

He wound an arm around her hips and held on to her until her face came into view and she let go of whatever she was holding. “Okay?”

She winced very slightly, something only he saw. “I’m good.”

Amelia’s hands landed on his shoulders. He hadn’t put her down on the table, more reluctant to let go than he wanted to admit to himself.

Face-to-face. Her cheeks had pinked, and a few loose blonde strands framed her face.

He’d never been this close to her blue eyes or seen the freckles on her nose from up close.

“Is she your girlfriend?”

Ridge jogged out of his Amelia daze and set her down before he turned to the door, where one of the kids leaned around Izan to stare at them.

Amelia jumped off the table. “Don’t you have a math test?”

The kid frowned.

Ridge climbed down and saw Kianna grinning to herself—and listening to the patient’s heart rate.

“It’s steady.” She looked at Trace. “He needs fluids.”

Trace nodded. “Let’s get moving.”

Ridge headed for the crowd by the hall. “All right! Everyone back it up, they’re coming through. Make a path. Clear the space out.”

He waved as he spoke, motioning them all—including the firefighters—back from the door. They parted to either side of the hall so Trace and Kianna could get the kid to the ambulance and off to the hospital.

Ernie had an oxygen mask over his mouth and nose and a blanket over his body.

“Well?” The same kid stared up at him, almost to Ridge’s shoulder. Red hair and a thin face. “Is she your girlfriend?”

“If she isn’t, are you going to ask me to get you her number?”

Someone else snickered.

The kid’s face scrunched up. “It’s just a question.”

“She isn’t my girlfriend.” Much to his dismay, if he was going to be honest.

Amelia eased up beside him. “He’s my lieutenant. Which makes him my boss. Which means no dating.”

The kid just looked confused, but she’d succeeded in ending the conversation.

One of the kids was crying.

Amelia looked around. “Did we all just learn a valuable lesson about not climbing up into the ceiling to get out of tests?”

Several nodded.

“Good.” She headed off down the hall.

Ridge grabbed his clipboard and headed for the principal, trying not to be mad that she’d told the truth. Amelia was stating facts. She dealt with the truth, even if it was painful. He respected that about her. She didn’t beat around the bush or try to manipulate people.

For a while there, with them on different engines, they’d have been allowed to date.

Same with him becoming a lieutenant, making them the same rank.

Now they were back to having a roadblock of procedure between them. And just when he was getting somewhere with her. Working on securing her trust in him.

“Principal Wallace?” He walked over to her. “If you can sign my report, we’ll get out of your hair so you can restore order and get the students back to learning.”

“Thank you.” She scribbled her signature on the bottom of the paper where Ridge had done a write-up of the call. “I hope Ernie is all right.”

“So do I.” Ridge tucked the clipboard under his arm. “Have a good day.”

He followed Della out to the truck, carrying the things they’d brought in. Like Amelia’s axe and jacket. Amelia closed the cabinet on the side of the truck, and when Della tossed over Amelia’s turnout coat, she caught it and put it back on.

“Ready to go?” he asked all of them.

Amelia shot him a polite smile and climbed in. Ridge’s phone rang on the dash, so he climbed up and answered the call from his mom’s number. “Foster.”

He used his last name so she’d know he was at work.

“It ain’t your mom, boy. It’s me.” His stepfather.

“What’s up, Gary? I’m on shift right now, so I might have to hang up in a hurry.”

Della pulled out of the school parking lot.

Ridge tucked the phone between his ear and shoulder and put his seatbelt on, then held the handle at the top of the door.

“Heard you’re hangin’ with that firefighter girl.”

“Excuse me?” Ridge frowned. “What do you mean you ‘heard’?”

Had the twins said something to their mom?

It had only been a couple of days since he’d been there for the evening rather than at home.

Since then, only Kane and Maria had been over at Amelia’s house, squatting in the mansion to ensure no one else broke in and damaged the place.

They had the training and the skills to fight off an attack—more than most people—and they’d call the police the moment anyone showed up so that the criminals could be arrested.

It was a win-win.

So who was talking?

“I’ve got friends in Last Chance still. Word gets around, you know? You were at the old chief’s house. Everyone knows he hid money there, like, in the walls or somethin’. That’s why you were there, right? To find the money. Good for you, getting close to that woman so you can find it.”

What Ridge wanted to say, he couldn’t. With a truck full of female firefighters, one of whom was Amelia herself, it wasn’t like he could point out the parts of what Gary had said that didn’t make sense. “Who told you any of that? Because I’d like a word with them.”

Gary chuckled. “Keep it close to the vest. That’s how you do it. I’m almost proud of you.”

Ridge pressed his lips into a thin line.

“Don’t suppose you’d give your momma a cut of the money when you find it.”

“Who says I’m looking for it?” Ridge wanted to know how, suddenly, someone knew Amelia was the one living at the house.

All Gary had said was “firefighter girl,” so they knew that the woman who lived at the mansion—or behind it, in her case—was a female firefighter.

Was it common knowledge around town that it was Amelia?

Surely people didn’t know she was the daughter of the former chief.

No one at the firehouse knew except him. There was no way it was public knowledge. It wasn’t like she even spoke about it, let alone flaunted her personal connection to a dead criminal.

And yet Gary, or one of his friends in Last Chance County, had discovered her secret.

It couldn’t be because Ridge had been there or because Kane and Maria had told the wrong person. No way.

More like Gary was connected to whoever had been breaking into the house to look for the money.

Gary chuckled again.

“I’ll be asking again later who told you about all this. Because you shouldn’t know, and you just tipped your hand that you do. Which puts you in the middle of it.”

Gary blustered. “I’m in New Mexico. I ain’t in the middle of nothin’ but your mama’s attempt to photograph every sunrise and sunset and every horse in the whole ever-loving state.”

“If you aren’t nice to her, we’re gonna have a problem.”

“Like we already didn’t.” Gary hung up.

Ridge leaned his head back against the headrest and groaned.

Della glanced over. “That sounded like fun.”

“My stepdad is a piece of work.” Ridge sighed. “It’s a good thing he doesn’t live nearby, or we’d probably get into fights.”

The radio on the strap that ran from one hip to the opposite shoulder crackled to life. “Truck 14, vehicle fire. Multiple-vehicle collision. Multiple victims.”

The dispatcher reeled off the address, an intersection in the middle of town over by the hospital.

Ridge grabbed the radio. “Truck 14 responding.”

“I guess it’s gonna be a busy day.” Della flipped on the lights and sirens and changed lanes.

Ridge felt a hand pat his shoulder. He twisted around to Amelia, who frowned and lifted her chin. She said, “Your stepdad?”

“I’ll fill you in later.” Ridge wanted to tell her but wasn’t going to air what he’d thought was private information in front of the others.

Unless Amelia hadn’t kept it from anyone outside the firehouse.

Perhaps there were plenty of people in town who knew she was the daughter of the former chief.

But he was pretty sure no one in Eastside Firehouse had known.

So did that make them the losers who hadn’t figured it out?

He didn’t like the idea of coming across as dense.

Not when they needed the cooperation of the general public to do their jobs.

Della turned the last corner, and he spotted the vehicle wreck. One compact wedged under the hood of a full-size RAM truck, which was now two feet off the ground and sitting on the front end of the car. Flames curled around the sides of the truck hood, wafting dark smoke into the air.

“We need water on that now.”

Izan said, “I’ll get the hose.”

“I’ll help,” Amelia offered.

Della pulled up. “Is that a person in there?”

Ridge shoved his door open. “Let’s find out.

” He jumped from the front seat, leaving his phone behind.

He put his helmet on, then gloves, went to the front window of the car and peered in.

“I’ve got a victim in the front seat.” He moved to the rear and did the same, spotting a crying face in a car seat. “Tender-age child in the back!”

Della grabbed the rear door handle on the other side. “Locked.” She went to the front. “Same here.”

Ridge tried his side. A man came over, ash and sweat on his red face. No hair on his head, and a distended belly under a polo shirt with an emblem on the chest. Jeans and work boots. The RAM driver?

“I didn’t see the car. Not until it was too late.”

“Stay back, sir.” He waved the guy off. “Let us work.” He twisted around to Amelia. “We need the Jaws of Life!”

She handed something to Izan and raced to the truck, hauling the big tool from its cabinet and running over with it. The two ends of the jaws would open like scissors and get the door separated from the frame so they could get the victims out.

Amelia eased the jaws into position to get to the kid first. Izan came over with the hose, and Della—back over by the hydrant now—got the water going. No one wanted to see the fire catch on something and get out of control.

As it was, they were all standing in fluid that had leaked from the vehicles.

“Get that door open.” Ridge ran around to the other side and used a glass-breaking tool on the back window. He pushed it in so that it didn’t land on the screaming child, and reached in to unlock the door.

The Jaws of Life whirred into action.

And promptly stopped.

Amelia yelped and he heard a crash before she muttered, “What on earth?”

Ridge looked over the roof. “What’s going on?”

“It overheated. It’s dead—and sparking.”

“Lewis, get water on it and douse that fire.” He looked at Amelia. “Get in this way and get the kid. Where’s my ambulance?”

A faulty piece of equipment might slow them down, but it wasn’t going to stop them from doing their jobs.

The problem?

It never should’ve happened.

Della grabbed the Jaws of Life.

“Hey, kiddo.” Amelia crouched on the rear seat.

Ridge smashed the front windshield with the glass-breaking tool. It shattered, and he hooked his axe in the corner to get it to fall toward him, not onto the victim. She had blood on her face and was slumped over the airbag. “Ma’am, can you hear me?”

Della screamed and dropped the Jaws of Life. “The battery just exploded!”

Ridge heard a telltale popping from under the car. “Everyone out!”

He reached in and unclipped the driver, not willing to move without at least trying to save her. Arms under her, around her body. Thank the Lord she was slight. He pulled her out the window, backing up as fast as he could. Amelia scrambled out of the back door, holding the kid.

Another two pops and the car whooshed into a fireball that dislodged the truck and flipped the front end into the air a foot.

Ridge fell back onto the ground, clutching the driver.

Amelia landed beside him, holding the screaming child.

Pain slammed through his head, and he cried out, rolling to protect the victim from the searing heat.