Page 18 of Rescued Dreams (Last Chance Fire and Rescue #8)

EIGHTEEN

R idge put the last dish in the dishwasher and turned it on. He wiped down the kitchen counters, because it was much nicer to wake up to a clean kitchen than stuff everywhere and food dried on the Formica.

This was the first house he’d owned, and he’d discovered he liked it a lot better than renting apartments. Maybe because he didn’t have to be here alone. Until they grew up a little more and left home for college, or got a place of their own, he’d have the twins here.

Ridge went down the hall and knocked on their door.

He could hear soft music playing. Not the kind he’d ever listen to, but it wasn’t terrible. The soft sound of conversation halted.

“Come in.”

He couldn’t tell which one of them said that, but it wasn’t unusual. From the day they’d been born, he had made sure he was the big brother they came to and their friend. Ridge didn’t know his dad because he hadn’t stuck around, and the twins’ father hadn’t lasted all that long either.

At fourteen, he’d known he would never be the kind of man who left his kids. The twins were his sisters, and he’d have to be dead before he abandoned them.

No way would he be the kind of guy either of their fathers had been.

Or the kind of parent who would sign their rights away, like Mom had so they could stay with Ridge.

He eased the door open. The girls had twin beds pushed to either side, end tables between them.

They sat sideways on their beds, backs to the wall.

Books on their laps. They had a rug on the floor and an armchair in the corner that they’d picked up from a yard sale and made him load into his truck so they could bring it home. The room looked like a college dorm.

“Did you guys get your homework done?” He didn’t want to launch into a conversation about Amelia right away, but that was what he wanted to talk about before he left them to it.

Maddie shot him a look. “It’s never done.”

Ridge smiled. “And your chores?”

Ella said, “I did mine.”

Maddie made a face. “Fine. I need a break anyway, and the dryer is probably done.”

“Pretty sure that load has been in there since yesterday,” Ridge said. “Not that I’m better about that.”

“Better at hiding things though.”

Ridge glanced at Ella. “Maybe you should just share with us what you’re thinking rather than making comments under your breath.

” He felt like a father rather than a brother, and less like a friend the longer they lived with him.

The friend part could come later, when they were adults.

“Whatever you have to say, I want to listen.”

“That was her, right?”

Ridge nodded. “Yes, Amelia is the one I dated a few times.”

“Before she broke it off.”

Maddie said, “You were pretty torn up about it.”

There wasn’t much point in arguing with that. “We only went out a couple of times.”

“Then you shouldn’t be kissing her now!” Ella pushed her books aside and got up off her bed, looking upset in a way he didn’t see much.

She was so quiet it was often hard to tell how she felt, let alone whether she was sad or having a hard time.

“She didn’t see how you felt about her before. Now she’s back?”

Ridge wasn’t sure he entirely grasped what the issue was.

Maddie slid her books off her lap and bent her legs, wrapping her arms around her knees. “You don’t see it because you like her, but Ella thinks she’s just using you.”

Her sister shot her a look, a twin thing. The silent communication they understood but which no one else was privy to.

“She isn’t using me.” Ridge wasn’t going to share all that Amelia had been through. “She had good reason to break it off, given the awful relationship she was in before.”

Ella didn’t say anything.

“She was in a bad relationship?” Maddie asked, concern in her tone.

“The kind I’m going to pray neither of you ever get in.” They’d know that meant he wasn’t about to explain more than that. “She has reason to be wary, but relationships are about trust. We’ve worked together for a long time, but neither of us shares much that’s personal.”

“Because you don’t want people to know we live here?” Ella’s voice sounded so small.

Ridge shook his head. “I keep my personal and my professional lives separate. Not because I’m ashamed of you or don’t want anyone to know I’m your guardian.

It’s the kind of person I am that I want to live a quiet life.

Uncle Kane wants to save the world, and Maria was in the CIA.

But I’m just a small-town guy living a simple life. ”

Maddie said, “But you don’t tell people we live here.”

He could tell they’d been worrying about this, which meant they’d been talking about it with each other.

Enough he had to explain and put their fears to rest. “The kind of things I see at work, the kind of calls I go on…I get nightmares. I wake up in a cold sweat. I don’t want you guys to know those things because they’re mine to live with.

Keeping that dividing line between home and work helps me leave work at work, so that when I’m home, it’s just you guys and the town house and our peaceful lives. ”

Ella’s expression turned thoughtful.

“Does that make sense?”

Maddie nodded.

“I’m not ashamed of you. Either of you. I want you guys here, and not just because I’d be worried if you were anywhere else.”

“Because Mom is a loser.”

Ridge’s eyes widened. “I don’t want you to talk disparagingly about her.”

Ella chimed in. “Even if it’s true?”

He moved into the room and opened his arms. The girls hugged him from either side.

“Maybe one day she’ll explain it to us and we’ll understand, but it won’t make it hurt less.

Right now we have to make sure her actions don’t make us bitter toward relationships.

Or scared to trust people who are worth it because they are good people. ”

Maddie said, “Amelia should know you’re good.”

Their heads reached his chin, which meant he couldn’t see the look he was sure they shared. He said, “I think she’s figuring it out. I at least made progress today.”

“Gross.” The twins started laughing.

Ella said, “I don’t want to know about you kissing anyone.”

Ridge smiled, holding them tight in the hug. “Whatever happens, I’ll keep you guys apprised.”

“Maybe we don’t need all the details.”

“I’m not going anywhere.”

“Because of Amelia.” Maddie lifted her chin, smiling at him. “Guess we aren’t moving to Benson.”

“We’re still talking about colleges,” he said. “I’m not budging on this.”

A slight flicker in Maddie’s expression caught his eye.

“Mads?”

“I just…had an idea about summer. That’s all. Ella doesn’t want to do it, so she’ll still be here.”

“It’s not about college?”

They stepped out of the hug, and Ella sat back on the bed. Ridge sat on the armchair and waited for Maddie to explain.

She sat on the edge of the bed, her back straight.

Like she was nervous about the outcome—which meant she cared about his opinion of the choices she made.

She took a breath and said, “I’ve heard about this camp.

It’s in Ember, Montana. They have, like, a summer thing for people my age, where they teach them how to be wildland firefighters.

” She looked at him, a mix of hope and earnestness in her gaze.

“Is that what you want to do?” he said carefully. “Be a hotshot?”

Had Kane and Maria been telling stories about the couple of years they’d just spent as wildland firefighters? If they had persuaded Maddie to do this, then his cousin was going to get a right hook to the chin.

His Maddie? Fighting wildfires?

Maddie shrugged her slender shoulders. “I don’t know. It’s just for the summer, and I’ll be safe there. It’s called Wildlands Academy.”

Ridge said, “I’ve heard of it. I know the people who run it.” Did he want to let Maddie go to that place when Charlie had told him some hair-raising stories? “How did you find out about it?”

“Alexis.”

“Charlie’s daughter?”

Maddie frowned. “I don’t know. She was on the cheerleading team when I was a freshman, and we still talk. She’s an EMT now, but she spent the summer in Montana last year. She said it was amazing.”

Ridge turned to her sister. “Ella, how do you feel about Maddie going to learn how to fight wildfires?”

Ella hadn’t completely snapped out of her funk, but she seemed a little more animated now. And a little less irritated at finding Ridge in the kitchen kissing Amelia. Then again, he’d been as surprised as anyone else that his evening had turned out like that.

She brushed hair back from her face. “We need to know what we’re capable of. That we can be strong and do something that means we’ve gotta be tough. Or smarter than someone else.”

“You don’t have to prove anything to anyone.”

Ella said, “But if we don’t see what we’re made of, then we never know what we can do.”

Ridge frowned at her. “When did you get to be so wise?”

Ella’s eyes smiled and her cheeks pinked.

“It’s not for months yet,” Maddie said. “I can’t even apply until spring. But if I don’t know what I want to do, maybe I can try some different things. See what I like. Do I have to go to college?”

Ridge wanted to say yes, unequivocally. But this wasn’t about what he wanted. “Not right away. There isn’t a rush.”

Maddie said, “Uncle Kane told me to pray about it. To ask God what He wanted me to do.”

“I guess we’re all getting wiser and wiser.”

Maddie smiled.

Ridge blew out a breath. “And old people get tired.” They thought he was ancient because he was older than thirty—and sometimes he felt it. Especially after a long shift followed by a long evening.

Ella said, “And they have to do their chores.”

He laughed on his way to the door. “Touché.”

Ridge glanced back before he shut it, pretty sure he was going to get Ella a kitten this Christmas. Maddie probably needed a new phone. Ridge knew what he wanted, but only Amelia could give him a chance to prove to her that a relationship could work.

He headed to his room and flopped on the bed. Deep down he was a little boy with a flighty mom and no father, a boy who’d lost his anchor after Grandpa had died. Kane had been his brother and best friend, because Kane’s mom wasn’t so different from her sister.

Ridge had always avoided risk so he could do what he knew he’d succeed at. Even firefighting, and with rescue squad. He’d taken far longer than anyone had expected to finally go for lieutenant. He’d only gone after it once it was a sure thing.

The first time he and Amelia had dated, he’d played it safe. This time there was nothing for him to prove to himself. What he needed to do was show her that he was worth taking a risk.

Not just because being together made sense every way he looked at it—at least, it would once he wasn’t her boss anymore. But also because he wanted, with everything in him, to make her life as happy as it could be.

Because it was what she deserved.