A Home for the Firefighter

by Amie Denman

  “Sure,” the tourist said. “I’ll come help.”

  As Kate and the man with the ice chest made their way to the back of the trolley, she felt the vehicle come to a stop and saw all the people getting off. No one argued or asked questions. Kate propped the sick man on the seat as comfortably as she could. She grabbed a beach towel from one of his grandkids. “Do you have any more of these?” she asked.

  “Got some smaller ones in my bag,” the woman whom the older man had called Margaret said.

  Kate took the towels, filled them with ice and put the ice packs under the man’s arms and on his head. She had his grandkids take a seat toward the front of the trolley so they would be out of the way and, hopefully, not too frightened by their grandfather’s appearance. Holly came back after escorting all the guests off.

  “What can I do?”

  “Meet the ambulance crew when they pull up. I told the 911 operator the emergency was on the trolley and told her what stop we were at, but anything we can do to get this man to the hospital faster will help.”

  It was only minutes later when Kate heard sirens, but the minutes had been frightening. The heatstroke victim had closed his eyes and his breathing didn’t seem right. His daughter Margaret was becoming more and more agitated, but Kate could see she was trying to be calm for the sake of her children sitting in the front of the trolley with their eyes glued on the back.

  “What do we have?” a familiar voice asked.

  Kate glanced up and was so relieved to see Brady Adams she could have hugged him. Instead, she told him everything that had happened and what she had done. He and his partner listened intently and were already checking the victim’s pulse and feeling his skin.

  “You did exactly the right thing,” Brady said, his voice low and calm. “Can you open the emergency door in the back?”

  “Yes,” Kate said. The door was within arm’s reach and she had it propped open in seconds. Brady and his partner lifted their patient out the door, secured him to a stretcher and rolled him into the ambulance. They worked smoothly together as if it was something they did every day. Kate approached Brady just before he shut the back door of the rescue vehicle.

  “I’ll arrange for his family to meet him at the hospital,” she said.

  He nodded and gave her a long serious look. “Perfect,” he said.

  Kate didn’t feel perfect. Now that the patient was in better hands, her adrenaline crashed and left her feeling as if she’d just jumped from a great height and miraculously landed on her feet.

  How on earth did Brady face emergencies every day and keep his heart and mind intact? Maybe having a job like his was the reason he wanted the stability of his own home. For the first time, Brady’s dream made sense to her.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  BRADY TOOK ADVANTAGE of a rare evening off and an even more elusive chance to go out with his friends from the fire department. With coverage twenty-four hours a day, especially in the summer, the Cape Pursuit Fire Department kept its roster busy. And he was more than ready to blow off a bit of steam.

  “Not driving the trolley tonight?” Chief Tony Ruggles asked as he got out of a black pickup with his cousin Kevin Russell, who was also a captain on the department. Both men had on jackets with the hoods pulled up.

  Brady shook his head. “The rain gave me a bonus night off.” It wasn’t just rain, it was a downpour, and beach town tourists were either staying in their hotel bars and restaurants or taking Uber if they wanted to venture out. Waiting at trolley stops didn’t have any appeal on a night like this.

  The Cape Pursuit Bar and Grill had an unimaginative name but a loyal clientele. Just off the tourist strip, the one-story brown building had ample parking that was already filling up even though it was just past six in the evening. Brady assumed the crowd would be mostly locals, people he’d known for years, who would find their way a few streets off the tourist map.

  “Did you ever hear how that kid from the accident this morning is doing?” Brady asked the chief as they stepped inside the front door and shook off the rain. He knew it wasn’t likely, but he always hoped to hear what happened to people after the initial emergency was over. How did families cope with their burned houses or garages? What happened with that leg injury from surfing? Did Grandpa get to golf again after his heart attack? In such a tight-knit community, Brady sometimes heard about the locals, but seldom the tourists.

  “Believe it or not, we got a call at the station from the mom,” Tony said. He took a seat at the fire department’s usual table just under the big-screen televisions near the bar. “She wanted to say thank you and tell us the boy’s going to be okay. May need surgery on the leg, but we minimized the damage by getting him unpinned as fast as we did.”

  Brady nodded and smiled. Car accidents were always serious, especially when a victim was entrapped. Even worse when it was a child. A rental sedan with tourists had tangled with a carload of teenagers heading to the beach before the weather turned rainy, and it could have been a lot worse. Only the boy in the back seat of the tourist rental had received serious injuries despite how bad it looked when Brady and his partners pulled up with an ambulance and a rescue truck.

  “We’ll have to drink to that,” Kevin said.

  They ordered drinks and the standard appetizer—a big plate of mozzarella sticks, wings, fries, onion rings and fried pickles. Ethan, Charlie, Gavin and one of the newer volunteers, Chase, arrived at the same time the plate of appetizers did. All of the new arrivals ordered a beer except for Ethan, who always stayed sober and drove his oversized SUV just in case someone needed a ride. Brady had only gotten a ride home with Ethan one time when he had had too many beers celebrating his twenty-first birthday almost four years earlier.

  “How’s the trolley service treating you?” Charlie asked. “Get your down payment money ready to go yet? I’ve got a list of houses to look at whenever you’re ready.”

  “Soon,” Brady said. With his part-time job as a local real estate agent, Charlie made it a point of pride to make sure his fellow firefighters saw a carefully curated list of houses when they were in the market. “I’m also trying to win the cash bonus of a thousand dollars at the end of the summer by playing an online game.”

  “Didn’t take you for a gambler,” Charlie commented. “Not that I’m judging.”

  Brady laughed. “Not gambling. Look.” He opened the app on his phone and slid it over to Charlie.

  “You’ve already racked up some points,” Charlie commented. “My wife would be good at this two truths and a lie thing. Jane knows everyone in this town, even the temporary workers, I swear.” Brady could readily believe Jane knew everyone, both as the owner of a local art studio and also as a member of the town council.

  “The truth and lies game is almost over,” Brady said. “I have some good ideas, but I don’t want to waste my guesses because you lose points if you’re wrong.”

  “Who are we trying to figure out?” Charlie asked.

  Brady glanced across the bar as a group of people entered. Kate Price and several other women who worked for the tourist company paused and brushed off rain just inside the door.

  “I see she’s back,” Charlie said. Brady didn’t have to ask who he meant. He’d been foolish enough to mention he’d kissed Kate at the end of the previous season and the other guys had teased him about it. They’d brought it up a few times over the winter, sometimes with teasing but more often with friendly inquiries about if he’d heard from her. Brady never expected to see her again, and it would be impossible to ignore someone who had ignited a little fire in him the summer before and then walked away, leaving it unattended.

  Unattended fires were dangerous.

  “Just for the summer again,” Brady said. “And then I’m sure she’ll disappear.”

  Charlie looked at the phone app. “You haven’t answered the question about her.”

 
; Brady shook his head.

  “You could buy her a drink and try to bring up the subject.”

  “I wouldn’t take advantage of her like that,” Brady said. His feelings for Kate went beyond trickery. Had she thought about him in the long months between September and June? He had finally stored away that wonderful moment from the end of last summer when the new season rolled around and Kate surfaced again.

  “Then you could offer her a fair trade. One fact for one fact,” Tony said. “No dishonor in that.” His grin suggested he wasn’t lecturing Brady or speaking as his boss. Tony had found love in an unexpected place the previous summer with one of the volunteer firefighters brave enough to put her life and her heart on the line. Laura had enrolled in firefighting school with the intention of becoming a full-time professional, but she still found time to volunteer at Cape Pursuit. And now Tony and Laura were engaged and planning an autumn wedding.

  Brady smiled at Tony. “Maybe I will.”

  As the firefighters talked about a recent rescue call and a fire from the previous week, Brady kept part of his attention on Kate and her friends. He knew one of the other women in her group, Holly, who also worked on the trolleys. The company had several tourist-related businesses, although the trolley one was the largest, so Brady didn’t know all the workers in town for the season. A few had returned from the previous year, but it was mostly a transient group of college students looking for a carefree summer job and some tuition money.

  When he finished his beer, Brady got up and went over to Kate’s table. To his surprise, she glanced up with a smile. “I was hoping to talk to you.”

  She was?

  “Can I ask how the man with heatstroke is doing or is that violating some privacy law?” she said. She slid out from her booth and stood in front of Brady. For a moment he thought she wanted to be close to him, but then he realized it was more likely so she didn’t have to talk loudly over the bar noise. Brady noticed her companions went on with their conversation as if nothing had happened. Kate seemed different from the other summer workers. She was the same age as he was, a fact he’d managed to learn about her the previous summer, so she was a bit older than the college students.

  “Come sit with me over here for a minute,” he said, motioning toward a quiet end of the bar where two stools were unoccupied.

  “I think the heatstroke patient will be okay,” he said once they were seated. “It was really a good thing you noticed what was happening and called us right away. Heatstroke can be fatal if it gets away from you.”

  “The poor man,” she said. Her expressive blue eyes were wide and sad, and Brady wanted to take her hand and assure her everything was fine. Kate seldom showed vulnerability, and Brady found it undid his resolve to keep his distance even more than her beautiful smile and sense of humor.

  Kate’s appeal had so many layers he was afraid to even start peeling them back, knowing he would just find himself lonely and hurt again when the season ended.

  “We started an IV and pumped fluids into him all the way to the hospital, and they’re no strangers to heatstroke at the Cape Pursuit Medical Center. We see probably a dozen cases a year. If you catch it fast enough, people usually recover quickly.”

  “I’m so glad,” she said. “I felt terrible for his family.”

  Brady wanted to ask her about her own family, which she never mentioned, but he didn’t dare. It was too nice having her attention to risk pushing her away by being nosy. He was happy to take any scrap of friendship she was willing to spare for him because he found her fascinating, a puzzle he’d like to decode.

  * * *

  KATE GLANCED OVER at her table of friends, who were enjoying their food and drinks.

  “Did you need to get back to your friends?” Brady asked. He dipped his head and leaned closer so she could hear him. “I’m sorry to drag you away.”

  Kate shrugged. “It was my choice. I’m glad to hear about our trolley guest.”

  “Want something?” the bartender asked, his smile friendly and patient. “Drink?”

  Brady gave Kate an inquiring look, but she shook her head. “No, thanks.”

  “Nothing for me right now, Bob,” Brady said. He turned back to her. “I’m sorry, is your drink getting warm over at your table?”

  Kate wondered if Brady was trying to get rid of her. Did he want her to go back to her friends? Even though she didn’t want to get drawn into anything romantic with him, she liked Brady and didn’t mind sitting with him.

  “No,” she said. “I had my one drink—my limit—and I was just hanging out making sure my friends don’t get in cars with strangers.”

  “Would they?”

  “One of them might if she drinks too much. Holly doesn’t always think twelve hours ahead like she should.”

  Brady glanced at his watch. “In twelve hours, I’ll be at the station for a twenty-four-hour shift. Maybe I don’t want to think about that, either.”

  “But at least your day will be exciting, right? You must have a lot of interesting stories.” Kate didn’t like the idea of being tied down to one town, but she admired the bravery of the firefighters and their pulse-pounding job. Each day had to be different, and she could almost talk herself into a job like that. Becoming a flight attendant would offer her new views every day and there was no way to get tied down to one place when she would seldom be on the ground.

  Brady laughed. “Believe it or not, there are some days that are so quiet and boring we had to install a basketball hoop on the concrete apron at the station just to have something to do.”

  “That’s terrible.”

  “Actually, it’s really good. If we’re bored, then people are safe. And we get to stay in shape and humiliate our friends in dunking contests.”

  Kate smiled. “So you’re good at basketball.”

  Brady shrugged and propped an elbow on the bar. He smiled. “I had to do something to fit in at those ten different schools I attended.”

  Kate cleared her throat. “Such a skill might have helped me out in those forty-four states I visited.”

  “I thought it was forty-three,” Brady said.

  “Ha, I caught you. Trying to cheat?”

  “Absolutely. I’m afraid I don’t stand a chance against some of the players who only have one job this summer, so I’m trying to earn points where I can.”

  Kate sighed. “I’m pretty busy, too, and definitely not as inclined to get involved in the personal lives of the other summer workers.”

  “So we could help each other,” Brady said.

  Kate considered the offer. Winning the grand prize would be nice, but she didn’t think her chances were very good. Earning points was only half the battle, though. Everyone who earned at least one hundred points would be entered in the drawing, so it would come down to equal parts hustle and luck. Kate did not consider herself a lucky person and had battled her own way to everything she’d achieved since she left home at eighteen. Getting help from someone was strangely comforting and appealing but also unsettling. Would help make her feel beholden, controlled? All the people she’d known growing up had beefy bank accounts, trust funds and inheritances to boost them into life. Those were some of the things she was escaping.

  “Are you a self-made man or did someone help you get where you are?” she asked before she even had time to consider the strangeness of her question.

  Brady laughed and leaned back on his bar stool. He stared at her for a moment. “As a low-wage firefighter and public servant, I’ve never been asked that question before.”

  “Sorry,” she said. “Forget I asked it.”

  “No, I can answer it easily. I’ve struggled every step of my life. Absolutely no one helped me but myself.”

  It was hard to believe he’d struggled. He was tall, handsome, cheerful, successful. Brady Adams seemed like the kind of man who had always been followed
around by sunshine.

  “Don’t believe me?” he asked. “I’ll tell you an honest truth and you’re welcome to use the information. I did go to ten different schools before I graduated, none of them by my choice, and most of them I’d like to forget.”

  Kate drew in a quick breath. There was a lot she didn’t know about Brady. She’d tried hard not to get involved with him, but his integrity was hard to miss, even from the safe emotional distance she’d tried to keep. She wanted to say something caring and thoughtful. Had he endured a miserable childhood? Was it awful always being the new kid? Did someone pack his lunch and make sure he had a jacket? She should offer sympathy, but it was much safer to simply give him a fact in return. How could it hurt?

  “I’ve visited forty-five states,” she said. “And my only regret is that there are five I haven’t gotten to yet.”

  Brady pulled his elbow off the bar and his expression sobered. It was still kind, but no longer jovial. “That’s a big difference between us, Kate.”

  Loud laughter rang out from the table where Kate’s friends sat and Brady turned around to look. “Who’s that guy?” Kate asked, pointing to a broad-shouldered young man standing next to her friends’ table.

  “Chase. One of our new guys,” Brady said, turning back to Kate. “He seems like a decent guy, although I don’t know a lot about him except that he’s anxious to learn fast and he loves boats. I think he’s going to join our water rescue team.”

  “Are you on that team?” It sounded dangerous to Kate, and it suddenly struck home to her that Brady must put his life in danger often in the interest of saving other people. All the firefighters did, but imagining Brady rushing into a burning building or diving into the dark waters of the ocean to save someone made her wish she was brave enough to get to know him better. How had a boy who moved around constantly as a child turned into a man who spent his life rescuing others?

  Brady nodded. “Almost all five years I’ve been on the department.”