by Teri Wilson
“Well, you can’t keep nodding off on the rig. At least wait until we get back to the station where there’s a recliner with your name on it,” Wade shouted above the jostle of the engine.
Jack shouldn’t have been able to sleep through such a noisy ride, especially in one of the jump seats. No one should. Firefighters sometimes carried earplugs for this very purpose.
He scrubbed his hand over his face and did his best not to succumb to his near-constant overwhelming feeling of exhaustion. The passing scenery helped, but only marginally. Wade was right. He couldn’t go on like this.
“Speaking of things you probably shouldn’t be doing...” Wade jerked his head in the direction of the farmhouse and accompanying barn with its converted apartment space where they’d just completed their first call of the morning. “What was that back there?”
“What do you mean?” Jack narrowed his gaze.
Their captain and the driver were situated in the cab of the truck behind Wade. The call at the farmhouse had been simple enough that they hadn’t needed more than two team members to take a look around. Good thing, since there hadn’t been room for any more people in the tiny apartment.
Wade shot him a knowing look. “Come on, man. You weren’t yourself just now. Don’t you think you were a bit harsh?”
“Harsh?” Jack shook his head. “No. You weren’t there when I first knocked on her door. She tried to argue with me about whether or not there was a problem when, in fact, her fancy hair straightener almost burned the place down.”
“You mean the one from Sephora?” Wade deadpanned.
Jack laughed, despite his foul mood.
“Seriously, though. You could have been nicer.” Wade held on to his seat belt as the engine rounded the curve leading back to the station. “Or at the very least, civil.”
“I was perfectly civil,” Jack said. Granted, he hadn’t exactly been chatty, but he’d done his job. What more did Wade want from him?
“Don’t you think she seemed a little...” Wade’s brows rose, prompting Jack to fill in the blank.
“Out of place?” Granted, she’d been beautiful—in a just-rolled-out-of-bed sort of way. But she’d had big city written all over her. It was practically stamped across her forehead. “Yeah. Definitely.”
“That’s not what I meant at all.” Wade frowned. “I was going to say she seemed vulnerable.”
The engine slowed to a stop in front of the familiar red brick building decorated with a large American flag blowing just below block letters that spelled out Engine Co. 24. They idled for a moment until the diesel engine powered down with a prolonged whoosh that almost made it seem like the big red truck had sighed. Jack could relate—he felt like sighing himself.
“Vulnerable?” He let out a sharp laugh as he unfastened the buckle of his harness and hopped down from the jump seat. “I don’t think so. She’s a grown woman. Adults aren’t vulnerable. Babies are vulnerable.”
The second the words left his mouth, he wanted to swallow them up again and reel them back to the place where he kept all his frustration buried deep. Talking about it didn’t help matters. So far, the only thing that had made him feel better about his current difficulties were the ridiculous letters he’d been writing lately. They were strangely cathartic, and they weren’t hurting anyone.
Were they?
For a brief moment Jack wondered what Wade would have to say if he knew about his recent correspondence. Nothing good, that was for sure.
“You’re right. Babies are indeed vulnerable.” Wade shrugged out of his turnout gear as they walked toward the station. “But I don’t think you noticed how that woman back there looked at you. I sure did.”
Jack just shook his head. Maybe she’d seemed a little lonely, standing there all wide-eyed in her polka dot bathrobe. Jack recognized loneliness when he saw it. Hell, he knew that feeling better than anyone.
He’d even caught a glimmer of a spark between them when their fingertips touched. But a spark didn’t mean anything other than a simple transfer of electrons. It was just science, and as Jack knew all too well, sometimes a spark could set off a burning rain of destruction.
No, thank you. Not again.
“Not all women are like Natalie, you know,” Wade said. The earnestness in his voice made Jack’s head hurt.
“Never mind,” Jack muttered.
He’d said too much. He knew better than to drag his daughters into this conversation.
Adults aren’t vulnerable. Babies are vulnerable.
Why hadn’t he just kept his head down and his mouth shut? Now he was sure to be on the receiving end of more pitying looks from Wade. The rest of the guys at the station, too.
He could feel Wade’s gaze on him even now, weighted down with concern. He didn’t dare look up.
Jack didn’t need anyone’s pity. He had a roof over his head, food on his table and two precious babies waiting for him at home. Other than being a little sleep deprived, he was perfectly fine. Not lonely. Not wounded. Not miserable.
Certainly not vulnerable...
Even if he almost felt that way, every now and then.
Chapter Two
Just like everything else in Lovestruck, the office for the local newspaper bore no resemblance whatsoever to its Manhattan counterpart.
Before Madison’s charmed life had been so rudely interrupted by the horrors of corporate downsizing, she used to walk past the New York Times building on a semiregular basis. Honestly, it was impossible to miss, even from a distance. It loomed over the midtown skyline, its sleek gray exterior as strong and serious as a pinstriped suit.
Not so in small-town Vermont. If the building that housed the Lovestruck paper had been an outfit, it would have been a seersucker sundress...with a wide-brimmed hat. Tucked neatly between her aunt’s yarn store and the post office on Main Street, where every storefront was painted its own bright hue, the newspaper operated out of a cheery blue space with lemon-yellow trim. Even its name was ridiculous—the Lovestruck Bee.
Seriously, what did that even mean?
Madison didn’t know, and nor did she care. It wasn’t as if she aspired to climb whatever quaint, homespun career ladder existed at the Bee. She didn’t dream of running the place someday, or—heaven forbid—being named senior editor of her section. She hadn’t spent four years at Columbia followed by four more as a lowly assistant at Vogue before finally seeing her byline on the magazine’s glossy pages in order to throw it all away and live in a barn. Not even a barn that was rent-free, thanks to Aunt Alice.
Madison was grateful for the help. Life in New York hadn’t come cheap, and while she had more designer dresses and Jimmy Choo stilettos than she could count courtesy of the infamous Vogue “closet”—which, in reality, was even larger than depicted in movies and TV shows like The Devil Wears Prada and Sex and the City—she had next to nothing in her bank account. Getting laid off had never been part of the plan. Neither had her recent job search, which felt more like The Hunger Games than an interview process. As it turned out, “a million girls would kill for this job” wasn’t just a movie catchphrase.
She’d needed a soft place to land. It had been years since Madison spent summer vacations visiting her aunt in Vermont. She wasn’t sure she’d even seen Alice since her father’s funeral, but she’d always had an open invitation to stay at the farmhouse and desperate times called for desperate measures. Aunt Alice encouraged her to apply for a job at the Bee right away, but Madison had put it off as long as she could. By the time she’d finally relented, she’d been so beaten down by failed job interviews that she’d been thrilled to get her own column...
Until her editor told her what she’d be writing about.
But it was okay. Really, it was. Relocating to Lovestruck was never meant to be permanent. She was simply biding her time here until she could get her real career back on track. Any da
y now, she’d get the call and she’d be back in the world of high fashion where she belonged.
Meanwhile, she was the Lovestruck Bee’s resident parenting expert. Oh, the irony.
“Madison, I realize the column is new for you—” Floyd Grant, her boss, sighed mightily as he peered at her over the top of his wire-rimmed reading glasses “—but we can’t continue like this.”
Madison took a deep breath, more than prepared to make the case for yesterday’s column. “The Top Ten Infants to Follow on Instagram” had been more than thorough. She’d worked hard on that story. It had been listicle gold, and the photos she’d embedded from the top baby influencer accounts were beyond precious. The Manhattan mommy circuit would have gobbled up every word she’d written.
“Mr. Grant, I...”
Her words drifted off as he picked up a sheet of paper covered in familiar handwriting and dangled it mere inches from her face.
She swallowed hard. “Is that...”
“Another one?” He slammed the letter down on his desk and slid it toward her. “Yes. The second one this week, in fact.”
She glanced down at the missive just long enough to spot the words frivolous, vapid and fraud. The first two didn’t bother her much. If there was one thing that came in handy as a Vogue reporter, it was a thick skin. She’d grown accustomed to critics who didn’t understand the social and cultural importance of fashion. The third word, however, made her stomach churn—probably because it was dead accurate.
Fraud.
Madison didn’t know the first thing about parenting. Nor did she know anything about babies or toddlers or any other variety of children. But in her defense, she’d never claimed to be a modern-day Fred Rogers. She would have been the first one to admit that she knew more about Mr. Rogers’s cardigans than she did about any of the kiddos who lived in his neighborhood. She could have whipped up a few thousand words on his sneakers alone.
But that was not what Floyd Grant and the good people of Lovestruck wanted from her. During her interview, she’d lobbied hard to write about something else...anything else. She might have even begged, but Mr. Grant stood firm. It was the parenting column or nothing at all. And judging by the look on his grizzled face, he was beginning to wish she’d opted for the latter.
“Please, Mr. Grant.” She flashed him her brightest smile, which probably would have been more effective if she’d been able to rebound from the flat-iron disaster. She didn’t feel like herself with her unkempt do. And she definitely didn’t look like herself.
Worst. Day. Ever.
A wayward curl fell in front of her eyes and she made a valiant, yet ultimately unsuccessful, effort to tuck it behind her ear. “I don’t know who keeps writing these letters complaining about my column, but odds are this disgruntled person is nothing but a troll.”
“Excuse me?” Her boss’s eyebrows rose.
Madison blinked. So now she was going to have to explain internet slang to her editor-in-chief. “A troll. It means someone who intentionally tries to start arguments online, usually just for the sake of getting attention.”
“But this—” he jabbed at the letter with his pointer finger “—isn’t simply an online comment. It’s a letter to the editor, and you know what that means.”
“You’re going to print it, aren’t you?”
“I don’t have a choice.” He shook his head. “It’s Bee policy to print every letter to the editor.”
Madison was aware. She’d just sort of hoped the policy had changed after the previous three letters had gone to press.
She stared at the most recent one, marveling yet again at the fact that someone had taken the time to complain about her column in longhand and send it to the Bee via snail mail. This wasn’t a garden variety troll. Madison couldn’t help but admire his or her persistence.
His, she thought. That boxy lettering seemed distinctly masculine, especially the aggressive little cross marks on the z’s. Her attention snagged on the twin letters, and she made the mistake of reading the entire sentence.
It’s puzzling to me why the author of the parenting column seems to care more about aesthetics than actual children.
Her throat grew thick, and to her complete and utter horror, tears blurred her vision. Ugh, why was she letting a stupid troll get to her?
“I care about children,” she said quietly.
She wasn’t a monster, for crying out loud. Parenting just wasn’t something that came naturally to someone whose own mom had passed away before she took her first steps.
“Of course you do.” Something in Mr. Grant’s gaze softened. He leaned back in his chair and rubbed a hand over his face. “But you’ve got to change things up. Your troll is calling for your resignation if you can’t come up with any practical childcare advice.”
“My resignation?” Nope. Not happening.
The only thing that would look worse on her résumé than writing for a small-town paper would be writing for no one at all. At least she had her own column, even if she wasn’t allowed to use her actual name on the byline. Instead, the Bee’s readers knew her simply as Queen Bee. Super professional. Still, she couldn’t screw it up. She just couldn’t.
“I’m not quitting.” She shook her head. Another loose curl fell into her field of vision, but this time she didn’t bother trying to smooth it back into place. “I’ll write something more hands-on. I promise.”
Maybe she’d come up with a recipe or something. Kiddie cookout? Brunch for babies?
Gosh, she was hopeless.
“Might I make a suggestion?” Mr. Grant said.
Please do. Madison nodded.
“Spend some time with real kids.” He waved a hand toward the window in his office overlooking Main Street as if some kind of toddler parade was taking place outside. “Honestly, it’s the best thing you could possibly do.”
She opened her mouth and then closed it again.
This wasn’t the sort of advice she’d anticipated. She’d expected a list of possible column topics or maybe some actual editorial guidance. But no, her boss wanted her to babysit.
“Trust me. Do it, and your column will practically write itself.” He glanced down at the letter and then back at her, and his expression hardened into a tight smile. “I hate to say this, but your job just might depend on it.”
* * *
One of the things Jack liked best about being a fireman was the sense of camaraderie among the firefighters. A station was often referred to as a firehouse for a reason—the men and women who worked there functioned as a unit. They worked together, they exercised together, they ate together. Heck, they even slept together in one big dormitory-style bedroom outfitted with bunk beds.
They had rules, like no cell phones or tablets during mealtime. They binge-watched the same shows from the double rows of recliners facing the giant flat screen in the station’s community living room. They went on grocery runs together and kept a chores chart outlining who was responsible for meal prep and cleanup during shifts.
The twelve firefighters who operated out of Lovestruck’s sole station were a true band of brothers. They worked in teams—A, B or C—with each team pulling a twenty-four-hour shift, followed by forty-eight hours off duty. Jack was on the C team, as was his friend Wade and the other two firefighters who’d responded to the hair-related emergency out at the barn on the outskirts of town yesterday morning. The four men had been working the C shift together for years, so yeah, they were basically family.
It also meant they felt perfectly comfortable commenting on Jack’s personal life at any given time. Ah, the joys of family.
Jack cracked eggs into a mixing bowl while Wade, Brody and Jason, whom they only ever called Cap—short for Captain—discussed his chaotic home life as if he wasn’t even present. As usual, they all had a few choice words to say about Natalie. Jack did his best to tune them out and c
oncentrate on the swirl of yellow egg yolks in the bowl, even though he’d made breakfast casserole so many times that he could have probably done it in his sleep.
Natalie was gone, and she wasn’t coming back. The signed divorce papers that had arrived on his doorstep on the very day the twins had turned two months old were a pretty firm indication that his marriage was over. What was there left to say on the matter?
“Enough about Natalie. It’s time for Jack to move on,” Wade said. “I keep telling him that, but he won’t listen.”
“I hear you loud and clear,” Jack muttered, tossing a few handfuls of ground sausage into his batter. “I just disagree. Vehemently.”
He’d already had to delete the dating app from his phone that the guys had installed during one of Jack’s many impromptu naps. Twice. When were they going to take the hint?
“Look, we know you’re stretched for time. But maybe if you had some sort of semblance of a personal life, you’d be more pleasant to be around.” Cap unfolded the firehouse’s copy of the Lovestruck Bee, snagging the sports page before anyone else had a chance to claim it.
Okay, then. Wade wasn’t the only one who thought Jack was a jerk. His boss agreed. Note taken.
Jack stirred the egg mixture with a little too much force. “I have a life, thank you very much.”
If anything, he had too much life. Too much responsibility. Not that he didn’t love his twins. Jack’s love for his girls ran deep—so deep it almost scared him sometimes. He couldn’t imagine life without them. All he needed was a few uninterrupted nights’ sleep and he’d be right as rain.
At work, what little sleep he got was interrupted by emergency calls, and at home...well, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d slept for more than two consecutive hours in his own bed. Surely, the twins would start sleeping through the night soon. He hoped so, anyway. A man could dream.
Dream.
He blinked, suddenly remembering the strange dreams that kept him tossing and turning the night before. So vivid, so real...and all of them centered around the woman from the call at the barn the day before—all polka dots, wild hair and big doe eyes.
