by Anthology
“You can call me Bash,” I said with a laugh. “After all, I grew up here. I’m Legacy born and bred just like most of the town here supporting us. I’m blessed to have been successful in my finances, and my firefighting to make this possible, but I’m just the son of Julian Vargas when it comes down to it.”
Mayor Davis leaned back in his chair.
That shut the asshole up.
“Do you have your legacies in order?”
“If they’ll come stand next to me, I do. Knox Daniels,” I called out, and he stood at my right. “Ryker Anders,” and he took the left. Then one-by-one, as I called the names of the kids who I grew up with, they appeared as the adults next to me, ready to stand for our parents, our town, our heritage.
“Indigo Marshall, Lawson Woods, River and Bishop Maldonaldo, Braxton and Taylor Rose, Derek Chandler…”
“You’re two short, Mr. Vargas.” Mr. Henry said with a small smirk from the side. Not like it actually mattered to the asshole. It wasn’t like he’d be paying out the insurance.
I took a deep breath to call the next name, praying he’d showed up, that he didn’t hate me so much that he’d let this fail.
“Spencer Cohen,” he called from the aisle, walking down to the floor. There was a collective gasp among the crowd, and my head hung in pure, sweet relief. The large, intense thirty-year-old took up a spot at the end of the line, his hand raking over his light beard.
All of the council members sat forward. “Spencer. I’m…”
“Speechless, Mayor Davis?” he asked. “Me too. But that’s a good thing, because I’ve learned that when you have asinine things to say, you should keep your mouth shut. You tend to just keep talking, and about this issue, you’re dead wrong. You have no more right to deny this crew her name than you did to loan us out to that other fire the day ours erupted.”
The crowd murmured, finally hearing what I’d known for years. Davis had made the executive decision to send the Legacy Hotshots to a different fire for the pay, thinking ours would be easily handled by the town’s department.
“Then you denied their requests to return home, until they did on their own recognizance, only to find their deaths saving this town,” Spencer finished.
What the fuck?
My eyes swung to Emerson, who shook her head, her mouth hanging open. Ryker, Knox, all the other volunteers all wore the same expression. None of us had known.
“This isn’t about past events, Mr. Cohen,” Davis argued over the growing anger in the crowd. “That was ten years ago, and wrong decisions were made. We didn’t have all of the information, nor could we tell the future. What we’re doing now is trying to keep those mistakes from happening again. Now, Mr. Cohen, last time I checked, you’re not a legacy, so this is a moot point.”
“He doesn’t have to be,” I countered. “The wording in the original petition you accepted today says, ‘blood of the original crew.’ Spencer is the original crew. There is no one in a better place to serve as superintendent.”
“Was he not the one who left the line?” Mr. Henry asked, his eyes narrowing on Spencer.
“I did, and I have no regrets,” Spencer said loudly.
“He saved me,” I announced, and the crowd quieted. “I went to the ridgeline that day, and he was ordered to take me back to evacuate. Trust me,” I looked down the line to Spencer, “he would have rather died that day.”
“Truth,” Spencer agreed. “Now you can rule this whole thing out as incomplete because you’re unwilling to accept me, and risk the entire town coming for you, Davis, or you can trust me like Julian Vargas did, and stop being such an asshole.”
Laughter erupted, and Mayor Davis’ face turned hydrant red. He started to bang the ceremonial gavel. “Enough! Fine, we’ll accept you, Spencer, but he’s still short.”
I looked down the list. Shane Winston. Fuck.
Emerson’s eyes met mine as she rose to stand next to me. “He didn’t come,” she whispered.
“I know. It’s okay.” The last thing I wanted her to do was blame herself.
“We have an alternate,” she added, handing me an envelope.
Who? There was zero chance Harper was going to be allowed to firefight, not with Ryker and Knox ready to kill for her. I opened the notecard as her voice rang out, sweet and clear…and devastating.
“Emerson Kendrick.”
“Absolutely not!” I shouted, looking from her back up to the awestruck faces of the council. “She is mistaken. She’s not volunteering.”
“Yes, I am, Bash,” she said, tugging on my sleeve. “You don’t get to control this. Shut up and let me do this for our town—for you.”
“You’ve never been a firefighter!”
“And? You only need eighty percent experience on the crew. With Taylor and I, they still have more than enough.”
They. Because I could set this all in motion, back it, finance it, fight for it, but it would never be my team, and with one motion, she’d set her roots even deeper into Legacy, killing my plan to ask her to come with me. Fuck. Me.
I was wildly aware of the crowd, the crew, even the council listening in to our fight, and I wasn’t in the mood to give a fuck. “There’s zero chance I’m letting you near a fire, Emerson. None. You’re not risking your life, or a single hair on your head. It’s not going to happen.”
“It is!” She may as well have stomped her foot.
“No way in Hell! I’m not jeopardizing you.”
“What, but everyone else can? They can all honor their fathers, their mothers by stepping up for this crew, but I can’t?”
“She has a point,” Ryker whispered.
“Shut the fuck up and imagine this is Harper,” I said, swinging my finger at him.
He threw his hands up and backed away.
Emerson’s eyes spat fire at me, her hands fisted on her hips, more than standing her ground, but mounting a defense I couldn’t beat. “There’s no difference between me and them, Bash.”
“Yes, there is.”
“And what is that?”
“I’m not in love with them!” Well, shit. That was not how I intended that to come out.
Chapter Eleven
Emerson
He loves me. It took me a full minute for that to sink in. “What?” Classy.
He swallowed, running his hand over his hair. My God, my always-in-control Bash was flustered. “I always have. I never stopped.”
“Hey guys,” Knox leaned over my shoulder, “as much as you guys are earning huge swoon points from the female population of Legacy, this might not be the right time.”
I blinked, finally pulling my attention from Bash to see that every eye in the room was on us. Well, as ratings of awkward go, this might be up there with the whole no-clothes-at-work nightmare.
“Sebastian Vargas,” Bash spoke into the podium’s microphone. “I’m the last name.”
No. No. No. He couldn’t. He didn’t want to stay here. Instead of securing Bash’s dream, I’d just destroyed it.
“Accepted,” Mayor Davis said, glancing at me, then back to the petition.
“You’re still one member off,” Mr. Henry announced.
“Bullshit!” Mom called out, on her feet at the end of the second row. She gave me a thumbs up and sat back down.
“You have nineteen members, therefore you are point-four off.”
“Would you like me to chop someone in half to meet your requirement?” Bash asked, sarcasm dripping from his voice.
I elbowed him in the side and took the podium. “Emerson Kendrick. I will serve as the crew’s manager under the superintendent…an assistant of sorts.” I looked down the row, and Spencer gave me a single nod, agreeing to the position I’d just pulled out of my ass. “I’m more than capable of passing any test to include a pack test for regulation purposes, and I’m a legacy. What more would you like?”
“You not on the damned crew,” Bash mumbled.
I glared in his direction. “I’m not going near a fir
e, now shut up and let me save you.”
He wisely shut up.
“Stop being obstinate, Davis,” Mr. Hartwell called from a few rows back. “They have the approval of this town, and when it comes down to it, you’re a servant of the people. An electable servant at that.”
Mayor Davis bristled at the principal calling him out, but pulled the council closer. They talked amongst themselves for a moment before he said, “we accept your crew, Mr. Vargas.”
The crowd roared their approval.
“We request nine months to be fully operational by next fire season,” Bash pushed.
“Granted,” Davis said, banging his stupid little gavel.
Bash scooped me off my feet and up against his massive frame, searing me with a kiss that was anything but made-for-public. I ignored the catcalls and kissed him back with every fiber of my being, knowing that nothing could be sweeter than this moment.
Until reality set in. “Put me down,” I said against his mouth.
With lowered eyebrows, he did as I asked. “What?—”
He was interrupted by the congratulations of our crew and the whole of the Legacy population that had made it into the meeting, which allowed me to sneak out the side door.
Once clear, I leaned against the brick building, gulping in huge breaths of cool air. I’d made him stay. I was forcing him into the one thing he didn’t want, all because he was too scared to let me near a fire.
And loving me? How the hell did that all fit into this?
“What are you doing?” Bash asked, coming through the side door.
“Avoiding you,” I answered honestly.
“Okay, take it from someone who expertly avoided you for years, it’s not possible in a town this small.” He blocked out the sun, hovering over me and tilting my chin to meet his eyes.
Maybe this wouldn’t hurt so badly if I didn’t love him so much.
“Then you should leave. That was always your plan, right? And I just…screwed it.”
“Yes, that was the plan.”
“And loving me? Was that just to get me to back off the team?”
He winced. “That was the truth. I have always loved you, Emerson. There has never been a moment since I recognized what that emotion meant that I didn’t equate it with you. As kids, as teens, as adults…you are it for me. My beginning, my end. My past, my present, and every day of my future, if you’ll just shut your pessimistic brain off long enough to believe me.”
“But you don’t want to stay here,” I argued, unwilling to even chance the belief that he really loved me. Me loving Bash was one thing, it simply was. But him loving me? That opened me to a world of hurt and destruction.
“I didn’t. I’d actually planned on asking you to come to California with me.”
“You did not.” I shook my head. “Don’t you dare play games with me.”
“Games? Fuck, woman. I take a chance on this—on us— ready to dive in and give it everything I have, and you accuse me of playing games?”
“It wouldn’t be the first time you fucked—”
“Don’t go there,” he shouted. “The pull between us? That fire that catches us both and burns us from the first touch? That’s not even a tenth of how deeply, dangerously, completely I love you.”
He didn’t wait for me to answer, just picked me up and tossed me over his shoulder as he headed down Main Street. Any argument I could have made would have been moot, he’d just keep going, so I kept my energy and gave sarcastic waves to the people who cheered us on as they left the town hall.
We passed his Rover. Now I was a little worried. Where the hell were we—
He opened the door to the Chatterbox and marched me straight through the crowd to the back wall. “I’m not in the mood for pancakes, Bash!”
“Good because we’re not eating,” he agreed, lowering me to slide along his body to the floor. “And for the dessert I’m craving, we’d need to be in private, and you’d need to be naked,” he whispered in my ear, sending rockets of pure lightning through my nervous system.
Yes, please.
“Now, look, so I can get you out of here and celebrate with that dessert.”
He tilted my head and pointed to a freshly carved section of the wall.
Sebastian loves Emerson.
There it was, etched into the very history of our town. He’d done it before the hearing, before I volunteered…because he truly loved me. Tears pricked at my eyes, and I tried unsuccessfully to blink them away.
“No crying,” Bash said softly, wiping the escapees away with his thumbs. “You’ll never cry because of me again, I swear it. Emmy, I knew that if you wouldn’t come with me, I’d have to stay. There was no way I’d be able to leave you behind. Not when you’re the air I breathe. I’d suffocate without you.”
“You’re giving up everything for me,” I whispered.
“I’m getting everything because of you,” he argued, pressing a kiss to my mouth. “If Spencer can be here, can tolerate being near me after what I put him through, then I can handle the guilt of having done it. And if I can love you well enough to make up for leaving you, then I can be happy here. I can be happy anywhere as long as I know I’m coming home to you.”
I leaned up on my toes and kissed him, afraid that my heart my actually explode if I loved him any more at that moment. “You’ll always have me to come home to,” I promised against his mouth.
“It’s about damn time!” Agnes called out from behind the bar as Bash carried me out of the diner.
But it wasn’t overdue. Before, we had been too young, neither of us knowing what the world was going to shape us into. Now, we were ready, both realizing that while we’d grown, we still fit perfectly.
On our way out, Bash kicked the lowest hinge on the door, then yanked it back into position, still managing to hold me.
It closed with a perfect, high-pitched squeak.
Epilogue
Emerson
Nine months later
We needed more couches.
The Legacy Hotshot Crew, otherwise known as Team Yet-to-be-determined, consumed every available piece of furniture in the great room and then sat on the floor, all glancing around the room, taking stock of one another.
For some, like the members Bash had recruited from California, it was a new start, a fresh team in a different state. For the legacies, it was a homecoming almost eleven years in the making.
“I told you there weren’t enough seats,” I said to Bash, moving my fingers so the mini-blinds snapped closed, obscuring us from everyone outside his office.
“Order more couches,” he said, wrapping his arms around my waist from behind me.
“Don’t you—mmmm,” I moaned as he set his lips to my neck. “Sebastian Vargas, there are people out there.”
“Emerson Kendrick, the only person I’m concerned with is the one in here,” he murmured, setting his tongue to my skin. Need crashed through me.
“That’s not fair. You know that’s my trigger spot,” I whispered, arching so my ass rubbed against his already-hard erection.
He lifted the bottom of my blouse and spread his palm over my bare stomach. “All of you is my trigger spot, and you think that’s not fair?”
His fingers slid past the waistline of my shorts, popping the button on his way. “Oh God,” I moaned as they skimmed the band of my panties before plunging into my warmth, rubbing against my clit. “Bash…” I tried to concentrate, but his fingers…God, his fingers… “We have to…the meeting,” I gasped as he pinched me lightly, and then sent his other hand up my shirt to cup my breast under my bra, rolling and tweaking the nipple.
Damn it, the man knew exactly which buttons to push to swiftly bring me to the brink of an orgasm.
“We have fifteen minutes. Do you know what I can do with fifteen minutes?”
“Yes,” I answered as he stroked lower, slipping a finger, then two inside me, using his palm to keep the pressure on my clit.
“I like it when you
say yes,” he growled in my ear, spinning us so I faced his desk.
“Bash,” I whimpered, reaching behind me to grasp his dick and squeezing gently. “I don’t think we can.” God, I wanted to. I always wanted to. You’d think after being together these last months that the crippling need we had for one another would fade a bit. It had only grown more intense.
“We can,” he said firmly, stroking my g-spot. My knees buckled, and he caught me, licking back up my neck and pinching my nipple. “But only if you want me, baby. Do you want me?”
My breath came in increasingly stuttered breaths as he worked his fingers inside me, pumping me, priming me. “I want…I want there to not be twenty people outside the door.”
“Do you want me inside you, Emerson? It’s a yes or no question.”
Another pump. Another rub. Pressure coiled inside me, ready to spring, and my body didn’t care that the crew was thirty feet away. “Do you want me?” I asked, turning the tables.
He pushed me against the desk, bending me over the width before pulling my shorts off my thighs to pool at my feet. “I always want you. I wake up hard for you, I eat my meals wishing it was you, I can hardly wait to get into bed so I can spend my night loving you.”
If I weren’t already a boneless heap, I would have melted into the desk. He dropped to his knees behind me, kissing each of the globes of my ass, then sliding my thong off to join my shorts. Then he spread me and set his mouth to the very spot I needed him, licking and sucking my clit, then fucking me with his tongue.
I bit my hand to keep from screaming.
“No, no,” he said, rising behind me, his shorts falling to the floor from the sound of it. “This office is soundproof, Emerson. I want to hear you scream my name.”
“Yes, please, Bash,” I begged, knowing he wanted the words. “Now.”
He lined us up and slammed home, sinking inside me with a perfection I still wondered at. “Bash!” his name ripped from my throat as he started to pound, hitting the very spots that drove me wild. Thank you, God, for birth control. We’d ditched the condoms so long ago that I couldn’t remember what it felt like to be separated from him by a tiny layer of plastic.
