“Well, speak of the devil,” Lake said happily, then ran over to the door.
I turned my head and saw five men in uniform with Chase being one of them, all handsome and hot in his official shirt and slacks. One of the men was dressed in slacks and a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, showing off a multitude of colourful tattoos.
But it wasn’t the artwork or the sheer size of the unknown man that caught my attention. Nope, it was the gold badge hanging from his belt that caused my mouth to dry and my heart to beat rapidly in my chest.
Before I could protest that I didn’t want a bunch of burly blokes to be witness to the aftermath of my latest tumble, Lake opened the door and greeted them with her usual kindness and joy, Carson getting a tad more extra attention in the form of a hot passion-filled kiss.
“Legs, how you— Holy shit, baby, what happened to you?” Chase rushed forward and dropped to his knees in front of me. His large hand cradled my jaw almost lovingly as he scanned my face.
“Chase, I’m fine, just clumsy,” I protested, rather weakly if I were honest because, truthfully, I loved that he cared so much over nothing more than a graze and bump. I also loved the endearment he used. No one had ever called me baby in any capacity. To hear the man I was growing deep feelings for saying it with such tenderness, well, let me just say my girlie bits did a major happy dance.
Momentarily forgetting about the police officer in the room, I let Chase fuss over me, checking my chin and swiping the antiseptic wash over the cut.
“I think you are going to live, legs. Now come meet the other members of my crew,” Chase said, jumping to his feet and taking me with him.
“Okay, so this is Knox next to Hoove, and next to Carson is Mike, our senior station officer. And the guy dressed out of place is Jason, our resident cop and also good mate. Fellas, this here is Jamie Barstowe. She is new in town, and she will be working here at the café and is my new neighbour. She is also off limits, so fair warning, if any of you horny bastards have any ideas, I suggest you think again.”
My mouth gaped open, and I was sure I resembled either a fish gasping out of the water or an idiot. The blunt statement concerning my availability or, should I say, unavailability rendered me speechless, not that any of the men in the room noticed. All they did was laugh before taking a few steps away from me and waving at me in greeting. Obviously, Chase was not one to be messed with or be taken lightly. Was I off limits? My inexperience in such things made it difficult to decide what I was to Chase. Did I want any of the men currently standing in the café? No, I did not. Did I want Chase? Yes. Yes, I did. The rest was just semantics. Well, not really since being kissed and made love to didn’t quite qualify as semantics. But they would happen and going by Chase’s public announcement, I was his, so it would be with him.
“Hey there, sugar. Nice to meet you.” Jason was the first one to step close to me, his smirk telling me he wasn’t too concerned with Chase’s warning.
“Oh. Um, hello, J-Jason,” I stuttered. I took his offered hand and shook it before quickly pulling my hand out of his and inching closer to Chase.
Why don’t you just drop to your knees and confess, you blithering idiot, I chastised myself. Jeez.
“You too, hon,” he said slowly, noticing my weird behaviour and probably making mental notes to run my name on the police’s special database for criminals on the run.
“I should get to work. Um, why don’t you guys take a seat while I go get my order pad,” I managed to get out, sounding like a functional human being and not a stammering fool.
“You okay, baby? Not feeling dizzy or anything?” Chase asked in a hushed tone so as not to call any more attention to me.
A wave of tenderness for the strong, caring man washed over me. He really cared about me. That revelation alone provoked my next move.
Sliding one hand over his shirt-covered chest, I raised my head and pressed a light kiss to his lips. For the first time in my life, I was suddenly glad for my height when it came to the opposite sex.
“I’m good, honey. Sit down, and I will bring you some coffee.” I remembered his fondness for the brown liquid from the gods, as he declared it last night after his fourth cup. Kissing him one more time, I patted him on his washboard abs then turned to get my apron, pad, and pen.
Taking the longer route back to the counter, I avoided the cluster of tables on one side of the room. The last thing I needed was to go arse over in front of the huge gorgeous men. Jinxed Jamie was not the main attraction today or any other. I was a new me, well, a version I was beginning to prefer, one who apparently kissed a man and called him honey in front of his friends and workmates.
Yep, I thought, smiling, this Jamie is much more fun.
8
I looked over my shoulder once more at Jamie before I walked out of Lake’s café. I had hoped to grab one more kiss from her before leaving, but a large group of grey-haired women from a local senior citizen’s club came in, and things got so busy that even Lake had to come out from the kitchen to help take orders.
I smiled when Jamie glanced over at me and gave me a saucy wink. Then my heart flopped in my chest when she blew me a kiss right before the door closed behind me.
“Not seen you like this in quite some time, Axe. I like it,” Jason said as he walked beside me back over to the station house. Jason was the only one to call me the ridiculous nickname and not get punched in the face. Yeah, I was a firefighter, and I did use an axe a lot in my job. In fact, it was my favourite piece of equipment other than a hose.
However, that wasn’t why Jason called me that.
No, that would be because it was one of the main reasons he arrested me nine years ago. One night, about eight months after Prue’s death, I was still acting like a douche angry at the world. After a pub crawl that included many fights—all I won, by the way—I saw Ray’s car parked out front of the last pub I got kicked out of. Fury and alcohol could only be blamed for my stomping back into the pub where I broke the glass on the cabinet that held the fire extinguisher and axe all such establishments were required to have by law.
Then I proceeded to destroy the car with the axe. Jason arrested me for the second time in a week but not before he kicked the shit out of me. Taking me back to the police station, he charged me with property damage. Ray’s family had sold his car to a nice young girl who worked at a local all-night petrol station. She had saved long and hard for the car, and I’d felt bad once I sobered up.
A few days after that, I apologised to her after explaining my actions, not excusing them. I then took her car shopping and let her choose a much better vehicle. To this day, I still bought my petrol from her. Lena was now the manager of the petrol station and a mum of two beautiful girls.
She and I remained friends, and Jason still called me Axe.
“I like her,” I answered simply, though my feelings for Jamie were anything but simple. We were yet to discuss the details of her life and how and why she ended up here in Ballarat. I had most certainly told everyone that she was my girlfriend when I introduced her earlier. And she had kissed me in front of everyone, twice, and called me honey, which pleased me to no end. So yeah, it wasn’t simple, but I liked where it was going.
“She is a little jumpy, or is that just around me?” Jason asked casually, a little too casually if you asked me.
My body tensed, and I stopped walking to stare at my bud. He, too, stopped, and the staring match began.
“Don’t,” I growled at him, my fists clenched at my thighs.
“Don’t what?”
“Don’t do the cop thing with her or me. Things are complicated, but I got them in hand. Okay?”
“I just don’t want you going down that path, Axe.”
Scowling at him, I grunted. “I am not going down any path, Jay. That won’t be happening again,” I assured my friend.
“Listen, Jay. She is special to me, and yes, she is in some kind of trouble. I have seen bruises on her, and before
you ask, no, that’s not her real last name. I feel something right here.” I held my hand over my heart and thumped it twice. “All she has to do is look my way, and I’m gone.” I shook my head and gave him a rueful smile. Damn, I was turning into a pansy, but I didn’t give a shit. Jamie was the one. She brought out the alpha in me, and I liked it, liked taking care of her. Whether she was drunk or falling over chairs, I wanted to be the one to take care of her. I wanted to be her one.
“Righto, mate, righto. But if you need me for anything, just ask,” Jason said with a hard enough slap to my back that I barely stayed upright. The man was over six feet tall and one hundred and forty-five kilos of pure muscle, and his twin was even bigger than him. If you saw the Johnston brothers coming towards you in an alley, I would suggest running like buggery.
I grimaced at his offer because I knew that he was referring to if I needed him to do a search on Jamie. I just shook my head. The thought crossed my mind a time or ten last night after Jamie went off to bed to Prue’s room, and I went to mine. Knowing she was asleep in my house and more than likely stripped bare of that sexy as shit tight skirt, did not bode well for sleeping. My dick was happy, but my mind hadn’t switched off all night. So when the alarm went off this morning at five a.m., I was wide awake to turn it off.
“If, and I do mean if, it comes to that, I will call you. If she and I are going to make a go of a relationship, we need trust, mate. Going to my cop friend and asking him to search on her real name isn’t exactly trust building.”
“No, it ain’t, but neither is lying. Just saying.”
And boom! A direct hit from the copper.
“How’s your brother and his wife?” I asked, changing the subject from Jamie and me to his brother.
“Yeah, good both of them. Deck lets me have Squirt as much as I want, so I can’t hate him too much. Plus it’s hard to hate my SAA, if ya know what I mean,” he said ruefully.
Jason and Deck had come a long way since Zoe died and Deck walked from the hospital with Shiloh, Jason with nothing but a broken heart and an empty house.
“And how is your niece? Still a handful?” I had to smile. Shiloh Johnston was a real firecracker of a kid. She resembled her father more than her mother, and from what I had seen of her when Jason had her, she had her old man’s attitude, too.
Jason’s smile was genuine at the mention of his niece, but I noticed a difference in his body language.
“She is doing great. I hate to admit it, but Deck is an amazing dad. And the other guys at the club adore her and worship the ground she walks on.”
“Zoe would be proud, mate,” I told him quietly.
Jason dropped his head, and his shoulders slumped for a brief moment before he mentally pulled himself together.
“Yeah, Axe, she would be. That kid is the centre of my world. I just wish—” Jason’s voice broke, and I took pity on him.
Resting my hand on his shoulder, I gave it a little squeeze.
“Jay, maybe it’s time to move on. Zoe has been gone for a long while now. She would want you to be happy,” I suggested, aware that Jason didn’t like to talk about the death of his wife very much.
“I want to, you know? But losing Zoe and Shiloh on the same day, fuck, mate, I can’t seem to get back into… living. You know?” The sheen of tears in his eyes shocked me. Jason Johnston was nothing if not a hard son of a bitch, but he was also a good man who deserved another crack at love.
“Oh, mate. If anyone understands that, it’s me. But, mate, you didn’t lose Shiloh. You can still see her, hear her laugh, feel her arms around your neck. I would give just about anything for one more day, one more cuddle. Don’t dishonour Zoe’s memory by checking out of life. She died, and I am sorrier than I can say for that, but you didn’t, Jason. Honour the love she had for you and allow yourself to be happy.” My words held nothing but the truth. I would give anything to have my bug back with me. Jason lost a part of him the day Shiloh was born, I wasn’t disputing that, but hiding the way he was and holding a grudge against his brother wasn’t the way to go. Living was.
“You need to get laid, my friend. Maybe your brother can introduce you to one of the ladies that hang out at the club,” I suggested with a crooked grin. I wasn’t being a dick, I knew how he met Zoe, but things were getting a little too serious, and the mood needed to be lightened.
“Go fuck yourself, Axe. I get laid plenty,” he grumbled, giving me the one finger salute.
“Oh, yeah? With your left or right hand?” I asked, laughing.
“Fucking funny firefighters,” he muttered to himself as he walked off to his car.
“Hey, next time you have Shiloh, bring her out to the farm. Golden would love to take her for a ride around the paddock.”
Jason lifted his hand to me in response then he got into his unmarked car and took off.
Poor bugger, I thought. I understood where his head was at and why because I had been there myself. But now, I felt like I was on the cusp of something pretty special, something worth taking risks for. Looking back over my shoulder, I could make out Jamie’s silhouette at the counter in the café. Last night, we’d talked and shared a lot about ourselves, and she’d offered up information about herself that I never expected from her.
She was starting to trust me, that much I was sure of. Otherwise, she wouldn’t have told me her real name. In my capacity as an emergency worker, she had to know I had access to certain avenues where I could find out more about her.
I would never do it, though. I wanted her to be the one to tell me. And if she didn’t— Well, there was time for her to come clean before I went down that road.
I was falling for her, and it felt good, right.
“We have no fucking water!” I shouted as loud as I could with my breathing mask on and the sirens going all around me. I pressed the button on my comms and let it rip. “Knox, you fucking idiot, you haven’t turned on the water. Do it right fucking now!”
In front of me, the building—the second one in less than a few weeks—was like an inferno. Being fuelled by… we had no idea as this building, like the other one, was abandoned. Unlike the first one, though, where teens used it for rebelling and get-togethers away from their parents, the big explosions coming from the inside led me to believe there were more sinister uses for the former brick making plant.
Another explosion rocked the ground beneath my feet, and looking towards the burning building, I gasped in shock when three large fuel drums rocketed into the air, one after the other.
“Fuck me,” I growled as I pressed the button on my shoulder again. “Hoove.”
“Hold tight, mate. It’s coming,” Hoove’s deep voice assured me through the speaker.
No more than ten seconds later, the hose in my hand stiffened and water spewed from the nozzle. Pointing the high-powered hose at the entrance of the building, I went about creating a safe path for the ground guys to get in.
“Thanks, mate. Get Percy and Linc over here to take over from me, and bring me my axe, mate. And throat punch that poor excuse for a fiery. This is the last time I work on the same company as him,” I yelled, not giving a shit if the rookie could hear me or not.
There were at least thirty men on the ground, jumping flames and dodging sparks and all because some idiot still didn’t know how to attach a hose properly. Several surrounding fire trucks were on the scene as well as the Lucas company. The safety of these men was my main priority, and I wasn’t about to trust a blithering idiot in doing that.
Hearing heavy footfalls coming my way, I turned and grinned when I saw Percy, Hoove, and Carson running towards me. Hoove was sprinting in full gear, holding an axe in each hand.
Bloody show-off.
“Need some help, mate?” Percy asked as he reached out and took the hose from me to take over getting the water to where it would do the best job. The building was done for, but we still needed to get in there just in case there were people inside.
Without sparing a word for Perce, I g
rabbed one of the axes and sped off for the front of the building with Hoove and Carson hot on my heels.
The closer we got to the fire, the hotter the air around us got. The flames were completely out of control. Red-hot sparks showered around the area like it was New Year’s Eve. Even through my mask, I could smell the toxicity of the thick black smoke billowing from every smashed window and falling walls.
This was a firefighter’s nightmare.
Flames and falling debris we could see and fight, but what was fuelling the blaze in the first place was the silent killer.
Had the water been available as soon as we got here, maybe… or maybe not. Either way, I wanted Knox off the truck. I had no trust in him or his abilities. Carson needed to decide for the good of the whole station.
“Hoges?”
“Yeah, I get it, mate. He is gone,” Carson said, giving me a minute of relief.
Thank God for that. I understood that Carson was trying to give Knox the opportunity to have a career but not at the expense of good men who knew how to do their jobs.
“See where Perce has the water trained? We go in through there,” Carson shouted the order to the group of men that had formed around us.
“We buddy up and do a sweeping search of the ground floor only. Keep an eye on your oxygen levels. First signs of toxic smoke getting to you, I want you to move out. Fifteen minutes, and I want everyone out.”
Everyone held up one fist in acknowledgement and understanding. This was not our first rodeo, our job as firefighters saw us going into situations like this all the time, but despite all our training and experience, cockiness had no place in a fire. You had to respect the hell out of it, fear it, hell, even admire it a bit.
I never once went into a fire without a healthy dose of those three things, and they have kept my mates and me alive for all these years.
From The Inferno (Firemen Do It Better Book 3) Page 8
