Burn (The Firefighters of Darling Bay Book 2)

by Rachael Herron

  Of course he was.

  So she laughed. “Oh, cut it out. For a second I thought you were serious.”

  There was a pause before he laughed, too. “A race to love. This is the most stupid plan we’ve ever come up with.”

  Lexie felt that hollow thump again and decided she was just hungry. “Agreed. Now. What’s your profile name going to be?”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  “I want peanut butter, pickles, and grape jelly.” Serena didn’t look up from her book. “Extra pickles.” She sat at the kitchen table, her legs twisted, pretzel-like, under the chair. One hand twirled a dirty-blond strand of hair while her other hand tapped the table next to her Harry Potter book. Always in motion, always moving. And always reading. At least she got that from him. To both Coin and his daughter, the perfect evening was pizza night with books. Total silence, except for the sound of crunching and pages flipping.

  “Color me surprised.” Coin made the sandwich, cutting off the crusts without being asked.

  “Thanks.” She took it without lifting her eyes from the page.

  “How many times have you read that one?”

  She looked surprised, and turned the book over to look at the cover. “The Philosopher’s Stone? Maybe only eight or nine times. I haven’t reread it as much as the other ones.”

  “Why not?”

  “It was under the bed for a while.”

  “That’ll do it.”

  Serena had inherited her mother’s acceptance of chaos. Coin sometimes literally walked behind Serena, catching things as she dropped them to the floor. A book, an umbrella, her jacket, two more books, a comic, a comb, a lip gloss. She scattered things like a dog shaking water off its back.

  He didn’t mind. He hadn’t liked tidying up after his ex-wife who should have been old enough to know better, but his daughter? Coin would happily clean up after her until she was thirty without minding a bit. He knew that.

  Coin made himself a sandwich, carefully omitting the pickles, sticking to PB&J.

  Serena didn’t look up when he sat.

  Coin didn’t have a way to say it smoothly. Just better to say it, ignoring the nerves that danced in his stomach. “I was talking to my friend at work yesterday. You know her, Lexie? In dispatch?”

  “Duh. Yeah. Is she getting a new tattoo?”

  “I have no idea.” For a moment, Coin was distracted by thinking about the way the roses wound out the sleeve of Lexie’s work shirt.

  “Are you getting a tattoo?”

  “Not anytime soon.”

  “You should. When can I get my first tattoo?”

  “When you catch up to my age.” What he meant was when he was dead and in his grave and even then he’d probably roll over, but if he said that, she’d probably be the first sixth grader to get an illegal tattoo in Darling Bay. Heck, she was good enough with the computer that she could probably figure out how to give herself one, safety pin and pen ink, prison style. And his daughter was enough off a badass that she could probably do it.

  “That’s not fair. I’ll never catch up to you.”

  “When we’re older, time slows down. And it speeds up for you. By the time you’re sixty, you will have caught up with your old man.”

  An eye-roll. “So what were you going to say about Lexie? Are you two dating or something?”

  The question caught Coin flat footed. “Why do you ask that?”

  Serena just stared at him. She had a smudge of black under her right eye. Coin reached out and tried to wipe it off. “What is this? You look like someone punched you.”

  She perked up. “Really? Does it look like a black eye?”

  “No. Like you were trying on mascara or something.”

  Serena deflated, poking a finger at the remaining half of her sandwich.

  Coin felt he barely had control of this conversation, something he felt more and more often these days. “You were trying on mascara?”

  “Sophie made me. But then she stuck the wand in her eye and then her mom had to wash it out and she cried for like half an hour.” She scrubbed at her eye with the back of her hand.

  “You’re only making it worse. Cut that out.” Coin got up and wetted a piece of paper towel. He held her chin still and rubbed under her eye with his other hand. “What is this stuff made out of? Tar?”

  “Quit it, I’ll get it off in the bath. So, you and Lexie are dating?”

  “No, we’re not.”

  “Okay. I didn’t think so, anyway.”

  “Why not?”

  “Dad.”

  “What?”

  “You’re kind of …”

  “What?” Now Coin really wanted to know.

  “You’re kind of not that cool.”

  “You’re my kid,” Coin said as easily as he could. It still stung a bit. Strangely. “You’re supposed to be embarrassed of me.”

  Serena shook her head. “I’m not embarrassed. You’re a fireman. That gives you automatic cred.”

  Cred?

  She went on, “But you’re not exactly outgoing enough for her.”

  “You sound like you’re twenty. You scare me.”

  “What can I say? I’m mature for my age. Can I have a tattoo when I’m sixteen?”

  “No. What if I dated someone else?”

  “Who?”

  “No one you know.”

  “Who?” Serena didn’t even look bothered. She looked genuinely interested.

  “Someone online.”

  “You’re going to do online dating?”

  “Oh, come on, Serena. Like I’m the very last one in the whole world who would go on the internet to find a date.”

  She raised one eyebrow archly. She looked like Janice when she did that. Pretty. And calculating. “There’s that guy you work with, the one I call Lurch?”

  “Devo.”

  “He would be the last. But you would be the second-to-last.”

  “So I’m right at the back of the pack with a guy who eats rocks for breakfast.”

  In front of his eyes, she changed back into a little girl, all giggles. “He does not.”

  “I’ve seen it. Rocks. Like cereal, but rocky.”

  Delightedly, she said, “Gross!”

  “He pours sand on top, instead of sugar.”

  “What does he use for milk?”

  Coin leaned forward and whispered, “Tide pool water. The scummy kind, where it’s been sitting for days in the sun. He likes it warm.”

  Serena almost fell off her chair laughing.

  When she’d calmed a bit and had finished her sandwich, he said, “So you wouldn’t mind? If I dated?”

  A shrug was his only answer. She lowered her head to her book again.

  “Serena.”

  “Really, Dad.” She reached out and patted the back of his hand without looking up. “It’s fine by me. This time, though, try to date someone who likes sports. Mom does not like sports.”

  “Neither do I,” said Coin. “You still like me.”

  Another long-suffering sigh. “If someone doesn’t teach me how to throw a softball and soon, I’m not even going to make the team.”

  “Sorry, slugger.”

  “It’s okay. Now shush. I’m reading.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  Lexie’s brother James was already on the couch when she let herself into her mother’s house.

  “You’re late.”

  “I am not.” Lexie glanced at a non-existent watch on her right wrist. “I’m perfectly on time.”

  The only way Lexie ever got out of Friday night dinner was by being at work—where her mother usually called her at least once to make sure she wasn’t lying, which was actually fair, since she would lie about it if she’d been able to get away with it—or if she was dead. So far the dead part hadn’t happened, and because she worked two out of every six days and her days off rotated, she had to have dinner four out of every six Fridays.

  She was better off than James, of course. Her older brother had to eat every si
ngle Friday night there.

  “You’re five minutes late, so I’m leaving five minutes before you,” he said.

  “Always right down to the minute, huh?”

  “Always.”

  James had a brain like a computer and a master’s degree in applied mathematics. Lexie had a little bit of it—she remembered numbers after seeing them only once, which was handy in dispatch—but that’s where her math brain ended. Lexie still wasn’t sure what James did in his day job, but it was mostly theoretical and had something to do with the planetarium on the hill.

  James was very smart. Right then, though, he did not look so. He sat on their mother’s red-velvet covered couch, a drink in his hands, his head pitched back, his mouth hanging slightly open. His eyes were unfocused.

  “Oh, my gravy, what is that? Scotch?”

  He gave a slow nod. “She’s bad today.”

  “Want to make a run for it?”

  “And risk having to hear about that for the rest of our natural lives?” James shook his head. “I can’t take it. I can’t. I’m definitely going to have another one of these, though. I can tell you that much.” He pointed to the bottle on the mirrored mahogany bar in the corner of the opulent room. “Want one?”

  “Are you kidding me? Yes. No, you stay there. I’ll get it.”

  From the kitchen drifted a high voice. “Lexington, is that you?”

  “Why?” Lexie paused in pouring the two fingers of Scotch. “How many times have I told her Lexie? One million times? Trillion?”

  “Because it gets to you.” James’s eyes were closed. “That’s why. You were the first born and you bear the city of her birth. Lucky you.”

  Lexie said, “I’m going to tell her that last eye lift she had made her look like Joan Rivers.”

  Her brother snorted. “I’ll pay you a dollar.”

  “Make it ten thousand and you’re on.”

  “Lexington! Come in here and help me!”

  Lexie had to give it to her mother—even if she didn’t want to—her mother knew her way around a kitchen as Lexie knew her keyboard at work. Mira Tindall was known for her four-course meals which she made all from scratch, naturally, during which never she broke so much as a sheen on her forehead. Her mother just had to look at a Beef Wellington for the meat to practically slice itself, perfectly trimmed pieces landing on every plate. If they were in a Disney movie, her mother would be the wicked stepmother who had a magical cooking charm.

  “Daddy’s favorite tonight,” sang Mira in a disarmingly cheery voice. “Orange-roasted duck with a marmalade and soy sauce dressing, and a bok choy salad with a gorgonzola dressing.”

  Lexie didn’t remember this being her father’s favorite. In fact, she remembered he’d really liked mac and cheese, the kind from the blue box. He’d make it on nights her mother had taken to bed early with one of her headaches. If Lexie’s nose didn’t wake her up, her father would gently nudge her after he’d fixed her a plate. Those were her favorite times, growing up. Sitting at the kitchen table with her father—not the fire chief in those moments, he was just her dad—a man who had loved her, no matter what.

  Unlike her mother.

  “You look pretty tonight,” said Lexie.

  Mira set down the porcelain gravy boat from which she’d been pouring a glaze over the duck and patted at the bottom of her well coiffed, softly curled hair. It had been red once, like Lexie’s, almost as fiery as one of the engines at the station. Now, though, it was a glossy deep auburn, an expensive shade she called “natural.”

  “Why, thank you. Did you have to add the word ‘tonight,’ though?”

  Naturally, Lexie had already stuck her foot in it. “Sorry. You always look pretty, Mama. You just look even prettier tonight. That color suits you.”

  It did. Mira also knew style, and the dark plum of her well-cut dress made her petite figure look even smaller.

  Mira wiped her hands on a red cloth napkin that hung from a hook on the huge kitchen island. “Will you get me the dressing on the door of the fridge? The low-fat one.”

  Ah. The Lexie dressing, careful reserved for her. It was all right—Lexie liked this flavor. She certainly wouldn’t complain about not getting the gorgonzola dressing. She knew how this game was played.

  Her mother was to be tolerated. Never patronized—oh, no—but accepted. She needed to be listened to. It was simple, if Lexie managed to keep from exploding.

  “Good. Carry that in to the dining salon, would you?”

  “Can we eat in the kitchen?” Every week, Lexie asked this.

  “No,” said her mother, just as she did every week.

  The “salon” it was then.

  “James!” Lexie yelled in her firehouse voice. “Dinner!”

  Mira gave a long-suffering sigh. “Must you, darling?”

  Lexie nodded. “Yep.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Lexie buttered a piece of bread.

  “Darling, I bought that for James.”

  “You bought a whole loaf of herbed slab from Josie’s bakery not intending for me to have even one piece?” Lexie grabbed another slice before her mother could move the plate away.

  And in this way, as always, they entered the Lexie portion of the evening.

  Lexie could stage it, if it were a play. She could write out the words and block the action. She knew her mother would say things like “a little chubby, don’t you think?” and “no boy wants a girl to weigh more than he does.” Lexie knew she would respond with curt assents or dissents that Mira would pretend she hadn’t heard. The best part of the night would be when Mira stood, putting her hands flat against her belly. “Do you see this? Do you know how hard I work on this?” Lexie would barely prevent herself from snorting, thinking about the two tummy tucks her already-thin mother had gone through and the fact that food had always sickened Mira, no matter how much she liked to cook.

  Skipping this awful part of Friday night dinner was almost impossible, unless one had a grenade.

  She did.

  “I’m going on a date.”

  Mira choked on her sip of wine. “Darling! You’re kidding. Really?”

  “Well played,” James said in an admiring voice.

  “Oh, Lexie. I can’t believe it.” Mira pressed a shaky hand to her flat bosom. “Really? And I didn’t even set this one up for you! Are you serious?”

  It was going to be almost as bad as the weight conversation would have been, but at least it had novelty going for it. “I’m not just making it up, if that’s what you’re asking.”

  “Oh, no. Of course not. Who is it?”

  Crap. Lexie hadn’t thought this all the way through. “Just a guy. You don’t know him.” Lexie didn’t know him either. Coin was picking him. He had said he would come in to dispatch the following night and they’d vet each other’s online suggestions.

  “Not someone you work with, is it? Tell me that’s not true.”

  Lexie bristled. “I’m not stupid. It’s not. Completely not. He’s in … analysis. Computer. Graphics. Something.”

  “What a relief.” Mira arched an eyebrow at James, as if he would back her up on this one. “I never want you to lose a man the way I lost your father. No men in the line of fire.”

  They’d all lost him, not just Mira. Just out of their mother’s line of sight, James mimed cutting his wrists with his butter knife.

  “Moving on,” Mira said. “Tell me about this boy.”

  “Man.”

  “Man, then. Who is he? What does he look like?”

  How did she describe someone imaginary? Lexie reached for another piece of bread, ignoring her mother’s wilting gaze. Worse, what if she was deluding herself? She hadn’t done online dating in a while—what if she’d run out of Darling Bay men to date? What if there was no one else out there, and she ended up paying for Coin to go to Bora Bora with a tiny blonde? “He’s medium.”

  “What does that mean? Is he tall?”

  Make something up. Anything. “Not reall
y. Average. Well, pretty tall, I guess.”

  Mira leaned forward. “More. What color hair?”

  “Black. Kind of wavy.”

  “What else?”

  What would it have been like, if her mother had always been this interested in her? Like a girlfriend, like someone she could talk to? “Dark brown. His nose is slightly crooked, but it fits his face. Huge biceps. He’s quiet, but he’s funny. Kind of hysterical, actually. He makes me laugh, but I think a lot of people don’t really get him.” A flash of heat raced through her body as she realized she was describing Coin. She hadn’t meant to do that.

  “How many times have you seen each other?”

  A hundred thousand. “None. It’s a blind date.”

  Mira stilled. “How do you know what he’s like?”

  Lexie’s brain scrambled, grabbing ideas and letting them go. She settled for a simple, “It was a very thorough ad.”

  “An ad.”

  “It’s an online date, Mother. Of course it was an ad.”

  “Does that mean …” Mira’s voice trailed off as if she had to gain strength before going on. “Does that mean you placed an ad as well? Like a …”

  “Like a what?” Lexie couldn’t even guess where her mother would take it next.

  “You know, this fellow in my church group has a son who lives at home. He does something with computers, too. I was going to get his phone number for you. Brett didn’t tell me much, but his son sounded lovely even if he is a bit of a loner.”

  Lexie bit into another piece of bread, barely even tasting it anymore. She stared at her mother without responding.

  Mira pointed to the butter knife in Lexie’s hand. “Now you’re just trying to upset me.”

  Lexie rolled her eyes. Carefully, she put her knife back onto her plate with a clink, and then she set down the half-eaten piece of bread. “Well, you’re easy to upset. I apologize for ruffling your feathers.”

  “It’s just that I want you to be healthy …”

  “I am healthy. I run. My cholesterol is jaw-droppingly great. I told you that.” No, no, no, she didn’t want to go down this road. Not again. She couldn’t take it tonight. “And the guy I’m going out with likes a girl of normal weight.”