Controlled Burn- To Publish

by Lani Lynn Vale

  Thankfully, he didn’t think this was absolutely necessary because he kept quiet the entire way back to the station.

  Bowe, however, didn’t.

  “Fucking A, man,” Bowe said. “You’re fucking nuts.”

  I narrowed my eyes at the shithead, and turned my head to gaze out the window.

  “Leave it,” Drew, the oldest and most experienced of the firefighters on our shift, said.

  I gave Drew a grateful nod, which he returned, and I pulled my phone out to go through the emails that I’d been ignoring all day.

  Once we arrived back at the station, I headed to the weight room and immediately loaded up the bench press with my max weight where I proceeded to work my arms, as well as my mind to exhaustion in the hopes that it would tire me out enough to chase away any thoughts of those hauntingly, beautiful blue eyes.

  I should’ve known it wouldn’t fucking work. It never did.

  Chapter 3

  Not to brag, but I don’t even need to wear camo to go unnoticed.

  -Text from July to Des

  July

  This was a fucking nightmare.

  Without a doubt, the worst possible thing that could happen, happened.

  What were the freakin’ odds that Bowe, Able and Dean would find a home directly next to mine to flip? Then start working on it at the same time that I was working on mine?

  Seriously?

  “What do you mean?” I asked carefully, hoping what Des was telling me wasn’t true.

  “I mean,” she said with a worried look on her face, “that you and Able bought houses right next to each other. In fact, you actually bought the one he had his eye on, but when he found out it was you buying it, he didn’t overbid you.”

  I blinked, staring at her.

  “And why didn’t you tell me this before now?” I asked carefully. “We’ve had lunch twice!”

  She was shaking her head before she finished.

  “I didn’t know until last night when I was talking to Able about what happened at the diner,” she explained softly, taking a seat on a five-gallon bucket of paint, staring at me like she was concerned for my mental health.

  “Please, please, please tell me that it’s only Able working on this house,” I pleaded, the scraper in my hand dropping to my side as I stared at my best friend imploringly.

  She shook her head.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “But you damn well know that the three of them do it together.”

  I did.

  Oh, God, did I.

  I’d spent almost six entire months with the three men after I’d moved here from Uncertain a year and a half ago.

  I damn well knew that it was highly unlikely that Dean wouldn’t be working with them.

  They did everything together.

  I’d moved from Uncertain to Kilgore, Texas because I’d found a job that allowed me to work from home, and it also got me away from my brother.

  My overprotective, loving but incredibly smothering big brother, that I loved with all my heart.

  Speaking of, I heard the sound of motorcycle pipes arrive outside, and I breathed through my nose.

  “Are they outside right now?” I asked Des carefully.

  Her eyes widened.

  Then she was up off the paint bucket so fast that I would’ve laughed had this situation been even the least bit funny.

  It wasn’t.

  Especially when I walked outside moments later and found my brother sitting on his motorcycle staring at Dean, who was staring back at him.

  “Jesus Christ,” I hissed.

  Walking down the steps, I called to him loudly to get his attention.

  “Did you bring my lunch?” I yelled at Wolf, hoping to garner his attention.

  Wolf turned his head to study me, then turned back to study Dean, before he got off his bike and started heading my way.

  “You want a ride home?” he asked as he sauntered toward me, a bag of food in one hand and a drink in the other.

  Where he’d stashed them, I didn’t know. I hadn’t seen him produce them from whatever hidey hole he’d hidden them in, but then again, my eyes had been aimed at the ground in hopes that I could avoid that damn man who had the power to tear my heart into shreds with a single glance.

  At the sound of his voice, I looked up and watched him come.

  “No, I don’t want a ride home,” I said, pointing at my truck. “I want you to fix it.”

  He looked over at the clunker of a truck that he’d given me when he’d bought his bike, and then turned back to me.

  “July, honey,” he murmured softly. “That old truck isn’t going to make it, which I’ve told you a hundred times. Buy a new fucking truck already. You can afford it.”

  “No I can’t,” I disagreed, grabbing the food from him and turning around to head back into the house. “I just bought this gem, and I’ve used nearly everything in my checking account to make it pretty.”

  “You have a savings,” he countered. “I’m sure you won’t even see a dent in it. Just take enough to make a down payment, and get a new fuckin’ truck already.”

  I glared at my brother.

  “Where’s Nathan?” I asked. “Were you at work?”

  He shook his head and lifted his hand to scratch his chest.

  “Nathan’s at daycare,” he said. “And I wasn’t at work. I was tinkering with my project bike.”

  I snorted.

  “Is it running yet?” I asked, ripping the ketchup packets open and pouring it straight into my fry container.

  He watched me with disgust clearly written on his face.

  “You know the answer to that question,” he answered. “Why do you do that?”

  He looked down at me as I picked the pickles off my burger, and I shrugged.

  “Because I don’t like the texture of the pickle, but I like the taste,” I said as I threw the next pickle into the bag and took a bite of my burger.

  “So…” Wolf asked, his eyes sliding to Des. “What’s up with that shit over there?”

  My stomach started to churn, and suddenly the burger I was really looking forward to eating didn’t sound so appetizing at the thought of having Dean so close by.

  Close, but so far away.

  I shrugged and took another bite of my burger.

  “This is new for me, too,” Des explained to my brother as she took her seat on the paint bucket once again. “I just learned last night that the houses were as close as they were.”

  “Hmm,” he hummed. “You need help with anything while I’m here?” He looked up at the ceiling with curiosity. “I have to pick Nathan up by six, but I can stay until about four thirty or so.”

  I grinned and clapped my hands.

  “Sweet!” I chirped. “I need that down,” I pointed to the wall between the kitchen and the dining room.

  “You want me to take the wall down?” he asked, calculating.

  I nodded again.

  “Got a sledge hammer?” His brows rose. “I think beating the shit out of something would be perfect right about now.”

  I hid my smile and walked back out to the truck, only just now realizing my mistake.

  I should’ve sent Wolf after it.

  If I had, I wouldn’t have seen Dean doing his own dirty work. With his shirt off.

  I closed my eyes and leaned my head against the cool metal of my truck and sent a silent prayer up, asking God to give me strength.

  Reaching into the back of the truck, I came out with the crowbar, a Halligan I’d stolen from Dean before we’d split, and the sledge hammer.

  I started walking back inside but stopped when Dean’s deep, smooth voice said, “That’s mine.”

  I turned and looked at him across my yard and his, and shrugged.

  “Possession’s nine tenths of the law,” I informed him haughtily. “And my brother would kick your ass if you came over here.”

  I saw a s
mile kick up the corner of his mouth as he said, “Your brother’s not gonna be there to protect you forever.”

  And on those haunting words, I walked inside.

  He didn’t mean it the way it sounded. Nobody ever did.

  Hell, not many people knew that my brother was shot in the head by a psychopath hell-bent on killing him simply because he was a cop.

  That same madman killed his wife and unborn child.

  The whole thing had broken Wolf and marked me.

  I had nightmares. I couldn’t sleep when I knew he was on shift, and then I had to go saddle myself with a man that liked to live dangerously just like my brother.

  Luckily, Wolf had Nathan. I didn’t have anyone. Not anymore.

  Nathan was the son of his best friend, who also was a cop. Nathan’s parents were also killed by the same psycho that had shot Wolf and his family. The little boy was also shot in the same attack.

  Wolf had literally been left with nothing. Yet, somehow in the aftermath of that nightmare, he made the decision to take care of Nathan, who had his own challenges after suffering the same type of gunshot wound that Wolf had.

  Wolf had made a full recovery, though, and Nathan had required several surgeries to repair the damage he sustained in the attack.

  Now Nathan was going on three and a half years old, and he was a bright and shining star compared to his old self.

  He was thriving with Wolf, and he was seriously the best little boy in the world.

  I loved him to pieces, and I loved Wolf even more for taking on Nathan.

  Not that I would expect anything less from my brother.

  Wolf lived for challenges.

  Hell, our whole entire childhood had been a challenge.

  Wolf and I had grown up in a trailer house. We’d been dirt fucking poor, and the only food we ever ate was food we either grew or hunted and killed ourselves.

  Our parents were both assholes who thought it’d be fun as hell to have kids, but once those kids arrived and they realized just how much work having kids actually was, they’d started to rethink that decision.

  Growing up, we’d both been labelled ‘trailer trash’ by our peers in school, and the name had stuck until I’d moved away.

  To this day, if I went back to my old home town, I’d still have to deal with the name calling.

  Once trailer trash, always trailer trash, my mom always made sure to say to me.

  “Earth to July,” Wolf teased. “Where’s your head at?”

  I glared at Des as she snorted from her seat on the paint can and turned back to my brother to hand him all the tools.

  “Where’d you get this?” he asked, pointing to the Halligan.

  The Halligan was a multipurpose tool that most firefighters carried to use on the scene of an accident, and it was well constructed since they had to rely on its efficiency. Because of that, it also cost a pretty penny and was one of those tools that you would hate to lose because they were not only costly, but also hard to acquire.

  I didn’t know where Dean had gotten this particular one, but I’d used it every day since I had decided to completely tear apart my own house and fix it up.

  “No comment,” I muttered. “I already turned the power off to this side of the house.” I pointed to the breaker box. “But you might want to double-check just in case.”

  “Is this load bearing?” He touched the wall.

  “No clue,” I shrugged. “I was going to knock it down and put a post here,” I pointed to the spot. “So it should be okay.”

  Wolf glanced at me.

  “Yeah,” he said. “I’m surprised you haven’t died from a roof caving in on you yet.”

  Shaking his head as he turned away from me, he started going around looking at the area to make sure the wall he was about to tear down wasn’t actually load bearing.

  Once he’d ascertained it wasn’t, he started to work, and I went back to peeling the wallpaper off the wall in the living room.

  “Why do you think that person put wallpaper over that nice wood?” Des asked, studying the wall.

  “No clue,” I replied honestly. “What I do know, though, is that it’s going to save me quite a bit of money.” I pointed to the carpeting. “Pull that up and look at the floor underneath.”

  She did, and I heard her gasp of surprise.

  “You lucky dog!” She laughed. “You should see the floor in the other house. It’s terrible.”

  I didn’t want to.

  In fact, I’d been doing a pretty bang up job at ignoring the fact that Dean was over there until she brought it up once again.

  Jesus.

  I could tell the next couple of months were going to suck.

  Really bad.

  Chapter 4

  What’s the difference between a hippo and a Zippo? One is really heavy, and the other one is a little lighter.

  -Corny joke of the day

  Dean

  My ass was dragging as I let my feet slide to the ground, exiting my truck about as gracefully as a thirty-six-year-old man who’d just come off of a forty-eight-hour shift could.

  “You’re late,” Able called from the roof.

  I waved him off.

  “Fucking MVC,” I grunted. “Right before shift change, of course.”

  Able laughed.

  I was not as amused as him.

  He knew the pros and cons of being a firefighter, and being late was one of the cons.

  “Patients make it?” he wanted to know.

  I stretched my arms up high over my head, relishing in the way my back popped, and then walked toward him.

  “Yeah,” I confirmed. “What are you working on?”

  “The roof,” he said. “I started to paint, but then I saw a water spot above one wall in the living room, and I wanted to make sure we didn’t have a problem with the shingles. Which we do, and we’re going to have to replace it. I already called and got us on the schedule.”

  Fucking figured.

  My eyes went to the house that I’d really wanted, and I narrowed my eyes when I found July on her own roof.

  “You’re kidding me, right?” I asked Able.

  Able snorted.

  “Told her to come down myself,” he explained. “As you can see, she ignored me.”

  My jaw tightened and I turned around so she had my back.

  “Do you want me to help you, or go do my own thing?” I asked him.

  “Own thing,” he murmured.

  I nodded and walked inside the house, thankful that he’d said he didn’t need help.

  Because if I had to watch her work on the roof, I might very well have a fucking coronary.

  I went to work on the kitchen island wall, tearing it out after ensuring that it wasn’t supporting the structural weight of the roof.

  I’d gotten it down to the studs when three sharp taps from the roof had my eyebrows lowering.

  Exiting the back door, I walked back into the yard until I could see on the roof and asked, “What?”

  “Go take a look at what she’s doing,” Able said as softly as he could, which ended up not being soft at all.

  I went up the back porch steps, through the gutted kitchen and living room, straight out the front door and down the front porch steps, only to come to a halt at what I saw her doing.

  “You’re shitting me, right?” I asked Able who’d followed me over the roof.

  “Nope,” he crossed his arms over his chest.

  “What does she think she’s going to do?” I asked. “She can’t do that all herself.”

  “She’s going to,” Able disagreed. “Watch her.”

  I did watch as she was ripping off the shingles, one by fucking one.

  “It’s supposed to rain tonight,” he told me. “There’s no way she’ll get that all done in one day.”

  “She’s going to ruin the roof,” I agreed. “She’s going to end up fucking it all up if she doesn’
t watch it.”

  “What are you doing?” Able asked as I started towards her house.

  “You know exactly what I’m fucking doing,” I grumbled, hurrying across her lawn before she could rip off any more shingles.

  I didn’t bother to stop at the side of the house like most people would.

  No, I went right up the ladder and stood behind her before I said, “You’re starting the roof now when it’s supposed to rain for the next week and a half?”

  She gasped and whirled, lost her balance and would’ve gone straight off the roof had I not caught her.

  “And you really shouldn’t be up here. You’re not even wearing the right shoes,” I muttered, looking down at her fucking Crocs.

  She gasped and pushed away from me. Or tried to. I wouldn’t let her go.

  “Get off me, goddammit!” she seethed. “What’s your freakin’ deal, anyway? I could’ve died, and it all would’ve been your fault!”

  “No. Had I not been here, you would’ve gone down and died,” I corrected her.

  “No,” she growled. “If you hadn’t come over at all, I would’ve never turned around so fast.” She glared, trying to untangle her body from my arms. “What are you doing here, anyway?”

  “Telling you to stop taking the shingles off your roof before you get any more into it,” I informed her. “The roof is fine. I inspected this house myself before you stole it out from under us with whatever underhanded, sneaky Jedi shit you pulled with the realtor. It doesn’t need to be replaced. The sellers replaced it less than two years ago.”

  “I want a tin roof, so it’s going. Now, if you’d kindly unhand me,” she squirmed against my hold. “I’ll get back to that.”

  “You’re going to end up ruining it if you’re not careful,” I told her. “The felt underneath this would be in perfect working order to use underneath the tin, but not if you get it wet before they come and install it.”

  “They’re coming tomorrow. I save two grand by removing it all myself,” she twisted her body again.

  I held on tighter for a few long seconds, letting her know that I was giving her the distance and she wasn’t taking it, then reluctantly let her go.

  She growled as she took two large steps back from me.

  “They’re not going to be able to do the roof tomorrow,” I informed her. “Didn’t you check the weather?”