Burning Ambition

by Amy Knupp

  She didn’t know if it was the mind-blurring fatigue or the feel of his rough fingers so tender on her skin, but she weakened. Let him take one of the rolls from her. She walked by his side to the engine but insisted on putting them away herself. Self-consciously, she glanced around to see if anyone had noticed that Joe had helped her. A couple of guys were nearby, but not paying attention to them; maybe no one had seen. She should’ve just carried both hoses.

  “So,” Joe said, still in a private voice. “I want more information on this. Did you injure yourself tonight? Run into anything? Have something fall or hit you? Did you—”

  “None of the above, like I told you. You saw the first and only episode and it’s gone now. Can we drop it? Please?”

  “I need to report—”

  “Any injuries that occur on the job. This isn’t an injury and it didn’t happen on this job.”

  “You watch that collarbone. If you have any more problems with it, I want you to see a doctor.”

  “Yes, sir,” she said formally.

  She could almost swear he flinched.

  As she turned away to get back to work, a thought occurred to her. “You’re not going to tell the chief, are you?” He’d flip out and go all protective-daddy on her, which was sweet in theory, but totally unnecessary. And not at all what he needed mental-healthwise, or she needed careerwise.

  Joe looked off into the distance and it was all Faith could do not to beg him.

  “Don’t you think he would want to know?”

  “He’s got too much on his mind,” Faith said. “He doesn’t need to worry about something insignificant like this. If another building falls on me, you can mention it, I promise.”

  Joe didn’t seem to appreciate her attempt at humor. When he said nothing, Faith grasped her thick turnout pants in her fist until her knuckles were likely white. “Equal treatment, Joe. That’s all I’m asking for.”

  “First Nate’s treatment of you and now this. I’m keeping a lot from the head of the department.”

  “But the head of the department wouldn’t really need to know about either if I wasn’t his daughter.”

  He exhaled and pegged her with those eyes again. “I’ll keep your secret, Faith. Again. Just promise me about the doctor if you need it.”

  She nodded, suspecting her definition of needing it might differ from his. “Thank you.”

  She walked away, pretty sure that she could trust Joe’s word—but not at all happy that she had to.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  “SURELY YOU BIGWIGS could have found someone in the firm to be your fourth?” Joe asked his stepfather, Jorge Vargas. The black-haired man wasn’t quite as tall as Joe, but stood ramrod-straight, even when he was relaxed on the golf course. It was obvious the man had power and liked to use it.

  The Corpus Christi Country Club golf course was already a brilliant, well-manicured green, and the air wafting over them was warm for early March. Spring break. Hell month for the San Amaro Island Fire Department. The tournament sponsored by his stepfather’s and stepbrothers’ prestigious law firm fell at the worst time of the year for Joe, but he’d made a point of asking for the day off. Everything had worked out, the shift at the department was covered, and here he was. For better or worse. He reminded himself repeatedly that he liked golf and didn’t get on the course enough. And really, these guys weren’t too bad. This was a relatively easy way to make his mom happy.

  “Come on, Joe,” Jorge prodded, “the Vargas men are going to take this tournament. You’re one of us today. You’re the best and you know it.”

  He didn’t want to be a Vargas…but he’d happily take a quarter of their earning power.

  “Joe putts like a woman.” Troy, the older of his two stepbrothers and Mr. GQ, took out his driver at the second hole. He’d been out on the course regularly, as evidenced by his bronzed skin.

  “You wish I putted like a woman,” Joe said. “It’s been weeks since I’ve played, though. Some of us have to work for a living.”

  “Speaking of work, did Maurice get you the info on that possible witness for the Sullivan case?” Jorge asked Troy.

  “Left me a message. I’ll touch base this evening and take care of it.”

  These three—Jorge, Troy and Ryan, the younger, lankier brother, who sported a goatee—weren’t terrible company…until they started talking business. Then it was as if they turned into droning robots that didn’t know when to shut up.

  “You’re up, man,” Joe said to Troy as the group in front of them moved on, successfully ending the shop talk, at least for now.

  Troy stepped up, spent forever and a half pondering the shot, then hit the ball onto the green. Looking smug, he turned around to face them. “Beat that, suckers.”

  “We’re on the same team, dumb-ass,” Ryan said. He was a pretty boy beneath the facial hair, with chiseled features and dark lashes longer than most women’s.

  “Same team, sure. But we could make things more interesting.” Jorge dug his wallet out from his back pocket and waved a twenty. “What do you say a little wager among family? Twenty bucks a hole? Winner takes all.”

  “In.” Ryan raised his chin, clearly thinking he had a good chance at collecting.

  “Hell, yeah, I’m in,” Troy said. “I could use some spending money.”

  Being the blue-collar guy, Joe had three measly twenties in his wallet. All the more reason to beat these paper pushers. “Might as well give me your cash now,” he said, moving up to the tee, taking a practice swing.

  “You’re all talk, Joe,” Ryan said.

  “Put your money where your mouth is,” Troy added.

  Joe tuned out everything the morons behind him chattered about and focused. Maybe said a little prayer. He couldn’t afford to lose more than a couple of holes at twenty bucks a pop. He swung and watched his ball arc through the cloudless sky, silently coaching it along. It made it to the green, barely, but he’d take it. Putting was his strong point, in spite of what Troy liked to believe.

  Two strokes later, Joe collected his first sixty bucks of the afternoon.

  “Can I write this off as a donation to charity?” Troy asked as he handed over his bill.

  “Don’t write too soon,” Joe said, buoyed by his victory and letting the insult to his lower tax bracket slide right off. “I’ll be taking more.”

  They traded taunts and insults as they walked to their carts, and Joe admitted to himself this wasn’t so bad. Sunshine, golf and his artificial family. Soon they’d be the only family he had.

  His mother made no secret that she wanted Joe and his steps to form stronger bonds. The last thing he wanted her to do was worry about him, so he was making an effort. Heck, still making an effort, as he had been since she remarried, five years ago. He visited her and Jorge in Corpus more often, since she couldn’t get out much and no longer made the trip to the island. Spent time with these three when he could be doing other things. He would never fit in, but if it gave his mother peace of mind, he’d continue to try.

  “You still planning to come for your mom’s birthday?” Jorge asked Joe as they climbed out of the cart at the third tee.

  “Of course.” That it could be her last hung heavily on his mind, and he wondered if the thought crossed Jorge’s, as well.

  “You got a girlfriend yet?” his stepfather continued.

  “Is my mother recruiting you for the get-Joe-married campaign?” Joe took a drink from his sports bottle and closed the top.

  Ryan cackled next to him. “I hope not, for Dad’s sake. It’d be easier to get a twelve-year-old girl voted in as governor of Texas.”

  “I don’t have to tell you how much your mom worries,” Jorge said to Joe, and the way his tone changed when talking about her, how it softened with affection, reaffirmed his devotion to his wife. “I remind her all the damn time that you’re a grown man, but you know how women are.”

  “As much as I’d love to put her mind at ease, I’ll go out on a limb and predict I’ll be sh
owing up by myself,” Joe said.

  “You could always pay for a companion,” Ryan suggested.

  “I might be able to pay for one night, but that’s eternally better than paying a lifetime for that high maintenance glamour girl you married.” Joe liked what he knew of Shelly, but he couldn’t pass up the opportunity to give Ryan grief.

  “I reckon he got you there,” Troy said, grinning.

  “Reckon he did. Price you pay to sleep with a beautiful woman every night.” Ryan didn’t seem too upset by his lifetime sentence. “So how’s the fire department?”

  “Busy as a hound during flea season. On top of spring break, I’m going for a promotion. Assistant fire chief. The current guy’s retiring.”

  “Will you be able to stay away from the manual stuff as assistant chief?” Jorge asked. “Keep your hands clean?”

  Joe shook his head and grinned. His stepfather would never understand. He’d stopped trying to explain it after the first dozen or so attempts. “That’s the downside. Not being able to fight fires myself.”

  All three men stared at him as if he’d admitted to romancing livestock.

  “You all should shed your suits and ties and try it sometime,” he said, gauging the progress of the team in front of them as they finished up the hole.

  “I’ll leave the hero-ing up to you,” Ryan said. “Charred isn’t really my color.”

  “I don’t know,” Troy said. “Your heart’s pretty black, bro.”

  “Joe,” his stepfather interjected. “You got anything planned in early April?”

  “The usual,” Joe said. “What’s up?”

  “The guys and I thought we’d see if you wanted to go with us to spring training.”

  “Astros?”

  “Of course,” Troy said, as if Joe was the densest man on earth.

  Joe had been a Rangers fan since he was old enough to beat a plastic bat on the living room floor. Never an Astros fan. He hadn’t been invited to the annual pilgrimage with the Vargas men before. Which meant one thing. “My mother put you up to asking?”

  “We wouldn’t listen to her if she did,” Troy said.

  The senior Vargas glared at his older son.

  “Okay, maybe we would, but this wasn’t her idea.” Troy backpedaled.

  “Why don’t you guys watch some real baseball?” Joe asked.

  “We invited you on our trip, man,” Ryan said. “No need to go injuring our team.”

  Joe asked several questions about the trip and racked his brain for any plans he might have made. Several guys at the station would be off that week—a regular occurrence after the intensity of spring break on the island. It’d be a hassle to get away then. However, though the Astros didn’t do it for him, taking a trip with Jorge and his sons would go a long way in calming his mother’s worries, convincing her they’d do just fine as a family even without her. That was a gift to her he couldn’t deny just because these guys were a bunch of stuffed shirts who liked the wrong team.

  “Let me check my calendar and see what I can do.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  FAITH’S EYES WERE GLAZING over as she stared at the study manual for the hazardous materials test. She hadn’t procrastinated. Not entirely, anyway. She’d studied last weekend for quite a while. But now it was the eleventh hour and she was close to panicking.

  She got up from the station’s kitchen table and stretched her arms over her head in an attempt to get her blood flowing. She went to the counter behind her and poured herself another cup of coffee, emptying the pot. The clock on the microwave oven said 3:14 a.m. She was the only one stirring in the place, and the silence was starting to ring in her ears.

  “What are you doing up?”

  Joe’s voice in the doorway behind her made her drop her mug, which shattered on the tile floor. Thankfully, the coffee that splashed on her was only lukewarm.

  “You need to wear a bell around your neck,” she said, bending to pick up the large chunks of broken pottery and trying to ignore the racing of her heart. It wasn’t caused just by having the life startled out of her. Unfortunately. It had everything to do with the man who’d surprised her. She hadn’t felt this kind of nervous excitement since her crush on Dylan Morrison her first year at community college.

  She glanced at Joe in time to see him smile. It must be late, because she couldn’t resist admiring how good-looking he was. Her tired mind was filled with the uninvited fantasy of him walking up to her and kissing her till her brain melted and her hands shook.

  Oh, her hands were shaking. From too much caffeine, no doubt. Lack of sleep.

  Faith found a dustpan and hand broom beneath the sink, and swept the little pieces. Joe mopped up the remaining liquid with paper towels.

  “Test is tomorrow?” he asked, glancing toward the open book on the table.

  “Technically today, I guess. I’ll go take it as soon as shift is over.”

  They stood at the same time and her fantasy scenario of thirty seconds ago intensified. He came over to her at the counter and surveyed the coffeepot.

  “Didn’t save any for me, I see.”

  “Sorry,” Faith said, putting space between them. “Didn’t know you were a night owl.”

  “Always have been. Didn’t know you were afraid of tests.”

  “Always have been.”

  Joe rinsed out the pot and refilled the filter for another twelve-cup supply. “That surprises me. You seem to know your facts.”

  “I’m somewhat of a perfectionist.”

  Joe chuckled. “And here I thought you were laid-back. Carefree.”

  “Maybe in a different lifetime. So what’s up with coffee at three in the morning? Do you really have that much work to do or are you just afraid of the dark?”

  “Never know what’s under the bed.”

  “Want me to check if it’s safe for you?” she teased. “I hear there can be some pretty ferocious dust bunnies in the corners around here.”

  “That’s what happens when firefighters can’t clean to save their lives.”

  “They need better leadership, clearly.”

  He didn’t seem to see the humor in her comment.

  “You take your job very seriously, don’t you?” Faith asked, leaning against the counter next to him.

  “About as seriously as you take yours.”

  She nodded at the truth in that. “Did you always want to be a firefighter?”

  “Either that or a Jedi.”

  If she hadn’t spilled her coffee by dropping it, she would’ve spit it out at his reply. “Jedi training didn’t pan out?”

  He cracked a grin and shook his head distractedly.

  “How long was your dad the chief?” she asked. She vaguely remembered meeting Chief Mendoza a couple times, but she’d been so young then, maybe ten years old. At that point, the trucks and flashing lights had been much more interesting to her.

  “Two years. That was before there was an assistant. It wasn’t three months after he stopped fighting fires and became chief that he found out about the cancer.” Joe’s face hardened as he tried not to give away his feelings.

  “Lungs, right?” Faith did remember, very clearly, when his dad had died. The funeral had been gigantic, though she hadn’t been allowed to attend. It’d been on the news and the front page of the newspaper. Her dad had considered Joe’s father a mentor and had been struck deeply by his death.

  “Yep. No doubt from everything he breathed in on the job.”

  “I can’t imagine growing up without my dad,” Faith said.

  “I was twenty-five when he died.”

  “Oh. I guess you were grown-up.” She smiled sheepishly. “Sorry.”

  “Yeah.” His tone lightened. “Tell me I’m old.”

  “I’d never say that to someone who can run faster than me.”

  He studied her curiously. “So how is working in the same department as your dad going so far?”

  “Going well,” she said, refusing to get into her worries. In g
eneral, it was an honest answer. “I always dreamed of working with him. He’s the reason I got into firefighting.”

  “You two have always seemed close. I remember that even when you were a teenager.”

  “Drives my mom crazy sometimes.”

  “That’s what she gets for marrying one of the good guys,” Joe said.

  “I wish she remembered he’s one of the good guys. Though he does make it difficult lately.”

  Joe turned toward her and brushed her hair behind her ear. Her breath caught, and he retracted his hand, as if realizing he wasn’t supposed to touch her. “He’s kind of out of sorts, isn’t he?”

  She looked down nervously, whether from the personal topic or the contact, she couldn’t say. “That’s one way to put it.”

  “If there was something I could do to help, I would. I like your dad. Respect him a great deal.”

  Faith nodded, wishing like crazy she had a clue how to help her father. “He needs something to keep him busy. The weekends with no work just about kill him. Evenings are long, too.”

  “Does he have any hobbies?”

  “His boat,” Faith answered. “But he’s been on it only once since I moved back. He seems to have lost interest.”

  “Maybe I could persuade him to take it out. Get him to take me for a ride or something.”

  “You don’t have to do that, Joe.”

  He looked into her eyes with such concern she wanted to melt. “I want to. It’s not exactly a hardship having to go out on a boat.”

  “Feel free to try. Don’t be surprised if he turns you down.”

  As he gazed at her, his pupils grew wider, and the awareness between them jumped way higher than it should.

  “I’m…going for Jones’s position,” Joe said, his voice hoarser than usual, kept low so that no one could overhear their…discussion about work?

  Had she missed something? Was the awareness all one-sided?

  “I know.” She blinked and tilted her head to the side. “Everyone knows. You and Captain Schlager.”