The Fireman Who Loved Me

by Jennifer Bernard

  “The last thing I want is to put my guys on TV again. Do you have any idea what we went through last time? We had girls coming out of our ears. We were tripping over them.”

  Kevin perked up. “Any chance of more of that?”

  Melissa and Brody both ignored him. “You think I want to do this special? It’s a complete waste of my time. I have real stories to work on.”

  “Then why are you here? Call the damn thing off.”

  “I’m not the news director. Why don’t you call it off?”

  He swiped his hand against his jaw, leaving a streak of dirt. “I tried, believe me.”

  She felt a sneaky moment of hurt that he was so opposed to the special. Maybe he wanted nothing to do with her. “Well, since we’re both stuck with it, how about we get to work. Captain Brody, this is Kevin Murphy, our production manager. We came here to do a site survey for the special.”

  Kevin barely nodded before launching into a technical tirade. “Power’s no problem, you got lotsa juice here, but we got no line of sight, so we’d have to bounce a signal off Mount Wilson unless we take the sat truck. Park the truck out front, run a cable through the hallway, maybe book some time on a bird as backup in case we lose the mountain, then we got the issue of lights. I’m thinking we’ll need at least four three hundreds, that’s twelve amps. That going to interfere with anything?”

  Brody listened with a frown of growing irritation. “The whole thing interferes. But what does it matter if we blow out our power, it’s all in a good cause, right? It’s all about PR. Speaking of which, I have another problem for you, Melissa.”

  “Don’t mind me, I’m just a union guy,” said Kevin. “You got coffee around here?” Brody waved an arm toward the kitchen, and off he went.

  Melissa crossed her arms, bracing for a scathing lecture on the evils of the news business. The air between the two of them seemed to vibrate with tension.

  “I want to talk to you about Ella.”

  That wasn’t what she was expecting. “What about her?”

  “She calls Ryan every other minute. It’s interfering with his work. Can you get her to stop?”

  Melissa swore, silently to herself. Was her whole life going to be devoted to making Ella behave? “Tell Ryan. It takes two, you know.”

  “I have. But she keeps calling him. She doesn’t seem to understand that lives depend on him keeping his focus.”

  “So you’re telling me lives depend on me getting Ella to back off?”

  “I wouldn’t put it—”

  “I’ll tell her to back off!” Kevin interrupted, back with a Styrofoam cup of coffee. “Be happy to.”

  Melissa snapped her notebook shut. “Kevin, I think we’re done here. We’ll bring a backup generator just in case. There’s no way we’re doing this live, so line of sight’s not a factor. Forget the sat truck too. We’ll do it ‘as-live’—switch the show in the production truck and roll tape. Keep it simple. Can you find Ella and tell her we’re leaving?”

  “I’m not a message boy.” She shot him a look. He shrugged and left.

  “So you can take charge,” said Brody, narrowing his eyes at her.

  “Of course I can. I’m a producer. We’re in charge.”

  “But you let Ella walk all over you.”

  Melissa flushed. “I can handle Ella. I just do it my own way.”

  Brody put a hand on her shoulder. The warm weight of it sent a thrill through her. “I don’t mean to put you on the spot. Obviously you know what you’re doing.”

  She swallowed hard. Right now, she wasn’t so sure. All she wanted was for him to back her up against the wall again. How was she supposed to get her work done around those intense eyes and that powerful body? It wasn’t humanly possible.

  “Look, Brody, I’m going to be here a lot until we tape this thing, and . . .”

  “Yes?”

  “I know you hate it, but this special is important to the station. Not to mention my career. I have to do a good job on it, like it or not.”

  “Yeah, so?”

  “I need to keep things, you know . . .” Somehow she couldn’t get the words out.

  His eyes flared with sudden heat. “I think I know what you’re trying to say.”

  “You do?”

  “You want me to keep my hands off you.” Yet he made no move to remove his hand from her shoulder.

  Her face flamed. “Um . . .”

  He bent down until his mouth was a breath away from hers. Charcoal eyes seemed to take in every inch of her face. She bit her lip to keep herself from melting into him. She knew exactly how it would feel if she leaned against his hard chest, let those iron arms wrap around her. His smell, soap with a hint of diesel, made her heart skip one beat, then another . . .

  “Whatever you say,” he said. He straightened up and strode away.

  Brody knew Melissa was right. He’d already told himself the same thing. Forget about Melissa. Get ahold of yourself. But he hadn’t counted on Haskell McGuire.

  Haskell turned out to be an outstanding electrician with one huge flaw. He didn’t talk much, but when he did, every other word out of his mouth concerned his beautiful, bright daughter. He never mentioned her by name, but by now Brody had a good picture of Melissa’s childhood. Her father was extremely proud of the sensitive little girl who had spent every spare moment studying and working, making her escape from her painful circumstances.

  “She inspired me,” he told Brody, as he held a fixture steady so Brody could fasten it to the cabinet. “These lights are gonna make some nice mood lighting in here. When I was in the slammer, I thought about her a lot. She’s my blood, and look at what she made of her life. If she did it, so can I.”

  “Of course you can.”

  “Just wish she could find herself a worthwhile man.”

  Dangerous territory. Brody kept his response to a grunt.

  “She don’t talk to me much, like I said, but my ma says she likes boys that don’t give her any trouble.”

  That description sure didn’t fit him. “Whatever makes her happy.”

  “But she ain’t. Not according to my ma. Won’t listen to my advice.”

  “Big surprise,” Brody mumbled.

  “What’s that?”

  “I said, pass that impact driver, would you?”

  “Sure thing.”

  Haskell lapsed back into silence, while Brody veered between relief and regret. Too much talk about Melissa made it hard for him to concentrate. It was too bad she didn’t get along with her father, but what could he do about it? Melissa wouldn’t appreciate any interference from him.

  Okay, so she wasn’t like the reporters who’d hounded him when the Bachelor Firemen story had first aired. She’d struggled and worked hard to get where she was. She was great at her job, except for her annoying habit of giving in to the obnoxious Ella Joy. He wished she’d stand up to her now and then. Not that she would appreciate that advice either.

  He grabbed the drill and, to Haskell’s confusion, added a random screw hole to the back corner of the cabinet. Maybe the noise would chase thoughts of Melissa away.

  Chapter Eleven

  Captain Brody was no ordinary fire captain, Melissa quickly discovered. Over the next few days, she made several trips to the San Gabriel Fire Station for preproduction and interviews. At first, when the firefighters told stories about their captain, she accused them of exaggerating. They told her about the time he’d run back into a fire to save an unconscious, elderly man with an oxygen tank that could have exploded at any moment. Brody had disengaged the tank, and as he’d carried the man out of the building, he’d stopped twice, surrounded by flames, to send his own breath into the man’s gasping lungs. Incredibly, the man had survived.

  He’d saved Double D a few times. Double D’s closest brush with death had come when he’d slipped on
the extension ladder and knocked himself unconscious. As he’d dangled by one foot, five floors up, Brody had shot up that ladder and somehow managed to manhandle him down. And Double D was no lightweight.

  “Is he so strong then? Is that how he does it?” asked Melissa. The firefighters shook their heads.

  “Sure, he’s strong, but it’s not that. Lotta guys are stronger. He just goes right in there and does what has to be done. He thinks without thinking. Like he’s in the zone.”

  “What’s the zone?”

  “Same as for Michael Jordan. He sees everything that’s going to happen way before it happens, so he doesn’t even have to move fast. He just moves right. If you see him in action, you never forget it.”

  Melissa sighed. If she saw him in action, she’d probably have a heart attack. Even the sight of him doing paperwork in his office did crazy things to her blood pressure.

  While Brody kept his distance, the other firemen treated her like their favorite little sister. They even gave her a nickname: Hollywood. Ryan told her she should be honored.

  The more time she spent at the station, the more she realized what great guys they were. And gals too, although One didn’t say much and Two, the younger one, seemed to go out of her way to avoid Melissa. It embarrassed her to remember how she’d dismissed firemen as nothing more than “macho men.” She loved being greeted with a casual “What’s shakin’, Hollywood?” She liked the way they teased her, the way they lifted heavy things out of her hands, and the devotion they all felt for their station, for one another, and for Captain Brody.

  Brody led his men and women with a Zen-like calm that seemed to hold them spellbound. Every once in a while he dropped a cryptic remark the firefighters would spend hours debating.

  “Hollywood, what do you think this means?” Ryan called to her as she was dropping off boxes packed with autumn leaves for decorating the tables. “The fire already exists, waiting for the right conditions.”

  “I don’t know, Hoagie. Did you check your manual?”

  “What’s the point of all that education of yours?” He twisted his gorgeous face into a comical frown.

  “Got me. Say it again?” He repeated the words. “I think I heard a monk say something like that once, in a documentary. Where’d you hear it?”

  “The captain,” he said gloomily. “Sometimes he’s like a walking affirmation. Makes my head hurt. How can the fire exist if there’s no fire?”

  Melissa thought about it. “Maybe he means all the elements that make the fire exist, but conditions have to be right for fire to appear.”

  Ryan frowned into the distance. Melissa caught her breath in awe at his sheer gorgeousness. Finally he turned blazing blue eyes on her, and snatched her up in a twirl. “That’s it! You rock, Hollywood. I’m going to blow the captain’s mind.”

  “The captain is looking forward to it.” Brody caught them both by surprise. Ryan quickly put Melissa down, then righted her as she swayed.

  “Sorry, sir. Just having fun. No harm intended.” Ryan gave a vaguely military salute and backed out of the room.

  Melissa, still a little breathless, picked up her box of leaves. “He’s just excited because I helped him solve your latest enigma.”

  “What enigma?” Brody took the box of leaves from her.

  “What is it with you guys, can’t you ever just let a girl carry something? I think I can handle a bunch of dead leaves.”

  “But why should you have to, when you have a big strong numskull around?”

  She shot him a look under her lashes. He looked particularly attractive today. Nothing set off a uniform like rumpled dark hair and a slight five o’clock shadow. “You’re not a numskull. I should have known it before, but I guess it took me a while. I suppose that means I’m the numskull.”

  Brody shrugged. “We see what we expect to see.”

  “There! Another enigma. I’ve figured out your secret weapon. You have them all so mystified they do whatever you tell them.”

  “Is that why Ryan ran out of here?”

  “No, that was because—” Melissa stopped, flustered.

  “Because?”

  Melissa searched for a tactful way to explain it. “Oh, just . . . they think . . . I’m . . . your girl. Because of what happened at the dinner. I told them that’s ridiculous.”

  Brody frowned down at Melissa.

  So his men thought they were together. No wonder they all seemed to vanish whenever he spoke to Melissa. Like now. He looked around. No firefighters to be seen. Melissa wore a self-conscious look along with a ponytail, which made her look about sixteen years old. She was wearing jeans that molded her sweetly curved hips in a way that made his own pants feel too tight. Her soft breasts pushed against her T-shirt, red with some kind of bull on it and some Asian lettering. He squinted at it, then caught Melissa’s curious look.

  “I’m sorry, I was just . . . looking at the bull. Looks familiar,” he stammered.

  “It’s the Red Bull logo. You know, the drink.”

  “Sure, I’m a big fan of it.” Gesturing toward the T-shirt, he accidentally brushed her chest, and saw her take a quick step back. He stepped back too, and clamped both arms around the box of leaves. “Believe it or not, I have no intention of groping you every time we’re alone. And I’ll make sure the guys know you’re not, that we’re not . . . I’ll leave you to your leaves.”

  He took the box into the kitchen and marched back into his office. So much for the calm, collected leader of men. When he’d made that promise about keeping his hands off her, he’d been half joking. But it turned out to be harder than he’d thought. When he was in Melissa’s presence, he seemed to either pounce on her or stammer like a teenager.

  And when he wasn’t with her, he watched her from a distance. He’d never known how sexy organizing a news special could be. When Melissa was at the station, he couldn’t think of anything else until she left. He loved watching her in action. Melissa was the go-to person for anyone with problems or questions. If the question was too technical, she tossed it to Kevin. The rest she solved herself.

  On top of the production aspects of the show, apparently she was also in charge of the cooking itself. One day he nearly ran into her carting in plastic-covered bowls of mashed potatoes and pie filling.

  “I thought Ella was cooking the dinner.”

  “That’s right.” She had a smear of mashed potato on her cheek, and he closed his fists to keep from wiping it off.

  “So what’s all this?”

  “She can’t do everything on the day of the dinner. We have to prep stuff beforehand.”

  “You mean, you have to prep stuff?”

  “Is there a problem, Captain Brody?” She held the bowls in front of her like a shield. He stepped forward and saw a flicker in the green eyes hiding behind her glasses. What did she think he was going to do? Tackle her and roll her in pie filling? Not a bad idea, but instead he lifted one of the bowls from her arms.

  “I’m fascinated by the process, that’s all.”

  “Most of the cooking will be done ahead of time,” she explained. “The viewers will see Ella putting the finishing touches on a fabulous meal. We’re going to show the recipes, and a little bit of the process. I’ve already shot some of that.”

  “You’ve been busy.”

  “An hour-long special is a lot of work.”

  “For you,” murmured Brody, opening the refrigerator.

  Melissa bristled. “Ella does her part.”

  “I look forward to seeing it.”

  “Put it this way. Without her, the show would be a bunch of food on a table. With some camera-shy guys in uniform sitting around hoping a fire breaks out.”

  Brody knelt in front of the jam-packed refrigerator. Stan nosed behind him, sniffing at the fridge. “Get out of here, Stan.” Sulking, Stan went to a corner of the kitche
n and flopped down. “Damn Vader and his energy drinks.” Somehow he managed to find a space for the pie filling in the crowded refrigerator, then reached for Melissa’s bowl of mashed potatoes. Their fingers brushed and a tingle shot all the way up his arm. He jerked his hand away, and made a show of maneuvering the bowl into the fridge. What had they been talking about?

  Oh yeah. Camera-shy firefighters.

  “That’s not fair,” he said. “Some of my guys enjoy being filmed. Vader tried out for Survivor.” He closed the refrigerator door, and stood up.

  “Is he the one who happens to be working out every time we come by?”

  “Yep. You probably won’t recognize him with his shirt on.”

  “So he’s planning to wear one? That’s a relief.”

  Brody smiled. It was nice to know they could talk without him mauling her. “I have to admit, I fought against this project, but you’re doing a good job with it. It’s all anyone’s talking about here. All the guys are excited. And the gals too.”

  Melissa gave a delighted smile that made Brody’s groin twitch. “Thanks. I wasn’t in favor of it either, but it’s turning out better than I thought. I was wondering . . . we’d love to do a shot with Ella on the aerial. You know, show our viewers what it’s like to fight a fire from so high up.”

  “Absolutely not.”

  The smile vanished. She pushed her glasses higher on her nose. “Why not?”

  “Because I don’t trust Ella up there. Because it’s not safe. Because it’s a misuse of expensive life-saving equipment. Do you want me to go on?”

  “What if she just walks up it partway? She can stop and pose a little ways up, then we’ll do a tilt to the top.”

  “Another shot for the calendar?”

  Pink tinted her cheeks. He couldn’t help it. He reached out and wiped off the streak of mashed potato. She went even pinker, and furiously scrubbed the last traces of potato off her cheek.

  “It could totally make the special. Viewers love to get an inside look at stuff like that.”

  “Sorry.” He had to admire her tenacity, not that it would change his decision. “Not going to happen.”