Fearless

by Kimberly Kincaid

  Savannah nodded, committing the information to memory. “Thanks. Most of what I saw when I was here on Friday was the captain’s office and the engine bay.”

  “Figures,” Rachel said with an amiable eye roll. “I swear those guys on engine would spend half a day showing off every last hose, nozzle, and Halligan bar in the storage compartments, but heaven forbid they show you where to eat or sleep or pee.”

  “I don’t know. I’m kind of here for the hoses and Halligan bars. To be honest, the other stuff seems like it’s mostly extra.”

  Rachel’s flame-colored brows winged upward, and Savannah realized the weirdness of her statement too late. But rather than giving Savannah a hard time or distancing herself with an awkward alrighty then maneuver, Rachel simply said, “Damn, girl, you really will fit in around here. Come on. With any luck, the guys on squad haven’t hogged all the coffee.”

  “Okay.” Savannah nodded, a tentative smile on her lips. “Sure.”

  She followed Rachel into the comfortably noisy common room, a thread of relief uncurling low in her belly as they made their way past the pair of couches by the door and headed for the kitchen area running the length of the far wall. She’d expected a decent amount of friction in her first couple of shifts. Her brothers had made no bones about pointing out that her being female was likely to turn her rookie status into a high-expectations double whammy, and she was certainly no stranger to doubtful expressions and disbelieving stares.

  But between the tiny bit of headway she’d made with Everett outside and how honestly welcoming Rachel seemed to be despite Savannah’s lack of girly tendencies and social graces, maybe—just maybe—Savannah had misjudged how much her gender would affect her acceptance at Eight.

  And then the chatter of conversation and the soft clinking of coffee cups being filled came to a rough halt, and she realized all at once what Everett had meant when he’d told her she was going to have a hell of a first day.

  Savannah steeled her spine, following Rachel to the rectangular island-slash-serving counter separating the kitchen, from the rest of the common room. Mimicking the paramedic’s casual actions, she grabbed a white ceramic mug from the tray next to the coffeepot and filled it with a quick pour. She was wired enough that the caffeine was probably not her best plan, but she didn’t want to call any more attention to herself than absolutely necessary.

  The dead silence still pushing against her eardrums was already taking care of that.

  On second thought, screw this. She’d never been good at blending into the walls anyway.

  “Morning, everybody.” Savannah planted her palms over the stainless-steel counter, making sure to face everyone in both the kitchen and the dining area beyond. She waited out the surprise-widened stares that accompanied the continuing quiet, but she was already in for a penny. Might as well go for the whole damn pound. “I know my being here on engine is a bit of a new situation for all of us. I just wanted to say how excited I am to have landed at Eight. I’m glad to be part of the team.”

  The pin-drop silence lengthened for five seconds, then five more before a rude snort cut through the air, the sound coming from the head of one of the two farmhouse-style tables running parallel to the island. “Then you’d better get comfortable where you’re standing.”

  “I’m sorry?” Savannah asked, adrenaline tightening her chest like a steel tourniquet. The back of her neck prickled hard as C-shift’s rescue squad lieutenant, Dennis Osborne, stood to stare her down, but she jammed her boots into the floor tiles and leveled her gaze right back.

  Five-ten, maybe five-eleven. More salt than pepper in both his crew cut and the three days’ worth of scruff on his jaw. A lean, work-hardened frame with an expression to match.

  Stone-gray eyes so full of disapproval that Savannah nearly flinched.

  “House rules. The rookie cooks,” he said, his gravel-covered voice as unyielding as it was unfriendly. “So from now on, the kitchen is your part on the team, sweetheart.”

  Instinctively, she turned to her right, where Everett stood at attention by the kitchen counter, flanked by Donovan and Crews. Although he met her eyes, his expression was unreadable—giant shocker there—and after a second, it became clear that she was not just on her own, but on her own in front of the entire house, save the still-absent captain.

  Lieutenant Osborne was obviously testing her mettle by throwing down a challenge right out of the gate, and she’d bet dollars to doughnuts he was assigning her KP because she was a woman, not because she was their newest candidate. Savannah opened her mouth, primed and ready to loosen the retort burning a hole in her tongue.

  But she bit down on the words just shy of launch. As badly as she wanted to tell the lieutenant exactly where to shove his Cro-Magnon mentality, she also knew that breaking bad with the second-highest-ranking firefighter in the house before her first shift had even started was a recipe for ruin. Just because she knew how to cook, and cook well, didn’t mean he had to know it. If Osborne wanted to strong-arm her with his gender bias, fine.

  Like her daddy always said, it took two to tangle assholes. And while she wasn’t about to start her career in the ditch, she wasn’t exactly a take-shit kind of girl, either.

  “All right.” Savannah inhaled all the way to the bottom of her lungs with a sickly sweet smile as she met the dare in Oz’s flinty stare. “I’m happy to cook for y’all.”

  “Good.” The corners of his mouth lifted in a hint of sharp-edged satisfaction.

  But rather than shrink back or admit defeat, Savannah held his gaze despite the rush of her pulse in her ears.

  “After all, they’re your taste buds, Lieutenant.”

  Chapter Four

  Cole sat with his ass firmly planted on the bench alongside the dining table in Station Eight, just as he had for the last twenty minutes while Captain Westin had gone through roll call, announcements, and shift assignments.

  Christ, he was screwed, and not even in a way that would leave him satisfied and smiling. Of all the people Savannah could’ve gone toe to toe with, she’d just had to poke back at the one firefighter in the house with the most tenure. Not to mention the most influence, on both engine and squad.

  On second thought, screwed might not cover this.

  Cole shoved himself to his feet, ignoring the side-eye he was getting from Donovan and Oz and pretty much everyone else in the house other than Rachel and Jonesey. Westin had dismissed them, although the captain was unaware of what had transpired between Savannah and Oz thirty seconds before he’d come into the kitchen for roll call, and Cole would be damned if he’d let all the emotions flying around get in the way of doing his job.

  “Nelson,” he said, jerking his chin at the doors leading out of the common room, and miraculously, she jumped up from her spot next to Rachel to follow him into the hallway. Her duffel bag bounced sloppily against the hip of her dark blue uniform pants, which brought Cole to their first order of business. “I’ll assign you a locker so you can store your stuff. The locker room and bathrooms are both unisex, but we rotate with Rachel for the showers. She bunks in at night just like everyone else, and so will you. I’m sure she’d be willing to answer any questions you’ve got about protocol.”

  “I appreciate the offer, but I’m not a paramedic. I’m a firefighter. If it’s all the same, I’d like to take direction from you.”

  Cole tamped down the counter-argument brewing in his chest. He was going to train Savannah, no matter what. If she wanted to opt for the hard way, fine by him. She’d learn fast enough to be careful what she wished for.

  “Suit yourself,” he said, aiming himself toward the locker room and the adjacent engine bay. “Speaking of which, your turnout gear is in the equipment room. We can grab it while we’re back here.”

  “Okay.” Savannah’s expression brightened, the shot of pure excitement lighting her chocolate-colored eyes tempting Cole to smile. Instead, he pocketed the urge and reached for the locker room door. He might understand her
enthusiasm, but he wasn’t here to be Savannah’s friend. With her track record so far this morning, he really just wanted to get them through the damned shift unscathed.

  “Don’t get too excited. We usually spend the first hour or so after roll call on housekeeping, both literal and figurative, and today’s no exception. You’ve got your house assignment. You just need your gear ready to go in case we get an early call.”

  Savannah slipped a palm around the strap of her bag, her knuckles going white over her grip. “You’re seriously going to stand by the decision to make me cook.”

  “Since the person who made that decision outranks the hell out of me, yeah. I sure am. The chain of command isn’t optional around here.” He stopped at a bank of lockers in the middle row, most of them labeled with Sharpie on masking tape. The one a few doors down from his stood vacant, and he pulled it open with a metallic squeal. “I’ll grab the tape while you get comfy here in Shangri-La.”

  Ninety seconds later, Savannah’s things were safely stored, but she looked no happier than when he’d left. “You don’t think sticking me in the kitchen is a little sexist?”

  “No, I don’t,” Cole said, not just to knock down the idea, but because it was the truth. “Oz wasn’t bullshitting you about the house rule. Jones did kitchen duty before you, and before him, when we had no candidate, we rotated. You won’t cook every time you’re on shift, but for now, your name is on the list next to KP, so that’s what you’ll do.”

  She closed the door to her locker, her body language still balking all the way. Cole tugged a strip of masking tape from the roll in his hand and slid it over the flat metal surface, penning her last name in block letters before turning back to meet her stare.

  “What about when I’m done cooking breakfast? What do I do then?” Savannah asked, and huh, couldn’t say he’d been expecting that.

  Cole shook off the shock running through his veins. “Why don’t we make the theme for today ‘one step at a time’?”

  “I can handle it, you know. I’m good enough to do this job.”

  Whether it was the sudden vulnerability threading through her voice or the odd sense of solidarity he felt in her desire to prove herself, Cole couldn’t be sure. But something deep and almost forbidden propelled him toward her, close enough to see her dark lashes fan upward in surprise as her chest rose on an intake of breath.

  “Don’t tell me, Nelson. Show me. Got it?”

  She nodded, and the bounce of her ponytail filled the space between them with the crisp scent of fresh laundry on the line. “Copy that.”

  “Good. Now let’s get moving.”

  Cole peeled his stare from hers, forcing his boots through the locker room and his suddenly sketchy pulse back into submission. Savannah kept up with him stride for stride the whole way to the equipment room at the back of the engine bay, and at least he wouldn’t have to worry about her lagging behind when shit got critical.

  “Boots, bunker pants, coat, hood, gloves, and helmet are all standard issue,” Cole said, clicking on the light switch to illuminate the tight confines of the equipment room. “When you’re not on shift, all of your gear stays in here. When you are, you’re going to want to keep it handy in the engine bay.”

  Savannah’s chin popped up, her feet coming to a halt at about three steps into the dimly lit space. “Whoa, that’s a smell,” she said, gesturing to the soot-laced gear cramming the double-wide wooden storage cubbies lining either side of the narrow room.

  He took a deep inhale, recognizing the sharp bite of smoke permeating the air around them as if the scent was an afterthought. “Ah, you get used to it.”

  Her expression suggested she highly doubted it. “Is there some kind of station-wide code against actually washing your stuff?”

  “There are machines right off the common room. You can use ’em as much as you’d like. But no matter how much you wash your gear, after a while, it’ll see enough use that the smell of smoke just sticks around.”

  “So you guys see a lot of fires, then?” She took the box Cole had pulled from the shelf already labeled with her name, and a kid on Christmas morning had nothing on her as she started rooting through its contents.

  “You’re putting the cart before the horse again, candidate.”

  “And you’re dodging the question, Everett. How am I supposed to learn things if you don’t tell me when I ask?”

  A quick laugh escaped from his chest before he could check it. “Fine. Yeah, we see our fair share of fires. Along with bunches of other things you’ll need to be ready for.”

  She unearthed the helmet from the bottom of the box, her brows climbing in question. “Such as . . . ?”

  “Floods, chemical spills, gas leaks, people trapped in all sorts of places . . . oh, and car wrecks. We get a ton of those,” he said, and it didn’t escape his notice that the last entry on the list made Savannah’s jaw go tight.

  She lifted the helmet to the crown of her head, fumbling with the straps around her ears. “Wow. Guess you see a lot of everything, then.”

  “We,” Cole corrected, letting her struggle with the tangled mess for another minute before lifting his hands in a nonverbal offer to help. “You have a problem with car wrecks?”

  Savannah leaned forward, waiting until he’d righted the straps and tightened her helmet before shaking her head. “No. I don’t have a problem with anything.” She brushed her fingers over the straps, as if she were trying to memorize them by feel. “And what do you mean, ‘we’?”

  Cole shrugged. While he was going to lean on her and lean on her hard so he could take his spot on squad, he’d never been one to fuck with a rookie’s head just for the sake of seniority. Especially when it came to Station Eight’s golden rule.

  “You might be a rookie with a hell of a lot to learn, but you’re still part of the house, and we work as a team. We see a lot of everything.”

  “Oh.” She blinked. “Okay.”

  Rather than sticking her response with a cocky comeback—or worse yet, that vulnerable mind-meld thing that had thrown him for a loop a few minutes ago—Savannah simply undid her helmet and grabbed the rest of her gear from the box. He’d moved his own gear to the engine bay just before roll call, so his arms were as empty as hers were full, but he resisted the urge to offer to help on their trip out of the equipment room. When shit caught fire, she’d have to be able to manage her gear on her own just like everyone else. Not that she’d probably let Cole help her, even if she was on fire.

  And not that her determination and drive weren’t one hell of a turn-on.

  “Right.” He ground to a halt alongside Engine Eight, pulling himself into the boxy confines of the back step. “Most of your gear can stay in here. There’s a storage space for your mask and SCBA built into the back of your seat. Where you want the rest is up to you, but most guys keep everything in the engine so they can gear up on the way to a call.”

  Surprise colored Savannah’s face in the shadows of the back step. “You . . .” She paused, then backtracked. “We don’t gear up before leaving the station?”

  “Nope,” Cole said, sitting back on his heels to look at her. “It takes too long, and believe me when I tell you, the engine operator will leave your ass here if you lag behind when that all-call goes off.”

  “Let me guess. You drive, don’t you?”

  Damn, her intuition really was pretty good. Either that or she spoke fluent sarcasm, which wasn’t a bad skill to have around this place. “Very good, candidate. Yes, I usually operate the engine.”

  He took a minute to show her the best places to store her equipment and to assign her an empty seat in the step, purposely putting her across from Donovan. For all his smartass tendencies, the guy was one of the best firefighters Cole knew. He’d have Savannah’s six if she needed help gearing up. Provided she’d actually ask for any.

  “Looks like you’re set out here,” he said, jumping back down to the concrete floor of the engine bay. Cole braced himself for round
two of the breakfast wars—she still clearly didn’t want to cook, if the look on her face was any indication.

  So it surprised the shit out of him when she stepped back down to the engine bay, squared her shoulders, and turned toward the house without pause.

  “Yup. Unless we get an early call, I guess I’ll see you at breakfast.”

  * * *

  Cole was three compartments into his equipment check on the rig when the echo of footsteps signaled he was about to become a party of two. Sure enough, Alex poked his head around the entrance to the narrow alley between the ambo and the engine, a shit-eating grin spreading over his face.

  “Hell of a Monday so far,” he said, sauntering over to slap Cole on the shoulder before leaning against the red-and-white side panel next to the open compartment.

  “Hell of an understatement.” Cole huffed out a laugh, tucking the inventory clipboard under his arm with a little bit of wing and a whole lot of prayer. “Please tell me Nelson is in there cooking breakfast and not trying to start World War Three.”

  “She’s in the kitchen, as assigned. Whether or not you can call it cooking . . .” Donovan held one palm parallel to the floor, angling it side to side in an eh motion. “Let’s just say she’s giving it a shot.”

  “Wonderful.” Cole shut the engine compartment with a metal-on-metal bang, dropping his voice to keep their conversation private despite the limited visibility of their surroundings. “Listen, I need a favor. It’s kind of a big one.”

  “I’m always happy to have you owe me, the bigger, the better,” Alex said over a grin. “Shoot.”

  Cole dialed down his breath nice and easy in an effort to set the bar for his pulse. But he couldn’t afford for Savannah’s knee-jerk reactions to get in the way of him getting her trained. “I put Nelson across from you in the step since I’ll probably be in the front whenever we roll out. Can you just keep an eye on her? She’s wound pretty tight, and the last thing I need is for her to stroke out from all the adrenaline on her first couple of calls.”