“Obviously how?”
“Well, you can take a woman out of the South, darlin’, but it’s pretty tough to take the South out of a woman.” He delivered the words in a flawless Southern accent, and they shocked her laughter right past her lips.
“Well done, cowboy. But that sounds more like Tennessee than Texas.” Savannah’s curiosity perked.
Of course, Everett’s expression made the Rock of Gibraltar look like a skipping stone. The cadence of his voice returned to neutral. “Georgia, actually, although it’s been a while. So all three of your brothers are firefighters?”
“Mmm-hmm.” She followed him up the ladder to the flat roofline of the engine bay, and the way he focused so intently on what was in front of him rather than below him didn’t get by her unnoticed.
“That’s a pretty big family legacy.”
“That’s a pretty big understatement.”
Okay, so the quip had flown out without the consent of her common sense, but between Captain Westin and instructor Brennan, chances were Everett knew her family history by now. She’d gone out of her way to keep it under wraps at the academy, but she wasn’t fool enough to think no one would ever find out. Everett seemed like a pretty fair-shakes kind of guy, and anyway, it wasn’t as if he’d know who Duke Nelson actually was.
Unlike, say, every other firefighter in the great state of Texas.
“My two brothers in Texas are lieutenants on truck, and obviously Brad is doing the arson investigation thing here in Fairview. Both of my uncles are house captains, all seven of my cousins are firefighters. One of them just made squad in Dallas.” Savannah paused, but better to just get this out now and be done with it. “And my father has been a battalion chief for twelve years.”
“Jesus,” Everett breathed. “Are you kidding me?”
She pulled back to look at him, narrowing her gaze. “You didn’t know?”
“No, I didn’t know.” He exhaled audibly. “I take it you’re the first woman.”
“Try the only woman,” Savannah corrected. “But this is the only thing I’ve ever wanted to do. I wasn’t just raised in a family of firefighters. I was raised to be a firefighter.”
Everett’s shoulders hitched just slightly beneath his turnout gear. “I get it. I know all about family legacies.”
“You come from a family of firefighters, too?” Not too much of a shocker there. The job ran in lots of families, and Everett wasn’t exactly a run-of-the-mill sort as far as ambition went.
“No. I’m the only one. So how come you came all the way out here to Virginia to be a firefighter? You’ve clearly got a lot of connections in Texas.”
She nearly called him out on the abrupt change in subject—turnabout was fair play in the show-and-tell department, after all. But his question begged an answer, and she couldn’t exactly stuff the toothpaste back into the tube. Might as well air out everything.
“I came here because I have connections in Texas.” Savannah scraped the toe of one boot over the rooftop before planting both feet firmly into place. “Don’t get me wrong, my father supports my decision to do the job one hundred percent, and I respect the hell out of the man.”
It was an understatement, and not a small one, but she left it at that and continued. “So does every firefighter in Dallas, though. My brothers and cousins all worked hard to get where they are now, but it’s different when you’re Duke Nelson’s only daughter. The only way I could guarantee that I’d get through the academy solely on my merit was to go someplace where my last name was just that. A last name.”
Realization lit Everett’s stare. “So you really did come to Fairview because your brother is here.”
“Yes.” Her belly tightened in a homesick pang, but she forced herself to brazen it out. “The decision for me not to go through the ranks in Dallas was hard on my father, although I think he understands why I made it. My family is extremely close, Brad and I in particular. I agreed to come out here to Fairview so I wouldn’t be completely alone.” Plus, as much as she’d rather be skinned alive than admit it, Texas hadn’t quite been the same without her oldest brother around.
“Pretty ballsy move to uproot yourself for the job,” he said, and wait . . . was that understanding on his face? “No wonder you’re ready to jump in and prove yourself.”
“It’s not just about proving myself.” Savannah reached down to fiddle with the roping attached to the hundred pounds of hose hanging over the side of the roof, trying to focus on the way her muscles would burn when she hauled it upward rather than the quickening thud of her heartbeat.
But instead of clamming up, she continued. “Ever since I can remember, when anyone asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, the answer was this. My mother worried.” She broke off with an irony-laden smile, because really, it was a gigantic understatement. “So for a year after college, I pushed paper in the fire marshal’s office in Dallas while my mother did her best to convince me to get an MBA, or keep my clerical job, or do anything other than apply to the academy.”
A muscle ticked, just slightly in Everett’s jaw. “So she didn’t approve of you becoming a firefighter.”
“She was concerned,” Savannah corrected. For all her mother’s worry, she’d still been bursting with pride when Savannah had graduated from Fairview’s academy at the top of her class. “But my dad . . . I think he always got it. See, I’m not a firefighter because I’ve got something to prove. I’m a firefighter because I’ve got someone to be.”
“All the more reason to put everything you’ve got into the job,” Everett said, the look of understanding returning to his face in full force.
Savannah blew out a breath. This was going to sting like a slap on sunburn, but that didn’t mean it shouldn’t be said. “Yeah, but as much as I hate it, you were right. I might’ve learned a lot at the academy, but being on shift is totally different. I should probably get past the whole fear of blood, learn how to assess the scene part of being a candidate before I go kicking in any doors.”
“Oh, I don’t know.” One corner of Everett’s mouth lifted in the suggestion of a smile. “Something tells me you’d be pretty good at kicking in doors.”
Savannah eked out a laugh. Honestly, all this deep-feelings stuff was giving her the shivers. “Thanks, Everett. You’re all heart.”
“Tell you what,” he said, jutting his chin at the obstacle course laid out on the asphalt below them. “After shift, I’m going to head over to the scene of that warehouse fire we fought a couple of weeks ago. Oz already did the official report and arson’s been ruled out, but I asked Westin if I could walk through to brush up on procedure for investigations. You beat Donovan’s rookie time through this thing, and I’ll take you with me.”
Excitement sent Savannah’s heartbeat into hell-yes mode. Usually, scene reports were limited to the captain or the rescue squad, and with Oz at the helm of the latter, she’d probably never get a shot at checking one out. If she got a chance to walk through on a reconstruction, even one that had been put to bed, she’d be able to brag to her arson investigator brother for a solid month.
“Has any rookie ever beat Donovan’s time through this obstacle course?” she asked, and now Everett’s smile traveled from ear to ear.
“One.”
But rather than back down, Savannah served up a grin that went toe-to-toe with his.
“I’ll tell you what. When I break yours too, you’re throwing in breakfast before we go.”
Chapter Thirteen
Cole looked up from the last station at the self-made obstacle course, pretty much praying for death. In the spirit of solidarity, not to mention keeping his ass in shape, he’d run the course with Savannah twice.
She hadn’t beaten his time—or Donovan’s—but she’d put everything she had into each drill, growing stronger and more efficient with each run-through.
And hell if that didn’t trip Cole’s trigger. Fast and hard.
He tamped down the want in his gut. They’d agreed t
o forget about what had happened on the fire escape, and truly, it was the smart play. He needed to focus on moving to squad, no matter how sexy he found her sheer determination or how much he now understood the reasons behind it. Savannah’s admission of her family’s legacy—and the reasons she wanted so badly to prove herself—had tempted Cole to tell her about his own. But popping off about his father, and Harvest Moon, and all the sloppy emotions that went with his hasty departure from home would only pull a thread on a sweater he’d long since abandoned. And since he wasn’t going back, revisiting—even in the abstract—was pointless.
Focus, jackass. Find your strategy.
“You ready to take a knee yet, Nelson?” Cole asked, unhooking the air tank of his SCBA and lowering the thing from his screaming shoulders as she made her way toward the finish point.
Her breath heaved in and out with audible effort, her face bright with exertion, but still she said, “Nope.”
“Well, too bad for you, I am. I’m all for effort, but if something catches fire, we’ve both got to have something left to put on the table.”
Rather than argue as he expected her to, Savannah measured him with a you-might-be-right glance. “Okay. But by the end of my orientation period, I’m going to own that record. Just you wait.”
He laughed. As much as her mettle drove him bat shit crazy sometimes, it really was kind of admirable. “Fair enough.”
Cole shucked his gear down to his bunker pants, exhaling an oh-yeah breath at the instant drop in his body temperature despite the stifling weather in the side lot. He’d no sooner passed Savannah a bottle of water and downed one of his own, though, before the familiar piercing alarm sounded off through the speakers in the engine bay.
“Engine Eight, Squad Eight, Ambulance Eight. Report of smoke, sixteen-twelve Martinsburg Avenue. Requesting immediate response.”
Cole reshouldered his gear, grabbing up the two sledgehammers they’d used in the tire drill part of the obstacle course before his pulse even had a chance to speed up. He turned to tell Savannah to get a move on, a ripple of shock working its way down his spine as he realized she’d been right in step with him the whole time. They made it to Engine Eight at the same moment Donovan, Crews, and Jones came busting through the door from the station. Cole paused just long enough to put the sledges back into their storage compartment, then one-handed his way up to the operator’s seat to fire up the engine.
“God damn, Everett. You’re a hot mess.” Crews lifted a brow, although his expression wasn’t unfriendly.
Cole did a two-second check of the signal and his surroundings before tugging his headset into place and pulling out of the engine bay, excitement and adrenaline notching his mood into the go zone. “This is nothing, Lieu,” he said, pointing to his work-messy hair and still-damp T-shirt. “You should see the other guy.”
Crews clapped his headset over his ears, swinging around to throw a stare into the back step from the officer’s seat next to Cole. “I’m lookin’ at her, and you know what, you’re right. You two are a matched freaking set.”
Savannah’s laughter combined with Donovan’s through the headset. “Thank you, sir,” she said, sounding for all the world like she meant it.
“My pleasure, rookie.” Crews shook his head, but Cole caught the tail end of his smile before the guy turned back toward the computer screen on the dash. “Okay, here we go. Sixteen-twelve Martinsburg looks like a commercial building of some sort. Ah! Dispatch is calling it a restaurant. There’s a report of smoke, but that’s all I’ve got.”
Cole flicked a glance at the GPS, his blood speeding up to a full thrum. “I know the area. They just built a bunch of town houses and condos back there off the main stretch. Like a city center, in walking distance from the avenue.” There were no fewer than twenty shops, eating establishments, and other various businesses lined up on the bustling thoroughfare, a good half dozen of which could qualify as a restaurant.
“Wait.” Donovan’s voice crackled over the headset, and Cole would bet his left arm the guy was pulling up specifics on his iPhone. “Google has the address as Campisi’s Italian Bistro. It’s right in between a dog groomer and a bookstore, with what looks like a park along the back border.”
Cole ticked through the internal map in his mind’s eye. “I recognize the name of the restaurant, but I think the place is closed down.” He double-checked the location against the brightly lit path on the GPS. “We’re less than ten minutes out.”
“Copy,” Crews said with a tight nod. “Thirteen’s not going to beat us to this one. Time to move like you stole it, everybody.”
Eight minutes later, Cole swung the engine onto Martinsburg Avenue. The businesses lining either side of the street weren’t terribly close together, but they weren’t far enough apart to keep a nasty fire from spreading in the right conditions. A thick column of smoke chugged upward from a building on the right-hand side of the avenue, smearing a dirty gray line over the flawlessly blue sky. The bitter scent of something burning invaded Cole’s nose, landing on his tongue a few breaths later, and yeah. Nobody was sitting around on this call.
“We’ve got a live one.” Crews pulled his headset off in favor of his helmet, clambering down from the engine not even three seconds after Cole had rolled through the restaurant’s parking lot and thrown the transmission into Park. Cole’s feet hit the ground less than a second later, his heart pinballing against his ribs as he did a rapid-fire assessment of the scene.
Two-story brick building with a cheery red, white, and green awning over the padlocked front door. CLOSED FOR BUSINESS posters plastered over the restaurant’s signage. Empty parking lot. Insidious billows of soot-filled smoke pouring out of every front-facing window on the building.
Something in there was burning. Fast.
“Let’s get this fire under control.” Captain Westin stood in front of his city-issued Suburban, his gear in place along with his cucumber-cool expression. “Oz, get up on that roof for a vent. Jones, you’re on water lines. Crews, I want everyone else on engine inside that building with hoses in the next thirty seconds. Go.”
Cole was in motion before he could register the command from his brain to fall out. He could feel Savannah directly on his heel, with Crews and Donovan right next to him, and even though the heat grew progressively more stifling with each step closer to the restaurant, he didn’t stop until they’d all reached the sturdy-looking pine front door.
“Well. That’s fun,” Crews said, frowning at the shiny, four-inch padlock keeping them on the wrong side of the threshold. One precise snap of the bolt cutters he’d grabbed from the engine had the lock falling to the ground with a heavy clunk, and he lifted a brow at Cole. “You want to breach this thing so we can get to it?”
Cole gave Savannah a split-second glance, but he didn’t think twice. “Okay, Nelson. Let’s see how good you are at busting down doors.”
Her surprise lasted for only one blink before she stepped into the space he’d just vacated by the door handle. “Copy. One busted-down door, coming right up.”
She worked the flat edge of her Halligan bar into the practically microscopic space between the door and the jamb, her face bent in concentration as she crouched down lower for leverage to see what kind of locks they were dealing with. The breach was pretty straightforward, and she hadn’t been bullshitting about being able to hold her own with her irons. As soon as she’d created enough of a gap to visualize the dead bolt, Savannah tilted her Halligan bar to brace the pointed prong against the jamb, using the flat end as a lever and her shoulder for force.
The push loosened the door with a creak without knocking it inward. But rather than letting the unsuccessful attempt rock her, she channeled even more oomph into her second go, finally forcing the door all the way in with a splintering crack.
“Way to get it, rookie.” Donovan slapped the top of her helmet, grinning as they all hustled past the front door to take in the scene. Cole’s throat tightened from both the blast of ashy
smoke and the widespread extent of the fire, and he reached up to yank his mask into place. The entire back wall of the restaurant was engulfed in jagged rows of bright orange flames that were spreading fast, and no way was one water line going to cut it.
“Crews, report.” Captain Westin’s voice crackled through the two-way, and the lieutenant wasted no time answering.
“Dining room is fully involved. Blocked access to the kitchen. We’re going to have our hands full here, Cap.”
“I’m sending Andersen in through the Charlie side to get eyes on the kitchen. Crews, lock this thing down from your end.”
Crews pivoted to look at both him and Savannah. “Everett, you and Nelson take the Delta side wall and work your way in. Donovan and I will start on the Bravo side and meet you in the middle,” Crews yelled past the hiss of his regulator, his feet already in motion.
“Copy,” Cole replied, lifting his voice to a near holler over the whoosh of flames. He turned toward Savannah, and even though her eyes were wide as hell behind the plastic shield of her mask, her stance said she was good to go.
Good fucking thing, seeing as how this fire was already mission critical and it was only getting hotter.
“All right.” He readied their line on nothing more than muscle memory, the movements so deeply ingrained that he would sooner forget how to breathe than get them done. His objectives fell into place in his head, and he concentrated on the steady thump of his heartbeat in an effort to keep his control—and the situation—on the level. “Stay on my six and advance the line. Head on a swivel, you copy?”
“On your six with my head on a swivel,” Savannah repeated. She held her position just behind him, keeping up with each advance as they moved toward the right-hand side of the restaurant. Thankfully, most of the tables and chairs that would’ve made their path a frigging nightmare under normal circumstances had been stacked against the perimeter of the dining room, and he and Savannah slowly, steadily worked their way from the far wall toward the interior. Sweat ran in a steady stream between Cole’s shoulder blades, his muscles and his lungs both burning from the exertion. But Savannah backed him up on the nozzle with efficient movements, and they worked in tandem to get the blaze under control.
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