A Firefighter's Ultimate Duty

by Beverly Long

  “Interesting.”

  “We’re just working together on the Spring Spectacular.”

  “Of course.”

  “She’s a marketing type so that’s really great,” Blade added.

  “For sure.”

  Blade smiled. “I’m not fooling you, am I?”

  His dad shrugged. “I can’t take much credit here. It was your mom who picked up on something. She said, and I quote, ‘I think Blade might really like this woman.’”

  “We’ll see how far that gets me.”

  “You’ve been alone a long time,” his dad said. “So long that it might feel comfortable. But a life is meant to be shared with someone. I don’t know what I’d have done without your mom these last forty years.”

  But yet he was deliberately cutting her out of his current battle. Blade wanted to point out the hypocrisy but held back. “I didn’t say I was giving up.”

  His dad laughed and slapped him on the back. “That’s my boy!”

  * * *

  When Daisy got home from her afternoon with Blade, Sophie was not there. And for just a quick second, she panicked. Had her daughter run again? But then common sense settled in and she realized that play practice had started. She started to breathe again.

  Trust was a funny thing. It was just assumed until it was breached, and then it was hard to rebuild.

  She would trust Sophie again. But it might take a while.

  She settled down on her old sofa in her new house with a glass of white wine in hand. It had been a good day. Substantial progress had been made on the Spring Spectacular. Meeting Gertie had been a real relief, and any concerns she’d had about the food had been abated. Obtaining donations for the silent auction had been surprisingly easy and really fun.

  Blade had been spot-on when he’d said that it would go better if he was there for the ask. People knew him. Liked him. Respected him. All of that had been patently obvious. Tomorrow, she would draft an email to Hosea asking what Pratt Sports Spot might be willing to add.

  Meeting Gemma Savick had been a surprise. She could not help but wonder what the big secret was that she was guarding. While Blade hadn’t said anything about it, she suspected that after they’d parted, that he’d either immediately called his dad or returned to the business to find him.

  She had a feeling it was something significant.

  Maybe she should call Blade.

  That was what she’d do if it was Jane who was potentially getting bad news about a parent’s health. That was what friends did.

  Before she could talk herself out of it, she dialed his number.

  “Hi,” he said.

  “Hi. I...uh... I wanted to let you know that I already got something from Gertie on the choices for food. It’s already posted and responses are coming in.”

  “Great, thanks for letting me know.”

  “Oh, sure.” She paused. She needed to just ask. “I’ve been thinking about you. About your dad. Have you talked to him?”

  “Yeah. Just left the garage.”

  “Everything okay?”

  “Not really. Look, my dad won’t want this broadcast around, but I know you won’t do that. He’s got pancreatic cancer.”

  She, who knew little about health care, knew enough to realize that this was bad. “I’m sorry, Blade. That had to have been difficult to hear.”

  “Yeah. My dad was pretty clear about it, though. He doesn’t want to dwell on the situation, and he doesn’t want the rest of us to be concerned. It’s his problem and he’s dealing with it.”

  “Everybody copes in different ways.”

  “I know. But it’s tough.”

  His voice had cracked on the last comment. “Of course it is. And this information is so new to you right now that you probably have a thousand questions that maybe he either wasn’t willing to answer or able to.”

  “How did you know?” he asked. “I don’t know what to tell Raven. It’s her grandfather.”

  He wanted to protect his daughter. But there was no way. She would remember for the rest of her life hearing the news that Nana Jo wasn’t going to recover. He was in a tough spot. And when she’d been hurting and needed help to find her daughter, he’d jumped in with both feet. “Do you have Raven tonight?”

  “Yeah. She should be home from play practice soon.”

  “Will you tell her right away?”

  “I think so.”

  “Will she immediately want to go see your dad?”

  “Probably. But I think that may not be a good idea. She’ll be emotional and right now, he wants everybody to pretend that this is not that bad.”

  “If it feels right, maybe once you’ve talked, the two of you could meet Sophie and I at Know Your Scoop. That place had some amazing-looking ice cream.”

  “It’s forty degrees outside.”

  “My interest in ice cream is not weather dependent,” she said.

  He laughed.

  She was glad she’d been able to make that happen.

  “You’re right. Mine, either. That sounds...really great. And Sophie may be a big comfort to her.”

  “I think she could be. I’m certainly not saying this is what is going to happen, but it wasn’t that long ago that Sophie and I lost my grandmother.”

  “I’ll let you know how the conversation goes.”

  “Good luck.”

  * * *

  Ten minutes later, Sophie came home, script in hand. “This play is going to be so cool.” She took a breath and didn’t stop talking for the next half hour. She sat at the counter while Daisy cooked angel hair pasta and shrimp. By the time they were finished, Daisy knew that the play director, who was also the honors English teacher, was hysterical; the costumes were ridiculous, and the male lead was the cutest boy in the senior class.

  Daisy put their dishes in the sink. “I think it’s going to be amazing.”

  “I’m going to be amazing,” Sophie said loftily. “I don’t know about everybody else. Well, I do think Raven is going to be pretty good.”

  “Speaking of Raven, I want to talk to you about something.”

  “You don’t like her,” Sophie said, jumping immediately to the wrong conclusion.

  “No. That’s not it at all. I wanted to tell you that tonight, Raven is going to learn from her dad that her grandfather is ill. Seriously ill.”

  “Ill like Nana Jo?”

  “Different than Nana Jo, but still very serious. And Raven is likely to be upset and concerned. I just thought you should know. Because I thought it might be good for both Blade and Raven to have something else to think about, I invited them to join us for ice cream tonight. I found a place called Know Your Scoop. Get it. Know as in Knoware.”

  “This is such a weird place,” Sophie said.

  She said it as if weird and bad were not the same thing. That made Daisy feel good. “You’re okay with going for ice cream?”

  “Of course. I like Raven. And I’m sorry about her grandfather. That sucks.”

  “Don’t say sucks. But it does. It truly does.”

  * * *

  Blade ordered Chinese for dinner. It was Raven’s favorite. She ate as if she hadn’t eaten in about a year. “Hungry, huh?” he asked when she’d finished her second helping of chicken fried rice.

  “I’m a growing girl,” she said. She pushed her plate away. “But I think I’ve reached my limit.” She started to get out of her chair.

  “Can I talk to you for a minute?” he asked, holding up a hand.

  “Sure,” she said, settling back down in her chair. “Did I do something wrong?”

  “No.” He stopped, thought about it. “Did you?”

  “Not that I know of. Hoping that my science teacher will start the school on fire with a Bunsen burner doesn’t count, right?”

  He thought
she was kidding. “I saw your Grandpa Savick today.”

  She waited.

  “He had some news for me that I wanted to share with you. It’s...not great news.”

  She straightened up in her chair.

  “He has cancer, Raven. Of the pancreas.”

  “What’s the pancreas do?”

  “It’s part of the digestive system,” he said. There was no need to get too technical.

  “Can you live without it?”

  “You can. But sometimes removal isn’t the first course of action or the best. Your grandfather is in the process of working with his physicians to determine the best course of action. He doesn’t want us to worry.”

  “Are you worried, Dad?”

  Sometimes his little girl was very grown-up. “I’m concerned,” he admitted, not wanting to lie. “But if your grandfather is staying positive and that’s what he wants from all of us, I’m willing to give it my best shot.”

  “Am I going to freak out if I look this up on the internet?”

  He nodded.

  “He could die from this?”

  Again he nodded. “But that’s not saying he will. He may respond very well to treatment and be here to dance at your wedding.” His dad had been telling Raven for years that he couldn’t wait to dance at her wedding. When she was thirty, he would always add.

  “Should I call him?” she asked, her eyes filling with tears.

  “Maybe in a day or two, once you’ve had time to let this settle just a bit. Right now, I’ve got another suggestion. Earlier today, Daisy Rambler and I were canvassing the business district, asking for donations for the Spring Spectacular silent auction. We got something from Know Your Scoop, and Daisy thought it would be great if we could sort of pay back their kindness with our own purchase of some ice cream.” That wasn’t exactly right but close enough. She didn’t need to know that both he and Daisy had been concerned that she was going to be upset. “You up to meeting Daisy and Sophie there for a treat?”

  She sniffed. “Yeah, I guess.”

  “Good. I’ll give her a call. And just so you know, she was with me earlier this afternoon when I first learned something about your grandfather’s situation so she’s in the know. I suspect that she’ll have told Sophie. So don’t feel as if there’s anything that you can’t talk about.”

  Twenty-two minutes later, he and Raven were already at a table when Daisy and Sophie entered. They both had on coats and scarves, and from a distance looked more like sisters than mother and daughter.

  “Hey,” he said, standing.

  Daisy smiled at him and the world, the whole world, seemed brighter. Damn, but she was getting in his head. “Hi.” She switched her gaze to Raven. “I’m glad you could join us, Raven.”

  She nodded, but quickly turned to Sophie. “Want to check out their flavors?”

  When the girls were at the counter, Daisy looked at him. “How is everybody?”

  “I think she took the news pretty well. We’ll see once she has some time to look it up on the internet. That will properly scare the crap out of her.”

  “Yeah. It’s good to have information at your fingertips, but it’s pretty easy for me to go down a rabbit hole. Once when Sophie was little, I went online and in about six seconds I went from thinking she had a sore throat to being convinced it was viral spinal meningitis. We got in the car and practically flew to the emergency room. She had a sore throat.”

  The girls, evidently having decided, motioned them to the counter. Everybody got a dish and returned to the table. Blade and Daisy said little. There was no need. The girls talked non-stop about the play.

  Well after the ice cream had been finished, Daisy looked at her watch. “We better get going.”

  Blade pushed back his chair. “Where did you park?”

  Daisy waved a hand to the right. “Just up the street.”

  “We’re the other direction, but we’ll walk you to your car,” Blade said.

  “That’s not necessary,” she said.

  Blade didn’t bother to answer. He just motioned with his hand for all three females to precede him out the door. At the car, there was an awkward moment when Raven and Sophie hugged each other and he and Daisy simply stood.

  Daisy and Sophie got into her vehicle, and he and Raven turned to walk away. He was five feet away when he realized that something was wrong.

  He turned and listened again as the engine on Daisy’s vehicle failed to catch. It wasn’t going to start.

  “What’s wrong?” Raven asked.

  “I don’t know,” he admitted. He’d grown up the son of two people who knew their way around, in and under a car. Thus, they’d always solved these types of issues. In a classic example of parents wanting a different life for their child, they’d been insistent that he get a summer job anywhere besides the garage. Therefore, his own vehicle literacy was limited.

  He walked around to Daisy’s side and tapped on the window. “What’s the trouble?” he asked once she’d opened her door.

  “I don’t know,” she said, somewhat distractedly. She was looking in her side mirrors. What the heck was she expecting to see? He glanced up and down the street. Empty. Not unexpected. It was a cold, damp night.

  Finally, she looked back at him. “It ran fine on the way here.”

  “Try it again,” he said, nodding toward the ignition.

  Same result as before. “Pop the hood,” he said.

  She did and he looked around, but quite frankly, it was all pretty much a foreign language. He slammed the hood down and came back to her side. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “But I’ve got a plan. The garage has an after-hours number.”

  “Who answers that?”

  “One of the mechanics or maybe even my parents. They take a rotation with on-call duties. Although when it’s my mom’s turn, Dad never lets her do a night call alone. He always goes with her.”

  “I don’t want to bother your parents tonight. It’s been kind of a day for them,” she added.

  “Yeah.” She was right. “I’ll tell you what. How about if Raven and I drive you and Sophie home? Then I’ll take your keys and drop them off in the after-hours box at the garage. In the morning, somebody can come take a look, fix the problem and drop the car off. I’m not exactly sure what time that might be, however.”

  “That might work,” she said. “It’s Saturday. We don’t need to go anywhere right away. I do hate inconveniencing you, however,” she protested.

  “No inconvenience,” he said.

  “I’m going to try one more time,” Daisy said as if the fourth or fifth time might be a charm. It wasn’t.

  She and Sophie got out of her vehicle, and she locked it. They quickly walked to his SUV, which was a block in the other direction. He turned the heater on high once they were inside.

  It took about five minutes to reach her house. During the drive, he sensed a tenseness about her that made him nervous. Car trouble was no fun, but she seemed to be unusually concerned about it. And Sophie was also being extraordinarily quiet, barely answering Raven. Very different from earlier in the night.

  What did Daisy and Sophie know that he didn’t know?

  Chapter 14

  When he pulled into the driveway, Daisy turned to Blade. “I really appreciate this,” she said. It was true. If he’d not been insistent about walking them to the car, then he’d likely not have realized that she had trouble.

  She and Sophie might have been stranded. She doubted there was a cab service in Knoware. Maybe a ride service, but the likelihood that anybody was eagerly looking for passengers on a cold winter night was slim. She’d have had to call Jane and she’d already imposed upon her enough.

  “Of course,” Blade said.

  “For payback, I’d be happy to take the meeting with the Spring Spectacular photographer on my own.”
/>   “We have a photographer.”

  “We do. I booked one this morning.” She opened her door. Heard Sophie do the same in the back seat.

  “I’ll get in the front,” Raven said, also opening her door. That made Daisy smile. No self-respecting teenager wanted to ride in the back seat when shotgun was available. She thought the girl had done really well tonight. Raven and Sophie had had their heads together at the ice cream store. It had been a good plan for them to give Raven a chance to confide in her friend.

  Blade opened his door. “I’ll walk you to the door,” he said.

  “That’s not—”

  He shook his head. “You’ve met my mother. You do have some kind of idea what she’d say if I wasn’t a gentleman?” he asked, his tone teasing.

  “She’d give you the look.”

  “Or maybe worse, which is not someplace you want to go.”

  She stopped protesting. He wouldn’t be dissuaded, and the sooner she and Sophie got inside, the better she was going to feel. She was unsettled. The surprise gift from Tiddle’s. Now car trouble. It could all be nothing.

  But she couldn’t shake the feeling that it wasn’t.

  “Don’t forget, I need your car key,” Blade said.

  She had forgotten. Because her head was in what-if mode. What if Jacob had found her? What if he intended to make good on his promise that he couldn’t accept that they weren’t together?

  As they walked up the sidewalk with Sophie in the lead, Daisy removed her car key from the key ring that also included her house and office keys. She was five feet behind her daughter when Sophie screamed.

  As fast as she moved, Blade was faster, putting his body in front of Sophie’s. Daisy caught up and stood staring at her front door, which had clearly been kicked in and was now hanging somewhat crookedly on its hinges. “Oh, God,” she said, dropping her keys on the concrete. She didn’t pick them up. Instead, she pressed her hand flat against her coat, in the general area of her heart as if it was suddenly racing.