Dallas Fire & Rescue_Brave Hearts

by Maddy Barone

  Katie looked as small and sweet as her husband was big and mean. She smiled. “Hello. Do you knit?”

  “No!” Dusty cleared his throat, hearing a couple of giggles from the other women. “No, I don’t. Uh, what are you making?”

  She held up some unrecognizable blob of pink. “A baby cardigan.” When his gaze dropped to her waist, she laughed. “Not for me. My sister is expecting.”

  Dusty had nothing to say to that. He glanced around the shop, taking in more details. It sure looked Victorian, with lace curtains at the window, framed portraits of ladies in old-fashioned clothes and upswept hair on the walls, and lighting made to look like oil lamps. Somehow he couldn’t picture Isabel there, which was stupid, since he didn’t know anything about her. He turned his gaze back to the people sitting in a circle all knitting. No, Isabel wasn’t here.

  One of the women, a plump blonde, set her knitting down on the table in the center of the group and stood up. She wove her way through the chairs to smile at him. “Good morning,” she said. “Can help you find something?” She handed him a ball of yarn. Dusty took it automatically, surprised by how soft it was. It reminded him of the tiny bit of yarn glued to a card that Isabel let him touch last night. “This is one of our new yarns, a luscious blend of mohair and silk.”

  Dusty handed it back. “Nice,” he said politely. “Actually, I’m looking for someone. Isabel Ybarra. Do you know her?”

  The blonde brows drew together. “I don’t think so. The name sounds familiar.” She appeared to think for a few moments before shaking her head. “No, I don’t think so. Why are you looking for her here?”

  A voice from the knitting circle piped up. “I know Isa.”

  Dusty look at the speaker. It was the teen girl. “You know Isabel?”

  “Sure. You know her, mom. She works at that other place down on Lex. The—”

  Her mother gave her a sharp look. “Be quiet, Tracy. We don’t know this man. How do we know Isa wants to see him?”

  What do I look like, an ax murderer? He gave the mother his best smile. “That’s all right. You can’t be too careful these days.” The girl was blushing. He shared his smile with her. “What are you working on?”

  The girl held up a thick tube of white. “It’s a cowl. See, it’s three different kinds of cabling. I’m using a simple twist, three strand braids, and a staghorn cable. In between, I used seed stitch and popcorns. I’m trying to decide if I should bind off in picot or if I should do an I-cord cast off. What do you think?”

  Was the girl speaking English? “Do an I-cord.” Whatever the heck that was.

  The guy, Jeremy, gave him a thumbs up. “Here’s a second vote for the I-cord cast off. It’ll be a nice finish for the cowl.”

  Dusty gave them all a smile and a wave and escaped to his truck. He pulled up the list of yarn stores on his phone and found one whose address was 2525 Lexington Avenue. Dos Hermanas Yarn Shop. Bingo. He started the truck and headed south.

  The closer he got, the more familiar the neighborhoods became. Yeah, there was the coffee shop he’d met Isabel at last night. Duh. He shook his head at his own stupidity. She had said she had to get back to the store, and then she ran out. From his limited view around the gorilla who’d stood in his way, he’d watched her through the window until she turned at the corner, so unless she had a car parked nearby she must have walked to her store. And with her leg, it was a safe bet she hadn’t walked far.

  There it was, around the corner from the coffee shop and two blocks down. He found a parking spot across the street, and sat in his truck for a minute to examine the outside of the store and the rest of the block. Not shiny and new, but not rundown, either. The brick storefronts were clean of graffiti, and there wasn’t much garbage in the street. The buildings were probably over a hundred years old, crowded together like aging but dignified ladies.

  His high school Spanish was pretty rusty, but he thought Dos Hermanas meant Two Sisters. The building was narrow, made of mellow golden-brown brick, and had a row of tall, narrow windows that took up nearly the entire front. The door was at the right, with a bright pink sign above it. In a corner of the sign was a ball of black yarn. A strand of the yarn flowed into bold script that said simply, Dos Hermanas Yarn Shop. Not too frilly, Dusty noted with approval. Even the bright pink flowers in window boxes didn’t give him feminine overload like the last place.

  He got out of his truck and crossed the street. When he opened the door, one of the first things he noticed was the aroma of strong coffee. As he inhaled, a smile spread over his face. That was good. He looked the store over. It was long and narrow, the walls lined with black bookcases filled with yarn. In front of the tall, skinny windows was a seating area made up of two couches facing each other and a bunch of mismatched wooden chairs on either side. Those chairs made him smile too. They reminded him of the chairs in his grandmother’s kitchen. None of them had matched either, but he had spent lots of time in those chairs, eating good food and listening to his grandparents and their friends talk about tribal history. And being lectured on the importance of completing his homework to the very best of his ability. Those were good memories, although … He resisted the urge to rub his backside. After a couple of hours in one of those chairs, his butt had gotten pretty sore. These chairs all had pink or black cushions on them that tied around the chair back with wide ribbons. No ruffles or lace, just functional items to make sitting more comfortable.

  The smile was still on his face when he turned to look for Isabel, and it grew when he spotted her. She was helping an older woman and a young teen girl at the checkout counter. She stared at him out of dark eyes that were nearly circular. Her mouth hung open, shock stamped on her face. Dusty fought the urge to wink at her.

  Another woman approached him. Her face was older, but the resemblance to Isabel was plain. “Can I help you?” she asked.

  “Actually, I’m here to see Isabel. I guess she’s busy right now, but I’ll wait.”

  The woman’s brown eyes narrowed as she looked him up and down. “Why do you need to see my sister? She is working.”

  No easy answer came to him. Why did he need to see her? “I ran into her last night. It was the first time I’ve seen her since Iraq.” He opened his mouth to say more, but he didn’t have words to explain his need to talk to Isabel.

  He didn’t need to. The woman’s face lit up. “You are the man who saved her life in Iraq! I’m so happy to meet you. I am Inez Avila, Isa’s sister.” She seized his hand but instead of shaking it, she held it tightly in both of hers. “We can never thank you enough for what you did in Iraq.”

  He retreated a step. “No need to thank me. I was only doing my job.”

  “Ai!” It was a forceful exclamation, accompanied by waving hands. “You heroes all say that. But I see I am making you uncomfortable. Here. Isa! Here is the medic who saved your life in Iraq!”

  Dusty found himself almost cringing under the weight of several stares. Isabel was cringing.

  “Inez,” Isabel said, and followed it up with a spate of Spanish too rapid for him to decipher. Inez answered back just as quickly.

  The teenage girl looked at him with something like hero worship in her wide brown eyes. The older woman nodded at him approvingly.

  He decided it was time for him to cut in, and stepped up to the counter. “Isabel, I’m glad I found you. You left last night in such a hurry that I didn’t get a chance to get your phone number or address.”

  Last night he had thought she wasn’t pretty. It was true; she wasn’t pretty. That was too weak a word for her. Her cheekbones were high and prominent, running parallel to a strong jaw. Her nose had a proud arch above perfect, firm lips. There was color burning now those high cheekbones, and at that moment, he saw that she was beautiful.

  “Specialist Wolfe,” she began in a tight controlled tone, but he cut her off.

  “Please call me Dusty.”

  “Dusty, I am very busy today. I am teaching a knitting class in just an
hour, and I need to get ready for it.”

  “After class could we—”

  “No, I’m sorry. I’m very busy.” The color in her cheeks was darker than before. She gave him a polite, distant smile and turned back to the elderly lady. “Ana, the class fee for Anita is fifteen dollars, unless you want to sign her up for Knitting 102 now also?”

  Ana seem to have trouble tearing her eyes off him. “No, I think just the first class for now. If she enjoys that one, we can sign up for the next class.”

  Isabel was avoiding him. The realization sunk into him slowly but unmistakably. Why? She was the second woman in two days to brush him off. He couldn’t care less about Shawnda, but something rose up inside him and refused to accept it from Isabel. Besides, the quick, sidelong glances she gave him held interest. The mixed signals she sent hooked his attention. He waited, jaw set, until the lady and her granddaughter moved away. Then he stepped up to the counter before Isabel could escape. Staring a challenge into her eyes, he pulled out his debit card and laid it on the counter. “I’d like to sign up for that knitting class that starts in an hour.”

  Chapter Four

  Isabel’s breath left her in a rush. “You can’t!”

  Her sister beamed at them. “Yes, he can. There’s one spot left.”

  “It’s a knitting class,” she said carefully. “He doesn’t want to learn to knit.”

  The impossibly handsome —and just plain impossible— man grinned. “Sure I do. I know a guy who knits his own socks. Says that hand knit socks are the most comfortable socks to wear.”

  Ana nodded delightedly. “They are! Isa taught me how to knit socks. That class just finished last night. She’s a wonderful teacher.”

  “There,” Dusty declared. “Who knows, maybe I’ll knit my own socks someday.” After a moment he gave her a challenging look and added, “Unless you think I’m not capable of knitting?”

  She admitted defeat. “I’m sure you are. Do you have any supplies? Needles? Yarn? The class fee is fifteen dollars and you get a twenty percent off the supplies you need for the class if you buy them before class begins.”

  The casual way he leaned against the counter and the smug expression on his face made her want to kick him. “I have to admit I don’t have any supplies, so I guess I’ll need to buy them now.”

  “Excellent. Inez, can you help Dusty choose his yarn and needles? I’ll run out for a few minutes and be back in time to set up for class.” The smile she aimed at Dusty was as chilly as she could manage. “I’ll see you in a bit.”

  It was small of her to relish his abrupt change in posture, but it felt like a victory. She nodded at Ana and Anita as she passed them, hurried out the door and around the corner of the building to go to her apartment.

  Once inside, she collapsed at the kitchen table. A victory? This wasn’t some sort of battle between them. Dusty had done nothing wrong. She was the one who was behaving irrationally. She should be grateful to him. As Inez said, Dusty had saved her life in Iraq.

  She took a deep breath and forced herself to be completely honest. For years, she considered herself firmly single, telling herself she didn’t need a man in her life. And she hadn’t. Didn’t. Especially not one who looked like Dusty Wolfe. The only reason he would be nice to her was because he felt sorry for her. If he weren’t so handsome, she could accept his interest as something other than pity, but a man who looked like that could have any woman he wanted. There wasn’t anything about her to arouse his interest but her missing leg. She might be pitiful, but she would not accept pity. She would teach him to knit, and treat him like any other student. He would probably lose interest and never come back.

  Even as she straightened her back and lifted her chin, she was aware of a yearning for something more from Dusty Wolfe.

  She was such an idiot.

  After gulping down a quick lunch, Isabel hurried back down the stairs. Her upstairs neighbor, José Galindo, gave her a casual wave as he passed her going up. She nodded at him, but didn’t pause to chat as she usually did, hurrying out and around to the front of the store. Through the windows she could see Dusty and Inez standing in front of the shelves that held the cotton yarn. The pattern they used for the Knitting 101 class was always a dishcloth, and the yarn called for was a sturdy kitchen cotton yarn. He seemed to be listening intently to whatever Inez was saying. The earnest expression on his face somehow made him even more handsome. Darn it.

  Fixing a polite smile on her face she went in and headed toward the back of the store where the classroom was. Dusty and her sister looked up when they heard the bell jingle, but she just breezed past them with a casual wave. The class was only three hours long. Just three hours for her to try to avoid making a fool out of herself in front of Dusty Wolfe.

  She was afraid he would come in before class started, but he didn’t. The first people to arrive were Ana Gonzales and her granddaughter. Ana wouldn’t be a member of the class, but she said she would sit out front and knit until class was over and her granddaughter was ready to leave. Two more class members arrived shortly after that, a pair of women in their mid-twenties who said they wanted to learn to knit so they would have something to do when their husbands were on the road. The husbands were long-haul truckers, away for days at a time.

  Isabel walked around, smiling at the students and setting the knitting pattern and handouts demonstrating each stitch used in the pattern at each place at the table. She leaned her cane in the corner and took her seat at the head of the table. Dusty came in then, looking supremely self-confident with one of the store’s fuchsia pink bags in hand. Any other man would have looked ridiculous. He glanced around the table with a hint of disappointment. Since Anita was on one side of her, and the two ladies were on her other side, Dusty wasn’t able to sit next to her. He moved to the foot of the table and sat down.

  The fifth student came in, panting slightly. “I’m so sorry I’m late,” she said, shoving a heavy swath of silvering hair off her forehead. “Damn traffic.”

  “You’re not late it all,” Isabel said pleasantly. “In fact, it’s still two minutes until one o’clock. Since we’re all here, why don’t we get started? I am Isabel Ybarra, and I’ve been knitting for about ten years. I started knitting as way to keep myself busy, but I fell in love with it, and I can’t imagine not knitting. Let’s go around the table and introduce ourselves. Tell us your name, a little bit about yourself, and why you want to learn to knit.”

  It was her usual opening to a first class when the attendees didn’t know one another. She wondered what Dusty would say. She had noticed all of the women, including Anita, casting sidelong glances at him. After Anita and the silver haired lady, whose name was Joan, introduced themselves, Dusty gave them all a big smile and spoke in playful tones.

  “I’m Dustin Wolfe. I work for Dallas Fire & Rescue, Station Fifty-Eight, as an EMS. And the reason I’m in this class is so that I can get Isabel to talk to me.” He made puppy dog eyes at her. “She’s too busy to find time for me.”

  The women tittered. Isabel shot Dusty her best glare. He smiled angelically back at her. She forced her teeth apart and smiled at the lady on his left. “And you?”

  After that start, Isabel expected every minute of the class to be excruciatingly embarrassing. The other women seemed to find Dusty amusing, and cast sly glances from him to her. She doggedly went on with the class, talking a little about the history of knitting, and how knitting was creating a fabric made up of loops. She explained and demonstrated how to cast on. The students pulled their newly purchased knitting needles and balls of yarn from their bags and practiced making slip knots and loops around their thumbs. Some small, evil part of her saw that Dusty’s big hands fumbled with the procedure. He did manage to get the correct number of loops on his needle without any one-on-one coaching from her. His stitches were so tight that he struggled to get his needle through to make a knit stitch, but the determination and concentration on his face softened her. It was normal for new knitters
to struggle with the proper tension. She had actually broken one of Inez’ bamboo knitting needles when she was learning, so he was already doing better than she had. And purling, which she disliked, seemed to come easier for him.

  By the halfway point of the three-hour class, he’d learned to keep his yarn in back of the needle to knit and in front of the needle to purl. He’d gotten the hang of knitting faster than anyone in the class except for Anita, and from the envious looks he shot the girl, it was clear he didn’t like being second best. Isabel was careful to maintain a strictly professional manner, trying to treat him with the same interest and encouragement she showed the other students. He responded warmly, but with no sign of the flirtation or teasing she’d expected. His attention was on his knitting. She stood beside him, wondering what it would be like to be the recipient of such fierce focus.

  She left him to move back to the head of the table. “Everyone has done very well,” she announced, fibbing only a little. Joan was struggling. “Let’s take a break. There’s water, coffee, and some snacks in the store.”

  Dusty was the last one to get up. Isabel thought about hurrying out with the others to avoid him, but he obviously wanted to talk to her. Pausing at the door, she studied the small chip in the wood flooring and waited for him to speak.

  He stood quite close to her and spoke in a low voice. “Isabel, have I done something to offend you?”

  She jerked her head up to stare at him. “What? No!”

  “Then why did you run away last night? And why are you now acting like I’m something to be avoided at all costs?”

  “I’m not.” She snapped the words out, then let out a breath. “I am. I’m sorry.” She glanced quickly up, and found herself snared by the not quite hidden hurt in his eyes. “It’s not you. You didn’t do anything wrong.” Tiny stabs of pain made her realize she was clenching her hands so tightly her fingernails bit into her palms. She forced them open. “When I saw you last night, I was really happy, but it also made me remember things that I want to forget.”