Fire at Dawn: The Firefighters of Darling Bay 2

by Lila Ashe

  Coin flexed his right arm. “Well, what can I say?”

  “I told her Engine Two was out of quarters, but that I could send you guys.”

  “Liar,” said Coin. “It was a Zone One call. And Tox is way better looking than Devo.”

  Lexie crossed her legs under herself. “Devo is hot. But you’re better looking.”

  Coin coughed, and then said, “Stop it.”

  “It’s true.” Lexie tilted her head, taking a good, close look at Coin. He really could be in movies, with that hair so black it was almost blue and those dark chocolate eyes. He had heavy cheekbones and deliberate eyebrows. His jaw was firm, and he kept himself clean shaven, even going so far as to shave at night sometimes. The things she knew about these guys. “Why is your nose crooked?”

  Coin touched the bridge of his nose. “Ummm.”

  “No! Don’t get shy!” Coin was so quiet around some of the other dispatchers they called him Ghost behind his back. They’d see him in the hallways, and then he’d be gone, as silently as he’d come. “You’re not allowed to do that with me. We’re friends. Besides, your nose gives you a …”

  “A ridiculous look?”

  “A look of badness.”

  Shaking his head, Coin said, “No idea what you’re talking about.”

  “Like you broke it in a bar fight or something. Like you did something that gave you a bad reputation.”

  “I can’t believe you don’t know how I did it.”

  How had she never asked? He was her best friend, the person she talked most to. Lexie leaned forward in eagerness, drawing herself closer to him by pulling her chair along her workspace tabletop. “Tell me you dropped your Harley at ninety on a blind curve at night. Maybe while you were outrunning the cops.”

  “Nope. Nothing that fast. In fact, I was standing still at the time.”

  “You warded off a robber who clocked you before you decked him, and then you returned the old lady’s purse while blood ran down your chin.”

  Coin’s eyes widened. “You’re gory, huh?”

  “I like to imagine things.”

  Rolling his chair a foot forward, Coin looked over his shoulder. In a lower voice, he said, “I was on a call. On the ladder, thirty feet up.”

  “This happened at work?” Why didn’t she remember that?

  “I was a rookie. I don’t think you had started yet. Anyway, it was dark. It was storming. Lightning crashed overhead.”

  “Lightning and you were on a ladder? No bueno. Were you hit?”

  “I was.”

  Lexie couldn’t stop the little screech she gave. The business line rang and she made short order of it, transferring the citizen to the voice mail they wanted. Then she said, “Go on.”

  “Like I was saying, I was hit.”

  “You could have been killed. Lightning actually hit you?”

  “Now, now,” Coin spread his fingers wide. “Slow your ponies. I didn’t say what hit me.”

  “You’re killing me.”

  “I was hit by a falling branch.”

  Lexie blinked hard. “You were up in a tree?”

  One nod. “I was. On a very important call.”

  “Cat in a tree. You broke your nose on a cat in a tree call? How is it even possible that I’ve never heard this before?”

  “I pay the guys cash once a month not to bring it up.”

  Lexie laughed. “I almost believe you. Did you get the cat?”

  “Nah. Branch hit me in the face, I stuck to the ladder like a burr, which your dad liked, when he heard about it.”

  “I bet he did. He liked stubborn.”

  “Once I was on the ground and bleeding everywhere, Tox told the lady who called that she and her kitten could stay up the tree till Christmas, and we weren’t coming back.”

  “And now you hate cats, like every other man. Except you have a reason.”

  Coin rubbed his nose. “Truth?”

  “Duh.”

  “I went back and got the kitten after I got off work. I climbed the tree and put it in my shirt and climbed down. Scratched my shirt to ribbons and I was bleeding when I put my feet on solid ground.”

  Lexie clapped her hands. “I am so mad that I’ve never heard this.”

  “No one knows that part. I don’t even know why I’m telling you.”

  “Because you adore me.” She knew she was Coin’s favorite dispatcher, and he was by far her favorite firefighter, though she loved all her guys. “What did the woman say when you showed up with her kitten?”

  He sighed, and the tops of his cheeks got that windburned look again. “Turned out it wasn’t hers. She’d just heard it crying up there. She didn’t even like cats.”

  “What did you do with it?”

  He shrugged. “You know.”

  Lexie gasped. “You still have it.” She waited for a second to read his face. “You do. Coin Keefe, that is the cutest story I’ve ever heard.”

  “Serena wanted a kitten.”

  “Do not lie to me. She’s eleven. Your wife—”

  “Ex-wife,” Coin said.

  “Your ex-wife was probably barely even pregnant back then. And don’t tell me Janice wanted to keep it because I know her, too, don’t forget. It’s not like she’s the warm and cuddly type.”

  “I will admit,” Coin said, “that I wanted to keep the cat. So I did.”

  Lexie rested her chin on her fists again. “What did you name it?”

  Coin sighed. “Nosey.”

  “Come on, tell me.”

  “That’s its name.”

  “Oh!”

  Coin rubbed his nose again self-consciously.

  Lexie bent forward at the waist laughing. Sometimes she was self-conscious about how loud her laugh was, but her big laugh always made Coin laugh, too, and this time was no exception.

  “I’m sorry,” she wheezed after she’d grabbed her breath back, “but that’s seriously the best name. You are the cutest guy ever.”

  Coin groaned. “Great.”

  “Why do you say it like that? You’re adorable.”

  “No firefighter wants to be adorable.” He glared at Lexie, a dark, brooding glare that she didn’t buy for a minute.

  “That’s how you get all the action, right?”

  He goggled at her. “Are you kidding me?”

  “You nag ‘em with your adorability.”

  “I wish you would stop saying that.”

  “Why do girls go out with you, then?”

  Coin stood. “This has been fun. I’m going to go see how Luke’s getting on with dinner.”

  “Don’t you go anywhere, Keefe.” Lexie felt a stirring of excitement. “I’m suddenly intrigued by your recent dating history. Why don’t you ever tell me about it? Sit.”

  “You don’t tell me what to do.” He said it with a small grin. They both knew she did tell him what to do. That was her job, after all.

  “Sit? Please?” Niceness wouldn’t hurt, she supposed. “I’ll make some coffee for you.”

  “You make it too weak.”

  “I’ll make it so that you can’t stir it at all.”

  “Sounding better,” he granted, hovering next to the chair he’d just vacated.

  “So that the fork melts when you put it in the cup.”

  He sat. “Why would you put a fork in a cup of coffee?”

  “You ask too many questions,” said Lexie, filling the small carafe at the water cooler. “I get to ask to the questions. I’m the dispatcher. I’m the one who grills you.”

  Coin raked his fingers through his dark hair. “I’m getting a little worried.”

  “You should be.” She added five scoops of coffee instead of her normal two for the half-sized carafe and pushed start.

  Engine Three radioed, “Three in quarters.”

  Lexie pushed the headset transmit button that was hooked at her hip. “Darling copies.”

  “It weirds me out when you do that,” said Coin.

  “What?”

  “I
can’t hear anyone talking and then you respond.”

  She tapped the headset she kept on when she was in the ComCen. “I love the wireless.”

  “If it means you make me coffee while still working, I love it, too.”

  Lexie leaned again on her console and rubbed her hands together. “Okay. Tell me about the last girl you dated.”

  “You met her.”

  “No, I didn’t.” Lexie would remember. She popped a Tootsie Roll into her mouth. “Want one?”

  He shook his head. “You did meet her. At the Christmas party.”

  “You didn’t take anyone last year.” Instead, Lexie remembered him dancing with all the dispatchers, one by one, while the other guys danced with their girlfriends and wives. He hadn’t asked Lexie. She’d wondered if she just wasn’t his type—maybe he liked the skinny ones.

  Now was her time to find out.

  “Monica,” Coin said. “The vet assistant.”

  “Oh! The one you brought like three years ago?” That couldn’t have been his last girlfriend.

  He cast a look out the window behind her. “That’s her.”

  Lexie spoke around the candy. “She was so boring.”

  “Really, Lex? Thanks.”

  She put a hand over her mouth. “Sorry. But she talked about her cat, like, the entire night.”

  “She and I had that in common. Cat-lovin’.”

  “See?” said Lexie triumphantly. “You’re adorable.”

  Coin fixed her with a stare that suddenly made Lexie want to take back the word. He didn’t look adorable. For one moment, Coin smoldered.

  Lexie choked on her Tootsie Roll.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Lexie managed to pull in a breath deep enough to cough. The Tootsie Roll dislodged from her esophagus.

  “Do you need the Heimlich?” Coin was already next to her, his face serious.

  She tried to laugh and ended up coughing harder. “No,” she managed.

  “Put your hands to your neck in the universal choking symbol if you do.”

  Lexie nodded. Sweat broke at her hairline. Was it the Tootsie Roll or him being so close that was making her so nervous? Her skin felt superheated, and she flipped on her desk fan.

  Coin laid his hand on her back and rubbed firmly in a circle. “You all right?”

  Had he ever touched her before, besides maybe a brief hug when they got together with the guys for poker? Lexie said, “Fine.” She turned her chair so he wasn’t touching her.

  Time to take back the conversation. “What dating site are you on?” she squeaked.

  “Losers-R-Us dot com.”

  “You’re not on any dating sites?” That couldn’t be true, could it? A guy like him would be swamped online. He’d have a hundred girls to choose from in twenty-four hours, even in a town as small as Darling Bay.

  “Are you on one?”

  She cleared her throat again. “Of course.”

  Coin stared at her. “You go on dates with total strangers.”

  “It’s fun.” That was her party line. Lexie tried very hard to believe it. She even succeeded some of the time.

  “It’s fun to go on blind dates and make small talk with people you have nothing in common with?”

  Rescue Two gave an almost indecipherable squawk on the radio, but Lexie know Danny’s mumbles well. “Copy,” she said. “Rescue Two available on the air.” Dating could be fun. Sometimes. In the last year, though, she’d only had a couple of okay dates with guys who turned out to be too boring to see twice. “People are fascinating.”

  “Tell me your most fascinating date.”

  She took a moment to think. “Last year, there was the guy who was a commercial fisherman.”

  “Why?”

  “Why what?”

  Coin’s tone was pushy now. “Why was he fascinating?”

  She’d been fascinated by his thick wrists. She’d stared at them all night, looking at the way the veins on the backs of his hands bulged, wondering if he was … well-endowed everywhere. She hadn’t found out, though. He’d called her, yeah. But she hadn’t gone out with him after that one night.

  But it hadn’t only been his wrists that had fascinated her. “Because his job was so dangerous.”

  “Pulling salmon out of the ocean?”

  She shot him the look that quieted most battalion chiefs. “It has a higher fatality rate than firefighting. Fishing as a profession has the highest fatality rate in America. By far.” It was why she’d accepted his offer of a date.

  “Oh.” Coin looked nonplussed for a moment, then he recovered. “So you can meet amazing people online. Why are we talking about this again?”

  Lexie twisted so she could reach her personal computer. “We’re putting you online right now.”

  “That, my friend, would be a cold day in a very deep place I hope never to visit.” He leaned back in his chair and laced his fingers behind his head.

  Lexie lifted her phone. “Don’t move.”

  “What?”

  She snapped his picture. “And that is going to be your profile picture.”

  “What do I get out of this?”

  Raising an eyebrow, Lexie said, “This is a conversation you usually have with a parent. But if you need me to explain it to you …”

  “Quit it,” said Coin. “I mean it. I’m happy the way I am.”

  “Alone.”

  “I have Serena.”

  “Alone half the time.”

  “I call it single. Not alone.”

  “Coin, I’m single. Being single means going out with people. With friends. On dates. Doing things that are fun and frivolous and sometimes ridiculous and having a good time doing them.”

  He stood and got himself a cup of the coffee that had stopped sputtering into the carafe behind him.

  “You don’t do that,” continued Lexie. “The nights you don’t have Serena, what do you do?”

  “Work overtime so I can keep paying Janice.”

  “And that’s what I’m saying. Come on,” she said, bringing up HoldMe.com. “Let me do this for you.”

  “So tell me,” said Coin, leaning against the counter and taking a big sip of the coffee Lexie knew was probably still too hot. “What are you getting out of this?”

  “Nothing but the pure, unadulterated joy of helping another human being.”

  “Screw that,” he scoffed. “Not good enough.”

  “What would make it worth it for you? I’ll write the ad for you, if you want.”

  “Nah,” he said, taking another sip. “You’ll have to do that anyway, since I know I’m not going to. Something else. Something better.”

  Lexie didn’t know what he meant. “What else can I do to talk you into it?”

  “A bet.”

  Lexie squinted at him. “I don’t gamble.”

  “What about our poker games?”

  She grinned. “That’s not gambling. That’s taking candy from babies. And besides, I don’t trust you. What do you mean by bet?”

  “A bet means we’re both into this. That we’re both invested. I have no interest in just being your entertainment, something for you to laugh at.”

  What if his feelings were hurt because she was trying to get him online? “You know I’m not teasing you. I’m pushing you because I care about you.”

  “Then prove it.”

  “How?”

  “Put something on the line. Something that matters to you.”

  Something that mattered to Lexie? What didn’t matter to her? Everything did. Coworkers’ problems, and citizens’ complaints. 911 calls mattered almost as much as the little old lady who needed help opening her garage door. Friendship mattered to Lexie. Family did, too, even though she tried to pretend sometimes she didn’t have a mother.

  Love mattered to Lexie. Since she and her last boyfriend—a tax accountant who had loved spending time with his online game more than he had with her—had broken up last year, though, she had tried not to think about that too hard.
<
br />   “What?” Coin said, his voice demanding. “You thought of something.”

  “No …”

  “What?”

  “It’s too hard to …”

  “Just tell me.”

  Lexie felt her skin heating again. “Love.”

  “Love?” Coin’s eyebrows flew upward. “From a website?”

  “You asked what mattered,” said Lexie, embarrassed. But she meant it. It was important. “Love matters.”

  “Love it is, then.” Nodding emphatically, Coin said, “Love is our bet.”

  “How do you make a bet on love?”

  He held up a finger. “One, we tell the truth. Promise?”

  Lexie nodded once. Truth was easy. She often got in trouble for telling too much of it, and she didn’t think she’d lied to Coin even once.

  “And two, we try to fall in love.”

  Lexie rolled her chair a few inches closer to him. “How do we do that?” she asked.

  “If I have to tell you how to fall in love, sugar …” he drawled.

  She caught his scent—not the normal Axe body wash that so many of the guys on the line preferred. He smelled clean, like he’d just taken a shower. Like soap and shampoo, and something darker, a little smoky. Old fire scents caught in his clothing, maybe? Lexie felt something jump in her stomach. “A challenge. Okay, then. You know I do like a challenge.”

  “Yep,” he said. “The last person to fall in love has to …”

  “Buy they other person dinner,” said Lexie triumphantly.

  “Are you serious? We’re talking about changing our lives permanently, drawing other people into this game, and you think buying dinner will do it? No way. Go bigger.”

  “True,” she said. “Okay. Bigger. Okay, the second person to fall in love has to buy the first one … an expensive dinner for two, for the winner and his or her new squeeze. At La Spezia.”

  Coin groaned. “Bigger. What about a trip?”

  “Ooh!” This was something she could get behind. “Where? Reno? Tahoe?”

  “Hawaii.”

  Lexie was impressed but didn’t want to show it. “Why stop there? Why not Tahiti? Or …” She brought up the website she’d been looking at earlier. “Check this out. Bora Bora.”

  The picture she showed him was of idyllic thatched roof huts, staggered along joined piers. Each hut sat above crystal blue water. It looked like Lexie thought heaven should, if she got to talk to God about it.