Fire at Dusk: The Firefighters of Darling Bay

by Ashe, Lila

  “That might be a bit over-the-top. How about we’re both helping people to be better humans?”

  “Okay, Rainshadow Warrior, put your incense and moon crystals down before someone gets hurt.” Samantha pulled off a piece of the pie crust and popped it in her mouth.

  Grace hit her lightly on the knee. “He’s cute, you know.”

  Samantha frowned. “Do you think so?” She tried to play dumb but knew it would never fly.

  “Come on. And I know you do, too.”

  It was a good point. Samantha did think Hank was cute. He’d grown into those long limbs—no longer lanky, he’d filled out with what seemed like all muscle. He was gorgeous, in fact, still with that mop of floppy brown surfer hair, those big dark eyes, those chiseled cheek bones, and his chest so wide it looked like he did push-ups all day. “You might be right. I don’t think I should give him the job.”

  Grace closed her eyes. “So you’re going to change your mind again.”

  Samantha gritted her teeth. She hated it when Grace said that. Just because Samantha frequently thought about things and decided on new courses of action didn’t mean that she was as fickle as her sister thought. “It might be weird. With our history and all.”

  Grace said, “Hmm.”

  “And then there’s the whole thing that he’s Tox’s partner…”

  “One of his coworkers.”

  “They ride in the same fire engine. Every day.”

  Grace shook her head. “Not every day. They get days off. I don’t understand why you’re changing your mind on this. Give the guy a chance. Look, come with me to the fire station tonight when I go to visit Tox. Bring the lemonade. The guys’ll love it.”

  “No way.” Samantha grabbed her coat—too thin for the cold weather outside—and checked her jeans pocket for her keys. “Hey, do me a favor, would you?”

  “No, no, no.” Grace held up her hands. “I’m not telling him you’re backing out.”

  “Please?” Samantha clapped her hands together, prayer-like. “Pretty please? For me?”

  “I’m a founding member of your business, right?”

  “The only one I have.”

  “So this member says no. I’m not telling him. You tell him you changed your mind.”

  “Gracie. I can’t. I don’t want to hurt him.”

  “What, you think he hasn’t recovered from when you broke up with him a million years ago?”

  Samantha didn’t say anything and just kept her eyes on Grace’s. If there was any chance that Hank still minded her leaving him in that bar so many years ago, it wasn’t fair to hurt him again.

  “Gah. Fine. What am I supposed to tell him?”

  “That Jim got better.”

  “No.”

  “That I found someone else.”

  “Who?”

  “It doesn’t matter.” Hank, of all people, couldn’t be the attacker for Darling Defense. Why hadn’t she thought it through? Hank would probably sign his girlfriend up for the class—because a guy like him had to have a beautiful little girlfriend—and then Samantha would have to be friends with her. And that quickly became one of the worst ideas Samantha had ever thought of. “Anyone. You. Tox. I don’t care.”

  Grace sighed heavily. “Fine,” her sister said. “Whatever. I’ll clean up the mess. Again.”

  Samantha hated with all her heart that that was exactly what Grace was doing. But she couldn’t hurt Hank again, not even one tiny little mosquito’s worth of hurt, and heck. She was used to her sister being disappointed in her.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  HANK HAD NEVER noticed the apartment over the bagel shop, even though he stopped for coffee there at least once a week. The staircase that led up from the back parking lot was rickety, the handhold loose. The small back porch trembled as he stood on it, and he noticed that there wasn’t even a bulb screwed in to the porch fixture.

  He knocked on the glass panel in the door. Calm down. He was being ridiculous, but the nervousness he’d woken up with hadn’t gone away—in fact, he’d had to leave his coffee half-drunk on the counter at home.

  Jeez. He wasn’t picking her up for a date, after all. This was a business thing. All business.

  Sure, all business, but he’d dreamed of her mouth last night. The way her body had felt against his—that wasn’t business at all. That had just been so hot it had hurt to roll over.

  The fact that she hadn’t opened the door yet, though, was weird.

  He knocked again, and the glass panes clattered in the door. They were loose enough he bet he could slip one pane out without even breaking it. If there was one thing he and his firefighter brethren were good at, it was breaking into people’s homes. Most older people left their doors unlocked in case they needed help, and Darling Bay was safe enough for it to be okay most of the time. But younger residents still fell in their bathrooms or had sudden asthma attacks. Medical problems often rendered healthy people unable to unlock a door in a timely fashion. And when every second counted, firefighters broke down doors, bashed in windows, tore off locked screens, and lifted sliding glass doors off their rails.

  Curiosity got the better of him. Hank fit the flat of his palm to the pane and jiggling it lightly, used an upward pressure. Sure enough, the glass lifted enough in its small frame that he was able to get his thumb under it. He slid it out, toward him. Great. Now he’d have to make sure it was fixed before he left, but it should be easy enough to slip it back in.

  Samantha wasn’t safe, after all. He’d just proved that. Anyone could do this, any two-bit burglar with a small slice of imagination. The real question remained: could he reach down to unlock the door?

  Hank peeked in the now open hole, and still seeing no motion, convinced himself that by now, it was really his moral duty to check on her. She was expecting him—she should have answered the door by now.

  He put his arm in and down, reaching toward the latch.

  His hand was slapped so hard he shouted. “Holy crap! It’s Hank!” He jerked his hand back out and almost dropped the pane.

  The door was yanked open. On the other side, Samantha was wrapped in nothing but black plastic-framed glasses and a thin pink towel. The towel looked fantastic, actually. Samantha would probably look good in PPEs, but in a short piece of fabric, still dripping, she looked beyond amazing.

  She also looked good when she was mad. That was a new revelation, but not a surprising one.

  “What?”

  “I just said it was me. Sorry. I like your glasses.” Hank rubbed the back of his hand. “What did you hit me with?”

  She brandished her weapon.

  “Fly swatter. Nicely played.” Hank wondered for a moment what would have happened if he had gained access to her apartment and Samantha was just fine? How much damage could she have done to him? The thought was sobering, and while kind of hot, not something he wanted to find out.

  “I’m sorry.” He held up the piece of rounded glass. “But this was loose. Anyone could get in.”

  “I forget my keys in the house sometimes. I like it like that. What are you doing here?”

  Honest confusion filled Hank. Had he gotten the date wrong? No, she’d clearly said the words tomorrow and my apartment. “I thought we said…”

  Samantha grimaced. “Grace.”

  “What about her?”

  “Did she come by the station last night?”

  Even more confused now that this was something about her sister, Hank said, “I think she did? We were out on a call, but there was pie on the counter when we got back and Tox said it was his favorite.”

  “Oh, man.”

  “What’s wrong? Are you okay?” She looked okay. Good grief, she looked so damn okay…

  “I have to put on some clothes.”

  No, you don’t, darlin’. The words were almost spoken before he shut his mouth again. Something about Samantha Rowe scrambled Hank’s brain like eggs in hot butter. “Sure, sure.” Hank was pretty certain his initial response showed on his f
ace, though. He didn’t actually mind that much.

  Samantha spun on her heel, heading for the far door in the small room. She shut it quietly behind her.

  So this had something to do with Grace? And a pie?

  Hank took the opportunity of Samantha being gone to explore her apartment. The whole thing was as small as the kitchen at Station One, but it was warm. Welcoming, even though it was probably less than five hundred square feet, with only room for a bed and a tiny sofa. The kitchen sink had to be against code since it was an arm’s reach from the bathroom. The whole place looked like it needed be upgraded, actually. The light over the sink blinked and the old Formica on the countertop was stained with age. But she had color everywhere, from her violet bedspread to the grass green pillows topping the tiny blue couch. Cobalt glasses rested next to yellow plates. The overall result was a happy jumble.

  French doors gave light on the west wall, even covered with a thin piece of purple fabric. He pushed aside the curtain, and let himself onto the porch. That door was also unlocked.

  But what a reason to leave a door open. If he had French doors that opened onto a view of Darling Bay in all its frank beauty, Hank would want to be able to push them open at a second’s notice, too.

  He leaned on the railing, sucking the cold morning ocean air deeply into his lungs. Man, even growing up here, even looking at the marina every day, it just never got old. Today it felt like he was seeing the docks for the first time, and indeed, he supposed that he’d never seen the boats from quite this angle. Sure, he’d seen them from the street hundreds of times, and from the top of the bank building where the fire department launched the 4th of July fireworks, but never from here, just one story up. In the harbor, at least thirty boats bobbed, their masts making the clanking, jingling noise Hank associated with home. The air smelled of yeast from downstairs and of cold metal.

  Below, on the sidewalk, Tonia Pringle caught sight of him and did a double take, almost losing hold of the leash she had on her tiny chihuahua, Mr. Chester. Awesome. Now gossip would fly. Tonia was best friends with Mrs. Finch, and within an hour, most of Darling Bay would know that Hank had been spotted on Samantha Rowe’s balcony.

  Interesting to notice how little he minded.

  He gave a short wave to Tonia. “Good morning! How’s Mr. Chester doing today?”

  Tonia scooped up her dog and scurried off without saying anything. The Homeless Petes—both of them—were sharing a bottle on the bus stop bench and laughed as Tonia hustled.

  So did Hank.

  A sunbeam broke through the fog and bounced across the small balcony, lighting the old painted wood a brighter blue. The light matched his mood. It was going to be a terrific day.

  If Samantha decided she wanted him there, that was.

  CHAPTER SIX

  IN THE BATHROOM, Samantha shot another glance at her cell phone. Nothing back from Grace yet. Grace, who usually texted back within a minute. She sent another one. Were you going to TELL me, at least? I was NAKED when he came.

  Nothing.

  Fine.

  She could do this herself. She was a business owner, after all, albeit a new one. Prior to this, the only business she’d ever been in charge of was her paper route at age eleven which she’d lost when she decided she didn’t like getting up in the dark before school. Since then, she’d always worked for someone. She’d done a million different jobs, most of them legal, but someone else had always paid her.

  But now she was her own boss, and women like her had to do the hard things as well as the awesomely fun things.

  Like firing someone.

  Well.

  Was it actually firing if they’d never really been hired? It’s not like she and Hank had discussed a wage, or times of work. He hadn’t even proved he could do the job yet.

  Samantha jerked a comb through her wet hair. Shoot. If she’d known he was coming, that Grace hadn’t done her dirty work for her—okay, she did feel guilty for asking her to—she would have had time to figure out what to wear, to pick a shade of lipstick that looked good. Instead, the Samantha he was going to see was her regular old morning self, the one with no mascara and no contacts. Her glasses! She touched the rim of them with her fingers. She was almost legally blind without them, but she hadn’t worn them in public for years.

  But he was just going to have to deal with her as she was.

  She blinked in the mirror.

  Silly. It was silly to feel this upset. Her nerves twanged as if someone were striking them with a hammer.

  She put on jeans from the tiny bathroom closet—the only closet the minuscule apartment had. She grabbed a clean black T-shirt, and not her lowest-cut one, either. She could be professional. Hide the double-Ds a little bit. She gathered back her hair into a ponytail and pushed her glasses more firmly onto her nose.

  Great. Now she looked just about as stern as a person could be and not be shushing someone at a library for laughing.

  Hank wasn’t in the living room, and she could tell with one quick glance that he couldn’t be hiding in her bedroom, which was so small she’d gotten the apartment at a studio rate.

  The doors were open to the balcony and the scent of salt and fresh bagels blew through. Of course he was in her favorite spot.

  There he was, sitting on one of her two iron chairs, a beam of sunshine resting across his knees like it was curling up in his lap.

  “Howdy,” he said, his voice honeyed and slow.

  Samantha felt her knees quake in a way she hadn’t expected. “Good morning.” She sat. “Cold out here.”

  “You have more clothes on now,” he pointed out. Unnecessarily.

  “I do.”

  “Your glasses are cute on you. I never pictured you wearing them.”

  “Thanks. I hate them.”

  “They’re hot. Damn it.”

  Samantha jumped. “What?”

  “I’m really trying not to flirt with you.”

  The abrupt confession startled her. “Okay. Why?” Why was she asking? She didn’t want to know the answer.

  Except that she did. Very much so.

  “Because you’re going to be my boss. Ish.”

  “Ish,” she repeated weakly.

  He leaned back in the chair and looked good doing it. Did he have any idea what he looked like out here in the sun on her porch? In his dark-washed jeans and red flannel worn open over a blue T-shirt, the only thing he was missing was a cowboy hat.

  It was good he wasn’t wearing one. Good grief. She would not be able to handle that with any kind of equanimity. Not like she had any, anyway.

  “Yeah. I mean, the fire department is my first love. Obviously. But I can handle a second job, too. Lots of guys in the department do.”

  Samantha felt a small smile creep across her face. “Remember how crazy you were in college about getting that job?” She remembered more now, looking at him. She remembered the way he’d told her his dearest dream, to save someone’s life while wearing the badge of the Darling Bay Fire Department. He’d been going to school for his fire science degree, and he’d already put himself through paramedic training. He’d been only twenty-one then. So young.

  “How long did it actually take you to get hired?”

  “I got in on the first try.” He grinned, and Samantha noticed how straight and white his teeth were.

  “How old were you when you did?” She’d left with Vicente not long after he’d held her on the beach, his arms wrapped tightly around her as they looked up at the moon and whispered their dreams to each other.

  “Twenty-two.”

  They were both thirty-three now. “Such a long time ago.”

  “Feels like just about a minute to me. Oh, hey, big fella.” Hank stretched out his fingers to the huge orange cat that had just jumped from her neighbor’s balcony railing to hers.

  “That’s Anchor. He lives with my neighbor Gus. I’m not sure who’s more interesting, Gus, or the cat.”

  Anchor wound its body around Hank�
��s legs and then leaped—nimbly for a cat who must have weighed twenty pounds—into the puddle of sunshine in Hank’s lap.

  “He likes me,” said Hank, scratching the cat behind the ears.

  She blurted it out, unable to keep it in a moment longer. “I can’t hire you.”

  He blinked. Those long lashes of his. She’d forgotten about those.

  “You’re firing me?”

  “No,” she groaned. “I just can’t hire you.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because.”

  “That’s a terrible reason, you know.”

  “I know.”

  “You’re really bad at this.”

  She shoved her glasses higher onto her nose. “We have history.”

  “We do. And you just pointed out the fact that it’s ancient.”

  It was. “But it’s there.”

  “History’s a good thing for friends to have.”

  Samantha could hear the cat purring from where she sat. Traitor. Anchor usually loved her. “But we’re not friends.” She wanted to yank back the words the second they left her mouth. They sounded cruel. Hurtful. And she’d meant to be the absolute opposite. “I’m sorry. What I mean is that—”

  Hank interrupted her smoothly. “You meant that friends call each other on their birthdays and grab a quick bite together when they’re in the neighborhood.”

  “Yeah!” That was, actually, what she meant. They’d never done that. She hadn’t been around.

  “And they know when one of them is freaking out for no apparent reason.”

  “Wait a minute.”

  He leaned forward. Behind him, to the northwest, a cluster of high-school kids—their only nod to the winter cold their hooded sweatshirts—jockeyed for position on the low stone wall that separated the first pier from the boardwalk. “To the scientifically trained eye—which mine is, by the way—you’re freaking out for no apparent reason.”

  “I have a very good reason.”

  “And that is…”

  What was it again? This close to him, his malted-milk-colored eyes dancing in the cold sun, so close she could smell the clean fragrance of soap and maybe shaving cream, Samantha was having a hard time remembering what that reason was. “Because it wouldn’t be fair. To anyone. I’m scared…” She stopped. She wasn’t scared. Samantha didn’t get scared. “I mean, I would worry that…”