After the Storm

by Amy Knupp

  * * *

  IT WAS AFTER 1:00 A.M. when the firefighters began salvage and overhaul. There had been two more serious injuries, both of them to firefighters from the mainland department. Several others had suffered minor injuries that had been treated at the scene. Faith was able to talk to Joe for a couple of minutes and then she turned to Penn, relief in her eyes.

  “You ready to get out of here? You must be wiped.”

  “Doubt I’ll be able to sleep,” he said.

  “I know the feeling. I’m parked about two blocks that way.”

  They walked in silence for a ways before Faith spoke again. “Are you keeping up on department gossip?”

  “I’m going to go out on a limb here and guess you’re talking about your pregnancy? I heard it from Nadia, actually. Not from anyone in the department.”

  Faith smiled, maybe a little thinly, and nodded. “Yep. Got myself knocked up.”

  He knew Faith well enough to suspect that joyful congratulations wasn’t the best response. Knew how dedicated she was to her career. They’d actually discussed, late one night at the station after a run when they’d both been too hyped up to sleep, her plans to work until she was closer to forty and then make a decision about starting a family.

  “I don’t really want to say I’m sorry to that news,” he said as they began walking again, “but my first thought when I heard it was…shit, Faith.”

  She laughed. “Extra points for an original response. I’ve had mostly ‘congrats,’ a couple of ‘oh, no’s,’ but you’re the first ‘shit.’”

  “You’re not still working, are you?”

  “It’s been sixteen days since my last shift. I was out a week on sick leave because I honest to God was sicker than a poisoned dog every morning and didn’t know what it was right away. We told the chief last week and word’s pretty much gotten around. Plus my favorite blonde and yours…”

  “She and I really aren’t…” Hell. No use trying to convince her of anything. She probably knew more about what had happened between him and Nadia than he did himself, the way women shared stuff. “We’re talking about you. What are you going to do? You going to go back after the baby’s born?”

  “I was. I’m parked over here,” Faith said, pointing toward her Subaru. “We’d decided, or really I had decided, I’d go back after maternity leave. Joe and I talked about it a lot but he said it was ultimately my decision. He’d support me either way.”

  They got into car and Penn could swear he’d never been so glad to get off his feet. He leaned back against the headrest and just breathed for several seconds.

  “You’re going to pay tomorrow for standing so long tonight, aren’t you?” Faith asked.

  He chuckled. “Tomorrow and right now. You said ‘had decided.’ You changed your mind?”

  Faith put the keys in the ignition but she didn’t start the engine. “I’ve thought about nothing else for two weeks. Once the enormous shock wore off and we faced up to reality…” She shook her head. “It wouldn’t be fair to our child to have both parents work crazy schedules and have dangerous jobs.”

  “So tell Joe to become a house husband,” Penn said, mostly kidding. “He’s had more years on the job than you. Plus you have to take nine months off, anyway.”

  Faith laughed. “He’ll love your idea and your rationale, I’m sure.”

  “That sucks, Faith. Not the baby part but—”

  “I know what you mean. Once the baby’s born, I’m sure I’ll fall in love with him or her and won’t even want to work but right now…”

  “It sucks,” Penn said again, this time with more emphasis than he’d intended.

  “Especially watching a fire like that and knowing I won’t be fighting those anymore. You and I are kind of in similar situations.”

  “And you seem to be handling it a lot better than I have,” Penn said.

  “I don’t know about that.”

  “I’ve punched things. Blown up at people.” Like Nadia.

  “I cried for twenty-four hours straight.”

  They looked at each other, on the verge of laughing.

  “You’re such a girl,” he said, and then they did laugh.

  Faith started the car and backed out of the parking spot. “I might have it a little easier than you,” she confessed as she drove. “For one thing, my decision, in the end, was just that—mine. Not out of my control. Plus, I get a baby out of the deal. A son or a daughter.”

  “That’s pretty amazing.”

  “It helps. I’ve been clinging to that positive thought like crazy. Trying not to focus on what I’m losing. Making a point of appreciating the good stuff and looking to the future. The baby. Joe. Having a family.”

  “And I’ve just been being bitter and hateful,” he said, grinning with self-deprecation.

  She pulled into the lot of his condo. “Wish I had better advice for you. Short of having a baby, I’ve got nothing.”

  “I’m not sure my back could take the pregnancy,” he said.

  She swatted him lightly and stopped the car where he directed her to. “Ha, ha. If you need to rant or rave, I’m here. And I’ll probably join in and rant with you.”

  He nodded, turning somber. “It may not seem like it all the time, but you’ve got a good future ahead of you, Faith.”

  “Yeah.” She looked over at him, but he continued to stare out the front window. “You can, too, Penn. I honestly believe that.”

  He left her comment unanswered, climbed out of the car and headed home, too exhausted to argue.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  NADIA HAD BEEN TO FIRES before.

  She vaguely remembered watching one of the hotels on the island burn when she was a kid. She’d gone to a couple of smaller blazes with Faith over the years. But for some reason, the one last night had really gotten to her, more than the others ever had.

  Honestly, she knew the reason she couldn’t get it out of her head, even though she was extraordinarily busy showing Jamie Castigliego, the newly hired events manager, the ropes. No matter what she did, she couldn’t erase the image of the blonde woman who’d been carried from the building from her mind.

  Though it’d been difficult to see, because of the darkness and the throng of people, Nadia would bet that woman was young, in her twenties maybe. Her age. And though Penn had said she was still alive when the ambulance had sped off with her in the back, Nadia couldn’t find any solace in that. Not until she could know for sure the woman was okay.

  She caught herself staring at the wall of her office. Again. A glance at her watch told her it’d been exactly four and a half minutes since the last time she’d been distracted from the report she was trying to write.

  Obviously this wasn’t working.

  She picked up her desk phone and dialed Jamie’s extension. When he answered, she explained that she had to go out and that their final meeting would have to wait until tomorrow. After hanging up, she stood and did something she hadn’t done for ages, if ever. She acknowledged she was done for the day—at 4:27 p.m. Pushed a button on her phone to forward calls to her voice mail. Left everything but her purse and headed to the hotel room that was starting to become more like her home.

  She’d been to her actual home twice in the week since she and her mom had argued, both times to get specific clothes, both times when her mom was nowhere to be found. Nadia had planned it that way. They were civil to each other at work, and the roof and air-conditioner project had been completed in time for the politician last weekend. Nadia wouldn’t exactly say she was upset with her mom—she just wasn’t in the mood to be friendly. Either Joyce felt the same way or she sensed Nadia’s lack of warmth and had left her alone, as well. That and her mom was apparently busy. She’d seen her with Dr. Morris a couple of times and heard others mention him, too.

  Nadia kicked off her shoes as soon as she was inside her private room. She was overdue for maid service, she realized. Before she could have anyone clean, though, she needed to tidy up—
big-time. She picked up the shoes she’d just taken off, along with three other pairs, and put them in the small closet. Next she attacked the various articles of clothing, either hanging them or tossing them on the bed to take to the hotel’s dry cleaner. As she systematically hung one item after another, her mind wandered back to the blond hair draped over the stretcher last night.

  “Forget it,” Nadia muttered, dropping the rest of the pile of clothes. “The mess will wait.”

  She shed the business suit and blouse she was wearing and left those on the floor with everything else. Pulling on a pair of wrinkled denim shorts and a Bahamas tee someone had given her, she didn’t even bother to check her appearance in the mirror. She slid her feet into blessedly comfortable flip-flops, picked up her purse, ensured that her keys were in it and made her way to the parking lot.

  She had to find out how that girl was doing.

  She needed to see Penn. He’d calmed her last night. Centered her. She craved that feeling again.

  She drove straight to his condo, briefly wondering if his mom would be there. Fortunately, she and Nell Griffin got along well. Last night, when they’d returned to the hotel after leaving the fire, they’d stopped by the Hour Glass for an order of fried mozzarella and a drink to relax them, let themselves come down from the adrenaline.

  No one immediately answered the door when she knocked, but she could hear the television on inside and guessed that Penn would get there eventually. And he did. As he stared down at her, she had the fleeting thought of how unreasonably good it felt to lay her eyes on him. And it wasn’t because he was shirtless, though that certainly added to the allure.

  “Hi,” she said. “I should have called first.”

  “You’re fine. What’s up, Nadia?” Instead of inviting her in, he stood in the doorway.

  “That girl from last night,” Nadia said. “Do you know how she’s doing?”

  His gaze dropped and he grasped one of her hands, wove their fingers together. She instantly sensed the news wasn’t good, and then he shook his head.

  “She didn’t make it.”

  Nadia squeezed her eyes shut. Penn increased the pressure on her hand reassuringly. She was glad he was there and didn’t really understand why she was so upset by the death of someone she’d never even met, but she was.

  Penn looked back into the living room behind him. “Coop fell asleep watching TV. I need to walk, anyway. Want to go with me?”

  Nadia nodded.

  “You can come to my room while I get ready.” He pulled her inside and shut the door without a sound.

  She sat on his bed while he put on a shirt and some sport sandals, neither of them speaking. They didn’t say anything until they’d left the condo, walked across the expansive parking lot and reached the street.

  “Why is this bothering me so much?” she said as they headed toward Coral Street. “I didn’t know her. Don’t know a thing about her.”

  “Doesn’t matter,” Penn said. “Still gets to me every time. I think it gets to all of us in the department even though we see it more than most people.”

  “Do you know how old she was?”

  “Twenty-two. She worked at the clothing store next to the diner, where they think the fire started. They believe she’d fallen asleep on a couch in the back room after the store closed. That building was old enough that it didn’t have appropriate firewalls to slow down the spread.”

  “Do they know what started it?”

  He shook his head. “They won’t start investigating until they’ve got all the hot spots taken care of. Might be today. Might be a few days.”

  They turned left on Coral, the noise of the traffic increasing.

  “Where’s your mom today?” she asked.

  “She took Coop and me to brunch, then was going to go shopping. I told her she was on her own for that.”

  “So you do have some ‘typical male’ in you, huh?” she joked.

  “If that means I can skip out of shopping, yes, I do.”

  “I like your mom.”

  “A lot of people like my mom,” he said noncommittally.

  The generic statement made Nadia smile. “But…you don’t?”

  “We have a history.” He shrugged. “She’s okay, I guess. She’s been decent for this visit.”

  “I’m blown away by your overwhelming enthusiasm,” she said dryly. “What kind of history?”

  “Stereotypical overdemanding mother. Growing up, I tried too hard to please her.”

  “What about your dad?” Nadia asked with trepidation. She didn’t even know if Penn’s dad was living.

  “They divorced when I was six. He lives in Ireland.”

  “Wow. Why Ireland?”

  “He met an Irish woman. Married her and moved there.”

  “Do you see him very often?”

  “I’ve gone over a few times. We’re not very close but I don’t hate him or anything. I can kind of understand why he couldn’t live with my mother.”

  “She seems like a sweet enough woman,” Nadia said, frowning.

  “She has her good points. We just have a lot of differences.”

  “You hide it pretty well when you’re around her,” Nadia said. She had a hundred questions, was itching to know more about Penn, his family, his past, but knew she’d only get so far with that, as he wasn’t the type to talk her ear off about himself.

  “We’ve gotten along better this visit,” he admitted. “Probably because I don’t worry so much what she thinks of my life and my choices anymore.”

  “Choices like…your career?” she guessed. Nadia had the ultimate respect for firefighters, especially knowing Faith as well as she did, but she could see how a powerful corporate attorney might have a different view.

  “You’re good.”

  They stopped at a busy intersection and waited for the light to change.

  “What did she think you should do instead of firefighting?” Nadia asked.

  Penn chuckled. “Anything. Part of the problem was my fault. I can admit it now.”

  “Yeah? Why’s that?”

  Penn looked up at the sky and inhaled, as if he didn’t like the topic. “As a kid, I busted my ass to get good grades. Because that’s what my mom expected.”

  “Okay.”

  “I went to University of Colorado for the same reasons.”

  “I didn’t know you went there.” She’d assumed he’d gone to a community college and studied fire sciences, as Faith had.

  “I didn’t last long,” he said. “It took me about five days to decide I hated it.”

  “You dropped out after five days?” Nadia said incredulously.

  “Nah. Maybe that would have gotten my mom some of the tuition money back, but no. I spent a semester screwing around. Failed every class I’d enrolled for. Apparently that happens if you don’t go to class or do the work.” A hint of a smile tugged at his lips. “My mom still hasn’t forgiven me.”

  “I guess I can see why she was pissed.”

  “It was immature,” Penn said. “I can admit that now. I should have owned up to it as soon as I knew it wasn’t for me. Instead, I used my book money on beer.”

  “So…you skipped everything for a semester, flunked out and became a firefighter?”

  “That’s the short version. My mom has always hated that I ‘ended up’ in a blue-collar career. She doesn’t understand that I didn’t go into it as a last resort. That I loved what I did.”

  “Have you ever told her that?”

  “No. She’s never asked. She’s just…judged.” He crossed his arms. “I don’t want to talk about that anymore.”

  Nadia didn’t push it. “That’s fine. Penn?”

  He looked at her sideways.

  “We’re almost to the fire scene. Is that where you meant to go?” Now that she’d realized they were so close, she wondered how she hadn’t noticed the smell lingering in the air.

  “Not consciously, no. I wouldn’t mind checking it out in the daylight, t
hough. See if it’s still smoldering.”

  He stared toward the site, which they could see from where they stood, and a change came over him as Nadia watched him. It was subtle, something she wouldn’t have noticed if she hadn’t been looking directly at him. He stood straighter, and his face came alive, his eyes more animated.

  “What?” he asked, looking down at her.

  “You’re sexy when you think about fire.” She tried to keep a straight face.

  Their eyes locked for a moment and she was taken by how green his eyes were in the sunlight. He broke eye contact, shook his head minutely then started across the street.

  She entwined her arm with his, trying to stretch out the light moment. “You don’t like being called sexy.”

  “A guy who can barely tie his own shoes is not sexy.”

  “You don’t get a vote.”

  There were two police cars and several fire vehicles, including the chief’s truck, at the burned-out strip mall. The south end, which housed a music store and an ice cream store, was still intact, though the windows were missing and the formerly light-colored exterior walls were scorched with black. The other end where the diner had been…it looked like a bomb had gone off. Crime scene tape outlined the entire area.

  “Crime scene?” Nadia asked as they got closer.

  “There was a fatality. That guy over there is an arson investigator.”

  “Makes sense.” She frowned, for the first time considering that the blaze could have been started deliberately.

  As they approached the scene, they stopped. The chief called out a greeting to Penn, and then two others did the same.

  “Do you want to go talk to them?” Nadia asked.

  “They’re picky about who they let in since it’s a crime scene.”

  “You’re still technically a firefighter, though.”

  “It’s not me they’d have a problem with.”

  “I’m not allowed,” she said unnecessarily. She looked around and spotted a coffee shop about a block to the north. “I’ll wait for you there,” she said, pointing. “You go talk fire stuff.”