April Embers_A Second Chance Single Daddy Firefighter Romance

by Chase Jackson

Finally I had caved and told her all about Des. I started at the beginning, how we met, how we grew up together, how we had been torn apart… and how we had found each other again. By the time I wrapped up the kid-friendly retelling of our first date, Charlie was practically planning our wedding.

  “Let’s take it one date at a time!” I had told her.

  Charlie’s enthusiasm hadn’t waned since then. She wanted to know everything about Desiree, what is her favorite movie? Does she like Frozen? What job does she have? What is her favorite color? Does she have a dog? What about a cat? What kind of car does she have? Does she like to go swimming? Does she have a bike?

  Now that it’s date night, Charlie has called off the inquisition and turned her attention to playing ‘Fashion Police.’

  She had already nixed my first two outfits, and I was hoping the third time would be a charm...

  “Well?” I asked, dropping my arms by sides. “What do you think, kiddo?”

  Charlie’s nostrils flared dramatically as she let out a heavy sigh, then she threw up her arms and shook her head.

  “It’s just all wrong, Daddy!” she said in an exasperated voice. “Blue just isn’t your color!”

  “What do you mean?!” I gasped, feigning shock as I glanced down at my shirt and pants. “I thought I looked great in blue!”

  “No, Daddy,” Charlie said firmly. “You look like the garbage man.”

  “The garbage man?!” I stammered. I had to force myself not to laugh as I pictured the grumpy old garbage man who emptied out the dumpster behind our apartment block. He wore a navy blue jumpsuit, but besides the color, I couldn’t think of any similarities between his uniform and my outfit. But Charlotte stuck to her guns,

  “You don’t look like you. You have to wear something else!”

  “Ok, ok…” I grumbled, turning back towards my closet. “But I’m running out of options, here…”

  “Just wear normal clothes, Daddy,” Charlotte said, pushing her way around me and poking her head into the closet.

  “But my normal clothes aren’t very nice--”

  “If Desiree likes you, then she’ll like your clothes too!” she insisted as she flipped through the clothes hanging in the closet.

  “You know what?” I smiled proudly down at my daughter, “That’s really good advice. I like that.”

  Tonight was a special night. Tonight, I was going to do what I should have done already, I was going to tell Des about my daughter.

  At least… that’s what I planned on doing, if I ever managed to find an outfit that warranted my daughter’s seal of approval.

  Charlotte reached for a pair of torn denim jeans that were hanging in the closet. “You can wear these pants, and…” she turned her gaze to the assortment of t-shirts hanging at the opposite side of the closet, but before she could make her selection, my cell phone started ringing from the nightstand.

  “Hold that thought, kiddo,” I ruffled Charlie’s hair as I strode out of the closet and reached for the phone.

  According to caller ID, the incoming call was from Sally -- the babysitter that I had hired for tonight, per Bryce McKinley’s glowing recommendation.

  I hope she’s not calling because she’s running late, I thought, glancing at my watch as I wedged the phone between my ear and shoulder.

  “Hello?”

  “Hi Mr. McAlister!” a high-pitched voice squealed into my ear from the other line. “This is Sally!”

  “Hey Sally,” I grimaced, holding the phone away from my ear. “Is everything alright?”

  “Umm… well, not really,” she mumbled in a voice that was still several octaves too high. “You see…”

  For forty-five very painful seconds, I listened to Sally ramble almost incoherently about tuba lessons and a broken down car. I could barely understand what she was saying, but when she started apologizing profusely, I realized that she wasn’t going to make it tonight.

  “Daddy, I found it!” Charlie cheered, poking her head out of the closet and beaming at me. “I found the perfect outfit!”

  “Great,” I said weakly. “Now all we need is a babysitter…”

  ***

  Fifteen minutes later I was wearing that ‘perfect outfit’ as I paced back and forth across the kitchen with my cell phone pressed against my ear. I was desperately trying to find a last-minute replacement for Sally, but I had already exhausted the list of recommended babysitters.

  Now, as a last resort, I was trying to call in another favor with Bryce McKinley himself…

  “Hey Daddy!” Charlotte squeaked from behind me, prodding her finger into my back.

  “One second, sweetheart,” I said, tapping my fingers on the phone impatiently as the ringtone echoed in my ear.

  I heard Charlotte grunt impatiently and stomp out of the kitchen, just as the ringtone cut off and a robotic voice began to recite an automated voicemail message.

  Fuck.

  I ended the call and shoved the phone into my pocket. I rubbed my forehead, trying to think of a solution… and that’s when I heard the front door swing open.

  I froze. From my vantage point in the kitchen, the front door was out of view… but I could hear everything that was going on in the other room.

  “Oh!” Desiree’s surprised voice fluttered through the wall. I immediately cringed.

  This is all wrong… so, so wrong.

  “Are you Desiree?!” Charlie asked eagerly. Based on the squeal of her voice, you’d think she was face to face with fucking Olaf the snowman from Frozen.

  “Umm… yes?”

  Desiree sounded confused. Why wouldn’t she be? She probably expected me to open the door, but instead she got a spunky seven-year old who somehow knows her name…

  This scenario had never entered my head when Des and I agreed to meet at my apartment. The plan was to meet outside, hop into my car, and drive to dinner together. I hadn’t planned on this.

  I took a deep breath, then I forced myself to step out of the kitchen. As soon as I turned the corner into the front entryway of the apartment, I spotted Des standing in the open doorway. Her eyes flicked up and met mine, and her brow wrinkled in confusion.

  “Rory…”

  “Hey,” I said as I stepped behind my daughter and rested my hands on my shoulder. “Des, there’s somebody very special that I’d like you to meet.”

  She glanced from me to Charlie, then back up at me.

  “This is my daughter,” I said proudly.

  “My name is Charlotte Rae McAlister!” Charlie chirped on cue. “But you can call me Charlie! That’s what all my friends call me!”

  “Well it’s very nice to meet you, Charlie!” Des smiled. “I love your dress -- pink is my favorite color!”

  “Really?! Mine too!” Charlie gushed, staring down at the pink dress she was wearing with a newfound sense of awe. Then she giggled and twirled around the entryway.

  Des glanced up at me and chuckled.

  “Des, I can explain--”

  “She’s adorable,” she cut me off. Then she added playfully, “I guess that gene must skip a generation, huh?”

  I was stunned. Somehow, with that one smile and that one joke, she had smoothed out all the wrinkles and made everything ok.

  Well, almost everything…

  “So we’ve got a slight problem,” I said. “The babysitter bailed, and I haven’t been able to find a back-up yet--”

  Suddenly Charlie was at my side, tugging on my elbow.

  “Daddy, come here!” she hissed.

  I leaned down and she cupped her hands around my ear, then whispered -- in a voice loud enough that the apartment next door could probably hear it, “Why don’t we cook dinner for Desiree together?!”

  I sighed, glancing up at Des.

  “Come on, Daddy!” Charlie whispered loudly. “You can make pancakes!”

  “Pancakes?” I hissed back, scrunching my eyebrows together. “For dinner?!”

  Charlie just nodded enthu
siastically, “Remember what your love horoscope said! You have to show her your strengths!”

  “I don’t think the horoscope was referring to pancakes,” I said. I glanced back up at Des, who was biting down on her lip to stop herself from giggling.

  “Hey, I have an idea!” she smiled down at me. “Why don’t we just cook dinner here? That way, we don’t need a babysitter!”

  “Yes, yes, yes!” Charlie wriggled around excitedly as I stood up.

  “Are you sure?” I eyed Des, trying to offer her an escape route. “You don’t have to stick around…”

  “Are you kidding?! This is going to be a blast!” she grinned. Then she shot me a wink and added, “Maybe we could even go totally crazy and make pancakes for dinner!”

  That was the last straw for Charlie, who immediately began bouncing across the room like a kangaroo that just swallowed a pound of ecstacy.

  “You’re a saint,” I mouthed silently to Des. She just cocked her head and grinned, then she looped her arm through mine and said,

  “So… where’s the kitchen?”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN | DESIREE

  I propped my elbows on the metal railing that surrounded the apartment balcony and I leaned forward, breathing in the warm night air.

  Summer was already fading away. The weather was already starting to shift towards fall, and the days were getting shorter and shorter. Even the sun setting in the bright orange sky somehow seemed further away than it had been the night before.

  I took in another deep breath, wishing that I could hold the sweet smell of summer in my lungs forever… but knowing that I couldn’t stop it from slipping away.

  That’s the bittersweet thing about loving something, isn’t it? It doesn’t matter what you love, or how much you love it… it’s always bound to leave you eventually.

  All good things must come to an end.

  I sealed my eyes shut and thought about Rory. He had slipped away, too… just like summertime.

  But now he’s back...

  The sliding glass door eased open behind me, and I quickly blinked open my eyes and released the breath that I was holding in my lungs.

  “Charlie is out like a light!” Rory announced as he stepped out onto the balcony and slid the glass door shut behind him. “I had to carry her to bed. I can’t even remember the last time she zonked out before 8 p.m.”

  “Well, it has been a pretty eventful night!” I grinned. “Making pancakes for dinner, introducing me to her entire Barbie collection, singing Frozen karaoke… and then there was that impromptu Wii Sports Resort showdown!”

  “Yeah, it got pretty intense towards the end…”

  “Pretty intense?” I chuckled. “Your daughter plays Wii table tennis like she’s training for the Olympics!”

  “Charlie can get a little competitive,” Rory conceded with a proud grin. “I’m just glad she finally found someone who can give her a run for her money in the Speed Slice competition. My sword skills aren’t what they used to be, and I think she was starting to get a big head from always beating her old man…”

  “Wait… were you actually trying to win?” I raised my eyebrows in amusement. “I thought you were just going easy on her!”

  “Hey now,” Rory made a playful tut. “Slicing food objects with a giant sword is a very specific skill…”

  “A skill you need to improve, apparently,” I teased, nudging my shoulder gently into his.

  My shoulder barely grazed him, but that contact was enough to ignite a spark; a bolt of white, sizzling electricity that tingled through my veins and jolted down my spine.

  I shivered awkwardly and leaned forward on the balcony railing again, redirecting my eyes out towards the setting sun.

  “You’ve got a great view out here,” I said, trying to make smalltalk. Rory didn’t respond. He remained silent as he eased beside me, leaning forward on the railing so that our elbows were inches apart.

  “This is a really cool apartment,” I tried again. “You did a good job, finding this place.”

  Rory ignored my second attempt at smalltalk. I could feel his eyes shift towards me, and the heat radiating from his giant, Wrestlemania-worthy bicep felt hotter than the sun.

  “Hey,” he said softly.

  “Hey,” I whispered back, turning my head so I could gaze up at him.

  Those eyes… those lips… my heart was beating itself to a pulp.

  “I think I owe you an explanation,” he said.

  “About your Wii Sports Resort performance?” I tried to tease, but the joke fell flat.

  “About Charlie,” he said. “I should have told you that I had a daughter. I didn’t plan on you finding out like this…”

  ‘Like this.’

  My brain raced backwards, retracing the events of the last few hours like a VHS tape slowly rewinding until I found myself back at the very beginning.

  When I had knocked on Rory’s front door hours earlier, I had no idea what would be waiting for me on the other side.

  I had no idea that a little girl in a pink dress would greet me by name. I had no idea that our dinner date for two would become a party of three.

  I had no idea that we would spend the night cooking homemade pancakes, or playing with Barbie dolls, or singing Frozen karaoke, or getting embroiled in a dramatic Wii battle…

  I had no idea that Rory McAlister had a daughter…

  That revelation was crazy mind-blowing all on its own. It should have hit my brain like an atomic bomb, exploding in a mushroom cloud of questions and feelings and emotions… but the night had flown by so quickly that I hadn’t had a spare second to stop and stand still. Between the pancakes and karaoke, I hadn’t had a chance to let the reality sink in.

  Now we were alone for the first time, and there was nothing but silence and time standing still.

  I closed my eyes and leaned into the silence, expecting the dam to break and flood my brain with all of those feelings and emotions, or an onslaught of urgent questions that needed urgent answers...

  But when I closed my eyes, I didn’t find my head spinning with any of those thoughts or questions. Instead, I just saw Rory.

  I saw the way Rory’s entire demeanor changed when he was around his daughter. His face lit up, his voice raised three octaves, and his eyes sparkled… he was crazy about her.

  I flicked open my eyes, then glanced up at Rory.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked. “Did you think you’d scare me off? Did you think I’d run for the hills if I found out you have a daughter?”

  I was half joking, half sincere.

  Rory’s face darkened and he stared silently out into space for several seconds before he answered,

  “When I found you that day at the high school, I felt like I was fifteen years old again. All of the feelings came rushing back, like those eleven years had never happened,” he hesitated, then continued, “Like we could be us again…”

  “But then I called you a ‘stranger’ in the ambulance,” I recalled, grimacing as I remembered the harsh things I had said to Rory.

  He nodded slowly.

  “I couldn’t bring myself to tell you that you were right,” he admitted. “I wanted to be the person you remembered… but I was just a stranger. When I left Hartford, I also left behind the person I used to be.”

  “It’s been eleven years,” I reminded him. “Nobody stays fifteen forever. People grow up and change over time.”

  “I didn’t just change, Des,” Rory shook his head. “I lived a completely different life in Boston.”

  “That doesn’t make you a stranger. I shouldn’t have said that. I was just upset, and--”

  “It was the truth. I have baggage, Des. I have a daughter…”

  “Everyone has baggage!” I said. “Yours happens to be adorable and sweet.”

  We were both silent for several seconds, staring out as the sun set lower and lower over the horizon and the sky slowly darkened.

  “I always knew you’d make
a great dad,” I said.

  “Really?” he looked surprised.

  “Yeah,” I nodded. “You see things that most people miss. I used to think that you could read my mind, because you always seemed to know what I was thinking or feeling. You cared… you made me feel so safe when everything else in my life was in a state of total chaos.”

  Rory said nothing, so I continued,

  “You were so protective, too,” I said. “You always guarded the things you cared about. Like me. You protected me from everything… you even tried to protect me from yourself.”

  He swallowed heavily, glaring down at the parking lot below us.

  “You never let me see the pain or the hurt you felt inside,” I continued. “You never told me about what happened inside that house. You never told me about the awful things your mother and stepfather used to do to you. You always tried to hide the cuts and bruises from me…”

  “Des…”

  “You thought I couldn’t handle it,” I said softly. “You thought you’d scare me off…”

  I swayed gently towards Rory, letting my arm nudge against his again. This time, I didn’t sway away. His biceps and forearms were completely covered in a dense jungle of tattoos; vibrant images that were overlapping and interwoven together to conceal the scars of a previous life.

  “I was poisonous, Des,” he muttered softly, his words disappearing into the night air. “I didn’t want to poison you, too.”

  “No…” I shook my head. “You didn’t trust that I could love all of you; the dark pieces and the light.”

  I reached my hand out and let my fingers land gently on his skin, tracing the ink lines. His skin was static to my fingertips; smooth and hot and charged with electricity that flowed out of his body and into mine.

  My fingers wandered along the designs, sliding easily over his smooth skin until I hit a raised spot. Rory immediately tensed, sucking in a breath and tightening his grip on the balcony railing.

  I kept my fingers over the scar, tracing it gently. It was round and raised; a tiny circle of wrinkled skin, hidden underneath a tattoo of a rose.

  “You got this scar that night,” I said. “I remember asking you about it at the park… but you wouldn’t tell me what happened.”