by CC Abbott
“Move!” Julia grabbed Boone around the waist and half-lifted, half-dragged him out the backdoor.
Otto turned the hose on them. The spray knocked the heat off their suits and the animal off Boone’s head. It dropped to the ground, whipped a long bare tail, and hissed. You want a piece of me? it seemed to say. Then when no one took up its offer, it sprinted for a patch of crepe myrtles.
“Looks like you rescued yourself a certified Carolina possum,” Julia said, pointing at the animal and laughing. “Charcoal colored, to boot.”
“A possum?” Boone removed his helmet. The air hit the place on his neck where the possum had scratched him, and he winced from the sting.
Otto called over his shoulder. “You about got yourself killed over a possum?”
“Thought it was a house cat,” Boone said.
“And why,” Lamar said from behind them, “would you risk your life to rescue a goddamn cat?”
“Because it was alive!” Boone said. “Because we don’t leave anything living to die in fire!”
In his mind’s eye, he pictured the fire that had killed his friend. But he knew Lamar, who was born and raised a farm boy, had a hierarchical view of an animal’s value in the world. Human life was sacred and worth risking yourself to save. Animals, well, they were good to have around, and you never willingly hurt one. But when it came down to it, no animal was worth the life of a person.
“I heard screaming,” Boone said. “It sounded like a baby.”
Lamar took Boone’s helmet out of his hands. “Did I not tell you this house was abandoned? Did you not hear me right?”
“You told me and I heard you,” Boone said, “but I also heard screams, and how could I determine that it was only a possum? Besides, if this house is abandoned, how did it and the other two buildings catch fire simultaneously?”
Lamar looked at the scorched possum, still frozen in fear but hissing a warning. He turned back at the fire, which radiated waves of heat. “That’s for the fire investigators to figure out. Like I told you a hundred times, we don’t ask how the fire started, just how fast we can put it out.”
“Like I told you,” Boone said, “I’ll never stop asking how.”
“Stick to your guns,” Julia said and patted him on the ass.
Lamar cleared his throat and handed Boone the helmet. “Take the first aid kit out of my truck and clean up that scratch. Get back to work ASAP. There’s hose to clean up, and you got to get back to the school.”
“Yes, Cap,” he said and headed for Lamar’s truck at the front of the house. He gave the possum a wide berth as it crouched in the shadows and continued to hiss.
“Hey, rookie,” Otto called.
Boone turned to answer as Otto opened the hose nozzle on him. A charged stream blasted his helmet off and knocked him down. Water sprayed up his nose and into his mouth. He choked and spat to get it out.
Julia laughed. “Welcome to the brotherhood, possum.”
A few minutes later, Boone had a tube of antibacterial ointment in one hand and a bandage strip in the other. He bent down by the side mirror of Lamar’s truck, trying to place the bandage, though he was distracted by the reflection of Julia stripping down to her civvies. His brain told his hands to go left, but they followed the mirror image instead.
A man with a round potbelly in a white wife beater T-shirt walked up to the truck. “You need a hand with that?”
“Hey, Stumpy,” Boone said. “Yeah, I can’t get my hands to go in the right direction.”
“I got that problem myself,” Stumpy said, taking the bandage from Boone, “but it usually ain’t from looking into a mirror. This might sting some.”
“Tsss!” Boone sucked air through his teeth. Yeah, it stung. More than a little. “What brings you out here?”
“You best watch for infection,” Stump said after he stuck the bandage on the wound and gave it a good slap. “Possums carry diseases, you know. This one feller I know got the gangrene from it and had to get his thumb amputated.”
Stump was well known in Frisco, a good ol’ boy who could fix anything he wanted, if you could get him to want to. He dropped out of high school to work the family fields, but then his daddy died and the government bought out the tobacco allotments. Folks said he gambled away most of the money and then drank up what was left.
“I was staying in that old Airstream trailer on the back of the property. I was the one who called in the fire.”
“You don’t say?” Boone said.
“Don’t you go looking at me like that. Ain’t me who started it, I promise you that. I was sound asleep when the boom went off. Practically knocked me off the couch. Well, it did knock me off, if the truth be known, but I already greased the skids with a few cold ones.”
“Boom? You heard an explosion? Did you tell Lamar and Sheriff Hoyt?”
Stump scoffed. “Like Hoyt’s going to listen to me.”
“But—“
“He’d just laugh it off and say it was the Jagr bombs going off in my head. Jackass. He knows I quit drinking those ages ago."
"When was that?"
"Last month."
"A whole month ago?"
"Yeah. It's harder than it sounds. Listen here, I found a finger. "
"A what?"
"A finger."
"A human finger?"
"On my front porch. Right after I fell off the couch last night. I put it the freezer. Want to see it?"
"Absolutely!" Human remains! He had been waiting forever for this kind of case. "Show it to me, okay?"
Stumpy nodded and half bowed, looking relieved. Finally, his face seemed to say, somebody believes me. "Follow me up to the trailer."
Stumpy headed up the driveway toward a trail obscured by turkey oaks, short trees with wide leaves shaped like a turkey's footprint. It was common for people to put trailers on land covered with the oaks. Their presence was a definite sign that the land would perk, meaning it could support a septic tank.
Boone was following two yards behind Stumpy, carrying his helmet in one hand and pulling off his gloves with his teeth, when Lamar called him back.
"Boone! Where are you going? You're still on duty."
He stopped, muttered a curse word, and turned around, his boots kicking up cinders in the sandy soil. He waved to Lamar, who was directing Julia to wind the hose in a donut roll. The finger would have to wait. Cleaning up was an essential part of the job.
"You're leaving?" Stumpy said. He jogged past Boone and began walking backwards. "Thought you believed me about the finger."
"Definitely," Boone said. “But I've got work to do. You're going to be around later? I can come back after my afternoon class."
Stumpy's shoulders sagged. "Yeah, sure, right."
"Scout's honor."
"You're a scout?"
"No, but I have a Swiss Army knife."
"Shake on it."
Stumpy stuck out a grimy hand, black with soot, and his skin so thin, the veins underneath looked like blood worms. When Boone shook to seal the deal, his own hand engulfed Stumpy's, and he felt as if more than a gentle squeeze would crush the man's bones.
"Boone!" Lamar bellowed.
Boone stepped around Stumpy. "Got to go."
He strode back to his pickup truck, tossed the helmet and gloves inside, and jogged over to the tanker, all the while growing more excited about his first fire. Flames! Explosions! And the icing on the cake, a human finger! The presence of the finger convinced him of one thing. An explosion had started the house fire, and it had been strong enough to throw debris all the way to Stumpy's house. Boone had no idea who the finger belonged to or how it came to be in an explosion, but he had a gut feeling that's what had happened. This fire seemed to be the work of an arsonist, and it was up to him to prove it. But gut feelings weren't evidence, and evidence was what he needed to make a case. To do that, he needed his grandfather Abner.
His celebration was interrupted by an ice blue BMW that rolled down the dirt driveway
and parked behind the trucks. A man in a pinstriped gray suit climbed out of the driver's seat. He was tanned and fit, with a pile of dark hair swept back in a pompadour. He beeped the locks and strode toward the sheriff, removing a pair of sunglasses and flashing a bleached white smile.
"Sheriff," he greeted Hoyt. "Good to see you. How are the kids? I saw that boy of yours did well in the swim meets this past week."
"Kind of you to notice, Mr. Landis." Hoyt's face brightened, and he extended a beefy hand. "What brings you out?"
"Oh, I was just in the area when I saw the smoke. Do you mind if we take a walk? There are a couple of things I'd like to discuss with you."
Hoyt followed the man down the driveway. They stopped out of earshot. Their voices would have been drowned out by the noise of the crew storing hose, releasing pressure valves, and making plans for where they would share their after-fire beer. It was a tradition among the firefighters to toast one another's hard work and good fortune. It was also tradition for the rookie to buy.
Julia came by and handed Boone his hooligan tool. "Don't let Lamar see you left this behind. He's real particular about tools. Especially when he made them."
"Who's that?" Boone said after he accepted the tool and thanked Julia for bringing it, although he was sure he had left it in the truck. "The guy in the suit talking to Hoyt?"
Julia blew her nose into a handkerchief. The phlegm was coal black. "That would be Trey Landis. You never seen him before?"
Boone searched his memory and came up empty. "Never heard of him."
"His family owns half the county and all the judges."
"I don’t pay attention to politics,” Boone said. “Wonder why he's here?"
"Trey's a big siren chaser. They say he's got a scanner stuck to his dashboard." Julia said. "His family's real big contributors to the Fraternal Order of Police and the Fireman's Beneficiary. They gave a thousand dollars to the fund last year."
"That's a lot of money," Boone said. He shed his gear, folded it, and put it in the floorboard of his truck.
“You think?” Julia shrugged. "Otto told me about this one time, he was passing the boot for this gal whose husband died working a car fire. This one guy put a twenty in, and Otto know for a fact that it was the last twenty dollars he had on this earth. He said the widow needed it more than him. Otto also knew that there wasn't a bite to eat in his house, and his truck was out of gas. For a solid week, he ate nothing but saltine crackers and walked everywhere he went. So when a man's as rich as Landis, I ain't so impressed by a thousand dollars."
Boone nodded in agreement. He wasn't sure he could ever bring himself to give away his last dollar, but if he got the chance, he hoped to be that noble. "I'd like the meet the man who did that."
"You already have." Julia winked. "It was Lamar."
Barefoot Bennie’s Pub was a stone’s throw from Pamlico Sound with a view of the waterway where sailboats and yachts inched through the calm waters. It was the perfect place for a group of rowdy volunteer firefighters taking a liquid lunch to celebrate Boone’s first fire.
“A round of cold ones for my friends,” Boone said as he stepped up to the bar.
“You’re a firefighter?” The bartender and owner, Bennie, a woman in her mid-40s wearing a swim top and a long skirt, cocked an eyebrow at him. She was also barefoot, which caught Boone’s attention a little more than he thought it would. “How old are you, handsome?”
Boone slid his military ID across the bar. “Old enough to have pay for this bunch.”
Bennie smiled with her eyes, which Boone noted were light blue. She looked great for a woman her age. Any age, actually. “What’s the occasion?” she while drawing beer from the keg.
“Just put out my first fire.”
“He sure did,” Julia said as she walked up and threw an arm over his shoulder. She was wearing a T-shirt over her sports bra and black yoga pants that showed off her rock-hard ass. “We busted his cherry all right.”
Bennie cocked her eyebrow at Julia, but not in a mischievous way. More in a catty, oh really, bitch way. She set the beers on the bar. “Why’s he buying then?”
“Tradition,” Julia said, grabbing four mugs. “It’s a firefighter thing. You wouldn’t understand.”
She walked away toward the vollie’s table, and Boone watched her go. Julia was a few years older than him and worked with half-naked men in the gym on a daily basis. Maybe that’s why she was so willing to cut to the chase.
“Watch out for that one,” Bennie said quietly as Boone gathered the remaining mugs. “She’s trouble.”
“How so?” Boone asked, trying to sound innocent, even though he knew exactly what kind of trouble she meant.
“You haven’t even slept with her, and she’s already marking her territory.”
“So from looking at me,” Boone said, smiling, “you can tell I haven’t slept with her?”
Bennie leaned forward. “Not you, honey, her. You’re playing it close to the vest, but her cards are on the table for everybody to see.”
“Thanks.” Boone dropped a five in her jar. “I appreciate the tip.”
“Me, too. And if you ever need advice, there’s more where that came from.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” he said as he walked to the table.
After Boone passed around the remaining beers, the crew all stood and raised their glasses.
“To my stepson,” Lamar began the toast, “who worked as a team member this morning. Welcome to the club.”
“Cheers!” they all shouted and clinked their glasses together.
“Speech!” Julia yelled.
“Speech!” Otto repeated.
“Um. Thanks?” Boone said. “I'm not much for this kind of thing, so I’ll say I appreciate y’all putting up with me, and I'm sorry that you’ll have to put up with me on a permanent basis now.”
“Aw,” Julia leaned in to say as they all sat down, “that was awful. Sweet, but awful.”
“What can I say?” Boone said. “I gave fair warning.”
Julia winked at him. “That’s okay. You just need some extra training.”
“I’m already house broken,” Boone said, not really wanting to play along with his stepfather at his other elbow. So he turned to Lamar and said, “I was thinking of bringing Abner in to look at the cause of the fire. There may be more here than what meets the eye.”
“Don’t even think about it,” Lamar said. “Your granddaddy’s retired. Leave him to his hammock, where he can’t cause trouble.”
“What’s wrong with causing a little trouble?”
“With Abner, it’s never a little trouble.” On that note, Lamar finished his drink. “That’s it for me, boys, and it’s enough for y’all, too. I’ve got to get back to work, and Boone, don’t you need to get back to class?”
Boone gave Lamar a nod, a reminder that he didn’t need to be parented. He knew his responsibilities. The hardest thing about coming home was this habit Lamar and Mom had about helicoptering him. He’d hoped they would grow out of it, but a few months into his return, they still wouldn’t let go.
With a chorus of boos, the crew downed their beers and rose from the table. Boone dropped another tip on the table for the busboy and took the last sip of beer. He could’ve easily handled a couple of more, if he weren’t driving.
Boone gave Bennie a wave, glanced at her bare feet again, and made a mental note to bring more of his business here.
“That was a nice tip,” Julia said as she took his arm and steered him across the parking lot. They walked slowly, giving Lamar and the other vollies enough time to clear out. “Are you always that generous?”
“Servers worked hard,” he said. “You give a little, you get a lot back. That’s what I’ve noticed, any way.”
“Speaking of which,” she said as they reached her car. “There’s something I’d like to give you.”
Before he could ask what, she turned and planted a kiss on his lips. At first, it caught him by surprise. It
only took a second of her hot mouth pressed against his, though, that he returned the favor. His tongue darted over her lips, and when she opened her hungry mouth to his, he inhaled, drawing the breath from her. Her body shuddered, and he pulled her hips against his, a strong hand on the small of her back. She kissed him greedily as his hand slid lower, rubbing her hard ass as he felt himself grow hard. She turned so that her V was pressed against him, and she gave her hips a tiny but intentional grind.
That was enough for Boone. He was enjoying the hell out of this, but in the middle of the parking next to a busy highway, there was only so far he was willing to go.
He ran his hands down Julia’s sides and broke off the kiss. “Wow.”
“Oh boy,” she said and threw an arm around his neck, her breath in his ear, “that kiss was so fucking hot.”
“Glad you liked it,” he said, which he knew was stupid, but the blood had rushed from his brain to another part of his body.
“What’re you doing now?” she said. “I’ve got a client, but I can cancel.”
“I’ve got class.” He gently pushed her away before they went too far. “And I can’t cancel.”
“Damn,” she said, separating from him. “You got me all worked up. What am I going to do with myself?” She laughed. “Not that I need any suggestions. Maybe we can take this up again, you know, later?”
Boone nodded. “I might be interested in later.” Normally, he wasn’t a hook-up kind of guy, but it had been a long year since Japan, emotionally and physically.
“I hope that you’d be interested,” she said and ran a hand over the rock hard muscles of his arms, “in something other than later.”
Before he could respond, she opened her car door and slid into the seat. She pulled off her T-shirt as she rolled the window down. Through the thin sports bra, Boone could see her nipples straining hard against the fabric. He itched to run a thumb over the nipple, just to see her reaction. He loved the way a woman shook with that first touch. But instead, he coughed to break the spell and adjusted his jeans to hide his interest.
“You sure know how to hurt a guy,” he said.
