One entire wall was stacked with bales of straw, which appeared to be the location of much of the flame.
“Doesn’t look like it’s spread too much,” Fletcher said into the headset.
“Roger,” Red responded. “Keep going.”
Pushing farther into the building, he saw wooden stalls with tack hanging from the walls, grateful for the peaked roofline that drew much of the smoke upward. Even so, very little light filtered through, and his headlamp spotlight tracked in careful arcs around the darkened structure. Near the back wall, Fletcher found a man and a teenage boy fighting to pull a horse out of its stall.
Fletcher gestured to the boy to open the rear door and get out and away, then guided the older man and the frightened horse toward daylight. The kid ran toward them shouting about two more horses, and Fletcher directed the man to stay as far from the barn as possible; he returned to release the remaining animals.
The horses in the other two stalls reared up frantically as Fletcher approached them. He couldn’t blame them, but he didn’t have time to make friends with them, either. Pushing past the huge animals, he pulled out a hatchet and slammed it into the back wall of the first stall. Splintering the aged wood, he pounded against the slats until they broke away, drawing smoke out into the barnyard. He managed to get the horse turned around and pointed toward the light, trusting it to its instincts and its owners.
The last horse screamed in protest as Fletcher approached. Legs rearing, it kicked and stamped. “I know you’re scared. It’s all right,” Fletcher said. “I’ll get you out of here, but you’re going to have to trust me.” He held one gloved hand toward the horse, hoping that it would sense his intentions.
Fletcher knew very little about horses, but this one did not seem to take to him.
“Give me a little room, would you?” Fletcher tried to place his hand on the horse, but the animal was not having it. The substantial head crashed into Fletcher’s own, knocking loose his helmet and making him see stars. Fletcher’s vision tunneled to black for a few seconds, and he stood in place, his hands out, praying he wouldn’t fall. “Come on, buddy. That’s not nice. Give me a break, will you?”
He murmured to the horse for a few more seconds, grateful when the light of the fire crept back into his field of vision. “You really rang my bell, you know? Now it’s time to step out of here. Come on, let me through.” Fletcher continued to speak calmly, taking steps toward the back of the stall at every opportunity. When he successfully smashed the wall apart and the horse broke through into the yard, Fletcher couldn’t help himself.
“You’re welcome, you ungrateful beast.” He might have added a few other adjectives, but he did it under his breath.
Fletcher pulled his helmet back on and reported into the dangling piece of his headset that the structure was cleared and received his next instruction. As he moved through each assignment in concert with his team, he felt the gratification of successful and important work.
Only after the flames were doused and the smoke had cleared did Fletcher allow himself to notice the pain in his head. Inside the engine and driving his crew back to the station, his left temple throbbed. He could feel the pulse in his eye. He pressed his fist into his left eye to push the pain back, and the guys in the truck jeered him for the rough, jolting turns. Nick didn’t say anything, but Fletcher saw him watching.
As they let the guys off the engine and backed into the bay, Nick said, “Are you…?” but Fletcher cut him off.
“It’s fine,” he said. “Nothing.” He tried to shake his head, but dizziness overtook him.
He knew it was not nothing, but he didn’t want to be benched.
After a hot shower and a sandwich, Fletcher made his way back to the engine bay to help clean, restock, and prep the engine for the next call. Handing gear up from the storage lockers to the guys inside the truck he felt the pain in his head throb and recede every time he looked from the ground up. Maybe that was a good sign, he thought.
One at a time, the guys on the crew were brought in to report to the chief. Savanna’s voice called them over the intercom, and Fletcher didn’t think he imagined it when her voice held more venom saying his name than it did saying any of the others.
“Dude. She hates you,” Nick said, laughing.
“No kidding,” Fletcher said.
“Glad she doesn’t hate me,” Nick said, grinning. “I couldn’t live with that.”
Fletcher tossed the bag he was transferring into the waiting arms of the guy in the truck and jogged back toward the chief’s office. When his feet thumped against the floor, his head felt like a rattle. He slowed.
Walking past Savanna’s desk, he noticed that she was studying her computer monitor so she wouldn’t have to look at him. He said, “Thanks.”
Now she looked. She glared at him. “Thanks for what?”
He didn’t know, really. He was only trying to soften her fangs. “For always doing such a great job. We wouldn’t last five minutes without you,” he said, giving her what he hoped was a winning smile.
She made a growling noise, but she didn’t spit on him. So, win.
“Fletcher.” The chief welcomed him into the office. “Red tells me you’re injured.”
So much for preliminaries.
“I’m fine.”
The chief cleared his throat.
Fletcher started again. “I took a head-butt from a horse, but I’m feeling much better.”
The chief nodded and pushed a button on his phone. Savanna’s voice came through, at least Fletcher was pretty sure it was Savanna’s. It was sweeter than he ever heard it.
“Help you?” she said through the intercom.
“Who’s here from EMS?”
“Rogers and Duckworth,” she answered.
“Send them in here, would you?”
“You bet,” she almost sang.
Maybe it really was only him, Fletcher thought.
Chief Grantham asked a few questions about how the team worked together on the fire, and Fletcher answered truthfully and positively.
At a knock on the door, the chief summoned the EMS guys into the office.
“Gates here had a run-in with a horse,” he said. “I want you to have a look.”
“Sure,” the taller tech said. He motioned for Fletcher to get up, and he seemed to take a great deal of pleasure at looking down at Fletcher. He’d heard it was always like this—so much competitive energy between EMS and firefighters.
“Where’s it hurt?” Duckworth asked.
“Just a bump on the head,” Fletcher said.
“Mmm,” Duckworth said, managing to broadcast doubt in the syllable. He pulled out a flashlight and shined it first into one eye, then the other.
Fletcher willed his pupils to dilate.
Duckworth prodded a bit, probably more than he needed to, and then nodded his head. Quietly, he said, “You took a big hit. I imagine that hurts more than you’re saying.” For the first time, he looked directly at Fletcher. “You’re going to rest for a few days, and you’ll be great.” He turned to the chief. “It’s a bump on the head, but it’s a big one.”
Chief Grantham laughed. “Big head, or big bump?”
“I’d bet both,” Duckworth said. “He’s concussed.” He turned back to Fletcher. “Go see a doc if it affects your vision.”
Relieved, Fletcher thanked the EMS guys as they left. A few times over the past couple of years, smokejumpers had been injured badly enough that they’d had to lay off for the whole season. Fletcher didn’t know what he’d do with himself if he got sent away. He’d feel completely useless.
“You need rest now,” Chief Grantham said. “Go home.”
“I can sleep here for a couple of hours,” Fletcher said. “No problem.”
“A couple? How about seventy-two?”
The chief turned toward his computer and was typing up some notes.
“Seventy-two? Hours?” Fletcher couldn’t keep the disbelief out of his voice. “Sir, I�
��m fine.”
“You’re not fine. You’ve got a concussion.”
“Maybe just a little one,” he said.
The chief shook his head. “Don’t be a hero.” He turned back to give Fletcher his full attention. “Look, I count on your brains as much as your speed and endurance. Your head took a thumping. You need to rest it.”
Fletcher tried again to protest. Grantham stopped him with a glare.
“Go home. Don’t come back until Tuesday at the earliest. Rest.” The chief didn’t seem to realize that Fletcher really was fine.
“But sir. That’s not necessary. I’m good. I’ll just take it easy, play some cards with Red.”
Chief Grantham’s face grew more serious. “Nobody stays who can’t give one hundred percent. There’s no shame in it, son, but you can’t carry your weight for a few days.” He leaned over his desk. “Enjoy it.” It wasn’t a suggestion.
Fletcher’s instincts to argue fought with his habit of subjecting himself to his boss.
“Yes, sir.”
Fletcher stood and left the office, avoiding Savanna’s eye as much as she avoided his. He grabbed his bag from the locker room and slipped out a side door, not interested in seeing any of the guys.
He wanted to hit something. How could he let this happen? He’d been weak and let himself get hurt, and now his team was down one man.
A voice in his head told him that they could wash the engine and play poker and watch baseball playoff games just fine without him, but he knew that it was more than being sent away from the station.
The team had been working as a unit. It was a good fight today. They were seamless, united, effective. And now he was out. Even if only for a few days.
He was leaving a hole. Someone else would have to fill it.
Worse, someone else could fill it.
He was replaceable.
The force with which that series of thoughts hit his bruised brain surprised him. Fletcher didn’t consider himself shallow by any means, but he was not a complicated guy. He had a job to do and he did it.
But now, at least for a time, things changed. He had nothing to do. Correction: he was instructed that he had to do nothing.
He felt ashamed.
What was he without his work?
Driving through town, he felt like hiding. He pulled up to his mom’s house and slunk to the front door. The idea of being unnecessary nearly undid him. When he opened his parents’ front door, his mom was sitting on the couch reading a book.
Her eyes flew to him in a look he’d seen so many times over the years—the look of panic when she knew there was a call at the station. He’d seen her look at his dad that way so often when the plan was disrupted. Coming home early, coming home late, all of it served as a constant reminder to her that this job was dangerous.
“Are you okay?” she said, unmistakable fear in her voice.
“Fine.” He wanted to assure her, but mostly he wanted to actually be fine. He slumped into a chair by the fireplace and closed his eyes.
“Fletcher?” she said.
He nodded without looking at her. “All fine, Mom,” he said.
After a few minutes, Rose stood up and walked out of the living room.
He heard her speaking softly on the other side of the wall. She was on the phone. Fletcher stood up and walked into the kitchen.
“Yes. Yes. Thanks, Dave. I understand. Thank you. Bye.” She clicked off her phone and turned to see him standing there.
“Chief called,” she said. “He wanted to make sure I knew that I didn’t need to worry.” She smiled sadly at him. “Sorry about the head. Let me rig up an ice pack for you.” She pointed at the seats around the table.
“Mom, I’m totally capable of making my own ice pack,” he said, sitting down obediently in the chair he’d always occupied at meals.
“I know, but you have to let me do something, or I’d feel useless around here.”
He wondered if she had any idea that he felt exactly the same way.
Chapter 10
Hadley’s watch vibrated to let her know she had another text. Niles had been sending her messages all day from an estate sale he was overseeing—a generous term for wandering through and clapping his hands with glee when he saw something one of his friends would love. Apparently, the family in question was not attached to the library, including a pristine set of Encyclopedia Britannica from 1845, which would look amazing displayed on the rolltop desk Hadley had spent last summer refinishing.
Deciding Niles could wait, Hadley stayed up on the ladder stringing hanging lights around the windows until a family came in, arms loaded with fleece blankets and teddy bears. She climbed down and greeted them, thanking them for their generosity. As she showed the kids where to place their donations, she wondered if Fletcher would carry one of these blankets to a child who had just lost everything, if Fletcher would be the one to deliver this soft comfort.
“Go ahead and choose anything from the green-marked shelves,” Hadley said, pointing to the section of kids’ books she’d arranged as trade for the donations. “Each of you pick something,” she whispered to the kids. “Don’t let your parents convince you that you have to share.” She caught the mom’s grin and smiled back.
After the kids found some treasures, Hadley checked supply levels in the poetry room. Besides reams of creamy thick paper, boxes of pens and markers, and bins of word games, she had three typewriters, one from the thirties, one from the fifties, and a blue electric one from the seventies, set up on a cool, old dining table. People could sit and write poems, taking their finished work with them or attaching the papers to clothespins that stuck to the metal wall at the back of the room. Hadley loved to come and see what people had created. She figured she sold more poetry books than the average secondhand bookshop this way, but honesty compelled her to admit that she knew nothing about what might make an average secondhand bookshop successful as far as poetry sales were concerned.
She knew the measures of her own success; she wanted to average bringing in four times her expenses every month. So far, after two years, she’d achieved that goal three times. It wasn’t something she brought up to her father.
Aiming high was nothing new to Hadley. And she aimed high enough that falling short of actually reaching her monthly goal still allowed her to run a successful business. But at the back of her mind, she always harbored the feeling that her parents and her sister were watching, arms at the ready to catch her when she fell, not if.
She’d show them.
Restacking a pile of paper next to the Olivetti typewriter, she clacked a key just to hear it strike. A truly satisfying sound.
Another text buzzed in on her watch, and she read it quickly, expecting Niles had found her more treasures. Instead, it was Rose Gates.
Miss you. Can you come for dinner tonight?
Hadley had missed her occasional lunches with Rose, but the possibility of running into Fletcher was too high, especially in those first weeks, when every meeting with him ended in injury or frustration. She knew she wasn’t at her best when he was around.
But lately she’d been perfectly nice to him, and he’d been the same. When he wasn’t telling her all the ways her shop was approaching utter destruction.
That didn’t mean she was interested in trying to make small talk over a meal.
The shop is open until 8 tonight—sorry!
Rose answered almost immediately.
Come after?
Surely Fletcher was working tonight, and that was why Rose wanted Hadley to come and keep her company. She wouldn’t ask Hadley over when Fletcher was around, would she? She wasn’t one of those moms, on a mission to fix up her eligible, handsome, firefighter son, was she? She had never been that way before, but Hadley had made it very clear that she had zero interest in the tiniest possibility of ever speaking Fletcher’s name again.
Things were different now.
Now she and Fletcher had reconnected. They’d shared a meal (she was
reluctant to call it a date, even in her head, although he asked her to lunch and she said yes and they went together and he paid, which obviously). They’d hung out with her dog in the park.
Everything was normal.
Except Hadley had no idea what “normal” meant where Fletcher Gates was concerned. If it was casually saying hello and being friendly when they saw each other socially, they hadn’t been “normal” since they were thirteen years old. They’d been together. Very together. Then they’d been apart. Completely apart.
And now they were something else.
Were they the kind of people who ate meals together with one or more of their parents present? That sounded so manufactured. So chaperoned. So Regency romance novel-ish.
But the contrivance wasn’t her only concern.
Hadley wasn’t sure she could hide her growing attraction. She wasn’t sure she could sit across the table from him and not jump over the table and into his lap. When she saw him, her hands began to sweat. When she thought of him, she wanted him to put his arms around her like he used to. When he smiled at her…
“We. Are. Friends.” Hadley whispered the words in short, angry bursts, demanding that her brain and her body follow her lead.
“Okay,” a little voice replied. “We are friends.” A girl about six years old with pony stickers covering both cheeks held up her fist for a knuckle bump. Hadley complied and reminded herself to keep her internal dialogue good and internal from now on.
Returning to the front desk and realizing that she hadn’t answered Rose’s second request, Hadley pulled out her phone. Another message from Rose flashed on her screen.
Fletcher got hurt, and he could use some company.
“Faith? You’re closing,” Hadley said over her shoulder as she grabbed her coat and ran out the door.
Three blocks later, she arrived puffing at Rose’s door. To say Rose looked surprised to see her might have been an understatement.
“Oh. Hadley. Hi, honey,” Rose said. “Sorry. I thought you were…” She stammered a little, and Hadley translated in her head.
“Sorry,” Hadley said, feeling a flush warm her cheeks. “I know I said I was working. And I was. I am. But you said,” Hadley used her hands to say what her mouth was incapable of, gesturing inside and beyond.
Falling for a Former Flame: A Sweet Romantic Comedy (ABCs of Love) Page 9
