“That’s really nice of you, Alta. I’m actually a vet, so if I start walking in to glass walls or barking incessantly I’ll have a pretty good idea what’s wrong.”
With a chuckle Alta nodded and started toward the front desk. “I’ll be up here if you need anything.”
Quiet enough so no one else could hear, Poppy said, “I need to show you that you can’t throw me around.” She put on her pit bull face, the dog, not the singer. Her enemy couldn’t know that, like every one of the Pitties that had come through her rescue, Poppy was a softie inside.
Show no fear, feel no compassion.
Poppy hit the start button and took a deep breath as the machine taunted her with the three-beep countdown, and started sliding.
“Yeah, well your mom was probably a conveyor belt, and not like the cute little one at the all-you-can eat sushi. She’s … an industrial sized one in an Amazon warehouse or something.”
Before the treadmill was up to speed, Poppy was too out of breath for any more insults.
I got this. Only three miles to go. Don’t look down.
Miraculously her Bluetooth earbuds were still around her neck, so into her ears they went. Without crashing and burning, she found the play button and the narrator’s voice picked up again.
For a while Poppy lost herself in a fictional world—a world about a running protagonist interestingly enough—and continued to remind herself to not look down. A watched pot never boils and a watched treadmill logs no miles. The rivulets of sweat started running again. She had brought a towel to wipe up after her run, but maybe that fireman would be back and she could just use his face again.
Don’t look down.
If she wasn’t so scared of crashing and burning again, she’d grab the towel and lay it over the display to hide it, but two catastrophic failures in one day might make it hard to show her face here again. No, the gym would probably refund her money and tell her she was too much of a liability to work out there.
Don’t look …
Poppy looked down at her adversary, expecting to be in the mid twos. Its beady little display numbers sneered back a measly .9 miles.
“Oh … now you’re just lying.” Feeling like a failure, Poppy decreased the pace to 5.5. “But you know what? You can’t beat me. Winston Churchill … would give up … before I will. I might die here, but you can’t, make me stop, pounding you, until I get my, three point one.”
Focus on breathing, Poppy told herself. And don’t look down.
2
Slade Powers rode backward on Park City Fire Truck 1. Lights flashed off the windows of the cars they passed and the wail of the siren penetrated the headphones the crew used to talk to each other on the way to calls. Adrenaline raced through his veins, like the truck raced down the street.
With his thick turnouts on, airpack straps over his shoulders, and seat belt buckled, Slade felt insulated, almost like he was wrapped with pillows. He couldn’t see where they were going, only where they’d been. Emily, Ladder 1 engineer, weaved smoothly around traffic and through intersections. Engineer didn’t seem like a likely place for a woman in a male-dominated field, but she was a heck of a driver. In five and a half months with the crew, Slade had yet to see Cap have to pull out the map to give her routing. The streets of Park City were as familiar to Emily as a FAFSA application was to a high school counselor.
“Please tell me you guys saw that chick face plant on that treadmill.” JFK’s voice came over the headphones. No one responded. “Oh man, we have to see if we can pull up any video from the gym. Cap, I deserve a commendation for not busting up.”
It was only a matter of time until JFK started talking. Ninety percent of conversation in the rig came from Slade’s partner. Less than one percent came from Slade. As the new guy, the boot, his role was to follow orders, do all the heavy lifting—and light lifting—and keep quiet unless someone asked him a question. The custom of proving yourself as the new guy wasn’t as strict as Slade’s time in basic training for the Army, but he had a hard time treating it any differently. In another two weeks, his probationary period would be over and he could be one of the guys. To a degree.
“If that chick spends about three hours a day on that treadmill for the next, oh, two months, she’ll actually be pretty good looking.”
Slade couldn’t disagree more about her needing to change anything physically. Even from the unusual angles he’d caught of her, she was in a word—attractive. Superattractive. That was still one word, even if it wasn’t a real one. She wasn’t just attractive in the pleasing to the eye kind of way, but also like a magnet that was inexplicably hard to pull away from. Even for an emergency call. She wasn’t rail thin, which some guys liked and that was fine. She had curves, just the right amount, and seemed so healthy and cute and just all around beautiful. Not that he was checking her out or anything. He was a professional, after all.
“You’re one to talk,” said Emily, crossing into oncoming lanes as they approached a busy intersection.
“She wanted me,” said JFK, ignoring Emily’s insinuation about his weight.
“Oh yeah?” said Cap with a grin in his voice. “You could tell that by the way she was looking at Slade?”
“That’s right,” said JFK confidently. “It was all over her face. Just wait. Gimme two weeks and I’ll be buying her drinks at Pineapple’s.”
That would never happen. Slade had known JFK for twelve years. For a very short while they had been best friends in eighth grade. He’d been a big talker back then, and was a big talker now. Even if Slade was expected to join in the conversation, the best way to deal with JFK when he went off was to ignore him.
Besides, that smile. Slade hadn’t caught the girl’s name, but he’d never forget that smile. No, those smiles. The embarrassed, self-deprecating grin after she splashed him with her hair sweat and that brilliant, soul-imprinting full smile as she sent him off on the call like a beautiful and beloved queen bidding farewell to soldiers going off to war. Even thinking about it was an instant pick-me-up.
Soul-imprinting. That wasn’t bad.
…a joy, no an elevation on the spot …
… tattooed on my memory …
That made him think of the curious tattoo the girl had on her rib cage, the very edge of it covered by her sports bra.
“Yeah,” said JFK’s crackly voice into his headset. “Sweat about thirty pounds off her and she’d look perfect hanging on my arm.”
Slade couldn’t listen to the blather any more, but if he said anything it would only encourage more. The only tactic that ever worked with JFK was to change the subject. “Did the update say it was a two-inch gas line that ruptured?” asked Slade.
“Yep,” said Cap.
“Get your earplugs ready,” added JFK. “Two-inch lines scream louder than a banshee with her … toes in a vice.”
The best thing about having a female on the crew—everyone tended to temper the graphic, often anatomical dialogue. Slade had had more than his fill of that in the Army.
JFK went on. “This your first natural gas line break, Booter? That’s ice cream.”
“Nope,” said Slade. “We had a small one in a yard when you were off a couple weeks back.” Since getting out of the academy and into the station, Slade had spent about half of his salary buying ice cream for the crew whenever a new first happened. On a job with such variety, sometimes it was every shift.
That smile had been a first. A smile had never been so hard to walk away from, even with a call coming in and his crew running out the door.
He owed that girl some ice cream.
The ladder turned into the Rite-Aid parking lot.
“Inch and three-quarter crosslay,” said Captain Compton through the headset.
“Inch and three-quarter crosslay,” repeated Slade.
The rig pulled to a stop and Emily popped the air brake. In unison, everyone bolted from the cab of the truck.
Slade hopped down to the ground, then popped up onto the st
ep by the pump. With the nozzle in one hand and a loop of hose in the other, he took off running. Hose flaked off behind him as it cleared the hosebed. A sharp tug at the end of the line let him know all of the hose was on the ground, so he angled toward the backhoe and the trench.
Air whistled shrilly out of the trench, blowing a cloud of dirt into the air even higher than the pharmacy. The rotten-egg smell was as thick as the dust cloud. At a safe distance from the trench, Slade stopped and arranged the hose behind him in a single layer to prevent knots and kinks once it got charged, all while holding the nozzle tightly under one arm. If JFK somehow got hold of the nozzle, Slade would never hear the end of it.
Slade turned back to the truck, raised both arms, and shouted, “Ready for water!” He couldn’t even hear his own voice over the roar of the pipeline.
After quickly returning the gesture, Emily turned to the pump panel, pulled two levers and water started charging toward the end of the hose line. Slade cracked the bale on the nozzle to let the air bleed out, and kept a firm grip as the flat, malleable hose line became as rigid as a tree branch.
Then he waited.
Questar Gas was on their way. All Ladder 1 had to do was man the hose line, ready in case an errant spark turned the whooshing air into an enormous flame thrower.
JFK finally arrived to back him up, but there was nothing to do but wait, so they took a knee, and watched the dirt cloud. A slight breeze carried it away from Slade and away from the truck.
Luckily the roaring prevented any dialogue. Or monologue in their case.
Cap and the medics would take care of evacuations and keeping bystanders at a safe distance while Slade and JFK watched the gas. With nothing to do or focus on, his thoughts ran back to that smile. No, it wasn’t just the smile, even though that seemed to embody all of her. Even when she had been tied up like a pretzel, the girl was joking around and just being overall the most pleasant person in the world. But what could thirty seconds tell? Slade couldn’t say the girl had the perfect personality after such a short time with her, but if the smile was a billboard, he wanted more information.
Not a “relationship”. If he ever got into another one of those it would be way too soon. The first time he attempted love, his heart had been whole and healthy. After what Jenny had done to him, he might as well not even have the love kind of heart, just the blood-pumping one in his chest.
Maybe next Tuesday the girl would be back at the gym at the same time. Too bad Slade had no say in what time they went to the gym since he was the new guy. The Tuesday after next, he would be off shift and he could go by the gym on his own. He didn’t have a personal membership, and he couldn’t use the department membership when he was off duty, but maybe he could take a new-member tour.
No. After going there nearly every week for five months, a new-member tour wouldn’t work. Maybe he could pop in and chat with Alta, ask her about the girl who did a full twisting double back flip off of the treadmill. Because girls loved it when you asked them for deets about other girls, right?
Even while he planned his strategy, Slade knew he’d sign up and go into the gym at random times during the week until he saw that smile again. He hated treadmills. They were the fluorescent lights of the exercise world: soul-sucking and artificial. Slade would much rather play a sport, or throw around some free weights. If he went for a run it would be on a trail, enjoying some of the most beautiful scenery on God’s green Earth.
If Questar Gas would hurry up and arrive and crimp the line shut, Ladder 1 would go back to the gym and she might still be there. But, if he had to kneel here babysitting an impending furnace of death, at least he had something pleasant to think about.
Fragments of verse ran through his head. He hoped some of them stuck around long enough for him to write down.
… should be illegal for you to be sad, hide that smile …
… cure for the world’s ill in a pair of lips and two and a half dozen pearls …
How many teeth do humans have? wondered Slade. He didn’t think they covered that in EMT school or in his years in the Army.
By the time the gas company arrived, got dressed in their protective gear, and stopped the leak, Slade had lost approximately his own body weight in sweat. His turnout coat felt heavier than Slade himself as he stripped it off, and laid it open on the front-facing seat to dry out.
An hour and a half had passed. Even if the crew was up for wallyball, the girl wouldn’t be there still. She had already been sweaty and breathing hard, probably close to the end of her workout when she ate it.
That smile, though.
Slade could wait until next Tuesday for that smile.
3
Poppy pulled Cardinal, her Chevy three-quarter-ton pickup into a spot at Pineapple’s and looked up at the sign. Pineapple’s Bar and Grill? Based on Daria’s recommendation for the best salads in Summit County, she’d expected something a little more … fruity?
“Well, Cardinal,” she said to her truck, “Daria’s the foodie. I’ll give it a try.”
Unfortunately with only two employees at the shelter, one of them had to stay on site so they couldn’t do lunch together. Most days they both brown-bagged it, but since her tumble on the treadmill two days earlier, Poppy allowed herself an extra half hour in bed to let her contusions and abrasions heal, so there was no time to pack lunches.
There were a lot of large trucks in the parking lot, and at least half a dozen of them had firefighter license plates. Some foodie show she’d seen months earlier had cited firemen as a reliable authority on local cuisine, so maybe Daria knew what she was talking about. Hopefully the ones who had witnessed the treadmill incident weren’t among the patrons. A little more time for her ego to heal would go a long way.
Well, except for that blue-eyed, chiseled-features hottie, Slade. Shame or no, she wouldn’t mind seeing him again. Poppy tried to brush some of the dog hair off her jeans, and stomped her feet as she walked up to the front door to free some of the manure trapped in the crevices of her boots.
“Mother would be so proud,” she muttered with a chuckle.
The interior of the restaurant, well the bar and grill, had a very cool vibe which came mostly from firefighter t-shirts and badges that hung from every wall. T-shirts from Boston, Tucson, L.A., and Park City hung in the waiting area, as well as dozens of badges. One of the badges was from McMurdo, Antarctica. Poppy wondered if it was a gag. She had expected to feel self-conscious about her animal clothes in public, but now felt like anyone could walk into this place and feel comfortable. Well, anyone who didn’t have a stick up their butt.
“Welcome to Pineapple’s,” said a cute blonde hostess. “Been here before?”
“Nope.”
“Great. Sit wherever you like and we’ll be right over to take your order.”
Poppy smiled and walked into the seating area. Some tables, some booths and some stools along the bar. It was more than half full with a lunch rush. Poppy chose a small booth on the side of the room without looking too closely at any of the other people.
The menus were folded sheets of paper. Poppy’s index of suspicion about the salads in this place climbed higher. She used the well-worn piece of paper as a cover to look around at the other people.
Almost right in front of her at a table she couldn’t avoid looking at, was one of the firemen from the gym. The big guy. Big soft, not big muscles. What had Slade called him? LBJ? No, JFK. Apparently he had been waiting for her to notice him because he lifted a drink in her direction and tipped his head.
Poppy smiled, then promptly hid behind her menu.
Daria. The little prankster. This wasn’t about the salad. Poppy’s laboratory animal caretaker had to know firefighters ate here. Daria had set Poppy up to face even more embarrassment than at the gym.
“Well,” said Poppy to her menu, “at least I’m alone. I was worried for a minute there that I might not look like a total loser. Now how do I get out of here without—”
“Wh
at can I get for you?” The waitress was the same girl as the hostess.
Too late to run. “Do you have salads?” It was yet to be seen how long the life changes would last, but for now she was still trying to get started in Park City with an upswing in her physical appearance and maybe even her self-esteem.
“Yep.” She used her pen to point to a corner of the menu. A very small corner, with limited options.
“Which one’s the healthiest?”
“The kale chicken sesame.”
What’s that? The big double greasy bacon cheeseburger is fat free and calorie free? Perfect. “Kale chicken sounds great. I’ll just have water to drink.” Poppy smiled up and held out the menu.
“We’ll get that right out.” She smiled back. “You can actually hold on to that menu. It’s our gift to you.” The waitress walked away.
That firefighter, JFK, was looking at her again. Or, even worse, still looking at her. Four other guys, probably firefighters from the look of them, sat at the table and a couple of them were turned around to look at her as well. Slade wasn’t there, she would have noticed his long-on-the-top hair that begged to have fingers run through it even from behind. The lady firefighter from the gym was the only other one at the table who she recognized.
When they noticed her looking at them, they turned back to their own business. Except for JFK, who kept up that creepy grin.
Take a picture. It’ll last longer.
Poppy stood and looked around for the restrooms. She had a thing about having to wash her hands before eating in a restaurant, and besides, it gave her a good excuse to get away from staring eyes for a minute. Thankfully she didn’t have to walk toward the firefighters’ table to get to the restrooms.
A doorway in the wall opposite the entrance led to a big room that appeared to be empty. Was that grass on the floor? Poppy angled toward the doorway. It wasn’t grass, but it was close. Turf, like from a football field was laid in the room. In one corner was a foosball table and along the walls she saw some other lawn-type games. Some sort of bean bag toss, that game with golf balls tied together and PVC frames, and a couple others that she also couldn’t name. She wondered if the games and room were open to anyone or were used for special events.
Two Hearts Rescue: Park City Firefighter Romance Page 2
