#4--The Quiet Day--O’Connells

by Lorhainne Eckhart

  “So where do you stand, Jessa? Are you going to sit back and see to it that I lose my job and this is pinned on me?”

  She narrowed her eyes, leaned in, and lowered her voice. “Suzanne, I may have lied once, and it cost our friendship, but I’m not about to sit back and watch you be railroaded. And one more thing…” Jessa glanced past her and tapped her arm so she turned to look, seeing that Marcus and Harold were standing just outside the chambers, talking and looking her way. “That man has feelings for you.” Jessa looked at her watch again. “I have to go.”

  She started walking, her heels clicking on the floor, echoing. She called out and lifted her hand in a wave to both Marcus and Harold. Just then, Suzanne spotted Toby walking in with the chief and a man she recognized as his grandfather.

  She started walking, and Toby must have seen her, as he said something to them and then started her way. Damn, he was still good looking, but there was something about him, as she glanced over to Harold, that just didn’t sit right with her. She stopped where she was and took in the way he looked right and then left before he approached her, a motion she knew well.

  “I heard you filed an official grievance,” he said. Was that anger in his voice?

  “You took my job and are trying to make me the fall guy,” she said. “Of course I did.”

  He let out a rough, frustrated breath and shook his head, letting his gaze dip to her. “You know this will be the end of us, then.”

  Why had she never seen this side of him?

  “I think you’re confused, Toby,” she said. “There is no us.”

  He shook his head, and the smile that touched his lips was anything but friendly. His blue eyes rested on her again. “So that’s the way you want to play it? I lay my heart out to you, and you can’t even give a little. I have a great opportunity that you’ll never have, Suzanne. Fine, you want to make this a fight?” He shook his head, and she just stared at him.

  Harold was walking her way, and Marcus was now talking with the chief. She wasn’t sure where Toby’s grandfather had gone.

  “No, Toby, I don’t want to fight you, but I will, because I’m not about to give up something I love, my dream of being a firefighter, just because a fall guy is needed. You toss words at me, saying you love me, but honestly, I don’t think you know what love is. I think you love yourself more.”

  “Everything all right here?” Harold said as he strode around Toby and came to stand right beside her. There was just something about the motion, about him, that said everything to her.

  Toby lifted his hands as if he was done, then stepped back. The expression on his face was one she’d not seen often. “No, I’m done here,” he said, then walked away without a glance back to her.

  She couldn’t believe he could be so cruel. It hurt. She hadn’t realized she was shaking, but Harold must have known, as he took her hand. She flicked her gaze over to him. Something about the motion had settled her.

  “So you’re really going to fight this,” he said, then pulled his hand away. Everything about him was so grounded. How had she missed that?

  “Well, someone I really care about gave me some good advice, and I’d have to be a fool not to listen to it.”

  He didn’t smile, but light touched his amber eyes, and it eased the nervousness that had kicked up inside her. Within moments, she would go into a room where her fate would be decided. He had to know how she felt.

  “Is this someone I know?” he said.

  She slid her hand over his arm, feeling his strength. “I think you know it is.”

  He said nothing, though she sensed he wanted to. The doors to the council chamber opened, but she just wanted to stand there with him for another moment.

  He ran both his hands over her arms, her shoulders. “Just take a breath. Breathe, okay? I got your back.” At the way he said it, she had to fight the tightness in her chest, the emotion that welled.

  “I was a fool to let a lie come between us,” she said. “Whatever Jessa said, it was my fault. I should never have believed her. I’m sorry that I never came to you, talked to you. I didn’t have your back, but here you are.” She shut her eyes for a second and felt his hands still there on her shoulders. He pressed a kiss to her forehead, then somehow had her turned, walking toward the chamber. “So whatever happens in there,” she said, “I want you to know I wouldn’t want anyone else here with me.”

  He just grunted, and as she looked up at him, she realized that just maybe, she would get that second chance.

  Chapter Sixteen

  The door to her MGB squeaked as she stepped out, and the voices of her family drifted out of her brother Ryan’s house. She took in Harold getting out from the other side, dressed in blue jeans and a faded dress shirt. His light hair had a soft wave. Everything about him settled her in ways she couldn’t have explained to anyone.

  “You sure you want to meet everyone?” she said. “They can be a handful, and they’ll assume we’re together, you know.”

  He walked over to her, rested his hands on her arms, and then took her hand in his. “Let them. Besides, you still haven’t told your family about the board’s ruling, have you?”

  He knew she hadn’t. What was she supposed to say? The fire department had been ordered to give her job back, but, not surprisingly, the position she’d held had been contracted out the day before the ruling came down. She was pissed, and Harold was furious, but that was the reality of how things worked.

  She shook her head. “No. How do I tell everyone that the job I loved is gone? Yes, I can work for the next county over when they have an opening, but unfortunately, I got screwed over.”

  He slid his arm around her and pulled her closer, pressing a kiss to her forehead, then to her lips when she leaned against him and looked up. “Well, tell them exactly that, and then let it be. Let them be angry with you. As I told you, you lost the battle, not the war. Sometimes, you have to take a step back and see all of it. He will screw up. He’ll do something that’ll cost him. At the same time, could you have gone back and worked under him?”

  She knew the “him” he was referring to was Toby, a man she’d been head over heels for, though everything she’d felt for him was now gone. “No, you’re right, I couldn’t have.” How could she respect someone who could toss her away as Toby had? “But this here…” Her fingers were linked with his. Just touching him, being close to him, seemed natural and easy. For the first time in her life, she felt as if she’d been given a second chance to right a wrong. “This is all that’s important. Let them rant and be angry for a moment, but this here, with us, you having my back, the way I feel about you… I guess I just want you to know, so there’s no misunderstanding, Harold, that I once loved you so deeply. I guess what I’m saying is that those feelings never really went away.”

  She looked up to him, and he glanced over to the house as the screen door opened and Marcus stepped out.

  Harold’s hand settled around the small of her back, and he brought her closer. “Well, that’s good, then. I guess that gives us something to talk about,” he said. Then he laughed softly, leaned down, and kissed her.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Suzanne took in Toby’s faded brown T-shirt on top of her hamper and considered, just for a second, calling him. Then she’d, what, drive over there and return it to him?

  “I think not,” she said under her breath as she dumped it in the washer with the rest of her clothes. She’d wash it and add it to the pile she was planning on giving away to charity.

  She heard a knock on the front door.

  “Hello?” Karen called out. “I’ve never seen your front yard so neat. Didn’t think you liked flowers.”

  Suzanne knew she was referring to the small front yard she’d previously let go. Now, with all her free time, she’d decided it could use some landscaping and had added a flower bed at the front of the house, along with two planter boxes below the front window, with marigolds, asters, and a small white rose bush that would ho
pefully climb the side of the house. Maybe next week she’d think about painting the trim from ugly brown to something with curbside appeal, teal or maybe red.

  Karen poked her head in the small laundry area by the back door off the tiny kitchen. She was wearing a bright fuchsia cotton dress with a cream-colored sweater overtop, with bare legs and wedged sandals, and her hair was deep mahogany now, hanging long and loose.

  “There you are. Did you hear me?” she said, taking in the laundry. As Suzanne stepped out, the loud whir of the washer started.

  “Yup, sorry. Doing laundry, is all. And yes, I figured with all this time on my hands, I could at least spruce this place up, considering being out of work means no paycheck, so I may need to put it on the market and sell it before the bank decides to take it from me because I can’t pay the mortgage.” She sounded grumpy even to herself, but then, she was out of a job she loved.

  “Well, that’s what I want to talk to you about. I know you said you wanted to lie low for a bit, but I really think you should reconsider and let me file a suit against the department.”

  Suzanne kept walking past her sister into the tiny kitchen, where she pulled open the fridge before closing it, opting to go right to the freezer. She reached for the tub of chocolate raspberry ice cream and lifted the lid only to see it was basically empty aside from a little bit she’d have to scrape to make even a teaspoon. She dumped it in the sink and glanced back at her sister, who didn’t pull those O’Connell blue eyes from her.

  “No, I don’t want to file a suit against the fire department,” she said. “I told you that already, in case you’ve forgotten. I’d like to be a firefighter again, but deciding to sue for any reason is the same as ensuring I’ll never work in any department anywhere. As you already pointed out to me, either the chief, Toby’s grandfather, or Toby himself was tipped off by someone on the council that they’d be ruling in my favor on the grievance and ordering the department to give me back my job, so they filled my position by hiring Everett full time, with benefits, the day before the official ruling. He was one of the volunteers, and he lacks any real firefighting experience. Then every one of my so-called ‘brothers in blue,’” she said, complete with finger quotes, “refused to back me, because they all want to stay on the right side of this to save their own skins. Now Everett has my job, and they can’t fire him or un-take the position from him, so no, it totally sucks, and I’m still furious and pissed, but I’m not suing. Albeit I won the grievance, I didn’t really, because the strings are held by someone I’ve managed to piss off.”

  “Ah, I see you’re still in that place, are you?” Karen said, having pulled her sunglasses off and rested them atop her head.

  “Look, Karen, I know you’re trying to help, but didn’t you hear what both Marcus and Harold said about this? Even though I’d love nothing more than to jam up the chief, Toby, and his grandfather, this isn’t something I’m going to win. Because even if by some miracle a court were to rule and pass down a nice payout for me, order them to give me a job, you know the system isn’t going to work with me. If I did end up back on the job, it wouldn’t be for long, because they’d find a way to pin something more serious on me, have anonymous complaints suddenly appearing about things I didn’t do, and then things would start to stick, and they could say, ‘See? We were right.’ I wouldn’t see it coming. I would have to watch my own back because no one would have mine at a fire. If I suddenly find myself trapped again, no one would come and save my ass. So no, Karen, as much as I’d love to, because what they did is so wrong and unfair and basically violates all my rights as a woman, as a person, I can’t, because the system is stacked against me.” She gestured toward herself, feeling even worse now than she’d felt moments earlier.

  “So you’re going to just give up? That doesn’t seem like you, Suzanne. Can’t remember you ever giving up on anything. They screwed you big time. This kind of thing happens more than people realize, and they continue to get away with it because of all the reasons you’ve just said. You have to understand, Suzanne, every change that’s happened in civil, racial, and gender rights has come about only because someone had the guts to fight back and stand up and say no, they’re not going to be screwed over. Don’t let them walk all over you.”

  She just took in her sister, knowing she was dying to fight this. “Yes, but at what cost to their personal lives?” She shook her head and lifted her hands, because she still ached, thinking about how Toby could’ve done this to her. “Please, Karen, just drop it. Maybe I’ll feel differently down the road, but right now…” She lowered her hands, resting them on the counter behind her, against which she was leaning.

  “Okay, I won’t push, but I will check back in. I seriously want you to think on it,” Karen said. “Well, if you don’t want to talk about letting me kick some serious ass and get you some well-entitled retribution, tell me, how are things for you and Harold?”

  She took in her sister’s interest. The fact was that she was still trying to figure out where she and Harold were, entirely. It wasn’t as if they could just pick up where they left off, because they’d been kids, and now they weren’t.

  “We’re good,” she finally said.

  Karen raised a brow. “Elaborate, please, Suzanne, because I remember you and Harold together in high school, how inseparable you were. I remember when things went south for you and how devastated you were. This isn’t just casual and not really serious, like it was with Toby.”

  She knew her sister, just like the rest of her family, was wondering how serious she and Harold were—but then, so was she.

  “Look, don’t compare Harold and Toby, because the Toby thing was never going anywhere. I can see that now. As for Harold, well, he’s here all the time. He’s rented a nice condo in town. He has his place, and he’s not worried about being seen with me. Would I like to bump it up to something more serious? Of course, but at the same time, he’s not there yet, I think. I don’t know.”

  What she did know was that he had a key to her house and had spent the previous night there, and the night before that, but the topic of what was next for them wasn’t something she wanted to discuss with her family, considering she didn’t know where Harold saw them. Maybe with dinner tonight, she could figure out what he was thinking.

  Just then, she heard a car out front, and then the door opened.

  “Hey, it’s me! Whose fancy Mercedes is parked out front?” Harold called out before he stopped just outside the kitchen, wearing his deputy uniform, taking in her and her sister. She could see the open question in his amber eyes. “Karen, hey,” he said as he stepped in and rested his hand on the refrigerator just above Suzanne’s head, dragging his gaze from Karen back to her. “Did I walk in on something?”

  “Just my sister trying to talk me into taking a chunk out of the chief, Toby, and his grandfather by suing the shit out of them.”

  Harold raised his brows.

  “Don’t worry,” she said. “I told Karen no, because that kind of thing is frowned upon, and I do want to be a firefighter again, although…”

  “Hate to say this, Suzanne, but I think I’m going to side with Karen on this,” Harold said.

  For a second, she wasn’t sure she’d heard him right, and she wondered if her expression showed how thrown she was. “Excuse me?”

  Harold stepped in closer to her, his hand resting on the counter behind her. He was so close she could feel his heat. She was so damn comfortable around him, but she was still having trouble understanding where he was coming from.

  “Look, babe, I know I said you’d basically be screwing yourself, and that’s true, because of the system you’re fighting, but the problem is that you’re not getting your job back here anyway, because the chief, Toby, and his grandfather seem to wield all the power. The fire department shouldn’t be controlled by individuals, but it is, so even if by some miracle Toby was no longer running the department, or Chief Burns retired, whoever is handpicked would already know that you cause
d a problem. You’ve already been painted with the scarlet letter, and those carefully placed lies and insinuations will never go away. So yeah, sue them and make it hurt like hell, because as long as you live in Livingston, you’ll never be a firefighter again.”

  What he was saying was something she didn’t want to hear. “Fine, so I’ll work the next county over,” she said. “I already put my name in…”

  He was shaking his head, and his expression had her pausing and looking over to Karen, who had also apparently figured out whatever this was.

  “Okay, what the hell, you two?” Suzanne said. “What’s going on?”

  “So word’s out, is it?” Karen said, crossing her arms over her chest, under her generous breasts.

  Harold pulled in a breath and seemed to consider something. “When gossip starts, it turns into a runaway freight train. You’ve been labeled a problem, hard to work with. They say you don’t have your team’s back, aren’t able to carry the load. An independent investigator was apparently hired, and he’s already sided, off the record, with the department. Several of your team members have already come forward to say that the workplace stress is gone now with you not there, that they’re not confident you can do your job in a fire, and they’ve sided with Toby’s recommendation in having you fired. It’s rumored that Kyle said you overstepped in challenging Toby and should’ve backed off, and a few said if they’d known you and the lieutenant were involved intimately, they’d have filed a complaint earlier.”

  She couldn’t believe it. He hadn’t pulled his gaze, and she knew he wasn’t pulling any punches, either. That was something she’d loved about him, but at the same time, right now, she wished he wouldn’t be quite so forthcoming.

  Her chest ached, and for a minute she considered walking out so she could, what, lock herself in her tiny bathroom and cry? Then she felt his hand rubbing her arm, and he was right in front of her, both his hands on her.