by Score, Lucy
“Good morning, Mackenzie.” Russell clapped his palms together enthusiastically. “Guess what you get to do today?”
She was already exhausted and barely in the door of her office. She was not ready for enthusiasm of any sort.
The boot was pissing her off more than usual today. Hell, everything was. Everything was unsettled and would remain so until she hashed things out with Linc. But she needed to plan out her apology. Carefully structure it. Give him a couple of days to cool off. She needed at least two or three days. Maybe put together an outline and then work her way up to a Venn diagram?
She wasn’t a groveler. But she’d been an asshole, and he deserved a real apology.
“What do I get to do today?”
Gingerly, she lowered herself into the chair she’d yet to replace. It was a matter of principle now. She was determined to wait out the chair’s lifespan. It couldn’t hang on much longer. It gave a terrifying clunking noise and dropped her three inches. But the chair remained intact, and she remained upright.
Russell watched her chair drama with amusement. “You and Freida get to go to the fire station for firefighter physicals today,” he said with a big, toothy grin.
Shit.
“I don’t think that’s a great idea,” she hedged.
“Oh, it’s not really a choice,” he said, dropping into the chair in front of her desk and steepling his fingers. “You see, the physician who does the physicals has to examine close to forty patients. Burly, farting firefighters who don’t take kindly when you point out that they are in danger of failing the physical requirements of their service.”
“Your daughter is one of those burly, farting firefighters,” she reminded him. “And what requirements?”
“So is your manfriend,” he said, with a knowing tilt of his head. “Benevolence monitors the physical fitness of its firefighters annually. The station has its own tests of aerobic capacity, grip strength, endurance. That kind of thing. But they are also required to submit to a physical exam every year.”
Double shit.
“Linc isn’t feeling very manfriendly toward me right now,” she said.
“Care to talk about it?” Russell offered.
He meant it, she realized. And there was something both comforting and dismaying about that.
“I’d rather let it fester a while,” she told him.
“Don’t let it fester too loudly,” he warned. “Freida will sense it and latch on.”
“Sense what?” Freida appeared in the door wearing scrubs with little firefighters and dalmatians on them.
“Nice scrubs,” Mack said.
“Bought ’em special for today. I love firefighter physical day! When are we leaving? What will I sense?”
* * *
The Benevolence Fire Department was a large, two-story building that took up half of a block on the south side of town. Three huge garage bays, all of them open to the crisp fall breeze, held gleaming trucks—apparatus—ready and waiting to be called up for duty.
The floors, a polished concrete looked clean enough to eat from. There was a wall of cherry red metal lockers stocked with personal protection equipment. The space smelled like diesel and oil and polish.
“Hey, doc.” Assistant Chief Kelly Wu was a sharp, take-charge kind of woman who wasn’t afraid to get her hands dirty. As demonstrated by the engine grease she was wiping off on a rag.
“Nice to see you, Kelly,” Mack said, glancing around but not seeing Linc. Her stomach tickled like it did on her way to a call. Nerves and excitement. The fight had raised her adrenaline, and she wondered if the apology would do the same.
“Same place as usual?” Freida asked, patting her med bag.
“You got it. They put the screens up so you can go back and forth between exam rooms,” Kelly said, nodding toward the stairs.
He was probably up there. Was he still mad? Was he still thinking about what an ass she’d made of herself? Had he given up on her? Was he even now turning his attention to some other less frustrating woman? Maybe one of the nurses from the ED.
Russell was right, she thought with a wince. Shame didn’t help.
She’d fucked up. Now she’d own up to it. And if he wasn’t interested in getting naked with her now, it was his loss. She was excellent in bed.
“You all want some help with the bags?” Kelly offered.
“No thanks,” Mack said, adjusting her grip on her own. “We’ve got ’em.”
Freida looked disappointed. “You’re still going to make them take their shirts off, though, right?” she whispered as they mounted the steps.
The stairway opened up into a common room with a kitchen shoved into the corner and a semi-circle of recliners facing a billboard-sized TV. In another section, there was a pool table and a couple of couches and tables. Squished between the TV area and the pool area was a folding table in front of two makeshift exam spaces that looked more like blanket forts.
“Doc, Freida,” Brody Lighthorse approached from the hallway, a cup of coffee in his hand.
“That better be black, and you all better be fasted for the blood draw,” Mack said, eyeing the mug.
“Not our first rodeo. And just so you know, everyone’s already bitching about being hungry.” There was just the slightest edge to his tone. But Mack had been programmed from birth to pick up on subtle cues.
“Let’s do the blood draws first, then circle back to the physicals,” she decided.
“Good enough,” he said. He gave her a long, quiet look.
It gave her the distinct impression that Linc may have mentioned her asshole snitfit from the night before. They probably all knew. That familiar, ugly shame curled again in her belly.
“I’ll round up the guys,” he said and disappeared down the stairs. Mack ignored the bad vibes, the nerves, and helped Freida set up the blood draw station. A minute later, Brody’s voice crackled through the speakers in the building.
“BFD crew, please report to the second floor for physicals.”
She could hear the groans from all corners of the building.
It was going to be a hell of a day.
* * *
Linc, Mack noted, purposely got into Freida’s line for his blood draw. But he was too polite to completely avoid her.
“Nice to see you, doc,” he said. His tone was light, friendly even. But it was missing that undercurrent of “you know you want me.” The intimacy that had been there since the first conversation had been snuffed out. By something she’d done.
“Ow!” The short, stocky firefighter with what looked like a well-waxed handlebar mustache whimpered when she jabbed the needle into the vein.
“Don’t be such a wuss,” Skyler, Russell’s daughter, snorted at him from the other end of the table.
“I’m not a wuss! You’re a wuss.” He pouted, then twirled the end of his mustache.
“Children,” Mack threatened calmly.
“Sorry, doc.”
Linc disappeared shortly after his needle stick, and Mack moved on to the physical exams. “I hope you all are wearing underwear today because I’ll need to you to strip down once you’re behind the screens. Got it?”
“Why wait?” One of the burly, potentially farty firefighters yanked his t-shirt over his head and whirled it around with the enthusiasm, if not the skill, of an exotic dancer. Catcalls and cheers rang out. Within thirty seconds, the first dozen patients had stripped down to their unmentionables. Some smartass started blaring “Pony” by Ginuwine. It was raining articles of clothing.
Zane and Skyler were bumping butts to the beat. One of the larger, older firefighters was using his discarded pants as butt floss. A younger volunteer jumped onto the pool table and started doing push-ups while a couple other guys and Freida threw dollar bills at him.
It was the most ridiculous, entertaining thing she’d ever witnessed on the clock.
“Try not to get your heart rates too jacked up,” Mack yelled over the music. A firefighter with half a must
ache and only one eyebrow sauntered her way, crooking his finger at her.
She shook her head, but he was insistent, pulling her into a gimpy tango.
“I love firefighter physical day,” Freida shouted, switching over to five-dollar bills.
* * *
Mack was good and tired by the time Chief Reed strolled into her exam room. They’d thoughtfully provided one of the mechanic’s wheeled stools for her to scoot around, saving her from gimping back and forth between exam spaces. But after thirty-two physicals, she was burnt, hungry, and grumpy.
“We don’t have any green tea, but you’re welcome to the coffee,” he said, jerking his thumb in the direction of the kitchen.
Even cool and detached, Linc was still polite. And it made her feel like a steaming shit sandwich.
“Thanks. I’m almost done,” she said. “Have a seat.”
He pulled his t-shirt over his head in that one-handed move that hot guys all seemed to have mastered and took the chair next to her.
Her mouth went dry. And her carefully crafted apology vanished from her brain.
She was muscle drunk.
“We’ll start with temperature and blood pressure,” she croaked, then cleared her throat. He held out an arm for the cuff. She secured it around his bicep, trying hard not to touch bare skin or stare too long at his naked torso.
When the thermometer was in place between his delicious lips, she swallowed back nerves and took the plunge.
“I owe you an apology.”
“No shit, Sherlock,” he muttered around the thermometer.
“No talking. Last night I was frustrated with…well, a lot of things. I took it out on you, and that was unfair. I’m sorry. I deliberately pushed your buttons and tried to make you feel bad. And that’s embarrassingly immature.”
She took the reading from the BP monitor and recorded it on her laptop.
“You’ve been nothing but patient and kind, and I’ve sent you about a hundred mixed signals,” she admitted. “I came here with a plan, and that plan didn’t include you. But it also didn’t include this.” She tapped the boot.
“Can I say something?” he mumbled.
“No. It’ll screw up your temperature. Anyway, I don’t have an example of a healthy relationship. It’s not an excuse for me being an unmitigated ass last night,” she said. “I should know better. But I have baggage. My mother. Let’s leave it at she wasn’t equipped to care for children. I grew up never knowing what I was coming home to. The happy sober mom. The drunk needy one. Or to half-packed boxes because we were being evicted or she’d met a new Uncle So-and-So who was going to play the white knight for all of us.”
The thermometer beeped. But neither made a move to remove it.
“I’ve never done relationships. I don’t know what a healthy one looks like. How it works. I’m scared shitless of failing. I came here to get myself back on track. But you’re so damn tempting. And now I’m not sure I want to or even can stick to my guns. Last night,” she paused, blew out a breath. “I didn’t like what I saw in the mirror. So maybe my plan needs adjusting.”
He took the thermometer out of his mouth, handed it to her.
“Now can I say something?” he asked. Those blue eyes were unreadable.
The alarm went off inside the building. It vibrated down to her bones.
“It’s a big one, boys and girls,” Zane crowed, sprinting for the stairs. “Bring your A game.”
Linc’s jaw clenched as he dragged on his shirt.
“We’ll talk,” he said.
She nodded. “Go. I’ll take Sunshine home with me.”
His eyes softened just a bit, and he nodded. “Thanks, doc.”
Then he was gone.
28
It was a bastard of a blaze in a small apartment building on the north side of town. It started on the third floor and was being a real bitch about it.
The heat it pumped off made it necessary to move the command vehicle and incident command back half a block.
It was a hot one. Neighbors, dozens of them, who lined up behind the barricades were already sweating. They’d evacuated the nearby buildings as a precaution. Traffic was rerouted, and his team was inside searching each apartment. The crew from Baylorsville was on standby to lend a hand or cover any other calls coming in.
But for now, Linc’s crew had it under control.
A textbook response.
Most of the residents were accounted for. But there was still a family that lived on the third floor that no one had heard from.
The can man, or woman in this case, radioed down. “Command. Can man. I’m opening this bitch up. She’s a hot one, chief.”
“Copy that, Lucille. Need any help up there?”
“Nah,” she called back. “Don’t want to catch any of those fine ’staches on fire. Can man out.”
“Roger that. Keep me posted.”
He directed one of the hose teams around the back of the building where the can man was opening up the roof. “Let’s drown her,” he told them. “Command to search and rescue. Wu, CAN report.”
There was static and then the calm voice of his assistant chief. “We cleared two units on the third floor. But I’m not trusting the ceiling to hold up for the two on the east side. Heavy smoke. Lot of flame toward the stairs. No sprinklers. It’s eating fast. Plus the fire escapes on the back are a joke.”
“I’ll send a team up the ladder on the east side,” Linc promised. “Mind your head. Lucille is opening up the rear west corner.”
Wu was silent for a beat. “Chief, we’re hearing a dog barking. Gonna do another sweep.”
A gangly volunteer jogged up. “Chief. One of the residents says she thinks someone’s home in that last unit east side. Family’s got an elderly mother-in-law living with them and a big-ass dog.”
“I need a ladder team on the east side third floor,” Linc radioed.
There was a rumble from inside the building that he felt under his feet on the street.
“Someone tell me what the fuck that was,” he called.
“Fuck. Chief. The stairs just went. We’re all fine, mostly, but we’re still on the third west side. No way out,” Kelly reported in.
“Hang tight, Wu. We’re coming to get you.”
Linc waved over one of the volunteers and shrugged into his turnout coat. Sam was a twenty-five-year veteran with the department and, thanks to a bum knee, was relegated to non-rescue work.
“What’s up, chief?”
“Got a team trapped on the third west side, possible minor injuries. And a potential entrapment on third east. Call second alarm. Get the Baylorsville company in here,” Linc ordered, handing the man the radio’s handset. “We need a ladder team over to the west side now.”
It was protocol. Firefighters got rescued first. Otherwise, no one got rescued. But he trusted his team, and he was another able body already geared up.
He dodged the ladder truck as it maneuvered itself around the building and saw Skyler wave to the driver from the open third-floor window.
Linc jogged back to the engine and grabbed his SCBA. He threw the bottle on and was on the move in a second. Still strapping on the tank, he caught up to his second engine. The weight of it felt familiar, reassuring.
“We getting you up to the third?” the driver guessed.
“Yeah. Possible entrapment.”
He didn’t see quite as much action as he once had. Being chief carried other responsibilities. But when he got the chance, he took it.
The call for the second alarm went out over the radio. “Dispatch from Chestnut Street Command, take me to the second alarm,” Sam said.
The fire escape in the back was a definite no-go. Supports were rusted through, and it had pulled completely out of the brick on the third floor.
A scant minute later, the engine crew had the ladder propped against the front of the building away from the flames. He climbed carefully, steadily up three floors to the unit’s large front window. He felt th
e sway of the ladder as a man climbed behind him.
“This is chief to command. About to VES third floor unit east side. Visibility limited.” The smoke was already thick as fog inside. And it was the smoke that posed the real danger.
“Be careful up there,” came Sam’s cautionary warning over the radio.
Linc heard it then. Faintly over the crackle of flames, more sirens. The bark of a dog.
Training and experience were his guides. Vent. Enter. Search. He slipped the breaker from his pocket and, with a sharp blow, shattered the glass.
“Anyone here?” he shouted into the room as he cleared the window frame. Smoke billowed out the window, obscuring his vision. But there was the bark of a dog again. More insistent. More helpless.
“Chief Reed entering the structure third floor east side for search and rescue,” he said into the radio.
He dropped over the sill and hunched down. It was a small, boxy living room with a cheap sofa that was a minute or two from going up in flames. Those beautiful red and orange licks teased their way through the far wall, entering the apartment like ghosts from hell.
Training dictated that responders clear rooms on their hands and knees, keeping their heads out of the noxious smoke. But when the opportunity allowed, Linc stayed on his feet, moving and clearing faster.
The bark was a lonely howl now from the back of the apartment.
“Front room clear,” he said for the benefit of the firefighter at the top of the ladder.
He picked his way over worn carpet into a kitchen. It was hot enough that the linoleum was peeling. The smoke was even thicker here. If there was anyone or anything alive inside, they were living on borrowed time.
He listened to the radio chatter. His search and rescue crew was out, safe and switching to hose lines. The rest of the apartments in the building had been cleared. More units were stacking up on the scene.
The bedrooms, three of them, bumped off a skinny hallway. He kicked open the first door and swept quickly. One double bed. A crib. Both empty. Thank fuck. He checked the closet and under the bed before moving back into the hallway. The second bedroom was empty as well. He gave the third door a shove, dropping to his knees now. Inside, he found a wet towel on the floor. It had provided a seam to block the smoke until he’d opened the door.