by Amie Denman
Diane climbed into the driver’s seat and Tony walked around the front of the truck and got in on the other side. Diane leaned out the window. “Do you have to watch? It’ll make me nervous.”
“We’re not looking,” Richard said. “We’re just standing here talking about the weather.”
Diane shook her head, then pulled on her seat belt.
“Gotta love her spirit,” Allen said quietly behind Laura.
“In a minute we might be awestruck by her incredible driving skills,” Laura said. She stepped back so she was shoulder to shoulder with Allen. “Have you ever driven anything like this?”
“My grandpa’s farm truck. It was huge, but as long as it had farm license plates, you didn’t need a special license to drive it. I used to help him haul stuff at harvest time.”
“That was nice,” Laura said.
Allen shrugged. “Got me out of a day of school. Sometimes a whole week.”
“You didn’t like school?” He reminded her of Adam suddenly. Adam had not enjoyed school and had relied heavily on her help, but he’d dutifully gone to college freshman year because their parents had saved up money and expected it. Laura had thought the fire service would be a much better choice for him.
“My class’s five-year reunion was last weekend,” Allen said, “and I mowed my lawn and edged my sidewalk instead of going. I’m sure they could all manage to sit around and admire themselves without my help.”
“That’s the thing I hated about school as a student and a teacher. That front some people put up where they act like they know something you don’t and are somehow more important. I know it’s just insecurity, but it’s hard to overlook. But guess what,” Laura said. “None of those people from high school are here tonight. If they were, I think they’d be admiring you.”
Allen laughed. “Wait until I make it down those lines without a cone massacre before you give me too much credit.”
Diane missed all the cones on her forward drive down the line. On the reverse, she oversteered, going too wide and then too narrow. She only took out two cones, and Tony said it was one of the better first attempts he’d seen.
The men in the class each took a turn, and Brock was the first one to have a perfect run of no knocked-over cones. “I drove the dump truck for the city sometimes,” he said. “It’s a little smaller, but the same idea.”
Laura was the last person to climb into the pumper. When she pictured racing to someone’s rescue, she always imagined herself interacting with accident victims or going into a burning building and saving a child or at least a family pet. She did not think of herself weaving through summertime traffic in Cape Pursuit. Not being a local—not yet, anyway—she hardly knew her way around town. She could get to work, the art gallery and the gym, but there was no way she was going to pass a quiz over street names.
As she climbed into the driver’s seat, she vowed to memorize a map of at least the main streets of Cape Pursuit. What if someone’s life depended on her? The thought that she could get lost and let someone down took a slice out of her usual confidence. Or maybe it was being alone in the cab with Tony where he would scrutinize her every move and her fitness for driving the fire truck.
He might physically see her hands clenching the wheel, but at least he wouldn’t be able to read her thoughts. Letting him have any idea that her feelings for him had taken a somewhat reckless path wouldn’t inspire his confidence in her ability to handle an emergency. Admitting her attraction to him would be its own disaster and there was no way to train or prepare for such a thing.
Professional. Keeping it light and distant between them was her only saving grace. If she was going to join the department, it had to be on her terms and for the right reasons. It couldn’t involve feelings between her and the fire chief.
As she put the truck in gear, avoiding looking at Tony who sat forward with one hand on the dashboard, she thought back to the early summer day on the beach when she had suddenly known what she had to do. If she channeled that focus and determination to make the difference in someone else’s life, she could weave through cones forward and backward.
“You can do this,” Tony said, and Laura took her eyes off the course to shoot him a quick glance. He wasn’t trying to distract her. He was just Tony. A nice guy who encouraged other people so hard she almost wondered...who had his back and pep-talked him when he had a bad day? Did he have bad days? She wished she knew him well enough to ask.
“Do you think you should turn on the siren and blow the horn so this is a more realistic experience?” Laura asked as she carefully inched the truck forward and followed the curving line of cones. So far, so good.
“Realistic, but tough on our neighbors.”
The buildings surrounding the fire station were mostly light commercial, but there was a street full of houses just one block over.
“You don’t think they’re used to sirens?” Laura asked. She came to a stop at the end of the line of cones and got ready to shift into reverse for the more challenging half of the course.
“I hope not. I don’t want anyone to get so accustomed to sirens that they tune them out. That would be dangerous for everyone involved.”
Getting immune to things is how a lot of people survive their days. Laura had tried numbness as a way to cope with her brother’s death and the hollow expressions on her parents’ faces. It only worked to a point. She’d gotten out of bed every day, gone to work or practice or the grocery store, paid her bills on time and made regular visits to her dentist. But she had been hollow, too.
Firefighting was already filling her up, but she had to be careful not to let her feelings for Tony muddle the genuine spark she felt from preparing to serve her community. The short romances of the previous year had seemed to fill an empty place, too, but that warmth hadn’t lasted, and Laura knew it was no substitute for her own peace of mind and emotional health.
“You’re doing fine,” Tony said.
* * *
IT WASN’T HOT in the cab, but Tony felt a bead of sweat roll down his back. He could blame the stress of creeping through an obstacle course with beginner drivers in a half-million-dollar truck. Eight times. But their driving hadn’t been frightening. They were all too intimidated by the size of the truck to go fast, and there were only a few squashed cones that would probably regain their original shape.
And he hadn’t been sweating until the last driver.
“You helped everyone in your class make that test look easy,” he said. “Kevin told me about the study session at your house.”
“Don’t all your groups get together to review before the test?” Laura asked, never taking her eyes off the side mirror as she backed around a cone. “It’s the logical thing to do.”
“Not that I know of,” he said. “This group was lucky to have a teacher in it.”
“Rats,” Laura said. “I nudged a cone.”
Tony glanced in the mirror on his side of the truck. “You didn’t knock it over, so I’d say it doesn’t count.”
“You’re just being nice.”
“No, but I do feel bad for distracting you by talking to you.” He’d sat in silence with the other drivers, only offering advice if he thought they were going off course. With Laura, he had a more personal relationship, even though he felt as if he were playing with fire whenever he was near her.
“It’s okay if you talk to me. I’m good at handling distractions. As a teacher, I had to be.”
Tony noticed her use of past tense for her teaching career. “It’s a good skill for the fire service, too,” he said.
Laura cleared the last cone without running it over and stopped. She kept a foot on the brake after she finished the course.
“I wonder if you’re sure about leaving teaching,” Tony said. “I mean, there are schools in this area. You could move here and continue being an educator.”
&nb
sp; Laura put the truck into park and leaned back in the seat. “I’m trying to decide what I’d do if you came to me and said you were giving up being a firefighter,” she said.
Tony laughed. “Never going to happen.”
“There you go,” she said, gesturing with both hands. “That kind of incredible certainty that you’re doing exactly what you’re meant to do is something I want to find. Need to find. For myself.”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “It’s none of my business.”
He didn’t get involved in the personal lives of the other volunteers, even though he knew some facts about them, such as where they worked or if they were married. Being with Laura made him want to know more about her, know her better. Even if those feelings were dangerous. Earlier in the summer, he’d been curious about her, but since then she had interested him in a different way. He wanted to help her, protect her.
That was a tough job when he was supposed to be preparing her to learn to protect other people, even at her own risk.
“Is this how you set the air brakes?” she asked, her hand on a knob near the steering wheel.
Tony realized he’d been staring at her instead of keeping his mind on his work. “It is,” he said. “Good call, since you’re the last driver. Let’s get out and I’ll demonstrate how to use the wheel chocks to make double sure this thing doesn’t roll while on a fire scene.”
Tony bailed out the door and breathed a little easier when he was no longer in a confined space with Laura. He heard one of the guys congratulating her on not knocking over any cones, and her response admitting to nudging one. Even though she and Diane were the first women to pursue being part of the Cape Pursuit Fire Department, neither one of them seemed to approach the job as if they had something to prove.
The jury was still out on the two younger guys, Skip and, especially, Allen, but Tony was glad about the overall attitude of the group. They weren’t out for personal glory. They just wanted to help and be part of something positive.
“Here,” he said, opening the side compartment of the truck right over the rear wheels. “This is where we keep the chocks. You always, always use them. I don’t care if you’re on the flattest street in the world. You never take a chance on a truck this size rolling on you. Can’t trust parking brakes, can’t trust anything except your own attention to detail and safety.”
He pulled out the hard rubber blocks and tossed them on the ground behind the wheels. “Go ahead,” he said, pointing to Oliver and Diane. “Kick them into place with your foot. Make sure they’re not going to go anywhere.”
He watched them secure the wheel chocks and then he motioned for the group to go around the other side of the truck where he had two different people repeat the action. “The ambulance is one exception to this rule. It’s not as heavy, and you’re not likely to stay on scene very long. Obviously, you’d have to use your judgment if you got in a messy situation or had to park on a hill. The ladder truck is different, too. In addition to chocking the wheels, you absolutely must put out the outriggers.”
“Are we doing that tonight?” Marshall asked.
Tony shook his head. “That’s a whole other class. One of these nights or Sunday mornings, we’ll put up the ladder, but it’s not for the faint of heart. Let’s go ahead and pull these wheel chocks out now, different people than who put them in. Store them back where they go, and then I’m going to need a volunteer to pull the truck into the station.”
Allen stepped forward, one hand raised. “I’ll do it,” he said.
Tony was pleased to see Allen participate, and he was very happy someone other than Laura had volunteered first. Tony would have to sit in the passenger seat with whoever was putting the truck away, and he wasn’t sure he could handle the heat of being that close to Laura for the second time that evening.
As the chief of the department, the last thing he could do was have any talk of a personal relationship with a woman on the roster. He didn’t know if there was an official regulation against it, because it had never come up before. Who would have imagined that a smart, beautiful, determined woman would breeze into Cape Pursuit for the summer and that she would find her way to his office, asking to join?
The fire service seemed to be something she wanted to be part of so badly that it was a need more than a want. If he showed too much interest in her, it would make her uncomfortable. He couldn’t drive her away, so he had only one choice.
He had to keep her at an emotional distance no matter how much he wondered what she would feel like in his arms.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
LAURA WAVED TO the people lined up on the sidewalks of downtown Cape Pursuit. Only a few of the volunteers had decided to ride along in the Independence Day parade because many of them had family plans for the holiday. The fire department had supplied two pumpers, a ladder truck, a rescue truck and one ambulance for the parade, and the rest of the long lineup included police cars, floats built by local groups and members of a local horse club. The fire equipment was staged at the beginning and the end of the parade so they could leave easily in the event of an emergency.
The parade was similar to the ones Laura had looked forward to every year back home. Laura’s school always sent a contingent of teachers in matching T-shirts to march right behind the high school band. Her cross-country team usually rode on a float or in the back of a pickup truck, and Laura had split her time between representing the team and the teaching staff.
And now she was representing the Cape Pursuit Fire Department, a new turn in her life that filled her with both nervous and happy excitement.
Her sister had told her that the biggest parade of the year was the one in August for the annual homecoming festival, but the July Fourth one had drawn a decent crowd despite the summer heat. She considered the bucket of candy in her lap and decided to be a bit more conservative so she wouldn’t run out before the end of the parade.
“Are you sure you won’t let me drive?” Laura asked. “At this speed, how much trouble can I get into?”
Jane’s husband, Charlie, laughed as he kept one hand on the wheel and waved out his window. “It’s not about you getting in trouble, it’s me. The chief would have my head if I let you drive before you’re an official member. Next year, it’s all yours. I’ll be sitting in the shade having a cold one while you sweat it out and creep along in this parade.”
Next year. Laura took a deep breath, inhaling the scent of the fire station that clung to the trucks. She noticed the smell of tires, trucks and an old watery smoke scent in her hair when her head hit the pillow after an evening at the station. The scent had come to mean empowerment and belonging. Would she still be there next year for the parade? Even though she knew what she was not going to do when the end of the summer came, did she know what she would do?
Charlie switched on the siren and gave three long blasts of the air horn. Little kids in the audience either clapped their hands over their ears or waved wildly at the truck. Some of them bent their arms and pulled down, the universal sign for honking an air horn.
“I have no idea why people love parades,” Charlie added. “Big loud trucks driving slowly, high school bands that only know three songs and people shaking hands running for office.” He made a sound of disgust.
“I love parades,” Laura said. She flung a handful of candy toward a group of kids waiting with grocery store bags draped over their arms. “You need something sweet.” She handed Charlie a wrapped chocolate. “You’ll feel better.”
“Thanks,” he said. “I got fifteen minutes of sleep last night because our baby has decided to get teeth.”
“You’ll be glad when she uses those teeth to eat real food,” Laura said. “She’ll sleep through the night, then.”
“Always a silver lining,” Charlie said. “Although she’s beautiful, even when she’s fussing all night. Wouldn’t trade her for anything.”
Laura’s sister had filled her in on the events of the previous summer when Jane had discovered she was having a baby with someone who had been her best friend for years. Their friendship had taken a wild turn for just one night, but that night had redirected the course of their lives. Judging from Jane’s happiness and Charlie’s obvious joy at being a father, Laura thought their lives had clearly changed in a wonderful way.
“Are you on duty all day?” she asked.
He nodded. “We run a pretty full shift on July Fourth because the good people of Cape Pursuit become total morons when it comes to booze and fireworks. A guy burned the back porch off his house last year, and one time we had a fool try to shoot fireworks from a moving car.”
“Oh, my gosh,” Laura said. “How did that turn out?”
“Wasn’t pretty.” Charlie smiled and waved at people on the parade route. “The guy had the launcher backward and shot the fireworks into his own car. The seat caught fire and he drove into a ditch.”
“That’s terrible,” Laura said, smiling and waving despite the dangerous story.
“Could have been a whole lot worse,” Charlie said. “I can’t wait to see what happens tonight.”
“Maybe you’ll get lucky and everyone will be at the park watching the official fireworks shot off by professionals. I’m going with my sister and Jane and the baby.”
“I’m jealous, but I wouldn’t be much fun because I’d be sitting there wondering when I’m going to get called out,” Charlie said.
As they neared the end of the parade route, Charlie turned off the flashing lights and dropped onto a secondary street. They drove to the station where Laura’s bicycle was parked. The blue bike helmet she’d bought two weeks earlier dangled from the handlebars.
Laura slid out of the big truck and helped back Charlie in, even though she suspected he could easily have done it without her. The ladder truck, which she knew Tony had driven, was already back in its place, which meant Tony was probably there in the station. They hadn’t been alone together since their conversation during the driving lesson, and Laura didn’t know what to think about their relationship.