Big Engine: A Firefighter Romance (Firehouse 22 Book 1)

by Scarlett Brooks

  Big Engine

  A Firefighter Romance

  Scarlett Brooks

  Copyright © 2020 by Scarlett Brooks

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Contents

  Untitled

  1. Crew

  2. Payton

  3. Crew

  4. Payton

  5. Payton

  6. Crew

  7. Payton

  8. Crew

  9. Payton

  10. Payton

  11. Payton

  12. Payton

  13. Payton

  14. Payton

  15. Crew

  Big Engine

  Firehouse 22 Book One

  A Texas Forever Love Story

  Scarlett Brooks

  1

  Crew

  “Crew! You can’t go back in there; the roof is going to collapse any minute… C’mon, buddy, we did the best we could!” Lucas yelled at me.

  “I gotta go in Lucas; I hear a woman screaming!” I knew there was someone inside yet and I had to go back in. I charged into the burning factory without a second thought.

  It was hotter than hell inside, and I could hear things falling: light fixtures from the ceilings, beams, the doors were metal and were holding the heat, so I had to use my Kevlar gloves to open them.

  “Keep yelling ma’am! I'm coming! I need to hear where you are,” I yelled back at her and closed my facemask again. It was getting harder and harder to breathe.

  I waited, and at first I heard nothing. Shit. Where was she?

  Another second passed.

  She could be dead by now. Damn’t.

  And then another second.

  I waited. Only hearing the air in my face mask.

  And then a sound, “Help me! Please somebody help me! I can’t touch the door!”

  Bingo.

  I followed her voice and finally found where she was. I yelled to her to stand back from the door and then I kicked it hard with my boot. The door flew open and the smoke followed.

  “Here!” she called as she coughed from the smoke.

  I pulled my face mask off and put it over her face and told her to take small breaths through the mask as I picked her up in my arms. Holding my breath, I ran back towards the open garage doors where I went in.

  The water from the hoses felt good as it rained down us. I ran toward the ambulance with her and left her with the paramedics. She didn’t look like she had many burns, but she definitely needed some oxygen. As I walked away from the ambulance, the entire roof of the building caved in.

  Damn, my guardian angel must have been with me again, I thought, as I went to see what else I could do to help. There were three fire companies helping to get this fire under control. I went to talk to the supervisor of the shop to see if he had accounted for all of his crew. It was past midnight and there were twenty-eight employees on third shift. It was a hell of a job getting everyone out.

  “Yes, sir,” he said, “you just brought out the twenty-eighth. Thank God everyone got out. Thank you so much for what you did. You guys are heroes!”

  He shook my hand as he thanked me. I could see that he was tearing up, but I wasn’t sure if it was emotions or smoke that made him cry.

  The fire was pretty much under control by this time; but the building looked like a total loss from what I could see. It was going to be a long night. My shift would be over soon, but I would hang around to make sure that my team was okay.

  Lucas would give me hell about running back in to get that woman, but I just had to do it. I knew he understood. We all did. Every day we have to put our lives on the line. And we believe that we are appreciated by the people in our town who depend on us to save their homes, their places of employment, their favorite restaurants. Even their lives.

  I must admit, I never really thought that I would end up being a firefighter. Lots of little boys dream of growing up to do this kind of work, being a hero, saving lives and all that stuff; but not me. I just kind of skated through my teen years—literally—I was constantly on my skateboard, ramping and jumping over things, trying not to break my neck. But I'm sure that it really didn’t look that way.

  I didn’t want to go to college; mostly because I didn’t have a clue what to study. I probably didn’t want to study anything. One thing I knew for sure is that I did not want to be in the military; much to my father’s chagrin. Brad, my older brother wanted nothing but to be just like our Dad, who spent twenty years in the Army before he retired.

  When Brad was in the Army, he was trained to be a firefighter and a paramedic. He only did a regular four-year tour of duty. He wanted to get married and settle down and have a family and he didn’t want to drag a family all over the world like my dad did. So when his tour was up, he found a job with the fire department as a paid firefighter. He loved his job.

  I, on the other hand, just shifted around, doing odd jobs and basically only earning my keep. My parents were pissed that I didn’t find anything worthwhile to do with my life, so I moved out and got a one bedroom apartment and just worked to get by. After I got tired of doing that and never having any money to do anything but pay my rent, put gas in my car, and eat ramen noodles three times a day, I went home to talk to my family about helping me find myself.

  Brad asked me if I ever thought of being a firefighter. He told me how rewarding it was to do something that is truly meaningful. He told me that they were looking for some guys over at Station 22, and the rest is history.

  I went to a community college for an eight month program involving rescue and medic courses, and then I started the training program to be a firefighter. That was three years ago; and I have to tell you that this is something that I really love doing. The camaraderie with the other guys at the station—it's like a brotherhood; and the pride in saving lives and giving back to the community is so rewarding—not to mention that women are really easy to pick up when you tell them you’re a goddamned firefighter!

  I would say that my life now at twenty-five is perfect; however, I just seem to be missing something. My brother Brad keeps telling me it's time for me to find a nice girl and settle down and start a family. I'm not so sure about that. I mean, I have been dating, but I haven’t met anyone who really stood out as someone I wanted to take home to Mom.

  Brad and his fiancé are getting married next weekend, so I just figure that misery loves company. Ha, no seriously he and Jocelyn are a really great couple. She is perfect for him. You can see their connection when they are together. That is what I want. Eventually.

  I did have a relationship that I thought would be the one, but I think that we were too much alike. When I first started on at the firehouse, there was a female firefighter who caught my eye. She was very pretty and I thought that having the commonality of being community service employees would be a bond that would hold us together.

  We had a lot of fun at first, hanging out with the guys, drinking beer and shooting pool. But I soon found out that she had this strong competitive personality and she started bossing me around; telling me what to do at fires, she wanted to be the one getting all the credit for saving lives. That was all it was about for her.

  When I would go in a burning building, ahead of her, she would bitch me out later, saying that if she had gone in first, she would have saved the victims too. She would actually ignore me and complain to the chief that I was the
one stealing all the thunder.

  Well, that one backfired on her because the chief knew me and knew that it wasn’t in my nature to be a show stealer. I truly had the best interest for the people I was chosen to protect. It seemed that she had caused some other issues with other firefighters before and she had been warned. Instead of approaching me about her complaint, he fired her.

  Firefighters are a brotherhood; we have each other’s backs, and sometimes I wonder if she didn’t understand that. We are loyal to each other and to the tasks we are assigned in life. We save victims for the good of mankind, not for praise or to be considered heroes. In our station, loyalty is our mission statement. I have learned a lot about life in my few years as a member of Station 22. I'm proud to be a member of this fine brotherhood.

  2

  Payton

  “Hey Payton, I just finished another batch of honey pecan muffins, and I'm out of pecans. We have enough for Mrs. Henry’s order, but I won’t have enough to finish the batch for the case,” Summer, my partner and roomie, informed me.

  Well that wasn’t how I liked to start a Wednesday.

  “I can run over to the warehouse and pick up a few boxes. I don’t know how I missed it on my stock run this morning.Sorry, I just have a lot on my mind today. This big wedding on Saturday has me a little preoccupied. Take a look around the kitchen and see if I missed anything else before I leave,” our warehouse was only a few blocks away, but I didn’t like to waste time when I left the bakery.

  I had been working my ass off trying to build a popular bakery and so far, I’d been successful and we were pretty well established in our community. In fact, we were so busy, we were looking to find a larger building where we could hire a few more employees and actually have a little café with tables and chairs, a barista, and a cashier, so Summer and I could stay in the kitchen and not have to worry about tending the case and taking phone and live orders.

  Summer came out to the shop to tell me that we also needed some fresh bananas for the banana walnut muffins. So I would also have to stop by the grocery store to pick them up on my way back from the warehouse.

  I hated to stop at the local market because the produce manager was always flirting with me and asking me out. He seemed nice enough, but after living through a terrible divorce with my parents, and being cheated on by my high school sweetheart, I definitely had trust issues with men.

  My high school sweetheart tried to call me after I caught him, but I blocked his calls. I texted him and told him never to bother me again—I was finished with him. In fact, I was finished with love and with ever trusting anyone again. Men were the enemy and I stayed clear of them.

  So my time and efforts were spent on building up my business. Everything I did was concerning the bakery. We weren’t a household name or anything, but we had regulars, and our wedding business was booming. Our specialty was the variety of muffins we make—so many different flavors than the average bakery. And we also specialize in wedding cakes. We usually have at least ten orders for them each weekend, and during spring and summer, we have even more.

  As I drove over to the warehouse I was mentally checking off the wedding orders for this weekend.

  The biggest cake is the one for the Hudson wedding. The groom was a well-known firefighter at the local Firehouse 22, and the bride was an upperclassman from the high school where Summer and I went. She was a senior when we were freshmen, and she was a popular cheerleader. She probably didn’t know that we even existed. It was going to be a big wedding. She asked us both to help with the cake at the reception.

  We usually just delivered the cakes to the reception venue, and that was pretty much it. So staying at the reception to cut and serve the cake was something new to us. But it was extra cash in the bank. And that was just fine with me.

  I left the warehouse with the pecans, and drove to the supermarket. As I was picking out the ripest bananas, the produce manager saw me and came right out to greet me.

  “Well hello there gorgeous! Looking for ripe bananas again?” he asked.

  “Yes, I am, do you have some saved for me?” I tried to play sweet back, I could fake it if I needed to.

  “I do, I have been putting them aside for you. Ya know, I could maybe drop off the bananas at your bakery on my way home every couple of days if you like. That would save you from having to leave your bakery unattended.”

  Ohh, that was a big win. Smiling was paying off.

  “That would be awfully nice of you. How much would you charge to deliver?” I asked.

  “For you? Nothing; I wouldn’t take a penny. Maybe you could just give me a honey pecan muffin. I love those things!” Winner, winner, chicken dinner. Or maybe a muffin instead. Either way, this was going better than I planned.

  “Okay, it’s a deal! I’ll take what you have today and you can stop by when you have a case or more of ripe ones. We can always mash them and freeze them until we need them again. Thanks!” I said as he loaded my cart with the case of bananas he had put aside. He had a price sticker on the box, so it would be a breeze at the checkout.

  Whew, that was not too difficult. I guess I could handle someone calling me “gorgeous” every now and then.

  It was Friday afternoon and I was just finishing up the icing roses on the last layer of the Hudson wedding cake. I placed the cake carefully in the large box that would be transporting the cake to the wedding and Summer and I carried it out to our delivery van.

  We closed up the shop and drove back to our condo to get changed into formal dresses so we would fit in with the guests.

  I pulled a pretty sage green dress from my closet and put it on. It seemed to fit me a little better than the last time I wore it. Working so hard must have helped me to slim down my curvy butt a little—or tightened it up. Whatever, I thought I looked pretty good in it. I wore my lower heels and I let my long dark hair fall to my shoulders.

  A light touch of make-up and my pearls topped off my ‘wedding look.’ I grabbed a purse to match my shoes and went out to the living room where Summer was already dressed and ready to go.

  “Wow, you look awesome, Pay,” Summer said when she saw me.

  “You’re not looking so bad yourself,” I replied. “Let’s go. Why don’t I take my car and you take the van in case one of us wants to leave before the other?” I was thinking that it would be me who would want to leave first. Summer was a social butterfly, and I was a wallflower—by choice.

  So we left for downtown Austin, the wedding was at a big hotel on the square. When we arrived we carried the cake into the hotel and asked where the ballroom was. They directed us where to go. We found the table that had been especially set up for the cake, so we placed the box in the middle of the table, and then we broke the box down to present our exquisite cake.

  It was four tiers with pink and lavender sweetheart roses and pale green leaves. Each layer had a raspberry filling with a white chocolate layer of frosting. It was one of our specialties and the most popular choice in our area. I was very proud of how elegant the cake was. It was perfect.

  The wedding was taking place at the Catholic Church at the end of the block, so the guests were already parked here in the lot. They were going to walk back down after the ceremony. We walked over to the bar that was already set up and ready for action. We each got a glass of White Zinfandel, and found that we actually had a table as guests. We were to be seated with the photographer, the videographer, and the wedding planner and I didn’t recognize the other name that was on the table.

  That was a surprise to me; I just thought that we would cut the cake and then leave. It was really nice of them to include us as guests. People started arriving and filling in tables. We were directed to help ourselves to hors d’oeuvres and beverages. I went up to the tables and picked up a few snacks for us to munch on until the wedding party arrived.

  They were probably doing a lot of wedding photos; the videographer and his wife joined us at the table and said that the bride and groom would be the
re shortly. We chatted for a bit as we introduced ourselves. They raved about how beautiful the cake was. Made me feel good.

  The rest of the wedding guests and the wedding party arrived. The DJ introduced the wedding party as they entered and took their places at the head table. Jocelyn looked absolutely gorgeous in her wedding gown. But more beautiful than the gown was the happy glow that she wore on her face. And Brad was very handsome; and he had that same glow. Just seeing them together, I could feel how much they loved each other.

  I was envious of them. I always thought that Greg, the high school sweetheart, and I would end up like this. I started to feel that old emptiness that I had hidden away after Greg and I broke up. There were only a few situations where this feeling would creep up and hit me in the gut. Holidays—especially Christmas and Valentine’s Day were biggies for me.

  Of course I was always very busy during those holidays, but when I would go home after closing the bakery, the loneliness clouded me like a wet blanket. Now, here I sat surrounded by friends and family of these two lovers and I didn’t even have a date. I looked around the room and there were a lot of guys there, but most of them had a wife or a date. Oof.

  The toast was made by the maid of honor and the groom’s brother, Crew, who was the best man. And he certainly was in my opinion, the best. Holy hotness batman. Tight black tux, beautiful dark hair that you could run your hands through. I knew why that tux was tight, strong muscles underneath. Stark blue eyes that I felt could see me, he even winked my way as he raised his glass. He thanked his brother for helping him to find his place in the world as a firefighter, just as Summer poked me in the ribs. “He’s super hot.”