The Firefighter's Match

by Allie Pleiter

  “Your equipment was supposed to protect him and it didn’t,” JJ shot back. “AG is still partially responsible. This announcement says you’re going to take care of him.” She narrowed her eyes. “Are you?”

  “No one even knows what that means yet. No one’s even had that conversation. How can Max say he’s making an announcement if there’s nothing to announce? Can’t you see what’s happening?”

  “I just asked you a very simple question with a very obvious answer. Are you going to take care of Max?”

  “That’s what I’m trying to tell you. Daxon isn’t going to see that Max gets taken care of. Just the opposite. No one’s going to come out of this on top with Daxon at the helm.” He wasn’t getting through to her, and that was kindling a panic in his gut. “Max is in bad hands. Ones that are all about the highest possible settlement and nothing at all about what’s best for Max. This wasn’t ‘us or them’ before Daxon’s announcement—just think about that for a moment. Whether or not you trust me, you can’t trust Daxon. This character is taking advantage of Max when he’s vulnerable. Because...”

  “Because you stand to lose a lot of money if he wins?” It was a low blow, but he deserved one. “You know what I can’t figure out? It’s why you’re even bothering. AG is huge—you said so yourself. What’s one bad profit statement compared to the fact that Max’s life is ruined and no amount of money will get him up and walking again?”

  “This has nothing to do with profit statements,” he tried to argue, but she cut him off.

  “Of course it does. That’s all it’s ever been about to you.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Alex knew he was losing control of his emotions. Everything about this situation was wrong and regrettable. He looked up at JJ, stung by the contempt in her eyes. She believed Sam. She believed Sam’s stupid email over all the conversations they’d had together. In what world was that fair? He tried—without much success—to speak calmly. “I need you to believe me—this is not about money. Not for me.”

  She took a breath to argue but he held up a silencing hand. “Granted, it may be for Sam. But not for me. I won’t let him turn this into a war. Daxon, on the other hand, is the kind of guy who will make this a media circus—one that will eat Max alive. Daxon won’t trash Max’s character himself, but he’ll leave your brother open to attack from everyone else. Think about the WWW producers. They’ll do their research, and they’ll know how Daxon operates. They’ll pull out all the stops to try to squelch him, and if the best way to do that is by casting Max as some kind of irresponsible daredevil, they won’t care. The paperwork he signed gives them all kinds of license to make Max look reckless. Don’t you think your family has been through enough?”

  For a moment he thought he was actually getting through to her. That maybe Sam’s interfering hadn’t ruined everything. It didn’t last long. Something hard and invincible came over her face—the return of the combat warrior. “Do you think I can believe even one word you say anymore? I’m smart enough to learn from my mistakes, Cushman...”

  “Alex!” It was making him crazy the way she said his last name with such contempt.

  “Mr. Cushman,” she shot back, her voice icy, “I won’t make the mistake of believing your impressive sales act again. You can thank Sam for tipping me off. I’m only sorry I wasn’t smart enough to recognize it in the first place. If Daxon can back you into a corner to give Max everything he deserves, I’m all for it. I’ll see you at tomorrow’s press conference.”

  With that, JJ turned and walked away. No, she marched away like the one-woman army she was. A betrayed woman with a ten-foot fortress of distrust built up in every direction. A wall Alex somehow knew would now stay up for the rest of her life.

  He sat there for nearly an hour, leaning against the car in the train station’s gravel parking lot, wrestling with the clash of ideas in his head. You can’t fix this. You’re the only one who can fix this. You’ve been handed a reason to leave. If you leave now it’s all gone, all of it. There’s no solution. Finding solutions no one else can see is your gift. He’d never been so hungry to escape his life and so utterly unable to do so at the same time.

  He reached into the car and pulled out his laptop, flipping it open on the hood of the car. The only thing he could think of to do was to read through Sam’s email again and go over the statement from Max one more time. Those two documents had started the war going on inside him—and the one inside JJ, too, for that matter. He had to start from there.

  The black and white of it all, the faceless black words on a pale screen, lent him a bit of perspective. The email was classic Sam. Sam’s response in panic was always defensive. Alex, however, always met pressure with an offensive measure. Sam was reactive; Alex was proactive. Sam had responded in exactly the way Alex knew he would, expecting Alex to use whatever means necessary to protect AG. Sam probably didn’t even find the tactic of cozying up to the Joneses in any way reproachable; he’d see it as the best choice in a toolbox of potential company-saving tactics. Asked to name Sam’s response, Alex might have even predicted a stunt like that. It was only the cruel development of JJ reading it that had taken Alex by surprise.

  He read back through Max’s announcement. Well, not so much of an announcement as Daxon’s “shot across the bow” fed through Max’s Personal Patient Page. The wording was a dastardly kind of admirable...phrases of grateful surprise at how AG was going to bend over backward to help Max Jones. Not a single detail, just loads of expectations—assumptions, actually, because no discussions had ever taken place—that AG was going to go above and beyond what anyone could expect in the name of getting Max’s life back.

  It hit him halfway through the final paragraph: a demand was only unreasonable if you had no intention of meeting it. What if the way to call Daxon’s bluff was to do the last thing the smarmy lawyer expected: capitulate? The impossible solution here was to find a way to give Max more than he needed without taking AG under.

  Alex would just have to make sure that was exactly what happened.

  * * *

  JJ had just enough time to drive down after her morning training at the firehouse to attend Max’s press conference. Chief Bradens had given her the option of taking the morning off, but she’d decided she didn’t want to be asking for a load of special considerations so soon after coming on board. As such, she hadn’t gotten much sleep, but sleep had been a rarity for weeks now, even without all the tossing and turning she’d done after yesterday’s revelations.

  The one good note was how much her brother looked like the old Max today...the infuriating Max who could fixate on something to the point of obsession. No matter what Alex said about the vices of Tony Daxon, the lawyer had done the one thing she couldn’t manage: he’d recharged Max. Her old commanding officer used to say that nothing motivated like hatred, and it was true. If hating WWW or AG gave Max a reason to fight, JJ didn’t see how she could argue with that.

  Until Alex walked into the room.

  This was a different Alex, a corporate Alex. He didn’t need a suit to look like the co-owner of a million-dollar retail establishment; the blue of his eyes was bright and riveting above the serious black button-down shirt and crisp khaki slacks he wore. He walked in without greeting anyone and took a seat in the first row off to one side. Barry Morgan sat beside him—the odd attorney she’d met the first day at the hospital. Another dark-haired man sat on the other side. None of them talked, none of them even looked up, yet they managed to hold the room’s focus. Was their presence the elephant in the room? Or was it the odd counterpoint to the slickly suited Daxon and his thin-faced assistant who flanked Max?

  Just as JJ and her mom took their place as instructed behind Max and his doctors, four men in expensive suits and briefcases entered and stood in the back of the room. JJ was pretty sure they weren’t the secret service, so she guessed them to be from the WWW corporate production staff. Max didn’t seem to know them, but if some of the staff he’d known from
the show had been in contact, Max wasn’t talking. Daxon had instructed JJ and her mother not to accept any calls from WWW or any of its staff, either. Cousin Charlotte was there, along with some of Max’s therapists, and three video cameras and a knot of bored-looking reporters hoisting digital audio recorders rounded out the “audience.”

  Everyone stared at Max, who fidgeted and chattered with Daxon. Alex was right about one thing: it did look like a circus. If she hadn’t seen the energy in Max’s eyes and heard it in his voice, she’d have agreed that such a spotlight might bring out the worst in Max’s high-drama tendencies. Still, she couldn’t deny that the attention had lit a fire under Max, and that was far better than the sour resignation he’d had earlier.

  JJ hadn’t realized she was staring at Alex until he looked up and caught her gaze. They were the only people not looking at Max, and it made everything boil down to just the two of them. Alex’s eyes were a thunderstorm and a beacon all at once. The number of emotions she read there—each fiercely intense and all seemingly focused at her—stole her composure. Regret battled with determination across his hardened features. He’d somehow dug his heels in—she could see it clear as day—but she didn’t know where or how. She only knew that it had everything to do with her rather than with Max; the realization made her chest cinch and her pulse pound.

  JJ did her best to pay attention to the proceedings, to hear Max’s carefully worded statement and nod as if they really were his words. Only his family would know this wasn’t how Max spoke at all, but this whole show was for the media, and even she knew media required expertise. Max spoke of his future extensive treatments and accommodations as if everything had been settled for weeks. She knew none of that had been settled, and the fact that Alex and the AG team—not to mention the studio corps—were taking furious notes confirmed for her that they were hearing this all for the first time. One minute Max was telling heartfelt accounts of everything he had lost. The next minute Max sounded like he was going to get everything his heart desired for the rest of his life. Sure, it was a bit disjointed, but at least Max was talking as if he had a future.

  Near the end of his announcement, Max looked over toward where Alex was sitting and said, “I owe a debt of gratitude to the people of Adventure Gear, whose very generous settlements currently in the works are going to make a lot of this possible.”

  JJ was surprised that Max commented directly to Alex’s attendance because no one else had even bothered to acknowledge that the enemy was in the room. Alex, however, straightened up with so much calm she wondered if he’d planned the whole thing.

  “That’s only the beginning, Max.”

  Wait a minute, Max and Alex hadn’t ever met, had they? Hadn’t Max told her that Alex rented the cabin anonymously and through a broker? JJ didn’t much care for Alex’s congenial tone.

  “I’m here to confirm that Adventure Gear indeed plans to take an active role in your rehabilitation. We pledge to cover all outstanding medical costs and fund accommodations to your home and hand controls to your vehicles. I promise you, Max, that we will do everything in our power to ensure that your adventures in life don’t stop just because they now happen on wheels. We stand prepared to commit whatever resources are necessary to ensure your full recuperation. For life.”

  JJ found herself watching Daxon’s reaction carefully, but the man was nearly impossible to read as he responded, “I’d expect no less from a company with Adventure Gear’s reputation for integrity.” His words were almost—but not quite—a challenge. “It was a failure of AG equipment, after all, that led to Mr. Jones’s devastating injury.”

  Now JJ’s eyes were glued to Alex. Would he admit that much publicly? He’d always been careful to qualify all his statements regarding the AG equipment failure. Did anyone else notice the slight pause before Alex’s response? “So it would seem. All the analysis isn’t complete, but I stand by my earlier statement. We’re fully committed to funding Max’s recovery.” That last statement wasn’t made to Daxon or the audience. Alex made that promise while looking directly at JJ.

  JJ had trouble finding her breath. It was hard to believe the rest of the room didn’t stop breathing, also, but there didn’t seem to be much commotion at all until Daxon replied from beside Max.

  “A very generous offer, Mr. Cushman.” Daxon reached into his briefcase to produce a single sheet of paper, nodding as his assistant went to hand what looked like copies to the reporters. “Only I can’t say I find it so virtuous in light of this morning’s news.”

  “And what news is that?”

  “Only that a second victim has fallen. I’m sorry to have to tell you that we’ve uncovered another case. A young woman fell nearly to her death a month ago while climbing with AG equipment. Charity is a fine thing, but one does wonder if what we’re looking at here is more damage control than genuine philanthropy.”

  * * *

  Alex had originally planned to make that promise to JJ on his feet, but now he was glad he was sitting down. One part of him could easily believe this latest stunt was just for shock value on Daxon’s part, but something in Alex’s gut told him it might very well be true. He had the chilling sensation he was watching the death of AG unfold right in front of his eyes. Right in front of everyone’s eyes, actually.

  The whole room turned to him, and he knew his future was hinging on his response to this moment. It struck him as the oddest thing to be grateful he was here because Sam’s response to news like this would have been to mount an instant denial. Alex knew somewhere deep inside that denial was no longer an option. AG was going down, and he was going to have to stand watch on the bridge of this sinking ship as long as he could. “I was unaware of that terrible news,” he said, meaning every word. “I do hope you’ll share the particulars with our staff at AG so we can take whatever response is required.”

  Reporters scribbled furiously. Morgan had jumped up and literally snatched a copy of the paper out of Daxon’s assistant’s hand, hitting what Alex could only assume was the speed dial to the AG offices on his smartphone with his free hand as he ducked out into the hallway. Papers crinkled, people mumbled and it was as if a small avalanche had filled the room with cold, alarming facts. Still, Alex felt an eerie calm. A hollow resignation of sorts, as if he’d already known this moment was on its way.

  They’d lost already. AG would fall because people had fallen. It no longer mattered if this woman’s injuries had anything to do with AG equipment or human error. It no longer mattered if AG fended off eight more lawsuits, trumped up or genuine. Daxon had planted the idea that AG was negligent with safety. The media would take it from there and AG’s reputation would never recover.

  Daxon would encourage this new family to sue, to jump on the momentum of Max’s situation whether or not they had an actual case. After that, others would follow. The legal and image costs of multiple catastrophic injury cases would sink them, no matter the truth of any of the injuries. Climbers weren’t generous with trust in equipment—and for a very good reason.

  Max was making some closing statements, looking up at his mother as she stood next to him dabbing her eyes. Alex could only stare at JJ. All the hate of yesterday had evaporated from her eyes. Its replacement was equally hard to swallow: a distant sort of pity. She knew what he knew: AG had just been delivered a lethal blow.

  Some part of him was illogically jealous of Specialist Angie Carlisle, the dying woman to whom JJ had told reassuring lies. He wanted to hear JJ tell him it would be all right, even though both of them knew it wouldn’t be. It couldn’t.

  It seemed so natural to walk up and apologize to Max that Alex wondered why he hadn’t done it earlier. As he walked up to the young man it was as if the whole room parted like the Red Sea—except for Tony Daxon, who straddled the space between Alex and Max as if he stood guard.

  “Nah,” Max said sourly, “let him.”

  “I am personally, genuinely sorry.” Alex said, extending a hand.

  “Yeah.” Max did
not accept it, even though Alex had seen him shake hands with his doctors. There was no physical impairment preventing him; he was clearly choosing to deny Alex that civility. Alex wasn’t even sure “yeah” constituted an acceptance of his apology. Was he really expecting one? The man’s eyes were cold and resentful.

  “I meant what I said.” Alex placed his private business card—the one with his personal cell and email info—on the table in front of Max. “Whatever you need.”

  “Mr. Jones will need a great deal. And none of it will restore his former life.” Daxon’s tone was so filled with drama that Alex felt as if he’d just taken a bite of tinfoil.

  He kept his eyes on Max. “I’m deeply aware of that.”

  “Good,” Max said, pushing himself brusquely away from the table in his wheelchair, leaving the card where it sat. “Good.”

  While he wasn’t sure it was the smartest idea, Alex ventured a glance in JJ’s direction. Her face registered a combination of sadness, anger and confusion, all hidden under a soldier’s veneer of control. A dark corner of him wondered if this was the face he’d get from her from now on—the warrior defending her brother instead of the woman who’d tangled his heart. Was she sorry his future was about to fall? Or did she see that as justice?

  “I am sorry,” he said to JJ, even though she would not hold his gaze. “I hope you know that.”

  She looked everywhere but at him. “Yes,” she said. It wasn’t really an answer—more of a dismissal.

  Chapter Fourteen

  JJ looked at Alex’s slumped figure out on the dock and told herself for the fifth time not to go out there. It was better for everyone if they never spoke again. Daxon had, in fact, given the whole family strict orders not to talk to anyone from the studio or AG without a member of his office present.