The Firefighter's Match

by Allie Pleiter

  Still, she found herself hounded by the hollow look she’d seen in Alex’s eyes at the press conference yesterday. He took the news of that second gear failure as if it were a physical blow, as if he’d personally been injured. That kind of response couldn’t be hidden or faked—that was true pain. JJ knew because she’d felt a blow like that herself. She could easily remember how it had shot a hole through her insides to know her mistake had killed Angie Carlisle.

  It went so much deeper than military advantage or corporate profitability—it was human pain. Like hers, JJ knew Alex’s wound would heal but never disappear. Daxon and Max were all victorious after the conference, too full of “we’re going to make sure they pay” language to think of who’d actually have to pay the cost. Over them she could hear Alex’s warnings that there would be no winners when this battle was over. The shadow over Alex’s eyes told her he was paying already.

  Why did we have to meet now?

  She couldn’t remember finally giving in to the impulse to walk out to the dock; she just sort of looked up and found herself there. He didn’t turn around at first. The set of his shoulders changed—she knew he recognized her presence—but he continued staring out over the water. It felt odd to be out here with him in bright sunshine. Better, though, for the dock in the moonlight belonged to Bing and Rosemary, not to Alex and JJ.

  “I’m going back to Denver this afternoon,” he said, still not facing her.

  JJ didn’t reply. Really, what was there to say?

  “Things are a mess. Employees are rattled, accounts are dropping like... Well, accounts are disappearing by the minute.”

  She had to ask, even though it bothered her that she trusted Alex’s answer more than the details Daxon had given her. “She really fell off of Adventure Gear equipment?”

  Alex’s shoulders sank farther. “Not the same set of gear. Certainly not SpiderSilk. We’re not even sure the gear was a factor at all yet. Still, we have no choice but to pull everything. All the climbing gear. From every store. Even before the news services picked it up, it was the only thing to do. I should have gone back there earlier, shouldn’t have come here, but...”

  It was then that he turned to look at her, finishing the sentence with his eyes rather than words. His obvious pain made her consider saying “I’m sorry” for all he was losing, but that didn’t feel right. Part of her wasn’t sorry—no one else would be hurt now, hopefully. Besides, Daxon and the rehabilitation doctors had laid out all of Max’s long-term care costs, and the figure was staggering. Without a sizable settlement from AG and the studio, Max had no hope of ever getting back on his financial footing. Ugh. She hated how so many figures of speech involved walking, steps, feet or any of the other things Max could no longer use.

  Her face must have shown her worry because Alex said, “You’ll be okay. All of you. Max will have the best of care and every resource. And you, well, I don’t think the fire department realizes how good you’ll be for them.” He tried to laugh, but the sound bounced thin and lifeless across the water.

  “And you?” It would have been better not to ask, but she couldn’t help herself. Daxon had advised her to think of Alex and AG in terms of a casualty, a necessary element of battle, but she couldn’t. Dismissing Sam or the nebulous office building she imagined somewhere in Denver was possible, but she could not simply dismiss Alex.

  For some reason, Alex pulled a battered compass from his pocket and ran his ringer around the edge. “Oh, I figure we’ll last through Christmas, closing down the smaller stores as we go. If we’re careful, most of the layoffs won’t need to happen until after the holidays. Media is instant, but legalities move a lot slower.” He looked up at her, an odd determination in his eyes. “If it were just Max, we might have stood a chance. But with Melinda Taylor’s case, too, well, I think the most I can do is try for a smooth ending.”

  “That’s her name? Melinda Taylor?”

  “Nineteen years old. Sophomore year in college. Geology major. She’ll walk again, but not well. I don’t think we had anything to do with it, but I can’t really say. In this business, a little doubt is all you need to go under.” He shook his head. “How did we get here?”

  Hadn’t she asked herself the same question? “I don’t know.”

  “This isn’t me, JJ.” Alex sucked in a breath. “I don’t let people fall. I don’t cut corners or cozy up to families in pain for corporate gain. I don’t lay off people I hire, and I don’t hate my brother.” He let his hands drop. “How did I get here?”

  JJ backed up against the lamppost. The same one Alex had pressed her against when his tender kiss had poured life back into her arid heart.

  “I never, ever stayed close to you for the reasons Sam said,” he went on. “I can’t stand Sam right now for even suggesting it, for letting you think it. I know you can’t believe I’m not that kind of guy, but if everything else has to go south I can swallow it if I know you’ll believe that...someday.”

  She no longer trusted her judgment about any man—Alex, Max, Tony Daxon, anyone. How ironic that the men she put her faith in at the moment were the guys from the fire department? “I’m sorry.” What else was there to say? She couldn’t give him the answer he wanted. And she was sorry...sorry about everything, including how hollow and tired she felt.

  Alex dragged himself upright, looking as weary as she felt. “I’m all paid up for the cabin through the end of the month—you can check with Max. I’ll have to come back in about a week or so once the lawyers do their thing, but I’ll stay in Chicago.” He looked out over the river. “I loved our times out here. Funny, huh? I’ve been all around the world and this was the best vacation I ever had.”

  JJ felt compelled to add, “Until it blew up in our faces. That’s the thing about bubbles, Cushman, they pop.” She saw him visibly flinch when she called him Cushman, but she could never call him Alex again. Not now.

  Her tone turned him to face her. “Don’t let this win, JJ. Keep me at a distance if you have to, but don’t throw that wall back up just because all this happened. Life isn’t war. It’s hard, but it’s a good kind of hard when you let people in to make it all worthwhile. At least, I used to be sure of that.” He shook his head. “I’d better find a way to fake that ‘sure’ before I get off that plane in Denver, hadn’t I?”

  Again, she didn’t have a response. Life was war, every soldier knew that. It was just easier to see out on the battlefield, that’s all. Alex was waiting for her to say something, waiting for some glimmer of hope that she’d find a way to believe what he was saying, but all she had now were doubts.

  “Yeah,” he sighed, looking down. “Well...” He was fishing for some way to couch this moment in optimism, to pull one of his rhetorical tricks. It made it worse that she could read him so easily now, made her ashamed of her earlier foolish belief in him. “I won’t say goodbye.” The defiance in his voice was forlorn. “I don’t believe in goodbyes.”

  JJ looked him square in the eye. “Goodbye.”

  She stood on the dock, watching the muddy water swirl around the dock pilings, until she heard his car start and rumble off down the drive.

  * * *

  “Think of how much prettier we’ll be this year.” York—JJ was sure the man had a first name but she’d never heard it—gave a pathetic imitation of Marilyn Monroe.

  Jesse cuffed the back of York’s head from his vantage point directly behind the big lug of a guy. “Not likely, Yorky. You’re still in it.”

  At which point the brigade started yapping—a high-pitched sound evidently honoring the fluffy pet Yorkshire terrier York’s wife had insisted on buying once they married. JJ was surprised to find herself joining in, if only for a second before Chief Bradens, with a long-suffering scowl, held up a hand.

  “Is it okay with you clowns if we get this done before sundown?”

  She knew company photos were a staple of firehouse culture, although she was more used to them around the holidays. The connection made her think of Ale
x’s lilting rendition of “White Christmas” as it floated out over the river that first night. Try as she might, images of those days “in the bubble,” as she’d come to think of them, would invade her thoughts at the slightest provocation. Even when he’d said he was leaving, Alex hadn’t really left. Every night as she sat on the dock, JJ felt the heavy certainty that her heart was broken. She’d known Alex had broken her trust, but she hadn’t counted on how much more it hurt to know he had crushed her heart.

  “One, two...” JJ pasted a photogenic smile on her face...only to shriek when a wall of cold water crashed over her from every direction.

  “Wha?” She howled, instantly soaked to the skin.

  Shouts of “Probie!” and guffaws surrounded her from the guys who’d clearly known to step back. As she wiped her eyes, JJ’s glare shifted from Chief Bradens to his father, the retired chief George Bradens. George and Chad Owens waved from their perch atop the ladder truck, the “smoking gun” of a dripping fire hose in their hands.

  She should have seen that coming. Dousing the probie at a company photo was the oldest prank in the book. She fumed at the reminder that Alex really had messed with her head for her to have missed that she was being set up.

  Until she saw Bradens’s expression. Hosing down the probie was a rite of passage. A normal, nongirl rite of firefighter passage. The chief’s amused grin told her why he’d allowed the stunt and even drafted his father and friend’s participation: it meant she’d been accepted. JJ had become a member of this team. She belonged.

  Finally, she thought as she squeezed the water out of her ponytail and accepted a towel York held out to her. Right now when I needed it most.

  “I figured you’d be a good sport about this,” the chief said as he handed a mop to Jesse and picked his foot up out of a puddle. “Because I expect you see it for what it really is.” He lowered his voice. “You do, don’t you?”

  JJ couldn’t keep the smile from face, soaked as she was. “Yes, I do.”

  Chief Bradens nodded. “It’s a fine thing. A big step for the guys. Even if you did get soaked in the process.”

  JJ thought about the long, hot days in Afghanistan when a soaking like this would have been pure bliss. It was a soggy sort of happiness now, and she’d take it gratefully.

  She let herself “soak in” the moment...until she watched a strange expression come over the chief’s face. “Didn’t you tell me Alex went back to Denver?”

  “He went back yesterday. Why?”

  Bradens pointed. “Then why is he standing in our driveway?”

  * * *

  She was sopping wet, laughing and beautiful. The knot that had planted itself in his stomach as he’d walked off that dock the other day, the one that had kept tightening the whole drive to the airport, the one that had twisted itself unbearably as he pulled into the rental car parking lot, was gone. He knew upon seeing her that the crazy idea God had given him was exactly what he needed to do. A crazy idea that right now seemed much simpler to accept than to try to explain it to her because her face darkened the minute she saw him.

  JJ walked toward him, toweling off her face and hair but not the scowl that greeted his. “Hi, there.”

  “I’d ask ‘Why don’t you leave?’ but we’ve been through this a few times before.”

  Alex stuffed his hands into his pockets. “I don’t have the best track record of leaving Gordon Falls, do I?”

  She didn’t find that amusing. “Why are you here?” She nodded toward the firehouse behind her. “I’m sort of in the middle of something, if you hadn’t noticed.”

  “They got you good. That means you’re ‘in,’ right? Gender-neutral pranks are a good thing, aren’t they?”

  “I’m soaking wet, Cushman, and I’d like to go dry off. Is there something you need?” Her voice was all business, sharp with annoyance.

  “I am going back to Denver this afternoon, but there’s something I need to tell you first. Something I need you to know before I go.”

  Her eyes darted back and forth, suspicious. “I don’t think there’s anything I need to know. Not from you.”

  “You’re wrong.” The urge to take JJ and grab her by the shoulders, to make her hear him, burned so hard he had to fight to keep his hands in his pockets. “You’re so wrong, JJ. Give me five minutes to prove it to you.”

  She narrowed her eyes, considering. He hated how she obviously considered him dangerous. Right now, he felt powerful, purposeful even—anything but dangerous. “Five minutes. You can choose to never talk to me again after that, but you’ve got to hear what I have to say. For Max. For you.”

  “Or for you. I don’t have any interest in easing your conscience or hearing new rounds of how sorry you are.”

  Sure, he was still filled with sorrow over what happened. Only now he knew exactly how to make reparation. The solution was like adrenaline pumping through his system. He had to make her listen. “Please.” Come on, Lord, You know how much I need her to say yes. You know how much she needs to hear this.

  JJ twisted the towel between her hands. “I need time to get dried off. I’ll meet you in Karl’s in fifteen minutes.”

  That was all Alex needed. And while the crowded local coffee shop didn’t exactly provide much privacy, he was sure he could make it work. “Great.”

  “No guarantees, Cushman.”

  “I’ll take it. You won’t regret it, JJ, I promise.”

  Her sigh deflated her right in front of his eyes. “I already do.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Alex stood in Karl’s Koffee and waited. It felt like the first time he and Sam had opened the doors of Adventure Gear. As if they were standing on the brink of an enormous cliff, seconds before hurtling themselves down the side with only ropes to depend on for their survival. This thing, this feeling of risking everything, of being so certain yet so terrified—this is what he’d lost in life. It had struck him on the drive away from the airport that he’d kept disappearing to new vistas in the past year to find this feeling, this sense of laser-sharp focus. That was a mistake. The focus wasn’t to be found on a mountaintop or in a rainforest; it was inside God’s purpose for him.

  Hokey as it sounded, Alex hadn’t had this strong a sense of God’s purpose in years. He felt ridiculous and unstoppable at the same time, and he needed to share that energy with JJ—and eventually with Max. Trouble was, that first leap off the cliff involved a very, very steep drop—one that would change his life forever.

  JJ pushed through the doors of Karl’s Koffee and slid into the booth opposite Alex. There was something about the way she looked in a T-shirt...thrown together, unadorned yet perfect. Wet tendrils of her hair still clung to her neck in fascinating curves. Even guarded and annoyed, her presence had a capacity to ground him and launch him at the same time. The power of his need for her to understand what he was about to do—and why he was compelled to do it—doubled with one look of her suspicious eyes.

  “I’m going to fire Sam.”

  He’d intended for that to get her attention, and it did. “How? Why?”

  “We’re equal partners, so I’m not quite sure how yet, but the why is easy. He’s become something—maybe he has always been something—different from what Adventure Gear was supposed to be. He and I, we can’t be partners anymore. I think I’ve known that for months, but I just couldn’t see how Adventure Gear could go on without both of us. Now I see Adventure Gear can’t go on with both of us.”

  “What if he fires you first?”

  “I’ve thought of that. I think he’s probably thought of it, too. But here’s the thing—companies, if you build them right, have a soul of their own outside of their owners.” He pulled out his father’s compass, needing something to occupy his hands while he tried to explain this inexplicable thing he was going to do. “AG has to have a character, a culture, that’s bigger than just me or just Sam. I may be wrong, but I think the way I see things is more closely aligned with Adventure Gear’s culture than how Sam do
es. Sam is a cunning businessman, but he stopped being Adventure Gear a while ago. I just wasn’t willing to see that—mostly because of how my father saw our partnership as our greatest achievement. I don’t think Dad would be very proud of that partnership right now.”

  JJ’s glance flicked around the room the way it did when she felt insecure. “Why do I need to know this?”

  “Because I’ve come to realize that Max’s accident, the settlement, you, me, all of that is tied up in the same gift. It’s all part of some radical, drastic opportunity.”

  She sat back. “I hardly think Max would agree with you on that one.”

  He was messing this up, allowing his desperation to communicate to tangle his tongue. I need better words, Lord. Help me help her understand. Alex pushed out a breath. “I’m not saying Max’s fall was a good thing. It’s a horrible thing. But I see now how good can come out of it. The whole Romans 8 ‘all things work together for good’ vibe—I believe it. I have always told Sam that the worst problems were just radical, drastic opportunities. That’s always been my gift. I just couldn’t see how it applied to all this until yesterday when I tried to leave.”

  She crossed her arms. It bugged him. It was such a posture of defense, of disbelief compared to his own openness and enthusiasm leaning over the table toward her. “And how does it apply?”

  Alex forced himself to take a deep breath. “We have to take Adventure Gear apart. Dismantle it down to the bare bones of what it’s always been. And it’s always been about getting people out into the wonders of nature. To enable people to go where they didn’t think they could go, push themselves into places they didn’t think possible, expand their horizons. Only lately, we’ve become about upscaling that experience. Fancy gear, space-age technology, luxury where luxury never really belonged.”

  “Sounds like just a lot of pretty words to me. I still don’t get why I need to hear your business revelations.”

  Alex pressed his hands to his temples, reaching for the right words. “When I think of Max, I’m filled with sadness over all he’s lost. Over what our ferocious push for new technology has cost him. I kept looking for a way to fix his world, knowing that there wasn’t any way I could. Then, as I was driving to the airport, I realized I could restore his access to the world he’s always known. I could give him new ways to be the old Max. That’s what Max really needs—not a pile of money.”