Blaze (The Firefighters of Darling Bay Book 1)

by Rachael Herron

  But sending these texts?

  She was terrified.

  The first one was to Samantha. I’m sorry. I love you. I support you. I believe in you.

  She sat, rocking nervously, the phone clutched tightly in her hand. She waited for the telltale conversation dots that would tell her her sister was typing back.

  Nothing.

  Her heart curled into a tiny ball inside her.

  Grace took a deep breath and pushed her shoulders back, just like she told her patients to do. All right. On to the next, then.

  The second text was to Lexie. I need Tox’s home address. He’d listed the station’s address on the intake form he’d filled out at the practice.

  The response was almost instantaneous. No way.

  Yes way.

  He would never forgive me, Lexie texted back. I have to work with the guy. He’s a beast when he’s grumpy.

  I don’t care. Grace punched the send button with extra emphasis.

  No.

  I have to return his dog.

  Ow. 180 Canfield. Don’t tell him it was me or I’m never splitting a sundae with you at Skip’s ever again.

  Liar. How’s next Thursday?

  I’m in. You’re buying.

  Grace’s cell went dark. Quiet. She closed her eyes and hoped.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  Tox had been ignoring everyone who came to his door for the last three days. He hadn’t even looked out the blinds. He knew—could tell by their knocks—who’d come by.

  Coin’s knock was polite but determined. He had stayed on the porch, knocking in a steady rhythm, for ten minutes.

  Barger’s knock was demanding. Easy to tune out. Tox had just turned up the volume on his television until he went away.

  Lexie had the food knock, and she left the tuna-fish casserole (the only thing she said she could cook) on his doorstep. He’d eaten it out of the glass dish with a plastic spoon.

  He was waiting for Grace’s knock. She had Methyl, after all. Lexie had texted him with the information when he was still in the hospital, and he’d felt a high level of relief—the dog was okay—with a similar level of resentment. Grace couldn’t just have his dog. Methyl was supposed to be with him. He missed the feeling of her floppy, silken ears. He missed the soft panting she did when she sat on the couch next to him.

  He also missed the way Grace smiled at him, like he was something special. Something to be watched, enjoyed.

  So he stayed on his couch, waiting. He didn’t know what he’d do if she came by.

  When he finally heard her cheerful knock, though, Tox knew. He lifted his head once from the couch, looked at her shadow on the blinds, and lowered his head again. He wouldn’t even stand up. Because if he moved, he’d open the door, and then he’d let her in, and he couldn’t do that. She deserved a good man. A man who didn’t lose or hurt everything around him.

  Holding his breath, he waited for her to knock again.

  She didn’t. Her shadow disappeared.

  The disappointment was thick in his throat, unexpected and chilling. She sure hadn’t tried very hard. He’d thought maybe…but no. She was probably just trying to get his dog back to him. He’d get Lexie to pick Methyl up. Tomorrow, maybe. He couldn’t do it today.

  Tox stretched, pulling up the blanket so it came to his chin again. It was almost time for another pill, and even though he didn’t want to take it, he knew he probably would. Just to escape this awful darkness for a couple of hours.

  Then he heard a noise in the back yard. It wasn’t loud—just a soft thud followed by a louder click. Exactly as if someone had climbed the fence.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  Grace had never broken into anything more than song and she expected to hear sirens at any moment. How fast did the cops come when a burglar alarm went off?

  But the fence, really. It was chump change. She’d scaled it in seconds, her heart juddering in her chest. She was short of breath from the fear she felt, not from the physical exertion it caused. She landed on the balls of her feet and stood, ready to run.

  Grace heard nothing. She opened the gate and led Methyl into the back yard, holding her leash tightly.

  This was really pretty stupid. If Tox didn’t want to answer the door, he didn’t have to. Cripes knew, he had a good reason to avoid talking to anyone. His job had gone as wrong as any job could go—losing a child—and he was probably drunk and passed out on the floor, like any other reasonable person.

  Then again, drinking on the meds he was surely on wouldn’t be a good idea. Grace reached a slow hand out to the back doorknob and thought about the way alcohol metabolized when combined with prescription pain medication.

  It was why she’d jumped the fence.

  Someone had to check on him.

  As she turned the knob, she hoped two things: that he wasn’t dead, and if he was alive and awake, that he didn’t have a gun.

  The door opened with a slow creak. She closed her eyes and contorted her lips into a grimace, but it didn’t quiet the door. Crap.

  She stepped into a kitchen that looked as if it were normally neat and tidy. There was a place for everything, heavy-looking copper-bottomed pots hanging over the industrial stove, knives gleaming in a dark wood block. But the sink was full of dishes, and on second glance, she noticed that it was mainly glasses and cups, as if he’d been living on liquid.

  Poor guy.

  She heard something to the right, a scuffle. She should call out—she knew she should. But what if he was asleep and she scared him to death? That wouldn’t be fair.

  Grace skated across the floor in her tennis shoes, as quiet as she could make herself. She barely breathed. As if Methyl knew what they were doing, the puppy stuck close to her right foot, moving silently.

  The open door led to a living room.

  Across the room, next to the large plate glass window, was a couch.

  On the couch with a blanket pulled up to his chin, Tox slept.

  It wasn’t fair, really, how handsome he looked while at the same time retaining such vulnerability. She sneaked closer, moving on tiptoe.

  A foot away from him, Grace felt lightheaded, and she wasn’t sure if it was because she was so close to him or because she’d forgotten to breathe.

  His chest moved, and something inside her released, something she didn’t even know she’d been holding on to. His breath was slow, even.

  He was sound asleep.

  Indulging in a brief fantasy, Grace let herself imagine lying down next to him, tucking herself along the length of his body. She would press her nose up, into the space there, just under his jaw, where it would be prickly and warm. In his sleep, he would roll to her, murmuring something she couldn’t understand. And then, if she was lucky, she’d feel him becoming aroused…He would get hard against her, and she’d tuck her hips, angling them against him and his arms would come around her, and he’d take a kiss from her, a kiss she’d be eager to give…

  No. Grace had to stop thinking like this. She could feel her heart rate speeding up, and she felt a thin trickle of sweat between her breasts. Plus, it was all she could do to prevent Methyl from jumping up on Tox. She had to stay bent over, one hand at the dog’s collar, and Methyl still pulled. Grace did, though, understand the motivation to jump on that guy. She sure did. “C’mon, girl,” she whispered. “We’ll let him rest.”

  In the kitchen, she talked Methyl into lying on the dog bed, new and clean and plush. “He got you a pink sparkly dog bed? Wow, dog, someone must love you.” That word—love—felt heavy and warm on her lips.

  A sandwich first. It would be on the counter, ready to put in his hand when his eyes opened. Her theory that every single man owned the makings of a sandwich proved true. She made a thick ham and cheese, piling on the mustard, mayo and pickles, completely ignoring the fact that it wasn’t the most healthy of sandwiches. Going a step further, she found chips that weren’t too stale (of course he had chips, the terrible, over-salted kind, the kind she t
ried so hard not to buy for herself) and tucked them into the sandwich, too, pressing down on top to crush them in.

  And heck. It looked so good Grace made herself one, too. She sat at the small kitchen table and chewed quietly, slipping bits of bread down to Methyl. It was an awful precedent to set, feeding the dog people food at the table. But that little blond face…How could she resist?

  When Grace was done eating her sandwich, she made sure Tox’s was safely at the back of the counter, away from where Methyl could possibly reach it. Then, she did the dishes. Not just the ones she’d used, but all of them. She filled the sink with piping hot water and bubbles, enjoying the feel of the dishes coming out clean.

  As Grace was drying them with a clean red tea towel she found in a drawer, she started. Oh, not this. She was acting like…a wife. There was really nothing Grace disliked more than a woman who felt it was her duty to clean up after her man, unless it was a man who thought the same thing. In every relationship, no matter how short or unhealthy in other ways it had been, Grace had always made sure that chores were divided evenly, not by gender.

  Here she was, Tox’s spoons slipping through her fingers, clean, into the cutlery drawer. And she liked it.

  Well.

  Grace stood up straighter. She could fix this problem. The back screen door, when she’d let herself in, had squealed like a startled pig. She had been surprised the noise hadn’t woken him, but he must still be exhausted, to say nothing of whatever meds he was or wasn’t on. While Methyl snored in the kitchen, Grace explored the small attached garage until she found a bottle of oil and a screwdriver. It took her less than fifteen minutes to remove the rusty screws, oil the heck out of the hinges and replace the screen door. Satisfied, she moved it back and forth, back and forth, happy with its silence. She shut the kitchen’s screen door once more with a good, solid click, and turned, the screwdriver and oil in her hands.

  Tox stood there, barefoot on the tile. He held Methyl in his arms, and both of them looked shaggy.

  His face was a thundercloud. “What are you doing to my house?”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  It had been so hard, lying there completely still as she watched him. Did she think she’d been quiet? Breaking and entering with a dog? Methyl had wuffled and scraped her way along the hardwood floor, and Grace’s half-whispers for her to be quiet had been hard not to react to. After she’d finished staring at him, he had let her work in the kitchen for a while. He’d been trying to figure out what to do. He’d wanted to rush to her, wrap his arms around her and refuse to let go. He also wanted to throw her out.

  Then it had been kind of nice, listening to her putter around in the kitchen. It sounded like she was fixing something to eat, and while he’d kept his breathing slow and steady, he’d strained his ears to hear exactly where she was in the house. After she finished eating (and from the sound of it, feeding his dog something crunchy, too), and doing his dishes, she’d fixed his screen door.

  That, it turned out, was way too much for him to ignore.

  Grace’s eyes went huge, and she dropped the screwdriver. “You’re awake!”

  “What did you do to my door?” Methyl scrabbled in his arms, and he set her on the floor. He winced with the pain of it.

  She ignored him, turning and grabbing a plate from the kitchen counter. “I made you a sandwich.”

  “You what?”

  Moving too fast, Grace thrust the plate forward and half the sandwich flew onto the floor, where Methyl inhaled it as her due.

  “Are you serious?”

  “Dang it,” she said with feeling. “It’s a good sandwich. I put chips inside. At least eat the other half.”

  “Chips. Inside.”

  She smiled, and Tox felt his heart twist in exactly the way it shouldn’t. “It makes it crunchy and salty. It’s delicious, even though I’ll admit it’s not very good for you. Please eat it.” She paused and then held out the plate again, slower this time. “And please don’t be mad I broke in.”

  He sighed and sat at the table. “You know, that squeaky door was helpful.”

  “What?”

  Tox looked at her hard. “It used to alert me when women broke into my house.”

  “But you didn’t wake up—oh. You did.”

  He nodded slowly.

  Grace put the plate in front of him. “You wanted to see what I’d do.”

  None of this was fair to her. “You should go.”

  “After you eat.” Her voice was resolutely chipper. She pulled out the opposite chair and dropped into it. She put both elbows on the table and leaned forward. “I’m not going anywhere till then.”

  “Anyone ever tell you you’re a pain in the butt?”

  “It’s been mentioned. Please eat, Tox.”

  It wouldn’t do any good. He knew that. Eating was temporary. It satisfied something that came and went. Hunger was like anything else—transitory. Fleeting. Like the pull he felt to her. No matter how strong it was, it didn’t mean anything in the long run.

  Why try to sustain anything? At all? When no matter what, everything ended?

  He chewed, and while he could admit the chips were a good addition, he couldn’t enjoy it. He couldn’t enjoy anything. Maybe ever again.

  “I’m sorry about what happened.” It sounded as if she meant it, as if she really were sorry.

  But that didn’t mean anything, either. “Nothing to do about it now.”

  “Sounds like there wasn’t anything to do about it then, either.”

  He stared. If only her lips weren’t so perfectly shaped, a soft cupid’s bow, maybe then he could get them off his mind. “Yeah, there was. And besides, how would you know anything about it at all?” He knew he sounded rude. That was fine. That was what he was going for, after all.

  “I talked to Lexie.”

  “Lexie wasn’t on duty.”

  “She went in to dispatch that night.”

  “She wasn’t on scene. She doesn’t know a thing.”

  “She knows you did your best.”

  He grimaced. “That’s what everyone always says to losers.”

  “Tox—”

  “No, I’m right about this. Everyone is being so nice. I wish they didn’t feel like they had to be. Just for once, it would be a relief if someone called me on my bull.”

  “Really? You want me to ask how on earth you could let a child die from a fire you didn’t start, weren’t responsible for?”

  Even her words hurt. “Yeah. How could I do that?”

  “Did you do the best you could?”

  “I’m pretty sure I did. It was a hazmat situation. We shouldn’t have even gone inside, once we knew it was a lab. We weren’t suited up, we didn’t have the right respirators. But we did go in.”

  “Because you knew about the people who were trapped.”

  “And it wasn’t enough.”

  “For the man, it was.”

  Tox bit back a curse. “He has to live his life without his daughter.”

  “But you guys saved his life.”

  “Great. So he’ll go to jail for the lab. He could have killed dozens. Do you have any idea how volatile those chemicals are? The solvents alone put every responder in danger of contamination. We saved a criminal.”

  “How about last week, when you saved that baby in front of the fire station?”

  He shook his head and pushed away the plate. “Totally different situation. That baby would have been fine no matter what I did. He was just postictal.”

  “All kids turn blue like that?”

  “Yeah, after a seizure, they do.”

  “So nothing you did helped?”

  “Probably not.”

  She kept prodding, blast her. “So you’re saying you don’t really help anyone at all in your job.”

  “Not usually.” It was true. What they did—pick-up and put-backs, lift assists, rides to the hospital—unless they were hooked up to the shock box or the autopulse, they probably weren’t helping that m
uch. And in that case, those were machines doing the job of CPR now, not even the firefighters themselves most times.

  “So whatever was going to happen to the little girl in the fire, you couldn’t really help that, either? And from what you’re saying, no one else could, either.”

  Tox didn’t like where this was going. “I fell, did they tell you that? I went the wrong direction and then I fell, and took her with me. If I hadn’t fallen the wrong way, pushing any good air she had left in her body right out her, if I hadn’t made her inhale the superheated toxic fumes around us, she might have lived.”

  “That sounds like a terrible accident on top of a tragedy.”

  He exhaled heavily. Didn’t she get it? “It’s what I did that counts, not what I intended to do. That’s all. I failed.”

  “That’s not fair.” She shook her head. “What you intend to do counts a lot.”

  Tox waved his hand around the kitchen. “Is that kind of like what you’ve done here?”

  “What?”

  “You intended to fix my place up? So what, so you could move in or something?”

  Grace gasped. “What?”

  “You come in and make me food. Fatten me up. Trying to make me healthy.”

  She crossed her arms over her chest. “When was the last good meal you ate?”

  “It’s none of your business, actually.”

  “It is.” Her voice was softer now. “Besides, I added chips. Those aren’t healthy.”

  “So I shouldn’t have them in my house?”

  “No, I’m not saying that, Tox.” She closed her eyes as if trying to find something inside herself. “But I do believe that people should help each other.”

  “But you’re not helping. That’s your problem. You think you know better than anyone else. And you know what that translates into?”

  “What?” She barely met his eyes.

  “You come off as a know-it-all. Bossy as a new fire captain. You realize since you’ve known me you’ve advised me to change my diet, my form of exercise, and my house? That’s not okay.”