Putting Out Old Flames

by Allyson Charles

  “Plans change,” he said. Did they ever. After getting his college girlfriend pregnant junior year, he’d done the right thing. A small wedding. A new plan. No more dreams of medical school, with crushing debt. He’d had a family to take care of. And once he’d held his squirming, blotchy baby boy in his hands for the first time, he hadn’t regretted the changes for a second.

  A man sidled up next to Jane. His short hair was pale blond and thin enough to reveal glimpses of his pink scalp. He slung an arm around Jane’s shoulders, and she smiled up at him.

  Chance looked at that arm and decided the man looked pudgy instead of solid, and his chin was decidedly weak.

  Weak chin whined to Jane. “I’ve got everything set up for us. You’re delaying the game.”

  “One minute.” Jane tucked a shiny lock of hair behind her ear. “Leon, have you met our new assistant fire chief? This is Chance McGovern. Chance, this is Leon Gabriel. My date.”

  “Nice to meet you.” Leon took Chance’s hand. Christ, his handshake was as weak as his chin. The man looked at the chief and nodded. “Finnegan.” He pulled Jane closer into his chest. “Come on. I want to get at least two games of Dominion in. No time to waste chitchatting.”

  With a smile of apology to the chief, Jane turned and walked to one of the tables where two other people sat waiting. Her snug jeans caressed her hips with every step.

  Finnegan took another pull from his bottle. “Leon is Judge Nichols’s bailiff. He really likes game night.” His lips twisted wryly, and he shook his head. “So. You and Dispatch Jane. There’s a history there.” The chief’s voice made it known it wasn’t a question.

  Chance hooked his thumbs in his belt loops. “Ancient history. We were friends, then I went to college. We lost touch.”

  “Uh-huh.” Finnegan finished his beer. “Jane’s a professional, so I’m not worried about your ‘ancient history’ affecting work. But a lot of people like her in this town. If she keeps glaring at you like you’re scum on the bottom of her shoe, it might be a little harder for you to make nice with the folks.”

  “I’ll make out fine.” Chance tried to keep the edge out of his voice. It wasn’t his new boss’s business what Jane’s and his history was. And surely Finnegan’s concerns were overblown. Everyone he’d met so far had been nothing but nice to him and his son. That wasn’t likely to change if they found out he and Jane had had a bad breakup a decade ago.

  “I’m sure you will,” Finnegan said. “But community relations are important. Especially with our fundraiser coming up. We don’t want to give anyone an excuse to give their money elsewhere.”

  Chance blew out a breath. “It’s not a big deal. Jane and I are fine.” He thought back to that card he’d left on her porch, the one that must have cemented in Jane’s mind his status as asshole for life. Hopefully she wouldn’t let that information get around town. He’d been just a kid, but it still wasn’t his proudest moment.

  “Make sure you are.” The chief turned and nodded at a woman walking past. “You and Jane have to work together to get this fundraiser going. If you two have any issues that will get in the way of your working relationship, sort them out now. A bouquet of flowers and an apology go a long way in soothing a woman’s ruffled feathers.”

  “I’ll take care of it.”

  “Good.” Finnegan clapped him on the shoulder. “What say we go find a game to join?”

  Chance followed his boss to a table with a Texas Hold ’Em spread. Unbidden, his gaze drifted to Jane’s table. She was laughing at something the woman next to her said, her breasts jiggling delightfully beneath the silk blouse.

  She caught him looking at her and scowled.

  It was going to take a lot more than flowers.

  Chapter Three

  Jane reread the last paragraph on the page. The novel she’d found to be a page-turner last week just couldn’t hold her attention. The description of the hero cop now struck her as too similar to her former flame, and every time he was in a scene, she pictured Chance.

  Giving up, she placed a bookmark between the pages and tossed the book onto her desk. She spun in her executive chair and looked at the posters on her cubicle’s walls. A golden sand beach drew her in, an aquamarine ocean serenely lapping at its shores. That should be her next vacation. Somewhere warm and quiet. Just her, a hammock, and a piña colada.

  Jane made a mental tally of her finances. Maybe a weekend camping by Lake Roanoke instead. Michigan had plenty of natural beauty that she loved to explore. But at the moment it also had one fireman too many.

  The cord to her headset tangled around her neck. Cursing, she spun back the other direction, unraveling the mess.

  “Everything okay over there?” Sharon asked.

  Jane couldn’t see the woman, but knew she sat in the next cubicle playing solitaire on her computer. Contrary to its name, Crook County was low on crime. Aside from the occasional car accident, heart attack, or cat stuck in a tree, the basement of Pineville’s courthouse, headquarters to county dispatch, didn’t receive too many calls.

  There was a lot of downtime to fill, and each of the county’s five dispatchers had different ways to spend it. Most shifts were worked by two dispatchers, and this Monday Jane and Sharon were holding down the fort.

  “Everything’s fine,” Jane answered.

  The snap from a popping piece of chewing gum cracked through the air. Sharon was partial to Big Red, and the scent of cinnamon followed the woman wherever she went. “You choke yourself on the headset cord again?”

  Jane’s shoulders slumped. “Yeah.”

  Another bubble popped. “You and Leon go out last night?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Does that boy still shake your hand at the end of the date?” Sharon asked.

  Jane took off her headset and stood up. Resting her chin on the top of the cubicle, she looked down into her coworker’s small square of space. Sharon’s dark hair was teased and sprayed into a hairstyle that should have stayed in the eighties. Aside from that fashion faux pas, her friend always dressed to the nines. Although Jane thought the trendy outfits were wasted on someone who worked in a hole in the ground, she had to admit her friend looked great. Sharon’s rose-colored slim skirt and silk blouse complemented her smooth dark skin and showcased her trim figure.

  Jane looked down at her own jeans and sweatshirt. Working a job where she was just a voice on the other end of the phone, she might have let herself get a bit more casual than she should.

  “We don’t shake hands after our dates. Don’t exaggerate.”

  Sharon’s brown eyes flicked up from her computer screen. “You don’t kiss, either. That’s the weirdest kind of dating I’ve ever heard of. It’s like you’re Amish or something.”

  Jane tugged on the hem of her University of Michigan sweatshirt. “I’m not a prude. Leon and I are just . . . we’re just friendly dating. It’s not serious.”

  “Friendly dating?” Sharon snorted. “If that’s a new thing, I don’t want anything to do with it. You go out with your friends. When you date, there should be heat.”

  Jane thought back to the goodbye hug Leon had given her the night before on her porch. Definitely no heat. Not even a stray tingle. Still, she did usually have fun with him.

  She chewed on her bottom lip. Well, she had fun playing the board games, at least.

  “In all these months, has that boy ever made a move on you?”

  Jane shook her head.

  “Is he gay?”

  “Of course not.” Jane didn’t think so, at least. And just because he didn’t maul her at her front door shouldn’t be a reason to gossip about his sexuality.

  “Hmm.” Sharon cocked her head. “Maybe if you didn’t dress so frumpy, you’d get more action.” She blew a bubble the size of an apple. “We should go shopping together this weekend. I can hook you up with clothes so sexy the boy won’t be able to keep his hands off of you.”

  Jane shuddered. “No, thanks.” A handsy Leon didn’t appea
l. And who was Sharon to dole out fashion advice? She loved her friend, but she’d be damned if she’d take style tips from someone whose bangs created a wall high enough to cast a shadow.

  The phone rang. “Call on line one,” Sharon said. “Do you want to take it, or me?”

  “I’ll get it.” Better a conversation with an injured person than continue talking about her pathetic dating habits. She grabbed her headset, slipped it on, and pulled her chair up to her computer.

  “Hello. 9-1-1. What’s your emergency?”

  Silence greeted her.

  “Hello? Can you answer? What’s your emergency, please?” Jane hated the silent calls. Was it a simple misdial or was someone choking to death, unable to speak?

  “Hello,” a soft voice answered. “Is som’body there?”

  Crap. Even worse. A child. “Sweetie, you’ve dialed nine-one-one. Do you need some help?”

  “My aunt,” the little boy said.

  “What about your aunt?” Jane kept her voice gentle. “Is she hurt?”

  A sniffle. “She fell. I shake her, but she don’t wake up.”

  Jane tapped some keys and waited for an address to pop up on the screen. Bingo. She recognized the street name. It was in a solidly middle-class neighborhood, one that had a fierce Christmas decoration competition each year.

  “Is your aunt inside the house? Are you with her right now?” Jane’s fingers flew over the keyboard, sending the information to Pineville’s emergency response services. An ambulance, fire engine with a medic, and a police cruiser would be rolling out any second. It was only a question of who would arrive first.

  “We’re in the kitchen. She’s making me a PBJ.”

  “Sounds yummy.” Jane typed some more, adding information as she received it. “What’s your name, sweetie?”

  “Josh.” A long sniffle ripped through the line.

  “My name’s Jane.” Her heart tore at the tremor in the boy’s voice, but she shoved past it. In her line of work, she’d learned to take the emotion out of it. It didn’t help the person at the other end of the line if Jane cried with them. “Is there anybody else in the house with you?”

  “No.”

  “Okay, Josh. Can you tell me if your aunt is bleeding? Did she hit her head?”

  “Aunt Katie’s not bleeding. But when I was four I cut my finger real bad. The doctor glued me back up.”

  “How old are you now?”

  “Five.”

  Jane smiled. That year made a difference in his mind. “You’re a big boy now, Josh. Can you do me a favor? Can you put your hand in front of your aunt’s mouth and tell me if you feel her breathing?”

  The sound of the phone clacking on a hard surface reached Jane. She held her breath, waiting to see if the child could follow her instructions and relay any useful information back to her. The seconds dragged on. Maybe she should have kept the boy on the line instead.

  Heavy breathing finally came back on the line. “She blew on my hand. It tickled.”

  Jane typed in that information. According to her computer, Deputy Jerome Davis was only two minutes away from the house and closing. “Josh? Don’t hang up the phone, okay? I have to talk to someone else, but stay on the line.”

  She pressed a button and was transferred to the police radio frequency. “Jerome, this is Jane in dispatch. We have a five-year-old boy reporting that his aunt fell and is unresponsive in the kitchen. Victim’s still breathing according to the boy. I’ll keep him on the line until you arrive. It looks like you’ll be the first responder.”

  The phone line crackled before clearing up. “Copy. My ETA is less than a minute. Ask the kid if he can open the front door. Over.”

  “Understood.” Jane switched back to the emergency line. “Josh, are you still there?”

  “Yes, but I have to go potty.”

  “Before you do that, can you go make sure the front door is unlocked?” Jane asked. “Officer Davis will be there soon to help you and your aunt and I want you to let him inside, okay?”

  “Then can I go potty?”

  “Go open the front door for Officer Davis. After you show him where your aunt is, then you can go potty. Deal?” This kid was a trooper, and Jane could only pray that his aunt would be all right.

  “Deal.”

  The phone clattered to the counter again. Jane monitored the lines and knew the instant Jerome arrived, followed shortly by fire engine 21 and an ambulance. Her small part in the emergency response was over, but her worry over the young boy and his aunt remained. He’d sounded like such a sweetheart over the phone, and showed more calm under pressure than many adults in that situation. For the rest of her shift she wondered where Josh was and how his aunt was doing.

  Working in a place where life and death could be on the line helped keep her life in perspective. Her angst over working with her ex-boyfriend was petty in comparison. She could handle a little discomfort.

  Resolved, Jane picked up her novel and refused to let thoughts of a certain firefighter keep her out of the story. After work, she’d call Chance and set up a meeting to get started organizing the fundraiser.

  * * *

  Chance held a wriggling Josh on his lap and glanced at the clock again. Only five minutes since he’d last checked. This wasn’t San Francisco General. Pineville’s small emergency room was only half full of patients. As far as he could tell, they consisted of one possible broken ankle, a man complaining of chest pains, and Chance’s unconscious sister. The doctors didn’t have their hands full, and Chance had to stifle his impatience at not knowing what was wrong with Katie.

  His son did a back bend and almost fell off Chance’s lap. He grabbed the waistband of Josh’s jeans, hauled him back upright. “I know you’re bored, but we have to sit here a little while longer. Until we find out how Aunt Katie’s doing.”

  “I’m booored.” After Josh’s initial fright over his aunt’s collapse, the boy had rallied. Sitting in one spot wasn’t easy for an energetic five-year-old. When the two had first arrived in the waiting room of the ER, Chance had let his son race around, hoping his energy would soon wane. Dirty looks from the other anxious people in the waiting area had soon put a stop to that.

  “I know, kiddo. Just a little while longer.” A woman in a white coat entered the waiting room, getting Chance’s hopes up, until she moved to a young couple in the corner. Not Katie’s doctor then.

  Josh gave a full-body shimmy. “Gaaah.”

  Sighing, Chance pulled his smartphone out of his pocket. He went to the app store and downloaded something that looked kid-friendly before placing the device into his son’s hands. He tried to limit his son’s time spent in front of computers and tablets. He really did. But right now, he gave up. In order to keep his own sanity, he let his son become engrossed by the mindless game.

  The warm weight of his son tucked up against Chance’s chest combined with the stress of the day caught up with him. His eyes were just beginning to slide shut when a doctor who didn’t look old enough to be out of med school entered.

  “Mr. McGovern?”

  Chance stood, settling Josh back on the chair, and shook the doctor’s hand. “Yes, that’s me. How’s my sister?”

  “She’s doing well.” The young man ran a hand through his hair. “Why don’t we have a seat?”

  Chance nodded, sat next to his son. The doctor pulled a chair around so he could face Chance.

  “I’m Doctor Sampson. We’ve stabilized Katie’s blood pressure, but we’re going to keep her here tonight so we can keep pushing fluids.”

  Chance nodded. When the call had come through to the firehouse with his home address, he’d practically knocked Doug, the engine’s driver, to the ground in an effort to get behind the wheel. Chief Finnegan had had some choice words to say about that. But he’d stayed out of Chance’s way when they’d reached his house, letting Chance help load his sister into the ambulance. He’d spoken to her, seen the dizziness swamp her when she’d try to sit up. It had been a textbook
case of hypotension.

  “How long since she was diagnosed with Type One diabetes?” Doctor Sampson asked.

  Josh’s shoe was dangling at the tip of his toes. Chance shoved it back on, retightened the laces. “About six months now. She’d been feeling tired for months before she went to the doctor and got the diagnosis.”

  Doctor Sampson nodded. “We see this a lot with those new to the disease. It’s an adjustment. We’ll have a dietician talk to Katie before she leaves here.”

  “It’s information she already knows. I’ve told her she needs to be stricter with her diet.” The knot in his stomach that had started to unravel when the doctor said his sister was okay cramped again. This time in irritation. When would Katie start to take her condition seriously? His little sister acted like a Type One diagnosis shouldn’t affect her life in the slightest.

  “Well, it never hurts to hear it again. We’re moving her up to a room right now,” the doctor continued. “You can go visit with her when she’s settled.”

  Chance shook his hand. “Thank you.” He gathered his things and pocketed his phone amid his son’s noisy protests. “We’re going to see Aunt Katie now. You’re not going to be playing a game while we do it.”

  Josh jutted his jaw out, but he wisely remained silent. He allowed Chance to take his small hand and lead him to the bank of elevators in the lobby. The hospital right outside Pineville wasn’t large. Emergency services and administration were on the first floor, and the patient rooms on the second.

  “Press the up arrow,” he told his son.

  Pique forgotten, Josh poked the button repeatedly, then hit the down button for good measure. Josh loved it when the buttons lit up.

  Chance ruffled his son’s hair. Kids were so cool. They got over their anger so quickly, never held a grudge longer than their next smile. Unlike a certain adult he knew.

  The elevator dinged and opened its doors. The car was thankfully going up, not down to the parking garage, and Chance herded Josh inside. “Press the button for two.”

  Josh got it on his first try. Chance felt a bit embarrassed that such a small accomplishment made him proud. God help him if Josh turned out to be a football star.