Putting Out Old Flames

by Allyson Charles

His flushed cheeks would have been adorable if Jane hadn’t been so confused. “Why would we go to the ball as a matching couple? I think Leon would feel weird about that.”

  “Leon?” He dropped the light with a clang on the cement floor. “What the hell does he have to do with it?”

  Jane frowned. “What do you mean, what does he have to do with it? He’s my date. He won’t want me matching some other guy.”

  “You’re still going with that moron?” His growl cut through the bay like a chainsaw. Sammie’s and Frankie’s heads whipped around to stare at them.

  Jane pasted a smile on her face. “Sammie, I’m sure you can get Frankie and the other guys to help you carry your equipment to your car.” Grabbing Chance’s wrist, she dragged him away from the crowd onto the driveway of the fire station. “What is your problem?” she hissed. “We already had this conversation. I told you I was going with Leon. And he’s not a moron.”

  “That was before.” He stepped into her space.

  She tilted her head, looked up. “Before what?”

  “Before we slept together.” Running a hand up and down the back of his head, Chance huffed out a breath. “That changed things. You can’t go out with another man.”

  Can’t? Jane planted her legs wide, her muscles quivering. “So what would you have me do? It’s less than a week until the ball. I’m supposed to tell Leon—Sorry, find someone else to go with, I found someone new?”

  “Yes.” He jutted his jaw out. “Besides, he probably doesn’t even want to go. A silent auction doesn’t have the same thrill as Jumanji, or whatever the hell it is he likes to play. Tell him there aren’t any games there and he’ll be happy enough to stay home.” His brows drew together. “You’re not still going out to game nights with him, right?”

  “Uh . . .”

  “Are you?”

  “Honestly, I haven’t even thought about game night.” Jane blew out a breath. “But do you really think it’s fair to Leon to break a pre-existing date because you and I are . . . ?” She flicked a hand between the two of them.

  “Yes.” Mules had nothing on his stubbornness.

  “Well, I don’t.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “I’m not breaking the date to the ball with him.”

  “And what about game nights?”

  “You know those aren’t real dates.” Teenage Chance hadn’t been so demanding. This new Chance was starting to tick her off. “You saw that Leon and I are nothing more than friends, so I don’t know what your problem is.”

  “My problem”—he stepped in so close his toes touched hers—“is that I don’t share. I’m not saying I know where we’re going, but while we’re going there, I expect us to be exclusive. I’m not going to date someone who’s seeing someone else. Even if that someone is an asexual tool.”

  “And I’m not breaking a date I made months ago. It would be rude.”

  He smiled, but there was nothing friendly about it. “You want to see rude, how’s this.”

  And he turned on his heel and walked away without another word.

  * * *

  For the eighth time that afternoon, Chance grabbed the waist of his son’s pants and pulled him back down from the rock wall in Washington Park. It was day one of a three-off, and he and Josh had spent it together. First an early lunch, then the latest Disney movie, and now what should have been a relaxing afternoon in the park.

  If his son didn’t keep risking life and limb trying to scale the twenty-foot-high climbing wall. It was meant to be attempted using rappelling gear.

  “I told you. When the man with the climbing gear isn’t here, you can only climb as high as I stand. You try to go higher one more time, and we’re done here.” His son loved to push his limits. A quality he admired in adults, but one that scared the hell out of him when it came to his child.

  “But Dad,” Josh whined. “I’m a good climber. I can go all the way to the top.”

  “Maybe you can”—Chance raised an eyebrow, pinned his son with his stern-father look—“but you won’t. I’m the grown-up. My rules.”

  Josh heaved a dramatic sigh. Squinting, he cocked his head and looked Chance up and down. “You’re really tall. Much bigger than Joey’s dad.” Joey was Josh’s new best friend. Chance didn’t know why he’d worried about moving his son across the country. Kids adapted quickly.

  “You’re as tall as that one, right there.” Josh pointed to a blue plastic handhold at least ten feet higher than Chance’s eye level. “I can climb to that one, right?”

  “Nice try.” He knocked his knuckles on a green knob about six feet off the ground. “No higher than this.”

  “Fine.” Josh stuck his fat bottom lip out, a move he could only have learned from his mother. It looked a hell of a lot cuter on a five-year-old.

  Chance settled onto a bench where he could keep an eye on Josh. After about thirty seconds, he could tell that Josh had gotten over his sulk, determination and joy writ all over his face. If only adults got over their temper tantrums as easily as kids.

  One adult in particular.

  Jane wasn’t answering his calls or responding to his texts. As if she were the offended party and not him. Okay, maybe he could see her point about not ditching the bailiff after they’d already set up the date to the ball. Maybe. He bet that if he laid it out to Leon that things had changed between Jane and Chance since she’d made the date, the guy would be fine stepping aside.

  Yeah, for all his stupid game playing, Leon seemed like a reasonable man. He’d be cool with it. Jane’s reaction, if Chance interfered, wouldn’t be so cool. Somewhere along the way, his sweet and quiet little Jane had turned into a hothead. A quality he could appreciate when it wasn’t directed at him.

  Chance rolled his shoulders. Why was he making himself nuts over Jane? Since he’d moved to Pineville, he’d had one night in her bed. Just one. Hardly a lifelong commitment. The way the mother sitting on an opposite park bench was eyeing him, Chance knew he was attractive to women. He had options. If Jane was too bullheaded to agree to even the simplest of requests, he could look elsewhere.

  His chest tightened. She could look elsewhere, too.

  Josh had reached the green knob. With a glance over his shoulder, his son prodded the red wedge-shaped handhold above it with a grimy finger. Chance stared him down. Blowing out a dramatic breath, Josh reached for the knob to his right instead.

  Rubbing a knuckle over his breastbone, Chance sighed. Yeah, he could look elsewhere. But he didn’t want to. He wanted Jane.

  A shuffling noise was his only warning. A cane slapped his shin, and Chance bent over to rub his leg, a frown covering his face when he turned to Mr. Harraday. The older man eased into a squat over the bench, kicked out his legs and plopped onto the seat next to Chance.

  “What’re you doing here watching the kiddies?” Harraday asked, massaging his knee. “You one of them pervs?”

  Chance gritted his teeth. “That boy over there is my son.” He pointed. “I’m not a pervert. But if that’s the only reason you can think why a man would be in a park, what, exactly, are you doing here?”

  “My daughter dropped me off while she runs errands.” Squinting one eye, Harraday nodded at Josh. “Your boy looks squirrely. I wouldn’t trust him to deliver my paper.”

  A kernel of heat popped open in Chance’s gut. What the hell did he mean Josh looked squirrely? Who even used that word anymore?

  “It’s a good thing Josh isn’t a paperboy then.” Chance leaned against the bench’s arm rail, distancing himself from Harraday as much as possible. “I don’t think kids even get those jobs anymore. Adults do it.”

  Harraday snorted. “That’s what’s wrong with the world today. Everything’s changing. Jobs that kids used to get, adults with college degrees take. And kids try to act like parents to their own moms and dads.” Laying one blue-veined hand on the bench between them, Harraday leaned close. “Like my daughter. She thinks she knows what’s best for me. Trying to kick me out of my own house!”<
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  Josh streaked across the playground, ignoring a group of kids huddled at the slides, to swing on the monkey bars by himself. Shouldn’t he be interacting with the other children? Aside from Joey, had his son made any other friends? Blowing out a sigh, he turned back to Harraday. “I’m sure she’s just worried about you,” he said.

  “Worried about me?” Harraday poked at the air with his cane. “Worried about her inheritance, more like. Always cleaning up my house, trying to see what I’ll leave for her.”

  “Or maybe she just wants her father to live in a clean home.” Chance took a deep breath. Whoever this man’s daughter was, she must be a saint to put up with his crap. Chance had only spent five minutes with the man and already wanted to wrap his cane around his chicken-like neck.

  Ignoring Chance’s comment, Harraday rambled on. “And now she keeps pressing me to sell the house, move in with her.” He slapped Chance in the shoulder. “Do I look like I want to live in Ann Arbor with my daughter’s hoity-toity husband and her hoity-toity kids?”

  A girl with uneven pigtails raced up to Josh, showed him something in her hand, and they skipped over to the swings. Chance took a deep breath. Good. His son wasn’t a social outcast. His shoulder stung from another slap.

  “Are you listening?” Harraday asked.

  “Unfortunately, I heard every word.” Pushing his sunglasses onto his head, Chance stared at the old man. “You’re bitching that you have a daughter nice enough to open her house to a grumpy old man when she could put you in a home instead. She’s cleaning for you, running errands for you, and all you’re doing is complaining. Did I get that right?”

  Harraday gaped at him like a guppy. Finally, he pinched his lips tight. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.” Pointing a bent finger at Josh, he said, “Just wait until your boy starts telling you how to live your life, takes your keys away, starts making decisions for you. This ain’t no damn walk in the park.”

  Chance closed his eyes, blew out a breath. He was being an idiot, letting the old man get to him. So what if Harraday was rude. Getting old must be hell.

  Chance looked at Harraday, trying to keep the pity out of his expression. “All I’m saying is that it sounds like your daughter cares about you, which is more than a lot of other people in your situation have. You shouldn’t be so hard on her.”

  Pushing his lower set of false teeth forward, then snapping them back with a clack, Harraday stared at the children. “She’s a good girl,” he admitted grudgingly. “Although she wasted the college education I paid for, quitting her job when she had her first baby.” Happier now that he had another complaint to add to the list, Harraday settled into the bench seat. “Foolish, if you ask me. When those kids grow up, she won’t have an easy time getting another job.”

  Harraday narrowed his watery eyes. “What do you do? Out here in the middle of the day, I bet you’re an unemployed grifter. That woman you were with when you broke into my backyard, she your wife? You let her make the money while you watch the kid?”

  The idea of Jane as his wife wasn’t as shocking as he expected. Not even fully free of the shackles of his first unhappy marriage, he’d thought it would be a long time before he’d want to jump back into that institution. But with Jane . . .

  Her sweet smile drifted across his memory.

  Eventually he might take the plunge again. With the right woman. But he couldn’t let the second part of the old man’s harangue go unchallenged. “I wouldn’t let a woman support me. I’m fully employed, as a firefighter. And Jane isn’t my wife.” Chance rubbed a knuckle on his breastbone.

  “A fireman.” For the first time since Chance had met Harraday, the old man looked interested instead of angry. He leaned in toward Chance. “I thought about being a fireman when I was young. All the ladies love a fireman.”

  “The saving lives part is fun, too,” Chance said dryly.

  Harraday waved a dismissive hand. “Yeah, that’s all fine and good. Hey.” He lowered his voice as if imparting state secrets. “You got one of those dogs that rides with you? You know, them black and white numbers.”

  “No, no Dalmatian. Although one of the guys sometimes brings in his standard poodle.” Chance watched Josh shuffle his feet through the sand pit, and sighed. He’d need a hose-down before getting in the SUV.

  “A poodle?” Disgust dripped from Harraday’s words. “Well, at least you still get to ride in the fire truck. You do still have that, right? You’re not strapping those hoses to the top of some Prius, are you?”

  “Still have the trucks.” Chance’s stomach rumbled. Movie popcorn just didn’t tide you over. “Still have an axe and climb up the ladders, too.”

  Harraday nodded. “Well, at least there’s that.” Whipping his head around, he watched a faded blue Acura pull into the parking lot. “My girl’s here. I bet she got that smelly thing that sprays lilac blossoms at me whenever I walk past. I told her not to.”

  “Yeah, she sounds like a monster.” Chance put his hand under the man’s elbow, helped him rise to his feet. “Be nice to your daughter. She might be family, but she doesn’t have to put up with your crap.”

  “Yeah, yeah.” Harraday hobbled off, moving with surprising speed for a man with a cane. He’d have to keep himself spry to set the sprinklers off on unsuspecting do-gooders without getting wet himself.

  Chance waved at Josh, tapped his watch.

  Josh jumped off a swing, his arms and legs pinwheeling wildly before landing on the ground in a crouch. He raced up to Chance. “Can we come back when the wall man is here? So I can climb high?”

  “You bet, buddy.” Chance took his hand, the feel of his son’s small, warm grip making Chance feel content. He headed for his SUV. “Maybe I can set up some time for you on the rappelling wall at our training facility. We can ride in a fire truck over there. It can be like junior firefighter day.”

  “Can I wear the hat, too?” Josh’s body wiggled in excitement.

  His son loved acting like a fireman. He thought about Harraday. It wasn’t just his son. Everyone, from young to old, dreamt of riding in that truck, fighting fires. Chance paused, his key fob aimed at his vehicle. Mind whirling, he settled Josh into the child seat, a plan formulating. The fundraiser needed more silent auction items. He was pretty sure he could get the chief’s okay on his idea. And the guys would be happy to help.

  Settling behind the wheel, Chance nodded his head. It could work. But he wanted to tell Jane about it first, get her opinion.

  If only the blasted woman would call him back.

  Chance looked in the rearview mirror at his son. A smile crept across his face. The woman might not want to see him, but she should know by now a person doesn’t always get what she wants. Throwing the SUV in reverse, he headed toward the courthouse. He didn’t even mind when Josh asked for his phone and blasted the teenybopper music he inexplicably liked, going so far as humming along with the insipid tunes.

  Much as her eyes might threaten it, Jane couldn’t cut off his balls and feed them to him if he had his son with him. Nope, she’d feel obliged to be polite, sweet even, in front of the boy. Reason number 882,000 why he was thankful he had a son.

  “You want to have dinner with Jane?” Chance asked.

  “Yeah!” Josh threw a small fist in the air as he bopped to the music. “Can we go to the Pizza Pit?”

  A place where a kid could run around for hours playing games, leaving adults to talk. Good choice. Still. “We’ll have to ask Jane. She’ll be our guest and it will be her choice.”

  Chance found a spot near the ivy-covered two-story brick courthouse. Across the street in the town square, a weekly farmer’s market was in full swing. He was torn between taking Josh across the street to look for some flowers for Jane and staying put in direct view of the exit. He didn’t want to chance missing her, so he and Josh staked out the entrance.

  They didn’t have to wait long. At 5:32, Jane and that friend of hers from the bowling alley, the woman with the star
tlingly high hair, exited the building, having a laugh at something together.

  So Jane wasn’t as torn up over their fight as he’d been imagining. He grunted. He didn’t want her crying in her cornflakes, but a little gravity would be appreciated. Holding Josh’s hand tightly in his own, he approached the women. To be fair, it was more of a disagreement than a fight. And the happier she was now, the easier it should be to convince her to have dinner with them.

  “Jane,” he called. The two women stopped. Jane narrowed her eyes. The other woman pursed her lips in a silent whistle. Stopping in front of them, Chance tugged Josh closer. “Hi, Jane.” He nodded to her friend. “Josh and I were hoping to take you out to dinner. Your friend is welcome of course.”

  Remembering her manners, Jane said, “This is Sharon. She and I work together. Sharon, this is Chance and Josh.” Squatting down to Josh’s level, she held out a fist. “How you doing, Josh?”

  “Good.” He bumped her fist with his own. “We’re going to the Pizza Pit. You’ll love it.”

  Chance frowned at his son. Not exactly the polite choice his son should have given her.

  “Well, as delicious as that sounds,” Sharon said dryly, “I have other plans. But thanks for the invite.”

  Chance fought to hide his relief. Not that he didn’t want to meet Jane’s friends. Just not tonight. “Another time.” He held his hand out to the woman. “It was nice to meet you.”

  “Same here.” She gave Jane a quick hug, whispered something in her ear. Jane frowned at Chance over her friend’s shoulder. Sharon pulled back. “See you later.”

  The three stood in silence for a minute. Jane didn’t look angry, not really, but she also didn’t look easy in his company. She shifted on her feet.

  “How’ve you—”

  “What have you—”

  They spoke at the same time, then relaxed into chuckles.

  “How have you been?” Chance asked. “I wanted to talk to you about”—he glanced down at Josh—“the firehouse. And apologize.”

  “Me too.” She tucked a wisp of hair behind her ear. “I, uh, wanted to tell you that I talked to Leon. I told him I can’t go to game nights with him anymore.”