He reached into the freezer for the quick-freeze packs he kept for his many injuries. He was always bruising something. Digging through a drawer of dish towels, he found a soft one that wouldn’t chafe his mother’s head.
On the other hand . . . Captains got paid more money. He didn’t know exactly how much more. Maybe it would be enough to bring back Betsy, the home health care aide. Their insurance benefits had run out last month, and he’d had to cut her hours. He shuddered, remembering the sight of his mother curled up on the floor. Since the age of fourteen, he’d been protecting her. That was his job. He’d even taken out a huge life insurance policy for himself, so that if he died while on a fire, she’d be financially secure.
But he rested a lot easier when he knew that someone else was keeping an eye on her while he was at work.
He wrapped the ice pack in the towel, grabbed a jar of salted peanuts, since he hadn’t eaten since lunch, and headed back to the living room.
Ginny was replaying the epic splashdown of Double D in slow motion. “Do you know that I think he tripped the lever himself?”
“No. Really?” He squinted at the screen.
“See here? His hand goes behind his back? What’s he doing?”
“Scratching an itch. Looking for a donut. Who knows? It’s Double D.” He handed her the ice pack and settled her hand against her cheekbone.
“Is he still gluten-free?”
“Sure. If you don’t count hamburger buns and ‘everything’ bagels. And a cruller or two. He’s doing good though. I told you about the chicken wings he made last week, right?”
That was their cue to settle into the beloved routine they shared, in which he spun firehouse stories, some real, some exaggerated, some completely invented, until she dozed off for her nap, at which point he’d tenderly extract her from her chair and carry her to her bed. This time he stuck with reality, because half of his brain was still mulling over the captain idea. Maybe Freddie was right. Maybe he should ask around. Maybe he could pick up some moonlighting work while he was at it.
One thing was for sure. To properly take care of his mother, he had to step it up and make more money.
He must have dozed off in mid-story, because he was in the throes of a vague dream in which Cherie was steering a large wheelbarrow overflowing with hundred-dollar bills toward him, when a loud exclamation startled him awake.
“Well, look who the cat dragged into the fair.” Ginny was stationed a mere foot in front of the flat-screen, which showed a clip of Cherie and himself as they talked by the Firefighter Photo Booth.
“Hey, where’d that come from?” Fred must have used his video camera without asking.
“What was she doing there?” His mother was not a fan of Cherie, though they’d never actually met. All her knowledge was secondhand, mostly obtained during the bleaker moments of Vader and Cherie’s on-and-off relationship.
“Same as everyone else. Supporting the San Gabriel Fire Department.”
“Hmph. So she’s got red hair now? What happened to the pink streaks?”
“I forgot to ask her. I was too busy flexing my muscles for the camera.” He watched the two of them on the TV screen, himself huge and shirtless but for suspenders, Cherie even more curvaceous than in person, filling the screen with summery pinks and hot cinnamon reds. He wouldn’t be surprised to see bees hovering near her. The two of them were standing to the side of the photo booth. In the background, attendees wandered past, munching on hot dogs, carrying balloons. But he and Cherie seemed to be locked together in their own private world. Neither of them looked at anything but each other.
Watching the two people on screen, he felt excruciatingly awkward, as if he was invading his own privacy. The raw intensity vibrating between him and Cherie was embarrassing.
His mother fell silent, but she shot him a disapproving glance. After their second breakup, she’d stopped supporting his relationship with Cherie in any way, shape, or form. And she didn’t even know about his two rejected proposals.
“We were just talking,” he said defensively.
That was her cue. “There’s never ‘just’ anything with that girl. Why don’t you let me find you someone nice and uncomplicated? I know you, Vader. You might act like all you want is a party, but you’d give up all those crazy nights out for a nice girl to love. I’ve been surfing around on dating sites and I found one specifically for firefighters and—”
“No.”
“Vader, you’re my only child. Do you know what it’s like to see you eating your heart out for a girl who doesn’t appreciate you?”
He opened his mouth to tell Ginny that he and Cherie were through, that she could stop nagging him on the subject. But something in him refused to say it. Because it wasn’t true, damn it. He and Cherie were a long way from being through; he knew it in his bones. “Cherie and I are fine the way we are.”
“Doesn’t look that way to me.”
She gestured to the TV screen. Vader looked, desperate for escape, and saw the camera zoom wildly in and out. Fred must have been fooling with the lens somehow. A close-up of the tendons on his neck turned into a panoramic view of the blue sky, then shifted back to a wildly tilted angle on Cherie. And there it froze. Or maybe Fred stopped recording at that moment.
At any rate, Cherie had just glanced toward the camera, though she didn’t seem to realize it was there. Her head was tilted thoughtfully to the side, and underneath her bright, eager smile, a different expression lurked, like one of those “ghosts” captured during long exposures. She looked . . . hopeless? Desperate? Haunted?
Hell, he was no wordsmith. He didn’t have the right vocabulary for that look. But all along he’d known it was there. He’d always sensed the vulnerability beneath her busy-ness, a sad, sweet wistfulness shadowing her fun-loving nature. Maybe that’s what kept drawing him back for more.
His mother snapped off the TV. “If only I had a remote control for your hormones.”
“Okay, that’s the line, right there. The one you don’t cross.”
Wisely, she subsided as he stalked from the room. It was one thing to live with your mother, take care of her, entertain her. He’d accepted his lot in life long ago.
Discussing his “hormones” with her was another matter.
As soon as Ginny had eaten her dinner, he’d head for Firefly and see what trouble he could get into. His mother was all wrong about that part. He loved to party; he needed to party.
Hell, if not for his firehouse buddies, he’d have blown a fuse long ago.
Chapter Four
If Cherie were to be completely honest with herself, she’d started falling for Vader the first moment she’d ever seen him, more than a year and a half ago.
She and Jacob had decided to spend Thanksgiving playing pool at the local dive. Vader and a couple of his firehouse buddies had stopped in and immediately lit up the place. Try as she might, she couldn’t keep her eyes off him. He was so . . . big. His muscles were enormous, his chest broad and solid and bursting with strength. He looked as if he could bench-press the pool table—for that matter, all the pool tables in a big pile. His appearance pleased some primal part of her; she kept stealing glances his way, confirming that someone actually looked like that.
But it wasn’t just his muscles. She was also fascinated by his exuberant personality, the big smile he beamed around the grungy pool hall, the warmth in his deep-set eyes. They were brown, she’d noticed when he leaned into the light for his first shot. A burnt-sugar brown, somewhere between caramel and milk chocolate, a brown that allowed no room for coldness or doubt. The phrase “hunk of burning love” popped into her mind and wouldn’t leave—even before she knew he was a firefighter.
He must have caught her staring, because next thing she knew he was standing over her, blazing his smile down on her like sunshine and asking if he could buy her a Thanksgiving drink. “Cuz I’m giving thanks I laid eyes on you,” he said with a wink.
Jacob had groaned and rolled his
eyes, but she tuned him out. It wasn’t hard. The force of Vader’s personality made everyone else fade away. It was unnerving, really. It gave her the sensation of stepping into a whirlpool that could sweep her off somewhere she’d never been. Like Alice in . . . Vaderland.
He’d taken her home, but of course they hadn’t slept together. She made him molasses cookies in the middle of the night and let him try every trick in the book to talk her into bed. And some new ones—fireman-style.
“This house of yours is Victorian era,” he said, kissing the inside of her wrist, the heat of his breath making her squirm. “They weren’t as strict about fire exits back then. If a fire broke out, what would you do?”
“I’d call 911.”
“And guess who’d come? Me. So we’re ahead of the game. I’m already here. And I don’t have a bunch of other firefighters right behind me. So we can skip that whole step. And we can skip the step where you realize you could have died and you figure out what’s really important.”
“Let me guess. You?”
“You and me, baby. You and me is what’s important. Life. Fun. Live it up. Drink it in.”
She burst out laughing. He grinned widely. “That’s a start. I like how you laugh. That little Southern accent of yours is adorable.”
“No one has an accent when they laugh.”
“You do. It’s sexy. It’s the kind of accent that makes me want to flip you over on this couch and find out what’s under that blouse you’re wearing.”
“Take it easy, big guy.”
As soon as she said that, he stopped teasing. “Am I scaring you? I don’t mean to. I know I’m large. I can intimidate people even when I’m not trying to. If I make you nervous, just say so. I’ll lighten up.”
She eyed him as he shifted back on her sapphire velvet couch, moving his powerful body away to give her some space. “I’m not exactly tiny myself,” she pointed out with a raised eyebrow.
“You’re perfect,” he said with such ardent, complete conviction that her heart did a little flip.
She held out for two torturous months, but inevitably their raging attraction won the day. While she didn’t regret a single moment of the time she’d spent in bed with Vader, that slipping, whirlpool feeling had never left her. In fact, it had gotten stronger the more serious Vader got. Sometimes, when the edge got too close, when that rabbit-hole feeling threatened, she scrambled back in complete panic. She knew it hurt Vader, but it was better that way. Better for him.
How could she tell him that she wouldn’t—couldn’t—make any sort of real commitment? Even if she ached to do so. Even if she wished with all her heart that things had happened differently the night she ran from that psychotic madman. If only that blow on the head hadn’t sent Mackintosh to the hospital. If only he hadn’t reported her to the police. If only he wasn’t famous for his grudges.
Better to hurt Vader’s feelings than to put him in Frank Mackintosh’s line of sight.
So when, a few days after the Hope for Firefighters event, she got a call from the San Gabriel Fire Department informing her that she’d won the raffle drawing for Firefighter for a Day, she didn’t take another breath until they told her who she’d “won.” Fred Breen would be her Firefighter for a Day. She nearly fainted with relief . . . or was it regret? When it came to Vader, she didn’t know anything anymore.
The idea of going for captain wouldn’t leave Vader’s mind. He decided it was at least worth running by some of his firehouse peeps. He started with Joe the Toe, an engineer at the Rancho Camino Station, with whom he had a long-running pool competition going. So far, he’d won ninety-six games, Joe had won a hundred and ten.
“If it’s simply a question of remuneration, why don’t you give my company a go?” Joe, one of the few firefighters in Southern California even bigger than Vader, bent over the pool table. Not only was he huge, but he was black. Not only was he black, but he had a British accent and an extensive vocabulary. People found him confusing, which delighted him. He and Vader, being opposites in just about every way besides size, had gone from being bitter rivals in the gym to solid buddies.
“You still doing the moving thing?”
“You’d be surprised how much people will pay to simply transport their possessions from one place to another. But actually, I’m speaking of my new moonlighting project. I’ve been playing with stocks and doing quite well.” He sank the six ball in the corner pocket.
“Count me out on that.” Vader absentmindedly chalked his cue, his eyes scanning the table for angles. “I may be big, but I ain’t dumb. No offense.”
“None taken. At any rate, the best revenge is a—how do you Americans phrase it?—a can of whoopass.” His next bank shot careened off the side and sent the last two balls into two different pockets. Satisfied, he began collecting the balls to rack them up again. “As for your original question, why would you want to be captain? A thankless task, if you ask me. The captain’s the bloke everyone likes to whinge about, no matter who he is. You’re sensitive, Vader. You wouldn’t be able to let it roll off your back.”
Vader leaned on his pool cue. “I’m proud of my sensitive nature. Helps me appreciate fluffy kittens and walks in the rain. Chicks are all over that shit.”
Joe the Toe threw his head back with a rollicking laugh that shook his huge body and drew glances from whichever girls in the bar hadn’t already checked them out.
“Did anyone ever tell you you’re priceless?”
“No one who owns a pair of balls.”
“Ask Roman. He went all the way to battalion chief. See if he thinks it’s worth the agita.”
Roman wasn’t much more help. “It’s the kind of decision a guy has to make for himself,” he said as he bustled around the kitchen of Lucio’s Ristorante Autentico Italiano. “Yeah, it’s more responsibility. You can’t be friends with the guys in the same way as you were before. And when I say ‘you,’ I mean you, not me. I was a captain before I was a captain, if you know what I mean.”
“Yeah, I can see that.” Roman had the most commanding presence Vader had ever witnessed. He’d probably told his mother how to diaper him correctly. “I like hanging out with the guys, but I’m getting older.”
“And wiser?”
“Wouldn’t go that far.”
Roman chuckled and poured olive oil into a stainless steel pan. “If you decide to go for it, come back and I’ll give you some tips. Most guys don’t make it the first round, you know. Most have to take the exam a couple times before they pass.”
“How long did it take you?”
“Once. But like I said, I was—”
“Right. Born a captain. Look, don’t mention this to Sabina yet, would you? I’m trying to keep it quiet at the station.”
“I’ll try, but if she pries it out of me with sweet—”
Vader held up a hand. “You can stop right there.”
If only he could talk to Sabina about this, he thought as he left the restaurant. This, and so many other things. Cherie, his mother, his money worries. But even though Sabina had been his best friend at the station before she got married to Roman, he’d never told her about his mother’s situation. She’d probably be stunned that he’d kept it to himself. Everyone thought he was such an open book—and he liked for them to think that. Everything that happened to him away from home, including risking his life at a four-alarm fire, was a relief compared to his worries about his mother.
And if that wasn’t fucked up, he didn’t know what was.
For a relaxing vacation join the fire service! Learn how to carry a hundred pounds of gear on your back while breathing through a mask! Hold the lives of your fellow firefighters in your hands and trust them not to get you killed!
As he reached his truck, his cell phone buzzed.
“Yo, Stud.”
Fred answered with exaggerated hacking. “I’m sick, dude. You have to fill in for me.”
“Fill in for you where? We’re off today.”
Fred coug
hed with so much force that Vader pulled the phone away from his ear, as if the germs could fly through the atmosphere. “Firefighter for a Day. Can’t do it. Don’t want to infect anyone.”
Vader rolled his eyes. He knew fake coughing when he heard it; he wasn’t a trained paramedic for nothing. “Fine. Who’s the winner? Give me the address and I’ll head over.”
“Fifty-eight Gardam Street,” said Fred, then hung up in a hurry, before Vader a chance to say he knew exactly where that was, and exactly what Fred was up to, and that he really didn’t appreciate it.
Or did he? When it came to Cherie, he wasn’t sure of anything.
Ten minutes later he strode up the front steps of Cherie’s three-story house on Gardam Street. Cherie and her brother Jacob had signed a lease on the old Victorian for practically nothing, when it was a falling-down wreck. They’d poured time and money into it, so at least it was no longer a death trap, although the graceful front veranda still sagged in the middle and a couple of the shutters hung crookedly. They’d painted it a vibrant lilac color with cream trim. In fact, when he’d met Cherie she’d had purple specks in her hair, like bits of confetti. You had to love a girl who didn’t mind a little manual labor.
The inside of the house had received even more loving attention. Cherie’s house was the most feminine space he’d ever entered; she had a weakness for bordello-red velvet and antique lace. He couldn’t even name most of the fabrics she used, but she told him she’d picked up everything at various flea markets. The sweet scent of lilacs clung to everything, except when she was baking something. Then the whole house filled with mouthwatering buttery, cinnamon smells.
Four Weddings and a Fireman Page 4