Burn (The Firefighters of Darling Bay Book 2)

by Rachael Herron

  “But …”

  “I’m normal, Mother, whether you like that or not. Average is size 12 to 14 now.”

  Mira gasped.

  Lexie met the gasp with a sigh.

  James burped and reached for the bottle of wine. “Fill ‘er up.”

  “At least have a salad when you go out with him. Just a salad.”

  Lexie’s head dropped forward. When she lifted it again, she said, “Fine.”

  Her mother had won. Her mother always won.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  “This one.” Coin pointed at a woman who looked as if she painted her teeth with Wite-Out.

  “No way. What if she bit you?”

  “Okay, click that one. I like brunettes.”

  Lexie peered at the screen. “Is one of her eyes drooping?”

  “Are you going to kick them all out of my empty imaginary bed without even letting me read their profiles?”

  Lexie took a moment to wonder what that bed might look like. “You make your bed every day, don’t you?”

  Coin propped his elbow on the table next to her laptop. “Yeah. Doesn’t everyone?”

  Lexie made her bed once a week when she changed her sheets, whether she wanted to or not. “Sure. What about her?” She indicated a woman perhaps a little higher on the age spectrum Coin had stipulated.

  “She looks good. If I wanted the Early Bird Special and to save money on her movie tickets.”

  “Don’t be mean.” Lexie she couldn’t keep the laughter out of her voice. Looking at people online had always been interesting, but it had always held a strange intensity, also. It wasn’t like meeting someone in the grocery store or at church. You didn’t get to interact with them a few times before considering having a private meal together. You had to look, read, and then project your entire life—marriage, babies, death—based on what his favorite band was. She could tell Coin was quickly learning that.

  “Hey, this woman likes Beck. I like Beck!”

  “That’s good!”

  “Wait.” He read further. “Okay, she might like him a lot. I think, uh, she worships him. She goes to every single one of his concerts. Uh-oh.”

  “What?”

  “Her number one goal in life is to get her hands on a backstage pass, and then to get her hands on Beck’s personal backstage.” Coin’s mouth tilted. “That’s not good, is it?”

  “No,” Lexie said gently. “Click the next one.”

  An hour later, Coin had the hang of it. He’d even reached the point of explaining it to her. Lexie leaned back in her seat to enjoy it.

  “Look,” he said. “I get it. You go to their profile, and you decide if there could be something there, based on surface impressions.”

  “Based purely on shallowness, yes. Why don’t you mansplain it to me some more?” She was teasing him. Of course looks were the first thing a person noticed. She found herself looking at the back of Coin’s neck, where his T-shirt lay along his shoulder. A cord of muscle ran out of his short sleeve. His hands were sure on the computer now, pointing and clicking.

  “Hey, have you been working out?” she asked.

  It was an honest question—it looked like he had—but he laughed her off. “Okay, I get it. I’m shallow. But you have to have chemistry, right?” Click, click, click. “There are a few cute girls on here, but I have to say, a lot of them are just kind of …” He paused, and clicked a few more. “Not.”

  Lexie inhaled sharply. Her own profile was on the screen in front of him. They hadn’t talked about it yet—she hadn’t shown it to him.

  He clicked past the picture of Lexie and to the next one, a pretty brunette with a short bob and red lipstick. “I guess this one’s not bad.”

  Lexie waited for him to laugh. Then she would punch him in the shoulder for being stupid, and they’d get on with their browsing.

  “Nah, she’s a vegan. Good for her, but I need my bacon on Saturday mornings.”

  He didn’t say a word about flying past her own picture.

  While he was talking about the Nots.

  Lexie’s stomach hurt, twisting into an acidic knot. The back of her throat tightened. He wasn’t joking. He wasn’t playing a prank on her. He’d looked at Lexie’s picture, and he hadn’t recognized her. He’d thrown her right to the bottom of the pile with the other girls who weren’t pretty enough.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Back in the engine after a medical call, Tox said, “Pizza? I don’t want to eat Luke’s chicken. Did you see how much red pepper he put on that?”

  Coin took the right turn instead of the left that would bring them down to the marina and pizza. “I gotta get back to the station.”

  “Why?” Hank asked from the back. As usual, his headset crackled. He was the most junior so he had to use the worst headset in the rig.

  “I got a couple of things to do.” Coin had to figure out what had been wrong with Lexie when he left. She’d gone weird there, at the end. Had he screwed something up? She was the one who wanted him to go online, right? This whole dating thing had been all her idea, after all. Had he insulted one of her friends or something?

  When it came to Lexie, he didn’t want to screw up one single thing. She was too … something. Coin didn’t want to name what it was. Come to think of it, he couldn’t.

  Tox sighed heavily into the mike. “You have to get back to dispatch.”

  Coin hit the brakes at the light too hard.

  Tox said, “Geez, man, chill. What’s wrong with you? What was Lexie saying to you back there?”

  “Why?” Coin watched the light carefully, as if it might turn a new color any minute. Purple. Pink.

  “You usually come out of dispatch with a smile. And now Lexie is all stink-pants on the radio.”

  As if from a mile away Lexie could hear them, her voice came over the radio. “Engine One, status check?” It was her annoyed voice. She didn’t use it often, and because of that, the guys took it seriously.

  “Did you hit the available button?” Coin pointed at the computer on the dash.

  Tox said, “Crap.”

  Hank’s voice crackled over the headset, “Ever since you and Grace got together, dude. You’re off your game.”

  Tox twisted in his seat. “You want to say that to my face?”

  Coin knew Tox was all bluster. And Hank was right. Ever since Tox fell for Grace, he’d been softened. A couple of his rough edges had been smoothed off. Coin approved. “You gonna answer dispatch or not?”

  Tox clicked the radio button. “Engine One clear.” He released the button and spoke into his rig headset, so only Coin and Hank could hear him. “She knows that. She can see where we are on the computer. What I don’t get is when dispatch asks us stupid questions that they already know the answer to, like they’re trying to trip us up. Especially Lexie. She’s not usually a witch like that.”

  Coin took the turn onto Lowry Avenue.

  Lexie’s voice filled the cab. “Engine One, check for open mike.”

  Coin felt a sick chill. “Tox,” he hissed.

  “It’s not me.” Tox held his hands up. “I’m not touching anything.”

  Hank said, “Dude. You’re sitting on it. Your shoulder mike fell off.”

  Tox undid his belt and scrambled in his seat. Replacing his shoulder mike, he said, “Well. That sucks.”

  Hank said, “You so owe her a coffee.”

  Coin groaned. It had been Tox’s voice, but their engine. She knew they were talking about her. It was going to make whatever was going on in her head even worse.

  They owed her more than coffee.

  He turned on his left signal.

  “Where are we going now?”

  “Apple pie. And strawberry ice cream.”

  “Yeah, man,” said Tox, his voice chastened. “I’ll buy.”

  “Yep. You will,” agreed Coin.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Lexie was still in Coin’s profile. What she should do was insert something into the profile she’d written for
him. Instead of “occasional life saver,” she should put “occasional jerkwad.” Instead of five foot nine, she should put that he was five-one. For fun, she typed, “My feet stink but since I leave my shoes on for sex, you’ll never know.”

  With a grim smile, she hit save.

  For one second, Coin was available for dating on the internet with really stinky feet. It felt pretty good.

  But it wasn’t fair. She erased the sentence and hit save again. He was back to being almost perfect. If it wasn’t for him having a kid, he would be pretty completely irresistible. Some women were going to dismiss him because he was a father.

  But others? They would love him for it. They’d see his Brady Bunch potential. A ready-made family. To make up for her bad thoughts, she responded as him to a pretty girl named Ginger.

  Gah.

  He’d flipped right past her picture.

  She went to her own profile again, seeing it as he would, from his profile.

  Lexie had thought it was a good picture. Her brother had taken it in his backyard as she helped him prune the roses that had gotten completely out of control. She’d had her hair piled messily on top of her head, yeah, but that was par for the course. One long curled strand was falling over her eye, and she was laughing, her mouth open.

  When she’d posted the picture, she thought her eyes looked like the eyes of someone having a good time. Someone fun. Someone who could be attractive to the opposite sex. She’d gotten some “likes” from a few men just in the couple of days it had been up.

  Coin had flipped past it. Right past it. Hadn’t even slowed down. For Pete’s sake, she’d been wearing a short-sleeved striped T-shirt, and her tattoo could be seen winding down toward her wrist.

  How could Coin have not recognized her?

  Was it possible it was a joke? Maybe he’d been planning on exclaiming, “Just kidding! Cute pic, Lex,” before she’d answered 911. For one second, Lexie let herself hope.

  Then she gave it up.

  He hadn’t been going to do that.

  It hurt. Anyone else could have flipped past her picture and she wouldn’t have cared. For some reason, though, the fact that it had been Coin stung. Deeply.

  The door to dispatch slowly opened.

  Tox poked his head around the corner even slower.

  “Permission to enter?”

  Lexie sighed. “Why do you want to come in? To talk to a witch? You sure you didn’t mean there to be a letter B at the beginning of that word?”

  Tox held the door open for Coin and Hank who slunk in behind him. Coin held a pie in his hands. Hank was juggling a quart of ice cream back and forth.

  “We brought you pie and ice cream.”

  “Good.” Lexie wouldn’t forgive them this easily. It had hurt her feelings, what Tox had said. She tried to be the best dispatcher she possibly could. She tried to be professional on the radio at all times. And still they talked crap about her.

  “Dude, we’re sorry,” said Hank.

  “Dude,” echoed Lexie. “Whatever. People always ask, but this is why I never date firefighters.” It wasn’t why, not at all. She didn’t date firefighters because the job was too dangerous. She’d been on the radio the night her father had died. The whole town had grieved, but no one more than Lexie. A hoarder’s house fire on Smythe Lane. An electrical line had come down and draped itself over the chief’s rig while he was taking over incident command, but he hadn’t known it was there. When he’d touched the back door to set up his mobile radio post, he’d been electrocuted almost instantly. The guys had worked him harder than anyone they’d ever worked, abandoning the empty house and letting it burn to the ground, but they never got a rhythm back.

  Lexie had dispatched it all, refusing to let anyone take her radio that night. She’d come close to not being able to come back.

  She was tough, though. She’d come back.

  It didn’t mean she was made of stone, though. Their idle comment in the rig had honestly hurt.

  Tox put the plates he’d brought on the counter, and Coin started slicing pie.

  “What if I told you I didn’t want any?” Lexie crossed her arms.

  Tox laughed.

  Coin said, his voice kind, “Of course you do. You love apple pie, especially Josie’s.”

  Lexie softened, as if her insides were made of the same pink ice cream Hank was scooping onto each plate. That pie was special—Josie put something into the filling, something with a kick, almost as if she put a dash of cayenne in with the cinnamon. Whenever she was asked, though, Josie said it was just something she’d never had a recipe for. No one believed her.

  Lexie reached forward and took a forkful. She couldn’t help it—she moaned. “It’s warm. Did you nuke it down the hall?”

  Coin shook his head. “She’d just taken it out of the oven.”

  “You are forgiven.” She took another bite. “In fact, you could swear at me on the radio. You could tell me I have no idea what I’m doing—” she glared at Tox “—which is pretty much what you did, and I’ll forgive you every single time. As long as you bring me this.”

  Tox ran his finger along the edge of the plate, where the syrup had dripped down. “We are sorry, though. We were just venting.”

  Lexie pointed at the steam coming out the top of the slits in the pie crust where it hadn’t been cut yet. “That’s venting. What you were doing was being a jerk. But I don’t care.” She took her plate with pie and ice cream to her terminal. “Now get out of here. I want to enjoy this in peace, and I have to go to bed soon. Megan's getting up in thirty minutes.”

  Coin frowned, meeting her eyes for a moment.

  No. She didn’t want to deal with him.

  “You, too. Go.”

  Coin said to Hank and Tox, “I’ll meet you down there.”

  “Coin …”

  “We have to finish the thing.”

  Tox and Hank didn’t even bother to pretend to act interested. “See ya. Sorry again, Lex.”

  “Fine, fine.” She pushed another forkful of heaven into her mouth. It really was fine. How many times had she cussed the firefighters out for being stupid? It was only by the grace of a kind heaven that she hadn’t accidentally stepped on the foot pedal when she’d been saying it.

  When they were gone, Coin sat next to her again, as if he hadn’t left, as if he hadn’t gone on that last call.

  Lexie looked at her lap. It had hurt her feelings, yeah, hearing them talking crap about her. But it hadn’t hurt as much as it had that Coin had passed right by her photo, not seeing her as pretty or special in the slightest.

  Lexie sighed. “I’m tired, Coin.”

  “Can we just finish this?” He reached forward and touched her upper arm. “I’m not good at this personal ad stuff, and it’s making me nervous. I like looking at it with you.”

  But instead of drawing his hand away, his left it on her arm for a moment. His hand was wide, and warm. Solid. Lexie wanted to lean against it. His touch sent a jolt straight down her spine, and she got warm from the inside out. Steam. He created a column of steam in her. When did that start?

  “Fine. Let’s get this over with.” Lexie moved so that his arm fell from hers. “I responded to a girl I thought you might like.”

  “You responded as me?”

  “That okay?”

  “Yeah.” He sounded delighted and scooted closer. “Show me who you chose.”

  Why on earth was this making her so nervous? “This one. Ginger.”

  “Is she a redhead? I love redheads.”

  Lexie pushed at a red curl that had dropped over her eye. No, he didn’t. He liked pretty girls, and not for their hair color. “Strangely enough, she’s not. She’s a brunette.”

  From the ad, Lexie had decided that Ginger was the total package. Her ad was smart and even self-deprecating. She seemed funny. She was a home-health aid, so she would understand shift work. “Look, she’s in the medical field.”

  But Coin’s eyes hadn’t gotten to the readin
g part. “She’s hot.”

  “I know,” said Lexie. “You don’t think I know what you like?”

  Ginger was thin with long, perfectly straight dark hair. She had eyes that were dark pools of emotion and high cheekbones. In the picture, it didn’t look as if she were wearing any makeup, but her lips were shiny, her skin completely flawless. It was a demure picture, no bending forward for this one, no décolletage on display. But just from the swell at the top of her pretty black blouse, it was evident that she had the goods, too.

  She was perfect for Coin.

  “What did you say in my message to her?”

  It hadn’t been a long email. Lexie didn’t think Coin wanted to get into a major online flirtation. The point was to meet someone fast, wasn’t that right? “You said that she had struck you with her beauty but what was important to you was that she takes care of other people. And that you’d like to take her to dinner some night.”

  “Holy crap. I’m good.” Coin grinned, but he looked nervous at the same time.

  Lexie smiled back at him, feeling tired to her very soul. She would have stood up to refill her water, but she was too exhausted.

  Coin grabbed her bottle and filled it, as if he’d heard her thinking it. He was good that way—he always had been. He was going to make some lucky girl a really great boyfriend.

  “Now you,” he said.

  “Nah, I’m tired. Let’s do it tomorrow.”

  “You helped me. Now let me help you.”

  “Coin, I’m really too tired. I don’t want to look at one more picture, and I don’t want to read one more little white lie. I don’t have the discernment left right now to figure out that if a guy says he’s outgoing it just means he’s trying to cheat on his wife.”

  “Then it’s my turn. Log in to your profile, and let me keep your laptop while you’re sleeping.”

  Lexie stared at him. “Are you crazy? I’m not giving you my laptop.”

  “Too much porn on it?”

  “No!”

  “Then log in to your profile. I trusted you to send an email on my behalf, and it sounds like you did a great job. Why won’t you let me do the same for you?”