Burn (The Firefighters of Darling Bay Book 2)

by Rachael Herron

  “I’m fine.” She laughed and tasted tears on her tongue. “I’m actually fine.” She kneeled and touched the face of the stone. “Look. His name.” Under it was chiseled a fire service crest, and the words “Darling Bay Fire Department, Lost in Action, Always Remembered.”

  “And the flowers.” She touched the edge of a white rose and was surprised to notice her hand was shaking. “Look. They’re real. Coin, they’re fresh.”

  She turned to him. “Did you do this? Did you plan this?”

  He held up his hands. “Not me, I swear. Is there a card with it?”

  She explored at the base of the stems. “Yeah.” Pulling it out, she knew by the handwriting even before she read the words. “My mom. It’s from my mom.”

  “Well, that makes sense, doesn’t it?”

  Lexie sat back with a thump onto the grass. “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “She never acts like she loved him.”

  “How?”

  “She won’t talk about him. She started dating six months after he died.”

  “Maybe she was lonely.”

  “What’s wrong with lonely after your husband dies?”

  “Everyone grieves in their own way.”

  “But not her. She barely grieved at all. You remember,” said Lexie. It was suddenly incredibly important that he agree with her about this. “You remember, too. How it was.”

  Beloved by so many, the whole town had mourned the loss of Lexie’s larger-than-life father. They’d actually hung black bunting—that hadn’t been used since JFK—around Mabel’s Cafe. City Hall had closed for the funeral. The fire department brought in engines from Eureka to cover the stations, and they’d borrowed a sheriff’s dispatcher to work the ComCen. Lexie had heard later that the woman had been terrified she would have to dispatch a fire, but Darling Bay during Chief Tindall’s funeral went completely silent, as if every single resident was grieving the loss. The worst thing Lexie had ever seen in her life was the line of fire trucks on First Street, their ladders up and stretched over the roadway, draped with giant flags, as she and her mother rode under them in the hearse from the church to the cemetery. And the men and women standing at attention in their Class As next to the rigs weren’t just her father’s employees to her. By then they were her coworkers. They were her friends. In a very real sense, her family.

  Lexie could vividly remember Coin that day. He hadn’t met her eyes when they’d driven by, he’d stayed at attention, his face strong. But she’d seen the tears dripping from his chin, darkening his shirt.

  “You remember how it was,” she said again.

  “It was the worst loss Darling Bay Fire had ever had.”

  “My mother didn’t act like the rest of the town. She didn’t act like strangers did. She just moved on.”

  “Lexie, the last thing I want is to argue with you, but I know your mom. She loved him. Take it from someone whose parents didn’t have that together. She still loves him.”

  “The last man she dated updated maps for the road service. A more boring man could never exist even if you cloned him and gave him a robot soul.”

  “Huh,” said Coin, brushing off the top of the stone with his hand.

  “What?”

  “Seems to me like maybe that’s why she dated him.”

  The thought was new, and somehow frightening. Could it be true that both she and Mira stayed away from men with high risk jobs because they were still too sad to risk their hearts? Lexie knew that’s what it was for her, even though she hated to admit it. But maybe that’s how her mother loved her father, too? Mira hadn’t dated a single man who had any characteristic in common with Robert Tindall, in either looks or personality. Every man she’d gone out with had been white collar with day jobs. She’d dated a banker, two lawyers, and an accountant. “Every single one of them was boring,” she said softly.

  “What?”

  “Oh, I’m just thinking … you’re right.”

  Coin smiled. “Can I get you on record saying that?”

  “No, really. All of them have been boring. And I’ve been so mad at her this whole time.”

  “But …”

  “But she’s been dating the exact opposite of Dad.”

  “What does the note say?”

  Lexie’s eyes widened. “I can’t look.”

  “Too private. I get it.”

  “No, it’s just that I can’t do it. Too weird. Will you read it for me?”

  “You sure?”

  Lexie nodded. She bit the inside of her lip hard, and for a moment the blood tasted like tears, too.

  Coin squatted and opened the small, folded card. “It just says ‘Always.’”

  A yellow bloom of pain glared against the back of Lexie’s eyelids, as if a flashbulb had gone off. And maybe one had, because it was clear now. Always. Lexie was sideswiped with a memory—when she was very young, she’d asked her mother why he said it instead of “goodbye,” like the other fathers did. “Because he wants to make sure that if he doesn’t make it home, that it was his last word to me.” When she’d asked why her father might not come home, she hadn’t understood why her mother just shook her head. Lexie was too young then to realize that not all firefighters did.

  She stood, holding out her hand for her best friend to take. “Take me home, please,” said Lexie.

  Coin broke the speed limit on the way to her house. Lexie found an old receipt in the truck’s door pocket and folded into a tiny square, over and over again, trying to ignore how anxious her stomach felt.

  At home, as she fumbled with fingers made thick from excitement to get the front door unlocked, he asked, “Do you really want this?”

  “Yes.”

  “Lexie. We can still go backward. But if we go forward, I’m not going to be able to get over you. Do you understand that?”

  In answer, she kissed him. “Forward,” she said against his mouth. “I want forward.”

  In her head she heard the word she wanted to say, Always. She couldn’t say it. But she heard it.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Coin was used to waking up in strange beds.

  At the station, they all had preferred dorm beds, but if you worked a shift with a guy on overtime who had more seniority and liked your bunk, you got booted to your second- or third-favorite. So when he opened his eyes to find himself looking at a bookshelf, he just blinked.

  But he wasn’t at the station. There was no air filter running at high volume, no sound of early risers working out in the engine bay.

  He wasn’t at home.

  The wall behind the bookcase was yellow.

  Lexie’s favorite color.

  He grinned, memories from the night before flooding his mind. The look of her, underneath him, soft and warm and perfectly everything he’d ever imagined and a whole hell of a lot more. Her eyes when he made love to her. The way they’d clung to each other afterward, as if they’d both found exactly where they needed to be.

  She’d fit into his arms like she’d come home, and Coin had wanted to stay there forever in the dark, his arms wrapped around her, keeping her safe.

  He rolled over, wanting to see her, to touch her. She’d be there, sweet and gorgeous, and he’d kiss her again. And again. There was nothing in the whole wide world like kissing Lexie. He didn’t want to do anything else, ever.

  But she wasn’t there. Her pillow was cool but her spot under the covers was still warm, so she couldn’t have gone far. He sat up, smelling coffee.

  Coin helped himself to a mug and found Lexie on the front porch, wrapped in a yellow terry robe. Instead of sitting on the porch swing, she sat on the top step, as if waiting for someone. When the screen door closed behind him, she didn’t turn around.

  “Good morning, darlin’,” he said.

  She didn’t answer. Her shoulders were hunched, as if she was in pain.

  “What’s wrong?” He set the mug on the rail and sat next to her.

  She just shook her head. Her ha
ir was a mess of red curls and her eyes had the shadows under them she got when she couldn’t sleep.

  “Tell me, Lex.”

  “You just called me Darling.”

  “Darlin’. It’s very different.”

  “That’s my work name. That’s how we go on the radio. Every firefighter calls me that all day. I can’t …”

  A cold shard of fear pierced him. “You can tell me. You can tell me anything, you know that.”

  “No, I mean I can’t do this.”

  It was like a gut punch. Coin pulled back. “Excuse me?”

  “Us. I can’t do this.”

  “We did do this. I thought … last night …”

  “Was a mistake.”

  Confusion filled him. He took a sip of coffee but it was bitter in his mouth. “Lexie, we talked about it. What changed?”

  She covered her face with her hands, and stayed quiet.

  Old Mrs. Finch walked past with Clancy, her Great Dane who was almost as tall as she was. Coin nodded in response to her surprised “Oh!”

  Lexie glanced at him, her eyes full of tears.

  “Lex. Tell me. Tell me all of it.”

  She shook her head. “I don’t want to do this to you.”

  “What can’t you do?”

  Turning to face him, she said, “Don’t make us do this.”

  “We don’t have to do anything we don’t want to.” Where had this come from? She’d gone to sleep almost purring in his arms.

  “It can’t work.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because you’re in love with me.”

  It was true. Coin figured probably every guy in the station and certainly every woman knew it. Hank had told him outright that he knew. Tox had told him, too. Coin protested out loud at every opportunity. But now? He wouldn’t protest. He’d hire a skywriter to tell everyone. “I am.”

  “See, that’s—”

  “And you’re in love with me.”

  Her mouth fell open. “What?”

  “You’re in love with me, too.” Coin knew it, suddenly. He knew it in his bones. He’d felt it before, a million times. The way they laughed together all night in the ComCen, the way they tended to gravitate toward each other all day in the station, as if they were stuck in orbit around each other. The way her eyes lit when she saw him. She didn’t look that way at anyone else.

  But more than that, he’d felt it last night when he’d held her.

  And he felt it now, even though she looked more surprised than if he’d given her a pony. “Tell me you’re not.”

  She started to speak, her face confident. “I’m …”

  He leaned against the porch rail and took a sip of his coffee.

  “I’m …”

  “Go ahead, say it,” he encouraged.

  Her eyes flashed. “Don’t you dare tease me. I hate you.”

  “And …” He moved his hand in a go-ahead motion. “And you …”

  “I love you,” she snapped. “Of course I do. I love all my guys. I don’t date them. Any of them. Ever. But I love my firefighters.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong,” Coin said easily, sure of nothing more. “You’re in love with me.”

  Instead of looking happy about it, she looked stricken. “Oh, damn,” she said. “I am.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  It was true. He was right. The knowledge landed on top of Lexie’s head like a load of wet laundry, heavy and cold.

  She couldn’t be in love with him. She just couldn’t.

  Next to her, Coin laughed, a round, joyful sound. “Isn’t that a good thing?”

  “No.”

  “Lexie?” He touched her shoulder but she shrugged him off and stood.

  “You have to go.”

  “Darlin’.”

  “Don’t call me that. Look, you’ve always said you’ll do anything for me, right?”

  He nodded. His eyes held a look that Lexie couldn’t bear to see. “Anything. Name it, Lexie, and I’ll do it.”

  “Then go.” She paused, locking her hands in front of her as if that could protect the heart she hadn’t even known she’d lost. “Don’t ask me anything else, not for one other single thing. I’ve already told you the truth, that should be enough for you. Do you have your keys?”

  He nodded.

  “Just go.”

  “That’s what you want from me? That’s truly what you want?”

  “And don’t come back. Not like this. We can’t do this. Friends, Coin, that’s what we are. At work, we’ll be friends, just like always.” Her voice thinned and she pictured for a moment Coin casually bringing her coffee in the morning, telling her about the date he’d gone on the night before. She heard, rather than felt, her heart start to break. “That’s all we can ever be. I can’t love a firefighter, Coin. I can’t lose another one. In the middle of the night I still hear them yelling.” She meant the firefighters who had come up screaming that night her father died, and she knew he understood that. “I promised myself.”

  Coin grimaced and rubbed the side of his jaw, where the stubble was growing in thick. Just an hour ago, she’d been pressed tight against him, kissing him right there while he slept. She knew how sharp the stubble felt against her lips, and for a second, she wished they could be back in bed again, back to the time before she realized she’d screwed it all up.

  “Do you know what you’re asking me to do?”

  She didn’t look at him. She couldn’t. She only nodded.

  “Are you sure?” His voice was rough. She heard heartbreak under the words and felt her own heart shatter to match his.

  “It’s what I want. It’s what I need.” And without waiting to watch him leave, Lexie went into the house. She shut the door behind her and leaned, her palms flat against the wood.

  Last night, he’d carried her in the house as if she hadn’t weighed a thing. She’d loved that, that he could toss her around like she were a bag of groceries. Later, he’d carried her to bed, where he proceeded to have his talented way with her. In the past she’d dated men she was terrified she might break, skinnier than she was with lightweight limbs. She’d never been a fan of having to be careful like that. Last night, Coin had given as much as she had. Where she nipped, he bit back. He’d pinned her arms over her head, and she’d wrapped her legs around him, not letting him go. Then, when they’d held each other to sleep, she’d felt supported. Safe.

  Coin always made her feel like that. He’d always made her feel safe, she realized. It was a lie—he was the most unsafe thing in her entire life.

  Her phone rang. It was either Coin wanting to come back, or her mother, the only person who ever called her at this hour. She looked at her phone. Coin’s number wasn’t displayed.

  “How did your date go?” trilled her mother.

  She knew, goodness only knew how. Darling Bay was small, but it had an incredibly high big-mouth-per-capita. At times, Lexie had enjoyed this. Right then, it wasn’t the town’s best feature.

  “What are you trying to ask, Mom?”

  “Coin Keefe? Really, Lexington?”

  Lexie groaned and slid sideways so she was lying on the couch, her feet propped on the armrest. “So?”

  “So. He’s got a child.”

  “He does. Serena’s awesome.”

  “He was married!”

  “He’s not now. That’s the important part, right?”

  “I don’t trust those eyes of his.”

  “How well do you know his eyes, Mom?”

  “He was at your Christmas party last year. He told me he was thinking of getting a motorcycle.”

  “And he did.” Lexie had ridden on the back of it once in the station’s parking lot. Now she looked back at that moment and realized that yes, maybe she had enjoyed that a little too much. As if it were yesterday, she could remember the breadth of his back against her chest, and the feeling of resting her hands at his waist. Why didn’t she know then? Why did this come as such a surprise?

  “
I always said don’t ever date a man with a motorcycle. The mortality factor is too high.”

  “I’m a fire and medical dispatcher, Mother. I’m aware of the fatality rate—not the mortality factor—and I’m not worried about it because I’m not dating him.”

  “Why was he at your house this morning?”

  “Having coffee.”

  “At seven in the morning?”

  “Do you have a camera on my house?”

  “Mrs. Finch told Mabel Mellor who sent me an email.”

  Lexie glanced at the wall clock. Less than ten minutes. That’s how long it took gossip to get to her mother in this town. “Well, he’s not here now.”

  “Did I tell you about my friend, Marge Bondy?”

  Lexie sighed. No matter what, a story that started with “did I tell you about” never ended well with her mother. “No.”

  “I met her on Facebook in a widow’s group, but she’s a good friend now. Her husband was a firefighter.”

  “And he perished horribly in flames,” said Lexie tightly. “I get it.”

  “Don’t jump to conclusions. It’s not polite. Her husband died in his sleep of a massive heart attack.”

  “Brought on by the stress of being a firefighter?”

  “Stop it. No, I don’t think they thought that’s what caused it. He was unhealthy anyway. Diabetes in his last years.”

  Lexie felt mild chagrin. “Oh. Sorry. What about her?”

  “Her daughter died,” said her mother triumphantly. “She was a firefighter, too. While she was on scene of a freeway accident, a car hit her as it passed by. Knocked her right out of her work boots.”

  She should have known. “Got it, Mom.”

  “I’m serious. Don’t date a firefighter.”

  Lexie rubbed the tension that had suddenly built up in her shoulders. “I said I got it. I won’t.”

  “You won’t? Really?” Her mother’s voice was two shades lighter.

  “He doesn’t mean anything to me,” Lexie said. Her throat ached.

  “Oh, thank goodness. Now, I have to ask you. How do you feel about florists? Because I met a man named Kenneth who said he has a son he’s desperate to get out of his house.”