by Patty Blount
I rolled my shoulders and set my jaw. I shoved my hand into my pocket, felt for the square of paper I’d stuffed inside, and immediately felt calm.
A door slammed in the distance, jerking me back to my mission. Okay. I could do this. I walked up the stairs to the station’s second floor, where I knew the offices were located. On the second floor, framed pictures lined the corridor, catching my attention. Smiling faces of guys in turnouts standing in front of shiny red trucks, newspaper clippings of honors awarded—and the losses experienced—since the Lakeshore Volunteer Fire Department was formed back in the sixties. I stopped in front of one large frame. Under the glass, a hand-painted sign commanded me to NEVER FORGET. Under that, a series of pictures stared back at me, all neatly aligned like the headstones that no doubt marked their graves. Men, way too many men, listed by the year of their death. An entire cluster of men listed for September 11, 2001.
But only one listed for December 9.
I traced Matt’s name through the glass, the burn in my chest as hot as the day it formed.
“Help you, son?”
I spun and found myself facing a huge bear of a man wearing station gear—dark pants and a blue T-shirt emblazoned with the LVFD Maltese cross over the left pec. The slogan PROUD AND READY curved around the logo.
I opened my mouth, but when the man’s eyes went round, I figured no introduction was needed. “Yes, sir. I’d like to join the junior squad.” I held out the application form clutched in my hand.
The man took the form, held it at arm’s length, and squinted at the words. With a sigh, he met my eyes. “So you’re him.”
My stomach dropped. “Yes, sir. I’m Reece Logan.”
“And you really want to do this?”
I have to. “Yes, sir. I do.”
The man thrust out a hand the size of my face. “Chief Brian Duffy. Why don’t we step into my office and chat?”
I gulped once and shook the chief’s hand, then followed him to the office behind the last door on the right. Two huge windows overlooked the apparatus floor. I stood and watched the crew from Engine 21 set up their bunker gear—boots inside pants—for the next alarm.
“So, Reece.” Chief Duffy grabbed a pair of glasses off a desk littered in paperwork and took another look at my application.
“Just call me Logan.” After a moment, I remembered to add a “Please.”
Chief Duffy smiled under a bushy mustache. “Logan. Have a seat.”
I sat stiffly in a straight-backed vinyl chair facing the chief’s enormous desk. The chief lowered himself into a chair that groaned and protested his bulk but by some miracle held together. He just stared at me over his glasses for several minutes until I shifted uncomfortably.
“Uh, sir. I’m sixteen years old, and I realize most of the class probably started as soon as they were old enough, but I can promise you I’ll work hard—”
“Why?”
I blinked. “Sorry?”
“Why now?”
I frowned and thought how best to reply. “Sir, I’ve always wanted to do this, but my dad and my brother—well, I wasn’t…welcome then.”
“Son, you really think you’re welcome now?”
“Chief, I’m a strong, willing volunteer. From what the news has been saying, you don’t have enough of those.”
Chief Duffy’s eyes went sharp when they met my eyes over the desk. “No. No, we do not. Volunteers are leaving faster than they’re joining, and that is quickly becoming a problem for this house. But that doesn’t mean I have to take on somebody who I am damn sure is going to upset the climate around here.”
I looked down at my hands and sighed.
“Does he even know you’re here, son?”
I shook my head.
“That’s what I figured.” Chief Duffy sighed and scrubbed a hand over the short gray hair that still covered all of his head, though I knew he was in his fifties. “What do you know about my cadets, Logan?”
I sat up straighter and looked Chief Duffy straight in the eye. “Junior squad is the future of Lakeshore, Chief. The LVFD averaged two thousand calls last year—up from previous years. But you’re losing members. Even though you gained two full members from graduating cadets, you lost six members in the last fourteen months. Cadets meet twice a week and work under a supervisor, Lieutenant Neil Ernst. The squad practices fire service until age seventeen and only then are permitted on-scene. Since the squad was formed, there’s been a ninety-percent conversion—”
“Okay, okay.” Chief Duffy shot out a hand to cut me off. “So you’ve read the website. I want to know why you think you’d be a good cadet.”
Because I have no other options. “Because I come from a firefighter family, Chief. Dad, brother, uncles, grandfather. It’s in my genes. It’s not about parades and medals and pictures in papers. It’s about doing work that matters—even to the people who think their taxes are too damn high.”
Chief Duffy laughed once, a sharp sound that echoed off the office walls. He studied me for a long moment, and with a nod, he reached for the phone on his desk and pressed two buttons, and then that loud voice reverberated across the entire house. “Jamison, chief’s office. Jamison to the chief’s office.”
I cringed. Was I about to be escorted off the premises or welcomed to the brotherhood?
“Okay, Logan, we’ll give this a trial run. Here are the rules. First, assuming you pass the background check, you need to know something right now. Lieutenant Ernst is out—the seventh volunteer to leave us this year. Relocating to Florida. Can you believe that crap? The junior cadet squad’s new supervisor is Lieutenant John Logan. You got any issues with that?”
My stomach clenched into a tight ball. Fuck me. “No, sir.”
“Good. Second, you step a single toe out of line, I will cut you loose, no questions asked. That means no family drama in my house. Understood?”
“Yes, sir.” I swallowed hard. I could make that promise; my father was another story.
A tap on the door interrupted us. “Yes, Chief?”
“Mandy, this is Reece Logan, our newest cadet. Get him set up, will you?”
I looked up and, for a second, saw the fast burst of outrage on Amanda’s face before she controlled herself. With a nod, she mumbled, “Yes, sir.”
“Thank you, Chief Duffy.” I shook the chief’s hand.
“Better hurry, Logan. Jamison’s pretty fast.”
I turned and found the doorway empty.
Chapter 4
Amanda
“Hey.”
Reece Logan’s pissed-off voice called out to me in the stairwell. I paused on the landing, flicking him a look. “Hey, what?”
“Wait up.”
I laughed at him and kept walking. Bad enough he had the guts to show his face in this house after what he did, and now he expected special treatment too? Matt was dead, Lieutenant Logan was wrecked, and it was all because Reece ruined their lives, just like Mom ruined—
Mom.
My heart slammed against my ribs when I thought of the life we used to have until she threw it all away for some loser she met in line at the Department of Motor Vehicles the year I turned seven. I swallowed hard. Okay, so Reece wasn’t Dmitri, Mom’s soul mate. But he was still the reason Matt was dead.
“There’s no waiting up for anybody, moron. You’re responsible for getting yourself where you need to be, or you get left behind,” I called out over my shoulder.
He jogged to catch up to me and held up both hands. “Sorry. So where do we start?”
I led him across the apparatus floor, unlocked the door to the storeroom, and flicked on a light. I stepped aside so he could go in first, but he halted and covered his nose with a hand. It was a bit dank in here—a damp mildew odor mixed with the smell of smoke. I walked down one aisle, turned left where still more shelves and racks filled the space, grabb
ed two blue shirts from a box, and threw them at him. He managed to catch them before they hit the floor.
“Wear one to every meeting. That’s the station uniform.”
He frowned. “What about pants?”
I rolled my eyes and sneered. “You wear your own pants. Jeans, shorts, or buy a pair of uniform pants if you want.” I showed him an empty open shelf. “This will be yours.” I grabbed a roll of masking tape, tore off a strip, and applied it to the edge of the shelf. With a black marker, I wrote his name on the tape. “You’ll get practice gear and stow it here after you master using it. For now, it stays empty.”
Logan nodded. “When—”
I turned and left the storeroom. Hey, the chief said to get him set up, and that’s what I did. That’s all I would do. He followed me across the apparatus floor, back through the heavy steel door, and into the corridor. “Kitchen’s that way.” I pointed right. “Don’t take food unless it’s offered. It’s not for us. But you can bring your own, and nobody will touch it.” I strode to the left and opened another door. “Squad uses this as our classroom. We meet here Wednesdays at seven and Saturdays at nine. Bring a notebook.”
“Um, today’s Wednesday.”
I broke into applause. “Did you figure that out all by yourself?” Wow. I thought Reece Logan was supposed to be a genius. I didn’t have any classes with him, but I’d heard he was some kind of nerd, always getting perfect scores on tests.
Logan’s face burned scarlet. “I mean, should I just stick around for tonight’s meeting?”
I blew hair out of my eyes and shrugged. “Suit yourself. Sit anywhere.” I grabbed a thick textbook off one of the shelves at the back of the room and tossed it to the table near him. It landed with a thud that echoed off the walls. “May as well start studying.”
When I reached the door, he called out, “Wait.”
Sighing impatiently, I turned and crossed my arms, but he didn’t say anything. Instead, he crossed the room and met me at the door.
“Amanda, you don’t know me. So how about you adjust the attitude, okay?”
Don’t know him? I ground my teeth together. I knew Reece Logan was the younger brother of Matt Logan and the son of Lieutenant John Logan. I knew Reece Logan was the one driving the car that crashed back in December, killing Matt. I knew Reece Logan only cared about one thing—perfect grades. He was a straight-A dork with chess-club friends and zero interest in firefighting.
And now, he was standing in my squad room, and suddenly, I wanted to know why. Matt started junior squad when he was twelve. Reece never set foot in the building until now. So why was he here? What the hell was he trying to prove? And just as suddenly, I decided I didn’t give a crap.
I shot him a glare. “I know everything I need to know about Reece Logan.” I stalked out of the room and headed back to the apparatus floor to start pulling practice gear for tonight’s class.
Crap. The chief told me to get Logan set up. I should have gotten him a notebook or something. Cursing under my breath, I turned, headed back to the conference room, and walked in just as Reece, naked from the waist up, tugged one of the shirts I’d just given him over his head.
Wow.
For a chess geek, he had broad shoulders. Reece and Matt looked like twins, except for one thing. Matt was broad and muscular while Reece was kind of skinny—like Captain America before the top-secret super-soldier transformation. My heart twisted inside my chest, and the breath suddenly backed up in my lungs.
His head whipped around, his eyes wide. He quickly tugged the shirt down, but he wasn’t fast enough. I saw the mark on his chest, right over his heart, and I wanted to cry and punch him at the same time.
I coughed and pretended everything was just fine. “Free tip, dude. You, um, might want to shut the door when you strip.” I crossed my arms, leaning on the door frame.
Logan blushed like some middle schooler at his first dance. “Maybe I knew you were there,” he said, trying to play it cool, and I bit my cheek to keep from laughing. He may have his brother’s broad shoulders, but Reece Logan was still a dork who liked to play chess in shorthand. True fact: I heard him shout “Queen, h4!” at another chess club kid while we were changing classes once. The other kid stopped dead in the center of the corridor with a look of horror on his face, so I figured that meant Reece beat him. He was always doing puzzles—crosswords, sudoku, cryptograms. During lunch periods, he usually had his head bent over a tablet or a puzzle book, pen tapping his chin.
Not that I looked or anything. It was just hard not to notice.
He stood there, looking at me like I’d just kicked his puppy or something. With a curse, I searched for something—anything—nice to say. I wasn’t that good at nice. I felt bad about making him all embarrassed and stuff, so figured I owed him one. “Um, yeah, so nice ink.” I jerked my chin at his chest. “What is it?”
“Um, it’s, uh, an infinity symbol. Kind of.”
“An infinity symbol. In bloodred ink?”
“It’s…symbolic.”
Yeah. Of the blood on his hands, no doubt. “So who did you get to ink you? You’re not eighteen.” As far as I knew, Reece was my age—sixteen.
“Fake ID,” he admitted with an expression that pinched my heart, and I wished he’d smile again. His smile was so much like Matt’s. When Matt smiled at me, I’d thought it meant he liked me, not just as a cadet or a fellow junior, but as a girl. I wasn’t bad looking. And I noticed him staring at my chest more than once. But Matt Logan liked girls with long, flowy hair who wore heels and dresses. I didn’t own a dress, I couldn’t walk in heels, and I almost always wore my hair twisted into a coil to keep it out of my face when I worked.
Besides, the Becketts had that whole no-boys rule.
So I never told Matt how much I liked him. And now he’s dead, and the reason why was standing in my squad class, looking at me like I just stabbed him through the heart.
He grabbed the book I tossed on the table. “Where do you suggest I start?”
I rolled my eyes and swallowed the duh I wanted to shout. Seriously, I thought he was a genius. “The beginning is usually good.”
Reece’s eyes shot to mine, and his jaw tightened. “Just so I know, how many questions per day do you answer seriously? What’s the sarcasm ratio? Probably hit the daily quota by now, right?”
I glared at him for a second or two and finally took the seat next to him. The chief did say to get him all set up, so I guess I owed him a straight answer. “That was serious. You need to know this book backward, forward, and sideways if you expect to last in this squad.”
He held up a hand. “Fine. Anything else?”
Oh yes, actually, there is. “Yeah. Why are you here? Matt’s death really messed up your dad. You being here—”
“Yeah. I get it.” He cut me off before I could finish. “It’s family stuff. Complicated.”
My eyebrows shot up. He didn’t know the meaning of complicated. “Family stuff? Really? And yet, here you are in our house instead of your own.”
He sighed and looked away. “He moved out.”
Oh. I didn’t know that. I squirmed and tugged at my shirt, pissed off that I actually felt sorry for him. “So the chief asked me to find out if you need a notebook since you’re sticking around for tonight’s class.”
He shook his head. “I can take notes on this if I need to.” He took out a tablet, and I rolled my eyes. Well, as long as he didn’t start playing 2048 during our meeting, it would do.
“Great. Um, so, listen. Tonight’s meeting, we’re working on PPE and SCBA.” I tapped the book. “I’d start there.”
Reece gave me a shocked look and then smiled. “Um, yeah, sure. Okay. Thanks.”
I smiled back, and his jaw fell open. I hightailed it out of there before things got weird.
Out on the apparatus floor, I waved at two of my squadm
ates.
“What’s up, Man?”
I stared at Gage Garner, trying to figure out how to tell him. He used to be tight with Matt Logan. Ty Golowski probably wouldn’t care much.
“Okay, listen. Chief okayed a new junior today.”
“That’s great!” Ty pumped his fist and flashed a mouth full of metal. He was our youngest and newest cadet and had been looking forward to hassling the next new guy for months now.
“No, not really. It’s Reece Logan.”
Gage’s face went red, and he huffed out a breath through his nose—always a sign of temper for him. “Are you freakin’ kidding me?”
I shook my head. “Wish I was. He showed up this afternoon and spent some time upstairs. Chief Duffy called me in, said to show him around, get him set up. He’s in the conference room now.”
Gage swiped a hand under his nose. “Does he know?” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder to where Lieutenant John Logan was bullshitting with a few of the guys on Truck 3.
I jerked. Crap! John wasn’t supposed to be here on a Wednesday. And judging by the grin on his face, I was betting on no. “I’ll tell him.”
I adored John. He and Matt were like the station’s own comedy duo, finishing each other’s sentences and thinking on the same wavelength. Whenever I imagined my own dad, I pictured someone like John.
“No, wait,” Gage said. “We should meet the kid first.” He turned and shoved through the door and into the conference room. Reece was still in the chair where I’d left him. When he heard the squeaks of shoes on linoleum, he jumped to his feet and rubbed his hands down his legs, eyes darting from me to Gage to Ty and back again.
“Hey,” he said, clearing his throat. “I’m Reece. Reece Logan.”
“Yeah, I know. Um, wow. I’m Ty. Tyler Golowski.”
“Hi, Ty.” Reece smiled, and another chill crawled down my back. My eyes kept saying, “It’s Matt,” while my brain kept saying, “No way.”
Noise out in the corridor made Reece take a step backward. The rest of the squad filed in. Max Tobay, doing his best lady-killer strut, Kevin Sheppard—well, Kevin just kind of bounced everywhere he went—and then Bear Acosta.