The Fireman's Pole

by Sue Brown

  The Fireman’s Pole

  By Sue Brown

  The flames of passion rise for the lord of the manor.

  It’s springtime in Calminster village, but things are already heating up. Sexy firefighter Dale Maloney is new to the local station. When Dale backs the company fire engine into the village maypole, he attracts the ire—and attention—of Benedict Raleigh, the Baron Calminster.

  Soon after meeting Dale, Ben breaks off his relationship with his girlfriend, and the sparks between Ben and Dale are quickly fanned into flames.

  Unfortunately the passion between the two men isn’t the only blaze in the village. An arsonist’s crimes are escalating, and it’s up to Dale and his crew to stop them. Meanwhile, as they investigate, an unscrupulous business partner attempts to coerce Ben into marrying his daughter. The May Day parade is around the corner, but they have plenty of fires to put out before Ben can finally slide down the fireman’s pole.

  Table of Contents

  Blurb

  Sneak Peek

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  About the Author

  Coming in November 2017

  Don’t Miss Dreamspun Desires!

  Visit Dreamspinner Press

  Copyright

  “What’s happened? Is Mrs. Wilson all right?”

  Dale scowled at him, not happy at the rapid-fire questions. “Please stand back, sir,” he said firmly, trying to bar the man from getting any closer. He couldn’t help but notice the man had dark wavy hair, cheekbones to kill for, and big baby blue eyes.

  “Mrs. Wilson works for me. Is she all right?” the man demanded.

  “The paramedics are checking her over now,” Dale said.

  “How did the fire start?” His tone suggested he expected Dale to answer all his questions right then.

  Dale took a deep breath to stop the angry response on the tip of his tongue. “Sir, get back behind the cordon, please. We’ll be able to answer your questions later. Let me get back to doing my job.”

  “Don’t you know who I am?”

  Dale’s fraying patience snapped. “I don’t care if you’re Lord Muckety-Muck himself, sir. Get back behind the cordon now!”

  “Who the hell do you think you’re talking to?” the man growled.

  “I’m talking to the man who’s stopping me doing my job.”

  Chapter One

  7:15.

  “Oh no. Oh no, no, no!” Dale sat up in bed, blinking away sleep as he stared in horror at the time on his phone. “I set the bloody alarm. I know I did!”

  7:16.

  No matter how much he scowled at the screen, the time didn’t reverse. He must have forgotten to set his alarm clock the previous night, and far from having a leisurely start to the day before leaving for Calminster Fire Station, he had less than forty minutes to get ready, eat breakfast, and arrive at his new job.

  7:17.

  Throwing himself out of bed, Dale swore loudly and profusely at his phone, himself, and the world as he rushed down the stairs to the bathroom, to shower, shave, and dress.

  Dale gave up on the idea of breakfast and, grabbing his keys and wallet, headed out of the tiny cottage he had rented. His transfer had come through much quicker than he’d expected, and he hadn’t had time to find a place of his own before starting at his new station. His new commander had organized temporary accommodation. His cottage, like most of the village, was part of the Calminster estate. Dale hadn’t been to see Calminster Hall yet, but he’d been told it was worth a visit.

  He wasn’t thinking about stately homes as he backed his red Mini down the narrow lane as fast as he could and out onto the main road. Fortunately, the fire station was on the outskirts of the small village of Calminster, and Dale didn’t have far to drive. He’d run past the fire station the previous day and could easily have walked if he hadn’t been stupid enough to oversleep.

  Driving his Mini faster than he should have done through the narrow streets, Dale incurred the wrath of a little old lady who’d been about to step out into the road. He took a deep breath, waved his hand apologetically, and tried to ignore the fact she used a very expressive gesture in return.

  “Slow down, Maloney,” he muttered. “You’re not going to endear yourself to the local inhabitants if you take out one of the wrinklies on your first day.”

  Dale slowed down considerably, but he managed to arrive at the fire station with five minutes to spare. As he parked, two other cars pulled in beside him. The men got out and studied him speculatively.

  “You must be the new bloke,” one of them said. From his sparse gray hair shaved back to a stubble and laughter lines around his eyes, Dale hazarded a guess he was nearing retirement.

  Dale held out his hand. “Dale Maloney.”

  “Mick Smith, and he’s Keith Richards. No, not that Keith Richards—it really pisses him off if you make that joke to his face.” Mick had a bright smile and a firm handshake for the new guy.

  Dale decided it was simpler just to shake Keith’s hand. “Hi, good to meet you.”

  Keith, who seemed about the same age as Dale, smiled at him and said, “Ignore Smith. The rest of us do. He’s like a mother hen.”

  “Thanks,” Mick said dryly and shoved Keith by the shoulder.

  They scuffled for a minute or two while Dale waited for them to calm down. Eventually they separated and showed him into the fire station. Mick introduced him to the station commander and the watch commander, then disappeared, muttering about coffee.

  TANK Wembley, the watch commander, was a huge big-chested man with a ready smile and enormous hands. Dale had a thing about hands, men’s hands specifically, and it was something he always noticed. He didn’t like men with small hands.

  “Morning, Maloney. It’s Dale, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Tank laughed. “Call me Tank. No one stands to attention here.”

  “Especially Tank,” the station commander said with a wry smile. “Lee Fang. Call me Sir.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Tank laughed and clapped Dale across the back, only Dale’s excellent reflexes preventing him from flying across the room. “You’ll get used to us soon enough.”

  Dale pasted on a smile and hoped it was true. Despite the military way his previous station had been run, Dale had liked his job on the outskirts of Nottingham. The only reason he’d chosen to leave and move halfway across the country was because of his lying, cheating scum of an ex-partner.

  The fallout from his breakup had been messy, and the worst thing was none of his colleagues had a clue Dale was hurting. He’d come home early to propose to his boyfriend and discovered Baz in bed with one of the female crew. He’d walked out, his fingers clutched around the ring box in his pocket. Neither he nor Baz had officially come out at work, and the following day he’d had to watch Susan and Baz hold hands and declare they’d moved in together to congratulations from everyone at the station. Susan had apologized to Dale for “upsetting their friendship,” but it wasn’t her fault. She’d had no clue Baz was even in a relationship with Dale. Her apology was the moment Dale knew he’d have to move. He couldn’t stay at the station and watch Baz romance Susan. On the sly Baz had still been trying to convince Dale
that even if he stayed in a relationship with Susan, everything could stay the same between them. Dale had stared at Susan for a long moment before he walked into the station commander’s office and handed in his resignation. He told Baz to collect his gear, rented out his house, and used his leave to finish at the station as soon as he could. Then he applied for the next available transfer anywhere in the country.

  Which was why he ended up in Calminster, one hundred and sixty-five miles away from Baz, and he was just about to find out if he was going to have a problem with—

  “I’m gay,” Dale said abruptly.

  The two men stared at him.

  He stared back and waited. Eventually Tank broke the awkward silence.

  “You expecting us to do something? Throw a party? Wave a rainbow flag? Find a unicorn?”

  “I want to know if I’m going to have a problem.” Dale didn’t want to sound defiant on his first day, but he wasn’t going back into another closet to pacify their feelings.

  Lee Fang shook his head. “Not with me, Maloney. Tank’s just an arsehole. If you have any trouble, just let me, Tank, or Mick know.”

  Dale nodded. “I can hold my own, but I won’t take shit from anyone.” He’d been stoic and in the closet, and look where that had got him. Dale refused to do that again, even if he had to make his point with his fists.

  “And I don’t expect you to,” Lee said.

  “You tell me if they do,” Tank agreed. “I am an arsehole, but I don’t allow issues with anyone. We’ve got a damned good crew here and a couple of women who’ll bend you in half if you give them shit.” Tank cocked his head. “You’re not likely to do that, are you?”

  “I have no problem with women firefighters,” Dale confirmed.

  As long as they didn’t fuck his boyfriend.

  DALE followed Tank to the rec room to meet the rest of White watch. He felt like a tiny tug boat swept along in the wake of his new watch commander. Eight pairs of eyes, including a woman who was uncomfortably similar to Susan, stared at him as he walked in the room.

  “This is Dale Maloney,” Tank said. “He’s gay. Give him shit and I’ll write you up on a charge.”

  Dale choked. “What the hell?”

  Tank raised an eyebrow. “You wanted them to know, didn’t you?”

  “Well, yeah, but I thought I was going to tell them.”

  The older man he’d met earlier laughed and beckoned him over. Dale had forgotten his name. “Here, grab a coffee. Tank’s got the social graces of a pig. We don’t care what you are as long as you don’t eat the last doughnut.”

  “Who gets to eat the last doughnut?”

  “Mick,” everyone in the room chorused in unison and Mick took a bow.

  “I’ll remember that.” Dale winked at him.

  Mick winked back, handed Dale a mug and a doughnut, and then stuffed the last doughnut from the plate into his mouth.

  “Gross.” Tank pulled a face.

  Dale sank into a chair and focused on drinking his tea. He hadn’t expected Tank just to announce he was gay like that. Everyone was so laid-back about the announcement. None of them had batted an eyelid. Dale refused to step back into the closet, but he’d been prepared for a fight. It was almost anticlimactic.

  The woman leaned over. “I’m Emma.”

  “Dale.” He was big enough not to judge her for being an identikit version of the woman who stole his boyfriend.

  “Ignore them.” She jerked her thumb at Tank and Mick who bickered amiably, among sprays of crumbs. “They’re always the same.”

  “Maloney.”

  Dale turned to Mick.

  “You going to eat that doughnut?”

  Dale stuffed the whole thing in his mouth before Mick could swipe it from him. He chewed to the sound of Emma’s peel of laughter and Mick’s disappointed groan.

  “You’re going to drive Bertha today,” Tank said.

  “Bertha?”

  “She’s the big old bus out there. All the appliances have names.”

  Dale didn’t have a problem with that. Old Bertha was a Scania, an appliance he was familiar with driving.

  Calminster Fire Station was a total anomaly for a rural area. Because of its proximity to a city, Calminster was manned twenty-four hours instead of part-time. The station commander had been honest with Dale when he interviewed for the job, saying he didn’t know how long the situation would last, but Dale had been desperate to get away from Baz, and he decided to take the chance as he had income from the rent on his old house if he had to find another job.

  “The village has a May Day parade in a few weeks, and big Bertha is one of the attractions,” Tank said. “We’ve just got to go down to the village green today and meet with Lord Calminster. He’s the organizer of the parade.”

  Dale stared at him skeptically. “Lord Calminster? Seriously, a lord?”

  “Oh yeah, we have a real live lord of the manor. We all bow and scrape to him and tug our forelocks.”

  “What the hell is a forelock?”

  “No idea,” Tank confessed. “Just mind your p’s and q’s around him.”

  Dale had never met a lord before, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to meet one now if he was expected to slime all over some nob. Still, he knew the village was dependent on Calminster Hall for much of its income, and Dale was living in a house owned by the estate. He supposed he had to toe the party line and bow and scrape when he met Lord Calminster. “When are we going?”

  Tank glanced at the clock. “We may as well go now. Then we can be back in time for lunch. Mick, can you give the Hall a call to let them know we’re on our way?”

  “Sure,” Mick said before he downed the rest of his coffee.

  Tank took Dale over to meet Bertha. “Bertha was named after the previous station commander’s mother.”

  “Is this one named after Fang’s mother?” Dale pointed to the nearest, shiniest, definitely new appliance.

  Tank’s lips twitched. “He refused to have an appliance named after her. He and his mother don’t have the best of relationships. We had a competition to name her. The boys wanted something in keeping with Fang.”

  Dale wandered around the appliance and found the name. “Buffy? You called her Buffy?”

  “It’s better than Bella,” Tank said, a shade defensively.

  “Who’s Bella?” Dale furrowed his brow.

  “Twilight?”

  Dale shook his head, and Tank rolled his eyes.

  “I can tell you don’t have a girlfriend or a daughter.”

  The shrill sound of the alarm drowned whatever else Tank was going to say. Mick emerged with details of the callout. “Shit! It’s Mrs. Wilson’s house. We’ve got to move.”

  Tank and Dale headed for Bertha, Keith and Mick hard on their heels.

  “Who’s Mrs. Wilson?” Dale said.

  “She works up at the Hall,” Tank said. “She’s lived in the village all her life.”

  “I’ll drive,” Mick said. “You can take Bertha out next time.”

  Dale could see the smoke as soon as they pulled out of the station. By the time they arrived at the narrow cul-de-sac, Dale could see a crowd of people blocking the road. Mick sounded the siren to get them out of the way and carefully inched down between the cars to maneuver near the cottage.

  As they jumped down and started unrolling the hoses, Tank went to talk to the neighbors. He came back, a worried expression on his face. “The neighbors don’t know where Mrs. Wilson is. She didn’t respond to them banging on the door, and they phoned the Hall. She’s not there either.”

  Mick looked at the cottage and paled. “If she was in there, she’s a goner.” The downstairs was consumed by flames, and the upstairs level was full of black smoke.

  Dale had been a fireman for long enough to see plenty of people trapped by fire, but it never got any easier, no matter how many callouts he attended.

  “Keith and Dale, go around the back and see if you can find her,” Tank ordered. “Mick, we’ve go
t to get these idiots out of the way.”

  The side gate was securely locked, and Dale had to kick it a couple of times before the wood around the lock splintered. He shoved the gate open, Keith following hard on his heels down the narrow side passage. Benches full of pots of herbs and flowers made negotiating the passageway more difficult, but Dale didn’t have time to right the pots he knocked over. He couldn’t see Mrs. Wilson in the small cottage garden, and his heart sank. Flames had consumed the kitchen, and if she hadn’t got out, he held out little hope of her survival. Then Dale saw something pink behind the low wall that separated the patio and the lawn.

  “Over here,” he yelled at Keith.

  They rushed over, and to Dale’s immense relief, they found an elderly lady lying crumpled behind the wall. She was unconscious and had a huge bruise on the right side of her face. She was alive but cold, and her pulse was slow. As Dale examined her, she moaned, and he contemplated leaving her there and getting paramedics to check her out in situ. But then the kitchen windows blew out, shattering glass over them. Dale and Keith tried to shelter the unconscious woman as best they could.

  “We’ve got to move her,” Keith said over the roar of the flames.

  Dale gathered Mrs. Wilson into his arms. She was tiny and no problem for him to carry. They retreated back down the side path, plant pots scattering in their wake. Paramedics rushed forward with a gurney and Dale laid her down gently.

  “She’s alive but very cold, and her pulse is thready. Be careful of glass. The windows blew out.”

  The paramedics nodded and wheeled her to the ambulance.

  Dale turned to go to Tank for his orders, but his way was barred by a young guy ducking the cordon and rushing toward the ambulance. “Get back, sir.” The man tried to push past him, but Dale blocked his path.

  “What’s happened? Is Mrs. Wilson all right?”

  Dale scowled at him, not happy at the rapid-fire questions. “Please stand back, sir,” he said firmly, trying to bar the man from getting any closer. He couldn’t help but notice the man had dark wavy hair, cheekbones to kill for, and big baby blue eyes.