The Fireman's Son

by Tara Taylor Quinn

  She just prayed that he wasn’t keeping a secret that would hurt him. Or someone else.

  Aside from the fact that he’d used them, a kid having a book of matches wasn’t that big of a deal. Elliott’s stubborn refusal to give up his source was more of a concern to her.

  Reese wasn’t leaving and she wasn’t going to just stand there all day with her cover-up on over her black one-piece suit. Reaching for a towel, she spread first one and then the other, side by side. One for her and one for Elliott—keeping up appearances with Reese there, as though her son would actually sit with her—when he came running up to tell her he was starved and ask what she’d brought for a snack.

  As though he’d plop down—right beside her—and stay there until he was full. She loved thinking that some day that might actually happen again.

  What she didn’t love was having Reese standing there, reminding her of the last time they’d been on a beach together. Not in her dream, but for real.

  They’d gone home for the weekend. Reese had picked her up at her UCLA dorm and driven them both south to a suburb of San Diego where they’d gone to high school. His mother had just remarried and moved to Texas with her new rancher husband. Her father had gone on a fishing trip with some of his buddies and they’d had her house to themselves.

  Reese had suggested going to the beach late one night and she’d loved it. Loved even more the way he’d made love to her that night. So tenderly, beneath the moonlight. And when the tide came in, he’d protected her from the waves. Telling her that he’d always be her shield...

  A little girl next to her screamed with glee, and she landed back on the current beach with a mental thud that made her head hurt. One thing was for certain. She wasn’t stripping off her cover-up in front of Reese.

  So she dropped down onto her towel still dressed. And then, when she realized that Reese was now towering over her, wished she hadn’t.

  Shading her eyes, she looked up at him. “You got a golf game to get to?”

  How did one dismiss one’s boss when one had to kiss up to keep a job one desperately needed?

  If she pretended hard enough, maybe she could convince herself that that was all there was left between her and Reese.

  But something Sara had said the day before—after Faye had thrown up her past all over the kind therapist—if Reese was fully over what had happened, if he no longer had feelings for Faye, he wouldn’t have cared that she came to work for him.

  Her credentials would have been all that mattered.

  Enough time had passed. They were no longer kids. They’d both been married. Moved on. Even Sara had expected that they’d had a conversation to put the past to rest and started anew.

  “I’ve missed it,” he said, and it took her a second of racking her brain to figure out what he’d missed.

  Their lovemaking on the beach?

  Being with her?

  No. His golf game.

  “I’d like to speak with you for a moment, if I may?”

  “You aren’t afraid someone will see us out here on the beach together and get the wrong idea?”

  She was being...bitchy. Cantankerous at best. She hated to hear that tone come out of her mouth.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, almost immediately. “Please, have a seat.”

  If she wasn’t going to get her downtime, then so be it. She owed Reese more than an afternoon of her time.

  She could possibly owe him a lifetime of Elliott’s.

  Not that she’d made up her mind yet, about pursuing that particular piece of information anytime soon.

  Sara thought she should, as soon as possible. Had strongly encouraged it for Elliott’s sake, but without telling Elliott until they knew results—and never, if he turned out to be Frank’s son after all.

  But to do that meant that she’d have to trust Reese to handle the information in a way that was best for Elliott.

  Any kind of friction would not be good for Elliott. And how could a man find out he possibly had a son without friction?

  Reese sat on Elliott’s towel. Faye felt like she might start crying again.

  It was just tension, she knew. A good cry, or a good night’s sleep, either one, would take care of the weepiness.

  The bone-deep pain might be more difficult to abolish. Parts of it, she’d been told, would be with her forever.

  When Reese kicked off his sandals, a huge wave of desire slammed into her. More than she’d ever felt in the past.

  Residual, she knew. Her psyche trying to get her back to her happy place.

  Somehow she had to get through to the damned thing that going back only made things worse.

  She was working on it. With Sara’s help. And Dr. Bloom Larson’s, too. Bloom, her personal counselor, was in private practice, but also knew Sara well.

  “He’s a good swimmer.” Reese was watching Elliott as he swam out the couple of feet he was allowed so he could ride his boogie board to shore.

  Faye had been watching for the brothers her son had met on the same beach the week before. Hadn’t seen them yet.

  There were other kids, though.

  So far, Elliott was holding himself apart from them. One kid had already approached him. She hadn’t been able to hear what the other boy said, but there’d been no missing the way Elliott had just shrugged and turned away.

  “Aren’t you going to take your cover off?” Reese asked next.

  Definitely not a professional question.

  “I’m just saying,” he went on, “you need to get lotion on or you’ll be paying for it tomorrow. I can’t imagine a sunburn chafing inside a uniform will make for good performance.”

  Had he read her mind about the boss part?

  She tried to ignore the fact that he’d remembered how easily she burned, clearly implying that they’d known each other in the past.

  They could not open that door.

  Period.

  And if she ended up deciding that she had to ask him to give her a DNA sample?

  She told the voice in her head to shut up.

  “I’m surprised you didn’t grease the kid down before you set him loose.”

  “I did. Before we left The Lemonade Stand. I usually do it at home before we come. He’s too wiggly for me once we’re near the water.” She could have told him that Elliott didn’t burn as easily as she did. Could have told him that he’d been blessed with his father’s skin. But she was absolutely not opening up that door.

  Neither Frank nor Reese burned as easily as she did.

  As she sat there, trying not to look at Reese, trying to focus solely on her son, she couldn’t help looking for resemblances between them, as she had from the second she’d seen them together.

  It was nothing new, this need of hers to find Reese in her son. And then, when the regrets became too overwhelming, to convince herself that she saw Frank in him. She’d been comparing pictures—Elliott and Reese, Elliott and Frank—since the day her husband had told her they hadn’t actually had sex that night in her dorm room.

  Reese had been sitting with her a good five minutes. He’d yet to tell her why he was on the beach with her.

  Or what he had to talk about.

  She wanted to push him.

  But was having a particularly weak day.

  Just sitting there with Reese, in whatever capacity, felt too damned good to not savor.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  HE COULD HAVE made his golf date.

  Should have made his golf date.

  Reese wasn’t happy with himself as he sat on the beach beside the woman he’d once thought was the love of his life.

  A boss wouldn’t sit in the sand with an employee.

  She’d been crying. A boss would make sure she was okay. At least
the kind of boss he aspired to be. The kind who did what he could and left as soon as he knew he wasn’t needed.

  His crew risked their lives every day they came to work. The level of trust and caring among fire people was extreme. Had to be.

  Walking to the beach with her, in the company of her sensitive, troubled kid who was eager to get in the water, had seemed like the most expedient way to check up on her.

  Once there, it had hardly been right for him to stand over her. Most particularly when he figured out that he could see down her cover-up and straight into the top of her suit. There’d been enough cleavage visible for him to fill in the blanks.

  Who was he kidding? He’d been able to fill those in from the first time he’d seen Faye naked.

  Going back to UCLA, in the backseat of his truck...

  Was going to serve no good at all.

  “You were crying.”

  “Just tired.”

  “You didn’t used to cry when you were tired.”

  She looked over at him, took off her cover and smeared lotion on her skin. He’d have thought the move a come-on except that he knew that every second she sat there without lotion was danger waiting to happen with her fair skin. Her cover-up was lacy enough that the sun’s rays could get through.

  “I’m a different woman now,” she said.

  He would have liked to accept her statement and move forward. To get beyond the past. But the body she’d just revealed...his memory had been spot-on.

  He knew it as well as he knew his own.

  Better, in some ways.

  He’d paid a whole lot more attention to hers.

  That birthmark on her thigh—faint and small—he’d kissed it more times than he could count. Every time they made love.

  It had been a physical signature of his love. From him to her.

  Or something equally ridiculous.

  As ridiculous as him thinking that she was the love of his life. That they’d be together forever.

  “I’ve been doing some reading.”

  Yeah, this conversation should probably have taken place in his office, but there were windows out to the station there.

  She was letting his reading comment lie. He hadn’t used to be much of a reader.

  “About domestic violence.”

  He felt her stiffen, so he hastened to assure her, “I’m not trying to impinge on your privacy or personal life.”

  Her head turned as Elliott ran down the beach a couple of steps.

  “I just want you to know that I’m more aware now than I was during our first interview.”

  She turned back to him. Either because Elliott had run back or because he’d shocked her, he didn’t know. Wasn’t about to ask.

  She continued to watch her son.

  “I’m sorry for the hard line I took that first day.” He didn’t have a problem apologizing when he was wrong.

  Giving an inch to Faye felt like ten miles—in spite of the fact that she didn’t seem interested in anything from him at all.

  “I’m not going to pry. I just want you to know that if you ever need anything, if you ever have a...situation...we...the crew and I...have your back.”

  Her chin trembled.

  Though she was facing the ocean, he could see tears in her eyes.

  “Thank you,” she said, sounding almost normal.

  He nodded.

  His job there was done.

  Picking up his shoes, he stood, took one last look at her, told her to have a good rest of the day and headed back up the beach.

  * * *

  THERE WAS ANOTHER gasoline fire. It happened Sunday night. Faye wasn’t on call, but she heard about it when she got in Monday morning.

  It had been set on private property near an animal pen not far off the beach. Two chickens were dead. Reese had been up a good part of the night processing the scene and was planning to spend his day off in LA again.

  Faye hated that the fires were happening at all. That they seemed to be escalating. But she was relieved to know that Reese would be out of town for the day.

  Sara had met her at the door of The Lemonade Stand when she’d dropped Elliott off that morning, wanting to know what she’d decided. The woman wasn’t going to force the issue of the DNA test, but she’d made her opinion clear.

  Faye told her she wanted to wait until after she met with Bloom later in the week. And so there she was, caught between two choices. Not too late to go back. Or she could go forward.

  She played out different what-ifs. Ran through different scenarios.

  And knew two things.

  First, there were no easy or right answers.

  Second, there would be consequences either way. Good and bad.

  The question was, then, which way was best for Elliott?

  Some days it was keeping Frank as his father because it was a world he knew. He’d be secure with his mother and he was already getting counseling for the rest.

  Some days it was having Reese as a father. Elliott could rid himself of the feeling that he was in some way damaged because he was Frank’s son. He and Reese would bond. He’d have a positive male role model in his biological father. But it would change his whole world once again. And even good change was a stressor.

  Though kids generally acclimated quickly to good change, Sara had assured her.

  But the kicker...he could be made to live with Reese half of the time. If Reese pushed for shared parenting.

  The Reese she’d known probably would do that. He’d wanted a family even more than he’d wanted to fight fires.

  She’d heard about his wife being killed in a car accident. Knew that she’d been pregnant with their unborn child. Everyone knew about it because Tabitha was from Santa Raquel and he was in the first responder business.

  He’d lost his unborn child. And Faye had robbed him of his firstborn.

  Potentially.

  If he was the father.

  Around and around she went over the next few days, until she thought she might go crazy.

  She’d screwed up so badly in the past. How could she trust herself to get this one right?

  Some moments, she wanted to find out the truth without Reese being any the wiser.

  “I thought about grabbing a soda can or something he drinks from out of the station house,” she confessed in her weekly counseling session with Bloom Larson. Married just a year to Detective Sam Larson of the Santa Raquel Police Department, Bloom had been a victim of her psychology professor husband and Sam had been the detective who’d put her husband away.

  Everyone in town knew the gist of what had happened. Bloom had told Faye more of the details because she’d struggled, as Faye was, with her ability to trust her own judgment. If anyone was going to understand, it would be Bloom. She’d waited until Thursday, her usual day off, for her therapy meeting with Bloom. She didn’t want any special favors, like someone covering for her. Didn’t need favors or questions about why she needed them. She would pull her weight and hold her tiny family together at the same time.

  Bloom smiled at her. “How many times have you thought about stealing his DNA?” she asked.

  When she put it like that...

  “I’ve lost count,” Faye said, grinning. It was a really dumb idea.

  But... “In some ways, it seems like the best choice,” she continued. In a blue cotton sundress and sandals, she sat across from the professionally suited psychiatrist in her office. She loved it there. Everything was colorful. Bold. Particularly the paintings all over the walls. “If Reese isn’t Elliott’s father, then we know, no one is hurt and everything goes along status quo.”

  It was the only choice she liked. Stealing Reese’s DNA for the test.

  “And if he is Elliott’s father,
how do you explain waiting eight years to tell him? How do you explain passing his son off as another man’s child? Or do you just admit to stealing his DNA?”

  Like she would have stolen his son?

  She heard what Bloom wasn’t telling her.

  This wasn’t necessarily a matter of legalities or of right and wrong. It was a matter of integrity.

  If Reese turned out to be Elliott’s father, the two of them were going to need to be able to work together for their son’s sake. To trust each other.

  Her only hope of Reese ever trusting her, or even halfway respecting her, would be to be up-front with him from the beginning.

  “It would mean telling him everything,” she said aloud. About the phone call she’d had about Susan. Her jealousy. Her drunkenness. And what came after.

  “It would also mean being able to ask him anything,” Bloom said. Different from Sara in that she was more analytical, more...scholarly...in her delivery, Bloom was also more to the point. Maybe because she was hardened by abuse, too. She’d traveled the road. Had scars that would never go away.

  As only a woman who’d been there would truly know.

  “Ask him what?” Faye was certain her therapist expected her to connect dots that she wasn’t seeing.

  “What would you ask him if you could ask him anything?”

  “Whether or not he went out with Susan.”

  Bloom nodded, and things started to fall into place for Faye. The picture was scary. So much was at stake.

  But...

  “If I knew that he really did have a date...if he really had turned me down because he was being unfaithful...”

  It wouldn’t change everything.

  But it would change a lot.

  “Maybe you’ll find some peace within yourself in the midst of all of this.” Bloom’s tone was almost as soft as Sara’s. Yet her words had the impact of an oncoming train.

  “If he was really two-timing me, then my choices...it wouldn’t just be about me being jealous, but about acting from a truly broken heart.”

  “You told me, the first time you mentioned Reese, that when you talked to him after you’d received that phone call, you sensed something different about him. Yet I’ve never heard you give any real credence to the fact that you might not have been the only one at fault in this whole thing. Frank aside, of course. I’m speaking purely about you and Reese now. You act as though he’s the only wronged party. That you’re the only one who did something wrong.”