by Cora Seton
What it had done evidently, was give him just the ammunition to apply for the job and get it. And now he was playing dirty by tattling on her to the Chief who obviously already thought a lot of him. A lot more than her uncle thought of her evidently.
Then I have to question both your judgment and decisions, Sunny Jane. Pressure built inside her chest again to fuel her tears. Her uncle opened his mouth, and her father, his brother, had fallen out. I’m disappointed that you can’t see my side of this, Sunny Jane. I really hoped we could have a relationship, but I guess I was wrong.
The words James Gleason had spoken to her during their first and only visit after he left.
What side was there to see in her father’s decision to divorce her mother? The facts were black and white. She had only been fifteen, but she understood perfectly. He’d gotten the woman he’d been sleeping with on the side pregnant, so he was marrying her.
At least the arguing stopped after he left. That peace, and her mother’s seeming unconcern about his leaving, was the only thing that had gotten Sunny through those rough times. Well, that and hearing that he died two years later while having sex with the tramp. Finding out he left her pregnant when he died was the sweet icing on their karma-flavored cake. Both of them got their just desserts.
“Oh, God…” Sunny groaned, rocking on the toilet, clutching her stomach tighter to fight through the pain there that had to come from an ulcer.
This damn place, this job was killing her. She needed to talk to Foxy the next time she went into the ER….maybe get checked out. When the pain subsided, Sunny raised up and her hand shook as she jerked a fistful of toilet paper from the roll to blow her nose loudly.
She couldn’t fall apart—Billy needed her to be strong. And if Silas saw her like this, it certainly wasn’t going to help her cause. She pulled off more toilet paper to sop up the tears on her face then took a few deep breaths.
“Better now?” a deep voice asked from above, and Sunny’s eyes flew to the top of the stall wall to find Austin McBride leaning over the stall watching her, his chin propped on his hands, his gray eyes worried. Well, Sunny wasn’t falling for that act again.
“You’re in the women’s bathroom, asshole,” she grated, as she pushed up to her feet and fumbled with the door latch, as that pressure in her chest built again.
“Call the bathroom police,” he replied gruffly, and she heard his fire boots hit the tile floor as she pushed her door open.
He exited the next stall to block her path, and stare down at her. “I didn’t mean to get you in trouble, Sunny. That wasn’t my intention when I went into Silas’s office.”
Sunny snorted, but no sound came from her plugged up nose. “And that’s more of your bullshit. You went into his office to apply for his job, and you tattled on me to further your chances.” Shoving her shoulder into his, she brushed past him to walk to the sink. She flipped on the cold tap then met his eyes in the mirror. “I’m onto your game now, Chief.”
Austin ground his jaw for a second. “I don’t want to be Chief. I wanted to be your second-in-command so I could help you, but you’re making that impossible, Sunshine.”
Her eyes narrowed, and she thinned her lips as she pointed at him in the mirror. “Don’t ever fucking call me that again,” she growled. “I’m not your Sunshine—I’m Captain Gleason.”
“You’re right—you definitely aren’t Sunshine. You’re a bitter woman who needs to get beyond her past, or you’ll have a pretty dark future. That pain in your gut isn’t going to go away, until you do that.”
“The pain in my stomach will go away about the same time the pain in my ass leaves. Go back to that ranch where you belong. I don’t need or want you here, McBride.”
“You’ve made that obvious, but I’m not going anywhere. You’re stuck with me, and unless you decide to let me help, you might be the one leaving.”
About to splash her face with the cool water in the sink, Sunny stopped, and it flowed through her fingers to soak her pants as she spun to face him. “Don’t threaten me, McBride.” But his words worked through her brain, and caused her lower lip to tremble. Sunny bit it to hold onto the new tears that burned her eyes.
“I’m not threatening you at all, Sunny. I’m stating a fact.” His voice was so calm, his face so sincere, Sunny wanted to slug him. “The only threat to you is your bad attitude, which is caused by your own insecurity. I can help you, if you’ll let me.”
“Bullshit! You want—” she started, but with a growl, Austin stepped forward to grab her chin in his fingers as he pushed his body into hers to trap her against the wall.
“The only thing I want is to help you,” he said, swallowing twice. His eyes bored into hers and Sunny was overwhelmed by his heat. “But for me to do that you’ll have to give up an ounce of that damned control of yours. We could be a helluva team, make this station a lot better than it is, if you’d do that.”
His eyes mesmerized her, but Sunny fought their pull. “Why in the hell would you want to help me if you applied for Silas’s job too?” The break in her voice pissed her off.
“Because I know you need it more than I do, and I want you to have it.” Austin’s eyes fell to her mouth, and Sunny tensed, but he just ran his thumb over her lower lip, before looking into her eyes again. “But you’ll never get it, even if I’m not here, if you stay on the path you’re on. The board will either give it to me, or advertise it outside of the department and you know it.”
“I’m a woman, they’re good ole boys, so you’re probably right,” Sunny said, her heart dropping a notch in her chest.
Even though she’d answered the questions thrown at her, the determined way the board members grilled her at her interview told her they didn’t have an ounce of confidence in her. She didn’t walk out thinking she’d won them over at all. Since she was their only choice though, Sunny thought she had it in the bag. But then Austin showed up, giving them a choice.
A male choice. Of course she’d feel threatened now.
“It has nothing to do with you being a woman, baby. It has everything to do with the way you handle things…situations. Your current mode-of-operation isn’t effective leadership. The morale at the station is awful, and the turnover is high, right?”
Anger singed the hair at the back of her neck. “Yes, but I have no control over people not wanting to volunteer or stay when they do.”
“You’re wrong. You are in control of everything. If you do things a little differently, you’d have so many volunteers you’d have your pick. We need to hold fire trainings and classes, have a junior firefighter program and visit the schools. Do community service work to meet new people who might volunteer. But the main thing you need to do is fix what’s wrong in here,” he said tapping her temple.
Emotion shot up to her throat and knotted there. “I don’t know how,” she said, her lower lip twitching again.
Austin put his finger on her bottom lip. “Let me help you—everyone needs help now and again. Get some counseling. Not a soul but us needs to know except you and me, and I’ll help you get things right here. I’m not going anywhere.”
Sunny’s eyes fell to Austin’s mouth, as she digested his words. I’m not going anywhere. If that was true it would be the first time in her life a man didn’t desert her. Because I know you need it more than I do, and I want you to have it. God, she really, really did.
Was he telling the truth? Should she trust him?
Evidently her mouth decided before her brain did. “Okay,” she said.
The corners of Austin’s mouth curved up as his head dipped toward hers. Sunny’s breath caught in her throat as his hot mouth sizzled over hers in a quick pass. Need buzzed through her, she put her hand on his chest to slide it toward his neck, but he pulled back.
His grin popped that dimple in his cheek. “This is going to be the best damned firehouse in Texas, baby.” His eyes softened, and he grabbed her shoulders. “I’m so damned proud of you, and I can’t wait to be second po
tato to the best Fire Chief in Texas.”
Tears blurred his handsome face from her view, and she reached up to swipe them away with her forearm. “Even a crazy female Fire Chief?” she asked with a laugh.
His fingers tightened on her shoulders. “Crazy smart, crazy beautiful and crazy talented. I’ll take your kind of crazy any day, Sunshine.”
A shiver worked through Sunny, as a wobbly smile curved her lips. This man pissed her off more than any she’d ever been around in her life, but then he turned around and in the next breath made her feel so damned good about herself.
“Thank you,” Sunny said, her voice shaky.
That left eye dipped down and he grinned wider. “Don’t thank me yet. We have a lot of work to do.”
“I’m ready.” And Sunny was ready.
Ready to forget the past, and put some light in her future. The more Austin McBride’s frank words settled into her brain, the more she realized this was exactly what she needed to hear. That Austin had enough balls to speak them to her earned him her respect.
The fact that he was still around, was going to be around and was willing to help her, even after the hell she’d put him through for the last two weeks, spoke volumes too.
I’m not going anywhere.
God, she hoped he meant that, she thought, as Austin grabbed the door handle, gave her another wink, and walked out the door.
Chapter Fifteen
‡
“I’m really sorry, Mom. I should have called you first and told you about the new job. Since it’s new, I can’t come home for a visit right now. I will soon though, I promise…” Austin’s eyes darted to Sunny who was sitting at the table of the station studying for her Fire Chief’s exam. Austin should be in there helping her, but his mom had called, and he knew what about. He had to take it or he knew there would be hell to pay—the family grapevine was still working. Maybe mentioning Sunny would buy him some time, and cheer her up.
His mother had been after him for five years to ‘find a nice girl and settle down’. Well, he hadn’t found a nice girl, he’d found a hot mess of a woman who turned him inside out most of the time, but she was working on becoming that girl.
But they weren’t there quite yet—they still had a lot to work out.
Austin shifted his position on the sofa and lowered his voice. “There’s someone I really want you to meet, but we can’t get away right now.”
His mother’s gasp told Austin, his ploy worked. “Have you met someone?” she asked, her tone brimming with excitement.
“I have, and I think you’ll like her,” he replied, glancing at Sunny again to make sure she wasn’t listening. He had adopted a hardcore approach to dealing with her, teaching her, and it seemed to be working like a charm. The harder he was on her when she got cranky with the guys, the softer, more approachable she became. Sunny had become a much better teammate and leader, but she still had a ways to go. She was putting in the effort to change though, and become the Chief he was challenging her to be. Because she knew she had competition for the job now, and Austin never let her forget that.
“I can’t wait to meet her, but we miss you…your brothers and sister miss you. Your father is worried about you. It’s been six months,” Lena McBride said, her voice stinging with reprimand. His mother sniffled, and Austin flinched. He pictured her wiping her nose, and smiling which made the knot in his chest unravel.
He missed them too. Even when he was on the rodeo circuit, six months was the longest he’d spent away without a visit. Guilt swirled in his gut, but Austin knew he had things to accomplish before he could make the trip home.
“It might be a good while longer, Mom, but I promise, I’m fine.”
When Austin told his brother that he’d quit the ranch to become a firefighter again, he knew it wouldn’t be long before his mother found out. What he hadn’t expected was her to be upset. Three-quarters of his family was in the business, his father included. But he was three hours away from home, and he guessed that might be the difference in her mind. Her crying when he answered her call had about ripped his heart out.
“I promise I’ll be careful too, and from now on, I’ll call you every week.” He’d put a reminder into the calendar on his cell phone so he didn’t forget.
“You better, or I’ll send the McBride tribe down there to drag you home,” she threatened, but punctuated it with a watery laugh.
Glancing at Sunny, he saw her eyebrows pucker into a confused frown. “I’ve got to go now, Mom. I love you…tell everyone I said the same.”
“Love you too, badass,” she replied, and it was Austin’s turn to smile, as warmth flooded through him when he hung up.
Her childhood nickname for him was really appropriate. As a child, Austin had been a badass, and into more trouble than she could get him out of. As a middle child, he had plenty of time to find mischief and he kept her damned busy. It was a good damned thing for him that his father hadn’t found out about most of it, or Austin wouldn’t have had an ass left.
He’d have just been known as bad.
Pushing up from the sofa, he walked into the kitchen. That was probably why he understood exactly how to deal with Sunny Gleason. To make her see the err in her ways. Sunny was just late blooming with her badass, bratty ways. And she hadn’t had the benefit of having a mother and father to show her the light sooner.
“You still reading that chapter?” he asked gruffly, as he sat down at the table.
Her frown transferred to him, and her lips turned down to emphasize it. “If you wouldn’t have been on the phone, I could’ve asked you what the proper income ratio to employee expenses is, and I’d be done with it.”
“Talking to my mother takes precedent over babysitting you through what you should already know.”
She slammed her pen down on her pad, and lifted an eyebrow. “Okay, smartass, what’s the proper pediatric dosage for epinephrine on a forty-pound kid in anaphylactic shock?”
Hell, he didn’t freaking know that off of the top of his head. He sat up in the chair, and cleared his throat. “The ratio shouldn’t be higher than 70%.”
Sunny nodded and picked up her pen to make notes on the pad. Austin waited until she was done, thinking she might spout off the answer to her own question to him, but she went back to reading.
“Alright, smartass—how much epi do you give a forty-pound kid in anaphylaxis?”
Sunny looked back up at him and smiled as she pushed the black binder across the table to him. “I’m not babysitting you through what you should already know, Chief. It’s all right here in this paramedic protocol book you should have memorized.”
God, he loved sparring with her, because Sunny Gleason always gave as good as she got. He grinned, and leaned over to shut her study guide. “Yes, I should—but not now. I have a meeting at the park with a kid who should already know how to throw a baseball but his mother is too much of a chicken to teach him. He says she’s afraid he’ll hit her in the shin with it.”
Her eyebrows knotted again, and her blue eyes shot fire as they met his. “I did not say that—he never asked me to teach him!”
“It’s okay, Sunshine. Baseball isn’t a girl’s sport anyway,” Austin teased, and her face got redder, her frown more pronounced.
His grin spread as her chair scraped back and she shot up to her feet. “I’ll show you how much a girl knows about baseball. I was the best third-baseman on my high school softball team, MV—freaking—P my senior year, as a matter of fact,” Sunny growled, then pointed her finger at him. “I can teach my son and you how to throw a ball.”
“Is that so?” Austin asked, crossing his arms over his chest, loving the fire in her eyes, the passion in her voice. That’s the passion that she needed for this job, but he hadn’t seen it. Maybe with more time. “Well, I’d sure love to learn about softball, since the only thing I’ve ever played, even in college was hardball on the scholarship I earned playing in high school.” Sunny’s face fell and he wondered why, then she
told him.
“You have a degree?” she asked, and that insecurity was back in her voice.
“Yeah, in agriculture,” he replied with a grin. “Doesn’t come in handy very often fighting fires, except field fires, which is how I knew we needed to flood those first few rows of that marijuana field and that ag sprinklers were an option to help control it. Only problem was we didn’t have the water to do it.”
“And we were too high to care,” Sunny added, with a laugh, her shoulders relaxing.
“Yeah, and that,” he agreed. “Let’s go teach Billy how to throw a ball. Between us, I think we can keep him from throwing like a girl.”
Sunny snorted. “What the hell is wrong with throwing like a girl?” she asked indignantly.
“Not a damned thing,” Austin answered, another idea forming in his mind too, now that he had this new bit of information about the aspiring Chief.
*
“You’re swinging like a girl, Mom!” Billy heckled from the dugout. Sunny stepped out of the batter’s box to glare at him, and watched as Austin slapped him on the back and they laughed, Billy so hard he was doubled over with it.
Resting her bat on her side, Sunny took a moment to tighten her ponytail and to regain her focus on the pitcher. Braden, who Austin had chosen as his first pick because he knew he was a former baseball player too. Well, baseball wasn’t the game they were playing. It was softball, and she was about to show them how it was played. Like a girl, she thought, with determination as she stepped back in the box and tapped her bat on the plate.
“C’mon, Cap—reach for the fence!” Jordan yelled from her dugout as Sunny crouched, balanced her weight and cocked her bat into position.
Braden bent, studied the catcher for a second then nodded, before he reared back. Sunny tensed and watched his hand, caught the ball coming out of it and knew it was an outside pitch. She relaxed, huffed a breath and stood while the umpire called a ball. After throwing a smug grin at a frowning Coach Austin, who, in a surprise move, had chosen just to serve as his team’s designated hitter. Sunny was playing second, because it had been a long damned time since she’d played, and the guys hit harder than girls. She wasn’t about to admit that though.