Amongst The Flames: A Contemporary Christian Romance (Embers and Ashes Book 1)

by T. K. Chapin

“You can be real with me, Taylor. I know sitting in that big house of yours all by your lonesome has to be hard without your family being around.”

  I nodded and sighed. “It has been hard, but I’m managing. I’m excited to see them here in a few days.”

  He nodded. “Keep praying. What brings you by the fire station?”

  “I talked to the Chief yesterday and he said I could come help with the tour for the kids.”

  Micah nodded. “That should be good for you. Be sure not to hurt yourself.”

  “I’m not stupid, I’m just injured…” Micah leaned back in his chair as I continued, “But I’ll be sure to be careful. I don’t want to be out of work any longer than I have to be.”

  “Who’s the fresh meat?” an unfamiliar voice from behind me said. I turned and looked to see it was someone I didn’t know and he was with Kane.

  “Who’s this?” I asked, looking over at Micah and then to Kane.

  “Taylor’s the farthest thing from fresh meat, kid,” Kane scolded the guy. “Brian Gomer, meet Cole Taylor. Cole Taylor, meet the Rookie.”

  I extended a hand to shake his. His grip was weak and skin was clammy. Instantly, I didn’t like this kid.

  “I heard about you Taylor…” Brian said. “You got hurt rescuing a little girl. The way people talk about you around here, you’re like a legend. I didn’t know you still worked here. And what’s up with that kung-fu grip of yours?”

  I smiled politely. “That’s called a real handshake. But yeah, I’m still here… just out on medical leave for a minute.”

  Kane dug his fingers into the rookie’s shoulder, causing him to squirm a bit as he said into his ear, “I told you Taylor was out on medical leave. Don’t disrespect him! That makes me look bad!”

  “I didn’t mean any disrespect, Sir,” Brian pleaded with a frightened tone.

  Raising my hand up as I shook my head, I said, “You’re good. Don’t worry about it. And for crying out loud, Kane, let go of the poor kid’s shoulder!”

  Kane released his grip and said, “Aside from being dumb, this Rookie here made a dish the other night that blew Micah’s Alfredo away. Even Sherwood was impressed!”

  One of my eyebrows went up. “Oh really? What’d Vance say about the dish?”

  “Vance was out of town doing some food competition with those wiener sausages from poker night.”

  “I see… What’s the dish?” I asked.

  “Burgers, but rookie calls them Widow Makers. It’s two patties, bacon and pepper jack cheese,” Kane said. Turning to Brian he continued, “And what do you do with the meat Gomer?”

  “I marinate it in a special sauce overnight,” he replied looking at me. “It’s pretty delicious. It won first place in the Eastern Washington State Fair a couple summers ago.”

  “Sounds good, you and Vance might wanna host the fireman ball this year. You guys can cater it,” I said smiling.

  Brian didn’t get the joke, he only nodded.

  Kane caught it though and slapped the kid on the shoulder. “It’s a joke, Gomer!”

  “Seriously though, I look forward to trying one of them out,” I said.

  Kane said, “I’m about to take the rookie out back to have him practice his ventilation cuts.”

  “Nice,” I replied. Looking at Brian, I said, “Let the tool do the work.”

  “Okay,” he replied with a quick nod.

  “How are you and the bakery gal doing?” I asked.

  Kane nodded, “Good.” I wanted to ask about his mom, but I knew he wouldn’t like the public forum discussion about it and I wasn’t sure who was aware outside of Micah and me. “Let’s go, Rookie,” Kane said with a nod. They ventured over to the back door and left. I turned back to Micah at the table.

  “He’s a good kid,” Micah said.

  I took a sip of my coffee and asked, “Do you know him personally or something?”

  “No, but Sherwood does. The kid is the son of one of the firefighters that retired from here.”

  “Who? I don’t remember anyone by the last name of Gomer.”

  “It was before you got here. It was before I even got here.”

  “I see…” I replied scoffing.

  “Hey, I know you aren’t a fan of Sherwood these days, but you know he’s a good guy. You said so yourself at your house.”

  I nodded. “I know, just not a fan of his disdain he seems to have towards me. He came by yesterday and didn’t mention the rookie to me.”

  Micah grinned. “He’s gotten under your skin, Taylor, hasn’t he?”

  Shaking my head. “Nah… I just don’t like him.”

  “Like who?” Tom asked as he came into the dining hall.

  “Mullen, over at station 12,” I replied quickly with a lie. Chandler Mullen and Tom had an on-going feud between the two of them and I knew he wouldn’t be angry if I said that.

  “He’s a jerk, but you shouldn’t be talking poorly of other firefighters,” Tom said as he dropped a packet of pamphlets in front of me on the table. “You can hand these out to the kids. Remember, don’t hurt yourself.”

  “Alright,” I replied as I glanced down at them. Hearing ‘don’t hurt yourself’ was getting old real quick. It felt like people were treating me like I got a brain injury or the accident was some sort of fault of my own.

  “Freeman, I want you to go ahead and tag along with gimpy today so you can do all the stuff he can’t.”

  I met the group of children out at the bay doors at eight o’clock. I brought them inside and showed them the engine truck first. As I showed them the controls for the water, a little boy’s hand shot straight up.

  “If the truck has water, why do you guys use fire hydrants?” he asked.

  “Good question. This truck holds five hundred gallons of water. Which seems like a lot, but it only lasts about two and a half minutes. So we always need to hook up to a fire hydrant when we are fighting fires.”

  Coming around the truck, we came to the other side where Micah was. “This is Micah Freeman. He’s one of the firefighters here and he’s going to show you how quick we get into our uniforms. We call them turnouts.”

  “Hello kids, are you guys enjoying your field trip?” Micah asked.

  They all nodded and a few shouted out ‘yes.’

  “Good. When we get a call to go fight a fire, we go down that pole over there when we’re upstairs,” he said, pointing over in the corner where the fire pole was located. “It’s all about speed when that call comes in. A few moments of wasted time could mean someone’s life.”

  “How fast can you get your stuff on?” a girl asked.

  “Our turnouts take most of us about fifty to sixty seconds to get into. I’ll show you.” Micah stepped into his boots, pulled up his pants and suspenders, slid the Nomax hood over his head that protected his neck and head and then put on his jacket, gloves and helmet.

  “That looks easy,” a boy said.

  Micah smiled, taking his helmet off. “Do you want your teacher to try?” he asked. He looked over at the woman who stood near the back of the group of children. She shook her head, but the kids cheered her on to give it a try.

  Micah took everything back off and she stepped up for the challenge. It took her quite a bit more time to get suited up. The kids were all in awe at the difference between their teacher and Micah’s time in suiting up in the turnouts.

  “A few extra minutes like that could mean someone’s house burns all the way down or someone loses their life,” I added.

  Micah showed our oxygen tanks next. “These are our SCBA’s, which stands for Self-Contained Breathing Apparatus. We have about thirty minutes of oxygen in one tank.”

  As we were about to continue the tour, a call came in for a fire and all the guys came sliding down the pole. My heart raced as I could feel every muscle in my body want to leap into action.

  “What’s going on?” I asked Tom as he suited up.

  “Structural fire down on Sprague.” He climbed into the front pa
ssenger seat and woke the laptop out of sleep as everyone else loaded up. As the engine and ladder trucks pulled out of the bay and the sirens came on, I felt like I was being left behind. I walked out to the edge of the bay doors and watched as the lights and trucks vanished around the corner.

  “What now?” the teacher asked from behind me with all the kids standing around her.

  I had forgotten about the tour for a moment. “Let’s talk about some fire safety in your homes while we wait for them to return. Who here has a fire exit plan at their house?”

  A few of the kids’ hands went up.

  “Good. Where do you guys meet?” I pointed to one girl that had her hand raised.

  “The mailbox, out at the end of the driveway,” she said confidently.

  “That’s popular. Does anyone have a different place?”

  A little boy raised his hand. “Mrs. Kingston, the neighbor next door.”

  “Good. And for those of you who do not have a fire exit plan, be sure to tell your mommys and daddys tonight you need one, and tell them the fireman said so.” I went over and grabbed the pamphlets from the table. Each one of the children on the tour got a pamphlet on fire safety in the home.

  By the time the guys got back to the fire station and the kids left to go back to school, it was already lunch time. Sitting down to the table with all the guys in the dining hall, it felt like old times. I bit into my sandwich as Kane began talking about the fire.

  “I can’t believe they waited to call until the kitchen was already in flames and it was progressing into the living room.”

  Micah said, “A lot of people don’t understand a minute or two is a long time for a fire to grow out of control.”

  “I guess, but dang…” Kane replied, shaking his head.

  “I like how you hosed that car, Alderman,” Brian said to Rick right before he took a drink of his soda.

  “You want to park your Mercedes in front of a fire hydrant? You will get hosed!” Rick laughed. Everyone laughed and nodded in agreement.

  The strangest feeling in the world came over me right in that moment. I felt a distance between myself and my comrades at the station. I was out of place and uncomfortable with my sling and my kid tour duties. Shortly after lunch, I said my goodbyes and headed home.

  CHAPTER 8

  Walking up the sidewalk to Tom’s house that evening, I saw a new lawn gnome in the garden out in front of the house next to a rose bush. My mother-in-law Cindy was obsessed with her gardens. She had the one up front and then a larger one out in the back. The one in the backyard had some of the juiciest tomatoes. Every year when they were ripe, she’d bring Megan and me a basket full.

  “Taylor,” Tom said, answering the door.

  Stepping in, I gave him a nod as I walked through the doorway. Hearing Cindy in the kitchen just beyond the dining room, I asked, “What cha cooking? It smells amazing.”

  She peeked in from the kitchen and smiled as she said, “Lasagna.”

  “Yummy,” I replied as I took a seat in the living room with Tom. He sat in his old worn out green recliner he has had for as long as I’ve known him. I took a seat on the couch that was adjacent to his chair. He picked his television remote up off the end table next to his chair and turned off the TV. I caught a glimpse of the television before he did. It was a hunting show.

  “You can go ahead and watch that. I don’t mind,” I said.

  He shook his head, “No, that’s okay. We need to talk anyways.”

  I immediately shifted in my seat at his words. I didn’t want to talk about anything, but judging by the strain in his words, he didn’t want to either. “Talk about what?” I asked.

  He sighed. “Megan. Now I know that you two have had some struggles lately, but God designed marriage forever. Not for ‘as long as it suits me.’ ”

  “What are you talking about? Megan and I are great. I don’t know where you’re getting your information from, but she’s just visiting her sister Amanda for a couple weeks. She’ll be back shortly. Amanda is the one with the issues.”

  Tom sat back in his recliner and rubbed his chin. “You don’t know…” he said with a scoff.

  Cindy came into the living room and placed her hand on Tom’s shoulder. “Knock it off, Tom.” Cindy looked over at me, “She said she told you, Cole… she must have lied to us.”

  “Told me what?” I asked, standing up. I went red in embarrassment as I already knew my gut feeling was right about this being more than a vacation. It wasn’t just to go visit Amanda. Tom and Cindy remained speechless with blank looks. I shook my head and made a dash for the door. Tom chased after me and pushed the front door closed as I tried to open it. I looked him dead in the eyes.

  “Cole, come sit down…” he insisted.

  “I need to call my wife and figure out what you two are talking about since you two don’t want to say anything.”

  Cindy came over to us. “Cole, she left you.”

  I looked down and away as I tried to process the sentence.

  “I’m sorry you had to find out this way. It wasn’t our intention,” Cindy said, placing her hand on my shoulder.

  “Of course it wasn’t…” I replied, looking up at her and then over to Tom. “You just randomly invited me over for dinner and then sprung the news on me… all by some kind of accident, right? Oh wait, you thought she already told me.” I grabbed for the door again, but Tom pushed it shut forcefully. It took everything in me not to shove him backwards and cold cock him in the face.

  “Knock it off, you little punk! We brought you over to see how you were handling things. We care about you.”

  Tom care? He was lying. “Save the story time for your grandkids, they’ll actually believe what you say.” I grabbed for the door again. This time he didn’t stop me.

  As I stepped out the doorway, I felt a strange feeling inside of me. Like I wasn’t supposed to leave. Glancing back at Cindy, I saw her eyes welling with tears in each one of them. I couldn’t just leave, even if Tom was a jerk. Tom being mean wasn’t anything new to me.

  “Okay, I’ll stay,” I said coming back inside.

  Tom said nothing.

  “Thank you,” Cindy said. “Just ignore Tom’s bitterness. He’s jealous of your youth you know.”

  “Hardly,” Tom added.

  I laughed. “I’m twenty-eight, not really young anymore.”

  Cindy laughed. “I’d kill to be twenty-eight again! Anyway, take a seat at the dining room table; it’s time to eat.”

  As Tom and I took our seats in the dining room, Cindy came into the dining room and poured us both glasses of water. Tom asked, “Do you know why Megan would leave?”

  Hating the conversation before it had really even began, I said sharply, “No. You’re the one that seems to know everything… why don’t you tell me?”

  “She didn’t really say much about it. Just that she needed a break. I know you hang out with the guys at the station a whole lot in your free time. Maybe not now, but before you were on bed rest, you’d be out constantly with the guys in your free time. You think that could be getting at her?”

  Shaking my head, I said, “I hang out with my friends, yeah, so what? I’ve been going bored out of my mind just lying in bed and that’s why I came into work today for the tour! You know that, Tom! And where is Megan now? While I’m home on bed rest? She’s in Seattle? That logic you’re trying to spin is utterly stupid!” I could feel my anger getting away from me, so I paused and took a drink of my water.

  I couldn’t help myself from continuing to talk about Megan. “Megan wants me to have friends anyways and do things without her. She’s even told me that before. I think she just doesn’t like worrying about me while I’m at work. She said she spent her whole childhood worried about you.”

  Tom looked up at Cindy as she set down his plate of food, “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome, babe,” she replied as she came around to me and set my plate of food down.

  “Thanks,” I sai
d as I picked up my fork. Looking back over at Tom, I said, “It doesn’t help matters that you hate me.”

  “She doesn’t care. If anything, I think that helped her want to marry you more so in the beginning. She was just rebelling against her father!”

  “She wasn’t that defiant, Tom. Jeez,” Cindy added.

  After finishing a few bites and sharing a silence, I asked, “When was Megan supposed to tell me?”

  “She was supposed to tell you the day after she arrived in Seattle.”

  Shaking my head, I thought about Megan. She hadn’t let me know at all what was going on. She just took our children and left across the state with the plan to stay away from me… How ridiculous and immature of her. “I don’t get why she couldn’t just talk to me when she was here…”

  “I don’t know,” Tom said with a shrug.

  “She was scared,” Cindy added. “Telling your husband that you need time apart isn’t exactly easy.”

  “Well, it’d be easy to address the actual issues at hand if she was here. Not run away from them.”

  “Well, that’s not how it is. You two need to figure it out and fix it. Marriage is forever, Cole! Again, I say it’s not at the whim of how you are feeling in the moment. It’s a commitment to God!” He slammed his fist against the table.

  It was difficult to swallow the bite of food that was in my mouth at the moment those words rolled off Tom’s mouth. This man, who was nothing but an arrogant jerk to me since I married his daughter, was trying to tell me about God? “You haven’t been to church in over a year Tom, don’t lecture me about God!” I retorted.

  Seeing his eyes gloss over with anger, I smiled a little inside. I got to him with that comment. Finally, I got to him! He cleared his throat and took a deep breath. “My lack of church attendance doesn’t change God or what he instructs us to do in the Bible.”

  “Like how he says not to forsake the assembly?” I took another jab, edging his anger on purposefully.

  “Look here, you little punk! I won’t let you talk down to me anymore in my own house! I invited you over here to help you and you’ve done nothing but disrespect me. Get out of my house, now!” he demanded shouting.