Fire at Dawn: The Firefighters of Darling Bay 2

by Lila Ashe

  Hank said, “Dude. You’re sitting on it. Your shoulder mike fell off.”

  Tox undid his belt and scrambled in his seat. Replacing his shoulder mike, he said, “Well. That sucks.”

  Hank said, “You so owe her a coffee.”

  Coin groaned. It had been Tox’s voice, but their engine. She knew they were talking about her. It was going to make whatever was going on in her head even worse.

  They owed her more than coffee.

  He turned on his left signal.

  “Where are we going now?”

  “Apple pie. And strawberry ice cream.”

  “Yeah, man,” said Tox, his voice chastened. “I’ll buy.”

  “Yep. You will,” agreed Coin.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Lexie was still in Coin’s profile. What she should do was insert something into the profile she’d written for him. Instead of “occasional life saver,” she should put “occasional jerkwad.” Instead of five foot nine, she should put that he was five one. For fun, she typed, “My feet stink but since I leave my shoes on for sex, you’ll never know.”

  With a grim smile, she hit save.

  For one second, Coin was available for dating on the internet with really stinky feet. It felt pretty good.

  But it wasn’t fair. She erased the sentence and hit save again. He was back to being almost perfect. If it wasn’t for him having a kid, he would be pretty completely irresistible. Some women were going to dismiss him because he was a father.

  But others? They would love him for it. They’d see his Brady Bunch potential. A ready-made family.

  Gah.

  And he’d flipped right past her picture.

  She went to her own profile again, seeing it as he would, from his profile.

  Lexie had thought it was a good picture. Her brother had taken it in his backyard as she helped him prune the roses that had gotten completely out of control. She’d had her hair piled messily on top of her head, yeah, but that was par for the course. One long curled strand was falling over her eye, and she was laughing, her mouth open.

  When she’d posted the picture, she thought her eyes looked like the eyes of someone having a good time. Someone fun. Someone who could be attractive to the opposite sex. She’d gotten some “likes” from a few men just in the couple of days it had been up.

  Coin had flipped past it. Right past it. Hadn’t even slowed down. For Pete’s sake, she’d been wearing a short-sleeved striped T-shirt, and her tattoo could be seen winding down toward her wrist.

  How could Coin have not recognized her?

  Was it possible it was a joke? Maybe he’d been planning on exclaiming, “Just kidding! Cute pic, Lex,” before she answered 911. For one second, Lexie let herself hope.

  Then she gave it up.

  He hadn’t been going to do that.

  It hurt. Anyone else could have flipped past her picture and she wouldn’t have cared. For some reason, though, the fact that it had been Coin stung. Deeply.

  The door to dispatch slowly opened.

  Tox poked his head around the corner even slower.

  “Permission to enter?”

  Lexie sighed. “Why do you want to come in? To talk to a witch? You sure you didn’t mean there to be a letter B at the beginning of that word?”

  Tox held the door open for Coin and Hank who slunk in behind him. Coin held a pie in his hands. Hank was juggling a quart of ice cream back and forth.

  “We brought you pie and ice cream.”

  “Good.” Lexie wouldn’t forgive them this easily. It had hurt her feelings, what Tox had said. She tried to be the best dispatcher in the department. She tried to be professional on the radio at all times. And still they talked crap about her.

  “Dude, we’re sorry,” said Hank.

  “Dude,” echoed Lexie. “Whatever. People always ask, but this is why I never date firefighters.” It wasn’t, but it sounded good.

  Tox put the plates he’d brought on the counter, and Coin started slicing pie.

  “What if I told you I didn’t want any?” asked Lexie, crossing her arms.

  Tox laughed.

  Coin said, his voice kind, “Of course you do. You love apple pie, especially Josie’s.”

  Lexie softened, as if her insides were made of the same pink ice cream Hank was scooping onto each plate. That pie was special—Josie put something into the filling, something with a kick, almost as if she put a dash of cayenne in with the cinnamon. Whenever she was asked, though, Josie said it was just something she’d never had a recipe for. No one believed her.

  Lexie reached forward and took a forkful. She couldn’t help it—she moaned. “It’s warm. Did you nuke it down the hall?”

  Coin shook his head. “She’d just taken it out of the oven.”

  “You are forgiven.” She took another bite. “In fact, you could swear at me on the radio. You could tell me I have no idea what I’m doing—” she glared at Tox “—which is pretty much what you did, and I’ll forgive you every single time. As long as you bring me this.”

  Tox ran his finger along the edge of the plate, where the syrup had dripped down. “We are sorry, though. We were just venting.”

  Lexie pointed at the steam coming out the top of the slits in the pie crust where it hadn’t been cut yet. “That’s venting. What you were doing was being a jerk. But I don’t care.” She took her plate with pie and ice cream to her terminal. “Now get out of here. I want to enjoy this in peace, and I have to go to bed soon. Megan’s getting up in thirty minutes.”

  Coin frowned, meeting her eyes for a moment.

  No. She didn’t want to deal with him.

  “You, too. Go.”

  Coin said to Hank and Tox, “I’ll meet you down there.”

  “Coin …”

  “We have to finish the thing.”

  Tox and Hank didn’t even bother to pretend to act interested. “See ya. Sorry again, Lex.”

  “Fine, fine,” she said as she pushed another forkful of heaven into her mouth. It really was fine. How many times had she cussed the firefighters out for being stupid? It was only by the grace of a kind heaven that she hadn’t accidentally stepped on the foot pedal when she’d been saying it.

  When they were gone, Coin sat next to her again, as if he hadn’t left, as if he hadn’t gone on that last call.

  “You know what the worst part is?” Lexie asked.

  Coin looked at her, his eyes soft, as if he were really listening to her. She normally loved it when he looked like that. This was her friend. A man she trusted.

  “The worst part is that I saved that guy’s life. The wife had no idea what to do.”

  “And we didn’t even say that.” Coin looked stricken. “We just forgot. Tox was so upset by what he said on the radio—”

  “In his conversation to you two,” Lexie clarified.

  “That we forgot to confirm you had a field save.”

  Lexie shrugged. “Well.”

  “Good job,” said Coin, his voice warm. “He didn’t seem like the most healthy kind of guy. I think he’d already had at least six or seven beers by the time he choked on the meatball. If you hadn’t talked his wife through the Heimlich, it would have probably gone a lot worse for him, later.”

  Lexie looked at her lap. It had hurt her feelings, yeah, hearing them talking crap about her. But it hadn’t hurt as much as it had that Coin had passed right by her photo, not seeing her as pretty or special in the slightest.

  Lexie sighed. “I’m tired, Coin.”

  “Can we just finish this?” He reached forward and touched her upper arm. “I’m not good at this personal ad stuff, and it’s making me nervous. I like looking at it with you.”

  But instead of drawing his hand away, his left it on her arm for a moment. His hand was wide, and warm. Solid. Lexie wanted to lean against it. His touch sent a jolt straight down her spine, and she got warm from the inside out. Steam. He created a column of steam in her. When did that start?

  “Fine. Let�
�s get this over with.” Lexie moved so that his arm fell from hers. “I responded to a girl I thought you might like.”

  “You responded as me?”

  “That okay?”

  “Yeah.” He sounded delighted and scooted closer. “Show me who you chose.”

  Why on earth was this making her so nervous? “This one. Ginger.”

  “Is she a redhead? I love redheads.”

  Lexie pushed at a red curl that had dropped over her eye. No, he didn’t. He liked pretty girls, and not for their hair color. “Strangely enough, she’s not. She’s a brunette.”

  From the ad, Lexie had decided that Ginger was the total package. Her ad was smart and even self-deprecating. She seemed funny. She was a home-health aid, so she would understand shift work. “Look, she’s in the medical field.”

  But Coin’s eyes hadn’t gotten to the reading part. “She’s hot.”

  “I know,” said Lexie. “You don’t think I know what you like?”

  Ginger looked like the girl in the Vampire Diaries, thin with long, perfectly straight dark hair. She had eyes that were dark pools of emotion, and high cheekbones. In the picture, it didn’t look as if she were wearing any makeup, but her lips were shiny, her skin completely flawless. It was a demure picture, no bending forward for this one, no décolletage on display. But just from the swell at the top of her pretty black blouse, it was evident that she had the goods, too.

  She was perfect for Coin.

  “What did you say in my message to her?”

  It hadn’t been a long email. Lexie didn’t think Coin wanted to get into a major online flirtation. The point was to meet someone fast, wasn’t that right? “You said that she had struck you with her beauty but what was important to you was that she takes care of other people. And that you’d like to take her to dinner some night.”

  “Holy crap. I’m good.” Coin grinned, but he looked nervous at the same time.

  Lexie smiled back at him, feeling tired to her very soul. She would have stood up to refill her water, but she was too exhausted.

  Coin grabbed her bottle and filled it, as if he’d heard her thinking it. He was good that way—he always had been. He was going to make some lucky girl a really great boyfriend, Lexie knew that.

  “Now you,” he said.

  “Nah,” said Lexie. “I’m tired. Let’s do it tomorrow.”

  “You helped me. Now let me help you.”

  “Coin, I’m really too tired. I don’t want to look at one more picture, and I don’t want to read one more little white lie. I don’t have the discernment left right now to figure out that if a guy says he’s outgoing it just means he’s trying to cheat on his wife.”

  Coin said, “Then it’s my turn. Log in to your profile, and let me keep your laptop while you’re sleeping.”

  Lexie stared at him. “Are you crazy? I’m not giving you my laptop.”

  “Too much porn on it?”

  “No!”

  “Then log in to your profile. I trusted you to send an email on my behalf, and it sounds like you did a great job. Why won’t you let me do the same for you?”

  “Because.”

  “You don’t think I’m a good writer? I’m good.” He paused. “I’m good enough. Log on.”

  She just looked at him.

  He gestured. “Lex. You’re my best friend. Trust me.”

  Lexie did trust him, that was the thing. He was a good man.

  She logged on. Her profile populated the screen.

  “There you are!” Coin smiled and pulled the computer toward him.

  Then he paused.

  A moment passed. And another. Coin stared at the picture of Lexie smiling, that old rose behind her, the rose that matched her tattoo.

  “That’s you.”

  “Yeah,” she said.

  Coin did that drawing-in thing he did sometimes, as if he were pulling an invisible blanket around his shoulders. Usually Lexie hated seeing him do it. This time, maybe, it was okay.

  “Oh, Lexie.”

  Megan entered dispatch, her dark hair sticking straight up.

  “It’s fine, Coin. Find me a love match, okay?” She didn’t look behind her as she left the room.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  He was a monumental jerk. A idiot of mountainous proportions.

  Coin had flipped past her picture while he’d been dismissing women as not right for him.

  The irony of it.

  And the actual truth was that he’d seen the photo and while he hadn’t really looked at it—not close enough to recognize her—he’d been drawn to it. Almost enough to stop and look some more. But he’d kind of thought it reminded him of Lexie, and that would just be weird, scamming on a girl while Lexie sat next to him. So he’d kept clicking instead of noticing—like any other person with a correctly-working brain would have—that it was her.

  A snore sounded, so loud it practically rattled his bed frame. Eight people was a lot of people to sleep in one room, even if that room was separated by head-height walls. Most of the guys were all right, but Mazanti snored his head off when his allergies were bad. Guaranteed, tomorrow Tox would make him take his allergy medication before bed.

  It was fine, anyway. Coin wasn’t sleeping anytime soon. He had a mission, and he’d accomplish it tonight. He owed her that. Heck, the truth was that Lexie deserved happiness, plain and simple. And if he could help her find that, he’d be happy.

  Why, then, did he want to growl every time he found a guy who looked like he might be perfect for her? Coin kept clicking. Punishing himself for being such a weasel earlier.

  Man, look at that guy. Coin supposed a woman would find him good looking, if she liked big white teeth and a smile that looked like he’d just won a ski competition. Almost every photo of the man was in the snow. Lexie wouldn’t like that. She hated being cold. At work, she was usually cuddled up to her space heater. Once she’d even caught her department-issued blue sweater on fire when she’d hung it off the back of her chair and placed the heater too close. She’d blamed it on the department for buying shoddy uniforms, and the dispatchers had been upgraded to wool sweaters after that, something that he remembered had pleased her no end.

  He’d always suspected her of catching it on fire just to get rid of the acrylic. Coin smiled, and clicked away from the stupid ski bum.

  Flip, click, flip. No, no, no. No to the orange man who looked like he fake-baked most of his waking hours. No to the mechanic—nothing wrong with the profession, but the man couldn’t tell the difference between their and they’re, and Lexie would rip his grammar to shreds in a heartbeat. Lexie needed someone genuinely intelligent.

  Coin wished for the millionth time that he’d finished college. He’d come so close, but then his family had fallen apart. In his senior year at college, his mother had called him, her voice shaking. She’d asked him to come home, even though it was a three-hour drive

  When he’d gotten home after forcing his rattling Plymouth to go as fast as he could make the beater move, he’d found his mother bruised almost beyond recognition. Her cheek was concave, sunken, from where his father had hit her so hard. She’d need three rounds of surgery just to put her face back together.

  It had been the first time he’d ever hit his father back. It had felt too good, smashing his fist into his father’s mouth—feeling the pain bloom, flaring up through his knuckles. He’d heard his father’s teeth break. It was about time. By that point, his mother had two bridges in her mouth from the years of abuse. Coin himself had a metal rod in his right arm from the time his father slammed him against the car door and then shoved it closed on him.

  During his whole childhood, Coin had hidden from his father, staying quiet, making himself as small as possible. It was the only thing that had ever worked for his mother, and he imitated her until that day his rage was too great, until the day he hit him.

  Then he knew if he saw his father again, if he had to look at his mother crying even one more time, he’d end up killing t
he man. Happily. Gratefully. He could do it with his bare hands. He knew he could, and the knowledge terrified him. Not even the threat of prison scared Coin. Maybe in jail he could hit more people like that with some level of impunity.

  He decided to be a cop. He did a couple of ride-alongs with the local police force before seeing the truth—that too many cops became police officers for the exact same reason he was considering it. So that they could exact justice on the street, before any judge or jury could show up.

  After he witnessed a police officer he’d considered to be a nice guy deliver a “bonus” hit to the ribs during an arrest, he’d applied to the fire academy. At least if he became a firefighter or a paramedic, he could not only bandage the victims but maybe counsel them on how to get out.

  Even though he loved his job, he still regretted the lack of a college diploma. Having that would have made him feel smarter and maybe, if he had the extra brains, he’d know how to do this. How to find the girl of his dreams the perfect guy.

  He clicked on the next candidate.

  A podiatrist. The dude didn’t look like he looked at feet all day—he looked like a guy who could grill a perfect burger while holding a beer in one hand and kid-wrangling with the other. His ad was spelled correctly. More than that, it was funny and modest at the same time. He poked fun at himself.

  Lexie loved people who could laugh at themselves.

  Coin sighed. Mazanti’s snore rocketed through the dorm and someone else yelled a garbled threat for him to knock it off. The air conditioner kicked on with a whine. Coin stared at the beige curtain that divided his bed from the hallway and flexed his fingers. Then he typed. “Hi. My name’s Lexie, and I’d love to get to know you a little more.”

  For punishment, it sure was working.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Serena answered Lexie’s knock.

  “Finally,” the girl said. “You’re here. Dad’s in his bathroom freaking out about a tie or something. He’s, like, sweating. You have to help him.”

  Good. Maybe Coin was as nervous as Lexie was. She’d been in a mild state of panic all afternoon leading up to the double date. It didn’t make sense. Lexie was normally good at this stuff. She usually didn’t think about dates until an hour before, and then she went through her closet and pulled out the cleanest dress that both still fit and that she hadn’t worn in a while. Even if she looked at herself with her mother’s eyes every time she passed a mirror—wide hips, big breasts, too much tummy—she was usually able to silence Mira’s voice in her head, making herself feel comfortable in her skin again. She was on the pretty side of tolerable, yes. And she knew how to dress. It was simple, really. Lexie actually remembered the day she’d finally figured out her style. She’d pulled on a dress that showed off her rack, and then she’d pulled on a pair of cowboy boots. It took her approximately seven seconds to dress, and she felt great.