The Heat of Angels

by Lisa Girolami

  “Seventy percent contained. Moved to the east, away from here.”

  “How close did it get?”

  “Singed the back of the refuge. About four hundred feet of a fence is gone and some trees, but that’s all.”

  “Thank God,” Chris said. “And thank you.”

  He nodded and Chris went to find Sarah.

  Many volunteers were still there, but now, instead of running, they were walking. Another good sign. They still had electricity, too. Chris stepped into the office and was greeted by a group of dirty and exhausted volunteers and a welcome cup of coffee.

  They thanked her but she quickly waved them off. “You’re the real heroes. You all were amazing today.”

  Sarah walked through the door and Chris’s heart jumped. She looked completely drained, and soot blotched her face. Her clothes were filthy, and she had bloody scratches on her arms.

  Chris reached for her. “What happened?”

  “A baby raccoon wasn’t too happy about leaving her warm cage in the vet clinic.”

  “You need to get that looked at.”

  “I will. Allan got it worse from a savanna lizard.” She gestured toward a row of cabinets.

  Allan was leaning against them and turned when he heard his name. Chris saw he had a six-by-six-inch bandage on his forearm. He held it up, as he would a cocktail. “I’m just glad I got the front end, not the business end.”

  “The savanna is a monitor lizard, and their best defense is a whipping tail that can cause serious damage. Allan was watching the tail when he was bitten, but he pulled away before the lizard got the whole mouth around his arm.”

  Chris cringed. “Ouch.”

  “It’s not so bad,” Allan said.

  Sarah introduced Chris to Allan and the rest. Though worn out, everyone chatted animatedly, laughing and hugging a lot. The door opened and Madeleine walked in.

  An eruption of cheers filled the room, and Madeleine put her hands up to quiet them.

  “We did it,” Madeline said. “All the animals are safe, and they wouldn’t be without each and every one of you. We work every day to protect them from the evils of mankind, but sometimes, we have to protect them from nature as well.

  “Today was a long day, and, other than some fences to repair, it looks like the refuge made it through intact.”

  Volunteers clapped and some whistled in delight.

  “I hope you’ll all be available to help bring them back when the fire department, those lovely angels, gives us the all-clear.”

  Sarah leaned toward Chris, “Looks like the black-and-white baboon taxi will soon be back in service.”

  Chris chuckled. “That actually works out because I think Sasha left her coat in my car.”

  After Madeleine finished, the volunteers began to leave.

  “Let me walk you to your car,” Sarah said. “I’ll get my keys and leave with you.”

  The parking lot was emptying out, everyone driving around the fire trucks that were staying well into the night.

  Sarah unlocked her door and turned to face Chris.

  “You were right about the karaoke thing. It was stupid, and I don’t blame you for being surprised about it.”

  “I’ve been thinking about it, too, and I tend to overreact. Sometimes I’m about as flexible as a corpse with rigor mortis.”

  “Well, you’re a cute corpse.”

  “I have trouble just having fun sometimes. My life is black and white, I admit. And what I like about you is that you seem to just live in the grays, without worrying about things.”

  “Maybe we can strike a balance.” Sarah put her arms around Chris. “Let’s meet in the middle. We could try to have fun without breaking the law.”

  A fifty-pound lead collar had just been lifted off her. “Deal.”

  “And as far as I know, Officer, kissing in public is not against the law.”

  “No,” Chris said as they moved even closer, “it isn’t.”

  *

  With the Angeles Crest fire now contained, the city was in what officials referred to as a holding period—that time during fire season when nothing was blazing, but it was just a matter of time and one careless cigarette.

  Sarah was at the refuge for the return of the animals, and they were now almost back to normal. A fencing company had volunteered to repair the burnt sections on the north end of the compound. A construction company offered to clear a firebreak around the entire refuge, and the rumble of bulldozers in the distance had been filling the air all morning.

  Nat was with Sarah, sweeping up a massive amount of dirt, debris, and ashes. The pathway by the area in the emptied lion area that the firemen had set up was now full of trailed-in muck and branches.

  “Thanks for coming out to help,” Sarah said as they started sweeping, back to back, and moved away from each other.

  “I’m so sorry I was with my aunt that night you evacuated.”

  “She was in the hospital. I wouldn’t have expected you to leave her.”

  “It was just gallstone surgery. It wasn’t like she was dying or anything.”

  “Still, you needed to be with her. She has no kids and no other nieces or nephews.”

  “I’d have rather held a baby chimpanzee’s hand than my cigarette-breath aunt’s.”

  “A chimp’s breath isn’t any better.”

  Nat stopped sweeping and held up her hand, pinching her fingers together. “Yeah, but their little oochy, oochy faces are so darn cute.”

  Sarah laughed. They were pretty adorable.

  “How’s the cop?”

  “Chris? Great. She invited me to her K-9 trials.”

  “What’s that?”

  “A competition between K-9 officers all over the state. They perform tasks as if they were on duty, and the public is invited.”

  “So you get to watch Chris get all butch and stuff?”

  Sarah laughed, although the thought had most definitely taken over a lot of her brain capacity since being asked. “Kinda.”

  “And everything’s okay between you two? I mean, you called me and said you blew it because you took her to Patty’s party in Venice.”

  “We talked it out. We’re going to try to meet in the middle. I’m going to chill out a little and she’s going to loosen up.”

  “Do you have to change? I mean, isn’t that a bad thing to do—change for someone else?”

  “I could definitely use some adjustments in my life, Nat.”

  “As long as you do it for you.”

  Sarah was nearing the end of the pathway, sweeping ashes that swirled around her feet. She listened to the shoosh-shoosh cadence of her broom as she considered Nat’s advice. She should have started making better choices a long time ago. But she wasn’t worried about making changes. She needed to confront the compulsion that pushed her to do what she’d always done.

  “What do you want me to do with this?”

  Sarah turned to Natalie, who was holding up something that looked like a dark pancake.

  “That’s lion shit.”

  Nat screamed and threw it over the fence. It sailed like a Frisbee and struck a tree.

  “That was gross.”

  “I’d recommend avoiding anything that looks like a cow patty.”

  “Thanks for telling me now.” Natalie brushed her hands on her pants. “Speaking of cows, you remember that nasty neighbor of mine? The one that hated everyone and would leave nasty notes about how we all parked or where we placed our trash cans?”

  “What I really hated was that she’d throw rocks at dogs and spray little birds with her hose to keep them out of her trees.”

  “We had to have rounded up at least fifty real-estate for-sale signs to put on her front lawn.”

  “The one we handmade was the best.” Sarah waved her hand through the air. “For sale, three-bedroom home. Husband left me for a twenty-two-year-old. Burn marks in carpet from torching his clothes. Gem of a house except for asbestos and natural-gas leaks. Rocks and spray ho
se not included.”

  “And I think she stopped bothering the birds and dogs after that.”

  “That was priceless.”

  “So you’re going to stop having fun and being silly like that?”

  “No,” Sarah said, feeling the weight of what she needed to do. “It’s the darker stuff.”

  Natalie stopped sweeping and looked at her in the way she had many times before.

  Sarah chewed her lip. “Do you know what I mean?”

  “Yeah, honey, I do.”

  *

  The K9 trials were held in Manhattan Beach on the high school football field, and Sarah found parking close to the event. Chris had invited her to come watch the Sunday portion of competition.

  The field was set up with all sorts of obstacles for what looked like climbing and jumping. A few cars were parked in the middle, and smaller areas were fenced off with an orange plastic-barrier material.

  An officer with his dog on the field stood waiting on one end, with three men, probably judges, on the other end, holding clipboards. As she climbed up and took a seat in the grandstand, an announcer was talking.

  “Officer Flores, from the Pico Rivera team, and his dog Rado are on the field now. As we mentioned before, they will compete in various field exercises, and most will be timed. Because the building, narcotics, and explosives searches must take place in a controlled environment, we conducted that part of the competition yesterday. However, mock demonstrations will be performed during some of the intermissions. Please visit our vendors, who are on the track. We have safety and crime-prevention booths, raffles, child fingerprinting, and canine- and police-related products for sale. We also have canine, SWAT, and fire vehicles on display, as well as a police helicopter.”

  Groups of officers and their dogs were scattered all along the track that ran around the football field. She searched the groups, looking for Chris, and found her close at the other end of the grandstand. Like everyone in her group, she held the leash of a beautiful dog that seemed to pay total attention to her.

  As the first competitor ran through a scenario, Sarah climbed down a few rows and across toward Chris, who turned as she approached. Her immediate smile widened, and Sarah had to admit she was just as cute as she’d been the day they met in the grocery store.

  Chris broke from her fellow officers and came over to the stands.

  “Hey!” she said, and kissed her.

  “So, this is Abel,” Sarah said, not sure if she should touch him. With his short-cropped mahogany and tan fur and the black mask and ears that were super alert, Abel was much more gorgeous up close.

  “It is,” Chris said, giving him a command to sit.

  “What language is that?”

  “It’s Dutch. He was born and trained in Holland. By speaking Dutch I don’t have many bad guys replicating commands like stop biting.”

  “Will he bite me if I get near him?”

  “Not generally. If you tried to hit me or made an aggressive move, he might, to protect me, but he’s trained to listen to my orders.” She said something else to him, and he got up and moved to Chris’s left side. “Say hello to him.”

  Sarah reached down and patted his head. He smelled her quickly and gave her hand a lick.

  “He’s pretty hyped up because he knows he’s going to work today.”

  “When are you competing?”

  “We’re up after the Pico Rivera team. The first event is handler protection. I go up to a suspect and get attacked. Abel then goes after the bad guy. We’ll also run an agility and obstacle course later.” She took Sarah’s hand. “I’m really glad you could make it.”

  “I’ve never seen K9s work. Plus it’ll give me a glimpse of your world.”

  The announcer began and Sarah took a seat. Watching Chris from a distance allowed her to stare in a way she couldn’t close up. The tight line of her uniform and the pronounced muscles in her forearms were sexy as hell. She admired Chris’s concentration, even when she was on the sidelines of the event. Sarah felt proud to be there with her. Chris had accomplished so much in her life, and it delighted her that they were dating. Chris looked over at her a few times and she waved. All of the officers looked so put together and in command, but Chris stood out. It wasn’t because she was the only woman there, but because she was the only woman for her.

  The handler-protection competition was both remarkable and surprising. She watched as each dog received a command to lie down, at the ready, as his or her handler went over to a man in a bulky bite suit. The two men would yell at each other, and the dog would stay until the guy in the suit raised his hand to the handler. Like an explosion, the dog would launch itself toward the bad guy and bite him. Some dogs would start after him too soon, but each one would literally fly through the air to latch onto the guy’s upper arm.

  It was especially exciting when the announcer said, “Officer Chris Bergstrom, from the Los Angeles Police Department, and her dog Abel. Chris is one of only two female K9 officers in the LAPD.”

  Sarah watched Chris and Abel go through the exercise, feeling a now-familiar twinge of desire. Abel’s bond with Chris was obviously strong. His muscles twitched before he sprang, and as soon as the man in the bite suit raised a hand to Chris, Abel took off at a full run. Leaping into the air, he bared his teeth and they flashed, and he was on the suited man, spinning him around until they both fell to the ground, Abel’s teeth still embedded in his arm. Chris pulled Abel off the man, and as the audience clapped, she patted his side and scuffed up the fur on his head. Chris looked so together and irresistibly tantalizing. In that moment, Sarah felt the excitement of an enthusiastic fan watching a sexy superstar onstage.

  She mentally stripped Chris’s clothes off, wishing she were between her legs and taking as much command as Chris was right then. She wanted her. She actually needed her. The dim ache that inhabited her entire body ever since they’d been together now flared into a serious blaze. And unlike the blaze at the wildlife refuge, this was one inferno the fire department couldn’t put out.

  Only one woman, the gorgeous and wonderful one who was now receiving applause from the grandstand, could come to the rescue.

  Sarah watched Chris walk Abel to a group of officers on the sidelines. They talked amongst themselves, probably giving Chris their observations of her performance. The announcer called the next officer, and a guy in her group took his dog out to the field.

  Sarah pulled her phone out and typed.

  I know we’re supposed to cool it a little, so is it inappropriate to tell you I think you’re hot?

  She hit the send button and waited. After a moment, Chris reached for her phone. She paused and then searched the grandstands, smiling widely when she found her. Then she looked back down at her phone.

  Sarah’s phone buzzed.

  Hell, no! You just made my day! Well, and you coming here to the K9 trials.

  You were great. I loved watching you and Abel.

  There’s going to be a break after this so they can set up for the agility course. Care to go for a cup of coffee or something?

  Sarah looked up from her text to see Chris watching her. She nodded yes.

  *

  Chris and Abel approached Sarah in the parking lot. They looked so regal together.

  Chris told him to sit, and Sarah patted his head. He wagged his tail ferociously and seemed rather pleased.

  “Stand right there,” Chris said, and backed Abel up about four feet. She called another command, and Abel charged over to Sarah’s left side and sat. As he did, he pushed into her and she laughed.

  “Wow!”

  Chris pointed to her feet and Abel went back just as quickly.

  “Canines are the most loyal partners an officer could have. And it’s a plus that they don’t chatter or disagree.”

  “Sounds like a perfect work environment.”

  “Other than being covered in dog hair within the first five minutes of my shift, driving a car that smells like a wet dog in the
winter, and often having dried dog slobber on my uniform, yeah, it’s the best.” Chris held her hand out, inviting her to the car.

  Chris put Abel in the back of her squad car and joined Sarah in the front seat.

  “This is my first time in a squad car,” Sarah said. “Well, the front seat, I mean.”

  Chris chuckled, happy that they’d talked about their minor clash at the party. She pulled out of the parking lot. “Sometimes we need to keep a closer eye on our suspects.”

  “And what if I’m really bad?”

  “You get to go back there and sit with Abel.”

  Sarah turned around and saw Abel’s nose pressed up against the screen. He took a few sniffs and woofed.

  “That’s a good incentive to fly right.”

  “He’s the best.”

  “So he can find a person by sniffing them out?”

  Chris nodded. “His olfactory locating system is tremendously more advanced than ours. We all have these odor-detecting patches high up in the nasal passages. Humans have about five or six million cells in these patches. Dogs have two hundred twenty million.”

  “I hope I wore deodorant.”

  “I think that’s why he barked at you.”

  Sarah punched her leg.

  “We use the dog’s abilities, but they can’t reason. We have to be the thinking part of the K9 team,” Chris said. “For instance, I was on routine patrol one night. Another officer reported that a vehicle came back stolen and they were in pursuit. About five miles later, the subjects stopped and bailed out. The officer lost the driver so he called me while they set up a perimeter. I let Abel start where the stolen car was. Dogs have a scent cone that they follow until they find the area that’s strongest, and when they hit on it, they lead us to where they need to go. So Abel was charging through a field and then some brush. I had him on a long lead and he was just tearing it up.

  “The driver thought he could ditch us by hiding inside this big, old BBQ outside of a Southern Steak and Ale restaurant. Abel hit on it and was able to decipher the suspect’s smell among the ash, charcoal, and dried meat and sauce. When I opened the top, he was hiding in the fetal position and started screaming, ‘Don’t let that dog get me, I give up!’”