Between Honor and Duty

by Charlotte Maclay

  He shouldn’t get used to it, though. Janice would get her life back together soon enough. Some other man would come along, and he’d earn the right to be Maddie’s father.

  And Janice’s husband.

  A muscle flexed in his jaw. Logan didn’t like that idea and there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it. ARRIVING EARLY to pick up Maddie, Janice strolled through the schoolyard with another kindergarten mother, who appeared to be about nine-and-a-half-months pregnant.

  “Any day now?” Janice asked.

  “Lord, I hope so. I’m so tired of carrying these two bowling balls around, I could die.”

  “Twins?”

  The woman rolled her eyes. “My second set. They run in my family.”

  Janice laughed, wondering if she should offer condolences or congratulations. Her sympathy was with the poor woman, who looked desperately uncomfortable as she waddled across the schoolyard. Janice started to introduce herself just as the bell rang to announce the dismissal of the kindergarten classes.

  The doors burst open, five-year-olds exploding from the room like skyrockets on the Fourth of July. In the middle of the chaos, Logan stood tall, Maddie at his side leading Buttons on a leash. Janice’s heart did a tumble. Logan was such a beautiful man—

  A scream that every mother recognized as a child in terror and pain wrenched through the air.

  One of the kindergarten boys had fallen into the construction pit, a steel reinforcing bar piercing his thigh clear through, pinning him like a desperate butterfly.

  Oh, dear God!

  Janice had barely registered the scene and comprehended the crisis when she saw Logan race to the boy’s side. He knelt, silencing the child almost instantly with a gentle hand and calm voice. Taking the boy’s shoulders, he held him steady in his lap.

  He looked up at the nearest adult. “Get to the office. Call 911 and tell them we need a fire rescue truck and an ambulance. Got that?” When the woman didn’t budge, he said, “Go. Now. And come back to tell me how long till they’ll get here.”

  Finally, wide-eyed, the woman reacted to his command.

  As Janice reached the site, the child began to sob again. Logan was cradling him gently, blood oozing from the wound onto the leg of his uniform pants.

  “Jan, get these children to back away. If their moms aren’t here yet, have the teacher take them into the classroom. They don’t need to see this.”

  She obeyed his order without question. She grabbed Maddie’s hand. “Okay, kids, Miss Sebastian wants you back in the classroom right now.” Noticing a few men among the clutch of children, she said, “Dads, can you help me out here?” That seemed to shake them from their temporary paralysis. Unlike Logan, they were ordinary men unused to responding to emergencies on a daily basis.

  “Mommy, I wanna watch Logan,” her daughter pleaded.

  “Not now, honey.”

  “But Buttons—”

  Janice took the dalmatian’s leash from her daughter. “Why don’t we take the dog back into the classroom, too? I bet he knows some tricks your friends would like to see.”

  The woman who’d made the phone call to 911 came running back. “Two minutes,” she announced breathlessly.

  Janice could already hear the sirens on Paseo Boulevard. Thank God!

  Logan nodded his acknowledgement but he didn’t look up from his efforts to keep the injured child still and halt the bleeding. The ugly length of rebar looked like a spear jutting up from the boy’s thigh.

  Her heart doing an adrenaline mambo in her chest, Janice ushered the gawking, terrified children back toward the classroom.

  “What’s going to happen to Brandon?” her daughter wanted to know.

  “Logan will take care of him. Right now, we have to keep out of his way so he can do his work.”

  Once in the classroom, Miss Sebastian took over. Although it was obvious she was shaken by what had happened to her student, she responded calmly, sorting out the children as their parents appeared at the door. The expectant mother of twins hung around, too, and it turned out she’d been a teacher at another Paseo school until she was simply too uncomfortable in her pregnancy to teach.

  Janice kept glancing outside. The rescue personnel arrived a minute before Brandon’s mother. Janice heard Logan reassuring the worried woman and giving softly spoken orders to the medical personnel. The men responded to his suggestions, following his leadership without question, just as Janice had. He was very much in command, and so in control in a crisis it amazed her. If anyone deserved a medal for heroics, he did.

  And he was prepared to react in the same calm, deliberate manner to an emergency every day he put on his uniform.

  Within a half hour, virtually all of the kindergarten children had been picked up by their parents or their daycare providers, and the injured child had been cut loose from the rebar. He was being ferried on a stretcher to the ambulance, his mother at his side, when the expectant mother of twins bent over double, moaning.

  “What’s wrong?” Janice asked.

  “My water—” She gasped again. “Labor. I think my babies—”

  Janice muttered an indelicate word. “Maddie, stay here. I’ll get Logan.”

  She raced into the play yard, coming to a halt in front of him. Concern still pinched the corners of his eyes, and his pants were stained by a dark-brown swath of blood. “Can you handle a second crisis?”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “One of the kindergarten mothers has gone into labor.”

  He lifted his shoulders in a shrug. “No problem. There should be plenty of time to—”

  “She’s having twins. Her second set. From the look of her, I suspect it’s going to happen in a hurry.”

  He grimaced. “Call 911.”

  “I’m on my way.”

  When she returned to the classroom, Logan had the expectant mother—whose name was Alice Marie—lying on a gym pad, resting comfortably, calm now with his quiet reassurance. She’d make it to the hospital in plenty of time.

  Miss Sebastian had Maddie and the older twins engaged in “training” Buttons to shake hands and roll over. A new set of paramedics arrived along with a second ambulance, and so did the expectant dad.

  After everyone had left, Janice collapsed onto a kid-size chair in the classroom. She felt totally drained, every ounce of adrenaline having flowed through her body and out again.

  “How do you do this every day?” she asked Logan, who was sitting on the floor leaning back against the wall beneath the chalkboard, casually petting Buttons. Strands of sandy-brown hair had shifted across his forehead. With an unconcerned gesture, he combed them back with his fingers.

  “Some days we don’t do anything at all. Then, bam! Four seconds and we’re up to full speed. It can be a little hard on the heart,” he admitted.

  What was hard on Janice’s heart was seeing Logan so competent, so totally in charge. It gave her shivers to think what might have happened to that child—and to the expectant mother—if Logan hadn’t been here.

  “Why don’t you come home with me? I’ll see if I can get that blood out of your pants.”

  “Actually, I’ve got an extra set of clothes in my car. I’ll change, then I thought I’d go to the hospital, see how the kid is doing. I’ll probably check in on the new mom, too, to make sure she’s okay. The pants can wait for the cleaners.”

  Janice’s heart filled with an emotion she was afraid to study too closely. How many other men could cope with two emergencies one after the other, and their next thought was for the well-being of the victims they’d helped?

  A man like that was worthy of a great deal. Including her love.

  Chapter Six

  She couldn’t keep track of Maddie. Kevin was somewhere outside, scraping paint off a windowsill, working alongside the men, and Janice was afraid he’d fall off the stepladder he was using.

  The entire crew of firefighters, their spouses—even Chief Gray’s twenty-something daughter, Stephanie, who was
home from her job in San Francisco for the weekend—were crawling all over her house, inside and out, like a swarm of busy ants. Despite their objections that she didn’t need to lift a finger, Janice had wielded a roller and brush, spattering her clothes in the process. In between she’d made three big pots of coffee, which had been quickly consumed. She didn’t want to be treated as if she were fragile, unable to carry her own weight.

  At the same time, she worried she wasn’t acting the part of the grieving widow in front of Ray’s friends. Well, they didn’t know the whole story, did they?

  But their generosity, their caring, was enough to bring tears to her eyes.

  As she set another pot of coffee on to brew, she realized that for the past ten years, she’d been the one to carry the emotional burdens for her family. Caring for the children. Being supportive of her husband, though she’d obviously failed in that regard.

  Even as a child, she’d had to watch out for her younger siblings. Doctor their skinned knees. Listen to their troubles. Her mother had simply been too busy handling the large household to focus on Janice’s specific needs.

  Now a group of casual friends, her husband’s co-workers and their family members, were showing her more compassion than she could ever remember experiencing. They astounded and touched her with their outpouring of goodwill.

  Emma Jean swept into the kitchen. A big blob of antique-white paint clung to one of her dangling earrings, and there was a streak of the same color in her hair, which had not been added as a dramatic highlight by any beautician.

  “We’re about done with the second bedroom upstairs,” she announced. “But I think that pink bathroom is going to need a second coat.”

  “All of you have been so wonderful….”

  “Oh, I saw this coming. I mean…I was reading my tarot cards the other night and everything was a jumble. What else could that have meant except that we were having a work party?”

  “Yes, well…” Janice never knew quite how to react to Emma Jean’s announcements, most of which appeared to be plucked from the air. “Still, I appreciate everything you and the others are doing for me and my children.”

  “No problem.” She moved across the room with a soft chime of silver-on-silver and poured herself a mug of coffee from the fourth pot of the day. “I was a bit confused when the knaves kept changing places. Then I realized that was only because Ray was still restless in his afterlife. He seems to have settled down now and is quite happy you and Logan will be marrying.”

  Jaws are not supposed to drop to the ground, except in cartoons. But for all practical purposes, that’s exactly what Janice’s did.

  “I—I beg your pardon?” she stammered.

  Lifting her mug in a toast, Emma Jean took a sip of coffee. “Actually, at Mike Gables’s wedding I noticed you and Logan together. I’d say the whole affair was fated from the beginning.”

  “No. You’re wrong. We’re just…there isn’t any…”

  Andrea Peterson, the wife of the man who’d replaced Ray on the ladder truck, swept into the kitchen. Unlike Emma Jean and Janice, she didn’t have a single spatter of paint on her. Indeed, she appeared to be a Martha Stewart look-alike who preferred to organize projects rather than get her own hands dirty.

  “By chance, do you have any bottled water?” Andrea asked, a sweet smile on her face. “All the paint fumes are drying my throat, don’t you know.”

  “I’m sorry, I don’t—”

  Emma Jean brushed past Janice, coffee mug in hand. “Don’t you worry about a thing, hon. The cards are absolutely in your favor. My crystal ball is still a little murky, but don’t let that bother you. I’ll get the hang of it yet.”

  Doing a mental blink, Janice watched the dispatcher walk out the door. No way was there marriage in her future, not anytime soon. And not with Logan, forget how she reacted to the man at a visceral level. That couldn’t be in anyone’s cards.

  She was still dealing with too many other problems. Logan had been on the roof with Ray that fatal day. If Logan had any feelings for her, she was convinced it was more out of guilt than any sexual attraction. Next time around, when she made a commitment to a man, she wouldn’t settle for less than—

  “Water?” Andrea asked. “Perrier is what I prefer, but anything will do.”

  Janice swung her head around. “Tap water. I’m sorry, that’s all I have. It’s really quite tasty.” She didn’t have a clue why people drank out of those little bottles all day. As far as she was concerned, water was water.

  “Oh, well, in that case…” With considerable delicacy, Andrea picked up a glass that was on the counter, washed it out under the faucet, then filled it with water.

  “I’ve got ice,” Janice offered.

  “This is fine. Thank you.” She drank deeply. “I don’t think I’ve expressed my condolences properly for your loss.”

  “It’s all right. Just being here tells me you care.” It also, on some level, gave Janice the creeps. Despite her vacillating emotions, she still didn’t like the thought of anyone replacing her husband on the job he’d claimed to have loved. “Thanks for coming.”

  Andrea leaned back against the tile counter. Her dark hair was tied back in a tight bun, her high cheekbones highlighted with a perfect application of makeup. “I imagine Logan Strong was the first one here today.”

  At the peculiar tone of the woman’s voice, Janice’s eyebrows slammed down into a scowl. “He came early, yes. Is that a problem?”

  “Oh, no, of course not. I thought you knew—”

  “Knew what?”

  “Well, the men…I mean, Larry has talked to the other firefighters who were on the job when Ray was—” She pursed her lips and color flooded her perfect cheeks. “There’s talk, is all I’m saying.”

  Janice’s throat filled with bile, and she gritted her teeth. “What kind of talk?”

  “That, well, maybe Logan—as fine a firefighter as he is, I’m sure—feels responsible for Ray—”

  “Are you saying Logan killed my husband?”

  “Oh, no, that’s not what I mean. It’s just that Larry says Logan has been different since the accident. Not so, uh, friendly, I guess. Like he feels guilty.”

  “There’s no reason for him to. I’m sure he did everything he could to save Ray.”

  “I’m sure you’re right. Larry probably misunderstood.” Andrea pushed away from the counter. “I really must get back to my baseboards. Such tedious work, but someone has to do it.” She smiled brightly, then hustled from the kitchen, tossing an absent “Thank you for the water” over her shoulder.

  Stunned, Janice stood in her wake. She didn’t want Logan blaming himself for what had happened. Didn’t want to think there was nothing between them—not even friendship—except for his need to atone for something that couldn’t be helped.

  Blaming the vagrants who started the fire in the abandoned warehouse was far more appropriate. Or more likely, the fault lay with poverty and indigents who had simply been trying to heat a can of beans. The plan had gone deadly wrong.

  But could Logan have made a mistake on the roof that day? a niggling voice asked, and could that be the reason he’d been so helpful to her? Could he really have that much cause to feel guilty? What would that say about the budding feelings she had for him? What would that say about her own disloyalty to her husband, unfaithful though he had been?

  The back door clattered open, and Janice started, half expecting to see the ghost of her husband accusing her of betraying his memory with the man who had killed him.

  Instead of a ghost, in walked Kimberly Lydell—now Mrs. Jay Tolliver, Janice mentally corrected—carrying two big grocery sacks.

  “What’s all that?” Janice asked, relieved to see a flesh-and-blood human instead of the specter of her guilty conscience.

  “Lunch. I was assigned kitchen duty, which probably says something about my skills as a painter.” Smiling, the one-time TV news anchor put the sacks on the kitchen counter. Last spring, during an
earthquake, she’d been scarred by falling debris. Since then she’d become the host of a late-night, call-in talk show on local public radio, a popular program with firefighters and insomniacs in Paseo del Real. Janice had been known to listen on nights when she’d been unable to sleep. The topics were wide-ranging and often fascinating.

  “You didn’t have to do that,” Janice said. “I was going to make up some chicken-pasta salad—”

  “Save yours for your family. I already raided the deli at the grocery store for salads and fried chicken legs, plus I picked up the makings for sandwiches. I thought everyone could do their own lunch whenever they got hungry.” Kim dipped into the first sack, brought out a big container of potato salad. “Picnic à la painting party.”

  Janice found a package of paper plates, napkins and some plastic utensils in the other sack along with canned cold drinks. “Everyone’s being so kind.” Tears suddenly pressed at the back of her eyes, from guilt and shame and confusion. “It’s…it’s embarrassing to have to ask for so much help. I don’t know how I’ll ever repay—”

  “Shh, there’s no need to repay anyone.” Kim gave her a quick hug. “You’d do the same for us, wouldn’t you?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “No buts, either. Losing Ray was a terrible tragedy for all of us, especially the men who were his friends. Doing this helps everyone to deal with their grief.” In a casual gesture, she tucked a few strands of her collar-length blond hair behind her ear. “Now then, we’re going to need some serving spoons—”

  “I’ll get them.” The serving utensils were in a drawer beside the sink. Trying to keep her troubling thoughts in check, Janice made a selection while Kim put the makings for lunch out on the kitchen table.

  “It’s too bad you’re going to have to sell the house,” Kim said. “I know it would be easier for you and the children if you didn’t have to make so many changes all at once.”