Fire at Twilight: The Firefighters of Darling Bay 1

by Lila Ashe

  A sandwich first. It would be on the counter, ready to put in his hand when his eyes opened. Her theory that every single man owned the makings of a sandwich proved true. She made a thick ham and cheese, piling on the mustard, mayo and pickles. No one didn’t love pickles. She found chips that weren’t too stale and tucked them into the sandwich, too, pressing down on top to crush them in.

  And heck. It looked so good Grace made herself one, too. She sat at the small kitchen table and chewed quietly, slipping bits of bread down to Methyl. It was an awful precedent to set, feeding the dog people food at the table. But that little blond face … How could she resist?

  When Grace was done eating her sandwich, making sure Tox’s was safely at the back of the counter, away from where Methyl could possibly reach it, she did the dishes. Not just the ones she’d used, but all of them. She filled the sink with piping hot water and bubbles, enjoying the feel of the dishes coming out clean.

  As Grace was drying them with a clean red tea towel she found in a drawer, she started. Oh, not this. She was acting like … a wife. There was really nothing Grace disliked more than a woman who felt it was her duty to clean up after her man, unless it was a man who thought the same thing. In every relationship, no matter how short or unhealthy in other ways it had been, Grace had always made sure that chores were divided evenly, not by gender.

  Here she was, Tox’s spoons slipping through her fingers, clean, into the cutlery drawer. And she liked it.

  Well.

  Grace stood up straighter. She could fix this problem. The back screen door, when she’d let herself in, had squealed like a startled pig. She had been surprised the noise hadn’t woken him, but he must still be exhausted, to say nothing of whatever meds he was or wasn’t on. While Methyl snored in the kitchen, Grace explored the small attached garage until she found a bottle of oil and a screwdriver. It took her less than fifteen minutes to remove the rusty screws, oil the heck out of the hinges and replace the screen door. Satisfied, she moved it back and forth, back and forth, happy with its silence.

  Next, she’d start organizing the tool shelf in the garage. She didn’t have a clue how he could find anything in there when he needed it. She shut the kitchen’s screen door once more with a good, solid click, and turned, the screwdriver and oil in her hands.

  Tox stood there, barefoot on the tile. He held Methyl in his arms, and both of them looked shaggy.

  His face was a thundercloud. “What are you doing to my house?”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  It had been so hard, lying there completely still as she watched him. Did she think she’d been quiet? Breaking and entering with a dog? Methyl had wuffled and scraped her way along the hardwood floor, and Grace’s half-whispers for her to be quiet had been hard not to react to. After she’d finished staring at him, he had let her work in the kitchen for a while. He’d been trying to figure out what to do. He’d wanted to rush to her, wrap his arms around her and refuse to let go. He also wanted to throw her out.

  Then it had been kind of nice, listening to her putter around in the kitchen. It sounded like she was fixing something to eat, and while he’d kept his breathing slow and steady, he’d strained his ears to hear exactly where she was in the house. After she finished eating (and from the sound of it, feeding his dog something crunchy, too), and doing his dishes, she’d fixed his screen door.

  That, it turned out, was way too much for him to ignore.

  Grace’s eyes went huge, and she dropped the screwdriver. “You’re awake!”

  “What did you do to my door?” Methyl scrabbled in his arms, and he set her on the floor.

  She ignored him, turning and grabbing a plate from the kitchen counter. “I made you a sandwich.”

  “You what?”

  Moving too fast, Grace thrust the plate forward and half the sandwich flew off and onto the floor, where Methyl inhaled it as her due within seconds.

  “Are you serious?”

  “Dang it,” she said with feeling. “It’s a good sandwich. I put chips inside. At least eat the other half.”

  “Chips. Inside.”

  She smiled, and Tox felt his heart twist in exactly the way it shouldn’t. “It makes it crunchy and salty. It’s delicious, even though I’ll admit it’s not very good for you. Please eat it.” She paused and then held out the plate again, slower this time. “And please don’t be mad I broke in.”

  He sighed and sat at the table. “You know, I liked that door squeaky.”

  “No, you didn’t. No one could like that.”

  “I did.”

  “Why?”

  Tox looked at her hard. “It alerted me when women broke into my house.”

  “But you didn’t wake up—oh. You did.”

  He nodded slowly.

  Grace put the plate in front of him. “You wanted to see what I’d do.”

  None of this was fair to her. “You should go.”

  “After you eat,” she said, her voice resolutely chipper. She pulled out the opposite chair and dropped into it. She put both elbows on the table and leaned forward. “I’m not going anywhere till then.”

  “Anyone ever tell you you’re a pain in the butt?”

  “It’s been mentioned. Please eat, Tox.”

  It wouldn’t do any good. He knew that. Eating was temporary. It satisfied something that came and went. Hunger was like anything else—transitory. Fleeting. Like the pull he felt to her. No matter how strong it was, it didn’t mean anything in the long run.

  Why try to sustain anything? At all? When no matter what, everything ended?

  He chewed, and while he could admit the chips were a good addition, he couldn’t enjoy it. He couldn’t enjoy anything, he thought. Maybe ever again.

  “I’m sorry about what happened,” said Grace. It sounded as if she meant it, as if she really were sorry.

  But that didn’t mean anything, either. “Nothing to do about it now.”

  “Sounds like there wasn’t anything to do about it then, either.”

  He stared. If only her lips weren’t so perfectly shaped, a soft cupid’s bow, maybe then he could get them off his mind. “Yeah, there was. And besides, how would you know anything about it at all?” He knew he sounded rude. That was fine. That was what he was going for, after all.

  “I talked to Lexie.”

  “Lexie wasn’t there.”

  “She went in to dispatch that night.”

  “She wasn’t on scene. She doesn’t know a thing.”

  “She knows you did your best.”

  He grimaced. “That’s what everyone always says to losers.”

  “Tox—”

  “No, I’m right about this. Everyone is being so nice. I wish they didn’t feel like they had to be. Just for once, it would be a relief if someone called me on my bull.”

  “Really? You want me to ask how on earth you could let a child die from a fire you didn’t start, weren’t responsible for?”

  Even her words hurt. “Yeah. How could I do that?”

  “Did you do the best you could?”

  “I’m pretty sure I did. It was a hazmat situation. We shouldn’t have even gone inside, once we knew it was a lab. We weren’t suited up, we didn’t have the right respirators. But we did go in.”

  “Because you knew about the people who were trapped.”

  “And it wasn’t enough.”

  “For the man, it was.”

  Tox bit back a curse. “He has to live his life without his daughter.”

  “But you guys saved his life.”

  “Great. So he’ll go to jail for the lab. He could have killed dozens. Do you have any idea how volatile those chemicals are? The solvents alone put every responder in danger of contamination. We saved a criminal.”

  “How about last week, when you saved that baby in front of the fire station?”

  He shook his head and pushed away the plate. “Totally different situation. That baby would have been fine no matter what I did. He was just posticta
l.”

  “All kids turn blue like that?”

  “Yeah, after a seizure, they do.”

  “So nothing you did helped?”

  “Probably not.”

  She kept prodding, blast her. “So you’re saying you don’t really help anyone at all in your job.”

  “Not usually.” It was true. What they did—pick-up and put-backs, lift assists, rides to the hospital—unless they were hooked up to the shock box or the autopulse, they probably weren’t helping that much. And in that case, those were machines doing the job of CPR now, not even the firefighters themselves most times.

  “So whatever was going to happen to the little girl in the fire, you couldn’t really help that, either? And from what you’re saying, no one else could, either.”

  Tox didn’t like where this was going. “I fell, did they tell you that? I fell, and took her with me. If I hadn’t fallen the wrong way, pushing any good air she had left in her body right out her, if I hadn’t made her inhale the superheated toxic fumes around us, she might have lived.”

  “That sounds like a terrible accident on top of a tragedy.”

  He exhaled heavily. Didn’t she get it? “It’s what I did that counts, not what I intended to do. That’s all. I failed.”

  “That’s not fair,” she said, shaking her head. “What you intend to do counts a lot.”

  Tox waved his hand around the kitchen. “Is that kind of like what you’ve done here?”

  “What?”

  “You intended to fix my place up? So what, so you could move in or something?”

  Grace gasped. “What?”

  “You come in and make me food. Fatten me up. Trying to make me healthy.”

  She crossed her arms over her chest. “When was the last good meal you ate?”

  “It’s none of your business, actually.”

  “It is,” she said, but her voice was softer now. “Besides, I added chips. Those aren’t healthy.”

  “So I shouldn’t have them in my house?”

  “No, I’m not saying that, Tox.” She closed her eyes as if trying to find something inside herself. “But I do believe that people should help each other.”

  “But you’re not helping. That’s your problem. You think you know better than anyone else. And you know what that translates into?”

  “What?” She barely met his eyes.

  “You come off as a know-it-all. Bossy as a new fire captain. You realize since you’ve known me you’ve advised me to change my diet, my form of exercise, my hair, and my house? That’s not okay.”

  “I haven’t—” but she broke off. It was true, and it was hitting her that he was right, he could see it on her face. Her expression crumpled.

  He felt guilty, but whatever. Tox always felt guilty nowadays. “You even did my dishes. Who asked you to do that?”

  “No one,” she said defensively. “I was just trying to help. Just like I do with my sister, and now she won’t talk to me, either. But I’m only ever trying to help.”

  “Who asked you to help, Grace?”

  She picked up the red salt shaker and put it back down with a crack. “Who asked you to save the world?”

  “No.” Tox wouldn’t let her turn this around on him. He was in the right here. “You don’t get to go there.”

  “I don’t? You have all this guilt about losing the girl, right?”

  “Yeah. I do.” With all the reason in the world.

  “If Hank had lost her, would you be mad at him?”

  It was a stupid thing to say. “You don’t get it.”

  “I don’t? I think that if it had been anyone else, you would forgive them for being human. But you can’t do that for yourself.”

  Tox thumped his open hand on the table, making both it and Grace jump. “There you go again trying to fix me!”

  “So?” She didn’t deny it, just kept looking at him with those big eyes.

  “So you don’t get to just fix whatever you want. That’s probably why your sister’s so mad at you. You and this God complex you have.”

  She gaped at him even more than she had been. “You’re accusing me of having a God complex when you’re the one who thinks you can save everyone from their fate?”

  “Fate? You think that’s why that girl was put on this earth? To die painfully in a fire?”

  Grace’s cheeks paled. “Was she in pain?”

  Probably. But she didn’t need to know that. “No,” he lied. “She wasn’t. But Grace, we have the same problem. We’re both delusional. Neither of us are good for anyone else, no matter what we hope for on a good day.” For one brief second, he wished he could take it back, to wipe that shocked and hurt look off her face, but it was too late.

  She stood and brushed off the front of her shirt where it had gotten damp, probably while she was doing his dishes. “I guess I got this—us—wrong, then.”

  He wished she hadn’t. He wished so hard she hadn’t gotten a single thing wrong. But she had. “You can’t fix me, Grace. You can’t fix anyone, no matter how many needles you stick in them, no matter what tea you make them drink. Just back off. Of everyone.”

  Grace’s mouth opened and then closed. Her eyes had lost that excited light, the light that came so naturally to her. He’d put that out. This was on him.

  “I’m sorry,” she finally said.

  “Take the dog with you.”

  “No!” She pressed her lips together for a moment, and her chin quivered. “You need her. She needs you.”

  “Whatever. I don’t care. About either of you.” It was the worst thing he could think of to say. The one thing that would drive her out of his house. For good. He had to let her go now before he broke her even worse. It was too late for him. His body had betrayed him and even if he managed to fix his neck and back, now he had to pass a psych test before he could go back to work on the line. That would never happen. He knew he was too broken.

  Tox was as good as his name, not good for anyone. Grace needed a real man.

  A good man.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  Grace wanted to be alone, but she didn’t want to be at home. And she certainly didn’t want to be at the clinic.

  The beach, then. It was the best place to be alone because there was nothing to do at the beach. If she’d been tasked with counting the grains of sand, she couldn’t have done it. If someone had told her to stop the tide rushing in and out, she would have to say no. Grace had no control over the waves, over the movement of the clouds, or fog, or birds. The tiny sideways rushing crabs ignored her entirely. It was the most reassuring place in the world.

  Grace made her way over the low dunes to where the shore flattened. She found a large piece of driftwood to sit on. She kept her eyes on the horizon, right where the sea met the sky, and let handfuls of sand play through her fingers.

  She’d lost everything now. Last year she would have said her sister and her acupuncture practice were the two most important things in the world to her, but now she didn’t care about work. Without her sister, without Tox next to her, who cared?

  How had it come to this so quickly? To … love?

  Staring at the horizon, Grace knew the word was right. Love. She loved him. She hadn’t planned it and certainly hadn’t wanted it, but Tox was the reason her heart sang, he was why her blood pounded. She wanted to watch him come home safely from a shift at work. She wanted him in her arms at night. All night long.

  He wasn’t perfect. Nothing said he was right for her. There were plenty of ways Tox could improve.

  Sitting there on the beach, Grace couldn’t think of one single way he could be better, though.

  And Samantha … her sister was everything. She was a wonderful, smart, kind woman who’d been through hardships and had bounced up from each one. Why couldn’t Grace get over trying to fix her?

  The problem was that Grace did know best sometimes. She did know when Samantha was about to lose it, to freak out over the wrong man, to chase after something that wasn’
t worthwhile. She knew when Samantha was about to fail.

  In front of the waves, she saw her sister’s face almost as clearly as if she’d been there. “It’s my life. Not yours. Mine.”

  How, then, was she supposed to stop Sam from making mistakes?

  A little boy dressed in blue overalls carrying a yellow balloon ran in front of Grace, cutting his way through the sand, his small feet kicking up sand behind him. It wasn’t, of course, the boy from the pier who had almost lost his balloon, the one Tox had saved for him, but the boy reminded Grace of that moment.

  The boy’s mother, a young blond, chased after him, but she was still a good city block behind. There was no harm the child could get into here unless he ran into the waves, and he was well away from the waterline. The mother looked relaxed. The child looked happy.

  All Grace could see was the balloon. It wasn’t tied around his wrist—he was just holding it. And he wasn’t holding it tightly enough.

  She launched herself to her feet and jumped forward. The boy’s fingers loosened. “No!” Grace shouted! “Hold it! Tighter, hold it tighter!”

  But even though Grace lunged forward as fast as she could, she couldn’t grab the string in time. The balloon floated up, so brightly yellow against the clear blue sky.

  The child burst into noisy tears, and the mother caught up. “What are you doing?”

  “No,” said Grace, holding out her hands. “Don’t shout at him, he didn’t mean to.”

  “I know he didn’t. I’m shouting at you, not him. Why did you scare him like that?”

  “I was trying to …”

  The woman picked the boy up and held him tight, brushing away the tears that came fast down his face. “Well, don’t try.”

  All three of them looked up. The balloon was already tiny, bobbing in the wind high above.

  “Thanks for nothing,” said the woman.

  Grace backed up and sat on the piece of driftwood with a thump. She listened to the boy wail in his mother’s arms all the way down the beach.

  Maybe Tox had a point.