Her father listened, the flat line of his mouth growing thinner and thinner as she boiled down the events surrounding Rochelle and Kenny’s arrival at Hope House. She didn’t get any further than Damien’s appearance in the soup kitchen and the shoving match that ensued before her father slapped a palm onto the Formica tabletop, hard enough to send a slosh of coffee over the rim of his cup and into the saucer beneath it.
“God damn it, Zoe! I told you that place isn’t safe.”
Although she didn’t argue outright, Zoe still stood her ground. “I get it, Dad, and I know the shelter isn’t in the best neighborhood, but—”
“But nothing,” he interrupted, his brown eyes going dark in a flash. “Even with a seasoned firefighter right there in the building, this thug still made his way inside.”
Her shoulder blades met the red leather banquette behind her with a shock-induced thump. “You know Alex is doing his community service at Hope House?”
For a split second, her father paused. “Of course I know Alex is doing his community service at Hope House. I’m his captain. All of his paperwork ends up on my desk.”
Oh hell. Aside from the obvious reminder that he was Alex’s boss, her father had always been invested in his firefighters, both personally and professionally. Of course he’d be privy to Alex’s placement for community service.
Still, she frowned. “Why didn’t you say anything?”
“Because you didn’t bring it up.” Her father took a long draw from his coffee cup before placing it back in its saucer. “Anyway, I assumed the placement was going as expected. Unless he’s a problem?”
“Oh, uh.” Shit. Shit. She really needed to rock one boat at a time here. “No. I mean, he’d obviously rather be at Eight, fighting fires. But he’s okay in the kitchen, and he did play a big part in helping to handle the situation the other day.”
Her father’s expression returned to watchdog status, and he slashed a hand through his hair with renewed aggravation. “A dirtbag shoving his way through a soup kitchen and assaulting its occupants is more serious than a ‘situation,’ Zoe. I mean it. Working in that part of town is dangerous, no matter how noble the cause. You have to be smarter about your safety.”
But rather than turning the tables and digging in with the same argument that had stalemated them since she’d come home to Fairview, Zoe said, “I know.”
Confusion narrowed her father’s stare beneath the bright glow of the diner’s overhead lights. “You know,” he repeated, half question, half caution, but damn it, Zoe was so tired of butting heads with him that even though she knew the truth would leave her vulnerable, she let the rest of it spill out anyway.
“I know. I know you had high expectations for me when I went to culinary school, and that running a soup kitchen in the roughest part of Fairview wasn’t part of them. I know you’re disappointed in my choices.” She sucked in a breath. “And I know you’re disappointed in me.”
Her father’s eyes flared, but Zoe barreled on. If she didn’t get this all out now, she wasn’t going to. “You’re right. There are parts of my job that are more hazardous than I realized they’d be. But making a difference at Hope House is important to me regardless of the risks, and I think you understand what that’s like. I didn’t ask you to meet me here to pick another fight with you about either of our jobs. I did it because I need your help.”
For a minute, nothing broke the silence between them except the strains of the catchy pop song filtering down from the speakers in the ceiling and the muted clatter of kitchenware being prepped for the impending dinner service, and oh God, she’d miscalculated this risk. The rift between them was too big, too irreparable to bridge by asking him to back her up at the job he’d hated since she took it. Zoe scrambled for a quick never mind to erase her impetuous request, but before she could fumble the words past her lips, her father spoke.
“You think I’m disappointed in you?”
The question screeched her thoughts to a halt, bringing forth a graceless, “Huh?”
Now it was her father’s turn not to budge. “Do you think I’m disappointed in you because you chose to work at Hope House?”
Zoe blinked. “Well, um. Yeah. You’ve made it pretty clear that you’re not a fan.”
“Of you being threatened by some deranged lunatic?” The muscle pulling into a hard line over his jaw suggested that his molars were just shy of their breaking point. “No. But I’m concerned for your well-being, not disappointed in what you do or who you are.”
After a full five seconds of shock, she finally managed, “But you’ve hated the idea of my working at Hope House since the second I resigned from Kismet.”
Her father tugged at the cuff of his plaid button-down shirt even though it was already perfectly straight. “That’s because your personal safety isn’t the only part of your well-being that I worry about.”
“What else is there?”
“When your mother and I got divorced, you took it harder than either of us expected you would,” her father said, his gaze softening over hers. “I know you weren’t entirely happy in Washington, DC. But you quit your job at Kismet pretty abruptly, and you’ve been angry with me over my decision to stay at the firehouse since well before that.” He broke off, and for the first time, Zoe saw a flicker of genuine worry hiding deep beneath his stoic expression. “It’s not exactly a secret that you’re stubborn, or that you come by it honestly. I’ve been worried that maybe you came back to run Hope House to prove a point, rather than to do the best thing for your career. And as stubborn as I am, too, I only want the best for you. I want you to be happy.”
“Why didn’t you tell me any of this before now?” she whispered, and her father’s wry smile tugged her heart in four different directions at once.
“You and I haven’t exactly been on the best of terms lately. Plus, I’m your old man, kiddo. I might not think twice about fighting fires, but when it comes to airing out things like emotions . . . let’s just say I’m not a pro.”
“Me neither, I guess.” As much as Zoe hated the dissonance that had lingered between them, she couldn’t deny that half of it belonged to her.
“Even so, there’s something you need to know. Despite all the arguing we’ve done since you came back to Fairview, I’ve never been disappointed in you, Zoe. Worried, frustrated, maybe even a little overprotective.” He paused just long enough to lift one shoulder in a self-deprecating shrug before his voice grew raw with honesty. “But you’re my daughter. I’ve never been anything less than proud to be your father.”
Tears pricked at Zoe’s eyes, but she held them back in favor of her answer. “I’m not angry with you,” she said, but her father’s arched brow had her scrambling to rephrase. “Okay, I was angry with you at first, and a small part of my motivation for taking the job at Hope House was to prove that you don’t have to put your life on the line in order to help people.”
Her father opened his mouth, clearly to protest, but she lifted a hand and continued. “That wasn’t the main reason I left DC to run a soup kitchen, though. I came back here to feed the people who need it most. To make a difference.”
After a minute, her father said, “I can relate to wanting to help people. But you’ve still got to be smart about it. Just because you’re tough doesn’t mean you’re indestructible.”
Zoe dropped her chin into a slow nod. “Clearly, even though Tina and I have some security measures in place, there are still dangers at Hope House that I didn’t bargain for. No matter how much I want to feed the people who live there, and make the soup kitchen as safe as possible while I’m at it, I can’t do either of those things alone.”
“The hard jobs are never solo endeavors,” her father agreed, wrapping his fingers around his coffee cup as he looked at her. “What did you have in mind?”
“Well, I guess that depends.”
“On?”
Zoe’s heart knocked against her rib cage, her breath trembling with uncertainty.
But still, she took the leap of faith.
“On whether or not you’ve got my back . . . and Hope House’s.”
Chapter Eighteen
Alex sat back against the passenger seat of Zoe’s Prius, watching the neon glow of Bellyflop’s overhead sign illuminate her pretty features as she put the car in Park and let loose a deep-bellied laugh.
“Wait. You’re seriously telling me you’ve Geronimoed your way out of an airplane twenty-nine times, skied three different black diamond trails, and gone white water rafting in class four rapids, but you’ve never tried sushi? Not even once?”
Alex shuddered, but mostly just to mess with her. God, that no-holds-barred smile was a fucking stunner. “I might like adventure, but even I have a threshold. Eating raw fish is crazy.”
“It’s not all uncooked. Plus, you’ve never even tried it,” Zoe argued, albeit without heat. “For all you know, it could be the best thing you’ve ever tasted.”
He leaned across the console, cupping the back of her neck to pull her in close. “Doubt it, Gorgeous.”
“You are so bad.” The accusation coalesced into a breathy sigh as Alex parted her lips with a greedy stroke of his own. Sliding his tongue over hers, he captured her smile with his mouth, and damn. He’d rather taste her than anything that could be dished up in a kitchen.
“Guilty as charged,” he murmured. Zoe arched up to press her lips back to his, and for a fleeting second, Alex considered telling her to put the car back into gear and break every traffic law imaginable to get back to his place so he could savor more than just her mouth. But finally, his conscience—freaking killjoy that it was—made him pull back against the well-cushioned seat.
“We should probably go inside.” He nodded toward the brightly lit sports bar across the parking lot, which already appeared to be more than reasonably populated for eight o’clock on a Saturday night. After the handful of texts he’d placed earlier that afternoon, he knew essentially everyone from the firehouse would be here, and a quick survey of the lot told him at least half of them were more punctual than he and Zoe. Not that he felt an ounce of guilt over making the two of them late.
“Yeah, you’re right,” Zoe said, smiling as she smoothed a hand over her bright pink top. “After all, I already talked to my dad about this. We might as well make it official.”
Alex went from cocky to cock-blocked in about six seconds flat. “I’m sorry . . . what?”
Zoe got out of the car, the heels on her shoes echoing out a tap-tap-tap that kept time with the sudden riot of his pulse. “I met my dad at Scarlett’s after I left Hope House today. I didn’t want him to hear about what happened this week from anyone else, and anyway, asking everyone at Station Eight for help means starting from the top down. Getting my father on board first just made sense.”
“You told him about Damien?” Shock pushed the question out of Alex’s mouth, and Zoe answered it with a no-nonsense nod.
“Yeah. He took it about as well as you’d expect. But in the end, we had a good talk. Although he’s still not thrilled with me working at Hope House, he did agree to help with the paperwork end of the grant proposal. He runs things meticulously at Station Eight, so that’ll go a really long way.”
Alex’s urge to bend down and kiss his ass—and his job—good-bye ebbed just a little. “So you two just talked about your plans to apply for the Collingsworth Grant?”
“Yeah. What else would we talk about?”
They made it a few more steps across the parking lot before his silence filled in the blanks, and Zoe’s head sprang upward. “Oh. Oh God, no. I mean, my father has been cc’d on all your paperwork, so he knows you’re doing your community service at Hope House, and that you were there last week when the whole Damien thing went down. But I didn’t tell him . . . you know. About this.” She drew an imaginary circle between them with one hand before returning her arm to her side. “My dad and I have always gone don’t ask, don’t tell on my dating particulars, and anyway, what you and I do in our personal time is nobody’s business but ours.”
“Right.” Alex gave himself a swift mental kick to dislodge his unease. “Yeah, right. Of course.”
The captain ran a tight house from process to paperwork, so his knowledge of Alex’s placement pretty much fell into the duh category even though they hadn’t shared any face time in weeks. And considering how heavily the plan Alex had helped Zoe strategize earlier today relied on the guys at Eight pitching in, asking her father’s help in trying to land the Collingsworth Grant made sense. Even if the mention of their father-daughter get-together had just pushed Alex’s panic button six ways to Sunday.
“Well, I’m glad your father is on board.”
His nod capped off the conversation, the cool press of the brass door handle in his palm grounding him back in the moment as he ushered Zoe inside the busy bar and grill. They’d managed to stick to the whole each-day-as-it-comes thing pretty easily so far, and without any weirdness or drama to boot. What he really needed to do was file the whole thing under if it ain’t broke and move the hell on.
Starting right now.
Alex pushed a smile over his mouth, relieved when his mood went along for the ride. “So, you’ll probably remember most of the guys, although there are a few new faces, not all of which belong to guys.”
“Really?” Zoe’s eyes lit with obvious curiosity as they crossed the dark, scuffed hardwood in Bellyflop’s lobby. “When did you guys get a female firefighter at Station Eight?”
“Zoe, please. I know you and your father have kind of avoided talking about the firehouse lately, but don’t you think you’d have heard about a whopper like us getting a female candidate?”
She arched a brow, all warning. “And why exactly is having a female firefighter on the roster such a whopper?”
“Don’t get me wrong,” Alex qualified, bypassing the smiling hostess in favor of heading toward the open area by the bar. “I’m all for anyone who can hold their own on Engine, period, and most of the guys I know feel the same way. But being a firefighter is a backbreaker even on the light days, and right or wrong, there are still some pretty old-school guys out there who disagree that a woman can handle the physical rigor. I mean, could you imagine the dust Oz would kick up at the idea of a female candidate? Or that he wouldn’t turn it into a huge deal?”
“I guess you’re right,” Zoe said slowly. “I don’t suppose there are a whole lot of female recruits at the academy, and although I’m sure they’re all perfectly capable, it would be pretty monumental if a woman landed at Eight.”
“Monumental is a good word for it.” Keeping up on Engine or Squad was tough for most guys. Plus, adding a new person to the house always messed with their dynamic, at least for a while. As good as Cole was at keeping things on the level at the firehouse, not even he would be able to balance out the chaos if they ended up with a female rookie.
Alex shrugged off a sudden pang of missing the firehouse. “Anyway, let’s get the roll call out of the way. I’m sure everyone who knows you will want to say hi.” He tipped his head toward the tall bar tables where he could already see Cole, Brennan, and O’Keefe jawing about who-knew-what, but rather than keeping time with him as she had all the way through the parking lot, Zoe’s steps slowed.
“Okay,” she said, biting her lip as she dragged her feet to follow him past the maze of softly lit booths and tables scattered throughout the front of the sports bar. The hard, sudden flicker of hesitation in Zoe’s eyes caught him square in the chest.
“You really aren’t used to anyone having your back in the kitchen, are you?”
She paused, then admitted, “That obvious, huh?”
Alex had never dressed things up, and he wasn’t about to start now. “Pretty much. But you don’t have to worry. These guys have my six all the time. I bet once you tell them what you’ve got going on at Hope House, they’ll have yours, too.”
In a handful of strides, they covered the rest of the floorboards leading up to the lon
g bar table where half of Station Eight’s C-shift sat in various states of drinking and joking. Alex’s gut gave one last squeeze of self-preservation, but he stuffed it back as he dialed his expression all the way down on the big-deal meter. Zoe was right. What they did on their own time was up to them, and anyway, they’d come to ask everyone for help at Hope House, not have a relationship reveal-all with his squad mates.
“Someone please tell me who let you animals out of the zoo.” Alex kicked one corner of his mouth up into a tried-and-true smirk as he leaned in to clap his palm against Brennan’s, the expression becoming a full-scale grin at O’Keefe’s chuff of laughter from across the table.
“Right.” The paramedic tipped his time-creased FFD baseball hat at Alex after he and Brennan and Cole had exchanged the requisite hey-how-are-yas. “Because you’re a regular saint. You dick,” O’Keefe added without pulling up on his smile.
“Aw. You miss me. That’s so cute.” Alex lifted a brow before spreading a palm over the front of his T-shirt in mock hurt. “And I’ll have you know, I’m a pussycat.”
“Yeah, you’re a real pu—whoa!” O’Keefe’s words screeched to a halt as Cole’s elbow landed in his rib cage and his eyes landed on the spot where Zoe stood just behind Alex, and not a nanosecond too soon. “Holy crap. Look what the pussycat dragged in. Zoe, is that you?”
Alex took a side step to usher her closer to the table. She lifted her hand in a small wave, but the laughter shaping her lips was unmistakable. “Hey, Tom. It’s good to see you again. Nice save, by the way.”
“Thanks,” he said, his cheeks flushing slightly as he tacked on, “Sorry about that.”
“Don’t be. I learned how to swear from the best of them.” Zoe split her easy smile between O’Keefe, Brennan, and Cole. “How have you guys been? Staying out of trouble?”
Cole pointed to the pitcher of beer in front of him in an unspoken question, quickly filling one of the plastic cups on the table at Zoe’s nod. “Trouble is kind of relative when you’re dealing with this group.”
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