Ignite The Spark Between Us: Searing Saviors #4

by Parker, Weston

  I’d never hear the end of it. Especially from Trace. He’d have a field day with that one.

  “All you guys need to know is I’m not talking about Allie with you. She’s a classy girl, and she doesn’t deserve to have a bunch of assholes talking about her, trying to kill time during their boring shift. Now, if you want to talk about something else, like how much fun I’m going to have sitting back and watching you guys do all the dirty work from now on, I’m all ears.”

  “Get bent, Cantone.” Derek laughed.

  I lifted my chin. “The next one of you who asks me about Allie is going to have chores coming out their asshole. Bathrooms. Audits. Inspections. You name it. It’s yours.”

  The room went quiet.

  “Better,” I mused. Maybe this whole lieutenant thing wasn’t going to be half bad after all.

  The silence in the station made the alarm sound infinitely louder when it went off.

  “Shit,” I spat.

  We all snapped into action and raced to the garage. Allen was first to the dispatch, who informed him that a business had gone up in flames. She couldn’t give him many details, but the person who reported the fire claimed there were people inside.

  “We’ll need rescue,” Allen called across the garage.

  Hayden was already on it. He was in his gear and hopping up into the truck beside me once I had my suit on. I yelled at the others to hurry the hell up, and once we were all in the truck with Allen and Derek in the ambulance, we pulled out of the station and into the street.

  We reached the address in four minutes.

  Great plumes of thick black smoke curled up into the bright blue sky, staining it dark. A generous crowd had gathered around, and they looked on as my crew unraveled the hoses and hooked them to the nearest fire hydrant.

  I pushed the line of onlookers back and didn’t shy away from yelling at them when they crossed the threshold.

  A woman burst from the crowd and flagged me down. “The shop owner and his wife are inside,” she said breathlessly.

  “You’re sure?”

  She nodded and clutched at her chest. “Yes. I’d just left the shop when the blaze started. There was an explosion and—”

  “Thank you, ma’am. We’ll take it from here.”

  I didn’t wait for her answer. I put my back to her and met my crew, signaling for the guys on the hose to start spraying.

  Then I grabbed Hayden by the shoulder. “An older couple is inside. This doesn’t look good. Sounds like it was an explosion. I don’t know what’s in there and what else might go off.”

  “Are you saying you don’t want me to go inside?”

  I grimaced. This was a call I didn’t want to make. But I also didn’t want to send my man into a death trap just to pick bodies up off the floor and drag them outside.

  “That’s what I’m saying,” I said, resenting the words even as they left my mouth. “I want you on the hose with Maddox. Keep him focused. Don’t get too close. This thing might blow again, and we have no way of knowing what sort of radius we’re looking at. Allen!”

  Allen, who was prepping the ambulance, looked up at me. He jogged over when I flagged him down. “Yes?”

  “I want you and Derek on crowd control. This thing isn’t even half spent, and we might have explosives inside. Keep the people back. Do whatever it takes.”

  “I’m on it,” Allen said. He broke away and went to grab Derek before turning his attention to the crowd.

  I scanned the area.

  The fire was raging inside a retail store in a strip mall. The businesses on either side, a shoe store and a hair salon, did not look like they’d yet caught fire, but at this rate, it was only a matter of time. The smoke was pitch black, which indicated chemicals and hydrocarbons were burning, and I wanted it out sooner rather than later.

  The windows were completely blown out of the business, which was a restaurant or cafe of some sort. I wondered if it was a propane fire. Maybe this placed cooked with propane grills. Or perhaps there had been an electrical short. That still didn’t explain the explosion, however.

  This was a fucking mess.

  My attention was drawn to Trace. He was manning the hose while Maddox and Hayden worked to set up a second.

  He’s too close, I thought.

  Nausea rolled through me.

  Trace was way too fucking close for comfort.

  I rushed forward, knowing full well with every step I took that I was entering the blast radius. My heart hammered in my chest, and blood rushed in my ears. All it would take was for the wrong thing to go up in flames in there, and we’d all have our insides imploded by the blast.

  I couldn’t risk that. Not with Olivette and my grandmother relying on me to make ends meet.

  Fucking Trace.

  I closed a hand on his shoulder and yanked him back. “Clear the blast radius!” I bellowed over the roar of fire and the rush of water coming out of his hose.

  “We’ll never get it out if we back off!” Trace yelled back.

  I pointed a thumb at my chest. “Lieutenant.”

  Trace’s jaw tightened.

  I hauled him back three steps. When he gave in and started backing away, he kept the water trained on the blaze. He followed me a good fifteen feet or so backward before I stopped him. The water still reached through the windows. Admittedly, not as much water as I’d like, but Maddox and Hayden were seconds from having their hose joining ours in the battle against the flames.

  Then the air split with an eardrum-popping crack.

  The ground shook. The crowd screamed.

  Trace and I shielded ourselves as debris blew out of the building and scattered across the pavement. Shards of glass refracted the sunlight exactly where we’d been standing moments before.

  “Get that fucking water in there now!” I bellowed at Hayden and Maddox, who were reeling in the aftermath of the blow.

  My voice snapped them back into action. Hayden took the lead, and Maddox fell in line behind him. Their hose blew a hole through the smoke and joined ours. Trace kept his line steady, and I looked over my shoulder to check on the crowd.

  Allen was talking to people, calming them down, and pushing them farther back. Derek was working right alongside him.

  I cast a wary glance back at the building. The neighboring stores had lost their windows now too, but it looked like we were going to stop the fire before it spread any farther. My head spun with the reality of how close to death we’d come.

  If Hayden had gone in there, he wouldn’t have come out.

  Had I not grabbed Trace, he might have had extensive internal bleeding from being too close to the blast.

  I might have been caught in the blow, too.

  It was a sobering thought.

  As the minutes passed, the fire weakened. The amber glow that tinged the inside of the cafe faded away to darkness, and soon, all that was left was a pile of ash and charred wood, simmering and smoking in the wake of our assault.

  When the fire was out and the police arrived, they sectioned off the area. I spoke to one of the officers and told him we suspected there were two bodies inside. The owner and his wife. I filled out a report to leave with them, and they told me they’d contact us if they had any questions or needed expert advice in their investigation.

  That was something Rinehart usually took the lead on. He could see things my eyes weren’t trained for yet. Maybe one day, I’d be on the same level as him.

  The mood was somber when we made it back to the station and took our equipment off. Nobody said much of anything, and everyone took cold showers before gathering in the kitchen to drink water and lots of it.

  “Fuck,” Hayden breathed, breaking the silence. “Good call out there, Mav. I almost went in there. I almost…” He trailed off and shook his head.

  “I know,” I said.

  “You saved my ass back there too, Mav,” Trace admitted. “I’m sorry. I was being reckless. I put you in danger.”

  “From here on o
ut, you listen when I give you an order. Otherwise, this won’t work. Yeah?”

  He nodded. “Yeah. Loud and clear.”

  I closed a hand on his shoulder and looked around at the room of exhausted firemen. “We’re all still here, boys. Good work out there.”

  “We lost two people,” Maddox said. His voice was low and quiet, and his eyes were downcast.

  “We could have lost more,” I said. “And not that it makes it easier, but chances are, they were dead before we got there, man. An explosion like that? You don’t walk away from it. And the first was probably bigger. We live to fight another day. To save souls who still have that chance. You all did good.”

  26

  Allie

  “Ms. Branson?”

  I blinked to clear my hazy vision and focused on the blond-haired boy in front of me. “Sorry, Brady. I think I was daydreaming. Do you need something?” I peered at the little boy and his classmates behind him. Everyone was sitting in a circle on the mat area, and they’d broken off into different groups to play.

  I’d been oblivious, zoning out and fantasizing about Mav.

  “Can we work on the mural?” Brady asked, swinging his shoulders back and forth bashfully.

  I glanced at the time. “In about fifteen minutes, okay?”

  He nodded. “Okay.”

  I watched him shuffle back to the mat to join the others. He went right to Olivette and sat down beside her. I was surprised to see that. Usually, Brady hung out with the other little boys, the more rambunctious the better, and Olivette preferred to play alone.

  But she greeted him with a big smile and patted the open spot on the blue mat beside her.

  Brady dropped to his bottom and sat cross-legged beside her. Then the two of them started talking animatedly, trading stories, giggling.

  I smiled. A friendship was forming. It was an unexpected one to be sure, but it was a friendship nonetheless, and I knew Olivette desperately needed this kind of connection with another child.

  She was a lucky little girl in the sense that she had a loving, doting father who prioritized her above all else. She had a great-grandmother who cared for her and loved her. And she went to a good school. But she was still painfully shy. It had taken the first whole month of classes for her to even begin to warm up to me. We were on good terms now, but I was happy to see that she was making friends her own age.

  She needed peers going into the higher grades of elementary school.

  I wondered how Mav would take it.

  Would it bother him that his daughter was making best friends with a little boy? Would it even occur to him? Mav didn’t strike me as one of those men who loathed the thought of his child hanging out with a boy. But it might bother him that she was hanging around with the school “troublemaker”. Not that I labeled Brady as that. But if Mav was ever out in the halls and he overheard other teachers or parents talking about Brady, he might have opinions of his own.

  I’d just have to convince him this was a good thing for Olivette. And Brady, too. Spending time with another child with a calmer temperament would do him some good.

  Of course, I’d have to advise Mav to be cautious about playdates. I didn’t like the idea of Olivette having play dates in a house where Mrs. Tully was the parent in charge.

  It gave me shivers.

  I could see her now, nose buried in her phone, heels up on a ten-thousand-dollar coffee table, sipping a mimosa while the children played or potentially got into trouble. Maybe she had a live-in nanny that would be more responsible than her.

  Hopefully.

  The day wore on slowly.

  I was looking forward to tomorrow. Mav had put some plans into motion to take me and Olivette to the local fair. They were a traveling fair with rides, food trucks, and games, and I made a point to go every year, only I usually went with Candice. This year, she had to work due to lack of staff coverage, and I was more than happy to tag along with Mav and Olivette for the afternoon.

  When he asked me to come with them, he’d called it a date.

  I’d asked if that was what Olivette thought it was.

  It wasn’t. She was under the impression she was just going out with her father and her teacher. That was fine by me. We didn’t need to make this more of a thing than it already was until we were both invested. Neither Mav nor I wanted to get her feelings caught up in all of this.

  That could be risky where a child was concerned.

  Besides, I still had questions.

  Mav’s wife, Olivette’s mother, wasn’t in the picture anymore. I hadn’t worked up the nerve to ask about her, but my mind had conjured several different theories in an attempt to figure it out on my own.

  The first idea was that they’d not worked together and broken up, and Mav, being the more responsible one, took full custody of Olivette.

  Maybe his wife had bailed on the whole domestic life situation and moved somewhere far away to start over.

  Or maybe she wasn’t in the picture because she wasn’t alive anymore.

  I hated that thought. And I hated that it was the one that felt the truest.

  Poor Olivette. Poor Mav.

  The poor woman who missed out on motherhood to a beautiful little girl with a wonderful partner.

  “Are you okay, Ms. Branson?”

  I cleared my throat and nodded at Olivette, who’d caught me zoning out again. “Yes. Sorry, Olivette. I just didn’t sleep very well last night.”

  “Are you still coming to the fair tomorrow?”

  “Of course, I am.” I smiled. “I’ve been looking forward to it. I love the fair. Are you excited?”

  Olivette nodded. Her eyes glittered with excitement. “Yes. Daddy and I always go to the fair.”

  “What’s your favorite part?” I rested my chin in my hand and my elbow on my desk.

  Olivette hemmed and hawed for a minute. She pursed her lips thoughtfully and gazed up at the ceiling like a little girl wiser than her young years. “The petting zoo. Yep. That’s my favorite.”

  “What animal do you like the most?” She amused me to no end. I could sit like this and talk with her for hours and never get bored with her responses.

  “The goats.”

  “The goats?” I asked, a little surprised. Usually, little girls liked the fluffy animals like the bunnies or the sheep or, if they were lucky enough to see them, the baby chicks. “Why are the goats your favorite?”

  “They’re funny,” Olivette said simply. “They jump all over the place and make silly noises. And they always make Daddy laugh. So they’re my favorite.”

  I grinned. There it was. The real answer. She loved them because they made Mav laugh. My heart swelled, and I couldn’t stop the ache in my cheeks from smiling so big. “That’s very sweet, Olivette. Your dad has a very nice laugh, doesn’t he?”

  “It’s my favorite sound in the whole world.”

  I almost said, “mine too”, but caught myself before the words fell from my mouth. “You’re lucky that you get to hear it every day.”

  She beamed. “I know.”

  I laughed. “Well, I’m sure the three of us will have the best time tomorrow. And we’ll make sure we get to pet the goats. Sound good?”

  Olivette clasped her tiny hands together and nodded.

  “Good.” I grinned. Then I got to my feet and went over to the wall where our still-in-progress mural was hanging by tacks. I took it down one corner at a time and laid it out on the floor. The children had come to learn the routines of my classroom and had already begun putting their toys and learning tools back in their rightful places. Brady helped another little boy put something in a higher cubby he couldn’t reach, and when he made to pass me to start coloring, I tapped his shoulder.

  “That was nice of you, Brady. You’re a good helper.”

  He smiled up at me. “You said it’s good to help where we can.”

  “It is good. And so are you.”

  Brady giggled as Olivette passed us by and took his hand. The two
of them went to her corner of the mural, and she pulled out all her pink and purple crayons while Brady reached for the blue one—his favorite color.

  I watched the moment unfold.

  “I like pink and purple,” Olivette said.

  “I like blue and green.”

  Olivette scrunched up her nose. “Really?”

  Brady nodded. “Yeah. Can I color in your corner?”

  “With the blue and green?”

  Brady frowned and looked down at the mural. “Will I ruin it?”

  Olivette thought carefully for a moment. Then she shook her head. “No, it will be pretty.”

  Little moments like this were the highlights of my career. Both children came from completely different walks of life, but both of them were learning social skills. How to be kind, how to be helpful, how to share, and how to cooperate.

  These were all skills I was fairly certain Brady didn’t have prior to coming to my class at the start of the year. I wondered if his parents had noticed any changes in him. Maybe he was still the same reckless boy when he was at home, and he was on his best behavior when he was here simply because that was what I expected and demanded from him.

  Children rose to high expectations. They buckled under none and desperately sought out boundaries. He didn’t have to do that in my room. He was free to just be a child and have fun, so long as he played by the rules.

  The last half hour of class passed quickly. It ended with me down on my knees, coloring right alongside them. I hadn’t noticed the time, so when the bell rang and parents arrived to pick up their kids, I was left with them running around my legs as we frantically tried to clean up. About eighty percent of the students stayed back to help me.

  Including Brady.

  His mother lingered at the door on her phone, oblivious to how good he was being.

  I wanted to rip the damn thing out of her hands, smash it on the floor, and tell her she was missing out on precious moments she would never get back. She would regret being checked out of his younger years. She wouldn’t regret missing the recent posts on her damn Instagram feed.