“What’s the plan?” Brady asked.
“We’ll toss Charlie in and he can play the part of the struggling swimmer who panics and fights our new recruits all the way back to the boat,” Tony said. “After that, we’ll move closer to shore and sink the dummy to the bottom and do the human chain search. Water’s still pretty cold, but you couldn’t ask for a nicer day.”
Brady tugged on the straps of Charlie’s life jacket and then clapped him on the shoulder. “Good luck, buddy.”
Charlie laughed and stepped off the boat. He splashed and flapped his arms in the water and screamed in a high falsetto voice.
“He’s not much,” Chief Tony Ruggles told the two new firefighters, “but he’s got a wonderful wife and a toddler. Better go save him.”
The new guys, Hal and Chase, followed their training by checking their own life jackets first and then tossing a life ring to the simulated victim in the water. Charlie ignored the life ring and yelled, “Come save me!”
Hal and Chase jumped into the water and started swimming toward Charlie, who swam away from them in the opposite direction. Brady picked up a long rope with a life ring attached. “I think I could hit him from here,” he said, chuckling.
Tony crossed his arms over his chest and sat on the gunwale of the boat. “I knew he’d make this fun for them. That’s why I told them Charlie has a wife and child. It makes him a more sympathetic character.”
Brady knew the families of all the other guys. He’d been to a few of their weddings and tossed in cash for group baby gifts. Been to some funerals, too. Although the fire department was like a big family, most of the other firefighters were going home to their own spouses and children. Brady’s half of a rental house had been empty and silent until a week earlier when his brother and niece had shown up on his doorstep. He loved hearing the water running in the evenings for Bella’s bath and having extra dishes in the sink, and he hoped Noah and Bella would stay for a long time. Brady wasn’t afraid of burning houses or dangerous rescues, but loneliness got under his skin.
“There you go,” Tony yelled, encouraging the two new firefighters. “Hook the life ring to his vest.”
Brady forced his thoughts back to the training rescue in the small choppy waves. “Charlie must have gotten tired of leading them on a chase,” he said. He laughed as he saw Charlie stretch out on his back, hands behind his head, and float on the water like a big raft, making Hal and Chase work together to drag him toward the boat.
“It would be tempting to jump on that personal watercraft and give him a dose of his own medicine,” Tony said.
Brady grinned and nodded. “But you’re too nice a guy to do that.”
“Correction. I’m too nice to do that to Hal and Chase,” Tony said.
An hour later, Brady was at the wheel of the fire engine on the way back to the station. The diesel noise and the low hum of radio traffic was the background music of his life as a firefighter in the coastal town of Cape Pursuit, Virginia.
“Did I do okay?” the new recruit, Hal, asked. “I’ve been around boats a lot.”
Brady smiled. “I can tell. If we end up going out on a water rescue, I wouldn’t mind having you aboard.”
He didn’t look at Hal, but he knew the twenty-year-old would appreciate the compliment. Brady was only five years his senior, but every day of those five years had been a learning opportunity. Sometimes he thought the fire and rescue service should have no more surprises for him, but each day was still different, demanding and fantastic.
“Too bad we didn’t have time for the beach rescue exercise,” Hal said.
While they were still on the boat, Tony had heard the radio traffic from two ambulances that were called out on a car accident. He didn’t like leaving the station with low manpower even though there were off-duty firefighters and more than a dozen volunteers they could call in. Out of caution, he’d shortened the training exercise, returned to the dock and sent Brady back in the pumper with Hal while the chief drove the smaller rescue truck with Chase. Charlie had driven his own car to the dock where he kept his personal watercraft because he was, technically, off duty and had volunteered to help.
A string of tall hotels with balconies and beach views lined the waterfront in Cape Pursuit, and the strip of road behind the hotels was the flashy area of tourist dining, entertainment and shopping. Restaurants, bars, miniature golf courses, stores selling beach blankets and sunscreen, and upscale shops selling art made the downtown area inviting well beyond the beach. Brady slowed for a tourist on a bicycle who weaved down the side of the street. He wasn’t in a huge hurry, and if a call did come in he could flip on the lights and siren. Safety came first, though. Always.
The wandering bicyclist turned at a stop sign, and Brady came to a full stop with the massive fire engine. Facing him at the four-way stop was the Cape Pursuit sightseeing trolley. The glorified bus, painted and styled to look like an old-fashioned trolley car, was a familiar sight in the tourist town. There were several of them, and they ran a daily circuit through Cape Pursuit, providing a way for visitors to hop on and off at hotels, restaurants and several locations along the beach. The longer runs took visitors up the coastline to Norfolk and destinations along the way.
Brady knew most of the trolley drivers and had, in fact, spent the previous summer making extra cash driving one. He was planning another summer of the same trolley shifts mixed with fire station shifts. With another summer of working two jobs, he could finally put away enough savings to make a down payment on his dream of home ownership.
He waved automatically to the driver of the trolley as he always did, but she didn’t seem to notice him as she turned to say something to a passenger in the front seat.
It was only a glance.
He could be wrong.
But that driver looked just like Kate Price, who had kissed him and left without a word at the end of the previous summer. There was no way she could be back for another summer...was there?
Copyright © 2020 by Amie Denman
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ISBN: 9781488068133
Where the Heart May Lead
Copyright © 2020 by Elizabeth Mowers
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
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Where the Heart May Lead: A Clean Romance (Harlequin LP Heartwarming) Page 24