First Class Rescue (First Class Novels) (6 page)

The Sunday gathering for dinner at the Lathem family home
was getting bigger. Lindsey had officially joined the family and now baby
Gregory was at his first of many,
many
dinners with his grandparents.
This particular dinner was the Sunday before Thanksgiving so everyone was in
the same city and everyone was seated around the table.

“We need a new table, Peter,” Maureen told her husband as
Tyler, one of Janie’s adult sons, squished himself between Tim and Paul.

Peter sighed. If Maureen decided she
needed
something, by next week she would probably have it.

“And we’ll have more here on Thursday,” she continued. “Is
Shelby still coming?”

Katy nodded. Shelby was a young girl Katy had befriended in
a hospital in Portland while she’d worked as an ER nurse. Shelby was now a
young woman and attending Boston College. “She will be here. She flies in on
Wednesday.”

“And Larry and Irene?” Maureen asked Nic.

“Yep. They’re actually coming down on Wednesday too… or
sooner if the weather looks like it’s going to get bad. I know it’s only a
couple of hours away but Grandpa gets nervous driving.”

“Actually,” Paul said, “I think I’ll just go get them. Then
there’ll be no anxiety at all.”

Nic smiled at her husband. “I love you.”

“Love you too,” he grinned.

Tim had thought about asking Beth to join them but Emma
would still be in town and he wasn’t sure if it was a good idea. They’d only
been on a couple of dates after all, and his family would give her the third
degree. He wasn’t prepared to put her through that…yet.

“We might invite Ray too,” Janie added. “He’s still waiting
to see if he will get to have his girls or if their mother will cancel at the
last minute like she did last year.”

Maureen nodded. “Fine,” she said. “It’s definitely time for
a new table.”

“We’ll have to knock out a wall or two then,” Peter muttered
under his breath.

“I don’t think we can have that done by Thursday,” Maureen
frowned.

“I think Dad was kidding,” Tim grinned.

“Oh,” she said. “But I think it’s a great idea.”

“Oh boy,” Peter shook his head. “What have I done? Why can’t
I keep my mouth shut?”

The family all laughed at him as Maureen silently imagined
the newly renovated dining room.

*****

If he wasn’t going to see her at Thanksgiving, Tim decided
he didn’t want to wait until after Emma had gone home to spend some time with
Beth. She answered his call on the second ring.

“I thought I’d take you ladies out for dinner. What do you
think?”

“Oh,” grinned Beth. “Um, let me check with Em.”

He heard her cover the phone and then heard some mumbling
but couldn’t make out any words.

“Okay, we can do that. When?”

“Tonight?” It was Tuesday. He’d worked the day before and he
worked again on Wednesday.

“Yes. We can have dinner this evening. Where shall we meet
you?”

Tim gave her the name and address of an Italian restaurant
and they agreed to meet at seven. He hung up the phone happy.

His day went by relatively quickly. He did his laundry and
worked out and even cleaned the bathroom after sweeping the floors. The older
he got the less he wanted to live like a college frat boy. No longer could
empty glasses sit on the coffee table for days before he finally moved them. He
didn’t enjoy trying to find clothes that weren’t
too
dirty to wear. And
the sight of an unclean toilet turned his stomach now. He was growing up and
his priorities were slowly, but surely, shifting.

Daniel’s death had caused great reflection during the
moments his mind wasn’t occupied on other things. The image of his wife and
sons standing next to the coffin was seared into his brain. He wasn’t afraid of
dying. If he was, he’d chosen the wrong career path. He was afraid of living.
He was afraid of living a life that made him take personal risks. He ran into
burning buildings all the time. But he’d never let a woman in close enough to
risk anything emotionally. Until now.

It was time. He was ready to live. He was ready to take a
risk. He was ready to risk it all…for Beth.

*****

Tim was seated in the booth at the restaurant ten minutes
early. He sipped on a glass of red wine and waited for Beth and her sister. He
felt calm and confident and excited for the opportunity to get to know her
better. He wanted to spend as much time with her as he could and for her to get
to know him.

As he watched her walk through the door, his heart confirmed
it for him. She was the one. She was the one he wanted to share his life with.
He’d mocked his brothers for leaving the brotherhood of bachelors and selling
themselves into slavery, or marriage as the world called it. But as Tim stared
at Beth as she removed her coat and hung it on the coat rack, he understood
what it was all about.

He stood as they approached the table and leaned in and
kissed Beth on the cheek which made her blush.

“Hi,” he smiled.

“Hello,” she said as she looked at her hands.

“I’m Tim,” he said and offered his hand.

“Emma,” she smiled and shook his hand quickly.

“I’ve already ordered a bottle of wine. Would you care for a
glass?” he asked as the women slid into the booth opposite him.

“Yes please,” Emma replied.

“Thank you,” Beth nodded.

He filled both their glasses and the waitress arrived with
menus. Within minutes they’d placed their orders and a big bowl of salad was
brought to their table.

Emma chatted non-stop about her visit with her sister so
far. They’d been shopping, gone ice skating and painted Beth’s bedroom.

“Oh?” Tim asked. “I liked the blue.”

Beth was horrified at his disclosure that he’d been in her
bedroom. Emma didn’t miss it either.

“You’ve been in Beth’s bedroom, have you?” she asked as she
elbowed her sister.

“Tim…Tim rescued Cleo in the fire. So of course he was in my
apartment.”

Emma squinted at Beth and then looked over at Tim.

“I did,” he admitted. “Cleo was shut in the bedroom and I
had to search for her.”

“So you’re a fireman?”

“Firefighter. Yep.”

“Hmmm,” she said. “Interesting.”

Beth looked at her sister with the ‘please just behave’ look.
Tim saw it and tried to help by changing the subject.

“Tell me about England. I’ve never been.”

Emma obliged and the rest of the night was filled with her
top ten reasons why England was so much better than America.

*****

“You can’t be serious!” Emma scoffed.

“What?” Beth had no idea what her sister was talking about.

“Don’t misunderstand me,” Emma continued. “He’s bloody
gorgeous, but…”

“But?”

“He’s a fireman!”

“And?”

“He’s a fireman!”

“You’ve already said that,” Beth sighed. “And if he wasn’t a
fireman, Cleo would have died in the fire.”

The cab hit a pothole and the sisters bounced into each
other.

“Mum will not approve, Beth.”

“There’s nothing for her to approve!”

Emma sighed. “He’s been in your bedroom.”

“I explained that!”

She chuckled. “And you expect me to believe that while he
was in a burning building looking for your dog he noticed the pale blue paint
on the walls?”

It was Beth’s turn to sigh. She had to admit to herself that
in the very dark recesses of her mind she knew that Ann Collins would never
accept a
fireman
as a prospective son-in-law. That was too far beneath
her place in society and she would fight Beth every step of the way.

A barrister would have been acceptable to Ann, or a CEO of a
Fortune 500 company. But a fireman? Too blue collar. Not good enough. Too much
of an embarrassment. It would never do.

Emma was right. This would not end well. If she picked Tim,
she’d lose her family, and if she picked her family, she’d lose Tim.

“Bollocks!”

*****

The Lathem house on Thanksgiving Day was swarming with
people and was incredibly loud; the young grandchildren were playing and
laughing; some of the men were watching football on the television with the
volume turned up way too high; Maureen and Janie were in the kitchen; Katy was
playing Angry Birds on her tablet; Shelby and Adam were off in a corner
chatting away; Andrew and Rory were having a disagreement over which preschool
Isabelle would attend…in three years; and Nic sat with her grandparents as they
fussed over baby Gregory. Everyone was happy and Maureen was thrilled that they
were all there.

Tim sat in the recliner in front of the television but
wasn’t paying any attention to the game. His mind was on Beth. He’d broached
the subject of Thanksgiving dinner on Tuesday evening, but Emma had been quick
to point out that the United Kingdom did not celebrate Thanksgiving so they
would be spending the day doing the same thing as every other day. Tim decided
not to invite them to dinner.

Emma was very different than Beth. They looked similar in
that they both had blonde hair, blue eyes and pale skin, but their
personalities were nothing alike. Emma liked to be the center of attention and
whatever she said was gospel truth. She didn’t like being corrected. Tim had
learned his lesson when Emma informed him that London’s population was far more
diverse than New York’s. All Tim had said was that New York was in fact very
diverse, but Emma had jumped all over him and asked when he’d last been to
London. Of course he’d never been so Emma folded her arms with a smug
expression on her face and said that she’d been to both cities and was in a
position to make her statement. Tim didn’t question anything else she’d said
all evening.

Emma didn’t work. She lived at home with her parents on
their estate and rode horses and shopped. Her parents owned a flat near
Kensington Palace and she liked to spend as much time there as she could. Tim
thought of her as the classic stereotype of the youngest child – the baby of
the family – until he remembered that he too was the youngest. He didn’t like
that thought.

Beth on the other hand was interested in what others had to
say and when Tim spoke, he could see that she was concentrating on what he was
saying. She’d left home and traveled to a different country and made a life for
herself, working hard and establishing herself in a competitive industry, independent
of her family. She was kind and considerate and when she smiled, her whole face
smiled. She lit up a room. And when he closed his eyes, he saw her face. In his
dreams he heard her voice.

Maureen announced that dinner was ready. The television
clicked off. Katy put her tablet on the coffee table and the grandchildren
cheered as they bounced into the dining room.

“You did it!” Rory exclaimed. “You got a new table!”

Maureen smiled. “I did. Isn’t it lovely?”

“We’re gonna have to die a year earlier now,” Peter
muttered.

“What?” gasped Janie.

“It cost a year of our retirement money!” he whined. “I’m
going to have to die a year younger.”

The family laughed at their patriarch. Matt and Mark made
sure their parents would never want for money and the family refused to acknowledge
they would ever lose either one of their parents. That would be a moment in
their lives that nobody wanted to think about.

“This looks just wonderful,” Irene Wilkins said as her
husband pulled her chair out for her.

“Yes it does,” agreed Shelby. “Thanks for inviting me.”

“You are all my family,” Maureen smiled. “And next year,
this room will be bigger. We’re going to knock out that wall,” she said nodding
at the wall behind her husband, “and expand the dining room so the table fits
better. We don’t need a study anymore anyway.”

“Me and my big mouth,” grumbled Peter.

“Well, it is a little tight in here now,” Andrew frowned as
his chair hit the sideboard as he tried to sit.

After everyone was finally seated, they all joined hands and
Peter said grace. Tim looked around the table at his family. Each couple sat
together with their children with Peter and Maureen at opposite ends. He sat by
Ben, his older brother that was also still single. Ben had declared at David
and Lindsey’s wedding that he was going to stay a bachelor. He wasn’t going to
be tied down to anything. At the time, Tim had thought the idea sounded pretty
good to him too but now, just a few short weeks later, he thought perhaps Ben
was an idiot.

*****

Beth hugged Emma at the entrance to the security checkpoint
in the airport. The sisters said goodbye and Emma walked to the first class
line and eventually disappeared from sight. Thinking of all the work she’d put
off while her sister had been visiting, Beth slid into a taxi and headed home.
She had piles of manuscripts to read so she stopped and grabbed some supplies
for her self-imposed confinement ‘til she was caught up.

With a bag of dog treats, three bottles of wine, Cadbury’s
chocolate and four bags of baby carrots, Beth returned home and settled in. Starting
at the top of the pile, she began to read.

“Another vampire story,” she muttered. It seemed that half
of the books she received had to do with vampires, werewolves or aliens. It was
amazing how some writers actually believed there was a market for a story about
a romance between a green slimy alien and a morbidly obese teenage girl from
the Bronx. But her favorite crazy you-must-have-been-on-crack-when-you-wrote-this
book of all time was the science fiction story set in the future where the
government supplied robots to
pleasure
the businessmen during their
commute between earth and the space station off Mars where they worked. It was
weird and not at all anatomically correct but she’d had to read it ‘til the
very last word. Needless to say, however, the author received a polite ‘thank
you for your submission but we aren’t interested’ letter.