Flirting With Fire (Hometown Heroes) (24 page)

His long legs quickly
closed the distance between us. “I wasn’t going to talk about my love life, I
wanted to tell you I have proof Bunni didn’t set those fires.”

That stopped me
in my tracks. If she hadn’t set the fires, then who the hell had?

No. No way she
wasn’t the one. I spun around to face him, angered by his naïveté. “Proof?
Because, even after the chocolate, I still don’t trust her.”

“Fine, don’t
trust her. But at least hear me out. Look, I’m not supposed to be sharing this
with you, but we caught a glimpse of the firebug on your apartment building’s
surveillance video.” His gaze was one hundred percent serious, a fury burning
silently beneath the surface. “It was definitely a guy.”

“A…guy? Are you
sure?”

I rubbed my
temples. This couldn’t be! Bunni had made sense. And being as insecure as she
is, I could see her wanting me out of the way. But what guy would want me dead?
Or at the very least, scared out of my mind?

“Yep. Got into a
navy Silverado parked on the side street. You know anybody who drives a truck
like that?”

An image came to
mind immediately. One from just a week ago, of that exact truck pulling up in
front of my apartment. Its owner stepping out to console me.

Mitch.

* * * *

I played dumb
the rest of our conversation. Pretended not to know a Silverado from a Tundra.
No way would Mitch be involved. Sure, he was starting to nag me more and more
about moving back to Autumn Lake. But setting fires to scare me off? No way.

Besides, navy
Silverados were a dime a dozen around here. We had a GM plant right down the
road for crying out loud.

No, regardless
of what they’d supposedly seen on that video, I was still convinced Bunni had
been behind the fires. And now that there had been no more fires? Well, that
was enough proof for me. My days of living in fear were over.

I awoke Saturday
morning and decided to walk a few blocks to the nearest Starbucks. The caffeine
would give me a much-needed jump start, the fresh air help wash away the
lingering remnants of last night’s dream. A dream about that long, smooth bar
at Northside, decorated with nothing but me and a certain fireman who shall not
be named.

Oh, baby.

Yeah, that was
the last thing I needed on my mind today. Especially since I wasn’t due at
Sarah’s until five o’clock. That left a whole lot of time for me to daydream
about him, or start second-guessing if his claim about the navy Silverado was
actually true…

I pulled my hair
into a messy bun, tugged on my running shoes, and headed for the stairs. It was
gorgeous outside, the sun a brilliant white against a canopy of pale blue. The
kind of spring day which, if I had a yard of my own, I’d gladly spend on my
hands and knees, pulling weeds and dividing perennials—something I hadn’t done
since my parents moved away and sold the one yard I’d known growing up.

Ten minutes
later I had a latte in hand and half a day to blow. I headed back toward home,
taking my time to stop and smell the roses—or in this case, lilacs. Oh, how I
loved the scent of fresh lilacs! It was hard to imagine, between their
intoxicating scent, chirping robins, and sunny sky unmarred by a single cloud,
that a city like this could harbor any danger for me.

I’d no more had
that thought when a siren rang out in the distance.

Ah, city life. I
shook my head, and hurried the rest of the way home.

With the coffee
excursion over much too quickly, I tried to find other ways to keep my mind
occupied. Cable television was two hundred channels of reruns, and Facebook was
a constant stream of baby pictures and toddler tales. Quickly bored with both,
I called my mother. But she was out with her bridge club.

At least one of
us had a social life.

After lunch,
some lazing around the apartment, and a few loads of laundry, I caved. Did the
one thing I’d always resolved not to do on Saturdays—hit the grocery store. Too
many crazies all in one place battling for the last of this week’s specials or
items with coupons about to expire. But maybe, I thought, desperate for
something to keep me occupied, I’d luck out and all the Saturday shoppers would
be gone by this hour.

Wrong.

At three
o’clock, the store on West State was still mobbed with people of all shapes and
sizes, ages and attitudes. I wove through its aisles as best I could—no small
feat, let me tell you. In the bread aisle, I narrowly avoided being mowed down
by an elderly couple in a matched set of motorized scooters. And in aisle four,
some angry, snotty-nosed toddler chucked a can of his little brother’s baby
formula at my head.

Mental note: if
I ever need a reprieve from baby infatuation, shop on a Saturday.

I was in the
last aisle, nerves nearly shot and reaching for some much-needed comfort food,
when someone shouted from behind me, “Hey, you can’t buy that!”

I jerked my hand
back from the Double Stuf Oreos and ducked, expecting to see something else come
flying at me. Instead, all that followed was laughter. I opened my eyes and
found Joe, Cam, and Mikey watching me with matching ear-to-ear grins.

“Geez, guys, you
scared the crap out of me!”

Cam reached around me for his own package of Oreos. “What, did that kid throw something at
you, too?”

“Yes! I was
starting to think I’d need to wear a suit of armor next time.” I laughed. And
it felt good, damn good. I’d been buried beneath too much serious lately. “So,
what are you guys doing here? Shouldn’t you be sitting at the station, counting
cracks in the ceiling or something?”

“Nah, we’re
saving that for our after dinner activity,” Joe said with a smirk. “Actually, Torrunn
wanted to cook for us tonight, but we were missing a few things on his list.”

I felt my blood
pressure spike. Even at the grocery store I couldn’t get away from the guy.
“Oh? What’s he making?”

“Enchiladas.”

I grinned. “And
here I thought MacKay sounded more Scottish than Mexican.”

“I don’t know
what it is,” said Joe, “but you haven’t lived until you’ve had his cooking.” He
turned to Cam and handed him a piece of paper. “Here, Rookie, you and Mikey go
make yourselves useful.”

“And what are
you going to do, Old Timer?”

Joe reached up
to give Cam a light smack upside the head. “Help this damsel in distress. Now go,
before we get called on a run and miss out on shopping altogether.”

Cam sulked off and Mikey followed, leaving Joe and me alone in the sugar-filled aisle.

“So, where is your
world famous chef, anyway?”

“Outside,
entertaining the kids.”

“Huh?” My gaze
shifted to the front of the store, but the checkout lanes blocked my view.

“The truck. It
draws kids to it like a giant magnet. Torrunn loves to let them climb inside
and pretend they’re firefighters, too.”

I thought back
to seeing him at the TinCaps game last week, and how his face had lit up during
each interaction with the children in the stands. He’d said he couldn’t have
kids. Then made sure to point out that it wasn’t a physical limitation…so what
was it, then? Though it really was none of my business, my curiosity got the
best of me.

“Tell me
something, Joe. If he’s so good with kids, why hasn’t he settled down yet and
had a few of his own?”

The smile eased
from Joe’s face. With a sigh he took position behind my shopping cart. “You
walk, I’ll talk.”

“Okay…” I
snagged the Double Stufs and continued on my way, slower than before so Joe
could walk with me.

“What do you
know about Tommy?”

I felt a knot
form in my stomach.
Oh, please don’t let this be some tearjerker story about
a little kid lost in a fire,
I thought. I’d probably burst into tears right
here in the snack food aisle.

“Who?”

“I didn’t think
he’d tell you,” Joe half mumbled. He thought for a moment, then met my sideways
gaze. “Tommy was a recruit, came in the same time as Torrunn. They went through
the Fire Academy together, each with some of the highest marks in their class.
Their teamwork was…instinctive, that’s the best way I can think to describe it.
The higher ups saw it too, and assigned them to the same station.”

“Fire Station One?”

Joe shook his
head. “No, I can’t remember which one it was. Fifteen, maybe? Anyway, like a
lot of new recruits, they were eager to get out there and fight their first
fires. Unfortunately, like most new recruits, they also thought they were
invincible.”

I stopped
walking.

“You know where
this is going,” Joe said softly, his eyes focused on something off in the
distance. His memories, perhaps. “First major fire, warehouse, south side of
town. They go running in, Torrunn with the hose, Tommy with an axe. Check for
victims, don’t see anyone. They started to retreat, but then Tommy spotted a
dog, cowering behind a stack of pallets and steel drums. He rushed forward to
save it, Torrunn kept an exit path open for him. But the dog wouldn’t budge,
and conditions began to deteriorate around them. T called out for Tommy to
hurry up. That’s when the steel drums beside Tommy exploded.”

“Oh, God. How
awful.”

Joe made a sign
of the cross, and studied the contents of my shopping cart without really
seeing them. “It was a tough day for the entire department. Even tougher for
Torrunn. Blamed himself for Tommy’s death. Probably still does. But there was
nothing he could have done.”

Poor Torrunn. My
stomach twisted into a knot as I tried to imagine the guilt he must have felt.
To be him and watching, helpless, as your best friend was consumed by flames.
What kind of scars does something like that leave on a person?

“Was Tommy
married?”

“Only just so.
And she was expecting. Honeymoon conception.”

“Oh, no.”

…Don’t get me
wrong, I actually like kids. Always thought it’d be great to have three or
four. But. I just can’t…

“It’s that fear—the
fear of leaving loved ones behind—that’s kept Torrunn from starting a family of
his own.” Joe’s steady gaze met mine. “Maybe someday someone will come along
and help him see just how much of his life he’s throwing away.”

* * * *

I stood in Sarah’s
kitchen a handful of hours later, batting at a fresh mound of soap bubbles
while she helped her husband tuck the kids in for bed. It’d been a tough night,
and not just because I was still reeling from what Joe had shared about Torrunn.
Or that I’d fought back tears when I saw him in the parking lot playing with
the local children, an ear-to-ear grin on his face. No, on top of all that, Sarah
had spent the whole evening giving me a play-by-play of her latest OB appointment: the first heartbeat duets she and Ron got to hear, her weight, her
measurements, how easy this pregnancy had been going…

And all the
while, the hollow feeling in my midsection seemed to grow larger and larger.

Sarah’s first
pregnancy had been an amazing adventure for us both—her sharing details, me
living vicariously through the stories. Pregnancy two had been great, because
I’d gotten tons of Auntie Liz babysitting time while Sarah battled first
trimester morning-noon-and-night sickness. Number three had been a quiet
pregnancy, uneventful and seemingly over before we knew it.

But now that she
had two babies baking in there, she felt compelled to relive every emotion,
every gastrointestinal discomfort. Don’t get me wrong—every pregnancy is a
miracle. It’s just that, for some unknown reason, her fourth and fifth miracle
seemed all that much more difficult to swallow for still-barren me.

Mitch came into
the kitchen, picked up a towel, and stopped beside me. “It’s going to happen
for you, too, someday.”

I shrugged.
“We’ll see.”

“It will. Just be
patient, Liz.”

His voice was
soft. Hinted a level of understanding few people in my life could truly
accomplish. Why couldn’t there be more guys out there like him? Guys that could
tease and torment relentlessly one minute, then compliment and encourage the
next? Even so, his words tonight struck a bad chord.

“That’s all I’ve
been
doing, Mitch.” I pushed off the counter and stood upright, then
snorted. “Heck, if I’m any more patient, my damn maternal clock will come to a
grinding halt long before I find a man.”

“So, no
prospects at all last night?”

I shrugged.
Sarah had taken one brief break in talking all things baby at dinner to ask how
my ‘night on the town’ had gone. Both then and now I remained more or less silent
on the subject. Partly because it’d been a major fail, and partly because, for
the first time I could remember, I’d felt an odd sense of guilt discussing it
in front of Mitch. Why, I still didn’t know.

“Well if that’s
the case, the guys in Fort Wayne are all idiots.” He took a damp plate from the
drying rack. “Of course, if you’d just come back home, there are plenty of guys
around here who already appreciate you for being you.”

“Uh, huh. Well,
these
plenty of guys
weren’t exactly pounding down my door with a
proposal before, so why would that be any different now?”

“Come back and
find out.”

His grin didn’t
quite reach his eyes. Eyes shadowed by worry lines. He set the dry plate on the
counter. I handed him a freshly cleaned glass and studied him for a moment.

“Is everything
okay? You haven’t been your usual give-Liz-hell self tonight.”

Another grin that
didn’t quite hit the mark.

“Just been kinda
nuts at work, lately. Personnel issues,” he added in a mumble.

“Really? Who?”

“New server,
drops a tray every night.” He finished drying the glass and reached around me
to put it away in the cupboard.

“And?”

He avoided my
gaze and sighed. “Glenn. He’s been nagging me about…”