Line of Fire (24 page)
Authors: Jo Davis
“Oh, we will, all of us. I already signed you up, my friend.” Six-Pack clapped him on the shoulder.
“Well, you can just scratch my name off the list, friend. There’s absolutely no way in hell I’m going to stand around half-naked in front of a bunch of screeching women.”
The other man arched a dark brow. “Even when I tell you the event will benefit the families of fallen firefighters?”
Sean groaned. “Don’t do this to me.”
“Even if your participation could add hundreds or even thousands of dollars that will go to a grieving widow and her children? Even if you could single-handedly ease someone’s burden long enough to let them get back on their feet?” Six-Pack speared him with a pointed look.
“You suck,” Sean declared in defeat.
“I knew we could count on you! Think how much better about yourself you’ll feel, doing a good thing for someone less fortunate.” His friend beamed as they started inside together. “Besides, it’ll be a blast. You’ll see.”
“Yeah, yeah. I’m a regular Mother Teresa and party animal, all rolled into one.” Christ, he was forty-three years old, his brown hair turning silver at the temples. He was too old for this shit.
The issue was put on hold as they walked into the kitchen and were greeted by the smoky aroma of frying bacon. Sean’s stomach rumbled in approval. He marveled, not for the first time in the past few weeks, how good it felt to be hungry without alcohol killing his appetite.
“God, it smells good in here,” he said. At his declaration, Eve turned from the stove to face him, and his stomach did a funny lurch that had nothing to do with hunger pains.
“Well, if it isn’t our fearless leader.”
A broad, dazzling smile transformed her angular face, bright against her smooth coffee-with-cream skin. The smile reached all the way to her big blue eyes, warm and welcoming. Dark hair shot with reddish highlights fell in gentle curls to her shoulders.
Holy shit, she’s beautiful. Why haven’t I noticed before?
Or perhaps he had sometime in the past few months . . . but he didn’t want to dwell on those fuzzy memories at the moment. He didn’t have time to, because Eve was striding toward him while he stared like a witless fool.
She wrapped him in a fierce hug, and he found himself noting how wonderful her taut, sleek body felt pressed against his. How well she fit in his arms, her chin resting on his shoulder, soft curly hair tickling his nose. Her fresh scent, not floral but clean and herbal.
“It’s so good to have you back.” She drew away some to hold his gaze. “I mean really back.”
“Thanks,” he said quietly. “I’ve got a ways to go, but I’m right where I belong. Just don’t give up on me.” Hell, that last part just slipped out. God, could he sound more needy?
An odd flash of emotion crossed her expression, there and gone. “Are you kidding? We haven’t, and we won’t. You’re going to be fine.” Releasing him, she went back to tending breakfast.
The way she said that, he almost believed her. Immediately, he missed her heat pressed to his body, the soft words just for him. Why? What’s wrong with me? I’m her captain, for God’s sake. Hopefully her friend. To entertain anything more is highly inappropriate.
He’d tested the department’s goodwill and stretched it to a microscopic filament. Fooling around with a female firefighter under his watch after they’d all stuck out their necks to save him and his career? That would be the end.
The others drifted in from the bay, saving him from getting too maudlin. Leaning against the counter, he watched them horse around like a litter of goofy puppies, razzing one another and cracking jokes. Julian attempted to steal a piece of bacon from the platter only to get his hand smacked by Eve.
Sean spent a few private moments thanking God he hadn’t lost this, his second family, in the wake of trying to drown his grief. All along, he should’ve been seeking the comfort and strength his friends had to offer, not pushing them away. Time and counseling were finally getting that through his head.
“Let’s eat!”
Eve’s announcement was met with hearty approval, and they all settled around the table, digging in. Sean took a bite of fluffy pancakes and listened to the chatter around him, content to soak in the scene. Okay, so this was good but a little weird. Like he was a guest in his own body, watching everything from a perspective that was suddenly too close up and bright.
And it frightened him, too, the idea of living up to their faith in him. There would be no third chance. If he failed—
“Right, Cap?”
He blinked at the group, caught Eve and Six-Pack exchanging concerned glances. “I’m sorry. What?”
“I said we’ve decided to wear red G-strings for the auction instead,” Clay drawled, grinning. “Across the front they’ll say ‘Firemen have more hose.’ ”
“Shut up, moron,” Julian said, pelting the cowboy in the face with a balled-up napkin. “Half the women in the county have already seen you in less, so where would be the surprise?”
Clay snorted. “There’s still the other half to conquer. You could get a piece of the action too, except . . . Wait—you’re neutered now.”
“I’ve got your ‘neutered’ hangin’ low, cowboy, and Grace has no complaints. Don’t you have an off switch?”
“Jules finally has to put up with someone more annoying than he is,” Eve whispered in Sean’s ear. “Sweet, huh?”
Sean laughed, the sound not quite as alien as before. “True justice.”
No sooner had they finished their breakfast than the intercom emitted three loud tones, and the computerized voice dispatched them to a traffic accident with a major injury out on I-49. Those calls were the worst, the ones that made his blood run cold and threatened his sanity. The victims’ faces would haunt him for days, and now he had no buffer to place between himself and the nightmares.
They reached the scene to find a single car in a gulley. The driver’s door was buckled inward just enough to prove impossible to open, a long scratch running down the side of the vehicle. An elderly man sat slumped behind the wheel, unconscious and bleeding profusely from a long gash in his head.
The lieutenant and Zack brought out the Jaws of Life and went to work on the door, prying apart the stubborn metal. Moments later, Clay and Eve had the man stretched out on even ground, working feverishly to save him. The man’s face, the unmarred half, was parchment white. Slack. Shaking her head, Eve began CPR.
“Sideswiped,” an officer told Sean grimly. “Some bastard cut off the old guy. Ran him right off the damn road and didn’t stop to help.”
“Road rage?”
“Shapin’ up that way, according to the witnesses. Helluva way to start the mornin’, if ya ask me.”
Sean nodded, unsure whether the cop was referring to them or the victim. He crossed his arms over his chest, watching the futile attempt to revive the man. As he did, it occurred to him that there was something vaguely familiar about him, though he couldn’t place him. The man was, what? In his eighties? Hard to tell.
Whoever he was, he didn’t make it.
Sean and his team stayed out of the way after that, using their vehicles to block the far-right lane, routing traffic around the police and emergency vehicles so the officers could take photos, make reports. A mound of paperwork always followed a traffic death, particularly one now labeled a possible vehicular homicide.
Welcome back, Tanner.
A knock sounded on Sean’s office door a second before Eve popped her head in.
“You got a minute?”
Sean swiveled his chair away from the computer screen and the report he’d been typing, gesturing her inside. “I’ve got several if it means putting off my paperwork. Come in.”
Eve closed the door behind her and sprawled in the chair across from his desk, all sleekly muscled limbs, like a cat. Strong enough to hold her own in a male-dominated profession, yet no less womanly. A combination Sean found intriguing. Sexy.
An observation he had no business making.
“Funny how most stuff is done online nowadays, but it’s still called paperwork,” she said, giving him a guarded smile. As though he might find an excuse to bark at her like he would’ve done a few short weeks ago.
He leaned back in his chair, linking his fingers over his flat stomach. “And it’s still a pain in the ass, too. How did we ever cope without computers and e-mail?”
A mischievous twinkle lit her blue eyes as she relaxed. “Some of us are too young to remember not having them.”
“Ouch! Third-degree burns on my first day back,” he joked.
“Just making sure you’re reinitiated properly.”
“Why do I get the feeling this is only the beginning?”
“Because it is. Don’t be fooled by the pancakes—they were merely an evil ploy to lull you into complacency.”
“Hmm. I’ll consider myself warned. So, what’s on your mind?”
Humor fading, she hesitated before getting to the point. “I want to clear the air between us once and for all, and to do that I need to apologize.”
He stared at her in surprise. “What for?”
“For not being more supportive these past few months,” she said, guilt coloring her voice. She held his gaze, though, unflinching. “I’ve bucked you at every turn and even been a real bitch, at times in front of the others. For that, I’m deeply sorry.”
“You’re kidding, right? I was an unbearable, drunken, self-pitying son of a bitch, and you’re apologizing?” Pushing out of his chair, he stalked to the small window behind his desk and looked out at the view of the field beyond the parking lot, where the guys sometimes played football. But he didn’t appreciate the scenery, as he hadn’t appreciated so many good things in his life when he’d had them.
“Yes, I am. You don’t kick someone when they’re down, especially when they’re no longer in control of their own actions, and that’s exactly what I did.”
He shook his head. “No, you didn’t. You had the best interests of this team at heart every single time we butted heads. You and the guys were afraid I’d do something to seriously fuck up, and I did—so badly I can’t believe I still have a job, much less that I’m still alive. I understand that, and I’m trying to make peace with what I’ve done.”
The words were horribly familiar, as though the movie reel of his life had rewound twenty years. They left him shaken.
He could never atone for what he’d cost Tommy, any more than he’d been able to atone for his family’s deaths, or for that other tragedy so many years ago. But he could try really hard to live a good life for the rest of his days—a life denied to so many he’d loved and lost.
A soft hand gripped his arm, and Eve’s sweet voice whispered next to his ear, “Everything is going to be okay, Sean. I believe in you.”
Startled, he turned to find her practically in his arms. Right where he wanted her to be, and damn him to hell for feeling this way. They stared into each other’s eyes, the moment stretching into a thin wire, supercharged, and he forgot where he was. His responsibilities, his reputation, his position as her captain.
Gone, with the first brush of his lips against hers as his palm slid down her arm. Lost, with the need in her eyes and her beautiful face tilted up to his, her taut body pressed close, warm and safe.
Heaven. Oh, God, it’s been so long. Need this, need you . . . The cell phone on his desk shrilled a rude interruption, and they sprang apart as though the fire chief himself had walked in unannounced. Off balance from his lapse in judgment, lips tingling in pleasure, Sean grabbed for the phone.
“Hello?”
A man’s voice responded, quiet and amused. “Did you ever ask yourself . . . what if it wasn’t an accident?”
Click.
A couple of heartbeats passed before Sean lowered the phone from his ear, his brain scrambling to assimilate the caller’s meaning. Weird. What could that possibly . . .
“Sean? Sean, what’s wrong?” Eve’s voice called to him from miles away.
And the phone slipped unnoticed from his frozen fingers.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jo Davis spent sixteen years in the public school trenches before she left teaching to pursue her dreams of becoming a full-time writer. An active member of Romance Writers of America, she’s been a finalist for the Colorado Romance Writers Award of Excellence, has captured the HOLT Medallion Award of Merit, and has one book optioned as a major motion picture. She lives in Texas with her husband and two children. Visit her Web site at [http://www.jodavis.net] www.jodavis.net.