The Protector (20 page)

“Cassie, do you have a minute?” Cole asked.

She glanced over to the doorway. “Of course.”

“I know you’re off duty…”

She smiled at the hesitation. He was being unusually deferential because he wanted to keep in her good graces as well. Technically she went off the clock at 5
P.M.
“Bring the paperwork. I know you’ve got a finance meeting on the eighteenth.”

She found working with Cole fascinating. Getting involved in the efficiency reports and the budget paperwork had radically opened her eyes to the scope of his job. She’d thought she would find watching him wrestle with the numbers boring, but instead it was a very big challenge.

“I’d like to try changing these budget figures.”

“Which ones?” She held the spoon she was using over the sink, so the grease wouldn’t drip on the stove top, and leaned over to see the report.

Cole held it steady while using his pen to highlight a line. “Paid oncall class I. Let’s shift the increase to salary class III. And I want to cut the administrative budget another 3 percent and move it to training.”

“Given the increase in grounds and maintenance, I don’t know if there’s another 3 percent that can be cut from the admin figures. You can barely afford a box of paper clips as it is.”

“We’ll have the fire station auxiliary sell cookies, sponsor a car wash, have another chili cook-off…something. I can beg and cajole the community for things; I can’t do that for people. And we’ve got to squeeze another paramedic and firefighter in under the budget caps.”

She agreed with him on the hires. After watching five shifts Cassie would consider the need acute. The guys were getting run ragged with the dispatch rate. If they got back from this last rollout by seven o’clock she would be surprised. She was doing her best to slow dinner preparations so they wouldn’t have to come back to rubbery lasagna from overcooking. “I’ll get as creative as I can.”

“Figure out how to do it and I’ll owe you a big one.”

“Let me roll out to the next car accident.”

He leaned over and pinched some of the grated cheese for the lasagna. “No.”

“Cole, I know the job, and you just said you needed the help. I know I can’t do everything at a scene I once could, but you know how valuable an extra pair of hands would be. And it’s not like you’re not already paying me.” It was killing her to have the dispatch tones sound and at times be the only member of Gold Shift left at the station. It wasn’t the first time she had asked. She didn’t understand why he wouldn’t agree. “If you think it’s a liability issue, could I request a finding from the personnel board?”

“It’s not my decision,” Cole said quietly.

“Should I talk to Frank?”

“It’s Jack’s decision to make.”

Jack was the one choosing to leave her behind. She blinked as that registered. She had worked hard to show him she was not only up to speed with the status of the rig and the equipment, but also to prove she was not a liability to him on Engine 81. Finding out he was the one blocking her request…it felt like she’d been betrayed. How could he hurt her this way?

“I support his decision.”

“Cole—” She needed to understand. “Why?”

“Talk to Jack.”

It was the only answer she was going to get. She slowly nodded. “Okay.” Cole wasn’t going to explain, but she heard what sounded suspiciously like sympathy in his voice. She looked back to the dinner she was fixing. Sympathy ran close to pity. She didn’t need either.

She pushed away the hurt. Her issue was not with Cole; it was with Jack. “Leave the budget on the table and I’ll do some work on it tonight, if you don’t mind my using your office.”

Cole gave a rueful smile. “You’re welcome to it.”

The man worked too many hours. She had found him already at the station when she arrived at a quarter to seven this morning. Unlike the guys on shift, Cole was in the office five days a week. On top of that, he was on call for suspicious fires around the county and had a full court docket to manage as arson cases moved through the courts.

He pinched more cheese. She wasn’t sure if he’d had lunch. “There are extra raspberries in the refrigerator.”

“Really? I’ll accept. Do we have any ice cream?”

“French vanilla. I bought it this afternoon.”

“Bless you.” He opened the cupboard to retrieve a bowl.

“Jack.” It was seven-thirty that evening, after dinner and kitchen cleanup were complete before Cassie was able to search out Jack to raise the subject she had been wrestling with ever since Cole’s comment.

“Over here.”

She pushed her hands deeper into her pockets and picked her way carefully across the parking lot, trying to avoid the puddles that were actually disguised potholes. The rain had come down in a steady drizzle for most of the afternoon, then had finally stopped, but the mess remained. Several car accidents today were attributed to the weather.

Jack was in the county garage. The building next to the fire station was used to store some of the more infrequently used equipment, including a flat bottom boat and a scaffolding system for construction sites. The large doors were rolled up and the overhead lights glared. He was stretched out under the belly of what the guys affectionately called the Blue Beast.

The old pumper engine had been retired when the Quint—a combine engine and truck—had been bought three years before. The Blue Beast was kept serviced so it could be used when access to a scene was constrained. The narrow wheel bed of the old engine made it the only pumper that could get to certain locations or at major fires where it became necessary to stage water from either the lake or a retention pond.

She could see Jack’s boots and not much else of him. “Can I talk to you for a minute?”

“Sure.”

“Face to face.”

What sounded like a wrench struck concrete. “Just a minute,” he muttered through gritted teeth.

“Rap your knuckles?”

“About broke my thumb.”

When he rolled out from under the engine two minutes later, his face was still grim and he was shaking his hand to take out the sting.

Now wasn’t a good time. “We can talk later.”

He sat up and tossed two wrenches into the toolbox. “Now is fine.” His expression lightened. “Did I mention it was a great dinner?”

“Several times.” She perched cautiously on the metal bins used to store salt blocks.

“Cole was wrong about the cobbler. It’s not good. It’s fabulous.”

“I’m glad you liked it.” She smiled but it faded rather quickly.

He moved to sit on the running board of the pumper, his curious look turning serious, his mood changing to match hers. “What can I do for you?”

“I’d like to ride along when there’s a dispatch to a car accident and help out. Cole said I should talk to you about it.”

She searched his face for an indication of his thoughts. She didn’t know what she expected but it wasn’t the remote expression that appeared. “I’m not asking to go back on full duty, just roll out and be there if you need an extra hand.”

“I’m afraid the answer is no.”

“I’d like to know why.”

His gaze was calm and resigned. “It won’t change the decision,” he said quietly. She heard in his answer the caution that it might be better if she would accept that.

She hesitated. She didn’t want to push him into a corner, but she needed to know. “Do you think I’d be a liability because of my weaker arm?” He was ruling her out and yet there had to be something she could offer that would be acceptable. “Could I do care and comfort?” Under current department policies, even Luke as a volunteer chaplain was trained in emergency medical response and could provide that kind of help at the scene of an accident.

He turned his attention to wiping grease from his palm.

“Jack?”

“I’m sorry, Cassie.”

The rejection hurt. “I need to know why.”

He looked at her with sadness and regret, and he gave it to her straight. “You’re partially deaf.”

She’d asked; the answer cut. Her hearing had been compromised, especially on her right side, but it was not as bad as his answer suggested.

“I can’t have you working near traffic when that very traffic would mean you may not hear a shouted warning. You have a problem hearing me across the equipment bay when a vehicle is running; you struggle to follow a conversation at dinner when several separate conversations are going on. Too many firefighters and cops have been hit or almost hit by traffic when working a crash scene. I can’t let you ride along.”

It was a calm, quiet explanation, a definite one.

She got to her feet, feeling lost. Being around the fire station, hearing the dispatches, seeing the rollouts, going through the refresher training classes…she had let herself think she was really coming back in a limited but real way. She’d been seeing what she wanted to be the truth but not the actual truth. She’d started to hope.

“Cassie, I meant it when I said I was sorry.”

She paused, not turning back because she was afraid the tears threatening might show. She’d been judged and found wanting, not because he wanted to do it, but because it was reality. “You made the right decision. You’ve got a crew to think of beyond me.”

The paperwork was a haven. She had retreated to it, closing herself into Cole’s office, focusing on the numbers. The concentration required allowed her to set aside the emotional turmoil she felt.

She’d seen Cole as she hung up her jacket after coming back in. He hadn’t said anything, just squeezed her shoulder. Cole was right. Jack was right. And they’d been forced to intervene and stop her from following down a path that would be a danger not only to herself, but to the other firefighters.

The numbers blurred.

Lord, it hurts.

She set down her pen and pushed back the report. The black three-ring binder she used to collect past drafts slid off the table, hit the arm of the extra chair, and fell open when it crashed on the floor. She looked at the scattered papers. It looked like she felt, cracked open and tumbled out. Stuffing her dreams back together was impossible.

She wiped at the tears.
I let myself hope, and instead of open doors they just slammed shut. Lord, just get me through this day and out of here. I need some place safe to cry.

She began gathering together the pages. She wondered if she could slip down to the woman’s dorm without being intercepted. She didn’t want to talk to Jack because she simply wasn’t sure yet what to say. Understanding his decision and being able to accept it were different emotions.

Her reason for being here had not changed.

There was still a man out there starting fires.

She would help find him, and she would get on with her life in whatever way that meant. The bookstore business was taking off. She and Linda were struggling to keep up with filling the incoming orders shipping all across the country. Maybe she would implement the plans she had talked over with Linda—hire one more clerk and go forward with plans to expand the business.

Maybe she’d move. The thought had lingered since Jack’s comment. Maybe she would do it. She didn’t enjoy making changes, but since she had been reacting to those forced by circumstances, maybe she would add one by choice.

She struggled to find something that felt encouraging to hold on to.

She sighed. For the next few weeks she was in limbo. Having agreed to help Cole, she could not easily pull back from that decision. She went back to work on the budget, although the confidence that she could help out Cole and make a difference was gone. It had simply become paperwork to struggle through.

The math worked, but the numbers didn’t, a reality she had observed in her own business. The budget could support either a paramedic or a firefighter but not both. By 10
P.M.
Cassie had figured out there was no way to get creative to make the numbers work. Disappointing both Cole and Jack on the same day…she wished she had never thought to hope about a new future possibly working with the department.

Cole couldn’t afford to hire her, not to be doing this kind of work on an on-going basis. She understood now why he had placed her on the administrative staff. It was the only way to pay her and justify, by her seniority, hiring her for a few weeks. Cole didn’t have the money to pay her into next year. If this arsonist was still out there after January 1, for financial reasons it would be impractical for this arrangement to continue.