The Summer of Our Discontent (24 page)

*******

“Where’re you going, little monkey?”

Kaycee was reaching for the door handle and stopped. “Sophie’s?”

“Sweetie, she hasn’t seen her mom for two weeks, let them have some time together.” Rachel handed her a pile of folded clothes. “Go put these up in your room. Don’t throw them on the bed or the floor of the closet, put them in your dresser.”

“Okay,” Kaycee said dejectedly.

Rachel knew exactly how she felt. She wanted to go to Sophie’s, too, and see Faith. Nine o’clock couldn’t get there fast enough. She’d made up her mind to bite the proverbial bullet and admit to Faith she was feeling a lot more than friendship. If Faith didn’t feel the same way, then she’d find a way to cope.

She’d just started another cycle of laundry when someone knocked on her front door. Chance stood grinning on the other side. “I just had to come over here and see with my own eyes that you were back. Do you have any idea how I suffered while you were gone?”

Rachel smiled down at Jacob, Chance’s youngest son. “Has your daddy been whiny?”

“He’s always whiny,” Jacob said with a grin and winced when Chance thumped him on the ear.

“Come inside.” Rachel took him by the hand, then closed the door in Chance’s face.

Jacob laughed. “Don’t let him in. Hey, Kaycee,” he said when she dashed into the living room. He looked up at Rachel with Chance’s big brown eyes. “Can we play in the tree house?”

“Yes, sir.” Rachel scrubbed his head, enjoying the feel of his buzzed haircut. She opened the door to Chance, who stood leaning against the frame with a huge smile. “I figure it was you who cut my grass while I was gone, so you may enter.”

“I’ve got kid labor. My boys did the yard, but I supervised. I had to do something to get the extra pounds off, all Sheridan does is eat. I finally had to tell him we couldn’t hang out on shift because he was causing me to gain weight.” He slapped Rachel roughly on the shoulder. “You missed me terribly. You don’t have to say it, I can see it in your eyes.”

“Not a bit,” Rachel said with a grin and headed for the kitchen. “Choices are limited, I haven’t had a chance to brew any tea. Water or beer?”

“Water, Corey’s frying fish for dinner. I’ll save the beer drinking until then. You wanna come over?”

“Thanks, but I have a ton of stuff to do before I go back on shift tomorrow.”

“You should have a beer then because we need to talk,” Chance said when he sat at the kitchen table.

Rachel glanced at him. “Something happen while I was gone?”

“Yeah, that’s why I came straight over when I knew you were back.”

Rachel set the water in front of him and took a seat. “What is it?”

He pulled his phone from his pocket, pressed a few buttons on the screen, and handed it to her. The photo was snapped when Faith was straightening her hair. Rachel had been caught in mid-blink, and it appeared her eyes were closed as she basked in Faith’s attentions. The expression on Faith’s face made the muscles in her stomach contract. Her eyes were soft, what looked like affection was displayed in them so clearly.

“That picture arrived days before you did, and it’s on everybody’s phones at the station. Rumors about you and Faith are running rampant. It caused quite a stir.”

“Oh, shit,” Rachel said lowly.

Chance snorted with laughter. “The guys got all up in arms, and I just laughed. They came back down to earth when I told them you wouldn’t touch Leblanc with a ten-foot pole. That picture was probably snapped right before she dragged you around by your hair. I hope you whipped her ass.”

Rachel stared at him blankly. When she failed to laugh along, he stared at her in horror.

“No! No, you’re shitting me.” He pointed at the phone. “That’s for real?”

Rachel began to squirm. “Well, no…she was just fixing my hair. It’s not what it looks like…but…Chance, it’s complicated.”

“Did you,” Chance looked at the door to make sure the kids weren’t close by, “did you fuck her?”

“No! It’s not like that. Don’t be crass.”

Both of Chance’s brows shot up. “Don’t be crass? Rachel,
crass
is our middle names. What the hell?”

“We called a truce, we’re friends, and I…”

He put his hands to his face, and his voice rose to a high pitch. “You’ve got a thing for Leblanc!”

“Hush! You don’t have to scream it like a cheerleader!”

Chance jumped up and went to the fridge. The bottle cap to a beer skittered across the counter, and he drank half of a bottle before he sagged against the counter. “Birds are gonna start falling from the sky, meteors, volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, plagues, you have interrupted the tender balance of the universe!”

Rachel threw up her hands. “Drama queen, chill.”

“
Gimme
my phone, I gotta call Corey. She’s gonna shit,” Chance said as he rushed back to the table.

Rachel held it away. “No, don’t tell anyone. Faith doesn’t know.”

He took another huge swallow of beer, and some of it ran down his chin. “Doesn’t know what?”

Rachel stared at him for a moment. “That I’m crazy about her.”

“You’ve got Lyme disease, that’s your problem, or some exotic fever brought on by being out in the woods. We should get you to the hospital.”

Rachel rubbed her forehead with the heel of her hand. “Everyone has seen this picture?”

“At the station, yeah. It’s probably made its way around fire, too.”

“I haven’t told her,” Rachel confessed miserably as she stared at the photo.

Chance suppressed a burp. “Look at her face, I think she knows. Don’t smile, damn it!”

Rachel couldn’t help it. What she saw in Faith’s expressive eyes was what she felt inside.

“Is it hormonal? You know you haven’t gotten laid in a long time.”

Rachel shook her head.

“Convenience then, she’s queer, you’re queer, she lives a few doors down.”

“No, it’s much more than that,” Rachel said with a sigh.

“Don’t say that word.”

“I’m not there yet.”

He looked at her like she’d lost her mind. “Do you have any idea how crazy this sounds?”

“Yeah, I do.”

He waved his hands around wildly. “We’re not gonna be able to put snakes in the rescue unit anymore. We’re not gonna be able to do anything fun. Rachel, you do know she’s seeing Amber Chamblee, right?”

The blonde built like a brick shithouse who worked for the private ambulance service that had a station in their town passed through Rachel’s mind and flipped her off. “What?”

All of the silliness left Chance’s tone. “I thought you knew. It’s not all over town, but Amber’s partner griped to Sheridan that he hated having to sleep in the ambulance when those two go at it in the station.”

Amber Chamblee, heartthrob of every man in town, was Faith’s Ms. Casual. Rachel slowly floated back to earth. Faith had admitted that she didn’t feel anything for Amber, but in the face of absolute feminine perfection, Rachel felt insignificant.

Chapter Twenty-eight

“You stink.”

Faith was covered with sweat, grass clippings, and a layer of dust. “Sorry, I need to talk to you. Do you mind coming outside?”

Amber closed the door to the ambulance station and walked with Faith over to a picnic table in the shade. “I’d
kinda
hoped you’d come see me later tonight.”

Faith glanced at Amber. Her blue eyes looked wary. She didn’t have any makeup on, yet her face was flawless. Beneath the uniform she wore was a magnificent body. Faith knew every inch of it intimately. Amber wouldn’t have any trouble finding someone else to occupy her time.

“I can’t come back, not like that anymore,” Faith blurted out.

Amber folded her arms. “So it’s true,” she said as she rolled her eyes. “I saw the picture, but I couldn’t make myself believe it.”

Faith’s brow furrowed. “What’re you talking about?”

“The picture of you and Chauvin, it’s all over town.” Amber fished her phone out of the pocket of her pants. “She’s why you’re ending our arrangement.”

“I don’t…whoa,” Faith said when Amber shoved her phone in her face. Rachel looked like she was in the throes of passion, her eyes closed, lips parted. But what struck Faith the hardest was the way she looked. Everything she felt was laid out there in the open for the world to see. “Where did you get this?”

“It doesn’t matter, you should know that everyone at the fire station has a copy. I thought you hated her.”

“Not anymore,” Faith said as Amber pulled the phone away.

Amber wrapped her arms around herself. “You stopped answering my texts, then that picture started circulating. I pretty much had you figured out before you got back. She isn’t casual, is she?”

Faith felt her face warm. “No.”

Amber nodded and sighed. “Thanks for telling me.”

“I’m sorry if I…”

“We had an agreement. I won’t deny that there were times I wished it had been different. I knew I could never fully have you. It’s gonna take me a little while before I can wish you well. Maybe this is just the push I need to apply for that supervisor’s position. You kind of held me back from that.” Amber shook her head. “You’re probably doing me a favor, but it doesn’t feel like that right now. Go shower.”

“I’m sorry” was all Faith could say as she watched Amber walk away.

*******

Rachel was a little cool when they met on her porch that night. Faith had hoped for a warmer reception rather than just the simple “hey” that greeted her. She sat in the chair on the opposite side of the table where Rachel had placed her beer. “Are you tired?”

“Exhausted.” Rachel was slumped down in her own chair with her feet propped on another.

Faith’s phone buzzed as soon as she set it on the table. She glanced at a text from Patty, who asked where she was. Faith had not told her she was going to visit Rachel and sent a quick reply back. When she lowered the phone, Rachel was staring at her coldly.

“Am I keeping you from someone?” she asked.

“That was Patty.”

“Where’s Ms. Casual tonight? Aren’t you being missed now that you’re back?”

Faith expected pleasant conversation, not the hostility she felt rolling off of Rachel in torrents. She was about to ask if she’d done something to piss her off when it hit her. Rachel had seen the picture, and it’d ticked her off. Faith stiffened as she recalled what her face looked like. Complete adoration undisguised. She pushed the beer away.

“I’ll take a rain check, you’re obviously too tired for this.” She got up and walked off. That Rachel didn’t say anything drove the point home. But with every step Faith took, anger rose up within her. The saying “love makes fools of us all” ran through her mind and incensed her. She was a grown woman in tune with her emotions, not a love-struck imbecile. She had a lot to offer, and Rachel would have a hard time finding better. She spun around with the intention of going back and telling Rachel what she was missing out on when she came face-to-face with her.

Faith’s jaw sagged, and her eyes widened as Rachel clasped her face in both hands and kissed her hard. It only lasted a few seconds, but it shook Faith to the core. She staggered a step when Rachel shoved her back.