Falling for the Fireman Read online

  Chad slid out of his chair and came around to the front of his desk. He squatted down to scratch Plug between the ears. “Can you keep a secret?” Nick hunched down as well, and Plug rolled over on cue, to make sure they didn’t miss scratching his big belly. “Don’t tell your mom, but I’m not a fan of glitter. On anything.”

  The boy’s eyes widened, then narrowed in a laugh. “Me, neither.” Hadn’t Jeannie given a thought to what a boy’s life was like surrounded by all those perky pastels?

  “Perfectly understandable. Not that I have to ask, but man-to-man, what’s your position on yellow polka dots?”

  The boy looked as if he were asked to reveal state secrets. “You mean Mom’s car?” he nearly whispered. After a long pause where both of them looked at the offending vehicle, Nick said, “Someday I’m gonna have to learn to drive in that thing.”

  Chad could feel Nick’s embarrassment even as he tried to hide it. He was a grown man who never cared what people think, and he’d surely hesitate to climb into Jeannie Nelworth’s Jeep. He was surprised to discover his hand had landed on the boy’s shoulder. “I feel your pain, kid.” He said it in a teasing tone, but he actually meant it. He wanted Nick Nelworth to know one person understood his predicament and how hard the world was as a thirteen-year-old boy. “Maybe we can talk her down a couple of shades by the time you hit fifteen.”

  Nick laughed. “Man, I hope.”

  The more relaxed look on Nick’s face refused to let Chad keep his distance. Kids were not his strong suit. He gave the safety talks every year at school and did the driver’s ed pre-prom speech about drinking and driving, but that was more because he had the time to do these things. With all the other crew volunteers, he viewed this as payback for staying off the engines. Not only that, but life had handed him too many reasons to make fire prevention a personal cause.

  But this? Even George had to know this one-on-one teen stuff was way out of Chad’s job description. “Plug’s getting too fat, even for him.” He rubbed the hound’s round belly, eliciting a lazy canine moan of satisfaction. “He needs more exercise, don’t you think?”

  “He’s pretty big, that’s for sure.”

  “Plug needs to walk off a few pounds, wouldn’t you say? How many days a week are you free after school?”

  “I’ve got math club Tuesdays and Thursdays, but nothing the other days.”

  “George and I are too busy to give Plug any regular exercise. Do you think you could help us out by walking him? Twice a week, maybe? For pay, of course…say, seven dollars a week?” Plug was George’s dog, technically. George should be doing this. Chad should not be anywhere near this, and yet here he was and nearly glad of it, besides.

  “I think. That is, if Mom says it’s okay. She’s gonna be up here every day working on the store, anyway.”

  Chad tried to ignore Nick’s eyes, and what they did to the spot below his throat. He stood up before something stupid came out of his mouth. “George already asked your mom. You’re hired. When can you start?”

  “Now.” Nicholas shot up beside him. “I could start right now.”

  “I had a feeling you’d say that. Which is why I happen to have Plug’s leash right here on my desk.” Chad nudged the hound with his foot. “With this kind of enthusiasm, we’ll get you fit and trim in no time, Plug.”

  Nick attached the leash after giving Plug a friendly scratch under the chin. When he looked at Chad again, the boy’s face was the complete opposite of the bored reluctance it had been when he first entered the office. George would never let him forget how right he’d been about the idea of hiring Nick Nelworth.

  “Thanks. We’re off!” With a wave, Nick trotted out of the office door with a slightly confused Plug lumbering behind him. From the window he could see Nick stood up straighter, walked without most of that lanky teen shuffle and generally looked delighted. Plug even went so far as to wag his tail—something Chad hadn’t seen in months.

  He thought they’d take off up the street, but evidently their first stop was across the street to Sweet Treats. If Chad’s guess was right, Sweet Treats would start carrying dog biscuits when it opened, and Plug would be a regular customer.

  The next day, Jeannie sat in the front window of Sweet Treats. She wasn’t calling it “the building that would become Sweet Treats” anymore, for the space had already become the store in her mind. She was assessing how a stack of yellow paint chip choices looked in the afternoon sun. Buttercup definitely outshone Sun-kissed, but Lemon had a vitality to it she couldn’t resist. She’d nearly settled on “Lemon”—it was a candy flavor, after all—when a lumbering movement out of the corner of her eye drew her attention. Plug was sauntering across Tyler Street by himself.

  It only took a second or two to figure out Plug’s motives; his red leash—the dog’s only nod to the classic firehouse Dalmatian—was clamped firmly in his slobbery jaws and he was heading straight for Sweet Treats. A determined, albeit slow-motion quest for Nicky. Jeannie couldn’t help but laugh at the sight. Sure, Nicky had told her he and Plug really enjoyed their walk yesterday, but Plug obviously hadn’t checked the clock to know Nicky wasn’t due out of school for another hour.

  Her laughter turned to a gasp when a car whizzed by too close behind Plug. He swiveled his head after the speeding car, but didn’t seem to register the possible danger of being out in traffic. Had the hound ever been in the street other than watching the engines come and go from the firehouse? She could count on one hand the number of times she’d even seen him moving. Mostly Plug sat still, as he was doing now. Only now he just stood in the middle of the street, staring into her doorway as if willing Nicky to appear there.

  When a second car went by, barely slowing down as it slipped between her shop and Plug, Jeannie sucked in a breath and moved. Opening her door, she called, “Go on home, Plug,” and pointed back to the firehouse. The trio of big red engine bay doors were shut. How had he gotten out? “Get back out of the street before you get hit.”

  Plug cocked his head to one side in an all-too-human gesture of bafflement. “Plug, go home!” Jeannie found herself enunciating as if to a small child or someone who didn’t understand English. This was why she’d never owned a dog—you could never reason with a pet. Unreasonable sons were just about all she could handle right now. “Home, boy!”

  While he didn’t sit down, he didn’t turn to go home, either. Plug just stood there, as if waiting for her to catch on that he had no plans to cut his excursion short, escorted or not.

  Jeannie looked up and down the street, hoping to catch one of the volunteer firemen out looking for him. Gordon Falls boasted a full complement of volunteer firefighters, but George and Chad were often the only two in the building. Those on call only came rushing when those horrid sirens went off because that’s how a volunteer fire department worked.

  Still, shouldn’t someone have noticed Plug leaving? Seeing another car heading down the street, Jeannie realized she was the only one to come to the poor hound’s rescue. Even though she wasn’t quite sure what to do, Jeannie settled on squatting down and tapping her knee the way she’d seen Nicky call him. “Well, fine then. You come here. Come, Plug. Come on, boy. Come on over here and get your fool self out of the street.” Plug took two steps toward her. “Come on, boy!” She’d let the dog stay here for the hour until Nicky could deliver him back over if the firefighters didn’t come looking for him first. She surely had no plans to walk out there and haul him back to the firehouse herself.

  No, sir, she would not haul Plug back herself. She couldn’t stomach the thought of walking to the firehouse for any reason, much less a dog. Today was not the day to tackle her fear.

  Other people found the red doors charming; iconic, even. Every time Jeannie looked at those huge red doors, they just seemed like hungry red mouths opening wide to eat her alive. Nope, she wouldn’t face those today.

  “That’s right, come on over here and you can wait for Nicky.” At Nicky’s name, Plug picked up the pace
to something that could almost be called a trot, finishing his trek across Tyler Street. He looked up at her with that comical face of his, those too-big eyes and those floppy ears, and announced his arrival by dropping the leash on the sidewalk in front of her. Then, after a pathetic growly sound which she suspected loosely translated to “Phew!” he placed his big nose on her knee and depositing a dark spot of drool on her pant leg. “You silly old thing,” she said, unable to stay annoyed once she started petting his massive, velvety ears. “Don’t you know enough to stay out of traffic?”

  She didn’t like the look Plug gave her in response. His droopy eyes seemed to say “Silly yourself if you can’t walk across the street to take me home.”

  “Oh, no you don’t,” she countered. “You’re not tricking me into…” Into what? Doing the thing she’d managed to avoid for weeks now? She could sit through a presentation on fire safety but couldn’t set foot in a firehouse? Who really was the silly old thing here?

  No, Lord, I’m not ready. Jeannie knew she was being ridiculous, even irrational, but the thought of going near the firehouse stirred up panic in her throat. She didn’t want to be this way. She’d tried being logical, thinking of “fire safety” as a worthy community goal, but that only made things worse.

  Fire was the enemy. There had been a fire during her husband Henry’s death in a car accident, as well. Looking at the aftermath of her house fire became just like being at the crash site the morning after Henry died.

  I’ve been strong lots of other places. I even bought this place looking right at the fire station—wasn’t that strong? After all, weren’t these men the reason she had the ability to start over?

  “You know it’s no accident you chose this building,” Abby had declared the day Jeannie signed the mortgage papers. “Some part of you needs the firehouse nearby.”

  “So why am I scared to have it so close? It makes no sense.”

  “You didn’t make much sense before the fire,” Abby had replied, hugging her. “I’m expecting less now.”

  For five whole minutes she tried to ignore Plug’s stare, to let him wait until Nicky got home. I don’t have to go in there, not yet. Not for a dog, of all things.

  She parked herself back on the windowsill and attempted a return to the paint chips. Nothing worked; her concentration had fled the building. She was going to have to go in there sometime. If not today, it’d have to be some day. Wouldn’t it be better to get it over with when Nicky wasn’t watching? That way, she’d have an hour or so to pull herself together if things were…harder than she planned. Then when Nicky showed up she could tell him how much Plug had missed him and how brave she’d been to take him back over. This was the perfect opportunity.

  If she could just make herself take it.

  She reached for the phone to call Abby for moral support, but put it back down. You can do this. You are stronger than this. Jeannie grabbed the leash, telling the pulse hammering in her throat to stop pounding so hard. This was a silly fear, the kind of thing she’d chide Nicky for having. No one should ever be afraid of a firehouse. Or fire engines. They meant help was on the way, didn’t they?

  “Fears don’t make sense,” the school counselor had told Nicky. “That’s why you must simply face them. You can’t argue them down because they won’t listen to reason.”

  “All right, then, Plug my boy, it’s time to get over this.” Strong words, but her voice wobbled as she stood up and fastened the leash to his collar with shaking hands.

  “Just walk you back on over there as if it’s the easiest thing in the world. Right. Piece of cake.”

  Before she could gather another bolstering breath, Plug loped off the curb and began walking. As if this had been his plan all along.

  “Yep, we’re just walking across the street, taking you back home.” Talking to Plug somehow kept her breathing. “Home to the nice, clean, safe firehouse with all the big…huge…loud…red engines.”

  Sounds from the fire—her fire—returned unbidden and unwelcome. Her head filled with the rumble of the engines. The noise had been so loud she felt it in her chest that horrible afternoon. The lifelike twitching and hissing of the hoses as the men fought to direct those gallons of water into the smoke pouring out of her home. The sour, sharp smell of her possessions burning, the cascading cracks of timber as her life collapsed in on itself. The running and shouting and the crunch of thick-gloved hands that kept moving her out of the way. The coaxing voices forcing her back when she wanted to plunge into the smoke after all the precious, precious things disappearing in front of her eyes. Worst of all was the crushing feeling of Henry’s memory burning with the house they had shared. She’d lost so many precious things, but the cruelest result of all was how she could fit all the surviving mementoes of Henry into a single shoebox. Without souvenirs and photographs, how would Nicky ever remember his father clearly? Videos capturing his voice and gestures were gone. His teaching notes from his physics professorship at the local state university were now ash in the wind. How could a young boy remember the best part of a man, his strong soul or the way he loved life? She could barely picture Henry’s handwriting now, and it tore her to pieces.

  Jeannie shook her head, willing the storm of pain away. She was safe, alive, walking in the September sunshine. Stay beside me, Lord. I’m safe now, You’ve seen to that. Help me. Help me face this last fear so Nicky and I can go on. The prayers were coming in spurts with every step across the street. Plug tugged her forward, and Jeannie forced herself to feel the sunlight on her face, imagined God leading Plug leading her. Stay close. Help me. Nearly there. Stay close.

  She fixed her gaze on Chad’s office door, where it felt safer to head rather than the big red doors. The office door pulled open, framing Chad’s surprised face in the doorway. She had to remind herself the surprise was for Plug’s “breakout.” He couldn’t possibly imagine how hard it was for her to simply walk his dog across the street. No one but Abby knew of that fear. If she could manage the last few feet, maybe no one else ever would.

  Chapter Four

  Chad couldn’t help but stare at Jeannie as she walked across the street. Her back was ruler-straight, her jaw tense even as she talked—to whom? Plug? The woman was quite obviously frightened to death of something. Was she terrified of dogs? She had the look of a soul walking into doom itself, forcing her feet into stiff, hesitant steps and clutching Plug’s leash as if it were a lifeline. Her eyes locked on her destination—his door at first, and then on him once he opened it.

  Those eyes made part of him want to rush out to meet her, but the sheer terror in them froze the other half of him to the spot. He had to do something, so Chad held out a cautious, encouraging hand as he called Plug. It seemed best to let Plug pull her across rather than going out to meet her.

  “Almost there.” She was close enough to be heard now as she squeaked the words. “Here we go, back to the firehouse where you belong.” Chad couldn’t rightly say if she was coaxing the dog or herself. He called to Plug again, hoping to hurry the dog, but Plug merely ambled along as if nothing were out of the ordinary. As if the hound were granting Jeannie the pleasure of a leisurely walk.

  Searching for some way to help, Chad suddenly remembered he’d tucked a dog biscuit in his pocket five minutes ago when he’d discovered Plug was gone. Food was the only thing sure to quicken Plug’s steps. He squatted down to Plug’s eye level, pulled out the biscuit and waved it enticingly. “Come on, old boy, pick up the pace. I’ve got a biscuit just waiting.” Plug sniffed the air, gave a hearty “woof” and perked up his ears.

  Chad was thinking it worked, until a metal scream split the air.

  Plug had realized it an instant before Chad did, he always did. As if he remembered what Chad had momentarily forgotten: the school fire drill. And not just any drill, but a full test of the volunteer company’s response time so that the firehouse roared to life behind him and Plug surged out of Jeannie’s grasp. She made this awful sound, a gasping sort of yelp, as
the bay doors lifted and the siren continued to signal the test run.

  Chad was supposed to be observing the company’s departure while George stood at the school observing their arrival. Despite the fact that it had been planned for weeks, this was the absolute worst scenario for someone like Jeannie. Plug galloped past him, nearly knocking him down while Jeannie stood rigid with fear right in the path of the engines.

  She couldn’t stay where she was; the engines would be pulling out any second. Chad bolted out into the street, ignoring the sound she made as he grabbed her shoulders. She actually resisted him, stunned as she was with fear, but he pulled her off balance and threw an arm around her torso, dragging her away from the thunder as the firefighters started the engines. She was so small in his arms, and she was shaking fiercely—her chest heaving. More volunteer firefighters would be swarming over the station within seconds, and he would have picked her up and carried her out of the way if she fought him further.

  As it was, Jeannie stumbled a bit but clutched at him as he dragged her out of the street. Forgetting his supervisory duties, Chad pulled her away from the bay doors and into his office, kicking the door shut behind him in a futile effort to muffle the sound. That sound. Even when he knew it was coming, the shriek of the siren could still send ice through his veins. “It’s a drill,” he shouted above the roar. “There’s no fire.

  “Just a drill, Jeannie,” he repeated loud enough for her to hear. “You know the school has them every September. Everyone is safe.” At the mention of the word school, Jeannie whipped her face around toward him. He didn’t think it was possible for her eyes to go wider. Around him he heard the sound of volunteers climbing into gear and radio chatter. He was shirking his duties, but she mattered more right now. The siren’s pitch finally descended as he guided her to his office chair, and as she collapsed into it. Once the siren fell silent, he heard her pulling in gulps of air like she’d just been dragged from the river. He’d never seen her undone like this; it made him crazy with worry that she’d faint. Getting down on his haunches in front of her, he kept his voice low and steady. “Jeannie, are you all right?”