Take a peek at TOO MUCH HEAT
Book 4 in Wounded Heroes: The Redemption Series…
Prologue
“May Day, May Day, clear the building.” Lieutenant Joe Romano’s voice was strong, calm, even though his twin brother Jimmy was inside.
“Copy that,” Trent responded.
“Got it, Lieutenant.”
Connor said, “Me, too.”
Joe waited for his brother to respond.
Finally, he heard, “No can do, Cap. I’m already upstairs. There’re two kids trapped in the last room. They’re screaming their heads off.”
“This is an order, Romano. May Day.”
Nothing.
“Goddamn it, Jimmy. I’m your officer. Get out.”
No answer.
The hell with it. He put on his facemask grabbed the thermal camera and rushed inside. He glanced at the layout of the upstairs. Luckily, he had a photographic memory.
Joe rushed through the hallway up to the steps. He climbed them carefully, but fast.
At the top he went left. By-passed the three main bedrooms. Sure enough, there was another room in the back. He could see three heat signatures. That damned kid went in instead of evacuating. Joe hurried further down the hall, passing a window.
Three feet from the room, the timbers in the old house cracked and fell in front of him with the force of a volcano. Joe was slammed back on his ass.
Into the radio he said, “Jimmy, you okay?”
Nothing.
“Romano, answer me.” He practically shrieked out the order.
Nothing. He managed to stand and pick up the camera from where it had fallen. He held it up.
Now, there were zero heat signatures in the room.
Chapter 1
3 years later
What the hell was happening to the women who populated his life? Frustrated, Joe Romano sat in his office watching Firefighter Lara Swanson melt down, much as he’d seen his sister-in-law lose it yesterday at Sunday dinner.
“I’m not going to stand for this, Captain. You have to tell them to stop.”
He leaned back into his chair and crossed his ankles over each other. “Swanson, you’re the rookie. It’s common practice to pull pranks on the new guy.”
“I’ve been here a month. How long are you going to shirk your duties and not get your men in line?”
“There are a lot of female firefighters in Westwood,” Joe said calmly. “Talk to them. See how they handled this kind of thing.”
She lifted that chin. Man, he hated when women did that. He took it personally, like they were flipping the bird at him. “For your information, I already did that. Their captains did their jobs and put a halt to it in a timely manner.”
“Really?” He had her on this. “I talked to Mia Colton the other day at the academy. She said the guys badgered her for a month, then they got tired of it.”
She plopped her hands on her waist. “Your guys still pick on me about the house call where you said I didn’t turn off the gas.”
“You didn’t.” But hell, he wouldn’t stand for her being razzed over that.
“Whatever. These Neanderthals are nowhere close to what Colton had to deal with.”
“Calling them names isn’t going to help your case.”
“I could report sexual harassment.”
His eyebrows shot up. “Is someone sexually harassing you?”
“It’s called a hostile work environment.”
He sat up straight. “Did you write down examples?”
“Yes, as a matter of fact.” She practically threw the papers she held on his desk.
He bolted up. “Listen to me, probie. You will respect this office no matter how angry you are at me. I’ll look at that” he gestured to the papers “but I suggest you leave now before I write you up for insubordination.”
Her face turned beat red. She had those light-complexion looks that betrayed everything she was feeling. But instead of saying anything, she turned and stalked out.
Walking over to the sideboard, he got a cup of coffee, closed his door and sat back down. First, Erin, now this.
Sunday dinner was a staple in the Romano family and Jimmy’s widow still attended them. She’d sat down next to him and kissed his cheek…
“Hi, handsome.”
His older sister, Caroline, rolled her eyes. Julia shook her head. His mother and father looked down at their plates. They were probably embarrassed by her behavior. He was going to have to tackle this head on. He waited until dinner was over and Erin stood. “Come help me clean up, Joey.”
Caroline started to rise, too. “I’ll do it.”
“No, Caro, I’ll take care of this.” Under his breath, he murmured, “Once and for all.”
As soon as they got to the kitchen, she pounced. Took his mouth in a searing kiss. Or what would have been searing. He grabbed her arms and literally set her away. “Do not ever do that again. Don’t call me pet names or sidle up and brush against me.”
She burst into tears. “It’s just that I miss Jimmy so much.”
The hole that was constantly in his stomach widened. But he wouldn’t give into it. “He died three years ago. You should go on with your life. Get a grip. Or I’ll tell Ma I won’t come to dinner if you’re invited.”
“I want to go on with you.”
“Hell, Erin, you can’t just replace Jimmy with me.”
“He’d like that.”
“No, he knew how I felt about you.”
Joe and Erin never got along. Some people thought he was jealous of their relationship, of how she took up his time, but that would be like being jealous of himself. No, he saw how self-centered she was, how she used sex to control him and how she hurt him with her selfishness.
“You’re so mean, Joey. Why?”
“Because I can’t stand you fawning over me. Stop sexually harassing me like this, Erin. I mean it or I’ll take steps…”
When he drove home, he remembered another woman…
After Jimmy died, his sisters sobered him up enough to go see the family that had lost their children. They went with him.
Diana Hartfield hadn’t been happy when she found him at her door. Neither had her twelve-year-old son. Her husband had been behind her. They told him in no uncertain terms that they held him responsible for their twins’ death. For several nights, he dreamed about the two little kids who’d died. In most of them, Diana was screaming that this was all his fault…
It didn’t matter. He agreed with her. He couldn’t save Jimmy and the twin boys and he was guilty. He pulled over to the side of the road, trying to banish the memory. It hurt like hell every time he was reminded of his brother’s death
* * *
Lara jumped on the treadmill and forced herself to calm. She’d been inappropriate with her commanding officer but left before she went too far.
It was just that he was such a man’s man. And, she had to admit, a firefighter’s firefighter . He seemed to always know what to do when they went on a call. But Lara was so sick of men complicating her life, especially in the fire academy. She was determined to pursue her dream of becoming a firefighter and it hadn’t been easy.
She was thinking about that when the PA crackled. “EMS call at 45 Baker Street. Possible stroke. Engine 1 go into service.”
“Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go,” the captain called out as they all entered the bay.
Lara jumped into her turnout pants and boots that were set up in front of the rig, grabbed her turnout coat from a hook in the bay and was the first in her seat.
On the moving rig, Captain Romano looked at his tablet. When they pulled up in front of the house, he said, “Swanson and Trent, stay alert. This looks routine but it could be life or death. And no turnout coats. It’s a bitch of a summer out there.”
They hopped off the truck and strode up to the porch. Romano knocked, called out, “Fire department” and went inside, letting the screen bang behind them.
He took one look at the man on the floor. The attack was over but signs were evident. He grabbed for his radio. “Ambo needed this address.”
After getting information on the patient from the family, he turned to the youngest firefighter on their group. “Go ahead, Trent. Assess him.”
Trent dropped to his knees. “Face drooping on left side. Sir, can you stretch out your arms?”
The guy mumbled something unintelligible. “Speech is impaired.” He waited until the man raised his hands. “Left arm is drifting.”
“What do you say, Pike?”
Abe Pike was a paramedic in in their group at House 1. “Right on the nose.”
The screech of sirens indicated that the ambulance had arrived out front. The EMS guys rushed in.
Pike bent down to help them get the patient on the stretcher. Lara followed suit because they needed another person to lift the burly man.
When the victim was wheeled out, Romano stayed in the house. “Can you tell us what happened?” he asked the woman who was visibly shaken.
“He was coming back to the couch and grasped his left arm then fell to the ground. Did he really have a stroke?”
“All signs indicate that. Do you have transportation to Westwood Memorial?”
“I don’t, but my brother’s on his way over. I already called him.”
They waited until the brother arrived, updated the man, then left. The sun’s rays beat down on them as they took the stairs off the porch and headed to the rig. Once they were on their way, the captain said, “Let’s debrief.”
Oh, boy. She wondered what he’d find wrong with something she did.