Young Buck: A Slow Burn Small Town Romance (Green Valley Heroes Book 5)

Chapter 2

The Green Valley Fire Department was located on a back street off of Walnut, on the border of downtown behind the field. The building was simple but stately, with brick architecture reminiscent of mid-century firehouses—a hulking rectangle twice as wide as it was tall.

Concrete details above doors and windows complimented the brick construction. A shining ladder truck could be seen through an open bay and a second bay revealed a smaller engine. The third bay was empty, but the back parking lot had ambulances and other rigs.

Foregoing the lobby entrance, I let myself in through a side bay. On the floor was where I would find my team. Mornings at a firehouse were all about stocking and prepping so we were always ready for calls. Only, the place seemed completely empty, with neither hide nor hair of a single person to be found. Even in a small-town firehouse, that was odd.

“Hello?”

Not that I’d expected trumpets and fanfare, but there was ceremony around a man’s first day. The others should have been eager to size me up.

“Anybody here?”

A large duffel bag was slung over my shoulder. It held my personal effects—regulation base layers to be worn under turnouts and such. I spun in a circle, casting my gaze upward and stepping closer to the bottom of the stairs. Upstairs was where they had dining tables and a modern open kitchen. I remembered the giant flat screen and comfortable leather couches. But no games were on today and it was too early for lunch. So why were the only sounds I heard coming from up there?

I started up the steps, the sound of my sturdy work boots thudding against corrugated steel, loud against the hum of chatter I still couldn’t make out. A burst of laughter erupted from nowhere, uproarious and punctuated by a few slow claps. I quickened my pace, eager to know exactly what could be so funny at nine-thirty in the morning. I’d just reached the top step when someone shouted, “Play the good part again!”

Expecting to find them huddled around the TV watching replays of Jackass or something, dread fell over me when I saw a familiar image on the screen. They were watching a video, but it wasn’t of anyone doing a stupid stunt. It was video from a home security feed. And it wasn’t some random person doing some random thing. It was video from last night and one of the people on screen was me.

What. The. Fuck?

Other questions of the nonrhetorical variety flooded my mind. Who had obtained the video and how had it routed its way here? Did the guys cackling at one of the most bizarre moments of my life know it had been me? Were the guys in this department good guys? Or would there be just enough casual bullying and toxic masculinity to make my life hell?

“Here it comes,” someone said, gleeful anticipation coloring their voice. I didn’t tear my eyes away to figure out who. I was too busy reliving the most humiliating moment of my life on a 75-inch Ultra-HD TV.

As I’d experienced it at the time—me face-to-face with my rightfully suspicious neighbor—it had felt different than it looked now. Something inside me had slowed down, and I’d noticed how pretty she was. Her crown of tight curls fanned out spectacularly to frame a heart-shaped face that was feminine and strong. The deep brown roots of her hair lightened to a honey-blonde at the ends. The clenching of her jaw and the determined set of her lips as she’d interrogated me had been utterly sexy. Even cast upon me with extreme suspicion, I was taken by bewitching eyes that went from dark to light, exactly like her hair.

What I hadn’t seen six hours ago—since my eyes had been glued to her face—was something that displayed here in painful, obvious detail. This was triply the case since the video had no sound. Even as she sparred with me verbally, her hand was calmly reaching for the Taser we all knew by then that she planned to hit me with.

I closed my eyes just in time not to see the moment that she did. But I knew the second it happened from all the hollering. I didn’t need to watch to know what happened next—her pinning my pliant body down long enough to frisk me, me asking what the hell she had done that for, me explaining that I’d been reaching for my ID, not a gun.

I know every cop in town, she had practically sneered. Not wanting to be tased again, I’d hastily explained that I was subletting from the Jenkinses, and that my first day on the job with Green Valley Fire Department was today.

By now, I had half a mind to turn back around—to leave and call in sick—maybe go back to my new place and get some sleep. If they knew the guy in the video was me, I’d still get it tomorrow, but at least the novelty would have worn off.

“Y’all want to tell me what you”re doing up here watching TV?”

The voice of Fire Chief Carter McClure came from behind, ruining any hope I had of an escape. I opened my eyes in anticipation of the attention that was about to swing in my direction. A second before I did, the image of my humiliation disappeared from the screen. The three men who had just sat around cheering like they were at a football game were now on their feet.

“Just having a little fun, sir,” came the reply of the onlooker who had been having the most. He was memorable for his light red hair, eyebrows so blond they barely registered as there against his pale skin, and the smirk he wore.

“Is this the impression you want to give our new people?”

People, plural?

The chief came to stand next to me, his sharp eyes fixed on blondie. Then, another person fell in. He wore the same uniform as I did—Class B station wear meant for light duty. The badge on his sleeve identifying his house as Green Valley Fire Department looked every bit as new as mine.

“I’m sorry, sir. It won’t happen again,” blondie vowed in a way I found hard to believe.

The chief rolled his eyes. It was clear the man was tired in his job. Carter McClure was well into his fifties, with graying hair and weathered skin that told just how long he’d been doing this. He was mentally sharp and in good physical shape, but reprimanding his men gave him the look of a tired mother surrounded by a herd of young children who bested her at every turn.

“I see y’all already made an impression on Buck,” he said in a way that prompted the other men to walk forward. “Before coming here, Buck was up in Crosby.”

They arrived at the landing where we stood. I was nearest to them all, and first in line for greeting. One by one, the chief named them as I shook their hands, speaking their ranks as he did.

“This is Firefighter Huey Halliday—he’s been a firefighter for six years, been here at Green Valley for two; PFF Jake Dewey’s about to hit his one-year mark; Firefighter Louis Black has eight years in the service but has been here for three.”

The first one gave me a firm shake and an appraising look. The “good to meet you” he issued was so neutral, it gave nothing away.

The second was a different story. Eyes widened in recognition outed his knowledge that the man in the video had been me. It was hard to tell whether his expression was more surprised or ashamed.

But the blond one’s greeting told me everything the first two didn’t. His wicked green eyes held something brash. He gave off a cocky vibe. And his too-hard handshake told me just what kind of man he was.

“Good to meet you, Sparky,” blondie managed to say with a straight face. The first one snickered and the second one looked even more uncomfortable than he had seconds before.

“This here is Daniel Weeks,” the chief continued, motioning to the man on his right. “He was with Avery County on the Carolina side. Before that, he was an Army medic.”

The men who had just shaken my hand continued on to greet the other newbie, who simply said, “People call me Dan.”

Dan was under my own height, but only by an inch or three. His graying hair was high and tight. His arms were tattooed with I-couldn’t-tell-what and he carried an air of gravitas—the kind I’d always wished I had.

“Looking forward to working with you, Lieutenant.” Blondie directed his comment to Dan.

The chief gave him another sharp look. “Dan’s not the lieutenant. Buck is.”

Blondie swung his gaze between the two of us, his gaze finally resting on me. “You been fighting fires since you were twelve?”

The questions about my age had been bound to come.

“I became a firefighter when I was eighteen.”

He blinked again. “What was that, like, last year?”

By anybody’s standards, I was young for the job. I’d been fifteen when I graduated high school and eighteen when I’d gotten my bachelor’s in fire science. I was the youngest person in Tennessee history to become a firefighter, then a driver engineer. I was young to have been promoted to lieutenant, and young to have captain in my sights. And the youthful look of my face hadn’t done me any favors. Young was the story of my life.

“That’s enough.” The chief’s voice held clear warning. “And that’s no way to treat your superior. You’ll report to Lieutenant Rogers, beginning today.”

He sobered then. “But Lieutenant Bickford?—”

“Will be transferring to a different house,” the chief cut in. “We’ll go over all of it once you’ve done your prep, which I heartily suggest you start immediately.”

With that, the Chief stalked to his office, leaving an uncomfortable silence in his wake.

The blond’s face darkened and he finally went quiet. Some vengeful part of me wanted to add insult to injury by issuing my own obnoxious smirk. But I kept it professional.

“Use of civilian video for a purpose other than law enforcement is a punishable offense.” I pinned him with a no-nonsense look. “For the sake of whichever one of your asshat sheriff friends thought he would have some fun, make sure that video gets lost.”