Book 22 Rescue After Dark #3
Mallory smiles at his testy response. “You can’t go out on calls with your arm in a sling.”
“I can still supervise and deal with the never-ending paperwork and all the other crap that goes on every day.”
“True, and Lord knows the world might end if you’re not there to supervise,” she says, laughing.
He gives her a pointed look. “You know full well what I deal with.” The two of them have had many conversations about working with younger officers and the generational differences in their work ethics.
“I do, and I understand. But if you were to take a few days off, I think they’d survive.”
“I don’t want to risk it and then have to spend the rest of the summer cleaning up whatever mess they make of things.”
A tourist shares that she had been sober for four months, and the night before, she gave up all her hard work for a few margaritas that led to a fight with her husband.
He’s leaving and taking their children. The group rallies around her, and Nina, the group leader, offers to go with her to talk to her husband and help set up rehab or whatever else she needs.
Mason is drained but also uplifted by the way the group supports the woman in crisis.
“I don’t know about you guys,” Mallory says, “but I need food and coffee after that.”
“I’m with you, love,” Quinn says.
“Me, too, if you don’t mind a third wheel,” Mason says.
“Oh, stop,” Mallory says. “You’re never a third wheel with us.”
They walk to Rebecca’s South Harbor Diner downtown, which is busy as always in the summer, and take the last remaining booth.
“Pretty intense meeting today,” Mallory says, sipping from her mug.
Quinn nods. “Been a while since we had someone in full-blown crisis.”
“Thank goodness for Nina,” Mason says. “She always knows what to do.”
They order breakfast, and then Mallory invites Mason to a dinner party they’re having on Saturday. When Mallory tells him to bring a friend, he immediately thinks of Jordan.
Mallory, noticing the change in Mason, forces the story out of him and then immediately tells him he needs to ask her out.
“You’re like a dog with a bone,” Quinn says, smiling at her.
“Woof,” Mallory says, returning his grin.
“I think it’s possible she’s been spending too much time with her siblings and cousins,” Quinn says. “She used to be such a nice girl until they ruined her.”
Mason laughs at the face Mallory made at him.
After breakfast, Mason goes to Eastward Look, where his team is cleaning up after the fire.
His lieutenant, Dermot Smith, and another firefighter, Trip, are cleaning up inside the house.
He sends Dermot to find out if the neighbors had a fire the night before that could have sparked the blaze on the roof of Eastward Look.
As Mason heads outside, Nikki, Riley and Jordan are arriving.
“Ladies, Riley.” Mason forces himself to sound normal when he feels anything but. How can one tiny woman have such a huge impact on him? “How are you feeling, Jordan?”
“Much better, thanks.” She offers him a small, shy smile that makes him want to beat his chest and protect her from all harm. And what the fuck is that about, anyway? “How’s your head and elbow, and what happened to the sling?”
“I’m fine, and the sling was pissing me off.”
“You need to do what they told you. Put it back on.”
Her bossiness is insanely arousing. “I, um, okay. I will.”
Nikki and Riley watch them with thinly veiled curiosity that Mason can almost feel coming from them.
“I’ll get out of your hair.”
“Would you like to come back for dinner?” Nikki asks. “We’re cooking Jordan’s favorite—pasta with veggies—as well as chicken Parm for us nonvegetarians, garlic bread and salad. It’s the least we can do to feed you after you saved my sister’s life.”
He glances at Jordan and finds her watching him with those big eyes that make him want to stare at her sweet face for the rest of his life.
For fuck’s sake. He’s off his freaking rocker, and it’s all Mallory’s fault for putting ideas in his head that don’t belong there. “Um, sure, thanks. That’d be nice.”
“Great!” Nikki claps her hands. “It’s a date.”
Jordan rolls her eyes at her sister’s exuberance.
Mason loves that she can be sarcastic without saying a word.
“You were right, Chief,” Dermot says. “The next-door neighbors to the north had a fire in their fire pit last night. Best we can tell, sparks from their pit landed on the roof and sparked the preliminary blaze. That put off sparks that were fueled by the wind that possibly landed in the chimney and ignited the creosote. I’ll be damned if I can come up with another explanation for how that chimney ignited. ”
“It’s as good a theory as I’ve heard yet. Keep working the scene and let me know what else you find. I’ve got a budget meeting with the mayor in twenty minutes that I need to get to.”
“I’ll see you back at the barn and will keep you posted.”
Nikki makes Jordan lie down and starts straightening her room. Jordan convinces Nikki to sit with her. Huffing with pretend annoyance, Nikki stretches out next to Jordan. “I’m here. What do you want?”
“I want you to stop folding my clothes and freaking out.”
“I’m not freaking out.”
“Yes, you are.”
“No, I’m not.”
Jordan raises a brow, the way Nikki had done to her.
“Okay, maybe a little,” Nikki says with a sigh, “but it’s not about me. It’s about you and making sure you feel better and have your meds and—”
Jordan gently places her hand over Nikki’s mouth.
“It is about you, because I know how much what happens to me affects you, too.” She removes her hand.
“And you want to know how I know that? Because everything you do affects me. That’s how we roll, and I’m painfully aware that my shit has been giving you way too much to worry about lately. That’s going to stop. I promise.”
“You’re being way too hard on yourself. You had no way to know the chimney was going to catch on fire and give you an asthma attack. That’s not your fault.”
“Maybe not, but some of the rest of it could’ve been avoided if I’d listened to you.”
“We can’t rewrite the past. It’s done. All we can do is move forward.”
Jordan asks Nikki what she’s doing, inviting Mason to dinner. She wants to thank him for saving Jordan, but she also noticed that he couldn’t take his eyes off Jordan when they were talking.
Jordan denies he was looking at her. “He was looking. Trust me.”
She isn’t sure how she feels about that. “We had a good time last night, all things considered, but he was just being nice. He stuck around because I was alone at the clinic until you guys got there.”
Nikki props herself up on her elbows. “Think about what you just said. The fire chief of all of Gansett Island hung out for hours at the clinic because you were alone.”
“That’s what I said.”
“How can you be so dumb sometimes and smart as a whip other times?”
“How am I being dumb?”
“The man likes you, Jordan. Why else would he have volunteered to be the one to keep you company at the clinic when he probably had a million things to do after a fire on the island?”
Jordan thinks about that and can’t come up with anything better than, “He was being nice, Nikki. Don’t make it into something more than that.
” But there’d been that moment when she’d realized his lips were on hers, sending air into her lungs and electrifying the rest of her.
Silliest thing ever, when it comes right down to it.
He’s probably done that a hundred times before, so it was ridiculous to make a big deal out of something so foolish.
He’d been saving her life, not coming on to her.
Mason is late for the budget meeting with Mayor Upton, who’s a stickler for punctuality.
The mayor’s admin, Mona, greets Mason with a friendly smile. “Go ahead in. Chief Taylor only arrived a minute ago, so don’t worry.”
“Thanks, Mona. You’re the bomb dot-com.”
She glows with pleasure at the compliment.
When he walks into the meeting, the mayor is giving Blaine a hard time about his hair. “Now listen here,” Upton sputters.
“Nope,” Blaine says. “I listened to you, now you can listen to me. I work ninety hours a week for three months straight without so much as a day off. If you’re unhappy with my job performance, feel free to let me know. But my hair is off-limits. I thought we were here to discuss the budget anyway?”
Mason somehow manages to hold in the laugh that’s busting to get out as he takes his usual seat at the conference table across from Blaine. He loves the hell out of Blaine Taylor, who’s a great colleague and friend. Mason thoroughly enjoys the way Blaine refuses to take Upton’s shit.
He and Blaine bust their asses for the island and its residents, a fact that Upton never quite seems to realize.
Upton does a double-take when he sees the bandage on Mason’s forehead and his arm in a sling. “What happened to you?”
“I crashed my bike.”
“Oh.” The mayor seems relieved to hear the injury isn’t work-related, because that would’ve meant extra paperwork for him.
“The meeting started ten minutes ago.”
“I’m aware of that. I was out at Eastward Look, where my department saved a house from burning to the ground last night.”
“And Mason saved one of the residents from certain death by running into the house and bringing her out, while his elbow was dislocated.” Blaine glances at Mason. “Well done, by the way.”
“Thanks,” Mason says, embarrassed by the praise.
“Yes, good job,” Upton says, almost reluctantly.
Blaine rolls his eyes at Mason, who again tries not to laugh.
“Now, about the budget.” Upton hands each of them a packet that’s been stapled in the corner. “Both your departments are already trending to be over budget on overtime, and it’s only June.”