Playing with Fire (Ember Falls Fire Department #1)

1. Lila

ONE

LILA

The mountains didn't care that I was running away.

I turned onto Maple Street and slowed to a crawl, not because of traffic but because there wasn't any.

A diner with a red awning, Rosie's, the letters painted in curling script.

A flower shop called Petal & Vine with buckets of sunflowers on the sidewalk.

A hardware store. A library with a cat sleeping in the window.

The kind of town that looked like it had been art-directed for a Hallmark movie, except the paint was peeling on half the storefronts and a dog was relieving itself against a fire hydrant with zero shame.

My apartment was above the hardware store.

I'd rented it sight unseen, which in retrospect was either brave or stupid.

The stairs were narrow and creaked under my boots.

The door stuck. Inside, a kitchen the size of a generous closet, a living room with a couch that had seen better decades, and a bedroom window that looked out over Maple Street toward the mountains.

The whole place smelled like sawdust and old coffee.

I dropped my duffel bag on the bed and sat beside it. The mattress dipped. Through the floor, I could hear the muffled sound of someone in the hardware store below, the clank of metal, a radio playing classic rock.

Through the window, the mountains were doing their thing, going gold and amber in the late-afternoon light, looking like they'd been art-directed by someone who understood the assignment.

A church steeple poked up from a cluster of trees on the south side of town, and I could hear, barely, at this distance, the sound of a school bus rumbling down a street I couldn't see.

Ordinary sounds. The sounds of a place that existed whether I was in it or not, that had been here long before my heart got broken and would be here long after I figured out what to do with the pieces.

I pressed my forehead against the cool glass and let myself feel it for exactly five seconds.

The loneliness, the fear that I'd made a terrible mistake, the echo of Garrett's voice saying I think we need to talk, which was the phrase people used when they'd already decided and were just looking for a polite way to detonate your life.

Five seconds. Then I straightened up and wiped my eyes on my sleeve and turned around.

"Okay," I said to the empty room. "Fresh start."

My voice sounded thin. I cleared my throat and tried again. "Fresh start. You got this, Webber."

Better. Almost convincing.

I changed into my uniform. Navy pants, department polo, hair wrestled into the thick braid that was the only thing standing between me and complete chaos on my head.

The fabric still had the new-stiff feel to it.

Ember Falls Fire Department. Station 7. My new home for the foreseeable future, or at least until I figured out what the foreseeable future even looked like.

Station 7 was six blocks from my apartment, which in Ember Falls terms meant a four-minute walk.

The building was old brick, two stories, with a modern bay addition on one side that gleamed against the weathered red.

An American flag hung limp in the still air.

The engine, a Pierce Enforcer, well-maintained from the look of it, sat with its bay door open, catching the afternoon light.

I squared my shoulders, pulled the glass door, and walked inside.

The common room hit me first, that particular firehouse smell of industrial cleaner, coffee that had been on the burner too long, and something savory.

Chili, maybe. A mismatched collection of recliners and a couch faced a TV mounted on the wall.

Turnout gear hung in open lockers along the far side.

Photos on the walls, group shots, award ceremonies, a faded image of the station from what looked like the 1970s.

I took a breath. The air tasted like every station I'd ever walked into, a particular blend of industrial soap, shared meals, and the underlying note of diesel that never quite washed out, no matter how many times they mopped.

But underneath the familiar, there was something specific to this place.

The smell of mountain air leaking in through a propped-open bay door, carrying pine and cold stone and the faint sweetness of whatever was blooming on the hillside behind the building.

It smelled like a place that could become home, if I let it.

A man looked up from the kitchen island where he was stirring a massive pot. Tall, sandy-haired, with a face that managed to be both rugged and kind. He grinned.

"You must be Webber." He wiped his hand on a dish towel and extended it. "Cole Decker. Engineer. And unofficial station chef, though the 'unofficial' part is doing a lot of heavy lifting because nobody else will cook."

His handshake was warm and firm. "Lila," I said. "And whatever that is smells incredible."

"White chicken chili. Secret recipe. And by secret I mean I found it on Pinterest and changed one thing so I could call it mine." He leaned against the counter. "How was the drive?"

"Long. Pretty, once I got into the mountains."

"Wait till October. The whole town turns into a postcard." He nodded toward the hallway. "Captain's in his office. He'll want to say hello before the rest of the animals descend."

I found Captain Harding's office at the end of a short hall.

The door was open. He was a broad man in his fifties, his dark hair gone gray at the sides, with the kind of steady presence that made you feel like nothing could go wrong while he was in the room.

He stood when he saw me, and his handshake was the no-nonsense variety.

"Webber. Welcome to Station 7. Your file's impressive. Three years on Medic 9 in Charlotte, advanced trauma certification, incident command training." He studied me for a few seconds. "You're overqualified for this post, but I'm not going to complain about that."

"I needed a change of pace, Captain."

He held my gaze for a moment, and I had the uncomfortable feeling he could see straight through the cheerful packaging to the mess underneath.

But he just nodded. "Well, you'll get one.

Ember Falls isn't Charlotte. We run maybe three or four calls a day.

Some days it's a cat in a tree, and I mean that literally, Mrs. Patmore's tabby gets up there twice a month.

But when it's bad here, it's bad. Mountain roads, limited backup, long response times from mutual aid. You'll earn your keep."

"I'm ready."

"Good. Your partner will be Lieutenant Rawlings. He's—" Captain Harding paused. Chose his words. "He's one of the best I've ever worked with. Give him time."

An odd thing to say. I filed it away and smiled. "Looking forward to it."

Back in the common room, the animals had indeed descended. A guy around my age with dark curly hair and a grin that suggested he'd never met a bad idea he didn't embrace leaned over the back of the couch.

"The new girl! I'm Ty. Brennan. Tyler, technically, but my mom's the only one who calls me that, and only when I'm in trouble, which is—" he glanced at Sadie "—frequently."

"Constantly," the woman beside him corrected.

She was compact and sharp-featured, dark hair pulled back tight, and she looked at me with the kind of appraising gaze that said she'd decide whether to like me on her own timeline.

"Sadie Roberts. Firefighter-EMT. Don't let Brennan give you the tour or you'll end up on the roof. "

"The roof is the best part!" Ty protested.

"The roof is where you hide when it's your turn to clean the bathrooms," Cole called from the kitchen.

I laughed. It was easy here, the banter, the ribbing, the way they moved around each other like a family that had worn grooves into each other's rhythms. Something in my chest ached a little. I wanted to belong to this.

The bay door rumbled. I heard boots on concrete, heavy and deliberate.

He came through the doorway and the common room got smaller.

Tall, taller than Cole, which was saying something.

Dark hair cut short, a jaw that could have been carved from the same granite as the mountains outside, and eyes that were gray-blue, the color of woodsmoke.

He wore his uniform like it was a second skin, sleeves rolled to the elbows, forearms corded with muscle.

Everything about him was controlled, precise, contained, like a fire banked low and burning steady.

He looked at me and his expression didn't change. Not unfriendly. Not friendly. Just closed. A wall with no door.

"Rawlings," Captain Harding said from behind me. "Meet your new partner. Lila Webber."

I extended my hand. Put on my best smile, the one that had gotten me through staff meetings, awkward family dinners, and the six weeks after I found Garrett in our bed with Mackenzie. The one that said, I'm warm, I'm capable, I'm not a threat.

He looked at my hand. Then at me. His jaw tightened.

"I didn't request a new partner."

The words landed flat. Toneless, which was almost worse. Just fact. The common room went quiet, the kind of quiet that meant everyone was listening while pretending not to.

My hand hung in the air between us. One second. Two.

I pulled it back. My smile didn't waver. I'd had a lot of practice at that.

"Well," I said, keeping my voice light. "I'm here anyway."

He held my gaze for another beat, then walked past me to the lockers. Opened one. Pulled out his turnout jacket. Said nothing.

The locker next to his was empty. A strip of tape on the front where a name had been peeled off, leaving a sticky, discolored rectangle. Nobody had put a new name on it.

I stared at that empty nameplate space and understood something I hadn't been briefed on.

I wasn't just the new partner. I was the replacement.

For someone whose absence was still fresh enough to leave a mark on a locker, a hole in the crew, and a wall around a man who looked at me and saw everything he'd lost.

I looked at that empty space. Then at the rigid line of his shoulders as he checked his gear with the methodical focus of someone who'd rather do anything than acknowledge my existence.

Ty caught my eye from the couch and made a face that was half grimace, half encouragement. Cole shook his head almost imperceptibly. Sadie had already turned back to whatever she was reading on her phone, but her mouth was pressed into a thin line.

Fine. I'd worked with difficult partners before. I'd handled Garrett's mother at Thanksgiving. I'd handled finding my life in pieces on a Tuesday afternoon and still shown up for my shift the next morning.

Beckett Rawlings and his granite jaw could do their worst.

I wasn't going anywhere.