Chapter 2
Beau
The omega followed me to the station in her practical gray sedan, maintaining exactly two car lengths of distance the entire drive. Even her driving was disciplined, I noticed. No sudden movements. No aggressive lane changes. Just steady, controlled progress from point A to point B.
Like she’d decided the most efficient route and wouldn’t deviate regardless of what happened around her.
I understood that instinct more than I wanted to admit.
Captain Rhodes was already in the bay when I pulled in, inventory clipboard in hand and reading glasses perched on her nose. She looked up as I parked, her gaze moving past me to the gray sedan pulling in behind.
“You brought company,” she observed.
“Coordinator Wynn. Offered her coffee after the drill.” I climbed out of my truck, very aware of how the words sounded like I was justifying myself. Which was ridiculous. I was allowed to offer coffee to colleagues.
Except colleagues didn’t usually smell like the perfect type of autumn rain, and colleagues definitely didn’t make my alpha sit up and pay attention for the first time in three years.
“Wynn.” Rhodes’s expression shifted to something thoughtful. “The one who moved here from Montana?”
“Idaho, I think. Does it matter?”
“Only if you’re planning to do something about that look you’ve been wearing all morning.”
I didn’t dignify that with a response. There was no look. I was simply being professional with someone whose job intersected with mine on a regular basis. The fact that she was an omega had nothing to do with anything.
Sable, I corrected myself with an internal smile. Her name was Sable, and she’d specifically told me to use it.
She climbed out of her sedan with the same efficient movements she seemed to apply to everything, tablet tucked under one arm and radio clipped to her belt even though the drill was over.
Her short black curls were slightly mussed from the morning’s work, and her dark amber eyes were already scanning the station bay with that assessing gaze that missed nothing.
“Nice facility,” she said, approaching with confident strides that ate up the distance between us. “Original construction or renovation?”
“Renovation about ten years back,” Rhodes answered before I could. “Beau was part of the crew that did the work. Along with half the volunteer department.”
“Good bones, then.” Sable’s attention moved to the equipment racks, the apparatus bays, the organization of tools and gear. Not looking at me, I noticed. Very deliberately not looking at me.
Which meant she was as aware of me as I was of her, and that realization sent something warm and unwelcome through my chest.
“Coffee’s in the kitchen,” I said, gesturing toward the door that led to the common areas. “Fair warning, the machine is older than most of the equipment.”
“I’ve worked with worse.” She followed me through the bay, past Engine Two and the rescue truck, her boots making soft sounds against the concrete. “Nice rig. Seventy-five-foot ladder?”
“Eighty. We cover a lot of rural territory. Need the reach for some of the mountain properties.” I pushed through the door into the kitchen, where the ancient coffee maker sat in all its scarred and dented glory.
Sable studied it for a long moment, then looked at the half-pot of black liquid that had probably been sitting there since yesterday. She picked up the carafe, sniffed it, and made a face that would have been funny if it hadn’t been so perfectly expressive of my own thoughts about station coffee.
“This is not coffee,” she announced. “This is a crime against beverages.”
“That’s what I’ve been saying for years,” Rhodes called from where she’d followed us in. “But nobody listens to me.”
“May I?” Sable was already moving toward the machine, setting down her tablet and inspecting the various components with the same systematic attention she’d given to the drill evaluation.
“Be my guest,” I said, oddly fascinated by watching her work. Her movements were precise but not hesitant, like she’d done this exact task a hundred times in a hundred different locations. “Though I should warn you, that machine has defeated better people than you.”
“Challenge accepted, Calder.”
“Beau,” I corrected automatically, then wanted to take it back when Rhodes shot me a knowing look.
Sable didn’t respond, too focused on dismantling the coffee maker’s filter basket and examining it with an expression of scientific disapproval. “When was this last deep cleaned?”
I exchanged a glance with Rhodes, who suddenly found her inventory clipboard extremely interesting.
“Right.” Sable set the basket aside and opened the cabinet below the sink, emerging with cleaning supplies and a scrub brush. “This might take a few minutes.”
“You don’t have to…” I started.
“Do you want good coffee or not, Calder?”
Beau, I wanted to correct again. Instead, I found myself pulling up a chair at the small kitchen table and watching her work. There was something almost meditative about it, the way she methodically cleaned each component, checked water lines, and inspected gaskets for wear.
“You do this a lot?” I asked when the silence stretched a little too long.
“I’ve coordinated out of more fire stations, emergency operation centers, and temporary command posts than I can count.
” She rinsed the filter basket under hot water, scrubbing with efficient motions.
“You learn pretty quickly that good coffee is the difference between functional coordination and everyone wanting to strangle each other by hour six of a crisis.”
“Practical.”
“Everything in emergency management is practical, or it should be.” She reassembled the machine with the kind of casual competence that spoke of real understanding, not just following instructions. “The impractical stuff is what gets people killed.”
There was something in her tone, something hard-edged and certain, that made me wonder what she’d seen to build that philosophy. But before I could figure out how to ask, she was pouring fresh water into the reservoir and measuring grounds with the precision of a chemist.
“Black, two sugars?” I guessed, remembering her comment about station coffee crimes.
She glanced at me, surprise flickering across her face. “How did you know?”
“Lucky guess.” Not a guess at all. I’d been paying attention to her all morning, cataloging details I had no business noticing.
Like how she took notes on her tablet with her right hand but wore her watch on her right wrist, suggesting she was left-handed but had learned to adapt.
Or how she touched her arm over what was no doubt a suppressant patch whenever she was thinking hard about something, an unconscious gesture that made my alpha want to know what she was suppressing and why.
Not my business. Not my place to wonder.
I’d given up the right to wonder about omegas three years ago, when I’d pulled an omega and her kid from a submerged vehicle and realized too late that I’d been too slow, too careful, too focused on procedure when I should have just moved faster.
The coffee maker gurgled to life, and the scent that began to fill the kitchen was exponentially better than anything that machine had produced in recent memory.
“There,” Sable said with satisfaction. “That’s coffee.”
“Marry me,” Rhodes said from the doorway, where she’d apparently been watching the entire process.
Sable turned, startled, and I watched color rise in her cheeks. “I just cleaned your machine.”
“And gave us the first decent cup of coffee this station has had in six months. That’s basically a marriage proposal in fire service culture.” Rhodes was grinning, completely ignoring my attempt to make eye contact and telepathically tell her to stop talking.
“I’ll keep that in mind,” Sable said dryly, but there was something softer in her expression now, less guarded.
The machine finished brewing, and she poured three mugs with the same efficient movements she’d used for everything else. Two sugars in hers from the jar on the counter, black for Rhodes, and she’d paused with the sugar spoon over mine.
“Black, one sugar,” I said quietly. “Thanks for remembering to ask.”
Something flickered in her eyes, there and gone too fast to name. “Simple courtesy.”
She handed me the mug, and our fingers brushed for just a second. Her skin was warm, and the contact sent awareness shooting up my arm like I’d touched a live wire.
She pulled back fast, tucking her hand against her side and focusing very intently on her own mug.
So she’d felt it too. Good to know I wasn’t suffering alone.
We drank in silence for a minute, Rhodes having wandered back to her inventory with a happy sound that suggested the coffee really was that much better. The kitchen felt smaller somehow, just the two of us and the morning light coming through the windows that overlooked the apparatus bay.
“That photo,” Sable said suddenly, nodding toward the wall where we kept pictures of the crew. “That’s your team?”
“Current rotation.” I stood, carrying my mug over to where the photos were tacked up on the corkboard. “We’re all volunteer except for Rhodes and me. Most people have day jobs outside the service.”
“The woman in front, that’s Rhodes?”
“Ten years as captain. Before that, she was with a metropolitan department downstate. Retired here and couldn’t stay away from the work.”
Sable moved closer, studying the photo with that same analytical attention she gave everything. “And you? How long have you been doing this?”
“Fifteen years. Started as a volunteer, went full-time after I got my paramedic cert.” I pointed to another photo, older, showing a younger version of myself with longer hair and fewer scars. “That’s from my first year.”
“You look different.”
“I was different.” Younger. Less careful. Still believed I could save everyone if I just worked hard enough and moved fast enough.