Chapter 4
CHAPTER FOUR
MORGAN
The first weekend at Palmer's apartment had been interesting. He'd been gone for a whole day at the station and while she was used to living alone, she found being alone in his apartment a strange experience.
He'd told her to feel free to go anywhere and look into anything.
He'd even said to call him if she needed anything, but she knew what it was like to live with a first responder. Her brother had said she could call him at any time, but she knew that Jacob needed to keep his wits about him on the clock.
The same thing was true of Palmer.
Rhett as the others called him.
So, she'd kept to herself, focusing on her lesson prep.
She'd received electronic copies of all of the filed lesson plans from the teacher she was replacing. It was a good set of plans. Like the kinds of plans they'd studied in her degree program. She knew she was lucky in her assignment.
For a moment she considered what the classes would be like. Were the kids problematic? Is that why no one in San Antonio had taken the job?
It had been a momentary concern, but she knew there was no reason to ruminate over it. Until she was in the classroom, she wouldn't really know. And the best thing she could do was to be prepared. She went back to her studies.
Monday morning, she woke up to the sweet, sweet scent of coffee brewing.
When she opened her bedroom door, she nearly walked into Palmer.
He had two cups of coffee in his hands. "Here. I made this for you."
Aww!
"Thanks," she took hold of it with one hand and pushed her hair back from her face with the other. "I was hoping I could beg a cup from you. It smells amazing."
He looked a little shocked as he stepped to the side. "You don't have to beg. You don't even have to ask. As long as you're here, I'll make coffee for two."
As long as you're here...
The reminder that this was temporary hit her like a freight train running over a damsel on the tracks.
He didn't mean it in a mean way, but there it was.
"Thanks." She smiled at him, but she wasn't sure it was the smile he deserved.
"I showered already, and I need to get going in a few minutes, but I wanted to wish you a great first day as a teacher."
She blinked at him. "What?"
"Today," he smiled at her, and she wondered if he thought she was a little dim before her coffee, "it's your first day as a teacher, right? I hope it's a great day."
Morgan acted before she thought, something she did quite a bit.
She leaned in and wrapped her free arm around his body in a hug.
"Thank you."
It wasn't until she moved back that she realized what she'd done.
"Oh my god. I'm sorry. I haven't even showered yet and you're all dressed up for work!"
He seemed to come to his senses a moment later. "What? No. Don't worry about that. I'm fine."
"Yeah, but I shouldn't have... I just acted..." She shook her head and smiled at him. "Thanks. That... that means more than you know."
Boy howdy, what a mess. Palmer looked more than a little uncomfortable with her.
"Well, uh... I need to get going to the station."
"Yeah, Sorry." She pointed at the bathroom. "I'm going to go shower."
Palmer tensed up and looked back and forth as if he was looking for an escape. "Okay. Uh... Call if you need anything."
She smiled at him. "You're going to be at work. It's not like I can call and ask you to bring me a pencil... or an apple, right?"
He licked his lips and her gaze focused right on there on his mouth.
"You'd be surprised what I'd do for you, Morgan."
And then he was gone.
But it wasn't until she was in the shower that she really heard his words.
Oh, wow.
She knew she was giving it more importance than he'd meant to put into his words, but she couldn't help herself.
Being in the apartment with Palmer was a heady thing.
Having him close enough to touch was an incredible temptation.
But she had to keep her mind on the prize.
Her job.
Sure, he was paying attention to her now, but when she moved out into a place of her own, he'd forget about her.
Morgan worked her shampoo into her hair and tried to ignore the physical reactions she'd had when she'd hugged him for bringing her coffee.
Palmer smelled good.
So, good.
She couldn't really name the scent but just thinking about it, about him, filled her nose with that memory. It was like cinnamon rolls, dripping with icing, or spice cake tickling her taste buds.
And just like that she wanted to lean in and breathe in his scent and maybe, just maybe, if she was really lucky, she'd get a chance to taste-
Her cell phone alarm blared, cutting through the torrent of water from the shower and she groaned.
“Fine.” She rinsed off. “Back to reality.”
RHETT
When he got to the station, some of the last shift were sitting at the breakfast table staring into their cups of coffee.
“You guys, okay?”
Taco drew in a long, deep breath of his coffee in the way a smoker takes a long drag off a cigarette. “We just got back.”
Squirrel nodded as if he was falling asleep. “After doing a check and cleanup on the truck, I barely made it in the door. Thank god someone started the coffee, or I might not be talking right now.”
“Sorry,” Rhett put a hand on Squirrel’s shoulder. “I didn’t see you between our last couple of shifts or I would have thanked you for talking to Morgan when she came to the station looking for me.”
Squirrel turned a little in his chair. “Oh? No problem! Happy to help.”
He fought back a yawn and Taco spoke up.
“Her car is awesome!” He lifted his coffee mug in salute. “Did she paint it herself?”
Rhett thought about her story and nodded. “Yeah, she said she had to pound out a dent when she bought it and instead of paying to repaint it, she bought spray paint.”
Taco nodded thoughtfully. “Is she teaching art at the high school?”
The thought struck an odd chord in Rhett. “No, she’s teaching history and civics.”
“Oh,” Taco sounded a little disappointed. “You should take her down to see the murals under Interstate Thirty-five. I think it’s between St. Mary’s and Elmira. I bet she’d like to see the art on the columns.”
“Morning, guys.”
They turned to look at the door as Chief Blaise walked in.
“Morning, Chief.” Rhett greeted him. “Want me to get you a cup of coffee?”
The Chief raised his hand with his travel mug in it. “No thanks, Rhett. I’ve got my own.”
“Okay, Chief.”
He turned back to ask Taco about the murals, but the Chief spoke up. “Rhett?”
“Yeah, Chief?”
“Don't take this the wrong way, but… are you smiling?”
Rhett looked up and caught sight of himself in the reflection of a glass panel.
And, yes, he was smiling.
When he lowered his gaze, he saw Squirrel looking at him over the top rim of his glasses. “Never thought I’d live to see the day.”
Rhett shrugged and tried to fight it down, but he couldn't.
He looked at everyone around the room who had suddenly stopped to look at him. "Yes. I'm smiling, okay?"
Nobody moved.
Nobody even seemed to breathe.
Rhett shrugged. "Look, it had to happen sometime, right?"
The Chief nodded and waved his hand to get the rest of the room moving again. "Of course. I'm sorry if I caused a scene, but I'm just happy to see you... happy."
"I hadn't even noticed," Rhett admitted. "I made coffee at home for Morgan since she starts her first day as a teacher today and I thought it would make a nice gesture."
"Absolutely." Squirrel cupped his mug in his hands, likely enjoying the heat. "I'm sure she did. It's always great to make an effort for the ones you... uh, for the ones you live with."
Rhett raised a brow at that. "I know where you were going with that, Squirrel. She's the sister of an old friend from Center City. And she needed a place to stay when this job popped up. She didn't have a lot of time to find a place since she had to start right away."
The Chief's expression changed, from happy to concerned. "Where is she teaching?"
Rhett dropped his chin as he looked down toward the floor as he tried to remember the name of the school. "Oh. Uh, Shilling High School."
"Shilling?" The Chief looked up as Crash walked into the room. "Crash? Do you remember when we were called out to that school about a week ago?"
Crash slowed his steps and came to a complete stop a few steps away from the table. "Uh. Yeah. We answered the call for the GSW."
Rhett's whole mood soured. "Gunshot wound?"
Crash nodded.
"Why didn't I hear about this?"
The Chief shook his head. "It was in the middle of the night. Right?"
Crash nodded. "We'd just finished a call about a fire, but it was a false alarm, and we were close to Shilling High School. It's out of our area, but not by much."
Driftwood spoke up from behind Rhett. "So dispatch was happy for us to go in when they got the call. All of the trucks in that area were dealing with a fire at a grocery store so they were stretched to their limit, and we beat the ambulance, but not by more than a few minutes. A teacher had been shot in the parking lot."
Crash nodded. "I heard later it was probably a carjacking attempt or something like that."
Chief Blaise shook his head. "Terrible thing."
Driftwood nodded. "What's going on, Chief? Did you hear something more about the shooting?"
The Chief gestured at Rhett, and he felt a number of eyes turn toward him again. "Rhett's got an old friend staying with him. She's starting work at Shilling today."
"As a Social Studies teacher?"
Rhett saw the frown on Driftwood's face and felt his gut clench a little. "History and Civics. Why?"
Driftwood looked at Taco and Taco nodded back. "I helped pick up her books from the pavement to make sure that the EMTs wouldn't run over them with their gurney. It wouldn't do anyone any good if they popped a wheel over one of the books either."
Squirrel got up from his seat and gave Rhett a gentle pat on his shoulder. "I heard on the news that they've upped their security over there. The school resource officer is making some waves for that. He wants the school campus clear after classes end every day. No teachers or students would be allowed on the campus once it's dark."
A number of grumbling voices were heard around him, but Rhett would be hard-pressed to want to argue with the man's suggestion.
"So they don't have sports at that school?" Driftwood scoffed at the idea.
Taco nodded in agreement. "Band? Clubs?"
Rhett swallowed. "I'm sure it wouldn't be forever. If they haven't found the people who attacked that teacher, I can't see anyone wanting to stay after hours."
"Yeah," Squirrel agreed. "I'm sure once they find out who did it, they'll be able to open the campus up for activities. I admit it sounds like good sense to keep after hours traffic on the campus to a minimum."
"Still," the Chief hesitated, "I think there has to be a balance between security concerns and access to the school grounds."
Rhett didn't know if he could get behind that, but he wasn't a parent or a student, his... his roommate was literally the person stepping into the shoes of a teacher who was shot while she was at work.
"I... I better go and put my things in my locker."
Before anyone could stop him, he walked out of the room, shifting his duffle over his shoulder to put it between him and anyone who wanted to talk.
As he moved into the locker room, people moved out of his way and some even actively avoided looking at his face.
Yes.
This was familiar.
This was easy.
No one said he was smiling.
No one could see whether he was smiling or not.
Good for them.
Good for himself.
He yanked open his locker and shoved his duffle inside before slamming it closed again.
"Whoa."
He looked up into Abe's face and saw the younger man staring at him with little more than a hint of worry in his eyes. "What?"
Abe's mouth dropped open and then closed again. "Nothing."
Abe turned around and started to walk away with his backpack still slung over his shoulder.
"Abe, wait."
Lincoln Abe, or Abe like he was called at Station Seven, came to a stop at the end of the row of lockers and turned back around with a stoic look on his face. "Yeah?"
"I'm sorry."
Abe drew in a breath and swallowed. "No biggie."
"It's been... a rough morning."
Abe looked over at the wall toward the clock. "That's an accomplishment."
Rhett felt one corner of his mouth lift, just a hint. "Well, some of us are over-achievers."
Abe almost spit out a laugh and then he really did laugh. "Wow. Was that a joke?"
Rhett didn't know what to say.
Except for the truth.
"Maybe."
Abe walked closer to him, finally lowering his backpack off of his shoulder. "You're a scary man sometimes."
Rhett looked away for a moment. "It's not intentional."
Abe opened his locker door and hung his backpack on the hook inside. "It's not always a bad thing. Working as a firefighter I've met a bunch of bad asses. FBI Agents. Texas Rangers. Game Wardens. Sheriff's deputies. Even firefighters like Pen. We can all be bad asses when we need to. You have that ability in spades, but I've also seen you take care of screaming kids and people panicking in some of the scariest times of their lives.
"You didn't scare them. You comforted them. You have this super steady kind of personality and people latch onto that. They look at you and they trust you. That's bad ass, too."
Rhett listened to Abe's words, but he wasn't sure he could see himself in those descriptions.
"I don't know what's gotten under your skin today, Rhett, but I do know one thing." He closed his locker door and shrugged into his SAFD jacket with a smile. "When we're on a call, you'd never let things affect the way you do your job. You're going to be our rock just like you always are. It's what we count on."
With a nod and a lop-sided grin, Abe walked out and into the hallway.
Rhett reached into his pocket and took out his cellphone.
There was still time before the school day started, but he knew that Morgan had to get her orientation before the start of school. She'd told him that she had to go in and get her ID, her keys, and have a basic walk around her building before opening up her classroom.
He wasn't about to call and ask her if she was replacing someone who'd been killed on school campus.
That would be cruel no matter what the circumstances were.
Sitting down on one of the benches that lined the aisle between the lockers, he opened up a browser and typed in a few keywords to search for news.
He didn't watch any of the videos about the shooting. He just read a couple of articles and nothing he read helped to put his worries to bed.
The teacher was in a coma with little chance of recovering. Her family was devastated. And law enforcement had no idea what had prompted the shooting or any reports about who might be responsible.
Rhett made a mental note of the name of the school resource officer and before he put this phone away, he took a screengrab of the article in the small likelihood that he'd forget.
The alarm sounded and Rhett shot up onto his feet.
"Car accident on Grapevine and Tetley. Two cars involved. Head on. Injuries reported."
Rhett made a quick pass through the gear room on his way to the apparatus floor. He was shoulder to shoulder with Cowboy as they got to the truck.
"All right. Let's go."
Rhett felt his focus narrow on the job ahead.
He had to.
There were just too many people depending on him to do anything else.