Chapter 7
Chapter Seven
Aaron
“Iwondered when you would stop by my office,” Levi says the following morning.
He leans back in his chair and puts his feet up on the desk that sits between us. The smile on his face isn’t necessarily hostile, but it reminds me that he has a place here and I don’t.
Not yet.
“I think it’s time we had a deeper conversation,” I offer, an attempt to extend an olive branch.
He told me last week that I needed to be more open. Now, I’m willing to put my money where my mouth is. At least, as far as his sister is concerned.
“It was nice to see you enjoying yourself at the wedding. The guys liked seeing another side of you.”
To my surprise, there is no sharpness in his voice. If he wants to reprimand me for the way I treated Paige, he’s doing it very carefully.
“It felt good to be included,” I say, opting to fall back on the truth. “I’m hoping to get to know everyone more, and that will only happen if I start showing up.”
He nods and removes his feet from the desk. Then, he leans over the surface and removes some of the space between us. He watches me for a moment, but I don’t give my nerves away—an old habit.
“I didn’t realize that you knew my sister.” I appreciate that he cuts to the chase. “It seems you know her very well, based on that display on the dance floor.”
“It’s a long story. But we met last week, before I knew she was your sister.”
Levi cocks his head, waiting for me to elaborate, but I don’t. I promised Paige I wouldn’t share what happened in that hotel room. She might be close to Levi, but there are things you just don’t share with your brother.
“I came to see if you would be kind enough to give me her number.” I get the sense that I’ll get further in this conversation if I’m just direct with him, so I don’t draw things out.
Levi’s shoulders tense. His eyes drift past me as he thinks carefully about his next words.
“Paige has a life going on here in Crown Hill. Everyone loves her, and people are constantly watching out for her and Noah. This is home for them, you understand?”
“It’s going to be my home too, now,” I remind him.
“Listen, Paige has been through a lot. She hides it so well that most people can’t even guess what happened to her these past few years. I don’t want—”
“I don’t intend to put her through any more,” I cut him off.
I still don’t know exactly what Paige has been through, but I do know that I won’t be contributing to her long list of sad stories. Whatever happened with her ex isn’t going to happen now. Not with me. I would do anything to keep her from hurting, and I wouldn’t do anything to hurt Noah either.
The words hang in the air. Levi studies me, his eyes roaming over my relaxed body. I try not to let the tick in my jaw show, a clenching I feel only when someone mentions the mere idea of hurting Paige. His eyes land on mine, and I stare back.
With a sigh, he grabs a pen from the cup on his desk, scribbles a phone number on a blank sheet of paper, and passes it to me.
“Don’t make me regret this,” he mutters. “Now, go do your thing and convince the guys that you can lead this station.”
As I leave Levi’s office to make breakfast for the guys, it hits me that Paige is now just a phone call away. A text away, even. I could send her a message right now if I want to, a reminder of how much I enjoyed our evening. Our kiss.
I start pulling the ingredients for pancakes from the cabinets. The baking powder eludes me, and I’m shuffling through the cabinets when the alarm sounds. Someone else answers the call first, but the entire station hums to life, moving collectively toward the gear.
By the time we suit up and put on helmets, it’s clear we’re heading into a wildfire at the edges of town.
The sirens sound on the truck as we assume our positions. The engine swings onto the main drag through town. We barrel toward the danger, and I whisper a prayer that we won’t be too late.
I outline the plan for the crew as we approach the site. This is the first major call I’ve been on since starting at Station 59. A wildfire will be well beyond the simple kitchen fire or grill explosion.
The men acknowledge this for what it is: a chance to test my leadership skills.
Suppressing a wildfire is one of the hardest calls we could get.
It’s different from a blazing structure fire, spreading fast and unpredictably.
Our best bet is to remove the heat and oxygen from the equation.
Eliminating the vegetation surrounding the fire is a more difficult undertaking that we don’t have the equipment for.
This fire is large, but too small to request assistance from the next town over. It’s our job to keep it that way.
The engine rolls to a stop in front of the fire. Adrenaline pushes us out of the back of the truck and into action. Two firefighters immediately move to unwind the hose and lay it flat at the edge of the flames.
The rest of the crew starts spraying retardant around the edge of the flames in the hope that it will be strong enough to keep the blaze at bay.
With the hose ready, we spray around the fire and at the base of the flames. We have to control the fire as quickly as possible, even if that means we have to let the center burn hot for longer. There’s no real way to eliminate the fire at the source.
“Samson, spray lower at the base,” I call over the roar. “More to the left.”
I run around the perimeter, looking for places where the fire might grow out of control. There shouldn’t be any people in this part of the forest, but I stop short when I hear a high-pitched sound.
“Stop spraying over here! Give me a minute!”
Quickly, I swing my head in the direction of the sound. No one else seems to have heard it, judging from the looks of concentration on their faces. I take a tentative step toward the fire, looking for movement.
Levi notices me step closer to the fire and alerts the others.
“What do you see?” His voice is faint over the din of the hose and the crackling trees.
I squint my eyes through the smoke, desperate to see where the sound came from. Finally, they land on two dogs huddling together near the bushes about thirty feet into the fire’s perimeter.
“Dogs,” I call back, pointing toward them. “Going in.”
Before he can respond, I pull the fabric of my suit around my face to give me a little space to breathe. The guys start hosing down the area around me, hoping to clear a path so I can pull the dogs out safely. I force myself to trust that this unknown crew has my back.
Fortunately, the dogs are small when I get there—puppies. If their mom is anywhere around, I don’t see or hear her. I scruff them, one in each hand, and race out of the blaze, coughing.
Levi meets me halfway and grabs one of the puppies. Both of us shield our faces with our free hands, sprint through the flames, and get back to the team. The puppies will have to wait patiently in the truck.
The guys look at me with new appreciation when I return. In my rescue attempt, they made great progress at putting out the flames. With a little more concerted effort, we get the fire down to a smolder.
“We just need to watch it,” Levi says. “It could fan back into flame. But someone needs to take those puppies to get checked out by a professional.”
As if on cue, they start to whine in the back of the truck.
“I think you should be the one to take them in,” Levi suggests, a bit more warmth in his voice than usual. He’s never been unfriendly, but I feel like there’s something I’m missing now.
“The guys—”
“Will be fine with me,” he finishes. “I’m the superintendent, remember?”
Feeling the dismissal, I scoop up the puppies with one arm. Samson throws me the keys to the SUV that he drove alongside the truck in case we needed another set of wheels.
Remember to thank him later, I tell myself as I back out and head toward the shelter.
The puppies are quieter now, with fresh air from the air conditioning and open windows pumping into the car.
“Just a little further,” I promise them. “We’re almost there.”
* * *
Paige
“How fast can you get here?”
“I don’t know,” I admit. “It’s a pretty slow day here, but Lisa might not be able to handle it on her own. Let me see what I can do.”
Megan has never called me at the hospital before, especially not for animal shelter business. But her panicked voice made it clear that the two puppies the firefighters brought in today are in rough shape. It takes far too much to rattle her calm and composed exterior.
Lisa sits at the nurse’s station, sipping an old cup of what is likely lukewarm coffee from the break room. She has a chart open in front of her, but her eyes are closed as she takes a rare moment of relaxation.
When I explain to her what Megan needs, she gives me a look that can only be described as mischievous. “Does this sudden desire to help puppies have anything to do with a certain firefighter?”
“You know I would do this no matter what.” I roll my eyes, but my smile surfaces unbidden at the memory of Aaron last night.
“Go,” she sighs. “We don’t need two charge nurses on a day where the worst thing I’ve seen is an allergic reaction to peanuts.”
Thanking her, I grab my coat from the back of the chair and dart out of the hospital before she can change her mind.
The shelter is alive with activity when I get there. In addition to the usual hustle and bustle of adoptions, a team of veterinarians is surrounding a table where two small shapes are wriggling.
Megan makes a beeline for me and fills me in on their condition. “We don’t usually ask you to keep medically fragile pups in your home, but there’s really nobody else I can ask. Noah would love them, and I trust him not to make things worse.”
“You never have to apologize for asking me to help.” I reach out and wrap an arm around her shoulders.
She sinks into the embrace. She has to be exhausted from the stress of keeping this place humming today.
The team breaks away from the puppies, allowing me my first good look at them. They must be four or five months old, big enough to live without their mom and siblings. Their big eyes are liquid amber, drawing me close to them.
Upon closer inspection, their noses are bone dry as they press them into my open palms. Their fur is covered in charred wood and soot, but that will wash away with a good bath.
In the back of my mind, I make a running list of what I need to take: old towels, the special shampoo for sensitive skin, and a few soft blankets for them to sleep with.
“You two have really been through it today, haven’t you?” I murmur to the puppies.
“They’re not the only ones.”
I turn at the sound of that low voice, which most definitely doesn’t belong to Megan.
I didn’t want to let myself hope that Aaron was the one who brought the puppies in. More than that, I didn’t want to hope that he would have waited around to see how they fared.
Firefighters are busy people. He must have had better things to do than stand around at an animal shelter, watching as the doctor tried to save these precious pups.
Aaron seems to find new ways to surprise me all the time.
“What are the odds that you were the one they called to come get the dogs?” he adds when I don’t speak up.
“I volunteer here. At least when my schedule at the hospital lets me sneak away. Noah likes to come here, too. We think of it as our happy place.”
“And yet, you have no dogs of your own,” he points out, raising an eyebrow.
“We have too much going on for a dog, so we get our fix by volunteering with them. Maybe one day.” I end up volunteering more than I mean to, as always seems to be the case with Aaron.
He nods and reaches out to scratch the puppies behind the ears.
“Where did these two come from?”
“Wildfire,” he says simply, as if this is any ordinary day. He shrugs casually. “They were just inside the burn line. Easy enough for me to go in and get them, but they were in there for a while.”
I don’t say what I’m thinking: that Aaron is a hero for saving two puppies who don’t even belong to anyone.
Who else rushes into a wildfire, jeopardizing his own safety for a dog? He won’t want to hear it, just as my brother and his friends never do.
“How’s the fire now?” I ask instead.
“Under control.”
“I’m glad.”
I try not to think about how thick my voice gets at the idea of Aaron trying to control the fire. What if he gets hurt, right when we’re starting to get close? Right when I’m thinking about finally letting him in?
Megan bustles over, not subtle at all about her eavesdropping. She hands me two leashes, a small bag of kibble, and a bag stuffed with just about everything I could possibly need to take care of the puppies for the night.
“You have my number if you need anything else,” she says.
“I should get these guys home.” When I turn to lift them from the table, I realize my arms are too full to grab them.
“Give me your keys to unlock your car, and I’ll grab the puppies. You just worry about that bag.” Aaron steps in to help me make it to the car.
Something loosens in my chest at the image of him carrying the puppies tenderly to my car.
He sets them on the floor of the passenger seat. One of them immediately jumps into the seat and looks out the window as the door closes.
“Take good care of them.” He presses the keys into my palm, warm from his hand.
With his thumb, he brushes my cheek softly and leans down to press a kiss to my forehead. Heat colors my cheeks, and I fumble with the keys. Aaron chuckles, a rumble in his chest, before he steps back.
When he does, it feels like I can breathe again.
“I’ll call you tonight,” he promises.
I slip into the driver’s seat and watch as he walks through the parking lot, back to the station SUV several spots away.
A phone call sounds like a good thing, a chance to talk with no touching and no distractions. We can just get to know each other. I just have to figure out—
Wait, how exactly did he get my number?