Chapter 4 Only Being Honest
ONLY BEING HONEST
Chance and the rest of his shift at the firehouse were barely halfway through their dinner that he’d brought in from the pub when the alarms went off.
The large pan of grilled chicken breasts and mac and cheese would have to be warmed up later as they were racing to the pole, down it, and gearing up.
A fire in any complex was always cause for concern. Getting everyone out and containing it to the least amount of damage possible.
With any luck, it was a false alarm.
He hopped in the truck and they pulled out of the fire station racing the two miles to the building.
Residents were outside and standing around, then moving out of the way, his captain out and talking to a manager who had approached them.
They were standing back and not rushing into the building. He saw no smoke, but that meant nothing.
Captain James returned to them. “There is smoke reported on the eighth floor, but no flames that anyone can see. There are security cameras all over the place and the sprinklers came on in a supply closet and main hall.”
“With chemicals?” he asked. Which could be even worse.
“Chemicals in the room triggered the alarms when the smoke was detected. Let’s go check it out,” Captain James said.
Chance and two others went into the building, going up the stairs. They passed some residents in the stairwell and told them to get out.
It drove him insane that people didn’t take alarms seriously and just strolled out of buildings like nothing was wrong.
They made their way to the supply closet, the halls wet where the sprinklers were still running. At least the building was well equipped.
The door was shut, so they turned the knob and found it unlocked.
After looking around, they found a garbage can with burned papers in it and the butt of a cigarette. Chance reached in and pulled them out. “Someone was trying to destroy something in here, or they carelessly tossed their cigarette butt in there and it caught fire,” he said.
The charred remains were a soggy mess, but at least it explained what happened. No clue why whoever did this couldn’t have done it in their own place.
Unless of course they didn’t want to be responsible for setting off the alarms and getting caught.
He picked up the can and brought it out of the supply closet with him, other firefighters checking the rest of the floor, but not seeing any issues.
One by one, the men were walking the floors while Chance went back out with the can and put it in front of the manager. His captain was by him.
“Looks as if someone started a fire here. Could be a cigarette catching the papers on fire, or someone burning papers and the butt was already there. Not sure if you can figure out who did it.”
“I’ll check the cameras when I get inside,” the manager said. “I should be able to see who accessed the room since it’s always locked.”
“Do you keep cameras on all the floors?” he asked. That would be too intrusive for him.
“Just the stairwells entering the floors and then by company-owned rooms. Some don’t have good access and it’d be my luck this is one of them.”
“The rest of my men are checking the building,” Captain James said. His radio went off on his jacket, each floor being called cleared.
It didn’t appear to be anything major so he stood around looking at the residents.
One woman caught his eye. Long, dark brown hair cascading down her back, a great ass hugged by fitted jeans. One hip was cocked, radiating impatience, like she had somewhere better to be and didn’t want to waste another second outside.
She was talking to someone else, her hands gesturing in frustration, shoulders tight with tension.
He might need his hose to put out the fire in her.
The person she was talking to moved away, and the smoking body inside those jeans turned to look toward the firetrucks.
Fuck.
That was Jocelyn McCarthy.
Holy hell. How had he not noticed just how good she looked when she walked into the pub yesterday?
He’d looked. Just like he had when they were in high school.
She had a stellar body back then, but to a horny teenage boy, anything walking with some curves on it turned him on. He was only being honest. Didn’t mean he touched it all.
Not like he would have loved to with Jocelyn, who was so far out of his league she might as well have been from Venus.
He still looked. And wished. Nothing wrong with that.
Now, she had the body of a woman who took damn good care of herself.
The jeans she had on hugged her around the hips and ass, giving her a nice bubble. He’d love nothing more than to slap his hands on each cheek, grip her hard, and yank her forward to his body.
She’d probably be appalled and slap his face.
Or maybe she’d laugh.
Her chestnut eyes softened, a lightness in them and something else too, an attentiveness he rarely got from women. Especially not from women like her. Not back then. Now, most only looked at him for a good night, nothing more.
He learned to read silent messages well.
She was staring at him. Maybe through him to the action around. With his helmet on, she’d have no way of knowing he was the same man who had handed her lunch the other day.
Voices were speaking over the radio that the building was clear, and everyone was coming out.
The building manager announced that the residents could return to their homes. Jocelyn turned and walked toward the entrance like the rest.
“Let’s go, Drummond. All clear and back to dinner. Might not even have to heat it up too much.”
“It won’t take long to pop it in the oven,” he said.
“Fuck that,” Justin said. “I’m sticking my plate in the microwave with everything on it. Got to say I love it when it’s your turn to bring dinner in. Not that you cook it.”
He snorted. “How do you know I don’t cook it?”
“Because it comes in too fancy,” Justin said. They climbed into the truck. “Been like that for years. You never cook and buy it. Do you even know how to cook?”
“I know how to cook,” he said.
But for years he had bought it from the pub he now owned. His grandmother would make it and he’d get it at a discount. It was the same price half the time as if he’d bought all the ingredients, then had to come here and cook it.
“When was the last time you cooked anything for us?” Justin asked.
“I cooked the chicken. Not bad, huh?”
“Seriously?”
“Yep. I know how to do everything in my business and took care of it myself before I left since they were busy. Who are you to give me shit when your wife does it all for you?”
“If I had to handle it, it’d be pizza,” Justin said.
Every shift did its own thing, but he appreciated the one he was on rotated meals for their twenty-four shifts. Just their dinner, the rest of the time they were on their own.
“Nothing wrong with that,” he said.
They drove back to the firehouse, removed their gear and made their way back to the table.
A couple of the guys stuck their plates in the microwave.
There were a few around. He’d turned the oven on and thrown the rest of the food in the foil pan back in for now.
There was enough for a few helpings and it’d be warm by the time they got to the second one.
“Who was the chick you were staring at?” Rick asked.
“When and where? Be more specific.”
“At the call just now. Your gaze was locked in as if you were going to launch a missile,” Rick said.
He laughed. He hadn’t realized he was that obvious. “Just looking around.”
“A place like that has some fancy women in it,” Justin said. “You’d have to do more than bring some pub food from your kitchen over to her.”
“Who says you need to feed a woman to spend the night with her?”
People expected comments like that from him. He’d built that reputation early in life. But the truth was, he’d scaled back the nights out over the past few years.
It was too hard with his job at the firehouse, then add in the pub. He’d always worked more than one job. Always hustled to make something of himself.
He’d like to think he was getting there. He wouldn’t say he had a set plan or goal for his life, nothing more than to be successful and take care of his grandmother.
Guess it was better than nothing and a hell of a lot more than he’d thought he’d make of himself when he was a teen.
“The right woman,” Rick said.
“Chance always cares about the woman right now,” Justin said. “And as we know, it works for him.”
He wasn’t so sure why they thought that since he didn’t talk too much about his dating life. Could be they just saw him in the pub flirting more than anything and assumed more than it was.
“You gotta do what you do to get through the day.”
Something he’d lived by most of his life. It’d be nice not to always feel as if he was flying by the seat of his pants though.