Chapter 18
Chapter Eighteen
Kate
Shit. I’m going to fail.
I slap the lid of my laptop shut, cutting off the offensive sight of my latest evaluation score. Around me, the sounds of the station should be soothing. Instead, it feels like I’m out of place, wearing someone else’s clothes.
The biweekly study sessions with the guys have helped my confidence, but I’m still struggling in this class. I can’t even say it’s some toxic-masculinity thing or blame the instructor for going extra hard on me because I’m a female. He’s not.
It clearly states what the expectation is, and I’m not meeting the physical requirements of the job.
“What’s wrong?” Jackson asks from the kitchen, where he’s been cleaning up.
“I missed the target time on the run.”
“So get faster.”
“Get faster, get stronger,” I mimic. “It’s not that easy. I have limited time.”
He flips a towel over his shoulder and braces his hands on the counter. “Okay, so we tweak your workout plan. Come on, Kate. You have to believe in yourself.”
Cal joins me at the table. “You have to remember why you are doing this and dig deep if you want it. You’re clearly smart enough, you’ve been a medic for how many years? You’ve proven you can learn the material. The physical requirements are there for a reason.”
“And I can do them when I’m on my own. I don’t know why I’m choking during evaluations.”
“We can work with that. Let’s have a competition,” Cal throws out.
“Oooo, yeah. Like us against you. If you can beat us, you can pass this next evaluation.”
I roll my eyes. “The next one is retrieving a downed firefighter.”
“Okay, cool. That’s an important one. Of all of these, if I go down in a blaze, I wanna know you can haul my ass to safety. Come on, let’s go.” He shoos us out to the bay as Leo and his partner, someone I haven’t met yet, roll up to the station.
The new guy doesn’t speak a word, just stomps into the living quarters. Leo pauses at our trio.
“What’s his problem?” Cal asks.
Leo shrugs. “Dunno. Been on his damn phone all day texting and has barely spoken. What’s happening here?”
“Teaching Kate how to be a badass. Cal’s gonna play dead. Kate’s gonna get him out.”
“Why do I have to be dead?” Cal whines, even as he goes to his bunker gear at the door of the engine and kicks off his shoes.
“Kate, get your gear on.” Jackson shoos me toward the locker where they’ve relegated a spare set of small bunker gear.
“We don’t have time for your games, my ride will be here any minute,” I whine.
“What’s wrong with your car?” Leo asks.
“Oh, just another tick in the this-day-sucks column. My battery died,” I reply, stepping into my bunker pants, relinquishing the possibility of Jackson letting this go. He’s going to pester me until I agree to this challenge of his.
“But overall things are better?”
Things around the farm have been… interesting.
In the few days since my freak-out over Vaughn getting stung by a wasp and my admission of my ridiculous fears, they’ve been nice.
Whether it’s because I finally showed them my insecurities or because they feel bad for me, I’m not certain.
But Gus is not sneaking snacks. Vaughn isn’t grunting at me.
Nor is he calling me out on how I practically crawled into his skin when he hugged me.
And when I called about my car not starting this afternoon, he and Gus jumped on getting me to the station for my study session, then insisted they’d take care of the battery situation while I did my thing.
“Yeah, actually. They’re being super supportive.”
“Kate, get your ass over here,” Jackson bellows through the station.
I round the engine to find Cal on the floor, kitted out in his full gear, minus the oxygen tank.
“Okay, scenario.” He dives into a full-blown scene where someone was racing up a flight of stairs but got their air hose snagged on a banister.
The result was him falling down the stairs with his mask snatched off, a search and rescue by other personnel, followed by a trip to the hospital for smoke inhalation for the downed firefighter.
It’s too specific not to be real.
“Did that really happen?” I ask as I wonder how in the hell I’m supposed to get him off the ground. I know the mechanics, but I can’t fathom how I’m going to execute the drill.
“Yeah. When I was at Newman FD. Happened to my buddy Nate. I wasn’t there, but it scared the shit out of the whole department.”
Suddenly, the direness of why I’m doing this drill lands squarely on my shoulders. I replace what-ifs with real names. Real people. People I care about.
Tapping into that internal drive that insists that I help someone in need, I line up at Cal’s shoulders, imagining we’re in that exact situation, where it’s my friend injured and needing help.
It takes effort, but I drag him across the bay floor to the area that Jackson has set our safety zone to be.
They give me pointers on how to lift him more securely, and we repeat the process.
Somewhere in the background, car doors slam, but I don’t get a chance to see who might be witnessing them hand me my ass.
“Okay, last option. The full-body carry, because what if you can’t drag him out.”
They walk me through the process by having me lie on my back.
Cal drops next to me, half on top of me; then, in some weird kung fu magic, he loops his leg between and around one of mine and pulls my arm over his body as he rolls, hauling me onto his back.
He stands as if I weigh nothing and hauls me to the safety zone.
“Your turn.” Cal doesn’t even sound winded.
He’s got me by at least fifty pounds and probably a full foot in height. This will be tough, given the size difference. “I hate being small,” I grumble but line up to perform the exercise.
It’s strangely intimate, sliding my leg between his, but I push that thought aside once I get him over and he’s flattened me to the ground.
I shift my focus to keep it professional and not focus on the fact that a man is literally lying on top of me.
I replace the image in my mind with the scenario Jackson set and lean into the physical exercise I need to accomplish.
Cal is my friend, and he will die if I don’t get him out of here.
I rise on all fours, then manage to get to my feet, all with the weight of a two-hundred-pound lump of dead weight on my back. I struggle-step to the safety zone while Jackson and Leo harass me to keep moving.
Cal drops off my back and immediately high-fives me. “Way to go, needle-pusher.”
Jackson slaps me on the ass like I’m one of the guys, and Leo is beaming like a proud father. A throat clears from the bay door, the effect like dousing a bucket of ice water on the celebration.
I turn to find Vaughn scowling at me. “Oh no, I’m sorry. You’ve been waiting.” The last thing I want to do is inconvenience him and Gus.
Gus ambles forward, taking in the station. “Just dropping off your keys.”
“My car is fixed?”
“Ay-yep.” He hands over my keys and jerks his head to the back lot. “Parked out back.”
“Wait, you drove it over here too?”
A grunt is my response, so I look to Vaughn, who’s still scowling at me. Ugh, not this again. I thought we were past all the scowling, grumbly-man thing. But obviously these two have their drawers in a wad about something. Maybe they got into an argument while fixing my car.
I immediately feel guilty that I put them out.
Things have been going so well; I don’t want to be the reason for another fracture in their relationship.
I make my way to Vaughn, slipping out of my bunker coat.
His gaze travels down my torso, and I am hyperaware of how my T-shirt is soaked with sweat and molded to my body.
I hold the bulky gear in front of me like a shield.
“Thank you. You didn’t have to go to that trouble. I’ll grab some dinner for everyone on the way home since it’s late.”
His jaw ticks as his gaze moves from me to the guys, then back to me. “See you at the farm.”
He spins and stalks to his truck, where Gus has already climbed inside and is glowering at the back of the engine. I trail after Vaughn, stopping at the bay door, trying to make it seem like I’m not watching his ass as those thick legs flex with every step, carrying him away from me.
“What’s with those two?” Jackson asks in a low voice, stepping up beside me.
Cal slings an arm over my shoulder, pulling me into his side. “I think farmer boy here didn’t like me hanging on Kate.”
I glance at the truck that’s stopped across the lot, still facing the station. I can feel Vaughn frowning at me from the driver’s seat as they make the turn and pull out of the drive.
Cal drops his arm as they drive around the corner of the building and out of sight.
Suddenly, I’m too hot. Too aware of every interaction Vaughn and I have had since that day I broke down in front of him. And I finally admit to myself what I haven’t wanted to admit.
I liked being in his arms. I wanted to kiss him.
All the nights I’ve walked by his door and slowed to peep inside on the off chance he might be lying shirtless in that bed. I can not have a crush on this man. But the simple fact is, I do.