The Fireman Finds a Wife

Summer had countered that his interest was in making sure one of the small city’s new residents didn’t die on him. Spring just tsk-tsked, and told her to take a chance.

But Summer didn’t date. And she surely wouldn’t start with someone as...well, as male as Cameron Jackson.

He was muscular, not bulked up like a bodybuilder, but he possessed a strength and a sturdiness that said he was used to being a protector. She’d already noticed his dark blond hair, and now she took in his eyes, an easy blue that was comforting in an odd way—odd, because she didn’t need any comforting, at least not now.

“May I call you Summer?”

She noticed his eyes also seemed to light up when he talked.

“Y-yes. Everyone calls me Summer. My sisters are Spring, Autumn and Winter. Our parents had something of a twisted sense of humor. We were teased about it when we were younger. But now...”

Realizing that she was babbling, she closed her mouth, clasped her hands together and stared at the floor.

“I brought something for you,” he said, walking toward one of the long dining tables. The tables were already dressed for the evening meal with linens and functional centerpieces—clear bowls filled with apples, oranges and bananas for their guests to help themselves.

Her heart tripped a bit. He brought her a present?

“Well, for you to use,” he said, clarifying as if she’d spoken the question aloud.

Oh, dear. Had she?

“We’ve been collecting food over at the station houses,” he said. “I’ve tried to set a standard without preaching at the crews. Every time one of the guys uses profanity, he has to pay up with a canned good or non-perishable item that gets donated to Manna. I figured that would be an easy way to get the message across about the language while doing something helpful for the community.”

Summer glanced down at the half-filled brown paper bag.

“Congratulations. Looks like it’s working since you only have a few items.”

Cameron groaned.

“This is just what I carried in,” he said. “There are three big boxes in the truck.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah,” he said. “Oh.”

An awkward silence fell between them. Summer didn’t know what to do with her hands. She’d been so long removed from the dating scene that she had no clue about how to act. Plus, Cameron made her nervous, like a filly not yet acquainted with the new trainer at a stable.

But the manners she and her sisters learned at Lovie Darling’s School of Raising the Seasons kicked in when Summer’s feminine wiles deserted her.

“Would you like...”

“I guess I should get...”

They both started at the same time.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “You go first.”

He put his hands in his jeans pockets and rocked back on his feet. “I was just going to say, I’ll go get the other donations.”

“I was going to ask if you’d like a cup of coffee. I just took cookies out of the oven.”

His face lit up.

“If you think I’m going to pass up that offer, you need to think again,” he said. “I’ll be right back.”

As Cameron hauled the boxed items to the kitchen, Summer put on a fresh pot of coffee and plated up a few of the white chocolate macadamia nut cookies.

He wants to take you out, silly. On a date.

Her older sister’s words echoed in Summer’s mind. Was that why he’d come himself instead of sending someone to deliver the donations?

* * *

By the time he got everything stowed in the receiving area of the big kitchen, she was waiting with steaming mugs of coffee, a plate of cookies...and a crowd. There with Summer was Mrs. Davidson from the Common Ground office, and a petite woman he didn’t immediately recognize.

Trying to get a few moments alone with Summer Spencer was more difficult than herding cats. If he hadn’t seen a spark of interest in her eyes, he would think she was trying to shield herself from his attention.

After she’d fainted in his arms and he’d taken some good-natured teasing at the station house about beautiful blondes falling down at the mere sight of him, he’d discreetly asked around and found out that she had just recently moved home to North Carolina from somewhere farther south, in Georgia. Instead of settling in at what was known as the Darling Compound, she’d purchased her own home.

The part he hadn’t bargained on was that Summer Spencer, the delicate blonde with the sad eyes and the killer baking skills, was a Darling, of the Darlings of Cedar Springs. The very wealthy, very cultured, pillars of town society Darlings.

“Chief Jackson, this is Doris Davidson and Samantha Burns, one of our volunteers.”

“Oh, the chief and I know each other,” Mrs. Davidson said. “How are you today?” she asked before taking a sampling of a cookie.

“Just fine, Mrs. D.”

The woman named Samantha wore an apron that had the Common Ground logo on the front. “Hello, there. Are you the chief of police or something?”

“Fire chief,” Cameron said.

“Oh, my goodness, Summer. These are excellent,” exclaimed Mrs. Davidson. “Would you be willing to make a couple dozen for me for my book group? I host next week and I was just going to get something from Sweetings. These are so much better.”

“You know I will, Mrs. Davidson,” Summer said. “Just tell me when you need them.”

She offered a small paper plate with two cookies to Cameron. “How do you take your coffee?”

“Black,” he said.

Vanessa Gerard joined them a moment later. “I got the pans in the oven,” she said. “It was easy. I may try that at home.”

“Told you,” Summer said. “We’re taking a little break,” she said, serving up another plate with cookies to Vanessa. “Would you like coffee?”

“No, thanks,” Vanessa said. “Trying to cut back. Howzit going, Chief Cam?”

“Well, Vanessa. What about with you?”

She lifted a brow, gave a slight shrug and said, “It’s going.”

“You’ll let me know?” he asked.

Vanessa gave an exasperated sigh. “I always do, chief.”

“I’m holding you to that,” Cameron said.

Summer noted the easy familiarity between them and the nickname Vanessa used. A stab of jealousy or possibly disappointment shot through her. She had no claim on Cameron Jackson so she wasn’t at all sure from whence it sprang.

Mrs. Davidson, not recognizing the bit of tension that seemed to suddenly envelop the room, piped up. “I declare, Summer, the best thing that ever happened to Manna at Common Ground was you showing up when you did.”

Not willing to acknowledge her private reaction to Cameron and Vanessa, Summer gave Mrs. Davidson a sunny smile.

“Yes,” Vanessa said. “Mrs. D is right. Because if you hadn’t walked in here, they were going to dragoon me and that would have truly been a disaster in the making.”

Cameron glanced at his watch, then put down his coffee cup. “Summer, may I have a word with you?”

She glanced at the other three women as if looking for validation. “Uh, sure.”

Vanessa took in the boxes neatly stacked on the receiving bench. “Did you bring those, Chief Cam?”

When he nodded, Vanessa snagged another cookie from the cooling rack then reached for a clipboard dangling under the counter on an unseen hook. “That’s something I can do—log in donations.”

“Come along, dear,” Mrs. Davidson told Samantha Burns. “Break’s over. We have quite a bit to do before our guests arrive.”

With thanks to Summer for the cookies and their goodbyes to the fire chief, the two hustled off. Vanessa went to tend to the donations from the fire department and Cameron steered Summer back toward the dining hall for a few words in private.

His arm brushed hers as he held the door open and Summer’s breath caught at the unexpected contact. If he noticed, he didn’t let on. He was probably just happy she didn’t pass out on him again.

She told herself to stop acting like a ninny. She was twenty-eight years old, not sixteen.

In the dining hall, he pulled out a chair at one of the tables and held it out for her to be seated. Appreciating the small gesture, Summer murmured a “thank you” as he settled in the seat next to her.

“I wanted to see how you were doing,” he said.

Oh, great, she thought. He thinks I’m an invalid. Inexplicably, she wanted to explain.

“Thank you again,” she said, “for what you did the other day. It was a reflex, I think. I thought something was wrong. You all caught me by surprise.”

Cameron smiled. “Have dinner with me tonight.”

“I beg your pardon?”

The abrupt change of topic more than startled her.

“Dinner? Us. Together.”

She shook her head slightly. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“Why?”

She wanted to explain. Dinner meant they would be out together. On a date. But Summer couldn’t date. Didn’t date. And the explanation she’d been all ready to give him fled from her brain, right along with her courage.

“I’m...” she swallowed and got a hold of her tongue if not her suddenly racing heart. “My husband might not approve.”

Chapter Three

The stricken look on his face convicted her.

“You’re married?”

His gaze dipped to her left hand resting on the table. Self-conscious, she put both ringless hands in her lap.

Taking a deep breath, Summer decided that being open and honest about her situation was her best course of action.

“Chief Jackson, I want to explain something to you.”

He leaned back in his chair and folded his arms. But a moment later, he sighed and released the defensive gesture.

Offering a tremulous smile, Summer got her thoughts together. It wasn’t so much that she wanted to open up on this, she needed to. Enough time had passed, and moving home to Cedar Springs was her big step toward reclaiming her life.

“Seeing you and your men on my doorstep,” she began, “was a shock. A bad shock to my system. I’d truly forgotten about the new resident’s home safety check I’d requested.”

She swallowed, took a ragged breath and then offered up a little prayer for strength.

“The last time men in uniform came to my front door, it was to tell me that my husband had been killed.”

His eyes widened and he reached for her hands in a comforting gesture. But before he could offer the obligatory, “I’m sorry” condolences, she rushed on.

“It’s coming on two years,” she said. “I moved home to start a new chapter in my life. I sold our place in Macon and bought the house here, a house where I could make new memories instead of dwelling on the past. Seeing you, the three of you,” she quickly clarified, “standing there looking official, well, it just derailed me a bit.”

She took a deep breath, hoping that he understood, even while she acknowledged to herself that dumping baggage at his feet was not a good way to win friends and influence people.

There was something comforting about this man. Unlike some people who listened long enough to gauge when and where they could break in with their own words and experiences, he seemed to listen to her with his whole body.

That, Summer decided, was both comforting and disconcerting.

* * *

Cameron felt like a heel.

So much made sense now. The protectiveness of her sister at the house. The uncertainty he sensed in Summer. The almost-sadness of her eyes. He had known that she’d moved to North Carolina from Georgia, but had come to the erroneous conclusion that the move home was to be near family, not to escape her grief.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m very sorry for your loss, and for rushing you.”

Summer shook head. “That’s just it, you weren’t rushing me. I should be,” she gave a little shrug, “I guess you’d say, ‘over it’ by now.”

This time he did clasp her hands in his. “You never get over losing someone special,” he said.

She smiled this time. Then extricated her hands from his.

“Thank you for asking me out,” she said. “But the answer is still...”

“Shh,” he said, cutting her off before she could finish. “I know.”

Summer pushed back her chair and rose, the movement graceful.

“I really need to get back to work,” she told him. “We’re shorthanded today. Vanessa and Samantha are the only two volunteers who showed up, and I borrowed Samantha from Mrs. D, who really needs her in the office.”

He rose, as well, and escorted Summer back to the kitchen, where a buzzer was going off and Vanessa was struggling to get a handle on a big pot that seemed to be boiling over.

“Oh, dear. That’s the stock for the chicken soup.”

Cameron rushed forward and gave Vanessa a hand by moving the pot to another burner on the industrial-sized stove. Summer turned off the timer that was set on a continuous buzz, then slipped on a pair of thick pot-holder gloves and went to one of the ovens. As she pulled out a pan, Cameron came forward.

“Is that a turkey?” he asked, amazement in his voice.

He spied some dish towels on the prep counter and used them to safeguard his hands as he took over the lifting for her. “Here, I’ll get that.”

“Thanks,” Summer said, relinquishing the task to him. “And yes, it’s a turkey. There are two more in the bottom ovens. Both are ready to come out, too, if you don’t mind.”

Cameron knew about the soup kitchen: it was one of four ongoing ministries operated by Common Ground, the coalition formed by three congregations in Cedar Springs. As a member of The Fellowship, he regularly contributed to Common Ground. And as fire chief, he knew the buildings where the homeless shelter, the free clinic and the soup kitchen were located, but he’d never actually been to any of them, just the recreation center where he sometimes played baseball with a youth league.

“How many people do you cook for?” Cameron asked.

“We never really know, but on average about ninety to a hundred, sometimes more, especially on Wednesdays, when there’s also the Bible study and snacks afterward.”

“And you’re cooking for a hundred people, just the two of you?”

Summer shrugged. “We do what has to be done. And reinforcements will be in closer to serving time. I came in early to get the turkeys going. They’re actually for sandwiches on Thursday.”

Cameron found himself walloped somewhere between amazed and dismayed. He’d come here on his morning off to see Summer Spencer, taking over the food donation delivery duty because it gave him a legitimate excuse to show up at Manna.

Now he realized that maybe it wasn’t just for his own selfish reasons that he was here at this time and place. He was supposed to be here today.

The Lord worked in mysterious ways.

He got the first large turkey out of the oven and onto a counter where Summer indicated, then he pulled out the others.

As Summer went to work pouring ingredients into a large mixer, Cameron watched her. Every movement was efficient. She worked with a grace that almost seemed like a ballet, reaching for this, adding that. No movement was wasted.

Vanessa was chopping carrots.

Across the room, he spied Common Ground aprons similar to the one Vanessa wore. He claimed one of them and tied it on, then pulled out his cell phone and made a call.

When he finished he pocketed the phone, went to a sink where he washed and dried his hands. Then he came up beside Summer.

“How can I help?”

* * *

“Miss Summer, you make me happy to be homeless,” an elderly black man known only as Sweet Willie said.

“Brother Willie, what a thing to say,” she replied, tucking an extra cookie for him into a small paper bag.

“This the best food I’ve ever eaten. Thank you kindly.”

Summer beamed. “I’m glad you enjoyed the meal, Brother Willie.”

He shuffled out the door, the last of their guests to depart.

For the first time since that morning, she exhaled. Summer had had her doubts about how they were going to pull off the meal. In Summer’s two months with Manna, she’d yet to see the soup kitchen’s director on their busiest day. Ilsa Keller was great at promoting Manna in the community, but that ambassadorship apparently came at the expense of actually managing the day-to-day operation of the place.

If it hadn’t been for Cameron Jackson and the two guys he’d talked into coming over to help, she wasn’t sure if they would have had everything ready by the time people started arriving at four o’clock.

Six Common Ground volunteers had arrived at about three-thirty to act as servers, but they wouldn’t have had anything to serve if Cameron hadn’t pitched in. She still didn’t know who the two guys were—personal friends of his or firefighters he’d ordered to come help. He’d simply introduced them and told them to do whatever Summer said. She’d been too grateful and too busy to inquire.

“That was a nice thing for him to say.”

Summer smiled.

For some reason, she wasn’t at all surprised to find Cameron at her side. They’d worked as a team today, serving and ministering. It gave her a new insight into the fire chief. Most men would have bolted after a woman’s rejection of a dinner date.

She studied him for a moment. Cameron wasn’t just trying to get to know her. She’d seen him talking and then praying with a couple people after the meal began. Many of them knew him and called him Chief Cam, just as Vanessa had done.

Just who was Cameron Jackson?

“He hasn’t been here for a couple of weeks,” she said, telling him about Sweet Willie. “I was starting to worry that something had happened to him. I asked around, but none of our regulars knew where he was.”

“You do good work,” Cameron said. “I’m going to let Pastor Hines—Rick Hines is the lead pastor at my church, The Fellowship,” he said, clarifying for her. “I’m going to let him know that Manna needs some dedicated volunteers in the early part of the day. I’m sure there are folks in the congregation who can help.”

Summer bit her tongue. She would not bad-mouth the program at Manna. Yes, things could be done differently, but it wasn’t her place to harp on all the shortcomings.

“Today was an anomaly,” she said. “I’m glad you and your friends came to the rescue. Thank you.”

They made their way to the kitchen where the cleanup crew was turning the space back into a sparkling setup for the next day’s volunteers and setting out items for the early morning prep.

At some point between serving chicken soup and rolls, Summer had decided that a date with a man who would give the homeless almost seven hours of his day was a date she’d like to go on.

Summer retrieved her handbag, said good-night to those who remained and let Cameron escort her out the back door and toward her car in the parking lot behind Manna at Common Ground.

“If the offer is still open,” she said, “I would like to have dinner with you.”

Chapter Four

“Really?”

The grin transformed his face into one of boyish delight.

She smiled back. “Yes, really.”

“How about Friday night?” Cameron asked.

Summer willed herself to ignore the apprehension that raced through her and to savor the unfamiliar thrill of anticipation. She would have two days to get herself together emotionally. But right now, this felt right.

“Friday night sounds terrific,” she heard herself say, and could only wonder about the breathless tone that seemed to accompany the words.

“I can pick you up at your house,” Cameron said. “I think I know where you live.”

He kept a straight face for half a beat and then chuckled as a blush blossomed on Summer.

“I can explain...”

He halted her words with a finger at his lips. “Summer, I told you. You don’t owe me any explanations.”

Suddenly feeling a bit like the Summer she used to be years ago, she cocked her head a bit and gave him a saucy smile.

“So,” she said, “aren’t you at all curious about why I changed my mind?”

He winked at her. “Woman’s prerogative,” he said. “That is definitely something I have learned to respect.”

That earned him a laugh. He held his hand out to her and she took it. The gesture, old-fashioned and sweet, made her smile.

“Thank you,” she said as they headed toward the vehicle she indicated. “For everything you did today. I really, really appreciated the help.”

He nodded. “I hope to get you some permanent help. I’m going to let Pastor Hines know that more than financial contributions are needed here. You and Mrs. D should not have to scramble the way you did today.”

Summer was pretty sure that what she was hearing was unique. Not every man would see a problem and immediately seek a solution. Maybe that was why he was the fire chief at such a young age. She pegged him as being in his mid-thirties, and that was being generous. She was pretty sure that police and fire chiefs were supposed to be much older, men and women with gray hair at the temples and grandchildren they liked to spoil when they were off duty.

“Thank you,” she simply said.

“May I call you?”

She smiled, liking the chivalrousness that he seemed to exude, sort of like an old Southern gentleman. “Yes, you may.”

She gave him her cell number.

“It has a Georgia area code,” she said. “I haven’t transferred it to a North Carolina one, and my friends there...” she faltered, then shook her head. “I’m sure you don’t want to hear about all that.”

“I’ll call you tomorrow.”

They stood there, the moment awkward as neither seemed to know quite how to conclude the conversation.

In the end, it was Cameron who found the way. He leaned forward, kissed her on the cheek and said, “I’m looking forward to Friday.”

* * *

Hours later, Summer still felt that kiss and wondered just what she had agreed to.

A date!

She sat in her bedroom at the vanity second-guessing herself, fretting and in a state her mother would describe as working herself into a tizzy.

The good thing about being back home in Cedar Springs was that when she wanted or needed to connect with one of her sisters, it could be face-to-face, instead of long distance from Georgia to North Carolina.

She glanced around, looking for the phone. The house on Hummingbird Lane was in pristine condition. It was nothing at all like the Greek Revival McMansion that she and Garrett had called home back in Macon. No professional decorator had come through with a horde of minions designing the house for maximum impact or with an eye toward the critical review of country club wives. She sold the Macon house fully furnished, taking with her just a few sentimental pieces and the antique furniture that had been passed down to her from her grandmother.

This house, her new home, was spacious but not ostentatious. And the only interior decorators who had crossed its threshold were her sisters. That was why she had no idea where the phone was. One of them put it somewhere that Summer did not consider intuitive.

Summer sighed.

She knew it was not the missing telephone that bothered her. That was just symbolic of her life at the moment: not where she thought it would be.

What really bothered her was what she had agreed to do with Cameron Jackson.

A date.

She was going on a date!

Summer didn’t know what was scarier: the idea of a social engagement with a man she had, for all intents and purposes, just met, or the very notion of going out. It almost felt as if she were cheating on Garrett. Intellectually, she knew that made no sense. It had been almost two years since her world imploded around her. Almost two years since she’d buried the one man she thought she would spend the rest of her life with, the man she had exchanged holy vows of matrimony with. For better or worse, in sickness and health, until death do we part.

How was she to know—how could she have ever even imagined— that those vows did not guarantee them fifty years of wedded bliss?

Instead of heading out on their highly anticipated tour and cruise of Italy to celebrate their fourth wedding anniversary, at twenty-six years old, Summer was burying her husband. She felt the sharp sting of approaching tears.