The Fireman's Son

They’d been in a hotel. On the fourth floor. She’d awoken to the sound of the balcony door opening, and she’d had to rip him from a deathly clutch on the balcony rail. The next morning, he’d wondered how his forearms had gotten bruised. He’d remembered none of it.

She’d checked both of them into a women’s shelter. She’d had nowhere else to go, no one to turn to, no idea what to do. That had been in Mission Viejo, where she’d fled when she’d left Frank Walker.

Almost two years had passed since then.

Elliott was fine with the divorce. Never asked to see his father. Never spoke of him.

But he was still sleepwalking.

And he was still angry with her.

Because she hadn’t stopped his father from hurting her, because she’d stayed.

For starters.

So here they were in Santa Raquel. Elliott had been referred to The Lemonade Stand as one of two choices for daily education with domestic violence counseling and emotional supervision. Technically he was homeschooled at the shelter.

Reese Bristow had made the town the only choice. For her own healing.

And perhaps for Elliott, as well.

The boy finished his cereal. Carried the bowl with both hands to the sink, as she’d taught him when he was about two so he wouldn’t drop it and raise his father’s ire. Stopping by the table on his way past it, he wiped at the dribble of milk on its surface with his pajama sleeve. And then he was gone.

Back to bed.

She’d been told not to wake him during these episodes. She should watch out for his safety, but unless he was hurting himself, she should just let him be.

He’d be up again in a couple of hours. Getting ready for her to take him to the Stand. Probably wanting breakfast. Not remembering a thing about his middle-of-the-night snack.

Sitting at the table, thinking about the past few hours, about Elliott, about seeing Reese again for the first time in nine very, very long years, she considered getting some sleep, too.

With tears dripping slowly down her face, she put herself to bed.

On the couch in her son’s room.

* * *

“MOM, COME ON, we’re going to be late!” Was it just her imagination or was Elliott’s tone starting to sound like Frank’s?

“I’ve got ten more minutes,” she told him, leaning over the sink to apply concealer under both eyes. She’d smoothed on extra foundation, too. And eyeliner. And lipstick.

“Who ever heard of an EMT showing up at a crash in makeup gunk?” Shaking his head, the thick hair he preferred to wear down past his ears flopping, he turned and left her room.

Frank had always insisted on a military cut. For himself. And for their son.

Though Elliott had more stuff—furniture and toys—Faye had taken the larger of the two bedrooms when they’d moved in the week before. Mostly because she’d loved the claw-foot tub in the adjoining bath. Loved that the room had an adjoining bath.

Almost as much as she’d been opposed to Elliott having one. At least if he had to cross the hall to go in the night, she’d have a better chance of hearing him.

“Mom!” he called from the other end of the apartment, near the front door.

Pulling on a clean set of the standard blue utility pants and shirt she’d been issued, Faye was nervous but excited. She slipped into the ugly black EMS boots she’d purchased as soon as she’d graduated from training four years before and reminded herself that she was not only worthy, she was capable.

And had five minutes to spare.

Surprisingly, Elliott was not standing impatiently by the front door. So far, he liked going to The Lemonade Stand. There were two other boys there his age. Both had mothers who were victims. He’d taken quite a liking to one of the older boys, as well.

Maybe that older boy could be someone Elliott could look up to? Someone who’d be able to reach the little guy inside of Elliott—the little guy who’d spent years listening to the sounds of his mother’s sexual abuse without her knowing he could hear it?

“Ell?” She turned the corner toward the kitchen. He’d already had breakfast. She’d fixed it—a lighter rendition than usual—and then run for the shower while he ate. The Lemonade Stand provided balanced and delicious meals, so he didn’t need to take a lunch.

The boy turned around as she came into the room. She noticed his hesitant expression, like he wasn’t sure of his reception. And then she saw the paper plate he held in both hands. He’d made her a bagel with what looked like a half-scrambled, half-fried, somewhat-raw egg on it.

“You don’t have to eat it if you don’t want,” he said, shrugging as he held the plate up to her. “I just...” He shrugged again. “It’s your first day and all.”

He’d made breakfast for her.

Her precious, precious angel boy had made her breakfast.

Because it was her first day...and all.

They were going to be okay. She knew for certain now that Reese knew about her. She hadn’t received a call telling her not to come into work. Which meant she was still employed.

The rest—her plan, Elliott’s future—would all fall into place now.

When she could speak without tears clogging her throat, she thanked her son, careful not to let too much emotion spill onto him and make him withdraw. Taking the sandwich with her as they left the apartment, she ate every single bite.

CHAPTER THREE

SLEEP MIGHT HAVE been good. But it wasn’t the first time he’d shown up at work without it. Wouldn’t be the last.

When a fire was raging out of control and there weren’t enough fighters with the necessary training, sleep wasn’t an option.

Today Reese had a personal fire raging and he wasn’t going to rest until he’d put it out. Faye Walker was not going to have a first day of work. Not one second to settle in. He wanted her out.

He was waiting in the station when he saw her get out of an older, light gray, four-door sedan and head toward him.

Mark, who was in the middle of forty-eight hours on, walked past with a cup of coffee. Reese had sent Brandt home. He didn’t need his second caught in the cross fire that could very well happen after he’d had his moment with the woman who’d invaded his den.

“Send the new hire to my office as soon as she gets here,” he told Mark and strode in that direction himself, sure that his employee was staring after him. If he’d waited thirty more seconds, he could have told her himself.

If her aim was to force him to keep her on, or threaten to sue for wrongful termination if he didn’t, then let her bring it on. He wasn’t going to fire her in front of witnesses.

She wasn’t staying.

One thing didn’t make sense. If she’d meant to trap him, she wouldn’t have assumed he knew about her hire. But that phone call thing...why would she expect him to call? Unless she thought he didn’t have the balls to fire her face-to-face.

He’d gone home long enough to shower and shave, run a comb through his hair. It was shorter now than when she’d known him. He’d shaved his mustache since she’d last seen him, too. Tabitha had hated it. Said it poked her when he kissed her.

He’d had one clean uniform left. Technically Mondays were his day off. Laundry day, among other things. Instead, he was planning a trip to LA just as soon as he’d finished with the business at hand.

That was all Faye Walker was to him. Business.

And he was a master at handling his job. Which was why, at twenty-nine, he’d already made fire chief.

The knock came as expected. Sharp. Short. No hesitation.

I have to break up with you, Reese. I’m sorry.

She’d left a damned text message. Four years together, plans for a lifetime and he didn’t even warrant an in-person breakup?

Or a phone call?

He’d texted back: Okay, why?

Nine years before, that had meant pushing number buttons on a flip phone for corresponding letters. No quick task for a guy with big hands.

That had been shaking.

There’s someone else...

He hadn’t responded to that. There’d been no point.

“Come in,” he called now. He stood a few feet from the door, blocking the chairs in front of his desk, hands in his pockets.

There was no need for her to sit. She wasn’t staying.

“Reese, Mark said you wanted to see me...”

Her eyes were as blue as he remembered. And seemed to have all kinds of things to say to him.

He remembered that about her, too. It had been the promises she’d made with those eyes, as much as any words she’d ever given him, that had held him captive.

There’d been only one night he hadn’t been there for her. A night after he’d almost been hurt in a fire. He’d been facing death for the first time. Asking himself if there was more he might want out of life before he died...

“You’re going to fire me,” she said before he got a word out of his mouth.

Damn her. Reading his mind when she was his girlfriend was one thing. But now...there had to be something illegal about that. Invading a person’s mind against their will.

“I am.” She’d broken up with him in a few words. He could fire her the same way.

At least he’d given her the respect of doing it in person.

He could have texted her. Told her not to bother coming in.

“I’m going to beg you not to do so,” she said, standing there with her hands at her sides. Not at all challenging.

And yet he felt...pushed.

Reese didn’t like feeling pushed. Most particularly not by a five-foot-three-inch woman with a cute ass and a cheating heart.

“Beg all you want,” he said, meaning to hand her the paperwork he’d already filled out.

As he turned to pick up the page lying on his desk, she said, “Please, Reese, I need this job.” The pleading in her voice did his injured heart good.

He picked up the sheet and turned back to her. But he didn’t immediately hand it over.

Turned out, he wanted her to ask him again. To prolong the moment. He’d had no idea he was such a sick bastard.

But he also couldn’t believe that Faye Browning had just walked back into his life expecting to work for him as though they’d never loved each other to distraction.

Probably because she hadn’t loved him that way.

“It’s not just for me, although, of course, I need the money, but this job, here in particular...it’s...important, Reese. Truly important.”

She was looking him right in the eye. Not fidgeting. Not even blinking.

The woman was honestly and sincerely begging him.

It kind of threw him for a loop and he had to remind himself that she’d texted him to break up with him. Because she’d met another man.

“Your husband doesn’t make enough to pay your bills?” That was it. Remember Mr. Walker. Had she cheated on him, too? And how many in between him and Reese?

“I’m divorced.” That seemed to mean more to her than it did to him.

He almost told her he was sorry to hear it. But he wasn’t. What he was, was pissed. Pissed that she was there at all.

And pissed that he hadn’t kicked her out yet.

“Just out of curiosity, who broke it off? Him or you?”

If she said the guy had left her...if she really was alone and in need...

“I did.”

Of course she did.

And then came to beg him to take her in?

Uh-uh. No way. In hell.

Or out of it. He held the termination paper out to her.

He was done with her.

“I...have a son... Reese.”

His hand suspended midair, the paper hanging there between them, he looked at her.

“His name’s Elliott. He’s... During the day he’s... There were only two places in the country that offered the kind of nonresident counseling and education that he needs, and the other one is on the east coast. I’d have to recertify and...”

She had a son. His hand dropped to his side. His Faye. The woman he’d thought would be the mother of his children...had a son.

“He’s severely at risk, Reese. To move him now, after he’s started the program... To move him from Southern California, the only home he’s ever known... Please. Give me a second chance to show you that I have what it takes to be reliable. I’m good at my job. Really good. You’ve seen my credentials and performance reports. I won’t let you, your department or Santa Raquel down.”

He heard the last part. Couldn’t focus on it.

“Severely at risk,” he repeated. “What does that mean?”

When she ran her tongue over her lips, he almost turned his back on her. If she thought she was going to play him with that old maneuver...

Her kid probably wasn’t at risk at all...

“He’s at The Lemonade Stand.”

He froze. “The Lemonade Stand’s for victims of domestic violence,” he said.

She nodded.

She’d asked for a divorce. And the kid was with her.

“Your ex hit your son?”

She shook her head.

Then who had? Surely not her. Faye might be a cheater but she was most definitely not someone who would strike out in anger. Ever. She’d had the most trusting, giving, generous, nurturing heart...

“Who then?”

“Me.” For the first time since she’d entered the room, her gaze dropped from his, falling to the floor.

“You hit your son?” The world had gone from ridiculous to unrecognizable. Who was this woman? What had happened to drive her to do such a thing?

She shook her head. Shuddered. And then looked up again, something new in her eyes as she looked at him. “No, Reese, my ex-husband hurt me, not our son.”

Our son. That answered that then. She’d been married to her son’s father.

“How old is he?” He’d never felt so...uncomfortable...in his life. “Your boy, I mean.”

“Eight.”

The word hit him hard, right in the gut.

“You married the guy you dumped me for.” There was just no classy way to get that out there.

She nodded.

“And had his son.”

She nodded a second time. Looking him straight in the eye.

His disrespect for her lessened a little as he tried to figure out what to do with her. How to get rid of her.

The man she’d married had hurt her, she’d said. He was trying his damnedest not to process that part.

“Are you at The Lemonade Stand, too, then?” It was a resort-type place with more housing than most shelters, including cabins for families to live in alone. Or for a mother and one child to share with another mother and one child.

But...Faye was working for him. She wasn’t a woman finding protection at a shelter...

The realization hit at the same time she shook her head. “I did go to a shelter, briefly,” she told him. “But just until I could get some counseling. Get my bearings. I’m not in... Frank...there’s no danger there.”

In spite of himself, Reese cared. If some bastard was going to be coming after Faye...

“Frank didn’t...abuse me...in the traditional way,” she told him. “And he’s not angry that I left. He was glad I walked out and took Elliott with me.”

“He wanted you to take his son?”

Her eyes dropped again. “Frank had antiquated ideas about men and child rearing. He didn’t raise a hand to Elliott. He just ignored him.”

Reese didn’t get it. Not any of it.

Faye being here...her son not being abused but being at the Stand... Faye as a victim of domestic abuse.

And then there was Reese, losing a wife he didn’t really love to a car accident that shouldn’t have happened. Finding out after his wife was dead that she’d been six weeks pregnant.

Life wasn’t supposed to have turned out that way.

But one thing was clear...he and Faye...their ship had sailed. He was sorry Frank Walker had turned out to be a bastard. Honestly sorry.

But that didn’t change the fact that Faye had cheated on Reese. Cheated him out of the life—the family—she’d promised they’d have together.

“Elliott wasn’t abused, physically, but he...heard...what was going on between his father and me,” Faye said, breaking the silence that was leading to him picking up the piece of paper on his desk. “He...my son...has issues. Ones that could ruin his life if we don’t get them under control. It’s believed that his best chance of success is to spend at least the next semester being homeschooled at the Stand, with specialized counseling, and see if we can break through his walls and help him work through things.”

Issues. Specialized. Things. He could imagine. But he didn’t really understand.

The vagueness left him unsettled.

“You’re not a nurse.”

She shook her head. “No, I’m not.”

He knew that. He’d read her file.

“But I’m a damned good EMT.” She’d grown more outspoken than he remembered her. Stronger.

And yet, she’d always had the strength to move mountains. It had just been a quiet strength.

“A single mother with a troubled son.” He shook his head. She’d given him the legitimate out he needed to get rid of her. “There’s no way you can be relied upon to work the kind of hours your position is meant to fill,” he said. “On call three nights a week. Twelve-hour shifts.”

He understood her desperation. But surely even Faye knew that he couldn’t cover for her—even if he’d had a mind to.

“I’ve got that all worked out.” She told him about her landlord, Suzie Preston, who worked at the Stand. She was in the library but only because she was retired. The woman had been a counselor at a domestic violence shelter for more than thirty years.

Her eyes begged him. They knew him. Knew he wouldn’t turn her away.

But he couldn’t have her here. Day after day. Even when she wasn’t on duty, he’d know that she’d be back.

For a brief second, he considered quitting. Moving on.

Except that he’d signed a contract. To renege on that for no good professional reason would be a permanent black mark on his record.

In the end, he did what they both had known he would do.

He nodded.

He saw the tears that sprang to her eyes and swore silently.

Out loud all he said was, “Stay out of my way, Faye. I mean that. You’ve got the job but as far as anyone knows, you and I do not and never have known each other.”

She nodded, pursing her lips as though biting back a smile.

“I mean it. No one here knows my past prior to Tabitha.” He wasn’t going to have people watching him.

Wasn’t going to have gossip.

And most certainly wasn’t going to have anyone getting the idea into their heads that Faye could somehow heal the gaping hurt caused by his wife’s death.

She couldn’t.

Because as ashamed as he was to admit it, it wasn’t his wife’s death that had caused the chasm within him.

It was Faye’s cheating that had torn at his heart.

And his unborn child’s death that had ripped it in half.

“I understand,” Faye said now, reaching for the door handle. “I expected as much. Which was why I expected you to call me before I came to work.”

He would have dismissed her, but she’d already stepped out.

And not a second too soon. He needed a drink. Maybe more than one. Didn’t matter that it was eight o’clock in the morning. He’d been up all night.

Life had a strange way of dealing its cards. Faye was a cheater who had a child. He was a man who’d been cheated on, with a dead wife on his conscience—and a lost child because of it.

Reaching for his keys, he thought of the beer in his fridge. Then he remembered the evidence bags locked in his trunk. He wasn’t going home to drink. He was going to LA.

Maybe he’d spend the night there.

Away from Faye and all of the memories she’d brought back into his world.

Even the good ones were bad now, tainted because they hadn’t meant enough to her.

Going out for UC’s homecoming had been more important to her than he’d been. Than their four years together had been.

He’d gotten her message loud and clear.

He wasn’t ever going to need to hear it again.

CHAPTER FOUR

HIS HAND SLID across her breast. Cradling it. So soft. So tender. As though it was precious to him.

She shivered. Wondered if she was naked. If he was. In bed, but not sure how she’d gotten there, or even where “there” was, she snuggled closer to him, smelling the musky scent on his skin. Wanting to be closer yet. Finding warmth to soothe her coldness.

His departure was imminent. Fear surrounded his leaving. He couldn’t go. She couldn’t stop him. She had to stop him. Couldn’t. Had to...

Faye didn’t know where she was. Drenched, shaking, she stared into the darkness—recognized the small glow of light off to the right...

“Mom?”

Elliott!

Shooting up, she reached for him. Remembered at the last minute not to touch. She could startle him awake.

“You were crying.”

He came closer. Sat on the side of her bed. Like most nights, she was in her own room. His gaze was focused.

Touching her cheeks, she felt the wetness there. Knew he saw it.

“I...was...dreaming,” she said. Her son was awake. She had to think. Shake off the torturous dream. Convince him that she was fine.

That the years of him waking in the night to the sound of his mother’s tears were over.

God, let them be over.

He looked so young standing there...his eyes wide. Innocent. Concerned.

“I’m sorry I woke you,” she said, taking his hand. Half expecting him to pull away. To see his blank expression reappear as he walled himself off from her.

Instead, he moved closer, leaning toward her until her arms couldn’t help but circle around him and pull him to her. He didn’t resist.

He was tired. She was, too. Tired of not being able to just make Elliott’s world right. Tired of being strong all alone.

Tired of avoiding Reese the past couple of days as she settled into a job that she otherwise would have loved.

Tired of all the regrets.

So she took the rare gift he’d offered her. Sliding down in the bed, she settled her son against her, laid her head on her pillow and closed her eyes.

Morning would come.

And with it, her strength would return.

* * *

ON THURSDAY, REESE pulled into the station with an infusion of energy. He’d had a bit of a hit from the LA lab results—the print from a popular brand of running shoe, men’s size ten. Maybe not enough to pursue all the way to a suspect, but it was a start.

And Faye Walker was off for the next four days.

There’d been no other fires in the area since Sunday night. So while his crew had been kept unfortunately busy with a couple of car accidents, it had been a relatively slow week, without a lot of paperwork.

That alone made for a happy day. He had a meeting with the city manager and a couple of inspections awaiting his attention as he also served as the city’s construction inspector. In departments as small as his, they couldn’t afford too many full-time employees. Part of the reason he’d been awarded the job of chief was because of his multiple qualifications.

Three members of his crew were inside the station, wiping down a newly cleaned truck. Cyrus, the only paramedic left on his crew that he wanted to be around, was checking medical supplies. By nine o’clock, all of the equipment would be checked, as it was every day, seven days a week, and then, barring calls, the men would be in the fitness room, working out.

He’d have liked to join them. If all went well, he’d make it for the afternoon session. Staying in shape was a huge part of their jobs. And a personal must for him.

“You’ve got a phone call,” Doris, their receptionist, called, the receiver still in hand. “Holding on four.”

His raised eyebrow was all the question he needed to ask. “I saw you pull in,” she said from her desk in the first office inside the door. “And I had a feeling you’d want to take it.”

She’d piqued his curiosity.

“Chief Bristow,” he said, the phone to his ear as he closed his office door.

“I’m sorry to bug you, um, sir...Chief...”