Three-Alarm Love

The redheaded Mitch, who’d started listing to the left, straightened abruptly.

“Backdraf?” he repeated, slurring the title slightly. “Oh, man, I love that movie! I mean, it’s gotta be the bes’ movie about firefightin’ ever made in the hist’ry of makin’ movies. Y’know? My girlfrien’... she gimme the video of it las’ Chris’mas.” He grinned at no one in particular. “Says watchin’ it with me makes her hot.”

“You talking about Ron Howard, Bobby?” The inquiry came from Sam Fields, who’d apparently decided that Mitch’s inebriated comments were better left uncommented upon. “That red-hatred, freckled guy who used to be on Happy Days?”

Bobby shook his head. “No, not—”

“You know, Sam,” J.T. interrupted, scrutinizing Mitch as though he were a prune example of some new species “Mitch does kind of look like that dude. I never noticed it before. Hey, Mitch. Sober up for a second will you, bro? Anybody ever tell you that you could be the twin of that Happy Days guy?”

Mitch gulped audibly, his eyes darting back and forth. He’d clearly lost the thread of the conversation. He opened and shut his mouth several times. Then he belched. The noise seemed to erupt from the depths of his belly and went on for at least a couple of seconds.

“He used to be on another show, too,” J.T. continued helpfully, evidently unfazed by his colleague’s sophomoric behavior. “Played a little kid. Name of Mopey. Or Dopey. Some-thin’ like that.”

“It was Opie, J.T.,” Keezia corrected, choking back a laugh.

J.T. regarded her dubiously “Oh, yeah?”

“Uh-huh. I don’t know who Mopey is, but Dopey’s a dwarf.”

“So? That Happy Days dude ain’t no giant!”

“I’m not talking about the Happy Days dude!” Bobby interjected impatiently “I’m talking about the guy who starred in Backdraft, not the damned director! You know—Kurt Russell.”

“You think Mitch looks like Kurt Russell?” Sam shook his head and clucked his tongue reprovingly. “White boy, you’d best have your vision checked.”

Bobby rolled his eyes. “No, I don’t think Mitch looks like Kurt Russell,” he snapped. “Geez Louise, Sam. That’s the point I was tryin’ to make when we got off on this tangent! Mitch looks as much like Kurt Russell as J.T. looks like Wesley Snipes.”

“Well—”

“Forget Wesley Snipes, man,” J.T. suddenly commanded. “Anybody know the name of the fox who’s dancin’ with Fridge Randall?”

Bobby and Sam immediately turned m the direction J.T. was staring. Keezia gritted her teeth and looked down at the floor. She knew what was coming. She also knew she was in no mood to contend with it.

“Where?” she heard Sam ask.

“Over there,” J.T. replied, probably pointing.

“Over whe—” Bobby broke off, groaning melodramatically. Keezia took this to mean that he’d spotted the “fox.” “Oh, man,” he said in an awed tone. “Oh... mama Will you guys take a good look at that? The last time I saw somebody shakin’ like that, it was at my brother-in-law’s stag party ”

Maybe she should just turn on her heel and walk away, Keezia thought, clenching her hands against her thighs.

“You think Brother Randall recruited her from that Bible class he teaches?” Sam inquired.

“I’d definitely go down on my knees and pray for somethin’ like that,” J T. declared crudely. “Ooooh, baby! What I wouldn’t give to have—”

“Hey, cool it, J.T.,” Bobby cut in, his voice tight. Keezia lifted her head, startled by his abrupt change in tone. The fair-haired firefighter met her questioning gaze for a split second, then looked away. He was beet red. “There’s a lady present.”

Caught off balance by Bobby’s sudden and unsolicited assumption of the role of protector of her sensibilities, Keezia debated what she should do. She’d worked hard to become one of the guys; to prove herself capable of handling all aspects of the job, including the macho horseplay. But the kind of sexual innuendo she’d just heard made her uncomfortable on a number of different levels for a number of different reasons. She knew she couldn’t let it pass.

Taking a deep breath, she opened her mouth to say something. Exactly what, she wasn’t sure. Fortunately—if fortunately was the right word—Mitch preempted her.

“A lady?” he repeated, glancing around with a bewildered expression. “Where?”

Bobby smacked him on the back of the head, probably a bit harder than he intended. “Keezia, you cracker!”

“Yeah, man,” J T. seconded, sending her an apologetic look. “Keezia. ”

“Keezia?” Mitch turned and stared at her, his mouth gaping open. Then he apparently decided it was all a huge joke and uncorked a guffaw. “Keezia’s ... not a...lady!” he gasped through his hilarity. “She’s a firefighter. ”

While Ralph Randall was deeply grateful for the kind of upbringing he’d had, there were times when he wished his mama hadn’t been quite such a stickler about what she termed “mannerly behavior.”

This was one of those times.

It wasn’t that he wasn’t enjoying his dance with Bernadine Wallace. A man would have to be dead and buried not to appreciate the lady’s—uh—charms. Because her charms were abundant. To say nothing of obvious. Very, very obvious.

But appreciative wasn’t necessarily interested. At least, not interested the way Fridge got the distinct impression that Bernadine—Lord, he wished he could remember whose sister she’d said she was when she’d asked him to dance!—was encouraging him to be. There was only one woman in whom he was interested “that way” and the last time he’d checked, she’d been on the other side of the room, having herself a fine old time with four male firefighters.

He imagined himself handing Bernadine back to her brother—whoever he was—and going over to the five of them. Not directly. Oh, no. He knew better than that. He’d kind of... stroll... across the floor. Take his own sweet time. Be cool and casual about the whole process.

And once he reached his destination and joined in the conversation, he’d coolly and casually ask Bobby Robbins if he had any pictures of the baby girl his wife had given birth to—what was it? Three, maybe four weeks ago? He might also make a cool, casual reference to J.T. Wilson’s recent engagement. Lucinda, he seemed to recall the girl’s name being. Word was, she was a real sweet lady. She supposedly was working toward her teaching degree at Spelman College.

Bernadine said something to him. What it was, he had no idea. The volume of the music would have made it difficult for him to catch more than a word or two even if he’d been paying close attention. She apparently thought her remark was funny though, because she punctuated it with a shrill string of tee-hee-hee-hees.

He smiled noncommittally and kept on dancing. After executing a few seemingly spontaneous steps, he maneuvered himself into a position where he could take another look across the hall without being obvious about it.

Two more men—both vaguely familiar—had joined the group. It was like ants to a sugar spill, Fridge thought, his stomach muscles tightening. The problem was, he wanted Keezia’s sweetness all for himself.

He’d wanted it for a long time, although he’d spent quite a while avoiding facing up to the fact. And even after finally admitting to his desire, he hadn’t acted on it. He’d...well, the plain truth was, he hadn’t known what to do.

It wasn’t that he was inexperienced with the ladies. Although he didn’t do a whole lot of chasing—it seemed disrespectful to his black sisters as well as to himself not to exercise some restraint in that regard—he’d had his share of romances. But when it came to Keezia Carew...

It was different with her, Fridge acknowledged. Very different.

Maybe if they hadn’t met in church, with his mama performing the introductions...

Maybe if both of them hadn’t been firefighters...

Maybe if he hadn’t seen fear in her beautiful, gemstone eyes the first time he’d touched her...

It had taken him close to two years to learn the source of Keezia’s fear. He and she had become Mends—good, platonic buddies—during that period. They’d eventually reached a point where she’d trusted him enough to share the story of the relationship that had almost destroyed her.

He’d already known that she’d jumped the broom with some dude in Detroit right after graduating high school and that she’d come to Atlanta to visit with relatives a short time after divorcing him. That there’d been some kind of problem in her marriage had gone without saying. Couples did not split up because they were blissfully happy together. But Fridge had never for a moment considered the possibility that this “problem” had involved Keezia being brutalized, body and soul, by the son of a bitch who’d sworn to love, honor and cherish her.

The rage he’d felt after he’d heard her recitation had been more powerful than any he’d ever experienced. It had also shattered the trust Keezia had placed in him.

He hadn’t been angry at her in the aftermath of her tale. Lord, no! He’d been murderously funous with the bastard who’d hurt her so viciously. Nonetheless, the realization that he was capable of such violent emotion had shaken Keezia in ways he was still struggling to comprehend.

She’d pulled back from him, her guard going up, her attitude turning wary and watchful. It had become painfully clear to Fridge that the woman for whom he cared so deeply believed—really, truly believed—that it was only a matter of time before he turned his capacity for rage in her direction.

What was he supposed to do in the face of that kind of attitude? Fridge had asked himself over and over. Try to defend himself against her fear by proclaiming it unreasonable? Swear by all he held holy that he’d never, ever hurt her?

A fat lot of good either one of those approaches would accomplish, he’d eventually concluded. What right did he have to dismiss Keezia’s apprehensions? To maintain that he knew better than she how she should respond to him? Didn’t he see that she’d had enough of being told what to do and think and feel?

As for promising to do her no harm—well. Keezia had made it plain that every episode of abuse by her husband had been followed by pledges it would never, ever happen again. Those pledges had been broken, along with several of her bones and two of her teeth. No matter its sincerity, his rhetoric would carry precious little weight when balanced against her real-life experiences.

In the end, Fridge had decided that the key to the situation was patience. He’d earned Keezia’s trust once. He could earn it back again. Although her perception of him had changed, he had not. He was still the man in whom she’d chosen to confide the truth about her past. Given time, she would realize that.

And once she did ..

He turned, catching yet another glimpse of Keezia. She was laughing, her lush-lipped mouth parted, her slender throat arched like a lily stem. Bold gold earrings dangled from her lobes, glinting richly against her smooth, mocha-colored skin.

She reminded him of the famous statue of that Egyptian queen, Nefertiti. There was such pride in her. Such womanly strength. Not for the first time, Fridge wondered what kind of defect would cause a man to try to obliterate those qualities with his fists.

The Rolling Stones’ song came to an end amid much clapping and hollering. Fridge turned his attention back to his voluptuous partner. She was fanning her sweat-sheened face with both hands. The polite words he’d planned to utter got lost in a jolt of distaste as he registered the length and color of her fingernails. He grimaced inwardly, thinking about the guttearing velociraptors from Jurassic Park.

Bernadine moistened her lips and reached for him with one of her red-taloned hands. “You really know how to get down and move,” she declared throatily.

“Thanks.” He managed to evade her touch without making too big an issue of it. “You shake things pretty good, too, Bernadine.”

“You think?” She preened at his compliment, her acrylic nails clacking against the ceramic ornaments in her hair Then she fluttered her lashes at him. “Tell me, sugar. Do they call you Fridge ‘cuz you’re cool...or ’cuz you’re so bi-i-i-ig?” She stretched out the last word like an elastic band.

In point of fact, Ralph Randall owed his nickname to a little kid. The station where he was assigned was located close to an elementary school and attracted a lot of field trips. A number of years back, he’d found himself knee-to-nose with a kindergartner who’d become separated from his class. The kid had taken a good, long gawk at him and then piped up, “Gee, Mr. Fireman, you’re even bigger than my mama’s ’fridgidator!” His fire fighting buddies had found this innocent observation hilariously apt and insisted on calling him Fridge from that day forward.

“I—”

A shriek of feedback cut off his response to his companion’s deliberately provocative inquiry. A moment later, music started pouring through the sound system again. This time, the selection was a slow, sultry tune. Implicit in the music was the notion that a man and a woman could have just as much fun going at each other standing up as they could lying down.

Bernadine squealed in delighted recognition, practically flinging herself into Fridge’s arms. He winced slightly as several of her hair beads bounced against his T-shirted chest like BB pellets. It occurred to him that between her nails and her braids, this woman could do a man some serious accidental damage.

“Oooooh, I love this song!” she declared, wiggling to underscore the point. “Come on, baby. Dance with me.”

He could have said no, of course. But he didn’t. He didn’t because he knew that by his mama’s lights, it wouldn’t have been mannerly behavior.

Keezia detached herself from the group of firefighters that had gathered around her a few moments after Fridge’s partner super-glued herself against him. No one seemed to notice her departure. They were all too engrossed in listening to a story about the comeuppance of a local TV reporter who was notorious for sticking his mike in emergency workers’ faces while they were trying to do their jobs and demanding, “Whaddya got? Whaddya got? Gimme something good.”

Word was, this jerk had been his usual obnoxious—even obstructionist—self the previous night at the scene of a multiple-car, multiple-fatality collision on 1-85. Outraged by his behavior, a stressed-to-the-maximum paramedic had shut him up by shoving something ugly into his hands.

Keezia was just approaching the refreshment table when she heard a girlish voice call her name. She turned and saw a pixie-pretty young blonde coming her way. Following in her wake was a tall, sandy-haired man with sun-bronzed skin and brilliant blue eyes.

The man was Jackson Miller, probably Fridge’s closest friend in the department. Maybe his closest friend, period The girl was Jackson’s fifteen-year-old daughter, Lauralee.

“Hey, Keezia!” Lauralee greeted her with a merry wave.

Having been raised in Detroit, Keezia had had a few problems with Dixie-belle accents like Lauralee’s when she’d first arrived in Atlanta. While she still found some “Southern-speak” phony-sounding, she’d warmed to Lauralee’s drawl very quickly. The girl was as sweet as she was smart. She was also one of Keezia’s most ardent fans, regarding her as something of an icon because of her status as a female firefighter and—as she emphatically put it—an independent woman.

To say that Keezia had initially found Lauralee’s attitude toward her difficult to accept was to severely understate the case. She’d still been in the process of piecing herself back together when they’d met nearly three years ago. The idea that anyone—to say nothing of a sheltered little white girl—would consider her a role model had struck her as a sick joke. Gradually, however, the guileless intensity of Lauralee’s admiration had began to get through to her. It had proven a balm for her badly wounded self-esteem.

“Hi, honey.” She smiled at the teen, then nodded at her father. “Jackson.”

“Evening, Keezia.”

“Did y’all hear about the reporter and the paramedic and the chopped-off hand?” Lauralee inquired eagerly.

“Chopped-off hand?” Keezia said frowning. “I thought it was a severed foot.”

“Whatever.” Lauralee made an airy gesture, dismissing the need to be accurate about exactly which body part had been involved. Then her expression grew serious and she demanded, “Can y’all believe people have the nerve to act like that?”

“You mean the EMT?” Keezia used the acronym for “emergency medical technician.”

“Oh, no.” The teen shook her head vehemently. “I think what he did was wonderful! I’m talkin’ about that awful TV newsman—” she spat out the name, her wide, blue eyes fizzing with indignation. “Who does he think he is, anyway? Geraldo Rivera? Pokin’ his microphone at people when they’re tryin’ to save lives. Askin’ ‘em all kinds of insensitive questions. Makes me sick. Why, just a couple weeks ago, he ran his station wagon—you know, that tacky newshound thing they’re always promotin’ like it was the Batmobile or some-thin’? —over a charged-up line at a fire! Now, I believe it’s real important to have freedom of the press. But when a reporter does somethin’ as stupid as runnin’ over a workin’ hose—well, I don’t think he should get one tiny bit of protection from the First Amendment!”

Jackson chuckled and tweaked a lock of his daughter’s flaxen hair. “Spoken like the true child of a firefighter.”

Lauralee turned, clearly nettled by her father’s teasing attitude. “You pretty much said the same thing, Daddy,” she reminded him. “And Fridge, too. Remember? Last Monday? When he came over for dinner? He said he’d’ve liked to take an ax to that dumb old news car and ventilate it, but good.”

“There’s a rumor going around that the reporter is threatening to sue,” Keezia put in, wanting to steer the conversation away from Fridge as quickly as possible. She also knew that Jackson tended to have the inside scoop on departmental doings. No matter that he was only a lieutenant The man was heavily—and highly—connected.

“He can threaten all he wants,” Jackson replied. “But I don’t think he’ll follow through. There’s a videotape of what provoked the paramedic into reacting the way he did, and somebody in the Mayor’s office has a copy of it. If the reporter’s stupid enough to sue, the city’ll release it to all the local stations and CNN. Then the Department of Public Safety will yank his press credentials and cite him for interfering with official business. He might even wind up charged with malicious mischief and reckless endangerment.”

Keezia took a second or two to digest this scenario. Although she’d been spared any personal encounters with the newsman under discussion, his reputation was such that she felt justified in detesting him.

“Sounds good to me,” she declared. “But what about the paramedic?”

Jackson’s mouth twisted. “He’s been ordered to get some counseling. He’ll probably be suspended without pay for a week or so, too.”

“Which is totally unfair,” Lauralee chimed in with great conviction.

“A lot of things in this life aren’t fair, sugar,” her father advised, his words infused with a touch of melancholy. Keezia wondered fleetingly whether he was thinking of the untimely deaths of his wife and father.

“Yeah, but—” the teenager stopped, her gaze snagging on something behind Keezia. After a moment she furrowed her fair-skinned brow and observed, “She’s still dancin’ with him.”

“Who?” Puzzled, Keezia looked over her shoulder.

“That woman,” Lauralee said in an odd tone. “She’s still dancin’ with Fridge.”

“It’s not a one-way proposition, sugar,” Jackson admonished. Something in his voice hinted that this was not new conversational territory. “Fridge is dancing with her, too.”

Oh, he surely was, Keezia concurred sourly. Why, if he and Miss Bust-and-Braids got any closer, they’d be sharing lungs!

Exhaling a disgusted huff, she turned back toward the Millers. She had no reason to react this way, she told herself. She had no claim on Fridge Randall. His private life was none of her business. If he wanted to go about conducting that private life for all the world to see... well, fine! It was no skin off her backside.

“Daddy says he doesn’t know who she is, Keezia,” Lauralee reported. “Do you?”

“I never saw her before.” And if she never saw her again, it would be just hunky-dory.

“Mmm.” Lauralee shook her head, the corners of her soft mouth turning down. After a few seconds she said, “I don’t think he’s havin’ a very good time.”

“Lauralee Ophelia—”

“It was different before,” the teen persisted, undeterred by the exasperation in her father’s voice. “When they were dancin’ fast, I mean. Fridge was really into the music. But now—well, just look for yourself, Daddy! You see it, don’t you, Keezia? He’s all...stiff. It’s like he’s got a broom handle up his back or somethin’!”

Keezia glanced over her shoulder again. She knew she shouldn’t, but she couldn’t seem to stop herself. Her pulse gave a curious hop-skip-jump as she once again focused on Fridge and his flamboyant partner.

Maybe...maybe he did look a little uncomfortable, she conceded after a moment or two. While Fridge certainly wasn’t pulling away from his showy lady friend, he wasn’t exactly cozying up to her, either. In fact, now that she really looked...well, she had to admit that something about his posture reminded her of the way he’d held himself right after he’d pulled a bunch of muscles hauling a hysterical four-hundred-pound woman out of a burning apartment building.

And then without warning, Fridge’s gaze met and fused with hers. Keezia’s breath wedged in her throat. Her knees wobbled for an instant. She found herself lifting her hand to check her hair. The crisp texture of her dark, short-cropped curls tickled the strangely sensitized tips of her fingers.

“You know, Keezia,” she heard Lauralee say through the hammering of her heartbeat. “I’ll just bet Fridge would rather be dancin’ with you. ”

Two

“Dance with me?” Fridge asked about five minutes later.

It had taken some doing, but he’d managed to extricate himself from Bernadine Wallace’s clutches after the slow, sultry number had finally come to an end. He’d then made his way across the hall, intercepting Keezia as she headed for the door. After an exchange of greetings and some friendly chitchat—keep it cool and casual, he’d reminded himself, cool and casual—he’ d issued his invitation

Keezia tilted her head. “Dance?”

“Uh-huh.” Man, she looked prime, he thought. Even better up close than from a distance, which, sad to say, wasn’t true with a lot of women. That sweet piece of skin revealed by the modest V-neckline of the loose-fitting pullover she was wearing—mmm-mmm Talk about temptation! And the way the creamy fabric sort of...flo-o-o-owed...over her breasts? Whew! He could definitely get accustomed to looking at that.

As for the short, tight, black leather skirt she had on—well, all he could say was that it was bad, and with those long, lean legs of hers, Keezia Lorraine Carew was wearing the hell out of it.

“I’m on duty tomorrow,” she said, toying with her right earring. Although Fridge wasn’t much on women who fussed with themselves in public, something about this unthinking gesture got to him in a very elemental way. He couldn’t help but speculate about what it would feel like to have Keezia stroking him instead of the burnished metal. “I really ought to be going home.”

“One dance.” While he didn’t want to come on too strong, he didn’t want to take no for an answer too quickly, either. Although he was well aware that sweet talk tended to put Keezia’s back up, he had the distinct impression that this was one instance where she might let herself be coaxed into changing her mind. “One itty-bitty dance and I’ll have you out the door right afterward.”

“I didn’t know you did anything—” his prospective partner paused, and a hint of feminine challenge sparked in her topazcolored eyes as she lowered her hand from her earring “—ittybitty.”

“Size is a relative thing, Sister Carew,” he answered, lowering his voice a note or two and infusing it with just a lick of the resonant bass he turned loose singing gospel every Sunday. “Why, I can imagine more than a few situations when my ‘itty-bitty’ would be another man’s. mighty big.”