Ellery Mountain 1 -The Fireman and the Cop (2 page)

The call woke him from a deep sleep and he scrambled for the phone. The screen showed seven a.m.. Yawning widely, he answered.
“Harrison,” he said, unable to hide the exhaustion in his voice
“We need you at the station and then on to the scene,” Quinn said.
“Okay,” Max said. “Be there in ten?”
“Best bring your big-city moves as well, Harrison. Evidence is pointing that this fire was deliberate, could do with your take on this.” Quinn sounded pissed. “In Ellery people don’t set fires, Max. Fires happen by accident. Chip pans, electrics, camp fires and the like. Fires don’t start because some idiot decides they want to see something burn. This isn’t the city, you know.”
Max agreed. In the city, deliberately set fires occurred on a daily basis. Things were different in Ellery.
“Give me ten,” Max said. He was already out of bed and into the bathroom. Another thing about living two minutes from the station was that he could actually fit in another shower without being horrendously late. He’d showered when he got home but he still smelt smoke in his nostrils and he needed that added shot of cold to his system.
Showered, but not shaved, he was dressed and out of the door in five and at the station in another two.
Quinn, looked tired and way past pissed and was hunched over fragments of something laid on the main desk. Max appraised it quickly. He didn’t have to be an expert to see what was there. Remnants of a glass bottle, melted and near destroyed, and next to it a brand-new bottle filled with liquid and a rag sticking out of the end.
“Found this at the scene and this out the back. Clearly one did the damage and the second wasn’t needed.”
This type of fire starter was so damn easy—gas in the bottle, rag in the end, light the rag and throw. The glass broke, the gas spread and the flames dispersed over a large area.
“Deliberate,” Max said. He didn’t need to say it but Quinn was looking at him expectantly and evidently waiting for Max’s initial reaction.
“Agreed. Thrown at the station and the cops to the point there is nothing left. Seems like we have a firebug in town.”
“I’ll start pulling the intel together for the cops.” Max said.
The job of the fire guys was to bring the evidence to the cops, study burn patterns, work up possible areas that the firebug could have been. Added to that, after ten years of experience Max was able to work up a valid profile of who would do this. Of course, his frame of reference was the city of Nashville where the spectrum of reason was huge. Ellery was smaller and maybe his familiarity wasn’t so spot-on. Still, he could get something to the cops if it helped. As it was the bottle would need to be fingerprinted by the cops. The rest of it was their bag really.
“I need you to liaise and do your thing. I cleared it with Mayor Dexter for you to be with us today.”
“Shit,” he muttered.
The chief glanced up at him and frowned.
Damn, he didn’t want to be contrary to the chief but he knew something like this would happen. He wanted to present a reliable face to his new boss and he didn’t want to give the mayor the impression that he was undependable. The problem was faced by a huge number of firefighters who juggled a job and being a volunteer, but he wasn’t used to it having moved from being a full-time fireman.
“Son, you were taken on as administrator with the express agreement that you were a fireman as well.”
Max nodded. After what had happened to him back in Nashville he was more than aware that he was just being stupid—waiting for the axe to fall.
“I wanted to go see the guy from last night, check in on him.”
See how green his gaze is when his eyes aren’t as bloodshot.
“Corporal Ryan? Good guy. Do that. The mayor said he’s dividing off some office space for the cops until they get a new site up and running. As soon as the cops are set up at the mayor’s office, get on over and give them the heads-up on anything we know. Good work last night, Harrison.”
Max thanked him and left, thoughts about what he had been told and seen still spinning in his head. There was only one thing that floated to the top, past the arson, past the exhaustion that made him long for bed. The cop shop was setting up at the mayor’s place. That was going to be cosy.
Finally out of the building, Max headed straight for his truck. Red, solid and rust-free, his old Ford had served him all through college and the city and lastly to here, slap bang in the middle of the Smoky Mountains.
Climbing in, he patted the dash affectionately as he did every single time he sat in her.
“Okay, girl,” he said, “looks like I brought the shit from the city.” He waited until the road was clear then pulled out onto Main. “So much for a quiet life.”

“Finn?”
Leave me alone, I’m tired. I don’t feel so good. Think I may have flu.
“Finn Alexander Ryan, you open your eyes right now.”
His name, his
full
name, just about cut through the pain in his head. The tone was

familiar—a wash of noise that somehow coalesced and made sense. His name. Someone was calling his name.
Mom, I’m feeling like shit, leave me alone to be ill.
Finn tried to call Mom?, but no sound came out. His throat felt thick and tight and there was something in his mouth that hurt. Cold, hard plastic forced past his lips and into his throat, and not the fun kind either, stopped him from talking.
“He’s awake. Josh, go get the doctor.”
Josh was here? Why was his brother here? Finn only had the flu or something. Josh should be at college. He shouldn’t be here. Wherever
here
was. He forced his eyelids, heavy and scratchy, to open and the glare of white was so overwhelming that he shut them again. Attempting to lift his hand to pull at whatever was in his mouth, something cut into his wrists. What the hell? Was he being held down? Panic curled at the edges of his consciousness and he struggled against the bonds.
“Finn, it’s your mom, don’t panic, calm down, sweetheart,” she crooned. Then in an entirely different tone from the mom spectrum of available tones, she snapped an instruction at someone to let her son out of the damn restraints.
“The doctor is worried he’ll pull out the breathing tube, ma’am. He was trying to remove—”
“Take off the restraints and I’ll make sure he won’t struggle,” she said to whoever was in the room with them. Then more quietly to him, with gentle words, she encouraged him not to struggle. “Lay still, Finn, you hear me, son? We’ll get the breathing tube taken out, okay? You just need to lay still.”
Breathing tube? I hurt so much.

He couldn’t say he would try but he moved his head in an approximation of a nod, groaning at the spikes of pain that banded his skull.
“How is he?”
The new voice was deep, growly and familiar. Finn tried to open his eyes again, he really did, but there was no way he could handle the extra pain.
“He’s awake,” Finn’s mom confirmed to the guy in the room. “Are you leaving now? Did they clear you?”
Finn felt he ought to recognise the voice. “I just had a small amount of smoke inhalation, hazard of the job.”
“What about the burns on your hands?”
“These? It’s nothing, ma’am.” The owner of that damn sexy voice dismissed the concerns of a burn out of hand. There was no false modesty in the voice as it had delivered a simple statement.
“Call me Jan, please. After all, I owe you my son’s life.”
My life? What happened? I’m so tired.
“Jan then. And we were just doing our job.”
“Whatever. I can’t thank you enough. I hope you know that.”
Silence. Finn assumed the guy was nodding or something equally frustrating to his currently blind status.
He felt a touch at his wrist and whatever was restraining him on the left-hand side slipped away. Experimentally he attempted to relax and then tense the muscles in his arm. As his fingers moved and he could feel the ache in his arms, he suddenly knew exactly where he was. Hospital. Likely St Martin’s General in Ellery. Not only did he know where he was, but with a stab of clarity he knew why he was here. Fire. Hospital. The choking smoke. The panic returned with a swift kick and suddenly he couldn’t breathe. He clawed at the plastic in his mouth, wanting it out and far away from him.
“Calm down, buddy,” the guy with the deep voice said at his side. Evidently ‘Sexy’ hadn’t left. The voice had been very close and the firm authority in the tone enough to snap through the rising terror that gripped Finn. “The nurse is going to be taking the tube out now,” Sexy said.
Finn gripped tight to the guy’s hand and followed the nurse’s instructions until finally his throat was free and he experienced a whole different world of pain.
Experimentally, he attempted to open his eyes. He wanted to see who was holding his hand. But just opening his lids welcomed in too much stabbing pain and reluctantly he shut them again. There was some movement around him but it was difficult to concentrate on whom it might be as the buzzing in his ears grew louder. Then everything went a bit hazy and he gave in to sleep.

When he woke next he blinked up at the white ceiling and realised he wasn’t in such a bad place with pain. Casting his gaze around the room without moving his head was one thing, actually focusing on anything else was another. He imagined he saw Josh sprawled this way and that and clearly asleep in the corner.

“Josh?” he whispered past the raw scrape of his throat and the pain in his chest. At least his head felt better. “Josh?” he called again.
Josh finally stirred and crossed to the bed.
“Hey, big bro,” he said gently.
“What happened?” Finn coughed as his chest tightened.
“Don’t you remember? Jeez, Finn.” Josh buried fingers in his long dark hair. “You went back in a freaking burning building to get Fitzgerald out and you were trapped in the fire. The fire crew got you out. The new guy, Max Harrison, got you out.”
Max Harrison? Finn concentrated past the wool in his head and remembered the new hire at the mayor’s office who was also a volunteer fireman. They hadn’t met—hell, the guy had only arrived in a town two days ago. Was that the voice he had heard? The one asking after him that sounded like whisky over ice?
Was Max here? Was that him talking earlier?
Finn attempted to word the question and forced the syllables past his dry throat. Josh leaned in. Evidently what sounded like English in Finn’s head was more like garbled nonsense because Josh had this worried expression and obviously hadn’t heard a word.
“Are you in pain? Finn? Should I call a nurse?”
“No,” he managed to bite out. “Wanna sit up,” he said. The words were clearer but fuck, it hurt to push the sounds out of him.
Josh helped him to sit up. Max was thankful his brother hadn’t called in a nurse who was bound to stick him or prod him or tell him to lie down again.
“So,” Josh started as he sat on the side of the bed. “I’m guessing you want to know what the fuck happened?”
Finn managed a nod and resolutely ignored the tightness at the base of his neck.
“Summing up, for some reason unknown to man, you decided to go back into a burning building for the town freaking drunk who wouldn’t piss on you if you were on fire and who—incidentally—managed to get out but then left you inside. Fucking asshole.”
Mike Fitzgerald? He’d gone in to pull the man out. He remembered the split-second decision, the single moment when he’d been the only one who’d realised that a man was locked in holding. The fire had taken hold so fast there had been no time to take stock of anything. Gut reaction was all he’d had. Fitzgerald? No one would ever label Mike Fitzgerald as anything but the town bastard, drunk and loser. Handy with his fists against family and strangers, there wasn’t a lot of love lost there between him and anyone who crossed his path. Hell, his own son had left town as soon as he’d turned sixteen just to get away. Josh was one of his least favourite fans and probably even more so now that Finn had risked his life for the old man.
“Sorry,” Finn groaned helplessly. What else could he say? Whatever had driven him back into the burning building was nothing he could get a handle on himself. Except the need to protect life. Wasn’t that what he had signed up as a cop to do?
“Just. Don’t do it again. The doc was worried about smoke inhalation and cracked ribs. They were going to move you to the city but you checked out okay to stay here under observation. You’re a lucky bastard.”
Finn didn’t feel so lucky. Everything ached, from his head to the tips of his toes, although to be fair, nothing appeared broken or damaged beyond repair.
“W’happened?” Two slurred words were all he could manage before another session of coughing broke the quiet in the room.
Josh helped him with some sips of water then sighed heavily.
“Max Harrison happened. I swear him and you are cut from the same kind of stupid. When Mike staggered out and you didn’t follow, he apparently dove into the freaking flames to get you. They weren’t sure either of you were going to make it out. I’ve seen what’s left, Finn, everything collapsed in on itself.”
Fear coloured Josh’s words and Finn’s guilt intensified. Max Harrison could have died because some weird streak of hero had shot through Finn and made him go into a fire.
“Say sorry,” he mumbled. He’d wanted to stay sitting up but exhaustion stole over him and Josh wasn’t taking any argument as he lowered the back of the bed and encouraged his brother to sleep.
“You don’t need to say sorry, man.” Josh sighed and settled back in the chair next to the bed. Plainly he was settling in for the night. Or the day. Or whatever the hell time it was.
Guilt knifed through Finn at the danger he had put the firefighter in and as he let the meds take him away to a quieter place his last thought was that he really was going to say sorry.

The next time he woke the light wasn’t as bright and although disorientated, he concluded this was the hospital’s fake evening or night, where all lights were dimmed. He flexed each individual muscle and made a mental note of the ones that made him wince. His chest was tight—smoke inhalation and the slamming of that damn table into his chest probably. Hell, he was lucky it was simply sore and tight and that there were no broken ribs. His left arm hurt from where it had been trapped but he could still move his fingers, which had to be a good thing.

“Yeah.” Finn found he could actually speak this time despite sounding like he smoked forty a day. “What time is it?”
“Ten.”
“At night?”
“Yeah. I was just making a move home. The next shift has arrived.” There was a smile in Josh’s words and immediately Finn imagined his poor mom taking the night shift.
“Tell her to go home,” he said. “I promise you all I want is sleep. No one needs to sit with me.”
“Nah, I wasn’t planning on it,” Josh said. “Soon as the clock hit ten I was off to my own bed.” He laughed and leaned over his brother to press a kiss against his hair. “Don’t do it again, Finn,” he whispered. “Don’t scare us like that.”
Finn fought warring emotions—responsibility and that warm feeling of acceptance that family love could give. It was only when Josh left that Finn remembered he had said there was a new shift. Curious, he cast his gaze left then right. If there was someone else in the room then they were both invisible and quiet. Clearly he had misunderstood and wriggled a little to get comfortable. He wasn’t tired, more wired and wanting to know what the hell had happened. He should have asked Josh to help him sit up a bit. There was a TV in the room and despite the fact it was unlikely that a fire in a small town would make headlines he thought the TV might at least connect him to the outside world.
There was a knock on the door then it opened and someone came into the room.
Josh had difficulty focusing. All he knew was that the guy—it looked like a guy—was big and filled the space in the doorway with very little to spare.
“Hey,” the visitor said. The one with the voice. Max Harrison. The man who had gone into the burning building and pulled his stupid ass out from death. “I was just off duty. Thought I’d come over and see how you were doing.”
“Oh,” Finn said softly. Gone was his normal clever way with words and in its place was a kind of tongue-tied idiocy he hadn’t experienced since he was thirteen and stood in front of Daniel Skylar in gym class.
“Mind if I pull up a chair?” Max requested and then waited.
Finn tensed. Max wanted to stay and talk. He guessed now was as good as time as any to get his ass reamed over what he had done. Shame he hadn’t met the guy in better circumstances, like in a club where it was obvious tall, blond and sexy was gay and wanted copious amounts of sex. That kind of meeting. A
gay
one.
“No worries,” Finn finally answered. He smelt coffee and despite knowing it was probably hospital-grade shit he had a sudden need for caffeinating his blood stream. If he knew Max better he might have asked for the guy to get him his own coffee, but he didn’t know him and he was sure coffee wasn’t on the list of approved drinks for post-fire patients.
Max did as he said and pulled up one of the two hard chairs that Josh had been sprawled in last time Finn had woken.
“How you feeling?” Max asked conversationally.
“Good.” There wasn’t a lot to add to the general physical condition. But there was a shitload more to add to the whole thing. “Alive. Thank you. Sorry.”
There, I’ve covered all the bases. Now you can go and leave me to feel stupid and guilty on my own.
Max chuckled and placed the coffee he was holding on the small side table on wheels next to Finn’s bed.
“Glad to hear it, no problems and why are you sorry?” Max leant forward and finally Finn got a proper view of the face of the man who had saved his sorry ass.
His blond hair was short, but not buzz-cut, and tousled like Max had spent a while running his hands through it. It looked soft and Finn clenched his fist to stop himself from checking out his theory by patting the fireman on the head. Touching the man—who was probably straight—would do nothing except cause some kind of epic smack-down.
Finn concentrated on Max’s face instead. The light might well be low but all it did was serve to shadow the planes of his face and nothing could hide the extreme blue of his eyes.
A sudden memory, of those same eyes, flinty hard and determined as they stared right at him, flooded Finn and he shivered as the fear that he had been feeling the moment he’d first seen Max took him by surprise. Max had been wearing a mask, but still the absolute resolve in the guy when he’d heaved and levered at the desk, freeing Finn, had been intense. Finn closed his eyes as he relived those few seconds. He’d seen worse in his job, kids pinned down by men with weapons, drug addicts bleeding out on the streets, but to actually be the one pinned down and resigned to death? That was some heavy shit to be rolling over him at the moment. His throat tightened as he forced back panic—he couldn’t let Max see him lose it like a freaking kid.
“Okay?” Max sounded alert and concerned.
So much for hiding the freak-out.
“Shit,” he cursed his thoughts.
Max grabbed his hand and held tight.
Finn didn’t fight the hold. He’d already shown Max what a wuss he was, why not add emotional wreck to the list.
“It’s okay, you know. First time I was pinned in a fire was only my second day on the job. A probie through and through. I freaked like you wouldn’t believe. Knowing death is coming for you when you’ve barely done shit in your life is kind of intense. When the flames get closer…” Max let his explanation trail away then shook his head to emphasise the point.
Max knew exactly the right thing to say. Finn opened his eyes and blinked back the blurred vision. If Max—I’m-a-big-strong-fearless-firefighter—had experienced scared, then Finn thought maybe he wasn’t being so much of a wuss.
“You went in even though the whole thing was coming down,” Finn said. He snapped the words and even to him they sounded like an accusation.
“Last man out,” Max replied simply. “It’s my job to make sure the building is empty.”
Finn realised Max was still holding his hand but Max made no move to remove the reassuring grip. The touch was comforting and solid and what Max had said, that it was his job, made sense. It was Finn’s job to look after the men in his care, whether civilian, or arrested, or colleagues, he didn’t differentiate his actions based on that.
“I couldn’t leave Mike in the lockup,” he said simply.
Max nodded. “Last man out,” he repeated again.
“So me saying sorry?”
“Isn’t necessary. I get it.”
A silence fell between them and Finn searched for something to say. The emptiness wasn’t awkward but he wanted to say a few words, anything really, that would make Max talk some more. They’d done the whole ‘it is what it is’ conversation. What the hell else was there to talk about?
“I am, you know,” Max said, interrupting the silence. “Gay, that is. That’s part of the reason I moved here. I had some shit at the old place and decided to try another position. Went for the job in the mayor’s office and applied for the volunteer fireman role here.”
“Wha?” Finn responded. Okay, so it wasn’t the most intelligent of reactions, but why the hell was Max giving him the story of his life? Not that he wanted to stop him—after all, Max really had him at the word gay.
“You asked me,” Max said.
“I did? When?” He would have remembered talking the gay word with the fireman…surely.
“Exactly how much do you remember from the fire?” Max asked suddenly. Finn recoiled as he was assailed with images of destruction and orange-tinged black.
“Not a lot. Getting Mike out, the explosion, the desk trapping me, you getting me out. Then I woke up here.”
Max squeezed his hand and released his grip before sitting back in his chair. Finn focused on his soft smile and wondered what was up with the amused expression.
“I could fill you in but suffice it to say you came on to me.”
“What?” Shit. The horror of it was too much to think on.
“You said you always liked firemen and wondered if any of them were gay. Your reasoning, it seemed, for that question was because you liked their bodies and their…” Max was holding back a laugh and Finn immediately hated him. Well, just a little anyway. “Hoses,” Max finished.
Mortification spread like its own kind of fire from Finn’s stomach to his face in great swathes of embarrassment. He groaned and lifted his hands to cover his eyes. He’d said that? He couldn’t remember a single thing from fire to hospital. One minute he’d been pinned and the next he was in here. Hell, the shit he’d said was the kind of dumb talking he did when he was drunk, when cop Finn became I-want-sex Finn.
“Shit,” he finally managed.
“So you don’t remember what I said about cops?”
“No,” Finn said from behind his hands.
Max gently pulled Finn’s hands from his face and leaned over him, so close that his face blurred momentarily in Finn’s vision and he blinked until it cleared.
“Well you were unconscious I said I loved cops, and the way they use their weapons.”
Finn closed his eyes but there was no way he could hold back the snort of laughter. In one sentence Max had reduced himself to a level playing field.
“What are we? Fifteen?” Finn said.
Max smiled down at him. “I don’t suppose you remember saying that you promised me a date as soon as the world stopped spinning.”
Finn gestured at his pathetic self laid flat on his back. “Can I get a rain check?”
Max reached past him to the table on the other side and picked up a pile of paper and a pen. He scribbled for a minute then placed them back down.
“My number. Remember, it’s a small town, mayor’s office, volunteer fireman, hose. Okay, Corporal Finn Ryan?” Max chuckled when all Finn could do was nod in response. Max traced a finger from Finn’s cheekbone to his lips. He leaned across the small remaining distance, pressing his own lips to Finn’s.
The touch was electric, yet nothing more than a gentle taste. Finn hated to think what the hospital-post-fire-taste of him was like and he held his breath as much as he could. Max didn’t deepen the kiss. He pulled back then traced that same finger down to Finn’s throat.
“I’ll see you soon, Finn. Promise. Sleep now.”
He watched Max leave the room, the man’s kiss a brand on his lips and the touch of his fingers a path of heat on his skin. What did he say to this? How did one semi-conscious plea for connection suddenly become so real? He just wished he could remember any of it.
Finn did as he’d been told, and he slept.