Fully Ignited (Boston Fire #3) (3 page)

Yes. Actually, a few of them were, but it was Scott Kincaid’s face that popped into her head. “I guess. I’m not there looking for a boyfriend.”

Her own fire company was the
last
place she’d look for a boyfriend, even if she wanted one. She’d never experienced a workplace romance, but she could only imagine how messy they got. Gossip and tension and, God forbid, the potential for a sexual harassment situation. Everything she’d worked her ass off for could be gone, or at the very least tainted. She wanted nothing to do with any of that.

“You never know where you’ll meet your true love,” Steph said.

“I’m hanging up on you. Go back to work.”

Once she’d ended the chat, Jamie looked at the boxes still remaining and then carried the laptop and her coffee to the table. Pulling up her Facebook account, she settled in to catch up on things. Her sisters’ kids were all still being cute and her mother was still sharing every knitting joke that crossed her feed. Jamie’s best friend from school was at Disney World with her family, and Jamie hit the like button on a few of those photos. Her aunt was really hitting some online game or another hard, and the rest of her feed was full of political memes she skimmed past.

After privately sending her mom a picture of the apartment—which she’d taken from the door, so it showed almost the entire place—she closed the laptop and sighed. She really wanted to have everything in order before she left, but she’d also need to get to bed early. Nerves were always a bit of an issue before starting with a new company, and she knew she’d have trouble falling asleep, which would make the twenty-four hour shift even harder.

It was time to get up off her butt and get stuff done. Tomorrow would be a big day.

* * *

S
COTT
SHOWED
UP
for his shift on Tuesday with his game face on. Jamie Rutherford was going to be working with them for at least six weeks, and probably longer, and he was going to treat her no differently than he’d treated any of the other temporary replacements for Danny Walsh. Scott might have a reputation for liking women a little too much and having a bad temper, but he was also a professional firefighter. He could handle having a woman in the company, whether he’d had a particularly steamy sex dream about her or not.

Thinking about that dream as he walked through the open bay door wasn’t a good move, so Scott turned his attention to the truck. He knew the guys who’d just wrapped up their tour took good care of her, but looking over E-59 was how he started every day. She was one of the older trucks in service, since she took care of a primarily residential neighborhood without the industrial buildings or densely populated high-rises other areas did, and so got less of the budget. But she was solid and dependable and looking her over always calmed him down.

When he passed through the second floor, he resisted the urge to look through the open office door and see if Jamie was in there. He never stopped to say hello to Danny, knowing he’d see him upstairs at some point, so he wasn’t going to stop and say hello to Jamie.

When he reached the third floor and heard a woman’s laughter, he paused. She had a really great laugh, and he listened until whatever had been going on quieted before walking into the living room.

It looked like he was the last one there, which wasn’t surprising. He was never late, but the other guys had an annoying tendency to be early, which just made him look late. Everybody had coffee, most of them still in the slow stages of coming fully awake.

“Hey, Scotty,” Aidan said. “You awake yet?”

“Not by choice. I hope you guys didn’t drink all the coffee.”

“We did.”

“But I made another pot,” Gavin said, probably guessing it was his coffee Scott would steal.

Jamie was just finishing making her own coffee when he walked into the kitchen, so she left the stuff on the counter for him. Her hair was in a French braid—which he knew because every time the school had sent a lice notice around his mom had put his sisters’ thick hair into French braids so tight they’d whine. He guessed Jamie wore it that way because it kept her hair out of the way while not making a ponytail lump under her helmet.

“Good morning,” she said, and he realized he’d been staring at her hair.

“Morning. So it sounded like I missed the party.” She frowned at him over the rim of her mug. “The laughing, I mean. I heard you laughing.”

“Oh, I was laughing at Jeff’s reaction to me telling the guys I’m a vegetarian.”

Scott almost dropped his mug. “You are? Seriously?”

She laughed again, the sound seeming to fill the kitchen. “No, I’m not. I just wanted to see what they’d say about not having meat with any meals for the next two months or so.”

“That’s...wow, that’s mean. What did Jeff say?”

“He said there was probably some law that said she had to be accommodated and then told Grant to put a dozen steaks and a bag of carrot sticks on the grocery list.”

Scott laughed. “Yeah, nobody cares if you get the shower to yourself, but we’re not giving up meat.”

He probably shouldn’t have brought up her in the shower if he was trying to stay in a purely professional head space, because his mind immediately wanted to picture her naked and covered in bubbly lather.

Rick Gullotti chose that moment to come in and wash out his empty mug. “Hey, Scotty, when you get home, do me a favor and ask Tommy if he knows anybody who wants to buy a snowblower. I know it’s the wrong time of year and it’s a bit of a beater, but we’ll give somebody a good deal on it. Joe used it to do the walkways while I did the driveway with the bigger one, but now that he and Marie have moved into senior living with a grounds crew, I don’t need two.”

“I’ll ask him. You and Jess move downstairs yet?”

Rick shook his head. “We’re going to take our time and remodel it the way we want it, and with her still traveling between here and San Diego a lot, that’s not high on our priority list.”

“You live with your dad?” Jamie asked when Rick had gone back into the other room.

“Yes and no. I rent the apartment upstairs, so I’m around if he needs me and I get a family discount on the rent, but I still have my own space. There’s no way we could actually live together.”

“I’ve heard a lot about your dad, actually. He’s pretty well respected.”

“Yeah.” He wasn’t always the best father and he certainly hadn’t been a great husband, but he’d been a damn good firefighter. “You should come to Kincaid’s Pub sometime. It’s where we hang out and relax. Drink a beer. Shoot some pool.”

“That’s your family’s bar, right?”

“No, we just stuck our name on the sign for grins.” When she rolled her eyes, he laughed. “Yeah, my old man owns it. My sisters, Lydia and Ashley, usually run the bar, though mostly Lydia these days.”

“And Ashley’s married to Danny Walsh.”

“You’re pretty well-informed.”

She shrugged. “People talk. Especially Danny.”

“What do you mean?”

“He reached out to me last night to see if I had any questions or concerns, which was really nice. You can tell he’s bored and sick of being cooped up.”

“Talk for a while, did he?” She nodded. “He fill you in on everybody?”

Jamie smiled, her eyes crinkling at the corners. “Yeah, he did.”

He waited, but she didn’t say anything else. Usually he’d shrug it off, but for some reason he really wanted to know what Danny had told this woman about him. The seconds ticked by, and he was about to ask when the alarm sounded and everybody started toward the engine bays.

“Suspicious odor in a residential unit. Haz-Mat en route.”

Scott paused on his way to the racks holding their turnout gear and looked at Rick. “Tell me it’s not a damn meth lab.”

“Won’t know until Haz-Mat goes in.”

Once they were geared up, Scott climbed into the driver’s seat and fired the engine. As soon as he had confirmation they weren’t forgetting anybody, he hit the siren and waited a few seconds for pedestrians and drivers to catch on and get out of the way before rolling out.

Jamie was riding shotgun and she seemed calm as she monitored the radio while keeping an eye on any potential hazards on that side of the road, but he didn’t miss her sharp intakes of breath or her fingernails digging into her leg or her right hand tightening on the door handle as he navigated the narrow streets and tight corners.

“Somebody’s double-parked,” she said as he swung wide around a right hand turn. “Flashers on, but it looks like somebody’s in it.”

Scott laid on the horn, since the sirens obviously weren’t enough, and slowed down enough to let the idiot move.

“Don’t hit him,” she warned. “I’m pretty brutal when it comes to payback for any extra paperwork.”

He chuckled, but didn’t respond as he squeezed the truck down a narrow one-way with parking on both sides. They arrived right after the Haz-Mat truck, with Ladder 37 right behind them.

They’d stage for now, ready to offer support if something went wrong—like, God forbid, the odor was some asshole cooking meth—but nobody would go in until Haz-Mat cleared it or there was a confirmed fire.

“I will
never
get used to these streets,” Jamie said as they stood and waited, and he looked over at her.She wasn’t shaken, exactly, but he could see that she was trying to relax.

“I was born and raised here, so if I didn’t want to spend my life walking or taking the T, I had to learn to drive in it.”

“You’re pretty good at it,” she said, and he felt a weird rush of pride. “I like that, because it lessens the paperwork load.”

“Worst paperwork ever was probably the time Gullotti moved a cruiser with L-37’s front bumper. I’m still glad it was them and not us because the ass chewing lasted for
days
.”

“I can’t even imagine.”

“Rookie cop thought he could do double the traffic control by blocking the road with his car and then going down to the other end of the street. There were kids trapped on the third floor and it was fully involved, so Gullotti moved it himself. Wrecked the hell out of it, too.”

“And the kids?”

“Everybody got out. Jeff Porter, the big guy over there? He printed out a photograph of the kids being hugged by their mom that one of the news guys took, and pinned it to the bulletin board so every time somebody gave them shit about the police car, they could look at it and not give a shit.”

She nodded, her lips curving into a smile. “I think I’m going to like you guys.”

It was a simple, casual statement that anybody new to the company might have made, but something about the words coming out of Jamie’s mouth seemed to set Scott’s blood on fire. He wanted her to like him, and that was a problem.

He realized they’d gravitated toward each other while talking, slightly separated from the other guys. While nobody else probably even noticed, he was suddenly self-conscious about it and stepped away from Jamie. “I just remembered I wanted to talk to Grant about something.”

She just nodded, her attention on the voices coming through her radio, and Scott walked all the way back to the end of Ladder 37, where Grant was talking to Gavin Boudreau, the youngest guy in the ladder company. But he’d been lying about needing to talk to the kid, so he just stood there and listened to them talk about a video game and waited for an update from Haz-Mat.

THREE

J
AMIE
WAS
RELIEVED
when the word came through that the second-floor residents were trying to strip the varnish from their old wooden floors without proper ventilation, which caused the chemical smell throughout the building. Everything was under control and the fire companies could return to quarters.

She liked having the opportunity to respond to a call with them and see how they did things outside of a critical life-or-death situation. Not that she was worried about being able to handle that. Her training and experience would get her through. But it was nice to get a feel for the company in action first.

Once the trucks were backed into the bays, Jamie quietly stowed her turnout gear while keeping an eye on the guys. There was obviously a strong sense of camaraderie, and a lot of banter and laugher went on, but she didn’t see any of them slacking or trying to take shortcuts. She could see that they took the care of the trucks and their gear very seriously, which was a relief. It was hard enough being in charge when you were the “new guy” without having to crack down on lax procedures right off the bat.

She and Rick went into their shared office and went through some paperwork. Luckily it was all standardized stuff, which didn’t vary much from station to station, and Walsh had been good about staying on top of it, so Jamie didn’t have to do much in the way of catching up.

After glancing at the clock, she pulled out her cell phone and called her dad. Every time she moved to a new station, he worried about her having a new group of guys in her life, so she usually called to fill him in.

“Hi, Dad,” she said when he answered.

“Hey, honey. How are you? I have a client coming in about five minutes, so I’ll take the abridged version now and you can have a nice long chat with Mom later.”

She laughed, leaning back in her chair. Her dad had always worked out of a home office, so his daughters had grown up having access to him all the time, but in quick bursts in between appointments. “I’m good. I’m working with great guys here, and it’s probably been one of the smoothest transitions I’ve had.”

“I’m glad to hear it. I know you haven’t had many problems—that you’ve told me about, at least—but I always worry. How’s your apartment? You haven’t had any problems with the neighborhood, have you?”

If he had his way, she’d live in a place with security and a doorman, but those weren’t easy to come by in that part of the city, especially if you didn’t want roommates to help float the extra cost. “No problems. And there are two locked doors and three flights of stairs between me and the street, so I’m not worried.”

“Your mom showed me the pictures you sent. You’ll definitely get your exercise.” She heard papers shuffling in the background, since he’d put her on speakerphone. “Tell me about your new coworkers.”

She filled him in, giving him a very brief character sketch of each of the guys. He seemed impressed when she told him about the chore list, maybe because he remembered the long venting session she’d subjected him to when she’d been a rookie and got assigned to a company that assumed, because there was a woman on hand, they didn’t have to make coffee or scrub toilets anymore.

“You sound happy,” he said.

“I am.” She chuckled. “Tentatively, of course. It’s still early, but I have a good feeling about this company.”

“You’re a good judge of character, so I’m happy for you.”

“It must be time for your client, so I’ll let you go. Give my love to Mom and tell her I’ll chat with her soon. Maybe tomorrow. Love you, Dad.”

“Love you, too, honey. Talk to you soon.”

Once the call ended, she went upstairs to find the guys scattered around the third floor, ticking things off the day’s to-do list.

When she went into the kitchen, Gavin and Chris were in there. “Hey, guys.”

“Hey,” they said in unison.

She opened the pantry door and scanned for Walsh’s name on the list. “Food purge duty, huh? That sounds fun.”

“You and I can do the fridge and Chris has the pantry,” Gavin told her. “It doesn’t take long, since we try to do it every week.”

They started by putting a fresh trash bag in the garbage can, while Chris took a second bag into the pantry. Then Gavin, who had a better idea of how long things had been in there, opened the fridge and started on the top shelf.

“I’ll hand off to you,” he said. “Anything disposable, you can toss the whole thing. If something’s in a dish or whatever, dump the contents and we’ll wash the dishes after.”

“I guess if you try to do it every week, there shouldn’t be anything too bad in there.”

“Are you married?” Gavin asked, handing her a plastic bag of fruit definitely past its prime to toss. “Have any kids?”

“Nope. You?”

“No. Jeff and Chris are both married. Aidan and Rick are both engaged, and Grant and I are single, so we date and stuff. He’s been seeing this girl for like a month, so it might get serious.” He paused. “And Scotty’s on a break right now.”

“A break?”

“Yeah, from dating. He’s not seeing anybody right now, and hasn’t for at least a couple of months, I think.”

“Wow, a couple of months.” He was practically a monk, she thought, though she chose to keep that bit of sarcasm to herself.

“He’s dated some real winners, let me tell ya. I guess now he’s looking for somebody to marry, so he’s not dating until he finds the right woman.”

“How do you find out if you want to marry a woman if you don’t date her first?”

Grant looked confused for a minute, and then he laughed. “No, if he meets a woman he thinks he might want to marry in the future, he’d probably date her a couple of times to see. But he’s not dating women he knows he won’t marry just to have a girlfriend anymore because then he might miss out on the right woman.”

“I guess people reach a point in their lives when they know what they want and what they don’t want and their priorities shift.”

“Scotty definitely knows what he
doesn’t
want now,” Chris said, his deep voice startling Jamie. He was so quiet, she’d almost forgotten he was in the pantry. “Now he’s looking for a TV wife.”

She laughed. “He wants a wife on television? Like an actress?”

“No, like a wife from one of those old shows, with the wife in the apron and pearls, making dinner while helping the kids do their homework. Meeting him at the door with his slippers and all that.”

“Probably going to be a long break for him, then.” If Scott was holding out for some idealized Suzy Homemaker version of a wife, he’d be spending a lot of time alone.

“He’s exaggerating,” Gavin said. “A little. And I think that’s everything from the fridge and freezer.”

“Not much,” Chris responded, pulling the full trash bag out of the can and tying it off.

“Are you guys making food?” Aidan asked, walking in with Scott and Jeff on his heels.

“No, we’re throwing food away,” Jamie said, gesturing to the garbage can.

“I was thinking about eating that leftover American chop suey,” Scott said, peering over her shoulder.

He was close enough so she could smell his shampoo, and she tried to ignore the goose bumps that tickled her skin. “I opened the container and smelled it. Trust me when I tell you tossing it was for the best.”

His laughter was almost a physical touch, and she picked up the garbage can so she had an excuse to step away from him. After putting it in its place, she pulled the bag out and shoved the contents down so she could tie it off.

“I’ll take that for you,” Scott said, reaching for it. His hand brushed hers and it took all of her willpower to simply let go and move her hand instead of yanking it back as though she’d been burned.

“Thanks.”

“Nobody’s making more dirty dishes until we’re done in here,” Gavin said, making a shooing motion back toward the living room.

Jamie was surprised when the other guys listened to him. He and Grant were not only the youngest, but the lowest on the seniority totem pole, so it was clear to her that everybody in both companies respected the chore list.

Scott was the last one to leave the kitchen, and he turned back as he reached the door, giving her a grin that threatened to short-circuit her common sense. “Thanks for saving me from the American chop suey.”

She felt herself smiling back at him and could only hope the heat flooding her body didn’t show on her face. “Can’t be going a man down on my first tour.”

Once he was gone, she started filling the sink with hot, soapy water to give herself a moment. She’d never been attracted to a guy she worked with before, and she had no coping skills for the way her pulse quickened every time she saw Scott.

Dumping the dishes they’d taken from the fridge into the sink, she turned the water off, wishing she could turn the attraction off just as easily. It was time to start exploring the neighborhood and finding good hangout places. Maybe she’d get lucky and feel that same zing for a guy she
didn’t
work with.

“You okay?” Gavin asked, and she realized she’d been standing there, gripping the edge of the sink and staring at the soap bubbles.

“Yeah, I just got lost in thought. You drying?”

She’d just pulled the plug after washing the last dish when the alarm sounded.

* * *

S
COTT
RANG
THE
doorbell of his sister’s house and then waited, zipping his sweatshirt against the chill in the air. When Ashley opened the door, he couldn’t help grinning at her. It had become a habit—almost an involuntary reflex—since she and Danny had told him she was pregnant.

That had been mere days before the fire they almost lost Danny to, and Scott would never forget the gut-wrenching fear that he was going to have to tell his sister her husband and the father of her unborn child had died.

That was behind them now, though, and every time he saw his sister, Scott had a
holy crap, she’s having a baby
moment. She wasn’t showing yet, and wouldn’t for a while, but she was already glowing.

“Hey, you. Come on in.”

He stepped into the house the couple had bought cheap and then remodeled over time. They’d planned ahead and now, while their first child was still just a speck of a thing, they had a nice home in a great neighborhood for a lot less than most of their neighbors had paid.

“Hey, Danny, Scotty’s here,” she called, and Scott heard what sounded like a recliner being folded back into a sitting position.

Danny was almost on his feet by the time Scott walked into the living room, and he was glad to see him moving with less pain than the last time he’d stopped by. His leg was in a cast, and he tucked crutches under his arm as he stood up on his good leg.

“You didn’t have to get up.”

“Yes, he did,” Ashley said. “He’s supposed to get up and move around a lot, actually. He just can’t put weight on the leg yet.”

Danny rolled his eyes, but the warm smile he gave his wife made it more affectionate than annoying. “I have to stop taking her to my appointments.”

“Good luck with that,” Scott said. “How you doing?”

“Better.”

“Want to get out of the house?”

Danny’s face brightened, but then he looked at Ashley. “Is that okay with you? Just for a little while, maybe?”

She chuckled. “Who do you think called Scotty and told him to get you the hell out of the house before I smother you with a pillow?”

“We’ll just go to the bar for a bit and hang out, since you can’t wear real clothes,” Scott told him.

Danny looked down at the sweatpants with one leg cut off above the cast. “Sounds good to me.”

“No beer, though,” Ashley said. “Decaf or soda or something. I know you haven’t been taking the painkillers they gave you if you can help it, but going out and sitting in those chairs might be a lot and you’ll want a pill to help you sleep.”

“Yes, dear.”

Scott found a fascinating spot on the wall to stare at, bracing himself for an awkward family moment. Their communication issues had been one of the biggest reasons their marriage had hit the skids and, while Ashley didn’t have as hot a temper as he and Lydia did, that was exactly the kind of platitude that would make her pop off.

But then Danny slapped Ashley on the ass and they both laughed when the action made him wobble, almost falling off his crutches. Scott kept staring at that spot on the wall, though, because then there was kissing. He was happier for his sister than he’d been about almost anything in his life, but that didn’t mean he wanted to watch the reconciliation in action.

“You’re presentable enough for a bar,” she said. “But you should at least brush your hair.”

Scott chuckled when Danny ran his hands through his hair and grinned at his wife. “How’s that?”

She gave him an affectionate eye roll, and then she smiled when Danny rested his hand on her stomach for a second. “I won’t be too late.”

Scott felt a pang of something—yearning, maybe—at the gesture and went back to the foyer to grab Danny’s sweatshirt off the hook. There was a lot of love going on around him, what with Danny and Ashley making up, Aidan and Lydia falling in love, and then Rick Gullotti falling for his landlords’ granddaughter.

He wanted it. All of it. The love, the having a person to go home to at the end of the day. The holding hands and secret glances. The babies. Not just because the people around him had it, but because when he lay down at night, he felt the emptiness. He felt incomplete.

“You’re going to have to take my car,” Ashley said, taking her keys out of a dish on a side table near the door. “Unless you think you can catch him when he falls out of your truck.”

“I could just drop the tailgate and hoist him into the bed. It’s not far.”

“The seat’s all the way back on the passenger side, so he can get in okay. He’ll need a hand getting out, though. The crutches fit if you wedge them between the front seats and...you’ll figure it out.”

Scott figured it out without putting the end of the sticks through the car’s display console, which he considered a win. Then, after locking his truck, he slid into his sister’s car and started the engine.