How to Tame a Wild Fireman (11 page)

Chapter Ten

T
he firehouse welcomed Patrick back with a few claps on the shoulder, some razzing about the TV footage of him carrying Goldie on his shoulders, and an invitation to a cake-­tasting at Chief Roman’s restaurant.

“What’s a cake-­tasting?” he asked Sabina blankly.

She was busy checking the pressure on her oxygen tank. “Pretty much what it sounds like,” she muttered. “Feel free to skip it. Roman told me to invite you.”

Normally her attitude toward him wouldn’t bother him, but right now it reminded him a little too much of Lara Nelson’s. “What is it you have against me, Two?” He asked. “Seems like ever since I started here you’ve had a chip on your shoulder about me.”

“You’re imagining it.” She stowed the oxygen tank and began checking her breathing apparatus for air leaks.

“I don’t think so. Did I do something to piss you off? I mean, besides the usual checklist?”

“What do you care? I didn’t know you were such a sensitive soul.”

“Well . . .” Of course he wasn’t sensitive. Was he? Nah. That didn’t mean he didn’t have feelings, though. Lots of them. “Maybe you don’t know that much about me.”

“Maybe I don’t.” She squinted to make sure the “O” ring was in place on the regulator. “Maybe that’s the problem. Who are you, Psycho? I mean, deep down inside. What drives you? What moves you? What makes you want to cry like a baby?”

His mouth dropped open.

“And if you answer that, I’ll throw up on your boots.” She stood up, eyes glinting turquoise.

For a moment he’d gotten totally sucked in and nearly bared his soul. “See, that’s what I’m talking about. That sort of thing.”

She snorted. “What sort of thing? You tease me, I tease you. That’s the way the firehouse crumbles.” She strode off with that lithe, athletic grace of hers.

Patrick scuffed his Adidas on the concrete floor of the apparatus bay. Nothing she’d said answered his question, and yet he had the feeling the truth was in there somewhere.

“You know me, right, Vader?” He asked the big guy as they lifted weights in the workout room.

Vader grunted. “Yeah. You’re the craziest bastard in the San Gabriel fire department.”

“But besides that.”

“Besides that, you’re a pain in my ass.”

Patrick couldn’t argue with that. “True.”

“I know you,” yelled Fred from the treadmill. “About as much as I want to, anyway.”

Fred exchanged high fives with Ace, the rookie, who was on the next treadmill over. Patrick shot the kid an evil glare, which made him drop the grin and focus on not falling off. “Conversation over,” he said through gritted teeth.

“What’s up with you, dude?” Vader asked as he clenched one powerful bicep in a vein-­popping curl. “You’ve been weird ever since you got back from Nevada.”

“Nothing.”

“Breathe too much retardant?” He cackled.

“Probably misses his llama!” called Fred.

“Llama-­llama-­ding-­dong,” sang Ace in a surprisingly good tenor.

The general laughter was interrupted by a loud tone that sent everyone into instant alertness. “Reported traffic accident for Engine 1, Truck 1, Paramedic Squad 3. Highway 30 at the Old Courthouse exit. Passengers trapped with four vehicles involved. Incident 429, time of alarm 2:42.”

They all scrambled to their feet and ran into the apparatus bay to don their gear. Captain Brody was the last to gear up, which was very unusual.

“Melissa okay?” Double D yelled as he hoisted himself into the engineer’s seat.

“No news,” said Brody curtly.

As Patrick settled himself into Truck 1, he realized that Brody was the only guy at the station who knew anything about his history. Only Brody knew he was the son of a former governor of Nevada. Only Brody knew he’d been kicked out of Loveless. Only Brody knew he’d decided to go back anyway.

He’d throw himself into the flames for any single one of his brother firefighters. Their friendship, their loyalty, their bond as fellow warriors on the frontlines meant everything to him. And yet to them, “Psycho” was the beginning and end of Patrick Callahan. Wild man, loose cannon, crazy asshole.

Highway 30 was a mess. The backup stretched for a mile, and the California Highway Patrol was already on the scene, working to divert traffic and clear a lane in time for rush hour. Two of the vehicles, a little white Camry and an SUV, lay on their sides, halfway off the shoulder, billows of smoke rising from their engine compartments. The other two were dented and mangled, but the passengers were already talking to the CHP.

Truck 1 pulled onto the shoulder and the crew jumped out. Patrick grabbed the Jaws of Life from its compartment on the side of the truck, then followed the others to the overturned cars. The engine crew was already blasting the smoking cars with water.

Captain Brody spoke over the tactical channel. “Two female victims trapped inside the white Camry. One may be conscious. Truck 1, you got extraction.”

Patrick ran to the uptilted side of the Camry. The underside would be far too dangerous to approach until the car was secured. Waving the smoke out of his eyes, he peered in. In the driver’s seat, a woman was slumped over the wheel, blood trickling from a gash on her face. Closer to him, a young girl, maybe ten years old, looked back at him with dazed, terrified eyes. She was completely pinned against the passenger side door, which had been crushed by its collision with one of the other vehicles.

Fred appeared next to him. “I’ll get the jaws set up,” yelled Patrick. “You assess her condition.” When ­people were trapped inside cars, it could be a terrifying experience to have the Jaws of Life cutting into the steel around you. Fred was the go-­to guy for talking to victims. He had a friendly manner about him that put ­people at ease during traumatic situations—­the perfect man to talk a young girl through the extraction.

Patrick pulled back to set up the jaws. A sudden hazy memory of the night of the accident flashed into his mind. A wall of metal slamming into his face. The starlit landscape tumbling around him. As usual, the memory ended there. The next thing he remembered was firefighters swarming the scene, and headlights slashing across the motor home that he and Liam had slammed into.

He’d struggled against the paramedic testing his pulse, frantic to get to Liam, but the guy was too strong for him. He could only watch while the firefighters got Liam out of the twisted metal of his bike and into an ambulance. They did it so efficiently and he was so woozy, he thought he was hallucinating. They’d seemed like gods.

Sometimes he wondered if that’s why he’d become a firefighter. That exact night, that moment . . . if he could just make it right . . .

He shook off the memory, focusing on his task.

“Psycho, something’s wrong,” called Fred. “She’s not answering me. I don’t think she understands me.”

“Did you try Spanish?”

“Yup. Nothing.”

The girl wasn’t Asian, which ruled out three of the other languages—­Korean, Cambodian, and Hmong—­commonly found in San Gabriel. Patrick lugged the jaws to the door and looked at the girl again. Tears were flowing down her cheeks. She kept wiping them away with her fingers but they didn’t stop. One of her hands was bloody but she didn’t seem to realize it. With every swipe across her face, she left a streak of blood.

“Don’t do that,” said Patrick, shaking his head. Her gaze landed on him, then veered off into the distance.

“Where are you hurt?” he asked, more loudly. Maybe she was in such a state of shock that she couldn’t hear him over all the noise—­firefighters shouting, horns honking, engines running.

He said it again, even louder. Staring into nowhere, she didn’t respond at all. He stared at her, frustrated, then gave up and turned away. One unconscious victim and one unresponsive one. What the hell. They’d just have to start up the jaws and hope for the best.

Then it struck him. She’d looked at him when he shook his head but not when he’d spoken.

A chill shot through him and his throat went tight. The girl was deaf.

“Hang on,” he muttered to Fred, shouldered him out of the way and waved his hand in front of the window. He ripped off his padded firefighter gloves. When her gaze fluttered back to meet his, he pointed to her and made the sign for “hurt”—­his two index fingers jabbing into each other.

A spark of interest lit up her eyes. She lifted one hand and signed back. “A little. Is my Mom going to be okay?”

His ASL was rusty after ten years, but it came back pretty quickly. He signed back rapidly: “We have to get into the car so we can help her. We have to use a special piece of equipment.” He lifted it to show her. “It’s going to cut through the metal. It makes a loud, horrible noise.”

She smiled. Her amused grin lit up her face and made his stomach clench from emotion. “No problem for me.”

“That’s right,” he signed back. He clapped a hand on Fred’s shoulder. “This man will run the jaws. I’ll keep signing with you the whole time.”

He turned to Fred, whose jaw looked as if it were about to hit the ground. “Are you okay with that?” he asked him. Remembering that he’d signed the whole conversation with the girl, he explained, “You take the jaws, I’ll keep talking to her.”

“You know
sign language
?”

“My brother’s deaf.”

“You have a
brother
?”

“Yeah, I have a brother. He’s mildly autistic and never mentioned that his ears were hurting and so he went deaf. Now can we get this girl out of there?”

Fred was still staring at him as if he’d grown a dick on his head. “He’s
autistic?
”

“Stud, I swear to God . . .”

“Okay, okay . . .”

Fred maneuvered the jaws into position. Patrick positioned himself so he could still communicate with the girl while staying out of Fred’s way.

“What’s your name?” he signed.

“Isabelle.” She spelled it out, then gave him her signing name too. “Jump rope girl. What’s your name?”

Patrick hesitated. Maybe Psycho wasn’t the best name to offer a traumatized deaf girl who’d just been in an accident. He’d been “Psycho” since he joined the San Gabriel Fire Department. But he couldn’t go backward. Didn’t want to.

He shrugged, and signed. “My name is Patrick.”

The story of
Psycho and the deaf girl reached the station before Truck 1 did. The other firefighters clustered around him as they stripped off their gear.

“Can you read lips too?”

“What’s the sign for ‘I gotta pee like a sonofabitch’?”

“How do say ‘MILF’ in sign language?” That was Vader, holding his helmet under one arm.

Patrick scowled at him. “Why do you want to know that?”

“Personal reasons.”

Captain Brody’s calm voice cut through the chatter. “Psycho, come see me in my office when you’re done.”

“Yes, sir.”

An ominous quiet descended after Brody left.

“What’d you do now?” asked Vader. “You saved that girl.”

As Patrick put his turnouts back onto the rig, arranging the pants around the boots next to Truck 1, try as he might he couldn’t think of a single thing that would have angered Brody. Ever since he’d gotten back from Loveless he’d been on his best behavior. Not on purpose, but because he was licking the wounds Lara had left on his ego—­and because he’d been hung over the first few days.

Until Lara had ripped into him, he hadn’t realized how much respect he had for her. He’d always known she was a good person—­a brave person—­who had stood by Liam when everyone else thought he was weird. He’d always appreciated what a loyal friend she was to his brother. But it had never occurred to him that her good opinion might matter to him.

Turned out, it did. A lot.

He pictured her at the command post, all blond and bare-­legged, kneeling to bandage a guy’s arm . . . dangling from the helicopter, yelling at him the whole time . . . A smile twitched the corners of his mouth. She’d become a helluva woman. And all he’d done was poke at her, tease her, and drag her into the worst family dinner in Callahan history—­which was saying a lot.

He was a fucking idiot.

When all his gear was squared away, he strode down the corridor that led to the training room, the kitchen, and Brody’s office. He caught a few more curious glances from passing firefighters and a suspicious, narrow-­eyed stare from Sabina. He blocked her path and squared off with her.

“Yeah, so I kept a few secrets from the crew. Sound familiar?”

For years, Sabina had hidden the fact that she used to be a famous child actress. She could hardly criticize him for a similar secretiveness. But Sabina raised her chin and stood her ground. “Just tell me you’re not ashamed of your deaf autistic brother and we’re cool.”

Rage swept Patrick, so deep and sudden it felt like a plunge into a red whirlpool. If Sabina hadn’t been a woman, he would have grabbed her by the throat. Instead he balled his hands into fists and fought the fury, his body shaking from the epic struggle.

“My brother, Liam,” he said in a low, fierce voice he nearly didn’t recognize, “was my best friend. I’m proud to be his brother.
Proud
. And fucking lucky. No one ever loved me the way he did. And if you ever say that again . . .” Emotion grabbed him by the throat, strangling the words.

“All right, all right,” said Sabina softly. “I hear you. I shouldn’t have said it. This is a new side of you, that’s all. I’m trying to put it all together.”

He stood, shaking like a caged tiger, as she gave him a friendly pat on the shoulder. “You’re a good guy, Psycho. I never would have believed it. Shows what I know.” She gave him a quick flash of a wink and moved on down the corridor.

It took him a number of deep breaths and a head-­whack to get a grip on himself. Must be the aftermath of the highway accident, he thought. Crashes always gave him the heebie-­jeebies, and seeing that girl, so vulnerable and alone in her silent bubble, shook him up hard. It was the same with Liam; he’d always been his younger brother’s connection to the outside world. Lara had been Liam’s safety net, but he was the one who dared his brother to run and ride, to get tattoos and race dirt bikes. He couldn’t stand seeing Liam isolated and left to himself. And Liam had loved following after Patrick as he climbed the tallest trees and rode the wildest horses, making sure no rules were broken in the process.