It's a Wonderful Fireman: A Bachelor Firemen Novella (The Bachelor Firemen of San Gabriel) (9 page)

“Brody
recruited
you?” Fred and Vader exchanged incredulous glances.

“I suppose.”

“That never happens. Guys pull out all the stops to get assigned here. Brody’s a legend around here. If he likes you, you’re in.” Vader’s strong-boned face held no hint of envy, just genuine respect. “You’re a lucky dude, Mulligan.”

Mulligan didn’t know what to say, since he’d never considered himself very lucky. Lucky to be alive, maybe. But the sincere awe of the other firemen chased away some of the bad feelings from this morning. Nothing like some ego strokes to fluff him back up.

“All right, enough of the love fest. Come on, let’s get you a locker.”

Captain Stone showed him into the apparatus bay and pointed him to a locker. Mulligan liked lockers; they reminded him of his baseball career. He unpacked his duffel bag of stuff that he liked to keep with him. Extra change of clothes. His lucky baseball from his very first hit as a professional player. A photo of Bruiser, his golden retriever. Bruiser had followed him from one minor league team to another, until finally Mulligan had found him a home at a nice farm. He still visited Bruiser when he was anywhere near Sacramento.

Once he’d gotten his locker squared away, he wandered down the corridor to the training room, where he met Sabina, the most gorgeous woman he’d ever seen. Her turquoise eyes flicked over him, then moved on without a spark of interest.

Damn.

He knew his looks weren’t to every woman’s taste, with his broken nose and tough-guy attitude. But most girls gave him at least a second look. It was humbling, to say the least.

Captain Stone gestured to him. “I have to talk to the training officer before he starts the session. Captain Brody’s on his way in. Why don’t you go meet him out front and say hello. He wants to touch base with you on a few things.”

“Sure, Cap.”

On his way out of the training room, he glanced at Sabina again, in case she noticed his departure. Nope. He might as well be a block of cheese for all she cared.

Smarting from that rejection, he walked down the corridor that led to the apparatus bay. By the time he reached it, he realized he’d gone the wrong direction, and either had to go back through the dorms or exit the building and walk around to the front entrance. Deciding he’d rather not look like an idiot, he walked outside into the bright sunshine, then across the lawn, past the geranium-filled planters, to the front door.

The door had a pane of glass laced with chicken wire. Automatically, he glanced through it, then stopped just in time before turning the knob. A man stood with his back to the door, facing off with three firefighters in the small reception room. All three had their arms raised in the air. He recognized Captain Brody, but not the other two, one younger, the other a higher-ranking officer. The intruder held a weapon of some kind—Mulligan couldn’t see clearly through the murky glass—along with a semiautomatic slung over his back. He was yelling something Mulligan couldn’t quite hear. Every time he waved the gun, the younger fireman flinched.

Mulligan calculated quickly. If he opened the door, he could jump the guy from the back. But he might get off a shot before he reached him, or the sound of the door might tip him off. He backed away, as quickly and quietly as possible, and then pelted toward the apparatus bay.

He dialed 911 and explained the situation. The dispatcher told him to stay away from the standoff and wait for the police to arrive.

“He looks unstable,” Mulligan said as he stepped inside the deserted apparatus bay. “That gun might go off at any moment.”

“We’re on our way. Ten minutes at the most.”

Ten minutes?
“If he hears sirens, he might shoot.”

“Repeat, do not engage with the situation.”

Mulligan hung up. He didn’t want to argue anymore, and his gut was screaming at him that waiting wasn’t an option. He ran to his locker and grabbed his lucky baseball. He’d always been known for his accurate arm, and from one end of the reception area to the other wasn’t even half the distance from first to home. He slipped off his shoes to make as little noise as possible, then loped down the corridor to the hallway that led to the reception area. A quick glance at the training room showed him that everyone was listening intently to the counterterrorism expert.

Ironic, when you thought about it. Which he didn’t, since he gave himself no time to think. Instead he motored down the hallway, plastered himself against the wall, and pushed the hallway door open with his foot. The man looked over, his gun still aimed at the other firefighters. In one swift motion, Mulligan took aim, reared back, and nailed the most important throw of his life.

The baseball hit the armed man square in the forehead, jerking his head backward. He kept a grip on his weapon, which Mulligan didn’t have time to identify. “Down,” he yelled, as he launched himself through the air.

But Brody and the higher-up were more used to giving orders, and they both dove at the intruder too. He was crazed, yelling and kicking—Mulligan would put money on some kind of drugs being involved. Brody wrestled the gun out of his death grip, and the other firefighter got him in a headlock. Mulligan sat on his legs to keep him from kicking.

A stream of Spanish curse words poured from the mouth of the higher-up, who wore a name badge that read Chief Renteria. Brody didn’t swear, just got the job done with his usual intense, Zen-like focus. He disarmed the rifle, then turned the man onto his stomach and took possession of his semiautomatic.

“Any other weapons?” he asked the man.

Mulligan had already scanned him from head to toe. “Check his boots.”

The intruder started yelling again.

“Shut the fuck up!” Renteria yelled back. But Mulligan knew there wasn’t much point in yelling at someone in that state of mind. He hauled back and socked him in the jaw, hard enough to knock him out. Quiet descended.

Renteria sat back on his heels, his bronzed, Aztec warrior face coated with sweat. “Who the hell are you?” he demanded.

Mulligan, still straddling the intruder’s legs, stuck out his hand. “Dean Mulligan, sir. New topman on Truck 1, C shift.”

“I had a feeling we’d be glad we hired you,” said Brody, wiping an arm across his forehead. “Sergeant, you okay over there?” he called to the kid behind the desk.

“Yes, sir.” The young fireman’s voice shook.

“That was a hell of a throw,” said Renteria. “Looked like a missile shooting through the air.”

“I played in the minors for a while.”

“Dean Mulligan is a man of many surprises,” said Brody. “He reads smoke like an old-timer. How’d you know what was going on in here?”

“Lost my way, was about to come in the front door. Called 911. The police told me to wait, but . . .” He trailed off. Maybe explaining to your superior officers that you’d disobeyed orders wasn’t the best thing to do on your first day at work.

The sirens sounded as several police cars screeched to a stop at the curb outside. Brody gave a dry laugh. “I see. Little problem with authority?”

“It’s been mentioned.”

Renteria extracted himself from the tangle and stood up. “I think you’ve earned yourself some leeway. That guy was about to go off like a rocket. You did the right thing. But I want to keep this story out of the news. Public confidence and all that.”

Mulligan thought Renteria was probably embarrassed, but he didn’t argue the point.

“I’ve got nothing to say to the media, sir.”

“Good man.” He went to open the door for the police, while Brody and Mulligan stood up and dusted themselves off. The young sergeant joined them. He handed Mulligan his lucky baseball.

“Can we keep this as a souvenir? We can put it in the glass display case with other items of historical interest.”

Mulligan was about to say “Hell no,” but he didn’t. Maybe it was time his lucky baseball got a permanent home. Maybe it would be a good omen for his new life as a San Gabriel firefighter. “Sure, why not? It isn’t going to Cooperstown, that’s for sure.”

“Cooperstown’s loss, San Gabriel’s gain,” said Captain Brody. “Welcome to Station 1.”

Chapter Six

M
ULLIGAN SNAPPED BACK
to his Under the Mistletoe predicament.

“Lizzie, I can’t believe you made me relive that one,” he grumbled. “What was the point? I get it, if I hadn’t been there that day, that crazy bastard might have fired on the crew.
My
crew. You’re right. I’m glad I was there, Mulligan being crazy Mulligan. I’m glad I joined Station 1, and I love those guys. They’d probably say the same thing. That’s what you want me to admit, right?”

No answer.

“Lizzie?” he whispered, the bottom dropping out of his stomach.

No one was there. Of course no one was there. Because he was trapped in Under the Mistletoe.
Alone.
Lizzie wasn’t here, and neither was anyone else. Again, he tried to shove the bulky tree off his body, but it was far too heavy and he’d lost so much strength. The air inside the shop vibrated with dust. Something had changed. Something must have collapsed. He didn’t hear any other PASS devices, but that could be either good or bad, or simply that the sound wouldn’t travel from there to here.

Of course they’d be trying to rescue him. Not because he’d saved their asses from that gunman, but because he was a fellow firefighter, a fellow
San Gabriel
firefighter. At Station 1, he’d found his brothers, and he knew they wouldn’t leave him behind. Not if they could help it.

Yeah, that was the catch. No one ever wanted to abandon a fellow firefighter in trouble, but if a rescue mission put more people in danger, the IC might call off the effort.

He started to give a holler. If they knew for sure that he was alive, that might change the calculus. Then he snapped his mouth shut. Did he want to put others at risk for his sake? The other firefighters had families. Wives. Children. He had . . . a hopeless passion for Lizzie Breen, who deserved so much better.

Keep your mouth shut
, he told himself. Better to go out in the line of duty than all the other ways he could have gone. Beaten by his stepfather. Sucked into drugs like his mother. Gang crossfire. Bonked in the head with a baseball. So many potential fates could have claimed him. This particular end wasn’t too bad.

“You haven’t been listening to a word I’ve said, have you?” Dream Lizzie spoke so close to his ear that he jumped.

“You’re back!” A goofy grin spread across his face. He spoke out loud, his voice roughened by smoke and dust.

“Yes, because you’re so thickheaded.” She flicked him on the skull, and he could swear he actually felt the sensation.

“You know, Lizzie, with all these magical powers of yours, couldn’t you figure out a way to get this tree off me?”

“I’m not magical.” She leaned over him, her merry little face upside down over his, her dark hair sweeping against her cheeks.

“Yes, you are. I mean . . . not just now. You always have been magical. To me.”

A smile curved her lips. “Why, Dean Mulligan, that might be the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.”

“If I get out of here, I’m going to say so many nice things to you you’ll be blushing twenty-four hours a day.”

She blushed then, her vivid face filling with color. “Does that mean you want to get out of here? A minute ago you didn’t seem so sure.”

He inhaled a lungful of dusty, smoky air and began hacking helplessly. When he was done, she was staring at him with a worried look.

“I guess I’m selfish,” he admitted. “I do want to get out of here. I want you, Lizzie. I want to see you again, the real you. And then there’s the San Gabriel crew. I want to get back to them. They need me. I didn’t really see it that way before, but they do.”

“And what about me? Don’t you think I need you?”

He thought about that. “You have your family. All your friends.”

“But they aren’t you,” she said softly, lowering her cheek so it pressed next to his, her mouth close to his ear. “No one’s ever made me feel the way you do.”

His heart raced, because he could say the same thing, a million times over. “Is that so?”

“You know it is. Have you forgotten our first time?”

“I haven’t forgotten.”

“I think you’ve forgotten.”

“I could never forget. After all those weeks of dancing around each other, I was as hard for you as this tree.”

She laughed softly, warm breath fanning his cheek, and damn, it felt so real he wanted to cry. Of course it couldn’t be real; he still wore his face mask. No one was touching his cheek. “Then prove it, Mulligan. Survive this, and come back to me. I never gave up on you, so you better not give up on yourself. Promise me, Mulligan.”

He shook his head ruefully. “You sure are something. You’re a lot tougher than you look, aren’t you, Lizzie?”

“Yes, I’m pretty tough.” Her lashes lowered against the flushed curve of her cheekbones. “Tough enough to handle the maximum-strength, full-throttle, one-hundred-percent Dean Mulligan experience.” She brushed her lips against his jaw, the same spot Real Lizzie loved to nuzzle. A kiss, then another, the soft touches landing like airy, illusory snowflakes.

He laughed, almost painfully, because those imaginary kisses were making him remember that first time—and more. “I guess you got that, all right.”

F
RED
B
REEN AND
Rachel Kessler held their Thanksgiving engagement party in the penthouse suite of San Gabriel’s priciest apartment building. Mulligan whistled as he rode the silent, perfectly oiled cherrywood elevator to the top floor. So this was the kind of lifestyle Rachel was used to. Even though she and Fred now lived in his house, this had been her apartment before her father reclaimed it.

When the elevator doors slid open, Mulligan walked into a luxurious apartment packed with San Gabriel firefighters, all of them clean and showered, and most of them wearing ties. They gawked at the spectacular panoramic view from the floor-to-ceiling picture windows and held their bottles of beer with care so as not to spill on the immaculate, plush carpet.

Mulligan had dressed for the occasion too, in a tailored suit and electric blue silk tie. He’d bought the suit during his baseball years, for the occasional charity event. A small bedroom near the entrance had been opened up as a coatroom. He ducked in to drop his coat on the pile on the bed, and compose himself before facing the crowds. Or rather . . . facing Lizzie. Of course she would be here, and he hadn’t seen her since last Saturday night, but he’d been thinking about her nonstop.