Love Inspired December 2014 - Box Set 2 of 2: Her Holiday Family\Sugar Plum Season\Her Cowboy Hero\Small-Town Fireman (64 page)

Dylan had always felt God calling him to Gordon Falls; he'd just gotten very good at “mishearing” the message. “So you're sure the bakeshop—or breakfast place, or whatever you're going to call it—is where God wants you to be, huh?”

“Absolutely.” That indescribable kindle of energy returned to her eyes at the mere mention of the shop. The same spark that had drawn him in when she made the first latte for him.

He told himself it was fun to watch a friend on the brink of what they were born to do. Maybe it would energize him in the process. “What are you going to call it? The new place, I mean?”

“Rooster's.”

That wasn't what he was expecting. “Rooster's?”

“You know, like the bird that crows. Roosters are leaders—they're the ones launching the day, calling everyone else to get up and get going.” The fatigue melted off her body as she spoke with animation and began waving her hands about. “They're colorful and a bit cocky and absolutely necessary to a farm's success. I think God had fun when He made roosters. My customers are going to be the world's roosters, and I'm going to help them launch their day.” She had every detail of her place vividly fixed in her imagination; he could see it all over her face.

“I suppose I don't need to ask if you have a logo?” She smiled, and Dylan knew somewhere in that massively organized notebook of hers she probably had four. “Will you show me someday?”

“Maybe.”

Emily arrived with two heaping plates of simple scrambled eggs and toast. Dylan was grateful for the hot breakfast and the strong coffee. “Simple pleasures.” He looked up at her. “Or don't you think so?”

“No, I like a good egg as much as the next person. But nothing I serve will be ordinary. Everything's going to have a unique flair, something creative.”

“Want me to say grace?”

“Sure.”

Normally, Dylan was in the habit of taking hands across a table for grace, but that wasn't a smart idea in this case. Not only would it give the gossips of Karl's Koffee loads to talk about, but Dylan knew from his time on the boat with her that there was nothing ordinary in touching Karla. That energy of hers zinged into him whenever they had contact. Holding hands felt like a giant leap into a place he absolutely shouldn't go.

He said a quick, awkward and rather distracted grace, grateful for the smile she gave him when they dug into their eggs. He didn't know much about himself lately, but he was pretty certain he wasn't a rooster. Not anymore.

Chapter Nine

T
he guys sat around the firehouse table a few days later, tossing back root beers and throwing around ideas to decorate Dylan's boat for the parade down the river. “I can't stop using the boat, so the decorations will have to be something we can make here and then attach the night before.” Fond as he was of the parade idea, he wasn't in a position to sacrifice any potential charters just so that his boat could play dress-up.

“You said we're leading the parade, right? It's gonna have to be really good.” Jesse Sykes looked around the table. “Guys, this is way out of our league.”

“Charlotte's got that kind of skill,” suggested Yorky, one of the older members of the department and one with a particularly soft spot for Jesse's girlfriend. “And she works in the store with all that crafty stuff. Won't she help us out?”

“I'm sure she will,” Jessie replied, “and I can take care of a lot of the structural part.” When he wasn't at the firehouse, Jesse had a home construction and renovation business. “But we still need a decent idea.”

“What color is a 150th wedding anniversary? You know, like silver, gold, that sort of thing?” Wally asked.

Chad Owens, the fire inspector who just happened to be in the room, laughed from behind Dylan. “Your average married couple does not get to a 150th anniversary, Wally. You'd have to live to be 170.”

“Oh, yeah, right. Well, you oughta know.” Chad was younger than Yorky, for that matter, but his seriousness earned him a bit of an “old man” reputation around the firehouse. It made Dylan wonder how he'd ever won the heart of someone so youthful and energetic as his wife, Jeannie, who ran the town's confectionary. Talk about a case of opposites attracting...

“What if we turned it into a log cabin like the old resort that used to be in town.” Jesse leaned in. “You know, the one Chief Bradens's father-in-law ran?”

“Oh, and what if we could rig it so that paper flames came out the window,” Wally added, getting excited. “And then we could pump water from the river and spray everyone as we pretended to put out the fire.”

“That'd be dramatic,” Yorky said with a bit of skepticism. “And complicated.”

“Not really,” countered Jesse, who had a flair for both the dramatic and the complicated. Dylan swallowed hard at the thought of his beloved boat being encased in fake logs and engulfed in paper flames. Then again, if the floats were a competition, how could something like that lose? “Actually,” Jesse continued, “it wouldn't be hard at all. We could rig the flames with some filmy fabric in just the right colors and a few well-placed fans. It'd be epic, actually.”

“Epic,” Dylan echoed. “Don't people usually use that word in front of the noun
disaster
?”

Jesse frowned. “Pay no attention to Mr. Wet Blanket over there. We'll respect your watercraft, McDonald. And it will be
epic
in the best sense of the word.”

“Definitely,” Wally chimed in. Even Yorky looked as if he'd go for it.

Dylan looked over at Chad, who could usually be counted upon to bring a note of caution to any plan, but even he had a hint of a smile. “We'd be sure to win. No one else could come close to an idea like that.” Would Chad be so quick to endorse all this if the plan involved that truck he loved so much?

Then again, Dylan sighed, hadn't he just bemoaned his loss of fun to God in his morning prayer time? Maybe the answer involved a step out of his comfort zone like this—as long as the business didn't suffer.

“Everyone will be expecting us to trick the
High Tide
out to look like a fire truck—you know they will. This will be so much better.” Jesse had already grabbed a sheet of paper from the shelf behind him and started sketching.

“We'd have to swear Charlotte and Abby to secrecy on the flame part,” Chad advised. Dylan thought swearing Abby Reed to secrecy on anything was a sketchy proposition. Only Chad's wife, Jeannie, was Abby's best friend, so if anyone had the leverage to silence Abby, it would be the Owenses.

Jesse's pen was flying furiously over the paper. “The fact that we'd have to build it here and install it the night before just makes the surprise that much easier to pull off. I tell you, it's perfect.”

Dylan wiped his hands down his face and tried not to panic at the notion that every part of his life was being pulled into this crazy event. “Well...”

“Come on.” Wally stared at him. “This is brilliant. You're the chair of this thing—it'd look bad if you didn't have the best float.”

Dylan had a last-minute reservation hit him. “It'll look rigged if we win, won't it?”

Jesse sat back in his chair. “Not if we deserve it. And believe me, we will.” He gave Dylan a sideways look. “It will be awesome publicity for your business. And you need a project. You've got too much free time, dude.” Jesse stopped just short of saying “You're a brokenhearted brood who needs his time occupied,” but the tone of voice implied it loud and clear.

The free time crack wasn't true—at least not anymore. “Are you kidding? This thing is eating up every free moment I have. I never wanted to run this little circus—you know that.” Perhaps it was best Chief Bradens wasn't in the room, or Dylan might have been tempted to direct that last line straight at him. Some days the chief's ideas of “personal development” on the part of his firefighters was a bit hard to take.

“Yeah, but the company is so pleasant.” Jesse waggled his eyebrows.

“Not you three.”

“No, your cochair. Cocaptain. Whatever you and Karla Kennedy are.”

Dylan fought the urge to kick Jesse under the table, because now eyebrows were waggling all around. “Oh, yeah, her,” and other such teasing comments rumbled around the table for an infuriating moment before Dylan stood up. “I think we're done here.”

“Touchy, are we?” Yorky's smile was genuine but still annoying. “She's nice.”

“She's going back to Chicago at the end of the summer.” Dylan thought that comment would end the discussion, but as soon as the words left his mouth, he realized that simply implied that he and Karla had talked about it. Which wasn't true, but no one would believe it now even if he did deny it.

“End of summer's a long way away,” Wally said. “She's kind of cute, if you like dark hair.”

“And good coffee,” Yorky added. “She made me some fancy drink the other day that was delicious. A ‘macarooni' something.”

Dylan laughed. “A macchiato?”

Yorky pointed a finger. “Yeah, that. Couldn't believe how much I liked it. Now, I wouldn't drink one every day—” his chest puffed up “—but it was my birthday and she offered to make me something special with my doughnut.”

A chorus of “aww”s rang around the table. Yorky was a big guy but as soft as they came. He'd gotten his name from the tiny, delicate Yorkshire terrier his wife had bought. The husky fireman adored the little yippy thing but would never admit it. That made the third fireman Karla had won over this week. “Keep that up and we're going to have to ask Chief to put in one of those fancy espresso machines in the kitchen.”

“Not on your life,” came Chief Bradens's voice from the doorway. “This is a root beer firehouse, and that is not open to negotiation.” Gordon Falls had a company that made outstanding root beer, and thanks to a close call with some burning equipment a decade ago, the firehouse had a continual free supply of the soda pop. The GFVFD drank root beer, period—no other soft drink was permitted. The only change to that decade-old setup had been the addition of diet root beer at JJ Cushman's request.

“I like going over to Karl's anyway.” Jesse folded up his notes and tucked them in his shirt pocket. “I'd get tired of looking at your ugly mugs over coffee every day.”

The group broke up, the meeting's goal evidently achieved, although Dylan couldn't remember actually saying “yes” to the grand scheme.

Jesse caught up with him in the hallway. “Hey, you are okay with all this, aren't you?”

Dylan was pleased someone even bothered to ask. “I suppose so. If you build it. I need that boat to live through the night, you know?”

“Not to worry, pal. I'll keep her safe.” After a second he added, “You said business was going okay. That still true?” Jesse was in the beginning stages of launching his own home renovation business, so they had often talked shop.

“It's—” Dylan reached for the right word “—tight. The Coffee Catch thing is helping to perk up business—pun intended.”

Jesse shook his head. “I know those loan payment schedules can keep a guy up at night. Your plan is solid. I know that, you know that. As a matter of fact, I was thinking about getting the guys to go in together on a charter to celebrate the chief's birthday next month.”

Dylan was glad to hear that. He'd secretly worried that his friends and coworkers would pitch for free fishing trips now that he had all the equipment. Someday he could do things like that, but certainly not now. Just this morning he said a prayer of thanks that the Gordon Falls Community Church Knitting Circle had booked their own trip for this Wednesday—something about trying out hooks other than crochet hooks. “I think Chief Bradens would get a kick out of that.”

“Shoot me an email with the dates you have open after the anniversary celebration is over. Coffee Catch included, of course.”

Dylan grinned. “Of course.”

Jesse's wide grin turned rather conspiratorial and he bumped a shoulder with Dylan as they walked down the hall. “So, how's it really going with your cochair?”

“What's that supposed to mean?”

“It's been nearly a week since you took her out fishing and I've yet to hear the details. How'd it go?”

Dylan didn't like where this was heading. “Everyone knows the details. She caught a huge fish.”

Jesse bumped his shoulder again. “I'm talking about the other part. You know...the spending time out on the water with a clever, beautiful woman part.”

Dylan stopped walking. “Oh, no, you don't. I'm not getting into this with you.”

“That's fine by me, as long as you get into it with
her
. She's perfect for you. You know that, don't you?”

It was time to shut this down. “Look, this is not happening. She is not perfect for me, and even if she was, I'm pretty sure she isn't interested.”

“Could have fooled me. I heard about the two of you having breakfast at Karl's.”

An irritating little voice yelled “I told you so!” from the back of Dylan's brain. “Eating eggs with a member of the opposite sex does not constitute the launch of a romantic entanglement. As a matter of fact, it was a committee chair meeting.”

Jesse shrugged. “Yorky said she looked entangled.”

“Why is Yorky—why is anyone, for that matter— watching me eat breakfast?” Dylan yanked the boat parade float sign-up sheet down from the firehouse bulletin board. He stared his friend straight in the eye, giving his words all the weight he could muster. “I am not her type. When you hear her talk about her plans for a snazzy city life, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to see she's looking for a shirt-and-tie guy. And that is not me.”

It would have been nice if that shut Jesse up, but Dylan wasn't that fortunate. “Did the lady actually say that, or is that just Yvonne whispering in your ear?”

Some days Jesse's pushy nature was a useful trait. Today wasn't one of them. “Knock it off, Sykes. Now.” He stuffed the sign-up sheet in his pocket and stomped out of the building before he had to listen to any more of his friend's nonsense.

* * *

Sunday afternoon, Karla spread the document she'd printed out from the Clifton on the kitchen table in the flat above Karl's. Dad had come over after church to fix the medicine cabinet hinge. He walked into the kitchen as he wiped the grease from his hands, stared over her shoulder. “So this is the program, huh?”

“A year stint at Perk. I can hardly wait. Dad, you should see the equipment they have there. The espresso machine alone costs more than my car.”

Dad scanned the long list of bullet points outlining her responsibilities. “Sounds like a meal ticket. Any hotel in the world would hire you after this.”

Her father still wasn't sold on the idea of her going into business for herself quite so soon. She knew her father recognized the apprenticeship at Perk for the prime opportunity it was, but she also realized he liked it even more as a stopgap to her moving forward with Rooster's.

“I don't want to work at a hotel, Dad. Rooster's is still my future. This will just be a fabulous stepping stone. I can look at spaces and get things set up while I'm working at Perk.”

“When are you going to tell Grandpa?”

Karla leaned back in her chair and sighed. That was the real question, wasn't it? “Soon.”

Dad sat down at the table. “He still thinks you're staying the whole summer, and this job starts in three weeks. You can't keep it from him for much longer.”

“It'll make him so sad. He talks to me like I'm going to be here forever.”

“I know.” Her Dad had once been the target of Grandpa's “work at Karl's” pressure campaign. She never really thought she'd find herself in those shoes. “But that should be his problem, not yours. I have faith you'll find a way to tell him that won't hurt too much.”

Karla wasn't so sure that was true. The wedge Dad's refusal had driven between him and Grandpa was still there, and it had been years. If the next generation of Kennedys inflicted the same wound, Karla was sure it would hurt even more. And that's what made this so hard. She fingered the papers. “This is what I'm supposed to do. I'm glad to help out here and all, but it's not my future. The Perk internship just proves to me that God is lining things up for me to launch Rooster's someday.”