Blaze (The Firefighters of Darling Bay Book 1) (2 page)

“Ma’am, we always recommend—”

“Ma’am? Really? I’m thirty-three.” 

Tox ground the pen he held against his palm. “Ms. Rowe, we always recommend that our patients see a doctor. They can give you the medical advice that out here in the field we’re not equipped to give.” 

She was a ball of energy, practically bouncing on her toes. “What do you think is wrong with me?” 

“You inhaled superheated gas. Your lungs should be checked.” 

“My lungs are fine.” 

He tilted his head. If he had to argue with someone today, at least she was prettier than the normal octogenarians who called them. “You’re probably dying.” 

Her mouth dropped open. “I bet you’re not supposed to say that to your patients.” 

“Normally they’re too deaf to hear me say it.” 

“Now you’re being mean just for fun.”

Tox felt his mouth twitch but he wouldn’t allow the smile. “We should just take you to the hospital.” 

“No, thank you.” 

“You’ll need to sign that you’re not going, against our medical advice.” 

“Gimme a pen.” She reached out her hand as if she were going to take the one he was writing with right out of his hand. 

He closed his fingers tighter around it. “Look, I’m all for not transporting you. I’d like nothing more than to get back to the firehouse where Coin just finished burning the popcorn. We have the Maple-Bruns fight ready to go on the DVR. But I’m not kidding. You’re lungs aren’t something you want to mess around with.” 

“How much does the ride in your little lights-and-siren box cost?” 

Tox raised a shoulder. “I don’t send the bills, but your insurance should cover it.” 

“What if I didn’t have insurance?” 

Tox couldn’t hide the surprise in his voice. “Huh. You seem like someone who’d be covered.” 

“What does that mean?” 

“I mean you have all your teeth, and you’re not obviously on meth. You appear to have good hygiene.” She had very good hygiene, in fact. She smelled annoyingly sweet under the smoke, like flowers and soap and something he wanted to move toward. He didn’t like the feeling. 

The small smile that had almost started on her face disappeared. “So you’re profiling your patients now?” 

“Hard not to sometimes.” 

“Really. In Darling Bay? Huge crackhead problem here?” 

“You should see the guys in the inland flats. Those guys have pit bulls for a reason.” Why was he teasing her like this? Something about it was fun. Exciting. 

“Seriously?” 

He leaned against the light post. Through the window into her office, Coin and Hank gave him the all-clear signal. “You probably have a pit bull, too.” 

She looked angry enough to spit hypodermic needles. “No, but I have a sister who’s had a problem with drugs, as well as a mother who lived in those inland flats. And I like pit bulls. You’re kind of pushing all my buttons right now.” 

“Your mother’s a crackhead?” He couldn’t help it. Teasing her was too fun. Something about this girl was getting under his skin and he didn’t know if he wanted to make her laugh or make her slap him. 

“She’s dead.” 

“Oh.” Tox looked at his worn boots. “I’m sorry about that.” 

“She didn’t have insurance. Pretty hard, taking care of a person dying of cancer when no doctor will return your calls. Some people have to prioritize eating.” There was a glossy sheen to those big brown eyes, but it didn’t look like sadness to Tox. It looked more like fighting-mad. “Some people don’t have the luxury of working a job where they get to sit around in recliners and watch TV all night, every night.” 

“Hey, now.” The woman didn’t need to start pushing his buttons. 

“I’ve driven past the station. I can see that blue glow. Must be nice to have a job where the taxpayers pay for your insurance. We little people have to buy our own.” 

Oh, now she’d done it. One of his least favorite topics. “I’m a taxpayer, too, you know. Everyone always forgets that. I’m paying my own wages—my own insurance—out of my own pocket.” 

“That’s a ridiculous argument. And by the way, I asked you what would happen if I didn’t have insurance. I do have it, in fact. I just choose to trust Eastern medicine more than the hospital you want to take me to.” 

Tox got out the paperwork. “Here. Fill in this top part, if you really don’t want to get checked out. I still think you should. Sign here.” He yelled at Bonnie Maddern on the ambulance, just pulling up, that they could cancel. Bonnie thumped the outside of her door in understanding. 

Grace scribbled on the page, her handwriting furious and choppy. She looked up at him with those huge eyes. Her long lashes curled ridiculously. Did she do something to them to make them do that? She didn’t seem to be wearing any other makeup. 

She clicked the pen closed with a flourish. “I don’t think you’re representing your company very well, Mr. Whatever-Your-Name-Is.” 

“Department.” Specificity mattered. “I’m not representing the Darling Bay Fire Department very well. And I’m Tox.” 

“I thought it was protect and serve.” 

Oh, he’d protect and serve her, all right. This time he felt his mouth quirk into the smile he was trying to prevent, and he couldn’t—seriously, he couldn’t—prevent his gaze from dropping to the top of her flower-printed blouse. “You know, it’s not the first time I’ve ever heard that complaint.” 

“I’m not surprised. Can I go back in?”

He glanced at Coin, who nodded. “All clear.” 

“My patients, too?” 

“Sure. If they want to.” 

She spun on the heel of her ugly clog which would have decreased her attractiveness by a multiple of ten if Tox hadn’t found himself suddenly strangely aroused by plain black leather. She shouldered her way past Coin, muttering something about smoke damage. An older woman with needles in her forearms followed. 

Coin shouldered his axe. “If she thinks that’s smoke damage? My ex-wife did more damage frying blackened catfish than that little bit of smoke she’s got in there.” 

Tox frowned. “You set up the blower?”

“Yeah, it didn’t even take three minutes to send it out the back door. TIC’s clear.” Coin said, referencing the thermal imaging camera they used to make sure fire hadn’t spread elsewhere in the building. 

“She’s not taking a ride with us.” 

Coin signaled Hank and headed across the grass toward the engine. “That’s not smart. That cough sounded like something that should get checked. And she fainted.” 

“Yeah, well.”

“Ain’t she some doctor? She should know better, right?” Coin swung himself up to the driver’s seat. 

“A doctor who does voodoo with needles?” Tox said. “Not likely.” 

Behind them, Hank jumped on board. “You know, Lexie in dispatch swears by that stuff.” 

Coin started the engine. “Let’s hit it.”

“Hold up,” said Tox. 

“What?” Coin released the air brake. 

“I just…Wait, that’s all. I’ll just be a second.” 

Inside the clinic, the air still smelled faintly of burnt electrical wiring, but he barely noticed. Grace was yanking those tiny little needles out of the old guy’s face. Tox winced. 

She dropped the needles in a sharps container and turned to face him. “Not done harassing me about my insurance?” 

He shook his head. For reasons he couldn’t explain, he handed her the albuterol inhaler he’d brought inside.

“What’s this?” 

“Use it if you feel short of breath. And seriously, if you have any pain at all, you have to go see someone. Lung infections aren’t to be messed with.” 

Her eyes softened a little. “You gonna send me a bill for this, too?” 

“No.” 

“Then, why…?” 

Gruffly, he said, “Just use it if you have to. It’ll make me feel better.” 

She gave a small quick smile. One that he wanted to see more of. “Well. Thank you. Now, if you don’t mind, I have to see to Mrs. Little.” 

He raised his eyebrows in salute—it was really all he could manage. Something about Grace Rowe tangled his tongue and his brain-waves at the same time. 

As he walked back toward the truck, he touched his side pocket. He’d have to remember to replace his inhaler with his extra when they got back to the station. He didn’t want to forget. 

But if thinking about her would remind him, he’d be sure to remember. He wasn’t going to forget her any time soon.

CHAPTER THREE

Grace groaned and rubbed her belly. Her sister Samantha had taken on many professions since she turned eighteen, from truck-stop waitress to exotic dancer, from well-driller to—astonishingly—legal secretary, but in Grace’s estimation, the best job her sister had ever had was the stint she took as a cook at a small diner in southern Tennessee a few years back. No one knew how to cook bacon crisper or fry chicken greasier. Nothing Samantha made was healthy, but that was something they were working on. Okay, that was something Grace was working on, at least. 

“That was amazing. What do you even call that?” 

“Hush-puppy-corn-fritter-sausage casserole. Or as I say, Mash’n’Smash.” 

“You know this is Northern California, right? You could get arrested for that in seven counties.” 

Samantha’s eyebrows jumped. “Really?”

Grace held up her hands. “Teasing. That’s all.” Crap. It wasn’t ever smart to joke about arrests of any kind in front of Samantha. You’d think she’d remember once in a while. “It tastes amazing. I wonder how we could make it a little more heart-healthy?”

Samantha laughed and untied her apron. “I can tell you exactly—substitute spinach and quinoa for all the ingredients, and then curl up in a ball and weep from hunger pains.” She cleared their plates from the table. 

Grace stood, trying to grab one of the plates back. “No, for once, can I do the dishes in my own house?” 

Samantha shook her head. “We talked about that. It’s my job.” 

“This isn’t your job. I want you to live here.” 

“I’ve always made my own way. You know that.” Samantha looked at her hands as she ran the hot water into the sink. “If I could contribute, I’d feel better. If I could just find a dang job.” 

“What about that thing you were doing, editing college applications?” 

“Pays next to nothing. And I swear they just write whatever I tell them to. But yeah, I do have a little money to give you.” 

“That’s not what I meant.” 

“I know,” said Samantha sharply. “It’s what I meant.” 

Grace didn’t need her sister’s money. There was a time when, heartbreakingly, she hadn’t been able to do a single thing to help her sister. Now that Sam was clean, now that she was trying so hard, Grace wanted to fix everything for her, to make everything all right. 

“Later.” Grace shut off the water. 

“Why are you coughing like that?” 

She cleared her throat. “I’m not. Come on.” 

“What are we doing?”

“Change into your workout clothes. We’re going for a run.” 

Sam gave her a look of horror. “Are you out of your ever-lovin’ mind? I will blow chunks from here to the harbor. Did you see what we just ate?”

“That’s exactly why we’re going for a run. I don’t want us to die of a cardiovascular thingie anytime soon.” A run would be good, a run that might or might not include passing in front of the fire station. 

Samantha pulled a rubber band out of the junk drawer and pulled up her long, brown, gorgeous hair. No matter what, Sam’s hair always looked amazing, thick and wavy, even just rolling right out of bed. Grace, on the other hand, knew that now, by the end of the day, her hair was wild in all the places it wasn’t flat. 

Sam handed a second rubber band to Grace. “Fine. If by run you mean jog.” 

“Girl, I think I might mean walk fast.” Grace patted her overly-f stomach again. “I have no more interest in losing my dinner than you do.”

They fast-walked down Lowry Avenue on their way to the marina right past the fire station. Part of her wanted nothing more than to pass in front and peer inside. Sometimes, when she’d walked by before, she’d noticed the firefighters in the kitchen through a screened window. It looked so homey that once she’d stopped in her tracks, staring inside at the man at the stove, stirring a huge pot billowing white steam. Another guy had stood at the center island chopping something she couldn’t identify. A third man laughed while rock music filtered out the screen. 

Grace wondered now if one of them had been Tox. 

Certainly it hadn’t been the laughing one. 

“Let’s go down Clackman Street instead.” 

“Why?” Sam’s ponytail swung. She was walking faster than Grace wanted to, which was a little galling. 

“Change of pace.” 

“But I want to go past the fire station,” said Samantha. “Maybe we’ll see the guys working out.” 

“Exactly what I don’t want to do,” said Grace under her rather short breath. 

“What’s wrong with you? Are you wheezing?”

“I’m fine.” 

Sam put out a hand and slowed Grace down. “No, wait. You’re not. You’re flushed and your breathing sounds funny. Oh, jeez, are you having a heart attack?” 

Grace leaned forward and put her hands on her thighs. Maybe she should have brought that inhaler Tox had given her. She hadn’t even thought of it. “I’m not having a heart attack.” 

“You are. You totally are. I’m calling 911.” She fished around in the front of her bra for her phone—that was another thing they didn’t have in common—Sam had enough rack to hold a cell phone, whereas Grace couldn’t have hidden a tissue in hers without it being obvious. 

“Over my dead body will you call 911.” Grace took a careful breath. Her upper lungs felt tight, but it didn’t hurt, and the pain was what Tox had warned her about, right? “I’ve already done that once today.” 

Samantha punched her in the arm. “What? For this?” 

“Ow. Why did you do that?” 

“Because we just ate dinner and you didn’t mention a word about an emergency? Are you dying? Do you have lung cancer?” 

“Jeez, Sam. No, I just had a little fire at the clinic.” 

“Little fire?” Samantha’s voice was almost a shriek. “Are you serious?” 

“Just in the air conditioning. I might have inhaled a little smoke. Oh, and maybe I passed out. But only for a second.”