Charming the Firefighter (3 page)

“Yes, I’ve completely lost any and all memories from the past thirteen years,” she said drily. “Look, Neil and I both made mistakes. It’s not forgetting. It’s forgiveness.”

He couldn’t believe someone as smart and self-assured as Maddie was willing to put herself in the same situation she’d been in at sixteen. Loving Neil Pettit. Trusting him to be there for her and Breanne, their twelve-year-old daughter.

“Maybe I’m not in a forgiving mood,” Leo said.

“You don’t have to be. Neil didn’t ask for your forgiveness. And if you don’t stop acting like such a jerk, Neil, Bree and I will be forced to skip these family get-togethers.”

“Blackmail, Maddie? That’s beneath you.”

She nodded, not looking the least bit guilty. “And you acting like some overprotective brother is getting old. It’s awkward and irritating to listen to your snide remarks and put-downs to Neil every time we get together. Don’t think Bree hasn’t noticed, too. Or that it doesn’t bother her.”

Leo’s shoulders wanted to hunch so he jerked them back. But he couldn’t stop himself from glancing toward the deck, the last place he’d seen Bree. She was still there, her chubby legs curled under her as she read a book, the sun glinting off her short cap of dark hair.

Though many, many women had fallen hard for him, there were only three he could truly say he’d ever loved. His mother and his sister were near the top of that list. But the number-one spot was held by the only female who’d ever had him wrapped around her little finger.

His niece, Breanne.

Ever since he’d held her as a red, squalling newborn, he’d been hooked. He’d been eighteen and she’d been his first in many ways—first baby he’d ever held. First bottle-feeding and diaper change. First time losing his heart.

He’d do anything for her.

Too bad she didn’t need him any longer. She had her father back in her life.

For now.

“Do you really think Neil’s going to stay this time?” Leo asked harshly. “Just because he’s stuck it out this long doesn’t mean he won’t change his mind or take off again.”

It had been over a year since Neil and Maddie had reconciled, but nothing had really changed. Neil still played professional hockey. Sure, he’d recently been traded to the Blue Jackets, but they were based in Columbus—a three-hour drive from Shady Grove.

“I know he’s going to stick,” Maddie said.

Leo shook his head sadly. “I feel sorry for you for believing that.”

Her eyes got all squinty. Never a good sign. Swear to God, if she hit him again, he was dumping her crazy ass in the pool. Luckily, she kept her hands at her sides.

“I trust him and what we have,” she said. “Neil and I are together and we’re going to stay together so I suggest you grow up and get over this stupid, adolescent rivalry or whatever it is you have with him. Or be prepared to lose me and Bree.”

She stomped off, headed directly to Neil and into his arms. He kissed the top of her head.

Leo wanted to punch something himself.

“He abandons her and Bree,” Leo muttered when James joined him, “and I’m the one she socks in the jaw?”

“Quit whining,” James said. “It’s a scratch.”

Leo jabbed a finger at his injury. “Does this look like a scratch?”

“Yes. Rub some dirt on it and we’ll start another game. Get some of our pride back.”

“Easy for you to say.” Leo carefully ran his tongue over his bottom lip, wincing when he reached the gash at the corner. He bent and retrieved his T-shirt from the grass. “You’re not the one bleeding.”

“You deserved it.”

Leo snagged James’s water bottle and took a drink. Swished it around his mouth while Eddie joined them.

Leo spat onto the grass. “Deserved to be viciously attacked?” Eddie rolled his eyes. Leo narrowed his own. “You have something to say?”

“It was a foul,” Eddie said, like some freaking Zen master brushing aside Leo’s dark scowl and low growl with his own calm expression and quiet tone. “Not a mugging.”

Leo’s free hand fisted. “Who asked you?”

“What are you?” James muttered. “Thirteen?”

Eddie’s mouth turned down, his shoulders rigid. Maybe not so Zen, after all. “You asked, you idiot.”

Stepping between them as he had so many times in their lives, James made a tsking sound. “Name calling.” He faced Eddie, tossed him the ball. “Just walk away. You know this isn’t about you.”

“Maybe not,” Eddie said, “but he’s obviously jonesing for an ass-kicking. I’m happy to oblige.”

Leo shifted to the left, but so did James. He peered around James’s shoulder. “You want to go, Eddie?”

“That really something you want to do in front of Max and Cassidy?” James asked Eddie.

Eddie glanced at Max, who sat cross-legged on the grass raptly watching the unfolding scene, one small, grubby hand petting Zoe, James’s German shepherd/husky mix, the other holding a dripping red Popsicle.

“Cass is in the pool with Harper,” Eddie said, the latter being his girlfriend, Cassidy her three-year-old daughter. He spoke in his usual irritatingly slow way, as if thinking through each word before letting it out of his mouth. “And I could always send Max into the house for a few minutes.”

Max scrambled to his knees, and the action had Zoe jumping to her feet as well. “You always send me somewhere when you fight with Uncle Leo. Why can’t I watch?”

“Because you’ll lose respect for your uncle when you see him cry.”

Leo stepped forward. “We’ll see who ends up crying.”

Though he was honest enough with himself to admit there was a chance it would be him. Eddie was built like a tank, had fists like bricks, and could take a sock to the nose and keep coming at you.

Without so much as a glance Leo’s way, James slapped the back of his hand on Leo’s chest, stopping him in his tracks. “I’ll talk to him,” he said to Eddie. “See what bug is up his butt.”

Frowning, Leo glanced at Max. “Did I suddenly turn invisible?”

Wide-eyed, his dark hair in a newly minted Mohawk, his mouth stained red, the boy shook his head. “I can still see you.”

With one of his laconic shrugs, Eddie turned and walked away.

Leo sneered. “Wuss.”

James sighed, and before Leo could evade, wrapped his arm around Leo’s neck and squeezed. Hard. “Let’s chat.”

Leo struggled, but it was no use. James may have been the poster boy for mild-mannered good guy, but he knew how to put a headlock on someone and make it stick.

“James,” their mother said in the exasperated tone she’d perfected raising four children—Leo figured it was the teen years that had done her in, “what are you doing?”

James turned, dragging Leo along. Leo raised his head as much as possible to see Rose staring at them from her vantage point on the deck, her hand shielding her eyes from the sun. A small crowd had gathered around her, including James’s wife, Sadie; Sadie’s sister, Charlotte Ellison; and Breanne.

“Just going to have a heart-to-heart with Leo,” James said, sounding way too cheerful for the situation.

Then again, if their positions were reversed, Leo would be feeling pretty damned chipper himself.

“You,” Leo spat out as James sent their audience a jaunty wave, “are a dead man.”

James whirled them around, forcing Leo to scramble for balance or wind up on his knees. With his free hand, James gave Leo a noogie. “Actually, I’ve never felt more alive.”

As if to prove it, he started whistling and didn’t stop until they turned the corner behind the garage.

Leo shoved James, stumbling when his brother’s arm suddenly loosened. “What the hell is your problem?”

“My problem? You’re the one going all rogue on the basketball court. Far as I can tell, I just saved you from getting your fat head beat in.”

“I can handle Eddie.”

“I wasn’t talking about Eddie.”

“Neil won’t do anything.” That was the problem. No matter how much Leo baited the other man, he never lost control.

“Neil’s not the one I was talking about, either. Maddie’s pretty pissed at you.”

Leo twisted the lid onto his empty water bottle. Untwisted it. “She’ll get over it.”

She couldn’t stay mad at him. No one, especially not anyone female, ever could.

“You’ve been acting weird ever since you got here,” James said, watching Leo carefully. “What’s going on?”

He began to pace, but couldn’t rid himself of the edginess riding him like some howling monkey. “Nothing’s going on.”

Christ, couldn’t a guy have an off day? Just because he wasn’t all charm and humor didn’t mean something was wrong.

“Charlotte was telling me and Sadie about that car accident on Langmaid Lane last night. The one involving those two college girls.”

Leo’s stomach pitched. The water he drank threatened to come back up. His brother’s tone was neutral, his expression clear, as if they were discussing something as irrelevant as the Steelers’ chances of making the playoffs this year.

“She mentioned how upset she was, how upset everyone in the E.R. was that they lost the driver.”

A cold sweat formed between Leo’s shoulder blades. He pulled his shirt on, but still felt chilled. Sick with unnamed emotion. With regret. “Char’s an E.R. nurse. She understands they sometimes lose a patient.”

As a firefighter and EMT, Leo knew that as well.

But knowing it sure as hell didn’t make it any easier to accept.

“She said you were at the scene of the accident,” James continued, drilling for information, trying to get inside Leo’s head, inside his thoughts. Wanting Leo to spill his guts—as if that would do any of them any good. “First one there, actually. And you stayed with the victim the entire time.”

Leo’s hands shook. He curled his fingers, once again hearing the crackle of plastic from the water bottle while his nails dug into his other palm until he felt the bite of pain.
Victim
. That’s all she was to James. All she’d be to most people who would read about the single-car accident in tomorrow’s edition of the
Shady Grove Times.
A faceless victim. A tragedy.

“She had a name,” Leo managed to say, his voice hoarse. He cleared his throat. “Sam. Her name was Sam.”

Samantha Coles. She’d been young, barely twenty-two, her cheeks still holding the softness of youth. When he and his partner had arrived on scene, she’d been trapped, the front of her crumpled car wedging her between the steering wheel and her seat. Leo had assessed her injuries, and kept her calm while the rest of the team had worked to free her.

Blood had stained her clothes, her brown hair. Her face had been bruised, her body cut and broken. But her green eyes had been clear. Through it all—the horrible noise and her own pain—she’d kept calm.

Had trusted him to help her. Had believed him when he’d said she’d be okay. That he’d save her.

“I wasn’t with her the entire time,” he continued, his voice strained, though he fought to sound casual. “Once we brought her to the hospital, the E.R. staff took over.”

“Charlotte also mentioned that when you heard Sam hadn’t made it, you punched the wall.”

Leo opened and closed his fist. It still ached.

There had been no censure in James’s tone, no judgment. Only compassion and pity.

And that was even worse.

“You ever see someone die?” Leo asked quietly, knowing the answer before James shook his head. “I have. More than a few. It gets to you sometimes, but you deal with it. Compartmentalize it and move on to the next case, the next person who needs help.”

It was what he did, what he lived for. It was what made him different from his siblings—carpenters, all three. What made him who he was.

James clapped a hand on Leo’s shoulder. “Want to talk about it?”

Hell, no. What good would talking do? It wouldn’t turn back time so that they reached Sam and her friend earlier. Wouldn’t stop Sam from checking her phone or taking that curve too fast. Wouldn’t bring her back to life.

No, rehashing it wouldn’t do anyone any good. Least of all Leo.

“Can’t,” Leo said, stepping back so James’s hand fell to his side. “I need to get home and grab a shower before I go to the station. Tell Mom and Dad I had to leave for work, would you?”

Without waiting for James’s response, Leo walked away, kept his stride unhurried and relaxed, though he wanted to run, wanted to escape as quickly as he could before James tried more psychobabble crap. Or worse, dragged a few family members in on his attempt to get Leo to open up to them, tell them all his thoughts and feelings.

A young woman had died last night. He’d witnessed it. How the hell did they think he felt?

He passed Maddie’s truck and pulled his keys from the front pocket of his cargo shorts. The only reason he’d even come to the picnic was because he hadn’t wanted to be stuck at his place alone with his thoughts and memories. He’d figured being surrounded by people and conversation, laughter and food, would help settle the unease rolling through him, the tension, the feeling that, while he’d done all he could for Samantha, he should have found a way to do more.

He slid behind the wheel of his car, turned on the ignition. And wished he’d stayed home.

* * *

W
HEN
A
NDREW
BOUNDED
down the stairs, Penelope was sitting at the dining-room table. His hair was still damp and curling at the ends, a tiny piece of toilet paper stuck to a cut on his chin. He’d changed into loose gray shorts and one of the clean T-shirts she’d hung in his closet, his favorite sweatshirt slung over his shoulder.

“It’s curious to me,” she said, her voice sounding surprisingly loud to her own ears, “how anxious you were to leave and yet it took you over an hour and a half to get ready.”

He gave her one of his ill-mannered shrugs. “Car keys.”

Raising her eyebrows, Penelope took off her reading glasses. “Is that a declarative comment? Or an inquiry into the keys’ whereabouts?”

“Can’t you talk like a normal person instead of a librarian?
Curious. Anxious.
And no one says
declarative.
Or
inquiry.”
He frowned and scratched his cheek. “Except for judges and lawyers and stuff.”

“Thank you for that.” She picked up her wineglass only to discover it was empty. Well, that would just not do. She leaned forward, the edge of the table digging into her sternum, the tips of her fingers grazing the bottle of chardonnay. Grunting softly, she stretched and snagged the bottle by its neck. Dragged it toward her, then waved it in her son’s general direction. “It is so enjoyable to be critiqued on my vocabulary by a child who calls everyone
dude
—including his mother—and uses the word
duh
as an answer to most questions, as well as a pithy response to any conversation someone beyond the age of twenty might attempt to have with him. Next you can educate me on the finer points of eye-rolling, sarcastic comebacks and a general disrespect for authority. It’ll be
such
a good time.”