Fire at Dawn: The Firefighters of Darling Bay 2 (2 page)

“Oh, it was the same hundred block, right?” She turned and punched some keys, her fingers flying. “Yeah, it was right next to door to the patient tonight.”

“I worked the back of that on the Charlie side.”

Her grin got wider. “So you were on Oak for the fire. Not on Ivy.”

He nodded. “And then apparently I drove right back to Oak when I heard Ivy.”

“And Tox and Hank didn’t notice.”

“They’re just dumb.”

“No, they’re not,” said Lexie.

They weren’t. They just hadn’t noticed. It was his fault—Coin was the engineer. The driver. Sure, Tox was his captain and he was supposed to navigate, but in a town like Darling Bay, with only twenty thousand residents, they mostly knew exactly where they were going. His guys trusted him.

“Was anyone home?”

“In the house we broke into? Yeah.”

Lexie laughed. “More. Don’t you dare stop there.”

“We had to break the side kitchen window in order to reach the latch for the sliding glass door.”

“Because it was locked, even though I’d told you it was open, and you weren’t wasting any more time on what silly dispatch said.”

“Mmm.” Coin didn’t want to agree, but she was right. “So we bust in. This huge dog, massive, maybe a German Shepherd mixed with Malamute, rushed us.”

“What did you do?”

“I threw a sandwich at him.”

Lexie shook her head as if she thought she’d heard him wrong. “A sandwich.”

“Yep.”

“What kind?”

“Peanut butter, pickle, and grape jelly.”

“Number one, that is disgusting and probably illegal in seven states, and number two, why did you have that in your pocket?”

“Serena came by earlier with her mother, and she’d made it special for me.”

“Because she hates her father, obviously.”

Coin knew Lexie was joking, but it still struck a small, quiet nerve. Serena loved him as any eleven-year-old girl loved her father. How long would it be until he could no longer say that? Soon she’d be in her teens and she’d hate him just like the child-rearing books said she would. It would break his heart when that happened. “Probably.”

Lexie looked chagrined. “Coin, I’m sorry. I was kidding.”

He pushed a knuckle into the tabletop. “I know. I’m just trying to prep myself for the teen years. You know I hated my father. I don’t want the same thing to happen with my daughter and me.”

“I never hated my father when I was a teenager.”

“No one ever hated Robert Tindall.” Coin had admired the district chief, though he’d only worked under him a year when he’d died. The whole town had grieved, but no one more than Lexie. She’d been on the radio when it had happened. A hoarder’s house fire on Smythe Lane. An electrical line had come down and draped itself over the chief’s rig while he was taking over incident command, but he hadn’t known it was there. When he’d touched the back door to set up his mobile radio post, he’d been electrocuted almost instantly. The guys had worked him harder than anyone they’d ever worked, abandoning the empty house and letting it burn to the ground, but they never got a rhythm back.

Lexie had dispatched it all, refusing to let anyone take her radio that night. She’d come close to not being able to come back.

But Lexie was tough. So tough. Coin had thought that night that she was braver than any of the guys on the line. Her voice hadn’t even shaken.

Now she said, “I was too busy hating my mother,” and her eyes sparkled. “Still am, as a matter of fact. More, please, about the call. And that disgusting sandwich.”

“The sandwich is a joke between Serena and me. I told her one day I’d make her a peanut butter, pickle, and jelly sandwich, just joking around, but Serena latched on to it as a thing, and now she actually likes them that way. I don’t love them—”

“Because you’re sane.”

“—but she thinks I do, so she wraps them up tight in plastic wrap and sticks them in the pockets of my work pants sometimes. I’d just found it on the way to the call.”

Lexie shook her head. “How do you not find a sandwich? In your pocket?”

“Cargo pockets. Do you know how much crap we keep in here?”

“So you’re telling me you threw the sandwich in your pocket at a German Shepherd. That’s kind of adorable.”

Coin felt his face go red. He hated it when that happened in front of Lexie. Nothing worse than a man who blushed.

CHAPTER THREE

There was really nothing cuter than a man who blushed, Lexie decided.

Sweet Coin.

“Oh, my gosh, I’m tired of sitting.” She hit the button that raised the bank of monitors—the radio, the phone, the CAD—so that she could stand and work at the same time. At least Darling Bay Fire had sprung for a new ComCen when they’d redone the station five years back. It was a small room, full of computers—six screens at each of the four terminals—but with the big window and the raised ceiling, it felt spacious enough. On the center table was a collection of colored gourds—Sue’s contribution—and in an early nod to Halloween, a plastic skull lit up and blinked next to the fax machine.

Lexie finished adjusting her work desk to the right height and leaned against it. “Okay. So who was in the house?”

“A man who was busy ignoring his dog. He didn’t know we’d broken in until we went back, after picking up our patient. He just thought the dog had been barking at squirrels.”

“Big squirrels in uniform carrying sandwiches.”

“He was pretty heated. We had to do the board-up for him.”

“You should have thrown your pickle at
him
.” Lexie bit her bottom lip to keep from giggling. “So did the little old lady approve of the crew I sent her?”

Coin shot her a sideways look. “What exactly did you say to her?”

“She wanted the handsome ones.”

Coin flexed his right arm. “Well, what can I say?”

“I told her Engine Two was out of quarters, but that I could send you guys.”

“Liar,” said Coin. “It was a Zone One call. And Tox is way better looking than Devo.”

Lexie crossed her legs under herself. “Devo is hot. But you’re better looking.”

Coin coughed, and then said, “Stop it.”

“It’s true.” Lexie tilted her head, taking a good, close look at Coin. He really could be in movies, with that hair so black it was almost blue and those dark chocolate eyes. He had heavy cheekbones and deliberate eyebrows. His jaw was firm, and he kept himself clean shaven, even going so far as to shave at night sometimes. The things she knew about these guys. “Why is your nose crooked?”

Coin touched the bridge of his nose. “Ummm.”

“No! Don’t get shy!” Coin was so quiet around some of the other dispatchers they called him Ghost behind his back. They’d see him in the hallways, and then he’d be gone, as silently as he’d come. “You’re not allowed to do that with me. We’re friends. Besides, your nose gives you a …”

“A ridiculous look?”

“A look of badness.”

Shaking his head, Coin said, “No idea what you’re talking about.”

“Like you broke it in a bar fight or something. Like you did something that gave you a bad reputation.”

“I can’t believe you don’t know how I did it.”

How had she never asked? He was her best friend, the person she talked most to. Lexie leaned forward in eagerness, drawing herself closer to him by pulling her chair along her workspace tabletop. “Tell me you dropped your Harley at ninety on a blind curve at night. Maybe while you were outrunning the cops.”

“Nope. Nothing that fast. In fact, I was standing still at the time.”

“You warded off a robber who clocked you before you decked him, and then you returned the old lady’s purse while blood ran down your chin.”

Coin’s eyes widened. “You’re gory, huh?”

“I like to imagine things.”

Rolling his chair a foot forward, Coin looked over his shoulder. In a lower voice, he said, “I was on a call. On the ladder, thirty feet up.”

“This happened at work?” Why didn’t she remember that?

“I was a rookie. I don’t think you had started yet. Anyway, it was dark. It was storming. Lightning crashed overhead.”

“Lightning and you were on a ladder? No bueno. Were you
hit
?”

“I was.”

Lexie couldn’t stop the little screech she gave. The business line rang and she made short order of it, transferring the citizen to the voice mail they wanted. Then she said, “Go on.”

“Like I was saying, I was hit.”

“You could have been
killed
. Lightning actually hit you?”

“Now, now,” Coin spread his fingers wide. “Slow your ponies. I didn’t say what hit me.”

“You’re killing me.”

“I was hit by a falling branch.”

Lexie blinked hard. “You were up in a tree?”

One nod. “I was. On a very important call.”

“Cat in a tree. You broke your nose on a
cat in a tree call
? How is it even possible that I’ve never heard this before?”

“I pay the guys cash once a month not to bring it up.”

Lexie laughed. “I almost believe you. Did you get the cat?”

“Nah. Branch hit me in the face, I stuck to the ladder like a burr, which your dad liked, when he heard about it.”

“I bet he did. He liked stubborn.”

“Once I was on the ground and bleeding everywhere, Tox told the lady who called that she and her kitten could stay up the tree till Christmas, and we weren’t coming back.”

“And now you hate cats, like every other man. Except you have a reason.”

Coin rubbed his nose. “Truth?”

“Duh.”

“I went back and got the kitten after I got off work. I climbed the tree and put it in my shirt and climbed down. Scratched my shirt to ribbons and I was bleeding when I put my feet on solid ground.”

Lexie clapped her hands. “I am so mad that I’ve never heard this.”

“No one knows that part. I don’t even know why I’m telling you.”

“Because you adore me.” She knew she was Coin’s favorite dispatcher, and he was by far her favorite firefighter, though she loved all her guys. “What did the woman say when you showed up with her kitten?”

He sighed, and the tops of his cheeks got that windburned look again. “Turned out it wasn’t hers. She’d just heard it crying up there. She didn’t even like cats.”

“What did you do with it?”

He shrugged. “You know.”

Lexie gasped. “You still have it.” She waited for a second to read his face. “You
do
. Coin Keefe, that is the cutest story I’ve ever heard.”

“Serena wanted a kitten.”

“Do not
lie
to me. She’s eleven. Your wife—”

“Ex-wife,” Coin said.

“Your ex-wife was probably barely even pregnant back then. And don’t tell me Janice wanted to keep it because I know her, too, don’t forget. It’s not like she’s the warm and cuddly type.”

“I will admit,” Coin said, “that I wanted to keep the cat. So I did.”

Lexie rested her chin on her fists again. “What did you name it?”

Coin sighed. “Nosey.”

“Come on, tell me.”

“That’s its name.”

“Oh!”

Coin rubbed his nose again self-consciously.

Lexie bent forward at the waist laughing. Sometimes she was self-conscious about how loud her laugh was, but her big laugh always made Coin laugh, too, and this time was no exception.

“I’m sorry,” she wheezed after she’d grabbed her breath back, “but that’s seriously the best name. You are the cutest guy ever.”

Coin groaned. “Great.”

“Why do you say it like that? You’re adorable.”

“No firefighter wants to be adorable.” He glared at Lexie, a dark, brooding glare that she didn’t buy for a minute.

“That’s how you get all the action, right?”

He goggled at her. “Are you kidding me?”

“You nag ‘em with your adorability.”

“I
wish
you would stop saying that.”

“Why do girls go out with you, then?”

Coin stood. “This has been fun. I’m going to go see how Luke’s getting on with dinner.”

“Don’t you go anywhere, Keefe.” Lexie felt a stirring of excitement. “I’m suddenly intrigued by your recent dating history. Why don’t you ever tell me about it? Sit.”

“You don’t tell me what to do.” He said it with a small grin. They both knew she did tell him what to do. That was her job, after all.

“Sit? Please?” Niceness wouldn’t hurt, she supposed. “I’ll make some coffee for you.”

“You make it too weak.”

“I’ll make it so that you can’t stir it at all.”

“Sounding better,” he granted, hovering next to the chair he’d just vacated.