Blaze (The Firefighters of Darling Bay Book 1) (3 page)

Sam grabbed Grace by the arm she was still rubbing from the punching. “March.” 

“Hey.” 

“To the fire station.” 

Grace felt like a mule digging in her heels and pulling backward. “No way.” 

“It’s that or I call 911.” 

“I don’t know what’s worse.” 

“Walk.” 

Samantha had that look in her eye, the one Grace had always recognized as the one she wasn’t going to get around. She’d had that look before she bought her first motorcycle. And when she’d insisted on following a drummer across the country to Maine. Luckily, she’d had that look a few weeks into rehab, too. Grace loved that her little sister was as stubborn—no, more—than she was. 

It was unfortunate in situations like this, though. For every thought she’d had about the handsome and exceedingly annoying firefighter since their encounter, she didn’t feel ready for another one so soon.

CHAPTER FOUR

There was nothing better than standing outside with a bowl of ice cream on a warm summer night at the firehouse, watching women go by in workout gear. The guys were inside rolling dice for who would have to do the dishes. Tox was immune since he’d done them last night. 

Three scoops in his bowl, one coffee, one peanut butter, one chocolate. He’d added about four pounds of hot fudge and a metric ton of caramel, just to even the score. Hank had taken one look at it and said, “You’re an idiot.” 

“
You
are.” It had been the only appropriate answer, really. 

“Where’s your whipped cream? Where’s the cherry? Where’re the nuts?” 

Tox said, “This is a snack, not a sundae, and I got all the nuts I need. Wanna see ’em?” 

“You don’t know anything about dessert.” Hank reached for the door of the freezer. 

Now, outside, his mouth full of ice cream, he watched with appreciation the two women doing a jog-walk down the sidewalk. For some reason, this street saw a lot of exercise activity. All the runner-MILFs liked to run down Lowry. Some of them stopped at the bench in front to “stretch.” More than one firefighter had nabbed a hose bunny under the flagpole, but Tox had never been desperate like that. He wasn’t the type for relationships. 

He kind of sucked at them, that was the truth. And he hated doing things he wasn’t good at. Okay, sex he was good at, or at least he’d been told that often enough he kind of believed it. He tried his best, that was for sure, and he liked trying. He just wasn’t good at the rest of it.

Fine by him. If he had a girlfriend waiting for his call, he wouldn’t be able to ogle without guilt, and the two women walking at a fast trot were enough to slow his spoon. 

The one in front, who appeared to be dragging the other by the arm was a leggy brunette who looked familiar. She got more so the closer she got. The one behind her—the one with the huge brown eyes wearing a black running skirt—was the woman from earlier. The Rowe sisters, Samantha and Grace. 

Now, what were the odds of
that
? 

Tox set the bowl of ice cream on the bench. “Ladies.” 

“She’s having a heart attack.” 

His adrenaline pumped. He’d expected flirting. Not another medical. 

“I am not,” said Grace. “I just had trouble catching my breath for a second. Now I’m fine.” 

“Sit,” he said. She looked fine—well, she was a little pale. She didn’t seem to be wheezing, though. “Here, on the grass.” 

“I’m totally serious. I’m fine. I don’t want or need medical attention. Samantha overreacts.” But Grace sat, folding her compact, well-shaped legs carefully under her. Samantha flopped on the grass next to her.

“You have that inhaler on you?” 

Grace shook her head, and her messy ponytail flopped back and forth. “I don’t need it. You know Samantha, right? Samantha, this is Tox.” 

He ignored the reintroduction for a moment and reached in his pocket where he’d already stashed his other inhaler. “Here. Use mine.” 

Grace pulled in her lips and shook her head again. 

“Use it,” said Samantha. “Or I’ll make bacon and grits every morning for the next week and eat it in front of you.”

“Jeez.” Grace accepted it from him. She lifted the edge of her black tank top and wiped off the mouthpiece. 

He folded his arms and looked down at her. Jeez, she was a cute little thing. “Cooties all gone?”

She folded her lips around the inhaler and sucked. Her color looked better within seconds.

“She’s careful about germs.” 

Tox nodded. “Immunocompromised?” She didn’t look sick, other than pale, but you never knew. 

“No!” gasped Grace, releasing her breath. “It’s just healthier to avoid them as much as possible. You never know where something’s been.” She passed the inhaler back to him. Their fingertips touched. 

“Like I said. Cooties. You know it’s actually better for your immune system to deal with germs and battle them off, right?” 

She tilted her head. “Some say that, and I can see the worth in that argument. But I work with immunocompromised people all the time, so I try to stay healthy. And I really don’t know where your lips have been.” 

He grinned. She obviously didn’t realize how her sentence would sound until it was out of her mouth, and the look on her face was hilarious: two parts shocked, one part amused. Tox could look at her a while. 

He finally turned to Samantha. “Hey. I wasn’t ignoring you, I was just paying attention to the patient. You look great. I’d heard you were back in town.” 

Samantha bounced to her feet and hugged him. Of course she did. California girls. Back in Boston, where he’d grown up, people didn’t just hug willy-nilly. People here, though—he’d been at parties where, after being introduced to a perfect stranger, he’d been squeezed. Who
did
that? 

Sam’s hug was friendly. She smelled like the same soap he’d smelled on Grace earlier. But on Grace, it had been different. Sweeter, somehow. Deeper. For a second, he kind of wished he was hugging Grace instead. 

“You okay now?” he said to Grace. “Do I need to pull out another form for you to sign, refusing medical attention?” 

She jerked her chin up, obviously not realizing he was teasing her. Her eyes appeared amber in the dusk light. “I’ll sign it. No problem.” 

“I’m only—” Tox broke off as—out of nowhere—a man barreled toward him full-tilt. “What the—”

“Help!” The man, with an infant swaddled in blue cradled against his chest, ran barefoot toward Tox. “My baby! Help me, please,
help
!” When he reached Tox, he thrust out the baby like hot potato. Reflexively, Tox caught the child. 

No. Not again.

CHAPTER FIVE

Grace watched, astonished, as a terrified-looking man practically threw a small baby into Tox’s arms. 

Tox took one look down at the child. “Samantha, run as fast as you can to the side parking lot and grab the big black medical bag on the seat of the engine. You got that?” He looked at Grace. “You, go in the side door and yell, as loud as you can,
Infant code blue
.” 

Grace ran as fast as she could, her sister running the other way. She opened the door and found herself in a dark hallway, then she found an interior door and pulled. 

“Infant code blue!” she yelled. She choked and yelled it again. Not seeing anyone, she ran farther into the fire station, down a short hall where matching yellow coats hung on high hooks. Coughing in terror, and wondered if she should just scream the high, thin scream that was threatening the back of her throat. “
Infant code blue!
”

She heard boots hit the floor. Two men were at her side, bags in hand. Apparently they were the magic words. 

“Where?” 

Grace pointed with a shaking finger. “Front. Outside.” 

She followed on their heels. The one who had been with Tox earlier, the man he’d called Coin yelled over his shoulder, “Is it your baby? Girl or boy? Age?” 

“Not mine,” she gasped. 

Outside, Tox knelt on the grass. The father hovered over him, and Samantha was standing a few feet away, her hand over her mouth. 

Coin said, “Sir, I need you to back up a few steps so we can work, okay? How old is your son?” 

“Three months. But he was a preemie. My wife called 911, but I thought it would be faster to run here.” 

On the blanket, the child was rigid, his eyes open and glassy, his jaw gritted, his fingers flexed. 

Grace was pretty sure he wasn’t breathing. 

“For the love of Pete,” spat Tox. “What if we’d been out on a call?” He did something with the baby’s neck as Coin inserted a plastic mouthpiece into a clear bag. “Has he been feverish?”

The father looked as if he were watching his worst nightmare come true in front of his eyes. “Yeah. We’ve been giving him baby acetaminophen—did that cause it?” 

Tox shook his head as he tilted the baby’s chin. “No.” But he didn’t reassure the man, either. He just spoke quickly, words that Grace didn’t understand, instructing what each firefighter should do. “Febrile seizure. Postictal. Compressions if he doesn’t breathe in about twenty seconds.” 

The other two firefighters nodded, their hands full, poised to act on Tox’s command.

Grace watched, holding her breath in her chest. Tox’s hands were so big, so wide, and yet his touch was almost delicate, the way he lowered his head to put his ear next to the baby’s mouth. No cars passed. Even the birds were silent, as if everyone was waiting. 

“He’s got air.” Tox’s voice was professional, unshaken. The baby gave a strange, small gasp, and then took another one. Color flooded back into his face—he went mottled blue and red, and then turned an unholy plum color. 

Coin said to the father, “He’ll be fine.” 

Grace forgot to look at the father’s face—she was too busy staring at Tox’s. 

There was no one else in his world at that moment. She had the feeling that if a car exploded or a meteor crashed behind them right now, the other firefighters would scramble to do what had to be done, but Tox—he wouldn’t move. He wouldn’t stop what he was doing—hooking up what looked like oxygen to the baby’s nose with the smallest piece of plastic. Who made that plastic? Who could possibly be responsible for manufacturing plastic for inserting into tiny children’s noses like that? Tox looked enormous, hunched over the child, but his huge fingers looked unbelievably gentle touching the baby’s nose. Earlier, when she’d seen him at her clinic, he’d moved as if he were caged, constantly rocking on his heels, pushing his fist into his palm, as if energy was roiling under his skin. Now, he was still. Contained. Almost peaceful looking. 

An ambulance had pulled out of the garage and already had the back doors standing open. A female firefighter said, “Sir? Do you want to ride with us in the back?” 

The man nodded numbly. 

Tox appeared reluctant to hand the child to the woman. A pretty woman with a short blond bob, she smiled at him encouragingly. “Come on, Tox.” 

Tox handed over the baby and turned to the father. “Name?” 

The father jumped and touched his chest. “Me? John Murray.” 

Tox shook his head impatiently. “Baby.” 

“Johnny. His name is Johnny.” 

A smile crossed Tox’s face, and Grace noticed small lines at the corners of his eyes. “Great name. Strong little guy you have there.” 

Relief wreathed the man’s expression. He launched himself at Tox in a hug. Tox went completely rigid, but then he gave the man a light pat on the back. 

The man turned in a circle, distributing thanks as he went, before leaping into the back of the ambulance. Grace smiled and nodded back at him—she couldn’t help it, even though she’d done nothing except run inside and yell for help. 

Tox turned his back on them, gathering gear off the lawn. A firefighter Grace hadn’t seen before said something about the Angel of Death being vanquished. Tox’s mouth twisted, but then he gave what sounded like a grudging laugh, his relief audible. 

Samantha tapped Grace on the elbow. “We should probably go,” she whispered. 

Grace jumped. “What? Yeah.” 

Samantha was all eyes and pale skin. She’d never done that well around medical problems. When their mother was sick, Sam had been great at dealing with doctors, leaving Grace to take physical care of their mother. It had been a good, fair division of labor. 

Now Grace put her arm around Samantha’s shoulders. “You ready to finish our walk?” 

Sam’s eyes got bigger. “Really? We have to do that?” 

Tox turned to face them. He’d gone back to looking like he had caffeine in his blood. His posture was rigid. Ready. “Just walk down to the breakwater and get a cinnamon roll at Josie’s Bakery Or a sundae at Skip’s.” 

Sam grabbed Grace’s hand. “Skip’s Peanutter Blast.”

Grace shook her head. “No way. We’re out here being healthy.” 

“Screw that. You see that baby?” Tox pointed at the ambulance pulling on to the street. “You never know in life. You might get hit by a car on the walk home.” 

“Cheery thought.” 

“Have ice cream first.” He looked down at his hands, hands that had just been cradling a tiny life. “You won’t regret it.” 

It was surprisingly sweet, coming from the man who seemed to have no soft edges. Grace felt herself melting like the ice cream still in the bowl Tox had put on the bench. 

“Yeah,” she said. “Come on, Sam. Peanutter Blast it is.” 

As they walked away, Grace could almost feel his gaze on her back. She tuned out Samantha’s chatter for a moment and steeled herself to look behind her. To meet those sea-green eyes. To see if doing so would make her heart skip again in that strange rhythm she didn’t really enjoy. 

She pulled her head high and pretended to look up in the sky, as if a plane were flying low overhead. Then she turned to look at him. 

He was gone.

CHAPTER SIX

The next day in dispatch, Lexie gave Tox a rash of abuse. After ten minutes of good-natured ribbing, Tox said, “Come on. It’s not like I was gonna adopt the kid.”