Safe From the Fire (4 page)

“I
am happy,” Grace said uncertainly, and Adam let it slide.

Grace
sighed.

“Look,
why don’t you stay here and get settled.  I have to get back to work.  There’s
a new club opening tonight just off Main Street – ”

“An
actual club?  In Bright’s Ferry?”

“That’s
what I hear,” said Grace with a smile, “Anyway, I thought we could check it out
if you’re interested.  Should be some good bands.”

Adam
grinned.  His sister’s passion for garage bands was unchanged.  No matter how
terrible the music, she liked sticking up for the little guy or girl and
supporting anyone who was passionate about their art.

“Sounds
like a plan,” he said.

UNDER
NORMAL CIRCUMSTANCES, MATT would have been ashamed to have Rafael find him
punching the shit out of one of the hundred-pound grain sacks they used for
training behind the fire station later that afternoon.  He’d considered using a
rescue dummy, but that seemed too much like hitting a real person.  There was a
perfectly good punching bag inside, but Matt wanted some privacy to let off the
anger and frustration he’d been holding in like a grenade waiting to explode.

His
dark-haired friend raised an eyebrow as he came around the corner to see him on
his knees, pummeling the innocent sack into the ground, curses streaming from
his lips.

Matt
barely noticed him.  He had jerked off his shirt and sweat rivulets ran through
the dusting of grain that coated his skin and dusted his hair.  The air was
hazy – at some point the bag had split, and a cloud of grain dust rose, crazy
motes swirling around him.

“Matt?”

Rafael
placed a hand on his shoulder and nearly got a fist in the face as Matt whirled
around, rage in his eyes.

“Whoa,
Matt.  I think you won,” he exclaimed, hands up, stumbling back.

Matt
jerked back, horrified, and then slumped to his knees, taking stock of the
ripped sack and the puddle of grain.  His knuckles had split as well, Matt
noticed absently.

“Sorry,
man,” he muttered, catching his breath as the anger ebbed out of him.

“What
brought this on?  Tell Mama everything,” Rafael coaxed, soothing.

“I
asked Grace out.”

Rafael’s
eyes widened.

“No
shit?”

“Full
of shit is more like it.  As in me.  She turned me down.”

“That’s
insane.  Did she say why?”

“Does
it matter why?  Maybe there is no why.”

Rafael
reached down to offer his friend a hand up.

“I’ve
got three sisters, man,” he said, “Trust me, there’s always a why.  If it were
me, I’d ask her.”

Matt
reached for the broom against the wall to start cleaning up his mess.

“If
it were you, I think Brian would probably be pissed that you didn’t tell him
you were secretly straight.”

Rafael
grinned and moved to help him clean up.  He’d been in a steady relationship
with the local butcher for the last five years.  Of course, the guy looked more
like a cover model than a man who spent half his day up to his elbows in cow
parts.

Fifteen
minutes later, they walked into the rec room and four pairs of curious eyes
took in his disheveled appearance and split knuckles.  Veteran firefighters
Gordon March and Syd McCull didn’t comment, but went back to their chess game. 
The department had been sorely lacking in women firefighters for the last few
years, and the place was starting to look and sound a little too much like a
frat house for Matt’s liking.

Matt
beelined for the First Aid cabinet on the wall, ignoring the cackles of
laughter from Lance Young and Jackson Dupar.

“Heard
Grace Mallow shot you down,” offered Jackson with a grin.

“Is
that what’s got your panties in a bunch?” added Lance in his exaggerated
Southern drawl.  He was from Virginia, but the man always sounded like an extra
from
Gone With the Wind.

Matt
didn’t reply, but started cleaning his knuckles, savoring the sting of the
alcohol as he worked to get the grit out.

“Leave
him alone, guys,” ordered Rafael.

“You’re
better off, Harris,” continued Lance, apparently unaware that he was seconds
away from having his intestines removed through his nostrils, “Don’t you know
the girl is some sort of witchy sexual deviant?  I heard she likes to cut the
heads off of live roosters and have orgies in the blood.”

“I
heard you’ve been talking out of your ass for so long, you don’t know which end
to wipe,” offered Syd, prompting guffaws from the rest.

Matt
seethed, but finished patching up his hand with jerky movements.

“Seriously,
man,” said Jackson, “Ever seen her at the clubs across the bay?”

He
whistled.

“A
girl dresses like that, you can be sure she’s asking for something freaky from
any guy that comes along.”

Matt
wasn’t aware of moving, but one second he was standing there, a red haze
creeping over his vision, and the next he had Jackson on the floor, an arm to
his windpipe.  He could hear shouts, feel Rafael pulling at his shoulders, but
the fear and shock in the downed man’s face was really what pulled him back
from the edge.

“Don’t
– ” Matt gritted out, “don’t fucking talk about her that way.”

“I’m
sorry,” wheezed Jackson, terrified.

“See? 
He’s sorry.  Let him go,” urged Rafael.

“He’s
not worth it, son,” advised Gordon, watching the situation carefully.

“Don’t
talk about her
at all,
” Matt said, pressing down ever so slightly. 

Jackson
nodded frantically as best he could, and Matt abruptly let him go.  Jackson scuttled
backward like a terrified crab, clutching his throat.

“You’re
fucking crazy, man.”

Matt
left Rafael to smooth things over and didn’t even feel bad about it.  Right now
he just wanted to stand in the shower and let the hot water wash away the grime,
and maybe while he was in there, he’d scrub hard enough to get Grace Mallow out
from under his skin.

Fat
fucking chance.

GRACE
COULD FEEL HER blood singing as she stepped past the bouncer into the club.  God,
she loved this.  For such a little space, the new owners had done a great job,
and the room pulsed with music, lights, and people that crowded the bar and the
dance floor.  A live band rocked out onstage.  Grace scanned the crowd – there
were a few locals, but most of them looked like transplants from several of the
small towns across the bay, which wasn’t terribly surprising.  Unless you
wanted to make the trek to Boston, you had to put up with running into the same
people over and over again.

“Can
I get you a drink?” Adam asked, shouting over the music.

Grace
was startled for a second, but then she laughed.

“I
keep forgetting that you’re over twenty-one.”

“By
a couple of months now,” replied Adam with that pride that only just-twenty-one-year-olds
seem to have.

“I’d
love one,” Grace said, smiling, but had to swallow back tears as her brother
fished through a nearly empty wallet, checking its contents.

Casually,
she tugged a credit card from a tight pocket.

“Why
don’t you just start a tab?  You can pay me back later.”

She
spoke lightly, but Adam gave her a wry smile that threatened to unravel her on
the spot.  He hesitated for just a moment, and then took the card from her.

“I
don’t want to know where you pulled that from,” he said, looking her over, “Can
I get you a sweater on the side?”

Grace
chuckled as her brother scowled at the tight black jeans and the strapless
black leather corset that left a sliver of midriff bare and actually gave her
cleavage.  A velvet choker with a pearl skull cameo wrapped around her neck and
stiletto boots gave her a few extra inches, and she’d left her hair down.

“You’re
not going to tell me I don’t look fantastic.”

Adam
just rolled his eyes.

“Anything
but beer, right?”

He
turned toward the bar, but Grace grabbed his arm.

“Wait,
Adam.  You’re okay with this, right?  I don’t want you to feel overwhelmed or –
”

“I’m
fine, Gracie,” he replied impatiently, “What, you think one night at a club is
going to turn me back into a crazed pyromaniac?”

“No,
of course not.  But – God, Adam, you just dropped in out of nowhere.  I don’t
know who you are anymore.  You’re going to have to give just a little.”

Adam
sighed and took her shoulders, leaning down to look into her eyes.

“I
know that.  But you can’t swoop in like a Mama Bear over every little thing,
okay?”

Grace
nodded, willing her anxiety away.  He was right, and they were here to have
fun.  Matt’s hurt expression flitted through her head and she rolled her
shoulders to ease the tension.

He’s
better off.  You know he is.
  The thought brought no comfort.

“Go
dance,” Adam said, “I’ll be right there.”

He
turned her around and pointed her in the direction of the dance floor.  Grace
spotted a few familiar faces in the crowd and headed in their direction,
letting the music wash over her.

ADAM
IMMEDIATELY RECOGNIZED THE short young man with the shock of red hair as he
exited the men’s room.  Even if he hadn’t, he would have been hard to miss,
since he and what had to be an older brother were blocking the hallway back to
the main club floor.  The two were in the middle of a heated argument as Adam
approached, awkwardly wondering how to get around them.

“It’s
a half-assed job if I say it’s a half-assed job, Russell!  You can’t expect me
to keep sending you out if I’m going to get a call from the client every time
saying you did a shitty job!”

“I
said I’d take care of it!”

“You
always say that!”

The
older sibling, who couldn’t be more than thirty, ran fingers through his
already thinning red hair and paused to catch a breath.

“Excuse
me,” muttered Adam, trying to be invisible.

The
two men obligingly moved, but “Russell” got a look at Adam’s face and his red
eyebrows went up.

“Adam
Mallow?  Son of a bitch!”

Adam
found himself grabbed in a manly hug.  He managed to extricate himself, smiling
warily.

“Russell
Lansky, remember?  Hey Darryl, this guy used to be the smartest guy in class.”

“Hi,
Russell.”

Adam
wasn’t sure he deserved Russell’s enthusiastic greeting.  He remembered Russell
as a hyper-active kid, too busy chasing girls and trying to survive the
wrestling team to concentrate on his schoolwork.  They’d been friends in
passing, but never really hung out.

“So,
you’re back in town?” asked Darryl, a little cool.

“Yeah,
that’s the idea.  I’m going to stay with my sister for a while.”

“That’s
awesome, bro,” said Russell, “We should hang.”

“Sure. 
You’re working construction?”

“Yeah,
Pops retired couple of years back and Darryl and me’ve been keeping the place
running.”

Adam
nodded.  Lansky Construction had been in business for decades, and were a
favorite of Dreyer Morton, who looked at Bright’s Ferry as his own little model
town, putting up and tearing down buildings at will.

“I’d
better get back.  I promised Grace I’d get her a drink.”

“Don’t
take this the wrong way, bro, but your sister…” Russell whistled, shaking his
head, “Too hot for me, that’s for sure.”

“Yeah,
you remember that,” Adam retorted, with a hint of steel in his voice.

He
bumped fists with Russell and moved past Darryl, who was still watching him
with a disapproving look on his face.  Darryl’s reaction was pretty much what
Adam expected, but he was pleasantly surprised to find that not everyone saw
his homecoming as a complete disaster.

Ten
minutes later, he weaved his way out to the dance floor, carrying a beer and a
mojito, which Grace accepted happily, and then dragged him out to dance.

THE
CLUB NEXT DOOR
would work in his favor
, he thought.  He’d seen Adam Mallow and his
sister enter the building an hour ago, and realized that the situation couldn’t
be more perfect.  At the diner this morning, he’d been surprised to see that the
young man was back in town – the Mallow boy had been wild and uncontrollable,
and the three houses he’d torched left the town shaken and enraged.

He
was going to do worse than Adam Mallow ever had, but it couldn’t be helped.

Edging
along the alley that separated the club from the closed restaurant, he pulled
out a pair of wire cutters and a lighter. He’d only have a minute or two to set
the blaze before the Fire Department was on its way, but he knew what he was
doing.