Hot As Blazes (8 page)

“What’s with you two, anyway?” She leaned toward him and punched his arm like she used to do when they were kids. Harley had been mute on their history, as well. “A big dog pissing match?”

“He has dark tastes, and female employees are at the top of his menu.”

“Whoa, he’s my boss. Besides, I’m not into whips and chains.”

Lowering his head, he eyeballed her. “After few days in the academy, S & M will seem like light recreation. Just remember, I’m happy to provide full body massages.”

With another wink, he paddled out to catch an approaching swell. With the infinite grace of years of practice, he pushed to a crouching position, then stood for a smooth ride on a nice four-footer taking him nearly to shore.

A full body massage sounded like heaven. The fire in her belly spread and descended between her legs. Kinky with a Hemanus sounded like an opportunity of a lifetime.

* * * *

Later in the week, Jo held her breath while scanning the county’s academy web roster on her laptop. Her name appeared midway on the list. Prayer, answered, she messaged Ray and Bobby.

The morning of the written exam she inhaled a light breakfast, then sped to the training facility. A ninety-minute commute would be her daily drive for twenty-five weeks, if she passed.

The classroom barely held all applicants when their test began at eight AM sharp. Having recently graduated from college, she felt confident answering the English and math problems. Thanks to being raised by a fire captain and reviewing some of his books, she believed she aced the questions relating to firefighting.

After testing, she took opportunity to check out the physical abilities CPAT course before scheduling a time. Inside the large building, another woman stood eying the course. She looked to be mid-thirties, with spiky, blond hair. In a guy’s vocabulary, built like a brick shithouse. Jo didn’t remember seeing her during the written exam, but there were nearly forty other brains firing synapses in the large room.

“I’m Tami.” She faced Jo and extended her hand.

“Joanne. Jo for short.” She returned an equally firm grip.

“Up for a trial run?” Her new acquaintance raised a brow.

“Sure.”

They took a few minutes and ran through each evolution hoping to uncover any weakness that might cause them to fail completion within the required time.

“How about we make appointments and take the test back-to-back.” Tami’s twang sounded local born and bred.

“Sounds good, how about Thursday?” Jo hoped a few extra days of running would increase her speed and stamina.

Tami smiled. “Do or die, babe.”

She had no idea.

* * * *

The morning of the test, Jo’s phone chirped with a text from Ray.
You’re the strongest woman I know! You got this. Love you, Dahlin’!

His thoughtfulness and belief in her helped calm her nerves. One step closer to everything she desired.

At their appointed time, Tami flipped a coin to see who would run the course first. Jo lost. She’d have to compete all evolutions within the ten-minute time limit.

She donned a fifty-pound vest simulating the weight of a firefighter’s gear. After a prayer, she stepped onto the stair climber for three minutes, maintaining a pace of sixty steps-per-minute. Her legs burned with lactic acid by the time the tester blew his whistle.

Hustling seventy-five feet to the second event, she dragged a fire hose the required distance, and proceeded to the next station, the equipment carry.

One at a time, she removed two types of gas-powered saws from their bins and carried both several yards around a drum and back.

Still pumped with energy, she jogged to the ladder raise where she grasped a rung of the twenty-four foot extension ladder. Careful not to miss a rung and fail the event, she walked it up the wall, extended the fly section and lowered it in the same manner before returning to the starting position.

At the simulated forcible entry event, she swung a ten-pound sledgehammer at a mechanized device that measured cumulative force until a buzzer sounded.

Breathing hard and concerned about time, she dropped to her hands and knees at the maze and kept her shoulder to the wall of the narrow crawl space. The sixty-five foot tunnel reduced in size midway. She worked through the mild claustrophobia imagining Vic chasing her.

En route to the next event, she found her second wind and dragged a dummy weighing one hundred and sixty pounds for thirty-five feet. After rounding a barrel, she returned to the start line. Her back screamed nearly as loud as the tester did for her to advance to the final station―the breach and pull.

Nearly at a run when she grabbed a six-foot pike poll. She rammed it upward with all her might. Three times, she popped a sixty pound, hinged door. Then with the hook of the pole, she tugged on the eighty-pound device five times.

The tester yelled, motioning her out of the testing box while clicking his stopwatch. “Nine minutes, forty-five seconds.”

Her oxygen-deprived brain failed to compute.

Tami’s frantic hopping finally registered.

“Whoo! Hoo!” Jo jumped with glee. She’d only been more proud when she won the East Coast Surfing Championships. All the adversity she had faced in the past year faded to black.

She set the chronometer on her cell phone as Tami bolted from the starting line. Her new friend appeared faster in completing the events until she entered the maze. A pale Tami emerged and made up time on the dummy drag. By the time she stepped into the box and rammed the pike poll, she had less than thirty seconds.

Tami exited the evolution sucking air like a mullet.

“Time! Nine minutes, fifty seconds.”

Jo grinned and handed her a bottle of water from her backpack. “Now if we’ve passed the written exam, we’re good to go.”

Hesitantly, they approached the wall beside the exam room door and scanned the list for their identification number.

Tami found hers first. “Holy Gawd!” She let out a long whistle.

Jo sank to her knees, running her finger along the numbers with her heart pounding and tears forming in her eyes.

“Oh hell, tell me those are happy tears?” Tami knelt beside her.

Jo nodded, and pointed.

“Shit, don’t scare me like that―I need a drink.” She ran a hand through her short hair.

“Me, too.” Jo felt like a frayed wire.

Back in her truck, she texted Ray and Bobby as reality sank in. Seven months of rigorous training and studying lay before her. She turned up the radio and smiled.

Should be a picnic compared to a dirty jail cell in California.

Jo stepped into the regional fire training facility at six-forty-five AM sharp and took a seat at one of the desks. Tami arrived a few minutes later and sat next to her. Of the nearly thirty in her class, only six were women. Half of the candidates were already volunteer firefighters.

Their instructor greeted the class with the warmth of a marine drill sergeant. A couple of younger candidates sat bug-eyed and pasty-faced. Tami leaned back in her chair like no big deal. Jo compared it to her night in jail and did the same. She’d proven her innocence in California. She’d prove herself worthy as a firefighter.

After the stern initiation, they were issued books and other materials. The daily physical training would be extensive. On the fun side, she’d get a lot of fire play and she could eat her fill of food if she had energy left to pick up a fork.

Next, she and her classmates received matching sweats and tees and set outside for PT. Jo kept pace pumping out fifty push-ups, determined not to fail before veteran softball player, Tami.

After a three-mile run, she finished midway in the pack without heaving like some others. As the morning wore on, her muscles voiced their discontent.

Lunch gave them a welcome relief.

“So you live on The Banx, too?” Tami opened her mini cooler as they sat at one of the tables in the lunchroom.

“On the beach road. Next to The Post grocery.” She popped the top on her diet soda.

“Vintage. I loved those old style beach houses. Wrap around porches and window shutters.” She chewed her baloney sandwich.

“Dad inherited the place from his grandparents. Now my brother and I live there.”

“Not married then.” Tami’s hazel eyes lightened.

Jo shook her head while fiddling with her napkin.

“Some guy’s got your attention, though.”

More like her soul. “Maybe, what about you? Husband? Kids?”

“Two kids.” She sipped her water. “The old man split when they were in diapers. Mom moved in after Dad passed.”

Seemed like a hard profession for a single mom. “So, why firefighting?”

“Decent pay and benefits. Plus I’m athletic.” She pointed a chip at Jo. “Rumor floating around is your dad used to be a captain in the county and you’re a pro-surfer.”

No point in lying. She liked Tami. “Former on the pro. My big dream went bust.”

“Honey, you’re preaching to the choir.”

“Would you be interested in riding together? We’d save on gas.”

“And one of us would get another hour of sleep.” Tami laughed.

“Damn good point.”

Back at home, Jo climbed the stairs on wobbly legs. A shiny bundle greeted her on the kitchen counter. A Mylar blanket tied with gauze for ribbon. She smiled at the innovative packaging.

The odd shape had her guessing. Untying the ribbon tied around the Mylar blanket, she found a weighted vest. One of the weight slots held a small card.

Jo,

Wear in good health!

Luv ya,

Ray.

P.S. Turn card in for free massage!

So he still had his key to the house.

A lump formed in her throat at his thoughtful, yet practical, and by no means cheap, gift. It was one less training item she’d need to purchase.

She shrugged on the vest then added the shoulder weights. The seventy plus pounds simulated the weight of a firefighter’s gear. A quick sprint of the stairs warned her of a need for heavier squats. The real test, however, would be adding smoke and several hundred degrees of heat.

She fired off a thank you text ending with XX’s and OO’s, and asked for a training session.

The door opened and in walked Bobby still in uniform. “Wow. Sexy vest,” he teased as he hung up his hat.

“There’s nothing hot about a woman gaining seventy pounds in a nanosecond.”

“Black is slenderizing though.” He pulled a beer from the fridge.

“Why aren’t you at Sarah’s?” She peeled free the Velcro straps and let what amounted to more than half her body weight drop onto the kitchen chair.

“I wanted to see how your first day went. I’ll make dinner. You hit the books.” His serious dark brown eyes reminded of Dad’s.

So now that she was doing what he wanted he’d forgive her for being mad at him. Brothers. “Yes, sir.” She saluted.

He returned her salutation with an obscene finger gesture as she collected her study materials and headed for the sofa.

* * * *

By Friday Jo was tempted to beg off her shift at Papagayos. Every muscle in her body ached.

“So how’s it going, Gimpy?” Harley watched her gingerly duck behind the bar. “You look rode hard and put away wet.”

“And not in a good way. You might want to get some back up. This bod won’t handle full shifts on both Friday and Saturday while I’m in the academy.”

“How about you work a partial on Friday and I’ll close? I need you here all night on Saturday.” He cocked a brow. “The customers love you, babe.”

“What’ll it cost me?” Considering Ray’s statement about Harley’s dark tastes it might not be worth it. He didn’t answer, but his molten chocolate gaze almost ignited her clothes.

By the end of the night, she’d forgotten her debt to Harley. Crawling into the cooler of ice with the beer looked more inviting than her bed. She tapped a text to Ray asking for the massage he’d promised.

A steady stream of smoke wafted skyward on the cloudy November day as Jo turned onto Sir Walter Raleigh Street heading to Manteo’s port area. The two-alarm fire had two engines and two trucks already on scene, tending a large schooner puffing black smoke.

En route to her first volunteer call since she and Tami had attended volunteer orientation at one of the stations on OBX. The mobile nine-one-one call application she’d downloaded to her phone had alerted her.

She slid the Broncosaurus to a halt and grabbed her gear. Running in the bulky bunker pants and heavy boots made her feel like a big, yellow Pillsbury dough girl.

An attack hose line already snaked onto the watercraft while the second engine kept water lines aimed at neighboring boats. Thankfully, the Elizabeth II, a replica of the ship that brought the first colonists, sat on the opposite side of the harbor.

A tap on Jo’s shoulder nearly had her jumping out of her skin.

“Dang, Jo. Jumpy?” Tami hee-hawed like a donkey.

“What are we supposed to do? The exposures are being handled, unless they start throwing shit off.”

A blackened frying pan burst through an open window. It splashed into brackish water below with a sizzle. More smoke spewed from the opening. The boat’s bilge pump didn’t match the water volume from the fire hose. The ship sank deeper into the water.

“Once it’s out, unhook and suction,” the captain radioed. “Let’s wrap this up.”

In a couple of minutes, the firefighters exited and left the craft floating at its normal waterline.

“Rack the hoses.” The captain motioned to Jo and Tami.

“Make sure you lay it straight, vollys,” a firefighter called to Jo with a grin.

Tami frowned.

“Get used to it,” Jo warned. “They’re the pros, not us, not yet.”

By the time she finished, Jo’s T-shirt was soaked beneath her turnout coat, despite the cool wind. After returning to her truck, she dropped the back gate, opened a case of water and proceeded to offer a bottle to each of the firefighters.

Captain Grady thanked her. “Aren’t you Cappy Mercer’s daughter, Joann?”

“Yes, sir.”

“That was a long walk,” The barrel-chested officer said through teeth that had seen their fair share of tobacco.