Hot for Fireman (3 page)

“I know. Whoever came up with that Bachelor Firemen of San Gabriel crap ought to be shot. Oops.” He paled. “It wasn’t Melissa, was it?”

“Of course not. Don’t try to blame this on her.” The fire in Brody’s eyes rivaled the lava that would have poured out of that volcano had it not been a paperweight.

“God, no. It was my fault. I should have checked inside the rig.”

The girl, Ginny Lee, had hidden herself in the station’s pickup truck, known as the plug-buggy, after she’d seen him return from EMT recertification. She’d hoped to surprise Ryan. Instead she’d gotten a gunshot wound when a fire scene had gone haywire. If Ryan had followed procedure and not rushed out alone, she would have faced nothing worse than a scolding from the captain. When Ryan had tried to visit her at the hospital, she’d refused to see him. Then she’d moved back to Illinois, no forwarding address.

“You were careless and thoughtless and reckless.”

“I know.” Ryan looked at the floor. Of course he’d been those things. But how could he convince Brody he’d changed?

“It practically killed me to lose you.” Brody slapped the paperweight onto the desk with a sharp
crack
. Stan opened an eye halfway, then dropped it shut again. “The best goddamn firefighter I’ve ever known. You were like a force of nature, Ryan. It was a thing of beauty to watch you fight a fire. Not to mention all the work I put into training you. All that, up in smoke thanks to one moment of stupidity.”

Ryan tried to speak, but Brody rolled right over him, growing ever more heated with each word.

“And yet it wasn’t one moment. If it had been only one moment, I could have overlooked it. A couple days without pay, end of story. But no. It was a pattern of reckless, daredevil behavior. Every time you risked your own neck, you put the rest of my guys in danger.”

Ryan felt sick. In the heat of the moment, he didn’t think about the others. He thought about the fire and how he could beat it.

“You were goddamn lucky you never killed anyone. And now you want me to put you back on the job?”

Ryan stared at a spot on the floor, a stain on the scarred linoleum, fighting to not explode into anger. The biting tone in the captain’s voice made him want to beat up ten more back-alley guys. He breathed deep. The captain had some good points, harsh as they might be. He’d fucked up. Nearly gotten a girl killed. How dare he ask to come back?

And yet . . . slowly, he got a grip on himself. He lifted his eyes and squarely met the captain’s blistering gaze.

“Yes. I want to come back.” He was a firefighter, through and through. He ought to be fighting fires.

“What’s that cut on your knuckle?”

“Nothing.” Ryan had forgotten about it.

“Were you fighting?”

Ryan got to his feet. In the old days, he would have either hidden the truth or lashed out. Now he gave Brody a level look. “I don’t fight anymore, not unless I have to. Two guys were beating down a bouncer. I had to step in. I’m not going to say I didn’t enjoy it. But I didn’t start it.” He hoped Brody would believe him, but he wasn’t going to beg like a child.

Brody’s eyebrows drew together. “Well, I guess that is a change.”

Ryan held his gaze, something that had always been a challenge in the past. A long moment passed while they took each other’s measure. Brody spoke first.

“I’ll have to think about it. Give me a couple of days.”

“Thanks, Captain.” It was all he could ask. More than he could ask.

“Now go say hello to everyone. Gone over a year and only one postcard? Of a cactus?”

“A Christmas cactus. Didn’t you see the twinkle lights?”

“I saw. Very festive. I’ll call you soon.”

Ryan spent the next hour shaking hands and hearing about all the fires he’d missed while he’d been gone. He gritted his teeth and listened to Double D tell him how he and Vader had put out a fire at a day care center while everyone else was busy with a brushfire in the hills. He heard how Captain Brody had added thirteen more lives to his long list of rescues. It seemed the last year and a half had been filled with exciting acts of heroism, not to mention hilarious practical jokes and a visitation from the cast of
America’s Next Top Model
—televised, of course.

“Everyone thought the Bachelor Curse was broken when the captain got married, but not a single one of us has hooked up. I mean, we’ve hooked up. Some of us. But not, you know, permanently,” Fred told him. In the perverse way of firefighters, he was known as Stud thanks to his bad luck with women.

Ryan shrugged. “I always said it wasn’t so much a curse as a gift from God.” According to firehouse legend, Virgil Rush, a volunteer fireman from the 1850s, had been heartbroken when Constancia B. Sidwell, his mail order bride, had run off with a robber on her way West. The other firemen, always quick to tease, tormented him so much he laid a curse on the town, vowing that the firemen of San Gabriel would have as much trouble finding love as he had. Ever since then, the firehouse had possessed an unusually high number of bachelors. Which worked out just fine from Ryan’s perspective. “Keep playing that field, Freddie boy. No need to worry about rings and aisles.”

“But I kind of want . . .”

“Sorry, dude. We’re cursed. Everyone knows it. You’re a Bachelor Fireman of San Gabriel. Might as well relax and enjoy it, like me.”

“It’s different for you.” Fred sulked as Vader, who’d apparently added some new muscles to his fearsome physique in the last year and half, elbowed him aside.

“Hoagie, you hear about how Double D and me saved twenty kids? The mayor gave us an award for being badasses.”

“It was called the Hot Shot Award,” interjected Two, one of San Gabriel’s two female firefighters, shaking out her long brown braid. “And I was there too. No one seems to remember that.”

“The mayor sure knew. You should have seen him, Hoagie. Thought he’d come in his pants when he saw Two in a dress.”

“Vader . . .” Fury flashed in Two’s pretty turquoise eyes, which had inspired many an inappropriate fantasy among her fellow firemen. Vader grinned, awaiting the explosion with a crack of his knuckles. “Don’t talk that way in front of Fred.”

Two and Vader both cracked up. Ryan rolled his eyes, wondering why the pair of them didn’t get a room somewhere.

“Hey!” Fred looked indignantly from one to the other. “I just
look
young. You want to see my driver’s license? Again? I ought to just hang it around my neck.”

The bittersweet pain of listening to the familiar firehouse jokes and rhythms was pure torture. By the time he made his escape, Ryan desperately needed another drink. Or another brawl, whichever came his way first.

Chapter Three

K
atie Dane had spent long stretches of her life blissfully oblivious to the fact that her father had acquired a bar after he’d sold his car dealership. Occasionally she’d dropped by after school. And sometimes she didn’t manage to find an excuse to skip the bar’s annual mid-August Dog Day Celebration, during which her father grilled hot dogs in the swooning heat and made ice cubes shaped like dog bones.

She’d gone through high school, college, and nearly a year of graduate studies in nineteenth-century French literature without even filling in for an absent waitress. She’d never shown any interest in the restaurant business, marketing, entrepreneurship, or anything involving gatherings of people. In her family, she was known as the bookworm, the antisocial one, especially as compared to her older sister, Bridget, the social butterfly on speed (metaphorically, of course).

So when her father had suffered a stress-induced heart attack, and her mother had begged her to run the Hair of the Dog while she whisked him off to Mexico for his recuperation, she’d known there was only one possible reason.

No one else happened to be available.

Okay, two. Her mother knew she’d do anything for her father.

In the back office of the Dog, she opened the top drawer of her father’s desk, toppling a stack of Guy de Maupassant novels left over from her last seminar. She pulled out a package of balloons shaped like dog heads. Since she didn’t have a clue about promotion, she’d followed her father’s lead and chosen a dog theme. And parties were supposed to have balloons, right? She called it a stroke of luck that Party World actually stocked dog-head balloons.

She sat with one hip on the desk and blew air into a lime-green dog. Kind of goofy, if you asked her. But what did she know about this sort of thing? Bridget would know, but she was unreachable these days. Apparently being her friend’s maid of honor demanded single-minded, focused attention every second of every day until the wedding. Which had conveniently put her out of the running when it came to the Dog.

The more air Katie blew into the green dog balloon, the more sickly-looking it became. She stopped and tied a knot at its neck. Kind of cute, she supposed. One ear had less air than the other, so it looked lopsided. And the painted-on smile looked cheerfully demented.

What did it matter? Everyone would be wasted anyway. She tied a string to the balloon and picked up a yellow one.

This was all her fault. Graduate school wasn’t far enough away; she should have moved to Argentina or Bhutan, somewhere with intermittent cell service and spotty Internet. She should have acquired a friend who needed a maid of honor. She shouldn’t have been such a pushover.

So many things had to have gone wrong for her to find herself blowing up dog balloons.

And it wouldn’t be so bad—she’d be happy to do it since she adored her father—but she had absolutely no aptitude for bar management.

The phone rang. Startled, she let go of a yellow balloon and it shot around the room like a rabid, runaway, shrinking golden retriever. After it landed limply on top of one of her brothers’ baseball trophies, she answered.

“Hello? Hair of the Dog.”

“Don’t mind if I do!”

She smiled at the sound of her father’s booming voice. She loved her father, even if he had stuck her with this ridiculous job.

“Hey, Daddy. How’s the recovery going?”

“Oh, pretty good, pretty good. Walked nearly half a mile this morning. Swam in the ocean. Had myself a virgin margarita. Life’s good, Katie girl, every moment’s a precious goddamn gift.”

“Yeah.” Whatever. “So when are you coming back?”

“If your mom has her way, never.” Katie felt a moment of blind, stupid panic. “She’s got this little condo all picked out right near a golf course. Pretty sweet. But I couldn’t leave San Gabriel. How’s things going at the Dog? Are you treating the Drinking Crew right? Are ya having fun?”

“Um . . . well . . .” Katie didn’t know quite how to handle that question. She didn’t want him to come rushing back on her account. On the other hand, too much longer and she might self-induce a heart attack. And what about all the bills that kept showing up? Should she mention them, or would that be too stressful?

Better play it safe. “I’m doing a promotion tonight. I’m trying to bring in a new crowd.”

“Darn, Katie girl, you’re a genius! Now that’s good thinking! Nothing wrong with the crowd we got, of course.”

“No, no, they’re great.”

“Our bread and butter, that’s what they are. But we could stand to shake things up, no question there. So what’s the gig?”

“Well, I figured we should play off the name, Hair of the Dog. Like you always did.”

“Learning from the old man, I like that.”

Katie felt pleased with herself. She loved it when she made her father happy instead of giving him that familiar worried look on his ruddy face. “You know how everyone has a Ladies’ Night. Well, we’re going to have a Doggies’ Night.”

Silence followed.

“Hello?”

“Yes, Katie girl. I don’t exactly understand. Doggies’ Night? Free drinks for dogs?”

“No, no.” Nervous now, she picked up a handful of balloons and fussed with them. “It’s a two-for-one night. Two drinks for the price of one, if you have a dog.”

“Dogs in the bar? Oh Katie, there’s all sorts of trouble with that—”

“Not in the bar, Daddy. The health department would go nuts.” Her father seriously underestimated her if he believed she hadn’t thought of that. “All they have to do is bring a picture of their dog.”

“A picture of their dog.” Why didn’t her father sound more impressed? When she’d come up with this plan, she’d considered it a stroke of genius.

“Yes. Bring a picture of your dog, get two drinks for the price of one.”

“What if they have several dogs?”

“Well . . .”

“Is there a time limit on it? Happy Hour’s usually an hour or two at the most.”

Katie was starting to get a bad feeling about this. “I can play that part by ear.”

“I don’t know about that. People get overexcited when it comes to free drinks.”

Gulp
.

“How are they going to prove it’s their dog in the picture?”

Her stomach clenched. Had she totally screwed this up? “It doesn’t matter! The point is to get a new clientele in here.”

More silence. Katie gripped the phone. This wasn’t her fault. She was doing the best she could. Why hadn’t anyone believed her when she kept saying she wasn’t cut out for this job? She was about to launch into a long explanation of how her particular personality was unsuited to anything having to do with people, when her mother’s voice took the place of her father’s.

“What did you say to him? He’s turning red and muttering to himself. I think I heard something about plane tickets.”

Katie brightened. “Really?”

“No, no, no, it’s too soon. Look what happened after one little phone call! Do you know how hard it is to get that man to slow down?” Katie could picture her mother’s anxious, lovely face puckering with displeasure.

“I’m sorry, Mom. I thought he’d be happy with my ideas. And I told you I know nothing about managing a bar, I told you I’d suck at this . . .” She trailed off, realizing she was talking to herself. Her mother was now arguing with her father in the background. She sighed. Her parents always did this. Things like phone calls from other people were temporary interruptions of their own ongoing conversation and easily dropped.

Maybe she should hang up—Lord knew she had enough to do—but the suggestion that they might head back early kept her on the line.

“Well, that crisis is solved.” Her mother gave a puff of relief. “He’s not going to change our plane tickets and rush back to rescue you from whatever oddball project he’s chattering on about.”

“Oh.” Disappointment. “Hey!” Indignation.

Her mother ignored her. “We’ll be back in a couple weeks. No more phone calls until then. I’m sorry, but his heart can’t handle it. Neither can my nerves.”

Her mother’s voice rose again. “What?” she called. A pause. “Something about the insurance bill. He wants to know if you’ve gotten the insurance bill yet. It should be due soon. And why are you worrying about things like that, when I just put a plate of fresh pineapple in front of you . . .”

This time, Katie hung up. Sooner or later her mother would get around to doing the same on her end.

Insurance bill, insurance bill . . . She rummaged through the piles of paper on the desk. After so many unpleasant conversations with the beer distributor, she’d been avoiding the paperwork that kept arriving with horrifying frequency. Everything looked like a bill, and nothing looked like a big fat check that would pay the bills.

It must be this one, from Fidelity Trust. It was a thick envelope that she hadn’t bothered to open because it looked like it came from a solid, respectable company that wouldn’t yell at her for being late with a payment. She tore it open and searched through the thick sheaf of paper to find the only piece of information that mattered.

A balloon payment—what was that?—of ten thousand dollars was due in exactly . . . well, it had been due a month ago. Now it was overdue. Why hadn’t they sent her another one? She scrabbled through the papers. There it was. Past due notice. Six more weeks and the policy would lapse.

Panic scrambled her brain. Ten thousand dollars wasn’t an outrageous amount of money. But on top of the past due beer payment, and the overdue salaries to the staff, and the cleaning service that had stopped coming and the stale Chex Mix that really ought to be thrown out and replaced with peanuts or that delicious Japanese wasabi snack mix she’d been eyeing in the catalogue . . .

It was impossible.

Could they do without insurance? Cars needed insurance. There was a law about that. Was there a law that bars needed insurance? She picked up the policy and looked at it closely. It covered fires but not floods. Not much chance of floods in San Gabriel, where even a light rain induced citywide panic. It didn’t cover earthquakes. In Southern California, earthquake insurance would probably double the cost of the policy. Most importantly, it didn’t cover lack of money. What use was it?

Her eye strayed back to the part about fire coverage. Kind of ironic. The bar was so close to the San Gabriel Fire Station, it had zero chance of burning down.

“Katie, are you back there?” Mr. Jamieson’s voice managed to penetrate the thick fake-Tudor door of the office. “
Où
est le vin rouge? Nous sommes prêt pour une autre tournée.
” She and Mr. Jamieson liked to keep up their French with each other, even though hers was strictly from language tapes. She’d never actually been to France.

“
Un petit moment
.”

Where the heck was Kent? She checked her watch. Five o’clock. That flaky pothead of a bartender was supposed to be here by now. He ought to be setting up for Doggies’ Night. Instead he was probably sneaking weed into the hospital for Doug.

“
Sois patient
,” she called. “I’m sure Kent’ll show up soon.”

“Some of us might not make it that long,” said Mr. Jamieson. But Katie was too busy worrying about the balloons to come up with a smart-aleck response, especially in French. Maybe she should get a helium tank delivered. Or borrow Dr. Burwell’s oxygen tank. Would that work on balloons? People might start arriving any second. She had to make the place look like a party not a deathwatch.

R
yan shoved his hands in his pockets and gazed in wonder at the down-and-out pub that had looked so dismal just hours ago. Something big was happening at the Hair of the Dog. Something big and . . . strange. People crammed in the doorway and overflowed onto the street, not only people, but dogs. Lots of dogs. Why had so many people brought their pets? Who brought their dog to a bar?

He hesitated. Maybe he should head to T.G.I. Friday’s instead. Or go home and crack open a six-pack. But now he was curious. He had to find out what was happening here.

Besides, the irritating yet intriguing Katie wouldn’t be at T.G.I. Friday’s.

Mind made up, he strolled toward the crowded entrance. The knot of people milled and chattered and the closer he got, the edgier they sounded. They were all arguing about something. Or complaining. A dog barked. Then another one.

Seriously, why
would
anyone bring their dog to a bar? Maybe he should have brought Stan. Poor dog didn’t get out much.

His gaze rose to the banner hung over the front door. “Hair of the Dog Presents Doggies’ Night! Two Drinks for the Price of One!”

He still didn’t really get it, but obviously someone must have a plan.

He reached the crowd at the front door just in time to catch one dog owner giving another a shove. Someone needed to take charge here. He raised his voice over the din. “Hey, hey, keep it cool. We’ve got way too many animals with teeth here to start getting emotional.”

“Sorry, dude. But this is seriously fucked.”

“You said it!”

“It’s false advertising,” shouted someone. “Bait and switch.”

“Says Doggies’ Night, and they won’t even let dogs in!”

Ryan addressed a large black man who seemed to have assumed a leadership role. “They can’t let dogs in. Health code.”

“Then why call it Doggies’ Night?”

“No clue. I don’t have a dog, so why don’t you let me through and I’ll find out what the deal is?”

“Better get back here quick.”

“You got it. Keep the bloodshed to a minimum until I get back.” He clapped the man on the shoulder. The crowd parted to let him through. Inside, something bopped against his head. He swatted it away. A misshapen balloon smiled at him like some kind of beheaded monster. It wasn’t the only one; crowds of them dangled from the ceiling. The place stank of spilled beer. The din of drunken chatter rang in his ears. He didn’t see Katie anywhere. The only person behind the bar was one of the old men he recognized from earlier.

“Katie?” He called into the madness. “Katie, are you here?”

He took a step forward and heard a yelp. A beagle who reminded him of Stan scampered past, followed by Katie at top speed. He snagged her by the arm as she passed.