To Protect & Serve (14 page)

Their conversation faded as Lisa turned her back to the sunshine beyond the garage doors. Jeff tried to keep his mind and his attention on the water and the truck and away from her, but that was like pulling ice molecules apart. No, when she was around, his attention was fused to her, and that was just all there was to it.

The captain pointed up the stairs, and Jeff watched her nod. When she turned, her gaze caught on his for one more second, and a mutual acknowledgement passed between them. She was halfway up the steps when Dante yelled, “Bombs away!”

Instinctively Jeff ducked just as another sponge hit the bucket. Life was so great.

There was only one reason to come and show Hayes the completed brochure, and that reason had nothing to do with Captain Hayes or the brochure. It had only to do with the fact that her phone hadn’t rung in a week. Every single time that thing so much as jingled at work, every piece of her senses jumped out to sit right next to Sherie answering
it.

In fact, she had taken to leaving her door open so she could better hear the calls as they came in. However, by Wednesday she could take it no more. So first she called to confirm that the captain was actually on site, and then her feet and heart flew her over until she was sitting across from Hayes acting like a seventh grader handing in her homework as her mind wandered down the stairs and out to the front to the fire truck gleaming in the sunlight.

“Very nice,” the captain finally said after reading over the maroon and silver plastic-coated booklet. “And this has gone out to the schools?”

“Umm, yes. Yesterday, Sir,” Lisa said, straightening.

“Well, I wish I could say it’s horrible and it’s never going to work, but if they don’t go for it after this, I don’t think dynamite would convince them.”

“Thank you, Sir,” she said sincerely touched by the compliment.

“You mind if I keep this one?” he asked, holding it up.

“Oh, no that would be fine.” Furtively she looked at her watch. On to Plan B. “Umm, now that we’ve got this part taken care of, I was wondering if you knew of any other speakers who might be interested—apart from Mr. Fletcher of course.”

As soon as Hayes leaned back thoughtfully, she knew it would be enough to kill a few minutes. Now if Jeff would just hang around if Hayes got on anything resembling a roll, her plan had an actual chance of working.

The trucks were back in the garage, and Jeff was busy rechecking the last of the compartments. Everything seemed to be in place. He slammed that door just as he heard the heels. He was really starting to like that sound. The smile was there before he even turned, and her gaze was on him before he’d so much as said something to get her attention.
             

“Everything cool?” he asked when she got to the third step from the bottom.

“Almost,” she said, looking around hesitantly. “I guess you’re on all night again?”

“As always.” He held his hands out palms up.

“And you don’t have to go get take-out?”

“No, I think Hunter roped me into something last time because he knew he could.”

“Oh,” she said slowly, seeing her plan disintegrate before her eyes. “So you’re stuck here then, huh?”

“Pretty much.”

Her gaze and his heart landed on the floor as she pulled her notebook closer to her chest.

“I’m off tomorrow night though,” he said slowly, knowing that wasn’t what she was after, but hoping it was all the same. “Well, after the CPR test is over at five.”

The smile in her eyes flitted across the strings of his heart just as he heard the voices from down the hall.

“I think you’re an egg short of a basket, Hunt,” Dante said in annoyance. “The whole idea was to… Oh, well. What have we here?”

Instantly Jeff’s gaze toppled to his shoes as he backed away from her.

“Well, well.” Dante surveyed her slowly, and Jeff felt her back further away from him. “I don’t think we’ve been formally introduced,” Dante said smoothly, and Jeff’s protective shields came out. However, he was at a distinct disadvantage, and he knew it. “Dante Ramirez.”

“Lisa Matheson.” She held her hand out to him, and Jeff noted that the formal tone was back in her voice.

“This is my buddy, Hunter Witkowski,” Dante said.

“Hunter.” Lisa shook his hand as if they were about to sit down for a conference call. The smallest of awkward moments passed before Lisa smiled tightly at all of them in general. “Well, I’d better get back to work. It was nice to meet you all.”

“Same here,” Hunter said
with a small waving. And with that, she put her gaze on the concrete, turned, and walked out.

Had he had the means and the method, Jeff definitely had the motive to kill Hunter and Dante.

“Taylor.” Hunter clapped him on the shoulder which brought him back to reality with a crash. “Dante here just nominated you for cooking duty tonight.”

His heart lay
shredded on the floor as he felt her spirit slip away from him. “Well, I guess I’d better go get to work then.”

All day Thursday Lisa batted the suggestion around in her head. Back and forth. Back and forth. Five o’clock. Five o’clock. Showing up without even her normal lame excuses was frightening beyond words. Yet she couldn’t get the time or his eyes out of her
head. By 4:30 her brain was in an all-out war with her heart. Going was certifiably insane, but not going was going to make her batty too. Finally at 4:45 she gave up and grabbed her purse. He wouldn’t be there anymore. At least then she could tell herself that it was fate that had kept them apart and not her.

“Have a good night,” she said to Sherie at the door.

Sherie checked her with an odd look as she glanced at her watch. “Yeah, you too.”

For the hundred-thousandth time Jeff looked at his watch as the clock wound the around to five ‘til five. She wouldn’t be out there. He hoped she would, but she wouldn’t. Two more pencil marks and he called it good enough.

“Time,” the teacher called, and Jeff stood, wanting and yet simultaneously not wanting to get out to the parking lot.

“See ya Tuesday, Taylor,” Hunter said with a smile that Jeff didn’t like at all.

“Sure, see ya.” Knowing what a scene it would make if he went out to the parking lot with them and she was waiting, he hung back, collecting his books and notebook as slowly as possible. When the room had cleared, he exhaled. She wouldn’t be there. Getting his hopes up that she would was a one-way ticket to unbelievable heartache.

Once in the parking lot, he surveyed the cars quickly. No little white Cavalier to be seen, and his heart plummeted. He looked at his watch. Maybe she got caught in traffic. Maybe she was running late. Crawling behind the wheel of the GTO, the list of maybes flowed through him. It was only five after. Even college professors got ten minutes.

“This is crazy. What the heck am I doing?” Lisa asked angrily as she turned the car into the fire station parking lot at 5:13. “He’s long gone, and I should be working. Not…” But that thought sliced in two when she saw the GTO still sitting at the far end of the parking lot. Panic hit her one second after the relief. “Oh, great. Now what?” The part of her that was happy about the car being there was also the part of her that started traipsing through her chest at the sight of it. Angling her car next to his, she pulled into the space wishing she had a clue what came next.

With every tick of the clock, Jeff had told himself she wasn’t coming until all but one lone hold-out believed it. However, the second she pulled in next to him, all of the deserters fell all over themselves thanking the hold-out for keeping them there. In one motion he jumped from the car and ran over to hers as she stood, business mode stretched tightly across her.

“You made it,” he said as his hands found his pockets lest they actually reach out and hug her like they wanted to.

“I’m late,” she said softly.

He shrugged. “No big deal. The class ran a little over anyway.”

For a second he let himself notice the hair falling across the small round arch of her shoulder. It was enough to send his senses flying off the radarscope. “You hungry?”

She looked up, and he was surprised that his feet didn’t actually float right off the earth. “What do you have in mind?”

“How about Mexican? I haven’t had a good enchilada in forever.”

“Sounds good,” she said. “I know this little place out in La Porte we could try. A friend of mine said it was pretty good.”

“La Porte?” he asked skeptically. “But that’s like… 30 miles away.”

“Oh, well, if you don’t want to… I mean if you’re tired…”

“No, I just figured you’d be wanting to get back to work.”

“Work will still be there tomorrow,” she said, and her voice faded on the words. “So, you want to take your car or mine?”

“Mine’s cool if that’s okay with you.”

“Fine by me.”

Being with him was so easy. Alarm bells weren’t ringing through her head at every move he made, and there wasn’t a piece of her that thought he would so much as suggest something that made her uncomfortable. In fact when they left the Houston traffic behind and the car picked up speed, Lisa couldn’t remember ever feeling so free or so safe.

She laid her head back on the headrest and drank in the day around her. If it never got any better than this, she would never complain. When they got to the restaurant, she waited for him to run around and open her door. With him it wasn’t about who had the power, and she sensed that it never would be.

In minutes they were seated on a little patio overlooking the beautiful Gulf of Mexico. The breeze blowing in sent her hair skittering across her face, and she tossed it back with a flick of her fingers.

“So, how’s work?” Lisa asked after they had ordered.

“It’ll be better Monday.”

“Oh? What’s Monday?”

“The gods finally had mercy on me. They switched me to B Shift.”

“And that’s better?”

“I was on C, but they just handed out some promotions, and now they’re a couple hands short over on B, so I get the lucky draw.”

“So, does the captain go with you?” she asked suddenly seeing her one connection to him disintegrate.

“Nope. New shift, new captain. Rainier. But he’s pretty cool. I worked that fire under him that night. He seems pretty together.”

“And Hayes isn’t?”

“Oh, Hayes just has his favorites, and I don’t think I’m one of them.”

“Why not?”

“There’s always a pecking order, but with Hayes, it’s a little more visible than usual.”

“So you’ll be happy with the change then?”

“Yeah. I know a couple of the guys on that shift already, so it’s not square one. At least I won’t have Dante giving me showers on a regular basis anymore.”

She laughed as her gaze drifted over his face. She had kind of like that shower.

All Jeff wanted to do was make the night last forever. When he glanced over at her, relaxed in the passenger seat later, his heart pleaded with him to find a way to make that happen. “Have you ever been out to the Pointe?”

“What’s that?” she asked, leaning her head to the side.

“You want to find out?”

“Sure.”

It had literally been years since Jeff had put the top down. Up until they parked on the Pointe he hadn’t had a really good reason to, but the night was so peaceful, and the stars were so bright, for this one moment he just wanted to experience all of it.

“Where’re you going?” she asked when he reached for his door handle.

“Sit tight.”

She sat up anyway as he got out and started to work first on one side and then on the other. If they were going to make this a habit, he really needed to put some oil on the latches. The second side finally broke loose, and carefully he pulled the folds of the top back.

“Oh, wow,” she breathed, laying back into the seat as she looked up into the velvet-and-diamond night above her. “It’s gorgeous.”

He got back in, tried to lean back, but he had to rework the position of the seat before he could fully appreciate the world she was looking at. In the short distance ahead, the lap of the waves brushed onto the shore as the soft night wrapped around them. Even breathing felt more real than it ever had before. His gaze chanced over to her, and fascination coupled with awe as she lay back, looking out far beyond the boundaries of the earth.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen them like this before,” she breathed. “It’s like they’re right there.” As if she could in fact touch them, Lisa reached a hand up. “Like Orion. See it, right there.”

Training his gaze to where she pointed, he edged his shoulder across the seat and rested his hand on the gearshift between them.