To Protect & Serve (32 page)

“But I don’t want to give it to you,” she said, pouting as she pulled her hand to her chest. “I just got it.”

“And when you get it back, it’ll be right,” he said, pulling her hand away gently. He tugged on the ring, but it didn’t move.

Reluctantly Lisa sighed. “Okay, but only if you promise to take good care of it.” She twisted the ring off her finger and held it out to him.

“I promise.”

“You’re never going to believe this in a million years,” Lisa said to a half-asleep Haley over the phone the minute after she arrived home.

“Oh, no. What now?”

“I’m getting married!”

“Married?” Haley’s voice came awake even as it dropped into incredulousness. “I thought you said you’d walk a mile on burning hot coals before you’d ever tie yourself to some idiot guy.” Haley’s words stopped for a moment. “Wait. This isn’t that fireman you were seeing, is it?”

“Yes. What’s wrong with a fireman?”

“Well, for one thing, their pay is lousy. They’ve got long hours and scary work—doesn’t exactly sound like your kind of guy— whatever that is.”

Lisa didn’t want to think of Jeff as the job he held. He was the man she loved—strong, steady, dependable, and gentle. He was exactly the guy she hadn’t been looking for. “Being a fireman also means he cares about others, he puts people before a pay check, and he’s got more courage in one little finger than most guys have in their whole testosterone-filled bodies.”

“Whoa. Okay, I get it,” Haley said slowly. “So, when’s the big day?”

“I don’t know,” Lisa said, looking at her left hand and smiling at the memory of the ring. “We haven’t set it yet.”

“Uh-huh.”

“But as soon as we do, I’m going to need a matron of honor.”

“Matron? Ugh. That sounds so old.”

“Okay, how about the lady who’s been married six months but still wants to be called maid of honor?”

“Much better.”

Gabe was thrilled. In fact, Jeff got toasted with coffee by the whole station. Even Hayes congratulated him saying that now Lisa would have no time to make that trip over because of all the wedding plans. Jeff’s memory crumpled over Hayes’ previous invitation.

“Oh, man, I forgot to give her your message.”

Hayes smiled. “I think you’ve had a few more important things on your mind.”

“A few,” Jeff agreed.

“Just tell her to stop by any time,” Hayes said. “I’m sure I’ll be around. This paperwork has overtime written all over it.”

“I’ll try to remember, Sir,” Jeff said.

“Did you get my ring back?” Lisa asked the moment she opened his door the next evening.

“No.” He accepted her kiss as he stood at the stove. “It’s going to take a week.”

“A week? It’s one little ring.”

“That’s the problem,” he said with a smile. “This is ready. You hungry?”

“Starving,” she said, unbuttoning the front of her jacket and pulling the clip from her hair. “I think that energy bar I ate for lunch ran out some time around three.”

“Energy bar? That’s nutritional.”

“It’s better than nothing.” She reached past him into the cabinet for the plates, and when her body brushed his, he glanced down the side of her.

“That could get you in trouble.”

Setting the plates on the counter, she opened the silverware drawer. “Oh, yeah? What kind of trouble?” Before she grabbed a breath from saying those words, she was pinned against the refrigerator, a spoon in one dangling hand.

“This kind,” he said, pressing next to her. His lips found the top of her blouse, and life shifted. Lower, lower his lips went, tracing zigzag lines across her neck. “You really should learn to behave yourself.”

“I was just setting the table,” she said breathlessly.

“Yeah, uh-huh. That’s what you say.” The pressure of his lips slid down her throat.

“I swear, officer. I didn’t mean to cause any trouble.”

“I may have to take you in anyway. We’ve had a rash of heart stealers running around recently.” He backed up and looked right at her with the intensity of a laser. “You wouldn’t know anything about that? Would you?”

Lost in the middle of his eyes, she shook her head without moving it. “I wouldn’t have a clue.”

When his lips found hers, she was glad for the refrigerator. There was no way her knees would ever have been able to keep her standing. At that moment the timer on the stove dinged, and his kiss slowed and then stopped.

“Hold that thought,” he said and stepped over to take the casserole out of the oven.

Slowly she slid away from the refrigerator, having never realized how warm one could get. “Man, it’s hot in here. The humidity outside must be creeping up again today.”

He looked at her with a hazy light in his eyes. “I don’t think it’s the humidity.”

A memory dropped between them, and the lightness dissipated. He swung the dish over to the table, and she followed, picking up the plates from the cabinet on her way.

“Oh, I forgot to tell
you,” Jeff said as he sat down. “Hayes wants to see you.”

“Yeah, right.”

“No, really, he told me yesterday, but you make it hard to remember anything.” He smiled at her as she sat down, and in case she didn’t understand what he meant, he leaned over and kissed the top of her head. “He said he’s free any night this week. He’ll be in the office around four or so if you want to come in.”

“Oh,” she said softly. The thought of going to the station exploded through the peaceful dream she had been diligently building in her head. “Maybe I’ll come tomorrow if I get time.”

Jeff dug into the casserole that now sat in the middle of the table. “If you do, watch out. They may throw you a parade.”

“A parade?” she asked skeptically.

“I’ve never been congratulated so many times in my life, and that includes three separate graduations.” He laughed. “That’s just a friendly warning.”

She nodded, getting lost in thought until her senses picked up that he was looking at her with a questioning concern in his eyes. Quickly she looked at him and smiled. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

“So, is Lisa coming today?” Gabe asked in that deep bass that had become so familiar to Jeff over the last few months.

“I told her about Hayes, but I don’t know, she didn’t sound too keen on the idea,” Jeff said, rethreading the hose up to Gabe at the top of the engine as their practice run ended.

“You should call her,” Gabe said. “Tell her we’ll even make her supper if she’ll come.”

“Is that a bribe or a threat?”

“Miller’s cooking. You be the judge.”

“Bribery. Definite bribery.”

Although Gabe laughed, Jeff’s spirit curled around the plan. Something told him her turning him down cold was a real possibility, and even it being just a small possibility ripped his heart out.

Friday afternoon. All day long Lisa had been fighting the thought of going to the station. Truth be told, she had been fighting it longer than that. Just the thought of the station, of what it meant for him, for her, was enough to send her spirit crashing through the depression. No, if she just stayed away, pretended it didn’t exist, somehow came up with a way to convince herself that it wasn’t a part of their reality, then life felt almost normal. It was only when she thought about the station, and more to the point him at the station, that breathing became like running a jagged knife through her heart and soul.

“I forgot to tell you,” Sherie said, standing in Lisa’s doorway at four when Lisa had all-but succeeded in solidifying the excuse that there was no way she could go for all the work stacked on her desk. “Jeff called while you were out for lunch.” The perceptive smile her secretary slid onto her face was unnecessary. “He said if you’ll come around five, Gabe said you can have supper with them at the station tonight.”

Lisa buried her gaze in the paperwork on her desk. “Oh, okay. Thanks.”

Sherie nodded knowingly and shut the door. Lisa closed her eyes. This was horrible. No escape. No excuse. No way out. Her worst nightmare come true.

“That hose couldn’t have been any more trouble if it had tried,” Bob Miller said as Lisa sat in the break room, surrounded by ten of Houston’s finest. Of course, the finest one of all was sitting right beside her with one arm slung around her chair and that lopsided grin spread across his face. Her heart danced as she looked at his profile, remembering why she had fallen for him in the first place.

Sitting around the tables, they really were very much like a little family—kidding and teasing but very much caring about the others seated there.

“It got snagged on the top and then on the bumper,” Zack Jameson said, laughing. “It was a good thing it was only a practice run because whatever was burning would’ve been toast by the time we got that hose over there.”

“Rainier was thrilled,” Gabe said before taking a drink of water. “I think I got like five demerits for that one run.”

“Yeah, but who knew they tied the thing down,” Jeff said, sliding into the conversation easily. “I mean who ties a hose down? That’s like saying it’s here but you can’t use it.”

“I’ll tell you what though,” Bob said with a laugh. “I would’ve given a mint to have a video of you up top trying to untie that thing. It’s loose. No it’s not. It’s loose. No it’s not. I thought, ‘Uh, boy, what has the academy sent us this time?’”

“I’m sure,” Jeff said with a laugh. “I’m just glad I’d been here for awhile. That would’ve been a great first impression.” He smiled at Lisa who remembered her first impression of him, and her gaze fell to the table.

“So, Lisa, when are you going to hog-tie our boy here and make it official?” Bob asked, clapping Jeff on the shoulder.

“Hog-tie?” Lisa asked skeptically
, and then she shrugged as embarrassment descended on her. “Whenever he has four days off in a row I guess.”

“Ah, a very politically correct answer there,” Zack said, nodding. “Smart woman. She knows which side of her bread the butter’s on.”

“Just trying to make sure Hayes doesn’t permanently ban me,” she said seriously. “He loves me so much.”

“That’s okay,” Zack said. “I’m sure one of us could manage to sneak you in the back if we had to.”

“There’s a hole in the roof too. Well, there was,” Bob offered. “We used to crawl out at night and go down to the donut shop.”

“It looks like it,” Gabe taunted, looking at Bob’s rounded belly. “I think first thing on my list is patching that hole.”

“Too late. Rainier caught us. Hole’s gone now,” Bob said mournfully.

“Pitiful thing to have to live in a place with weights but no donuts,” Zack said, shaking his head. “Just pitiful…”

The laugh that started in Lisa’s throat slammed into the alarm that blared to life around them, and simultaneously every gaze at the table looked up.

“Well, party’s over,” Gabe said, pushing out of the chair as sheer panic seized Lisa.

Unsteadily she stood as Jeff jumped to his feet, leaned over, and kissed the edge of her cheek. “Got to go.” He squeezed her hand once and followed the others out the door.

Stunned to the core, she stood there watching him go, and she couldn’t even feel fear—
just complete numbness. Slowly she walked to the break room door and laid a hand on it as three men rushed down the hallway past the glass. Her hands pushed through the door although in reality she felt like it was someone else moving and she was just watching life from their eyes.

“Everybody in?” someone yelled from the truck. A bang on the side of the engine, and the huge metal monster rolled forward out of the opening in the wall, blasting a horn and blaring the siren as it did so.

The sounds were ear splitting, but more than that, they were soul splitting. Her last glimpse as it bumped into the street was of the three men in the back, pulling on their suits. She now knew how heavy those suits were, and yet how horribly inconsequential they could be in the face of…

Trying to push those thoughts out of her mind, she turned back for the break room. The last thing they needed to be doing when they got back was dishes. It wasn’t much, but it was something she could do, and at that moment she had to do something to help or she would go insane with the bottled up grief, anger, and concern so overwhelming she felt like she had fallen into a deep, dark well with no light and no way to get to the top. “Oh, God, please…”

“Taylor and Miller, cut the vents; Jameson, set the vent fan,” Gabe ticked off the assignments as they swung around one corner.

Jeff nodded as his stomach knotted inside of him. That look. He hated the look she had given him. It said all the things that he didn’t want to face and more. When they screeched up to the house which had billows of smoke rising from one side window, the six of them jumped from the truck, and as Jeff laid his ID tag on the front dash, his mind flashed back to the last time he had done that. With a blink he banished that thought. Concentration was paramount here. Concentration would be what would get him back to reclaim that tag.