“I didn’t drive much last year. Or this year since I kept forgetting to get my car from Theo.” Her teeth chattered. “Can we get in now?”
Now Noah felt like an ass. “Sorry, Erin… Hudgens.” Without a task or an audience, it was far too easy to slip up.
He got in and handed her his radio. Finding a map in the glove compartment, he used a pen to sketch the anticipated routes to Firehouse 15, MetroGen, and Briar Hill. He compared the locations of the nearest firehouses. “I need you to confirm with Dispatch that they are sending Firehouse 19, 22, 25, and 26 to the nursing home. There should be at least four Medics. Make sure they know I’ll run Incident Command from 15. Once they do that, I want two dispatchers contacting each firehouse for their status, starting at Firehouse 1 and heading upward.”
“Yes, sir.” She made the appropriate communications to Dispatch, and he focused on driving. “MetroGen reports they’re snowed in and have less than one third of their staff. They’ve canceled all elective surgeries and closed psychiatry and outpatient medicine. The ER is on diversion and are unable to take any patients until the roads get opened up. I told them a plow is on its way.”
“Good. That’ll get the ER open, but it will take hours for the staff to report in. You keep the cell numbers of the snowplows. We’ll reroute them as needed, not Dispatch.” He used the single lane of plowed snow to lead him back to Firehouse 15.
“Absolutely, sir,” she said.
“Twenty pies? What is so important about pies that you’d risk your life? I thought you liked cake,” he said.
She was unfazed by his shift from Fire Chief to Noah. “I like cake, but cake is private. The pies are for the team.”
“The team needs twenty pies?” They came to a slow stop at a buried stop sign. No traffic in any direction.
“You need to know?”
“If I’m going to be at 15 today, I might as well.”
“We’re having a pie eating contest today instead of Thanksgiving because Thanksgiving is usually a mixed shift.” She sounded more reluctant than usual.
“Williams was on board?” Noah doubted that since pies contained the hated white flour and sugar.
“Not so much on board, as he was supposed to be off today. I think he slept at the firehouse.”
Noah gave her a sideways glance. “Do I want to hear who the ringleader was of this plan? Are we going to have a repeat of the active shooter training rebellion?”
“Any answer may force me to trade future cake for one shift of pie. Is that what you want, Chief? Are you done having the cake?” Erin’s voice held a note of warning.
Noah recognized the thin ice. The wrong sentence could send him spinning off the road.
He wanted, needed, craved cake. The best course of action was to tell the truth. “Cake is the highlight of my week, for sure. I’m sorry last week I couldn’t make it.”
“It’s okay.”
“I wanted to, but I got buried.”
“It’s okay,” she repeated.
“I texted.” Hopefully, she understood how much he wanted to see her.
“I got the messages. They were… informative,” she said slowly.
Noah didn’t have a great response. “I thought about sexting you but—”
“Your phone is used for department stuff. I liked the pictures of your clock.” Her voice took a teasing tone. Noah took photos of his office clock in response to her invitations to her place as proof he was stuck at HQ. The photoshoot plan had hurt her feelings, and he wanted to be clear that he had no interest in anyone but her.
It was good she wasn’t pissed. It was bad because the shiver of awareness was back.
“You would think they’d buy the Chief a nicer clock. Too bad, I couldn’t sneak into HQ and suck the L out of that clock.” She tittered when he inhaled sharply. “Did they convince you to take off your shirt at the photoshoot?”
“They did not,” Noah said, though he’d had to put his foot down a few times during it.
“Wanna do a little photography of our own?” Each innuendo proved she wasn’t mad at him. Erin took off her gloves and rested one hand on his leg. “Bet I could get you out of your shirt.”
He was glad they were driving slowly. “You’d get me out of more than my shirt.”
