“Good, because I don’t remember asking a question about Dispatch.” He was over five inches taller than her, and even though he was two feet away, she could feel him crowding her. She was going to be pushed back against the wall, unable to move or defend herself.
“I believe the purpose of an incident debrief is to help determine the root cause of a poor outcome. Isn’t that the protocol?” she responded.
He shifted to draw her eyes to his. Vestiges of the polite professional mask he wore in the conference room disappeared. If looks could kill, Erin would have ignited right there from a bolt of blue. Half of her wanted to run, and the other half wanted to start tasting his lips in an unforgivably inappropriate way.
This was new; no guy had ever made her feel this way—too aware, too close, too captured. Being stuck in the storeroom together had only revealed the merest hint of the current arcing between them now as she challenged his authority by defying him.
Wild thoughts threatened to overwhelm her. Impulsive ones that told her she should be grabbing him by the lapels of his jacket and kissing him the way she’d imagined this morning.
“The protocol is to treat your superior officer, the head of your fire department, with respect and appropriate deference.” He probably wasn’t thinking about sex in the empty HQ hallway.
Erin wasn’t going to back down. Not when her team’s lives were on the line. She owed them her loyalty first. “How long until the next unit showed up? How long were we left hanging?”
“That’s enough.” Baker transfixed her with what she could only describe as pure animal magnetism. “Do you understand, Hudgens?”
“Yes, sir.” She couldn’t refuse a direct command. She had three years of indoctrination to obey her officers. “Sir, if I can just go back in—”
“No. You’re dismissed from this incident debrief. Get out of my sight before I have to discipline you.” His movements were slow, and he deliberately leaned forward two inches, looming over her, a mockery of this morning. “Learn to keep your mouth shut.”
With that, he took two steps back to the conference room door and shut off whatever pheromone he’d been using on her. Erin reeled with the sudden backlash of her hormones getting fully rejected.
Now she was pissed. The Fire Chief, knowing she found him attractive, had used some evil dark Jedi Sith Lord sex whammy on her. She stepped away from him and waited until his hand was on the door handle. “No one came, did they? Dispatch never heard us.”
He gave her a glower. “Their computer system crashed for twenty minutes. But it doesn’t excuse the sloppy actions of your officers.” He closed the door behind him without a backward glance.
Chapter 3
Three weeks later, on a more humid August evening, Noah finally hit ‘send’ on an email contacting Clarke and Rodriguez. After pouring over all the associated reports and performance reviews of both lieutenants, nothing he found changed the decision he’d made on the morning of the July incident debriefing.
Neither of them were appropriate to be captain. There was no way around it. While the fire department tried to turn a blind eye to consensual relationships, usually between his gay firefighters, unless there was a rank imbalance, this was different. Their personal relationship within their own A-shift had compromised their ability to oversee the firehouse. Soto’s interference worsened it now that Noah knew the root cause.
It was a shame, because they had command potential, but right now it was under-developed. All the women had great officer potential, which wasn’t a shock since they were the best of the best. Female firefighters typically performed above and beyond because they had more to prove.
That included the challenging, beautiful, and overly perceptive Erin Hudgens. She’d caught on pretty quickly to his pseudo-passive listening strategy. She understood his intent to divide and conquer her team, setting them against each other and letting the probie run his mouth. More, she’d stepped up to challenge him, resulting in their hallway confrontation.
It definitely wasn’t his best moment. The Fire Chief Noah Baker considered reprimanding or firing her. The Man Noah Baker was tempted to snatch the kiss he’d missed out on at yoga class.
Still, no matter how intriguing she was, blatant insubordination could not be tolerated.
Or how correct she was. He couldn’t state on the record that a major cause of the incident was Firehouse 15’s expectation of no support from the surrounding firehouses. They were on their own making do with the resources they had. Lieutenant Rodriguez had grown up in the department, so she’d naturally assumed no one would come to their aid.
That would have to change. Noah would fulfill his responsibility to Firehouse 15. Even if it meant calling a phone number he’d saved for five years and not used. He hoped enough time had passed.
A gruff voice answered. “FEMA Supervisory Program Manager Jacen Williams.”
“This is Fire Chief Noah Baker. Hello, Jacen.” He waited to see what kind of reception he would receive.
There was a pause over the line. “Fire chief? That’s new.”
“Over three years now. Still in Cleveland.”
“You moved up in record time,” his former best friend observed. “What happened to Chief Pegg?”
“He retired after the state stepped in to deal with the hospital and fire department situation. They merged Cleveland Clinic, University Hospitals, and MetroGen. Then they merged the city and county departments. Cleveland Fire is all of Cuyahoga County now. Fifty firehouses.”
“Only fifty?” Of course, Williams was well aware of the previous makeup of the area and knew that was fewer firehouses than expected.
“Consolidations occurred before my tenure,” Noah said.
