“Don’t worry, sir. My assistants will take care of everything.” She closed the door behind her, almost dancing with glee.
He pitied her assistants, whom she tended to run ragged. Four assistants seemed excessive, but they handled a huge amount of the PR work for Hannah, and the results were clear. The public opinion on the Cuyahoga Combined Fire Department was overwhelmingly positive.
Except those weirdos who kept sending the threatening letters.
He opened up last month’s report from Fire Marshall Taggert. Every fire department got bizarre mail, though there had been an uptick of letters since the re-branding, but no major incidents thus far. The fire marshal’s arson unit coordinated with the police to investigate each letter, though thus far they had found no legitimate threats.
Noah worked solidly at his desk through lunch when his phone started ringing. It was Abby, calling him on her lunch break from Wisconsin. He put his cell phone to his ear rather than put her on speaker since he suspected the topic of this call.
“Hi, Abby.”
“’Hi, Abby?’” she repeated. “Do you realize you didn’t call me a single time this weekend? You weren’t on call and no major disasters occurred in Cleveland, either. Where were you?” She had never completely forgiven him for the Ground Zero incident twenty years ago.
“I’m a grown-up. You are not Mom. You don’t need to know where I am every weekend.”
“She’s been dead for over a decade, which makes me ‘Mom’ at this point. And you always call once a weekend. Even when you were doing that captaining gig at Firehouse 15, you still called. Where were you?” she asked.
“Around. I have a social life.”
She saw through his dodge. “No, you don’t. Your social life is usually filled with meetings with the mayor, meetings with headquarters, meeting your battalion chiefs, meeting with your section chiefs—”
“I spent some time with a friend. Things got away from me, and I forgot to call. Okay?”
“You have a friend?” There was an exultant note in her voice. “Finally!”
“I feel like Mom would have been significantly less excited about that.”
“If Mom were alive, she’d be all ‘marry that friend and have some grandbabies because Abby had two, and she is done.’”
“This friend and I only saw each other once, so throttle the grandbaby plan back.”
“You hit it and quit it!”
“No.” Surely Erin understood the note with his phone number implied he wanted to see her again. It seemed the height of rudeness to wake her up just to get her phone number. Plus, letting her choose to call him helped rebalance the power dynamic—if such a thing were possible. “The ball is in her court.”
“You’re making this so difficult. If she calls, be eager but not overeager. Make sure she knows that you want to see her again but no pressure. Cool but not too cool.”
“I do know how to date.”
“Evidence points to the contrary, baby brother. The last person you seriously dated hated you, even though you married her. You thought you knew her, and you had no idea.”
“I’ll do better this time,” Noah said. He couldn’t do worse.
“You can’t do worse,” Abby unknowingly echoed his thoughts. “Tell me something about her. Anything. What does she do? How did you meet? Where does she live?”
Abby had to ask questions which could easily reveal Erin’s identity. “She likes cake.”
“That’s it.”
“I’ll tell you something more exciting. I may be selected as Cuyahoga’s Sexiest Man, so my dating life might pick up even if this new friend doesn’t pan out.”
“Hallelujah,” Abby said. “Is this a PR thing?”
“Yes. Hannah Fitzpatrick came up with it.”
“Even my favorite hell-bitch gets a good idea now and then. Are there going to be photos? Will you be shirtless?”
“There will be photos, but I won’t be shirtless.”
