“I don’t know about you guys, but I have a mattress and a pillow calling my name,” Rodney said, before brushing off the other side of his face.
“Pizza first,” Noah said and then started off again toward the brand-new rig, Engine 1.
Rodney pointed after him. “Did he say pizza? For breakfast?”
“Kids,” Joe scoffed. “Can eat whatever they want ’til the doctor starts chasing them around with bottles of statins.”
“You kidding? Sunny eats more salads than either of us.” Rodney gestured to Mick. “Don’t know about the chief yet.”
“I try.” Mick grinned and shook the tension from his shoulders.
Already, some of the crew were beginning to relax around him instead of watching him like a kid caught shoplifting a bag of gummy bears. Soon, they’d figure out that their former leader’s job loss wasn’t his fault. If he was lucky, Rachel would eventually stop blaming him as well, though he reminded himself it didn’t matter what she thought.
Ahead of them, Ladder 1 pulled back up the drive, having refilled its water supply and done a crew change for those coming off their twenty-four-hour shift. The fresh firefighters, who’d arrived early to make the switch, would remain on the site with the investigator, monitoring for hot spots that could cause an embarrassing rekindling.
Outside of Engine 1, Noah helped Darnell Andrews, the driver and pump operator, store equipment and check hoses. The other three joined them in finishing the work.
“We need to get on the road.” Darnell stared up into a gunmetal sky that already showed at first light. “It’s begun to spit, and that thing on my phone is predicting three to six inches. Hate these storms, especially on my forty-eight off.”
“You can build a snowman with your kids,” Joe said and then laughed at his own joke. “Or maybe sleep first.”
Once they’d stored the last hose, Rodney pointed to Mick’s pickup, its windshield already dotted with snowflakes.
“You leaving that here?”
“Figured I’d ride back on the rig, get cleaned up, meet some of the Rotation 2 crew, and then come back to pick it up later.” He held his hands wide to indicate the filth on his gear.
“Can’t say I blame him,” Noah said, as he rounded the rig’s rear work platform. “I wouldn’t want to muck up that sweet ride, either. None of you will be taking a step in the half-ton pickup I plan to buy. Not without showering first.”
“And putting on those shoe booties like surgeons wear,” Joe piped, earning a laugh.
“Catching a ride, Chief?” Darnell waved Mick into the rear-facing jump seat inside a cab so spacious that all but the tallest among the crew could stand up inside it.
Mick didn’t miss looks exchanged among the men since, as the most senior officer on the site, he should have been given the officer’s seat, next to the driver. Joe, whom Mick had left in command when he’d arrived, slid into that spot instead. Since respect would need to be earned, he wouldn’t rock that boat on his first day.
Having stored their masks in the compartments for that purpose, located on the outside of the cab, Rodney settled in the spot across from Mick, and Noah took the second rear-facer.
They were already on the road when Noah spoke into his headset so he could be heard over the powerful diesel engine. “I thought it was good of the chief to respond last night since he wasn’t on duty yet.”
“Fire ChiefHoffmanwould have been here no matter what,” Rodney said coolly. “Always came.Always.”
As if he’d recognized that he was being too welcoming to the new boss, he sat back and crossed his arms.
“I’m sure that’s true,” Mick said.
Noah looked between the two men, his brows knitted. “It is.”
To escape tension heavier than the snow clouds above them, Mick turned to the window as a gray blur swiped past them on the two-lane highway. Whether the men really supported the former chief or were just acting after orchestrating his dismissal, he wasn’t sure. But he recognized it might take him longer to settle in with the crew than he’d expected.
No one spoke again during the ten-minute ride back into town. Mick appreciated the reprieve, but he also needed to mentally reorganize his workday. His schedule would now include making a statement to the weeklyIsabel Informerin addition to meeting with some of the new crew at 7:00 a.m. and overseeing the morning cleaning duties for the station house and firefighting apparatus. Somewhere in there, he needed to fit in time to pick up fresh street clothes for his locker and convince someone to drive him to get his truck.
As the image of that destroyed house filtered through his thoughts again, his pulse rushed. The sense of doom he’d carried most days since the Chicago tragedy, no matter how well he’d fooled the psychologist at his required debriefing, gripped his chest, twisting and squeezing.
Had he let his guilt over past events push him to make a bigger deal out of this call than necessary? A suspicious fire taking place right after his arrival wasn’t all that surprising when they’d happened so frequently. But what if it was more than that? A warning for the new chief? A declaration of some sort?
Whether intended as a message or not, this fire bolstered his determination to find Rachel’s address and pay her a visit after work. Somehow he had to convince a woman, who’d already proven to be stubborn, to stay out of the investigation into her brother’s actions. That task might prove doubly challenging since just the thought of seeing her again or being close enough to breathe in her wildflower scent set all of his nerve endings on high alert.
His exhaustion evaporating faster than the nearly three thousand gallons of water they’d used to extinguish the flames, he was suddenly wide awake. He turned his head to the side and took several deep breaths to slow his pulse.
