Fearless Read online

  “Ooooh, you are gonna owe me big. But you got it, brother.” While Donovan’s nod of agreement came without hesitation, the rest of his answer arrived after a solid pause. “We do some pretty heavy lifting around here, and not just physically. I know she made it through the academy, but . . . you think she’s going to be able to haul her weight now that she’s on engine for real?”

  “I think hauling her weight is going to be the least of her worries. Especially if she keeps pissing off guys like Oz.”

  A smile Cole would bet wasn’t voluntary lifted one corner of Alex’s mouth. “Yeah, she’s a little scrappy, huh? I kind of dig that in a rookie, though.”

  “Sure,” Cole said, caught halfway between wanting to laugh and wanting to cry uncle. “You’re not the one whose job is riding on getting her trained and not shit-canned.”

  Before Donovan could work up an appropriately cocky reply, Oz appeared at the front fender of the engine, cutting Cole’s conversation with Alex short.

  “Everett. A word,” the lieutenant rasped, and great, just when Cole thought this morning couldn’t get any stickier.

  He put a stranglehold on the unease suddenly churning through his gut, giving Donovan a quick “see you later” and making sure his expression was completely noncommittal before crossing the engine bay to the spot where Oz stood. “Hey, Lieutenant. What can I do for you?”

  Whoa. On closer inspection, the guy looked a little more ragged than usual. Or maybe that was the disdain suddenly hardening his features.

  Still, Cole couldn’t help but tack on, “Is everything okay? You look kind of beat.”

  Oz lifted a shoulder. “Did a double over the weekend. Filled in over at Four, and we got slammed with calls. Typical Saturday night.”

  “I hear that,” Cole said. Between the car wrecks, the heart attacks, and the drunks, Saturdays usually gave them all a run for their freaking money. “The back-to-back over a weekend is brutal.”

  “Yeah, but the money ain’t.” Oz’s stare hitched just briefly before turning back to steel. “Anyway, I just had a sit-down with Westin. He told me you’re in charge of training our new candidate.” His voice curled around the last word like a plume of black smoke, the rock-hard set of his jaw just as nasty.

  “I am,” Cole agreed, keeping his response neutral despite the shock dominating his chest. Oz might be kind of an old-school firefighter, but Savannah had made it through the academy on the same standards as her male classmates. True, that didn’t make her a firefighter right off the bat, but she was a hell of a lot closer than most people.

  Oz folded his arms over his chest. “You know Tommy Briggs, over at Thirty-Six?”

  Cole spun through his mental files until recognition hit. “Lieutenant on truck, right?”

  “That’s him. He had a female candidate last year. Real piece of work, demanding her own bunk, making a stink about not having enough privacy. Gargantuan pain in the ass.”

  “Yeah?” Cole tread with extreme caution. Savannah might’ve flipped the lid off this can of worms by pissing Oz off, but if he could smooth things over from his end, it would go a long way toward problem solved. “I just took Nelson through the locker room and she didn’t seem to mind the idea of bunking in. Maybe Tommy just got unlucky.”

  “What Tommy got was screwed,” Oz flipped back, and while he’d never been a particularly warm and fuzzy guy, his stare was downright glacial beneath the glare of the overhead lights in the engine bay. “See, his female rookie didn’t just get prissy about bunking in. She couldn’t keep up with drills or hauling gear, either. But when the guys over at Thirty-Six leaned on her, she went crying to the captain about how the training was sexist.”

  “Just because the training is rigorous doesn’t make it sexist,” Cole said. Hell, plenty of male rookies had trouble gritting it out. “It’s hard for a reason.”

  “Yeah, well, tell that to the guys at Thirty-Six. Their girl over there ended up falling behind on a search and rescue in a pretty sketchy house fire. Then she panicked when she couldn’t find her exit path.”

  Cole’s brows went up, but still, he tread lightly. “Sounds dangerous.”

  Oz’s answer—and the frost-covered frown that accompanied it—wasn’t nearly so neutral. “Not just for her. The firefighter who had to go back for her ended up getting banged up real good dragging her ass out. The whole thing turned out to be a complete cluster fuck, all because she couldn’t hold her own.”

  Strategy had Cole keeping his mouth shut, but his pulse pressed louder in his ears as Oz continued. “I’m all for treating people equal, provided they earn equal. But this job ain’t for everybody, Everett. With the eight you’ve put in plus the squad training you’ve got under your belt, you know that as well as I do. One weak link is dangerous for the entire chain of command.”

  Oz stepped closer, the shadows beneath his eyes cutting even deeper in the seriousness of his expression. “We lost a good man three years ago. I’m not about to put anyone else in this house at risk. No matter what.”

  Every last one of Cole’s muscles went bowstring tight at both the mention of his fallen friend, Mason Watts, and the implication coming out of Oz’s mouth. Discrediting Savannah based on her gender wasn’t part of Cole’s game plan, but she was still Station Eight’s rookie, and she’d gotten off on the wrong foot with the wrong firefighter on top of it. She had a metric ton of worth to prove, and it was Cole’s job to get her there. Of course Oz would be watching his every move while he did it to make sure he was rescue squad material.

  And of course, Cole intended to deliver.

  “I’d never put anyone in this house in harm’s way. I’m going to train Nelson the best I know how, Lieutenant. You have my word on that.”

  Oz broke into a smile, but Cole realized just a second too late that the expression was all teeth.

  “She’s got a mouth on her. Do yourself a favor and break her early. Then we can get someone in here who can actually pull his weight and move your ass to squad where it belongs.”

  Chapter Five

  Savannah scraped the last two sausage patties from her frying pan, dropping them to the serving plate by the cooktop with an ominous thunk before turning toward the island to examine the rest of the meal. Overcooked chunks of scrambled eggs sat lifelessly in the bowl by her elbow, with grits that could stunt-double as waterlogged cement in the one next to it. She’d had to get creative about wrecking the canned biscuits she’d unearthed from the house fridge, but in the end, she’d simply relied on what she knew best.

  When in doubt, just turn up the heat. After all, she was a firefighter.

  “Whoa. Breakfast looks . . . interesting.” Rachel skidded to a halt by the coffeepot, her fellow paramedic Tom O’Keefe seconding the affirmation with a wary, wide-eyed stare.

  Savannah’s gut tightened with the tiniest pang of remorse, but she slapped a smile over her face to cover any hint that might translate to her expression. “Thanks. Everything is ready, if you want to let the guys in the engine bay know.”

  “Sure,” Rachel said, although she sounded anything but. She turned toward the common room door, not so subtly placing her elbow in Tom’s ribs in what Savannah would bet was an effort to remove the open-mouthed look from the other paramedic’s face.

  “Are these . . . grits?” he asked, ladling up a scoopful and watching the pasty-white mess plop gracelessly back into the bowl.

  Savannah could barely hide her wince. As a Texas girl, she knew that runny grits skirted the boundaries of sacrilege. But she’d set out to prove a point, and come hell or high tide, she was going to do it.

  “They sure are. Go on and help yourself.”

  “Huh. I had no idea grits could even do that.” Tom shook his head, grabbing a plate from the stack at the end of the island. “What the hell. A guy’s gotta eat.”

  Rachel reappeared in the kitchen a minute later, with Donovan and Jones and Crews in tow. They filed around the kitchen island, their expressions turning from caution
to outright fear as Savannah presented the serving plate full of torched sausage patties to complete the spread.

  “Jesus, Nelson. What’d these eggs ever do to you?” The question came from Donovan, and although his tone held the definite edge of you’re-the-rookie shit-giving, he still bit the bullet and grabbed a plate from the stack on the stainless-steel counter.

  “I’m not sure these actually count as eggs anymore,” Crews speculated, looking over Donovan’s shoulder, and even Jones, who was normally head down, eyes forward, nodded in agreement. Too bad for them, Savannah had a master’s degree in fortitude, courtesy of her three brothers. This was child’s play compared to the jawing that had gone on at the Nelson family dinner table every night for nearly two decades.

  Lieutenant Osborne’s flat-out stare of disapproval, however, was not.

  “You’d better hope you don’t fight fires the same way you handle the kitchen, because that’s a pretty sorry showing for your first assignment, candidate,” he said, making his way across the common room in a handful of precise steps. But rather than adding anything else or reluctantly picking up a plate to serve himself some breakfast, Oz simply stood across from her at the kitchen island, waiting. The obvious disapproval flashing through his stormy gray eyes scrambled Savannah’s breath, but she forced herself to hold his stare.

  “I would apologize, but to be fair, I did warn you, Lieutenant. It’s not my fault you assumed I knew how to cook when you put me on kitchen duty.”

  Just like that, the disdain in Oz’s eyes shifted into something harder and a whole lot less forgiving. But before he could turn the emotion into a response, Everett appeared at the other man’s side.

  “Lieutenant,” he said, waiting for Oz’s tight nod of acknowledgment before reaching for a plate and pinning Savannah with the full force of his serious-as-sin gaze. “It seems no one’s told Nelson the most important house rule for kitchen duty.”

  Confusion guided Savannah back a full step on the linoleum, her guard tacked firmly into place. Was Everett on her side or not? “And that is?”

  He handed over the plate between his fingers without hesitation. “Whoever cooks is supposed to eat first.”

  Unease replaced the air in her lungs. “I didn’t know that.”

  “Yeah,” O’Keefe admitted from his spot at the table. He gave a sheepish shrug. “Sorry. You said for me to help myself, so I just figured Everett had told you and you didn’t want to, uh, try your luck. Otherwise I’d have waited for you to lead the charge.”

  Everett exchanged a blank glance with Oz, who frowned one last time at the sad excuse for a breakfast on the kitchen island before stalking to the coffeepot instead of fixing himself a plate.

  “Well,” Everett said. “Now that we’ve remedied your lack of knowledge, why don’t you go ahead and help yourself, Nelson. There are a lot of hours between breakfast and lunch, and you’re going to need all the energy you can get. Especially if we get a couple of calls before then.”

  Well, shit. Of course he had to go and be all logical. Not that she was going to tip her hand. After all, the meal might be a culinary train wreck, and yeah, she might’ve made it that way on purpose, but it was still edible. She’d wanted to prove a point, not poison anyone.

  “Okay,” Savannah said, lifting one shoulder for added nonchalance. She placed a lopsided biscuit and some sausage on her plate, waiting as Everett did the same. He upped the ante by scooping up a bunch of scrambled eggs, but they both steered clear of the grits. Savannah might be hard-wired to prove her worth by rising to whatever challenge lay in front of her, but hell, even she had hard limits.

  “So, um, what do we do after breakfast?” she asked, grabbing a banana as a failsafe before aiming her boots toward the dining table where Rachel sat across from O’Keefe.

  Everett parked himself next to the male paramedic on the long wooden bench seat. “After all the gear checks are done, we’ll go over shift assignments. Then you and I will work on some drills.”

  “Sounds like the academy.”

  Her observation drew irony-tinged laughter from both Donovan and Jones, but it was Everett who replied. “Do yourself a favor, Nelson. Look forward, not back.”

  Savannah’s spine straightened to its full height. Okay, so she occupied the bottom spot on the totem pole as far as experience went, but come on.

  She’d only opened her mouth to defend the experience she’d worked her ass off to gain over the last twelve months when the shrill sound of the station-wide overhead system cut the response forming hotly on her tongue.

  “Ambulance Eight, motor vehicle accident, pedestrian struck. Ninety-six hundred block of Wilson Boulevard. Requesting immediate response.”

  Savannah’s heart clattered against her ribs, her palms going instantly slick as she recalled Everett’s words from barely an hour ago.

  Oh, and car wrecks. We get a ton of those.

  Her throat locked over a hard swallow. Please, God. Please, not the first call. Please . . .

  As if providence had decided to finally do her a solid, the overhead system fell silent without a request for additional backup from squad or engine, and Savannah exhaled in a whoosh of relief.

  “Good morning to you too, Fairview. Nothing like a big call right out of the chute,” O’Keefe said, pushing back from the breakfast table and taking one last bite of his biscuit before popping his chin at Rachel. “I’ll flip you for the driver’s seat, Harrison.”

  Rachel rolled her eyes toward her bright red bangs and followed her partner to the front of the common room. “Not a chance. You drove all of last shift. Your ass is riding shotgun, pretty boy. Take it or leave it.”

  The pair made their way toward the engine bay, the back and forth of their easygoing banter fading down the open hallway, and Donovan let out a low whistle.

  “Man, we just got away with one. Wilson Boulevard is a busy throughway. With rush-hour traffic, I bet that scene looks like a finger painting.”

  “Pedestrian versus car doesn’t usually have a happy ending,” Jones agreed, using the edge of his fork to saw through the overcooked sausage patty on his plate. “Hey, isn’t that close to where we did that other really nasty MVA last month?”

  “Motorcycle versus SUV, where squad had to cut the roof off the vehicle? Or single rider versus oak tree? Because that was messy, too,” Donovan said around a mouthful of scrambled eggs.

  Crews shook his head. “No, the SUV wreck was over on Delancey, and the tree guy was Michigan Terrace. The one on Wilson was that FUBAR with the glazier’s truck, remember? I think the guys on squad are still picking chunks of glass and who knows what else out of the bottom of their boots from that extraction. The driver was pinned in there and bleeding something fierce.”

  The chorus of ohhhhs sounded ominous in its recognition, making Savannah’s stomach bank hard left. She’d known that being on the roster at Eight meant she’d have to face hairy situations, but God, these guys might as well be rattling off baseball highlights.

  She was tough, no doubt, but would she ever be this indifferent about things like car wrecks? Or fires?

  Or worse?

  “Not hungry?” Everett asked, dropping his tone a register and flicking his gaze at her untouched breakfast while the other firefighters and guys on squad shifted topics and continued their own conversation at the other end of the table.

  “No.” Savannah inhaled on a five-count, shaking off her jitters once and for all. “Guess I’m just anxious to get started.”

  “I wasn’t just giving you a hard time when I said you should eat something.”

  She raised a brow in a silent call of bullshit, and Everett tipped his sandy-brown head in concession.

  “Hey, I said just. But turnabout is fair play.” He kept his voice quiet, but serious. “No one freelances at Eight, on calls or otherwise. You earned a taste of your own Franken-breakfast.”

  Savannah’s shoulders tightened with a fresh shot of remorse, although she wasn’t quite ready to give
up the ghost. “Maybe. But didn’t you say assumptions are as dangerous as guesswork around here? Oz shouldn’t have jumped to conclusions about whether or not I have kitchen skills.”

  Ah! That got his attention. Everett froze to the bench across from her for a full ten seconds before saying, “It might’ve been a bad idea for Oz to assume you could cook, but it’s an even worse idea for you to alienate the rest of the house to prove your point. If you’re going to make it to lunch, you need to realize that none of us fly solo. Ever.”

  She slid a glance at the firefighters at the far end of the table before dropping her chin. As much as Oz’s implication had hacked her off, Everett was right. “Understood.”

  “Another thing you’re going to need to do if you want to make it to lunch is put something in your stomach. Turnabout aside, you pass out on your first day and I can pretty much guarantee you’ll end up with a nickname you despise.”

  Damn it, he had her on all counts. “Fine,” Savannah said, flipping her biscuit over to remove the burnt bottom layer before taking a bite. She’d been far too antsy to eat before she’d left this morning—not that her brother’s kitchen played host to anything other than ramen noodles, beer, and condiments. Her three-night stint on Brad’s torture device-slash-couch had left her both sleepless and sore, so saving the strength she had was probably a smart strategy.

  Insult, meet injury.

  Savannah ate the rest of her breakfast in silence, taking in the conversations around her. When the other firefighters started to disperse to continue with their various house assignments, she pushed up from the table, moving toward the back of the kitchen for cleanup.

  Lieutenant Osborne stood with one hip against the countertop, blocking her path just shy of the sink. “I’m out of coffee,” he said, sparing a lightning-fast glance at the mug by his elbow before lifting his eyes to spear her with a stare.

  Savannah’s pride demanded that she not look away, even though her heart hammered beneath her T-shirt. “There should be plenty.” She knew because she’d seen Donovan brew a fresh pot not even five minutes ago before he’d gone out to the engine bay.