Flash Point (Kilgore Fire Book 2) Read online

  “Ummm,” I hummed.

  I was confused.

  “We figured we’d just go ahead and do this interview together,” Allen grinned. “Saves us both time.”

  I nodded, not sure what to think about that.

  “Okay.” What else was there to say?

  My head hurt.

  “So we’ve heard you just got out of the Marines,” Chief Allen started.

  I nodded.

  That hurt my head worse.

  “Why’d you leave?” Luke asked.

  I turned my eyes to him across the small table from me.

  “Because I was tired of getting shot at,” I replied drolly, not holding back.

  Luke’s mouth twitched.

  “Honesty. I like that,” he said. “You’ve received two purple hearts. That’s pretty impressive.”

  I laughed. It was impressive. Most people got them after they died.

  “Yeah, I guess you could say that,” I shrugged. “I was shot once in the leg and once in the back. Both areas are healed and don’t affect me at all.”

  Luke nodded.

  “We’ll only need you on a rotating schedule,” Luke explained.

  “I’ll need you full time. You’ll be on B-shift where your brother used to be,” Chief expounded.

  My stomach knotted.

  My ‘brother’ was actually my stepbrother. His mom married my dad when we were nineteen.

  Aaron had been my best friend even before our parents had gotten together, and it’d been convenient as hell to call him my brother afterwards.

  Because we’d always been brothers.

  He’d had my back since we were in the fourth grade and Jonny Alps tried to pants me.

  Aaron had beat the shit out of Johnny, and I’d shared my Little Debbie Zebra Cakes with him at lunch later that day.

  The rest was history, and he’d been watching my back ever since.

  I, on the other hand, hadn’t watched his back.

  He’d nearly died in an automobile accident caused by his fucked up psycho cunt of an ex-wife. Although he’d lived, he had a long road to recovery ahead of him, as well as a divorce to deal with.

  And he’d asked me to come home.

  He’d never done that before, and I owed it to him.

  It didn’t hurt that I’d seen a bullet fly right past my face only hours before Aaron had made the request.

  My mind got the best of me as I looked at The Chief. “How’s the morale there?”

  Chief Allen shrugged. “It’s been better. I expect it to pick up once the shift is full again. They’ve had a new guy or gal in there every shift. Consistency with them is the key.”

  I nodded.

  Morale was a huge factor in the overall feel of a job.

  I’d had my share of shitty jobs, and I didn’t really want to work anywhere that was going to bring me down.

  My blood pressure couldn’t take it.

  And my fucking headaches.

  “Good. Aaron—Fatbaby said that everyone was doing okay. I just wanted to make sure,” I crossed my leg over my knee.

  Luke studied me, but Chief Allen started to talk about some bullshit course that we were required to pass before they could officially hire me.

  “You’ll need to run a mile in less than seven minutes. Pull a human sized dummy from the top of the stairs, out a makeshift window, and fireman carry him down seven flights….,” Chief Allen was saying.

  I ignored him.

  He just didn’t have a clue what I’d been through the last ten years.

  The only way I couldn’t pass the test he was talking about was if I had to do it through a hail of gunfire, and to be honest that would only be because I didn’t want to do it.

  I was over having bullets aimed at my head.

  Sure, I was applying for the SWAT team as a medic, but that was only because I didn’t think I would be completely satisfied if I stayed solely as a paramedic/firefighter.

  I was what one would call an adrenaline junkie.

  The feel of adrenaline running through my veins gave me a high that I couldn’t quite kick…at least not cold turkey.

  I was used to intense situations, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to be just a plain old, every day firefighter.

  I’d also gotten an overnight shift at the hospital as a security officer.

  That, I had to admit, was to make myself as busy as possible.

  Being back in the same town as Masen was going to be a strain, and I needed the distraction.

  “The same test will be used for both departments,” Luke continued where Allen left off.

  I nodded.

  “When do you want to do it?” Chief Allen asked.

  I looked at my watch.

  “I can do it now,” I offered.

  Chief Allen looked at me dressed in slacks and a nice button down shirt.

  “You want to do it in that?” He asked, staring at my shoes.

  I nodded.

  “Yeah, I’ll do it now. I got a t-shirt on under this shirt,” I pulled on the dress shirt I’d worn.

  “Okay,” Chief shrugged.

  They got up, and I walked behind them as they led me out the back of the police station.

  Our departure caught the attention of a few of the men sitting in a conference room, and they followed us out.

  Luke led us to a field where a track was around a lot of equipment ranging from an old house made out of tin to a huge steel frame of stairs that I guessed to be the seven stories Chief Allen had said I’d have to come down with a dummy.

  The track had seen better days, but I’d run on worse.

  Stopping next to the table next to the track, I started to empty my pockets.

  I debated whether to take the two guns off my hip and ankle, but chose not to, instead leaving them in place.

  I didn’t know these men.

  Sure, they were officers, but I didn’t trust my weapons with anyone.

  Not even my own mother.

  I did, however, get my keys and phone out.

  As well as the few extra clips I always carried.

  My wallet was the last thing to follow, and then I yanked my button down shirt up and over my head, instantly feeling better.

  I hated dress shirts.

  I was a jeans and t-shirt man.

  Or a t-shirt and tactical pants.

  I hated it when I had to get into my dress uniform.

  Not that I would be doing that again if it was within my power.

  “You want me to see if I can find you some shoes, man?” A guy asked from behind us.

  I looked over to see six men behind me.

  They were all dressed in SWAT gear, sans body armor.

  At least what I could tell. Unless they’d suddenly invented some super-secret armor that didn’t look like you were wearing it.

  “No. These are fine,” I said, looking down at my boots.

  They were work boots.

  Slip on boots that had steel toes and had definitely seen better days.

  I could run in them, though.

  Hell, I could do a goddamn lot of things in them.

  Lift. Work on a car. Kick the shit out of someone. Fuck in them.

  Not that I’d done that recently.

  Hell, I hadn’t done that since Masen.

  I turned my brain off at that thought.

  It wouldn’t get me anywhere today.

  Once I was in my t-shirt, I nodded at Luke who nodded back, pulling out a phone and holding up three fingers.

  “Three,” he said. “Two. One. Go.”

  I went.

  The first lap was the one that I ran slower than the others.

  You always had to get a gauge of the terrain.

  Once I had that gauge, I started to run full out.

  There was no other way to do it.

  And I finished in less than five minutes.

  “Four forty-eight,” Luke said, stopping the timer on his phone.

  Out of habit I checked my heart rate, watching the dials on my watch as I did.

  Ninety-eight beats per minute.

  Good.

  “What’s next?” I asked, panting slightly.

  Chief Allen pointed at a dummy.

  “That dummy has to get up to the top of the stairs and in through that window up there,” he pointed.

  I followed the direction of his hand.

  “Okay,” I said, picking up the dummy he’d indicated and started to climb the stairs.

  “I was going to give you another ten minutes,” he said, shouting slightly.

  I waved him off.

  “I’m good,” I said, jogging up to the top.

  Once there, I tossed the dummy in through the window.

  “Ready,” I called down.

  They all stared at me like I was crazy.

  “What?” I asked, mostly to myself.

  Nobody answered.

  The chief held up his hand long moments later, then threw it down.

  I took that as my cue to go and grabbed the dummy, tossing it over my shoulder and going down the stairs two and three at a time depending on where I was at on the stairs.

  I reached the bottom and tossed the dummy into the chair that it’d recently been residing in.

  “He took the heavy one,” one of the men muttered under their breath.

  I didn’t look up, instead focusing on my heart rate and getting oxygen into my lungs.

  Not because I was actually tired, but because I thought I looked stupid panting when everyone else around me didn’t have a drop of sweat on them, seeing as it was a cool fifty degrees out.

  “What next?” I asked once my breathing was
under control.

  “We need to do CPR on that dummy,” he pointed to an ambulance that was pulled up with a dummy on the gurney in the back. “You have to do that for twenty minutes, then sprint through that obstacle course with the dummy on your shoulder.”

  Sighing, I did as I was told.

  Twenty-four minutes and thirty seconds later, I was putting my phone back into my pocket, along with the magazines for my guns.

  “Did I pass?” I asked.

  “You passed,” Luke confirmed, sounding slightly amused.

  Another of the men, the red head this time, started to laugh.

  “Did you pass?” He asked laughingly. “Man, you obliterated nearly every man’s record that has ever run this course. In work boots and slacks. With two guns, one on your hip and one on your ankle.”

  It didn’t alarm me that they saw the ankle gun.

  Any trained officer would.

  What did alarm me, though, was that they were talking to me.

  Was I expected to talk back?

  I hoped not, but alas, I was surrounded by the men offering handshakes moments later.

  “We’re glad to meet you,” one said. He was the one with the limp. “We’ve heard a lot about you.”

  They had?

  From who?

  The one with the limp grinned. “You were the hometown hero of the week last month.”

  Ahh, that made sense. I’d heard about that.

  “Got it,” I muttered, backing away.

  “You need anything else from me?” I questioned the two men.

  Both Luke and Chief Allen shook their heads. “No. Not today. My secretary will be in touch with the paperwork for your new hire. You’ll have to go through a mandatory class on ethics and bylaws of the fire department.”

  I nodded.

  “Okay,” I said.

  Luke offered his hand. “My secretary will be back with you for some paperwork, too. We’ll need your peace officer’s license, as well as your certifications.”

  I nodded.

  “Fine,” I said, then walked away from them all without another word.

  Chapter 2

  You and me. Bed. Now.

  -Masen to her cat, Jensen.

  Masen

  “I hope these cookies taste okay,” I muttered to Mia. “You know how I suck at baking. And these are being sold for this fund raiser bake sale that they are having for that burned firefighter. What if someone dies from food poisoning?”

  Mia’s eyes turned to me.

  “They taste fine,” she said. “Stop carrying on about them.”

  I muttered something that sounded much like ‘fuck you’ to her under my breath.

  I refrained from saying, ‘how do you know?’

  I wasn’t trying to be a bitch. But I really, really didn’t want to be here.

  Why?

  Because Bowe was here.

  Bowe was a guy I’d met online through a dating site.

  At first, I’d liked him.

  I was ready not to be alone anymore, and he’d been great.

  But then I started the comparing.

  It happened with every single man I’d ever dated since Booth had left me, never fail.

  I’d compare their hair. Their eyes. Their voice. Their personality. Everything.

  And I always found them lacking.

  I didn’t think it was fair of me to hold them to standards that they’d never, ever meet.

  Nobody was Booth.

  That was the bottom line.

  And I was destined to be alone.

  Bowe, however, didn’t feel the same.

  He thought we could work…and he was clearly going to keep trying.

  I, on the other hand, wasn’t looking forward to what it meant to have him ‘try’ to win me over.

  Something he’d said he’d be doing.

  Bowe wasn’t a bad guy.

  In fact, he was incredibly attractive.

  He was tall, Italian and stacked.

  He had black hair, but I preferred brown.

  He had deeply tanned skin, I preferred sun kissed.

  He had a rich, deep baritone that was smooth like dark chocolate.

  What I preferred, though, was deep, husky and rough. The type of voice that always sounded like it’d smoked a pack a day, but had never touched a cigarette in his life.

  See, nobody would ever win.

  I had what I wanted in my mind and no one else would do.

  Nobody but him.

  “Hey there,” Bowe said once I entered the main room.

  I hid my grimace. Barely.

  I smiled congenially at him but made no move towards him.

  I wouldn’t be, either.

  He took a step forward, my guess, to come to me, but I looked away and didn’t see any other progress.

  Mostly because my eyes were trained on a man across the room.

  The first time I’d seen those eyes, I’d been enraptured.

  They were a rich green that really struck me stupid.

  But then you got to the pupil in his left eye, and you never knew what hit you.

  He had flecks of brown above and below the pupil in his left eye, which, from a distance, made that one eye look almost like a cat’s eye, with the thin, slit-like pupil.

  It was amazing and truly one of a kind.

  People used to call him freaky…and maybe to someone else, it would have been.

  But to me, it was pure and utter beauty.

  Booth stared at me as I stared at him, watching me with those eyes that looked to be ravaged with indecision.

  “Fuck,” Mia hissed beside me.

  I ignored her and placed the cookies down gently on the first available surface, which happened to be the bumper of the firetruck.

  Then I was running, straight past the man that would never measure up, into the arms of the man that everyone would always be compared to.

  “Booth,” I breathed, hugging him so tightly that I was sure I was cutting off any and all air flow to his body.

  His arms went just as tightly around me, and we hugged for long, long minutes.

  “Should we leave them alone?” I heard someone mutter behind us.

  I held on tighter.

  I didn’t care what anyone else did.

  Not a single bit.

  A throat cleared behind us, but I didn’t turn around.

  Not until I was physically released from Booth’s arms and placed to the side.

  “Uh, hi,” I heard.

  I turned to see a gorgeous blonde woman standing in the mouth of the fire station.

  She looked to be my age, maybe a little younger, and she had a young girl on her hip. A daughter, maybe.

  “Hey hubby,” the woman said cheekily, looking back and forth between Booth and I.

  My head turned, and the words she’d just said filtered through my head.

  Hey, hubby.

  My world dimmed, my vision thinning out until all I could see was grey.

  The world went on around me as I walked away from the two of them standing next to each other and put one foot in front of the other. I managed to get across the room to the box of cookies I’d set down.

  I could do this.

  I could do this.

  “You should’ve seen him qualify as he ran the obstacle course,” I heard Tai, my best friend’s man, say. “Downy taped him running it. It was like watching Captain America run it. He had the fucking t-shirt on and everything.”

  I rolled my eyes.

  It probably wasn’t that impressive.

  But it was. I watched the video.

  I didn’t want to.

  But they’d put it on the big screen, and I’d watched the video instead of torturing myself watching Booth and his wife.

  Anything was better than that.

  ***

  Hours later, I was trying not to get too drunk in the bar area of Applebee’s.

  I had to work tomorrow.

  But my head didn’t care.

  It was doing what my heart wanted.

  Which was to forget.

  My eyes caught on the young girl directly in front of me.

  She was sitting at a bar sized table with both of her parents, and I guessed to be her boyfriend.

  I didn’t know. The guy was weird. He hadn’t taken his eyes off of me all night, either.

  “What do you think he’s staring at me for?” I asked my best friend, Mia.

  Mia turned to stare at the seventeen-year-old cheerleader across the room from us, then shrugged.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “Why don’t you go ask her?”

  I ignored her, and tried my best to ignore the glares I was receiving from the peanut gallery.