Rachel Dove - The Fire House on Honeysuckle Street

RACHEL LOUISE DOVEis a mum of two from Yorkshire. She has always loved writing and has had previous success as a self-published author. Rachel is the winner of the Mills & Boon & Prima Magazine Flirty Fiction competition and won The Writers Bureau Writer of the Year Award in 2016. She is a qualified adult education tutor specialising in child development and autism. In 2018 she founded the Rachel Dove Bursary, giving one working class writer each year a fully funded place on the Romantic Novelists’ Association New Writer’s Scheme.

‘Whenever I pick up a book by Rachel Dove, I know that there will be engaging characters along with a story that has warmth, humour and heartwarming vibes’

‘An entertaining and wonderful story’

‘Great read and a great ending’

‘I loved it so much, I sat up half the night to finish it’

The Chic Boutique on Baker Street

The Flower Shop on Foxley Street

The Long Walk Back

The Wedding Shop on Wexley Street

HQ

An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2019

Copyright © Rachel Dove 2019

Rachel Dove asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

E-book Edition © May 2019 ISBN: 9780008312688

Version: 2019-04-08

Table of Contents

Cover

About the Author

Praise for Rachel Dove from readers

Also by Rachel Dove

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Acknowledgements

Extract

Dear Reader …

Thank You For Reading

Keep Reading …

About the Publisher

Dedicated to my gorgeous, clever and unique sons,

Book Worm and Little Man.

And to all the Mama and Papa Bears out there –

keep fighting and keep smiling.

By the time the first alarm had sounded, Samuel Draper was already up, out of his bunk and running full pelt to his gear and the rig. His firefighter comrades were hot on his heels, all snapping into action the second the bell sounded. A mere few seconds after that and they were on the truck, peeling out of Euston Fire Station at speed.

‘House fire, Guildford Street. Originated in the kitchen. Suspected hob fire. All residents are out of the property, but it’s going up fast.’ Robert rattled off the details as they navigated their way through the streets of London towards their shout. Sam nodded, pulling on his helmet, ready. ‘Understood. Robert, you and I will do front door. Lenny, you head round the back. Assess any damage, check for hazards and stray looky-loos.’

‘Okay, ETA six minutes. You glad to be back?’

Sam flashed his colleague and friend a smile. ‘I’m going back, two weeks.’

Robert’s face dropped in surprise. ‘Back up there? What for, midwife school?’

Lenny, looking as big and burly as ever behind the wheel of the fire engine, laughed out loud as they sat in the back.

‘Good one, Rob. Why are you going back? Got something going on up there?’

Sam didn’t answer, just nodded in his usual quiet way. Lenny and Robert knew not to bother pressing him. Sam wasn’t a gossip, or one to judge anyone else. Whatever he was doing up there, it had to be important to him. Sam never did anything in life without assessing every aspect first. It made him the skilled firefighter he was, and he had all the lads’ unconditional trust the minute he walked through the door on his first shift, all those years ago. The only real thing that had altered was his hairline. When they did school visits, the others liked to joke that his mop of dark curls had been singed off – frazzled off in a fireball. The kids loved it. Sam, not so much.

They got to the shout in record time, putting out the small pan fire and comforting the understandably very frightened residents. These were the best calls, the best outcomes. Quick in and out, put the fire out and have no casualties or structural damage. A new pan or two, a lick of paint and the memory would be washed away, freshened up, made anew. The lads all knew from experience that it could have been far worse than a scorched splashback and smoke damage. Before long, they were heading back home to the station.

‘Come on then, Sam,’ Lenny teased, as he indicated left and waved at a small gaggle of schoolgirls who were frantically blowing kisses and waving at them from the corner of the busy street. ‘Why do you keep going up to God’s country?’

‘God’s armpit more like,’ Robert scoffed, wiping a black sooty mark from the side of his face. ‘Helping that woman deliver her baby must have been the most action you saw, right? You starting to feel your age?’

Lenny banged his meaty hand against the steering wheel.

‘That’s it! He’s getting some action! That’s it, isn’t it?’ He beeped at a cyclist who swung out wildly in front of their truck, chuckling to himself as the cyclist jumped about ten feet in the air and peddled frantically back into the bike lane where he belonged. ‘Bike lanes save lives, man!’ he shouted genially out of the window. The cyclist nodded apologetically, face as white as a sheet. ‘Finally, Sam! A real-life woman who is not your mother to talk to!’

‘Hey,’ Sam warned, ‘watch the mother talk.’

Robert laughed. ‘Come on, Sam, as if we’d dare rib her. She scares me more than you do with one of her looks!’ The lads in the truck all laughed together.

Sam, as eager as always to shut down the talk about his life, shook his head.

‘I delivered a wedding planner’s baby, and she is now planning her own wedding, to the man she loves. As a matter of fact, they asked me to go be part of it. I like the country, the station lads are nice, and I’m due a change. No woman involved.’

Robert sighed dramatically. ‘Sam, Sam, Sam. You make my heart bleed, bro. You really do. How could you leave London?’

Sam just sat back and smiled at his friend. His mother Sondra had said much the same when he had told her, but she understood, as upset as she was.

Being a gangly lad in primary school, a white boy with a loud, bubbly African mother behind him and an array of temporary siblings, he was used to people trying to suss him out, wondering aloud and questioning his life choices. The thing was, Sondra Okeke Draper, his larger-than-life foster mother, always taught him to ignore the stares, hold your head up at all times, and do what felt right. Westfield, as bizarre as it was to his colleagues, was right. It felt right, and it wasn’t his life going forward he needed to sort out. It was his backstory. He loved London, sure, but aside from a few colleagues and his mother, he was alone here, too. Moving to the North wouldn’t be such a wrench, and one thing that Sam wasn’t afraid of was making the bold moves. He might be the strong silent type, but Sam knew exactly what was going on, and what felt important. This did, and without quite knowing what the outcome would be, Sam knew he had to at least open the puzzle box of his past, and peek inside. A wedding was a new beginning. Maria Mallory and James Chance, the couple with the baby he had delivered in front of the fire house, had their happy ever after. Sam had decided to at least look for his, and all signs pointed north.