Jodie Bailey - Fatal Response

There wasn’t enough reserve left to care. Instead, she lowered her chin to her chest and stared at the gray tile floor.

Her eyes slipped shut against the mist threatening to build into full-on tears. She was not crying. Not now. Never where anyone might see.

“I see you’re handling tonight’s events well.”

Erin jumped at the deep masculine voice behind her, then relaxed when she found the source. “Tonight’s not the night to sneak up on me, Wyatt.”

Her cousin bent and grabbed the pot, then set it in the sink. The badge on his black Mountain Springs Police Department jacket gleamed in the fluorescent lights overhead. “Wasn’t trying to. You just looked like you could use some—”

“I don’t need help.” Snatching the carafe, she shoved it under the water and waited for it to fill. “I need coffee. You want coffee?” Truth was, with her hands shaking and mind racing, coffee was the last thing she needed, but it would give her something to do until he left. Wyatt Stephens had a way of figuring out all of her hidden secrets. It was one of the reasons her cousin was the only person who knew she’d once been married to Jason. If she’d tried to keep him in the dark, he’d have figured it out. He read her almost as well as Jason did.

The difference was, Wyatt’s ability to read her mind came from growing up together. Jason’s came from a whole other kind of relationship.

Erin balled her fists to keep from digging her fingers into her scalp. She didn’t need Jason Barnes in her headspace.

“I just got here, but I wanted to check on you before I headed to the crime scene.” Wyatt laid a hand on her shoulder to keep her from turning her back fully to him. “You want to talk about it? What you saw—”

“Was something I couldn’t stop.” Her stomach knotted as the horrible crunching thud seemed to echo in the room. She didn’t want to talk about the collision either. A woman was dead because Erin hadn’t been able to rescue her. It was her job. She’d failed.

“That’s twice you’ve cut me off in the past thirty seconds.” With a gentle tug, Wyatt turned her to face him. He took the carafe from her hand and set it behind her on the counter. “What else is happening? You don’t usually—”

“I don’t usually see helpless women get purposely mowed down.”

“That’s three times.”

With a sigh, Erin pulled away from her cousin’s grip and leaned back against the counter, shoving her hands into her pockets as she stared at the black leather couch across the room. “Jason’s here.”

It took a second for the name to register, but she could tell when it sank in. Wyatt’s chin lifted slightly. “Why?”

“I have no idea.” Erin ran over the brief encounter, leaving out the part where the sight of him had driven her back half a decade.

“Did he say how long he’s staying?”

She shook her head as her phone vibrated in the thigh pocket of her navy blue uniform pants. After pulling it out, she read the screen.

Heard there was some excitement. You headed home early? We’re out of coffee.

Why was her father awake at 1:12 a.m.? And why couldn’t he, just once, ask about her? She was half tempted to shoot back an I’m fine, Dad, thanks for asking.

Instead, Erin shoved her phone into her pocket while Wyatt watched with a raised eyebrow.

“You could head home, you know.”

“Chief Kelliher is on his way back from out of town, so I’m in charge even if the station is offline during the investigation. I’d rather stay here anyway. At least then there’d be a chance at sleep instead of...” Instead of cleaning whatever mess her father had decided to leave for her, running through the inevitable argument about why she didn’t find a regular day job, then mowing the huge two-acre lawn before she could drop into her own bed.

“Move out, Erin. Make him stand on his own two feet and stop treating you like his personal servant.”

It was the same thing he’d been preaching since she’d turned eighteen. Jason had echoed him every time. The difference was, Jason had a greater stake in her moving out than Wyatt ever had.

Neither of them understood she couldn’t simply walk away, so she’d stopped arguing. It was her fault her father suffered from the medical issues that held him back in life.

Her father had never liked Jason, had deemed him trouble from the start. Maybe Erin should have listened instead of suggesting they elope the day after high school graduation...and drive to South Carolina in style in her father’s prized ’68 Camaro.

On the way home, a drunk driver ran them off the road at the bridge over Wisdom Creek. They’d tumbled down the embankment and come to rest in the creek, leaving the car destroyed, Jason with a concussion, and Erin with a broken leg and busted ribs.

Her father blamed Jason, and his anger skyrocketed, blowing in an explosion when Jason came to the house the day she got home from the hospital. Before either of them could confess their elopement, Erin’s father had collapsed, the combination of his diabetes and his anger making him the victim of a stroke that had forced him into months of rehab and Erin into silence about her marriage.

It was her responsibility to take care of her father, but the one man who should have understood and supported her the most had never been able to understand. Jason had pushed her to tell the truth about their marriage so they could stop sneaking stolen moments together. He wanted to tell her father, to have her leave home and move in with him.

No, Jason had never understood. Her father had needed to be stronger first. Another blowup could have killed him.

She had to make it up to her father for wrecking his car and his life.

And he never let her forget it.

The radio on Wyatt’s shoulder crackled. He tipped his head to listen, then glanced toward the door. “I have to go, but if you need me, I’m—”

“Only a phone call away?”

“That’s four.” Wyatt turned and walked out, his footsteps echoing through the outer office and into the hallway.

Erin stood in the tiny kitchen, lips pursed. There was too much energy in her twitching muscles. She needed to put them to work.

She strode through the office and across the hall into the bay. The low murmur of voices filtered in through the garage doors at the back of the building, but the distance was mercifully too far to pick out words.

The engine still gleamed from her earlier restlessness, so she grabbed her supplies and walked to the end of the row where the brush truck stood. Her lone footsteps echoed off the high ceiling, the familiarity as comforting as her own heartbeat. No matter what happened in her life, a firefighter was what she was meant to be. She knew it in silences like this as well as she knew it in turnout gear facing a fully engulfed structure.

A small smile edged up her face for the first time in hours, and she let her fingers trail along the side of the large red utility vehicle. She inspected hoses and dials, then dug into the bucket for an old toothbrush. Might as well hit those spots where nobody ever remembered to clean.

She was standing on the running board polishing a handrail when a door opened on the other side of the building. Footsteps, slow but steady, paced toward her.

It was probably Wyatt. He had never been able to understand I don’t want to talk .

Lowering her hand, Erin grabbed the rail and turned, but she kept her place as she checked her watch. Over an hour on the truck. No wonder her neck ached as much as her heart.

The man who rounded the front of the ladder truck wasn’t her cousin.

Jason.

Her fingers tightened on the handrail while she fought to keep her expression impassive, but her insides jolted at his unexpected appearance. In the fullness of the overhead lights, he was everything she remembered and a whole lot more. Those blue eyes had first caught her attention over a decade earlier. While they held concern, they lacked the warmth she’d once enjoyed. Instead, they were wiser and darker, as though they’d absorbed everything he’d seen on his many deployments. His thick sandy-blond hair was longer on the top, tousled, but the smooth skin at his neck said it had been recently cut.