Charlotte Maclay - Between Honor And Duty

At mid afternoon, the late-August sun baked down on the neighborhood, drying out the lawns and softening the tar strip between the asphalt of the street and the concrete gutter. He walked up the driveway and onto the walkway to the house just as Janice swore under her breath.

“Could you use some help?” he asked mildly.

She whirled, still balancing the screen door with her shoulder. Both her smile and her surprise were genuine.

“Logan! Oh, my gosh! I didn’t hear you drive up.”

Firefighters and their families socialized frequently, although Janice wasn’t always part of the group. Logan was secretly pleased at her instant recognition and her warm smile.

He reached for the pre-fab screen door, which included hinges and a latch, and held it up. “Looks like you were otherwise occupied.”

“Tell me about it.” Using her forearm, she swiped at the sweat on her forehead. Her dark hair glistened with the same perspiration, the natural curl frizzing around her face in a sable outline that emphasized its heart shape. “I’ve been telling Ray for years we needed a screen door to let the west breeze in on hot days and to keep out the flies. He finally bought the door a year ago but he never—” She stopped abruptly, then shrugged. “I decided if I was going to get my screen door, I’d have to do it myself.”

Logan pulled the door away from her. It was fairly heavy since the bottom half was ionized metal, only the top half a screen. “I’ll do it.”

She studied him a moment, her ginger-brown eyes assessing him. He saw lines of fatigue around her eyes, a sense of being overwhelmed in their depths, and none of the sparkle that had drawn him in during their prior encounters, despite her marital status. The urge to restore her optimistic spirit rose with the speed of a flame racing up a gasoline-drenched wall, and he forced himself to remember she’d been recently widowed. And why.

Slowly, she shook her head. “I’m trying to learn to stand on my own two feet.”

“Great. Think of me as a hired hand. My price is a cool glass of lemonade or a beer, whatever you’ve got.”

Relinquishing her hold on the door, she stepped back. “I really hate it that I don’t know how to do certain chores around the house. Ray always said he’d take care of things, forget my honey-do list was about two miles long. He didn’t like the idea of me doing a man’s job.”

“So let me get this door installed and you can check off one of the honey-do’s.”

“Guess I shouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth.”

“That’s what friends are for.” Resting the screen against the doorjamb, Logan examined the contents of the tool caddie on the porch. It looked as if Ray had amassed everything he needed. “Have you got the screws?”

“Oh, yes.” Janice pulled a packet of screws from her back pocket and handed it to Logan. He was a quiet, serious man, one of her favorite people to talk with at firefighter get-togethers. A gentle spirit in a powerful body, she’d always thought.

Today he was wearing faded beige Dockers and a cotton sport shirt that tugged across his wide shoulders and tucked in at a narrow waist. His sandy-brown hair was trimmed to a medium length and combed back, lying neatly on his well-shaped head. Unlike some of the firefighters Janice knew, Logan always looked pulled together, even on his days off.

She’d often wondered why such a tall, good-looking firefighter wasn’t married, but she’d never thought it was her business to ask. Certainly Ray wouldn’t have been pleased if she’d expressed any particular interest in another man.

She watched as Logan measured where the hinges would go and marked the screw holes with a pencil. He appeared comfortable in the role of carpenter, going about the task with a minimum of wasted effort. She’d always thought of him as unflappable, both personally and on the job. A good firefighter.

“So how’s it going?” he asked as he picked up a drill and slid in a bit, tightening it in place.

“Some days are better than others.” The first week after Ray’s death had been a total blur, her children distraught, relatives coming in from out of town, neighbors helping out, firefighters and their wives trying to lend a hand.

She still felt numb, not so much with grief, although that was part of it, but with the frightening array of decisions she’d had to make. Ray hadn’t been real good about keeping her in the loop.

“My biggest problem right now is getting the insurance money. Chief Gray says the state is always slow. Since Ray was only in the department six years, what little pension I get barely covers the grocery bill.”

Lowering the drill, Logan looked at her, his gaze both sympathetic and intense. His eyes were hazel with touches of green and gold, she mused, realizing this was the first time she’d noticed that detail.

“There’s a widows’ and orphans’ fund that can help out in an emergency.”

“We’ll be all right. I filed the papers a couple of weeks ago for the life insurance we’ve been paying for since Kevin was born. I had to wait for copies of the, ah—” she stumbled over the word and swallowed hard, still unable to totally accept the fact that Ray was dead “—death certificate before I could do that.”

To her amazement, he tenderly cupped her face with his hand, using his thumb to wipe away a tear she hadn’t known she’d shed. His gentleness nearly undid her. She was striving so hard to survive on her own, she didn’t dare let herself fall apart. She might never be able to pull herself together again.

“I’m sorry,” she murmured, a lump of determination lodging in her throat. “I didn’t use to spring leaks like that at the drop of a hat.”

“You were very brave at the funeral. Ray would have been proud of you.”

“You think so?”

“Yeah. I know I thought you were pretty terrific. The kids, too.”

She closed her hand around his wrist, holding on for a moment as though she could draw from his inner strength. “If I never hear bagpipes playing a funeral dirge again, it’ll be just fine with me.”

One side of his mouth lifted in a wry smile. “Someday I’ll play a Scottish jig for you on the pipes. That will lift your spirits.”

“You play that awful, squealing instrument?” she gasped.

He laughed out loud, a deep baritone that rumbled through his chest. “In my family, criticizing pipe playing is sacrilegious. My brother Derek and I are fourth-generation firefighters and about tenth-generation pipers. But I admit it’s probably an acquired taste.”

“I’ll agree with that.” She found herself smiling back at him, her first real smile in, well, a month. Having Logan around was like a dose of chin-up medicine. “I’ll go stir up some lemonade. The kids are down the block swimming in a neighbor’s pool, but they’ll be back soon and probably ready for something cool to drink.”

“Then I’d better get busy so I can earn my keep.”

Logan waited until she’d gone into the house, then slowly exhaled. What the hell had made him touch her? Her skin was so damn soft, so warm. He’d known it would be, which is why he shouldn’t have come within arm’s reach of Janice, the widow of a man whose life he might have saved if he’d acted more wisely.

His hand shook as he lifted the drill and drove the bit into the doorjamb. Wood shavings curled back around the quarter-inch hole. Thank goodness his pants were loose enough that the telltale bulge behind his zipper hadn’t been obvious. Talk about lousy timing. He didn’t dare let his feelings for Janice get out of hand. Right now, what she needed was a friend, not some lust-crazed firefighter with an overactive libido.

Within minutes, Janice reappeared, carrying a tray with a pitcher of lemonade and four plastic cups.