Amie Denman - The Firefighter's Vow

“Thank you,” she said, bravery in her tone. “Lead the way.”

Tony had already started to turn toward a long interior wall with several doors down it, but he paused and looked back at her when she spoke. Good. He should know she wasn’t intimidated by him.

Tony opened one of the doors in the long wall. Laura entered the cool, dim office with faded color photographs of former chiefs on the walls, a massive steel desk and functional ugly furniture.

“When did you become the chief?” she asked.

“At the end of last summer.”

Small talk. It bridged the gap of the past year and built a tiny social foundation between her and Tony, but it was a delay. She needed to tell him her real reason for coming to the fire station.

“Your dad was the chief, wasn’t he?”

Tony nodded.

“And you followed in his footsteps.”

Tony’s forehead wrinkled and Laura recognized irritation in his expression.

“I earned it if that’s what you’re asking.” He tried to smile, but it was nothing like the friendly smile he’d given the kids on the beach, their parents and even his firefighting partner. Her impression of Tony from the previous summer was of a lighthearted but sincere man who would do anything to help someone. But no one likes having their work questioned.

“Of course you earned it,” she said, putting enthusiasm behind her words to try to dispel the tension.

Tony’s features relaxed. “My dad retired and there was a shift in leadership positions. I was in the right place at the right time. Kevin is a captain now, but your sister probably already told you that.”

Before arriving in Cape Pursuit for the summer to live with her sister, Laura talked to Nicole almost every week on the phone and more often via text message and email, but the fire department was not something they typically talked about.

Tony handed Laura a printed copy of the report from the beach run. “That’s an extra. You can take it with you,” he said.

Was he dismissing her?

“I wanted to make sure it was available for you since I’m going off duty in about an hour,” he added.

Oh. He was being considerate and organized. Of course. He helped people and didn’t ask questions. When he’d taken her keys away from her in the parking lot of the Cape Pursuit Bar and Grill and held open the door of his truck, he’d hardly said a word. As she disgraced herself being sick from too many drinks on an empty stomach, he’d held her hair and offered her damp washcloths.

The memory burned her cheeks. If he had seen her over the course of the past year, he would probably have tried to rescue her. The days she’d left her teaching job and sat in the parking lot, head on the steering wheel, fighting tears. The nights she slipped out of the house after her parents were asleep so she could go for long walks without answering questions.

That was why she had come to Cape Pursuit. She was doing so much better than what he probably thought. At least she was trying...

“How did you become a firefighter?” she asked, forcing the subject into the open before she chickened out.

Tony cocked his head to the side and drew his eyebrows together.

“I mean, what did you have to do to become qualified?” she asked.

“To be a professional firefighter, you have to take hundreds of hours of training,” he said.

“What kind of training?”

Tony’s expression softened. “Sit down,” he said, indicating one of the much-used chairs in the office. “Please.”

Laura sat, but she kept her back straight so she would feel strong and powerful. She needed her strength for what she was about to do.

“I feel like you must have a reason for asking,” Tony said, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. He looked sympathetic, as if he were talking to a lost child. He wasn’t much older than she was, and she was not lost. In fact, she was starting to feel quite found. “Is this about your brother?”

“No,” Laura said, shaking her head. “It’s about me.” She took a deep breath and let it out, knowing Tony would be patient enough to wait a moment for her explanation. “I’d like to become a volunteer firefighter.”

IT WAS NOT the first time Tony had talked with someone coming into the fire station and asking about joining as either a volunteer or a full-timer. Firefighters tended to attract attention with their high-profile jobs, big trucks and loud sirens. The station, too, was prominently located and took up half a block in Cape Pursuit.

He was glad every time someone came in and asked about joining their ranks because he believed it was the best and most noble profession. Believed in helping others even at the risk of his own life. Believed in his men, his trucks and their training.

He couldn’t believe Laura Wheeler was sitting in his office asking to sign up. The fact that she was a woman had nothing to do with his shock. Cape Pursuit didn’t have any women on the roster, but most local departments did and he’d had female instructors at the fire academy who’d easily dispelled any myth about men being better able to do the job.

No, it wasn’t that she was female. It was that she was Laura Wheeler. The woman who had been cast adrift by her firefighter brother’s death. He’d asked about her since their meeting last year, indirectly and discreetly. His best friend and cousin Kevin was marrying Laura’s sister, so it wasn’t far off the mark for Laura to come up in conversation.

Nothing he’d heard would have made him think Laura was a candidate for the fire service, but she was right there looking at him with expectation written in the set of her mouth and intensity in her eyes.

“A volunteer firefighter,” she repeated. “Not an astronaut, so you don’t need to look so shocked.”

“I’m not shocked,” Tony said quickly, but he doubted he was very convincing.

“Women can fight fires.”

“Yes,” he said. “I’ve known other women in the fire service who could outclimb me on ladders, outdrive me in the trucks and just generally outsmart me.”

Laura raised both eyebrows, a look she had probably perfected with teenagers making up excuses about their homework.

“I just didn’t think firefighting...after what happened with...”

“My brother, Adam,” Laura said steadily as if she wanted to get it out in the open. “Yes. He died doing this. It was a forest fire, but it was a fire. And yes, I’m sure you think I must be out of my mind to want to do this.”

“I don’t think you’re out of your mind.”

“Good,” she said. “How can I join the department?”

“We...have an application process. And there’s training, of course. Volunteers don’t need nearly as much as full-time staff, but there’s still a lot you would need to know.”

“I know CPR and have first aid training because I was a coach, and I helped save someone just this morning from drowning,” she said. “That’s a start, isn’t it?”

“CPR and first aid training are very relevant,” Tony agreed. It was true that teachers and coaches had to be cool under pressure and often put the needs of others first. He respected that, but he hadn’t known before today that Laura had any experience or desire that would qualify her to do what he did. His image of her was as Nicole’s sister who didn’t always make the best choices.

Tony sat back in his chair and tried to reimagine Laura as a person capable of wearing thirty pounds of gear, fighting her way through smoke and dousing a fire.

“I’m physically fit,” she said as if she could read his thoughts. He was instantly ashamed. The size of a person had little to do with the ability to fight fires. Brains, attitude and training were far greater determiners. “I run.”