“Uh-oh,” Oliver said, and he was greeted by nervous laughter.
“Don’t worry,” Tony said. “I’ll share my wisdom. For example, don’t put on your seat belt and then try to pull on your turnout coat and fasten it. You might be successful getting the coat on while you’re on the way to a fire, but you’ll just about kill yourself trying to get out of the truck.”
Laura smiled, imagining the scene. She hardly took her eyes off Tony as he stood just four feet in front of her, holding the class’s attention. Gavin jumped in with a detail or story a few times, but Tony held the floor as he walked the class through the book and gave them an understanding of what the next six weeks would entail. She knew many instructors back home, but none of them had commanded her interest and respect as Tony did. He was strong, compassionate and more attractive than she wanted to admit to herself. Finally, he closed his book—dog-eared and with sticky notes spilling over the top like a bad hair day—and glanced at the wall clock, which was fashioned to look like a fire truck. Its hands were miniature fire hoses, telling them almost half the class had gone by. She was amazed, but it also worried her. With only twelve class nights to learn everything she needed to know, it already seemed to be going too fast.
“Break time,” Tony said. “Feel free to use the restroom and get a soda from the pop machine. Say hello to the guys working tonight and check out the trucks.”
TONY WENT DIRECTLY to his office, closed his door and sat behind his desk, enjoying the silence for a moment. He had gladly signed up for the series of courses that would qualify him as an instructor because he’d been inspired by a great teacher himself. He knew the fire service needed the right people training the next generation of firefighters.
He just wished he could fast-forward through the classroom lectures and get to the hands-on stuff that would really make the difference between life and death. As he soaked in a few minutes of solitude, he kept an ear tuned to the station beyond his door. He heard a truck door shut. A chirp of a siren. Radio traffic that made up the background music of his life. Conversations. Laughter.
Gavin’s booming laugh shot through him. Had he been flirting with Laura, or had it been Tony’s imagination? He tried to shut it out, but he imagined Gavin out there, regaling Laura with stories of his own heroism and trying to impress her. As a new member of the department, Gavin had a tendency to take risks to prove himself. He had tried to rush into a house fire without waiting for his partner once, and he’d shown up at an accident scene while off duty and tried to help despite the fact that there were on-duty guys there with protective gear.
His offenses were the result of trying too hard, too fast, not a lack of integrity or training. Admirable, but dangerous. Young guys like Gavin were the reason older guys with experience were in charge. One of the reasons Tony had selected Gavin to help train the new recruits was to remind him he was relatively new himself and didn’t know everything. But Tony was beginning to wonder if he’d made a mistake. Would Gavin’s assistance have the opposite effect on the young hotshot?
He got up and opened his door.
“Kennedy,” he barked into the station where Gavin was holding open the door of the firetruck and laughing with whomever was inside. Tony imagined it was Laura, and the thought of Gavin flirting with her irritated him right under the collar of his uniform shirt.
Gavin turned to face him and the person in the truck slid out. It wasn’t Laura. It was Diane, the older lady in the class. Gavin offered her a hand as she stepped down from the pumper.
“Need to see me, sir?”
Tony nodded and gestured into his office. When Gavin entered and took a seat, his face all innocent friendliness, Tony took a moment and closed his office door before sitting down himself.
“Do you know why I chose you to help me teach this class?” he asked.
Gavin shrugged, his expression unwavering. “Low seniority?”
“I have plenty of seniority and I’m here,” Tony said.
“But you’re the instructor. I’m the guy who hands out books and sets up obstacle courses and ladders. Not that I mind. Gotta pay my dues.”
Tony blew out a breath and leaned back in his chair.
“Everyone seems like they have a good reason for being here,” Gavin continued. “I missed the first part, but then I was talking with the two brothers and that older guy while we looked over the trucks. They seem like they’ll be good volunteers.”
Tony noticed that Gavin didn’t say anything about Laura, and it occurred to him that perhaps he was the one putting too much thought into her presence, not Gavin. He’d been about to lecture Gavin about singling out any of the class members or being too friendly with them, but he checked his words. Just because he found Laura distracting didn’t mean any of the other men on the department would feel the same way. He needed to keep his awareness of her carefully controlled, just like a small flame he didn’t dare let turn into a wall of fire.
“I wanted to say thank you for helping out,” Tony said. “I think you’re perfect for the job.”
Gavin grinned. “That’s what you’re paying me for. Can I go out and show them around the rest of the station now?”
Tony nodded and noted the time. He’d wait at least ten minutes before he reconvened the class. He sorted through a stack of fire reports he’d printed from the previous week. He liked seeing things on paper, so he usually printed the reports filed by the firefighters and paramedics, searching the text to make certain his men had followed protocol, achieved the fastest response time possible and worked for the best resolution of every emergency. He took a pen and flagged a few things he wanted to ask about, runs that he hadn’t been on. Why had the ambulance spent so much time on scene when called to a home for a seizure patient? What had prompted the officer in charge to call for a medical helicopter on standby when they responded to a kitchen fire at a vacation home on the north side of town?
Tony slept well because he’d grown up with a dad who was a fire chief. When he’d confessed to his father that worrying about the station kept him up at night, his dad sat him down and told him in his blunt way that he’d be no damn good to anyone if he stayed awake all night worrying about what could happen and then was too tired when it did happen.
Not sympathetic, but undeniably true.
Tony finished his notes and left them on his desk so he could focus on the training instead of agonizing over the dangers his new volunteers could face under his command and responsibility.
Gavin had everyone back in the training room and seated when Tony entered. Instead of taking up a position behind the desk, Tony picked a chair at the end of the middle row and sat down with his students.
“I’m glad to see you all came back,” he said. “And I didn’t bore you to tears or scare you away.”
A few of the guys laughed politely, and Laura got up and turned her chair so she could face him. She smiled and waited with her book open in her lap and her pen poised over it. Tony wondered if Laura’s students looked at her with anticipation as if she had the secrets of the universe at her command. That was what her expression seemed to convey.
If Laura believed he knew everything about being a successful firefighter, he couldn’t disappoint her. He owed her and everyone else in the class his very best instruction. It could mean the difference between life and death.
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