Page 17 of August Heat
Brows knitted and body backing out of the doorway, Krys said, “Of course. Cinematic purposes.” The door was half closed when she poked her nose in again. “Saturday night. Eight. The park in town.”
“I’m sure I’ll find it.” There was only one park in Paradise Valley, and only one lawn big enough to host a “movie in the park” premier. Siobhan would be lucky to find parking, though. She had been there when a T-Ball game happened, and it wasnotgood.
She didn’t go after Krys when the door shut and a car engine started a minute later. Glares from Krys’s car reflected off the office windows. They prevented Siobhan from seeing her aunt open the door, giving her the start of her life.
“Who was that, huh?” Gabriella took another look in Krys’s direction. “You know I don’t swing that way, but that gal has a got aniceass.”
“I hear that’s what happens when you’re a firefighter.” Siobhan cleared her throat and flicked the hair out of her face. She didnotneed her aunt beholding how flustered some people in that office were. “You get a nice ass.”
“Oh? Firefighter, huh?” Gabriella leaned out the door, right foot hovering in the air as she got a good, long look of the old car disappearing down the driveway. “Then again, if that’s what the firefighters look like around here, I might have to start dating around. Friend of yours?”
Siobhan finally succumbed to her squeaky office chair. “She’s helping with the kittens. She’s the one who brought them in.”
“And?”
That got Gabriella a harsh look over the shoulder? “And what?”
“Aaaaand?”
“And we might be seeing the movie in the park on Saturday,” Siobhan muttered.
Too loud, apparently. That gave Gabriella the ammunition she required to grab Siobhan by the back of the chair and spin her around like it was her birthday. Gloats that it was “about time someone went on a date again” filled the air.
Siobhan felt like she was about to be sick. The spinning chair wasn’t the only culprit.
Chapter 9
KRYS
“Hear me out, would you?” Krys placed her elbow on the chief’s desk, coffee-stained papers rustling beneath her. “The dalmatian days may be over, but that doesn’t mean we don’t need some animals around here, all right?”
Chief Johnson rubbed his brow and burrowed the pads of his palms into his eyes. A resounding sigh nearly knocked Krys out of her seat. What was worse? The torrential bullcrap storm she conjured when she helped herself into her boss’s office, or that tired face looking back at her? The man was supposed to have a nap at this time of day.
“Kittens,” he echoed. “You want the firehouse to adopt a litter ofkittens.”
“Doesn’t have to be all of them…” Krys massaged the back of her neck. If her chief was usually napping at two in the afternoon, then she was working out. Lifting weights. Jumping rope. Getting the guys to join her in yoga, because God knew those boys were tighter than the hoses they dragged from engine to hydrants. “Keep a couple so they can play with and keep each other company. I can find homes for the others. I mean, they’re good mousers.”
The chief propped his chin up on his hand. “So are Dalmatians. You’ll notice we never got one. Or a bulldog, for that matter.” That was a reference to the poll the weekly town newspaper ran a few years ago.“What breed of dog do you think befits the Paradise Valley fire hall?”Somehow, “bulldogs” beat our Dalmatians by over twenty percent. Krys had always thought this a terrier town, so that was news to her.
“If this is about money to feed them and take them to vet, we’ll find a way. Remember when they had that library cat a few years back?” Ah, yes, in the days before Yi. Old Smokey and Yi overlapped each other by one year. Rumor was that the cat finally gave up the ghost because it couldn’t stand the new head librarian. “They always had a few dollars in the donation bin for food and litter.”
“You gonna clean up that litter box every day, Madison?” Chief Johnson laughed as if that were the most ridiculous thing he ever heard. “’Cause I ain’t! Doubt you’ll find many of the guys here want to pick up cat crap, especially if they already do it at home.”
Krys sat back in her seat. “We already share the chores around here. What’s cleaning a food bowl and scooping up some clumps?”
“You’re out of your mind. Collect some donations for those cats you found, if you want, but I’m drawing the line at inviting them to live here. Do you know how much paperwork that is for me, anyway? Even if I wanted them around…”
Krys knew it was a longshot, but bringing the cats to the firehouse was her best shot at getting all four adopted together. Or at least two of them together. She had already asked her friends if they wanted to adopt some furballs, but Lorri pointed out her upcoming baby, and Jalen admitted she wasn’t home enough those days to take care of a pet. The closest Krys’s roommate came to helping out was promising to make some fliers to hang around town.“FREE KITTENS TO GOOD HOME.”Luckily, she had snatched a decent photo of them together the last time she was at Siobhan’s place, not that it had helped them get adopted yet.
“If you like them so much, why don’t you keep them, Madison?” the chief called after her as she left his office.
“My landlord won’t let me!”
“What’s up now?” asked Quimby in the lounge. A talk show played on TV. Looked like some serious video gaming had been going on until Tim Young passed out asleep in his chair. “Getting yelled at ‘cause you’re a girl?”
Krys stopped dead behind the couch. “Who said I was a girl?” she snapped.
It got Quimby every time. He’d be momentarily scared witless that he had offended her, only for Krys to slug him in the shoulder and suggest they go spot each other at the bench.My favorite men are the ones who fall for my dumb jokes.They were usually the ones teaching her those dumb jokes to use on others later.
