Page 9 of Heat Exchange
“I already made pancake batter. I was just waiting for you to get up.”
Her sister wasn’t the best cook in the world, but she made amazing pancakes. “I hope you made a lot. I’m starving.”
Ashley’s face lit up with a real smile. “I know you and my pancakes. I practically had to mix it in a bucket.”
* * *
AIDANHELDUPa metal rod and looked over at Scotty. “What is this? Does this go somewhere?”
They both looked at the piece of playground equipment they’d spent the past hour assembling, and then Scotty shrugged. “It doesn’t look like it goes anywhere.”
“I don’t think they said, ‘Hey, let’s throw a random metal rod in there just to mess with the idiots who have to put it together,’ do you?”
“I don’t know. If you set something on fire, I know what to do with it. Building things? Not my job.”
Chris Eriksson joined them, scratching at a slowly graying beard. “I don’t think you’re supposed to have extra pieces. A bolt maybe. A few nuts. That looks important.”
“Where did the instructions go?” Aidan asked, scanning the playground to see if they’d blown away.
“There were instructions?”
“Funny, Kincaid.” Eriksson shook his head. “My kid’s going to climb on this thing. If we can’t figure it out, we’re breaking it down and starting over.”
Aidan stifled the curse words he wanted to mutter as he started circling the playground structure. They were surrounded by an increasingly bored pack of elementary students and a photographer waiting to snap a few pictures of the kids playing on the equipment the firehouse had donated and built. When Eriksson had come to them, looking for some help for his son’s school, they’d been all-in.
And they still were. This was their community and they all did what they could. But it would have been nice if somebody had been in charge of the directions. After a few minutes, one of the teachers—a pretty brunette with a warm smile—moved closer and beckoned him over.
“We built one of these where I did my student teaching, and I think it’s a support bar for under the slide,” she whispered. “If you look up at it from underneath, you should see the braces where it bolts on.”
“Thank you.”
“No, thank you. We really appreciate you volunteering your time.”
He gave her his best public relations smile, secure in doing so because of the ring on her finger and lack ofI’m hitting on a firefightervibe. “Just doing our part for the children, ma’am.”
She nodded and went back to her students, leaving him relieved he’d judged the situation correctly. Having a teacher flirt with him in front of her students would be a level of awkward he didn’t care to experience. He’d learned fairly quickly that, for whatever reason, there were women out there who really liked men in uniform, with police and fire uniforms ranking right up there. Fake kitchen fires were rare, but not unheard of, and it seemed like every firehouse had a story about busting through a front door to find the lady of the house wearing little to nothing.
For a few years, he’d been like a kid in a candy store, so to speak, but it had gotten old after a while. He’d grown to hate not being sure if a woman was attracted to him or his job, so one time he’d actually told a woman he was interested in that he was a plumber. It was a lie he kept going for several weeks, until she suffered a plumbing emergency and he was forced to admit he had no idea why disgusting water was backing up into her bathtub.
That had been his longest relationship, surviving his confession and lasting about a year and a half. He’d even been thinking about an engagement ring, but she struggled with his job and in the end, she opted out. Or rather, she opted for a guy who worked in a bank and was home by five and never worked weekends.
There had been a few almost-serious relationships since then, but they always fizzled out under the strain of his job. Flipping back and forth between day tours and night tours was something that came naturally to him at this point, but it was a lot harder on the people in his life.
He tried to stay hopeful, but sometimes it was hard to be optimistic about finding a woman he’d spend the rest of his life with. Even Scotty’s sisters—who’d grown up with Tommy Kincaid and surrounded by firefighters—hadn’t been able to make their marriages to firefighters work. Sure, there were a lot of strong marriages if he looked around enough, but it got discouraging at times.
“Hey, Hunt, you gonna stand around yank—” Scotty bit off the words, no doubt remembering just in time they had a young audience. “Doing nothing, or are you gonna help?”
Once they’d gotten the metal rod bolted into the proper position, Chris Eriksson turned testing it out into a comedy skit that made the children laugh and then, finally, it was time for some press photos. The kids gave them a handmade thank-you card that the firefighters promised to hang on their bulletin board, and then it was time to get back to the station. Several guys had agreed to cover for them, but only for a few morning hours.
Once they were on their way back, in Eriksson’s truck, Chris looked over at Scott. “Hey, I heard Lydia’s back.”
Aidan was glad he’d been too slow to call shotgun and was wedged into the truck’s inadequate backseat because he felt the quick flash of heat across the back of his neck. He was going to end up in trouble if he didn’t figure out how to stifle his reaction to hearing Lydia’s name.
But the way she’d looked at him at Kincaid’s last night...
“Yeah,” Scotty said. “She’s going to help out at the bar so Ashley can take a little time off while she and Danny figure out what the hell they’re doing.”
“I heard Walsh was staying with you. That’s cozy.”
