Erin Hudgens wasn’t embracing this form of ‘don’t murder your officers for being dumb’ meditation plan she was trying out. She fell asleep again when they closed their eyes with their legs crossed in lotus pose during yoga class.
Firefighters were supposed to be able to master calm and breathing control. She was a master of controlling her air but not necessarily her temper. There was a big meeting at FD headquarters today because her officers were getting raked over the coals.
She had the pipe dream that meditation would help her refocus. It had helped three years ago in Seattle when she’d almost fallen off a ladder as a probie. At the time, she’d thought being afraid of heights was the worst thing that could happen.
How wrong she’d been.
It was a relief when the teacher asked if anybody would volunteer to get water for the class. Erin’s hand shot up. She unrolled her five feet, nine inches of height and bounced to her feet, ready for anything resembling action.
She wasn’t the only one because a blonde guy in a tight performance shirt and workout shorts jumped up, too. It took more control than Erin typically displayed not to do a doubletake. The man was gorgeous, with blue eyes and gold hair that had a hint of gray.
Erin hoped he wasn’t gay because she was unabashedly checking him out. Based on the planes of his muscles, this man knew his way around a weight room and the cardio machines.
Their eyes held for half a second, and Erin suppressed a shiver.
No, no. Not gay.
The instructor directed them to a storage room in the hall opposite the studio. Erin and the man padded across the hallway in bare feet to the propped open door and didn’t notice it swing closed behind them when they entered. It shut with a loud thunk.
All of Erin’s senses went on high alert. Firefighters do not enjoy being trapped in rooms without an exit. She set down her load of water and tried the handle. “It’s stuck.”
“Stuck?” The man set down his twenty-four-pack of water.
“Yes, stuck.” She tried it again with more force. Definitely stuck. She jiggled it harder, and it still wouldn’t open.
“Maybe together?” He came up behind her and pushed while she struggled with the handle.
“I guess that’s why they leave the door propped.” Erin contemplated her options for opening the door. She could kick it in at the lock or shoulder it. However, her yoga tank and pants were not suited for either of those activities. It was possible, provided she didn’t mind a lot of bruising.
Besides, she would need to find a different yoga studio if she broke down the door.
She checked the room for other options. No tools to work into the frame. Lots of yoga blocks though. Neither of them had their cell phones because yoga clothes didn’t exactly have pockets. “Maybe we should start pounding on the door and call for help.”
“Or in ten seconds someone will let us out,” he suggested. The man was still sizing up the door.
“True. Hopefully, your wife won’t be mad at you for being stuck in here with me.” Erin leaned back against the wall next to the door and laughed slightly at her blatant attempt to gauge his status.
“No wife. Divorced. You?” He faced her, and she was near breathless from the full force of his bright blue eyes.
“No wife or girlfriend,” she said and quickly amended her statement when those azure eyes dropped in disappointment. She couldn’t have that. “Or boyfriend. Girls are cute but not in that way to me.” She tried the handle again to no avail. “In high school, this is where you play Seven Minutes in Heaven. Don’t you think?”
“In high school, I was five-foot three and scared of girls,” he replied wryly.
Considering that he was now six-foot two and ridiculously hot, she doubted that was the case anymore. “That’s the problem with high school boys. I was the center on the basketball team with a mouth full of braces. I was taller than almost all of them, and not one tried anything. If anybody made a move, I’d have been game.”
“Not one?” he asked. “Beautiful woman like you, and no one made a move?”
“See, if one of them had your confidence and had said that, he could have gotten lucky.” Erin had no qualms about getting closer to Blue-Eyes. As a firefighter, she lived or died by her instincts and had learned to follow her impulses. Right now, her instincts told her to flirt harder.
“Confidence?” The man watched her with avid interest now, taking three steps toward her.
“Yeah. A confident guy would try to cop a feel and ask for my phone number.”
“That guy might also be creepy,” he said.
“It’s only creepy when it’s not encouraged.” She was now pretty close to him. Erin also had no qualms about hitting on a hot stranger. “A confident-not-creepy-one would steal a kiss.”
“Then it’s not stealing, is it?” She knew the charge was running up and down both of them. His face transformed briefly to a large grin as he comprehended her statement.
He was total Erin-kryptonite, a little older than her and blonde. She loved blondes, possibly because they were the opposite of her. Her mom was a blue-eyed brunette, and her dad was from Haiti. Attractive blonde guys in high school had never given a mixed girl like her the time of day.
Erin sidled closer to him, pursing her lips. The idea of even thirty seconds in heaven with a cute guy had accomplished what one hour of yoga class had not. Why not start this long day with something good?
The man drew closer, his mouth inches above hers. She could see the details of his red lips, the tiny stubble on his cheeks as if he hadn’t shaved this morning. He started to lean, closing those inches that separated their mouths.
A knock interrupted them. “Anybody in here?”
Erin dropped back, noting his haggard countenance with some satisfaction. She went back to the door and pushed on the handle. “Two of us. Getting water.”
“Yeah, we’ve had problems with this door. How about we pull, and you push?”
“Sounds like a plan.” Erin braced herself and applied force to the handle near the lock. The man came to her side to help. Under the combined strength of four people, the door abruptly popped open. Erin had the furthest to fall and barely avoided sprawling on her face.
She only didn’t do a full-face plant because strong hands caught her around the waist from behind. Brief, warm contact with her former fellow prisoner. For a few short seconds, she was pressed against his hip and wrapped in those muscles she’d admired.
Alas, the intimacy of the moment was over quickly. He reluctantly released her, and she gave him a thumbs up. “That’s a lot of work for some water,” she quipped. She went back in and grabbed both cases of water, lifting them effortlessly.
There was no point in looking back. No one should ever obsess over what could have been when the next thing was coming shortly.
Besides, a little flirting did a body and mind good.
Fire Chief Noah Baker reflected that the highlight of his day was violating the etiquette rules of yoga class: Straight guys were not supposed to ogle the women in class.
Even if they were super-hot and half-naked in tight tops and shorts.
Even if said super-hot and half-naked cute woman might have fallen asleep in class and then hit on him when they were stuck in a storage closet.
It was unfair to call her cute; truthfully, she was stunning. Bronze skin, sable, frizzy, poufy hair tied back on her head, wearing form-fitting purple yoga tights and top, he’d failed to keep from salivating as they moved from sun salutations into the vinyasa meditation pose. He hadn’t been able to stop sneaking looks at her.
She did very little to help with his actual reasons for attending yoga. He preferred boxing, but today was going to be something of a trial with a long morning incident debrief and then more department business till late at night.
Too bad someone had opened the door before he took the kiss she’d been offering. Her smile a had been full of promise. It was unfair indeed to finish the class and rush to HQ to arrive an hour before his nine o’clock incident debrief.
Noah smoothed down his uniform of white shirt and black blazer, clinking slightly with the name badge, hardware, and uniform pips with the five bugles of Cleveland Fire Chief. Technically, he was fire chief of the municipal departments of Cleveland and Cuyahoga County—around fifty stations and over two thousand employees for two million citizens. The state had stepped in and forced a merger of the city and the county departments almost five years ago. That had catapulted him from battalion chief to fire chief, skipping the ranks in between because his predecessor, Chief Pegg, hadn’t been up to the task. Noah had been plucked out from Battalion 5 and told to salvage the mess three years ago at the age of thirty-six.
His office door opened, and his only female chief, Leslie McClunis, entered.
“Hi-ya, Chief Baker.” She sat in the visitor’s chair directly across from him. She would be moving to his left hand when her errant officers arrived.
“Ma’am,” he inclined his head. Of the nine battalion chiefs overseeing his stations, McClunis had been a pillar of support. Noah had a vision of a more diverse, gender-balanced future for the department. There were growing pains, but the next phase was at hand. In a few months, his new programs would begin, changing the face and mission of Cleveland Fire.
“Chief, I think we should crack their heads together and demote them both,” McClunis stated shortly. “Firehouse 15’s officers screwed up. I know we haven’t promoted a captain yet, but this was a disaster.”
“A disaster? I thought Firehouse 15 had the fastest response times in the department.” Firehouse 15 was part of McClunis’s Battalion 2, which specialized in high-rise fires with a ladder truck, an engine, and a medic/EMS ambulance.
“They did under Captain Matteo Soto, but after his retirement six months ago… his lieutenants are a problem.”
“Firehouse 15 improved its response times since he retired in January.” Noah held up the files of the two lieutenants from A-shift who had applied for the position of Captain of Firehouse 15, Aiden Clarke and Luna Rodriguez. “I thought you’d be chomping at the bit to promote her. This is the firehouse you recruited women into.”
McClunis scowled, never once to mince words. “I don’t do nepotism. We’d usually never consider someone who was barely eligible for captain if her uncle hadn’t been captain first. That’s bullshit. Clarke has three years on her.”
There was the meat of it.
During the merger three years ago, Chief Pegg had closed twenty firehouses to consolidate manpower. The city sections had exactly three women beyond McClunis, and the county section had thirty. Pegg had tried to split up the women from the county into firehouses which had never had a single female member. They quit en mass after Pegg demoted their female officers. Noah had salvaged the situation by redistributing the women into his fledgling firefighter-paramedic program, but nothing would induce them to return to the ranks.
Unless he proved himself worthy of their trust. The only success thus far had been Leslie’s recruitment of a third woman into Firehouse 15’s A-shift. Should his new initiatives take hold and he recruits women into the rookie class, some of the women might reconsider. Women sharing a shift normalized their presence and improved retention, something Chief Pegg had failed to consider.
It was by far not his only failure. Beyond a high-profile refusal of mutual aid, the twenty closed firehouses had sown the seeds of bitterness inside the department. As a consequence, the department was struggling to recruit men, let alone women. Still, he knew McClunis wanted her women to beat the men at their own game. But the scent of nepotism around Lieutenant Luna Rodriguez’s consideration for captain was not appreciated.
“Talent is talent,” Noah reminded her.
“I don’t care if she had an excellent score on the civil service exam for fire captain and whether she performed as well as Clarke on the live-fire exam. Clarke was fine as acting captain. If Soto hadn’t come to me with his recommendation and personally asked me to give her a one-month trial at captain, none of this would have happened.”
“But you gave permission for her to spend July as acting captain over Clarke,” Noah pointed out as she allowed Rodriguez her trial. It was out of character for McClunis and her famously iron spine to bend that far. Then again, Soto had faithfully served Cleveland FD for forty years, so his words carried weight.
“He vouched for her! I didn’t know it was going to be a clusterfu—” She quickly adjusted her language. “The point is, she’s obviously too green. Too emotional. Total hothead.”
“Really, Fireball?” Noah teased, using the nickname indicating McClunis’ bright red hair and whippet-thin body. There was the pot calling the kettle black.
“She’s too young,” McClunis fake pouted, “and so are you.”
“If that’s the best you can do, no wonder Soto bested you.” Noah had a great deal of affection for McClunis, but he sometimes needed to rein her in. Hopefully, this wouldn’t be one of these times, especially since McClunis was partially responsible for the situation.
“Sir?” His main administrative assistant, Penny, peeked through the door. Most fire chiefs kept a personal aide from the ranks, but they were spread thin enough that Baker reserved the aides for his battalion and section chiefs during incidents. Noah made do with two administrative assistants. “The lieutenants from 15 are here.”
“Send them in,” Noah requested with his best ‘everything is normal here’ tone. McClunis moved to the chair next to him.
Two navy uniformed lieutenants in their early thirties entered and stood at attention. They looked less concerned than Noah expected. They would feel otherwise soon.
“Be seated.”
The two obeyed, glancing between himself and their battalion chief. McClunis could have petrified them with her eyes. Noah schooled himself into his best ‘Fire Chief Baker’ neutral expression. He hoped his tone matched. “Lieutenants, I would like to hear in your own words how this happened.”
“How what happened, sir?” Luna Rodriguez asked. She was shorter than her counterpart with chestnut hair tied back in a neat bun.
Noah blinked at her words as he was fairly certain she didn’t grasp the enormity of the situation. “On your last shift, you crashed a fire engine into a garage.”
“That is true,” Aiden Clarke agreed. He was a White man with light brown hair and seemed to be more aware of the broiling fury of his battalion chief. He had a slight smirk since he’d served as interim captain for months before Rodriguez’s one-month trial had ended rather ingloriously. “At the time, it made sense.”
McClunis cut in, clear reproach in her tone, “Beyond destroying the engine and garage, the civilian you tried to rescue died from his injuries at MetroGeneral Hospital!” McClunis got louder with every word.
Rodriguez sounded defensive when she protested, “If you understood the situation—”
“I know the situation. You have only two years under your belt as a lieutenant. You don’t think. You act. You don’t have vision. You have ‘feelings.’ You skimp on protocol with hunches. Your uncle might have allowed you to act this way but—”
“Ma’am,” Clarke interrupted, “she was trying to save my life. The victim locked me in the garage, intent on burning it down. I didn’t have my air and faced dying of smoke inhalation.”
“Why were you in the garage without your personal protective equipment? Where was your SCBA?” The battalion chief referred to their self-contained breathing apparatus (SCBA) which held forty minutes of compressed air.
“The victim wouldn’t trust us while wearing the SCBA. Clarke left his outside,” Rodriguez jumped in before Clarke could respond.
“Who approved that?” McClunis spat.
“I did. I heard Clarke’s plan over the open channel and allowed it to proceed.” Rodriguez was going to the mattresses, fully aware her single stint as captain had ended poorly. “We didn’t have any backup coming. We suspected something was burning in the house, and we needed to gain his trust. Dispatch said it was a minor kitchen fire.”
“Which you turned into a major incident! This is what happens when we make exceptions, even for Soto!” McClunis faced her chief. “Do you hear this?”
He raised his hand. “I have heard you, and I think you should sit this one out.”
“On part of my battalion?” McClunis’s tirade came to a screeching halt.
“I know but trust me. Firehouse 15 will be in good hands with me as judge.” Noah had to put a stop to this now. Luna Rodriguez would be judged on her own merits without the added interference of her uncle, who muddied the waters. Whatever complicated history existed between McClunis and Soto needed to be absent, as there was definitely more to this event than met the eye.
As furious as it made her, his battalion chief did not question his authority in front of two subordinates. McClunis saw herself out, and the two lieutenants noticeably relaxed.
“You can wipe that smirk off your face, Rodriguez. You’ll get an unbiased evaluation, but don’t think for a second I’m okay with what you both did.”
“I’m not sure what you mean, sir.” Clarke slowly realized Rodriguez wasn’t the only one in trouble. McClunis and Noah had allowed him to remain as acting captain from February through June, but this incident made them re-evaluate Clarke’s readiness for command.
“I have a medical report here. In addition to the burns, the patient had severe bruising to his head and skull, mandibular, and maxillary fractures. Can you explain that?” Noah held up the paperwork from MetroGen.
“Yes, sir. He attacked me and tried to set me on fire. I resorted to physical force to protect myself.” Clarke crossed his arms over his chest.
Noah folded his hands under his chin. “If you’d brought a second person with you, per protocol, physical force would have been unnecessary. Your second would have restrained him. Instead, you were trapped, and your acting captain took the drastic action of using my million-dollar engine as a battering ram. You were lucky a spark from the crash didn’t ignite the gasoline and fricassee you with the victim.”
He opted not to point out that the garage had collapsed and the firetruck had caught fire afterward.
“I can see where it may look bad, sir,” Rodriguez said. “If you could hear us out—”
“In the interest of thoroughness, I am going to do an incident debrief with the team right now. Dismissed. Report to your next shift as scheduled, and do not speak to anyone else about this. You will be contacted in writing. Rodriguez remains acting captain as the circumstances of the victim’s death continues to be reviewed.” His carefully controlled words belied the fury in his tone.
“Thank you, sir,” Rodriguez said with what would be short-lived relief.
“Don’t let it go to your head. Your firehouse will get a spare engine, but if you so much as scratch the paint on it, you’ll be demoted.”
The two left, stricken, no less than they deserved. Good was not always nice. Firefighters were inherent risk-takers, and his job was to determine which risks were worth the gamble. This hadn’t been one of them.
Firehouse 15’s A-shift was full of young and hungry firefighters, even though it was understaffed with seven people instead of the ten-member goal. Shifts B, C, and the part-time D-shift were full shifts of solid people, but none of them had the flare for command. Noah had trusted Soto’s unerring eye at identifying future officers, but somehow, his retirement had left Firehouse 15 in turmoil.
The entire situation was highly irregular. When Soto had privately told Baker of his intention to retire due to worsening lung disease in December, Baker had expected Clarke would be the next captain. Yet when the retirement was made official in January, no recommendation ever came. Despite both senior lieutenant applications, Noah had gone with Clarke under the assumption Soto was behind on paperwork. No one expected Soto’s late recommendation of Rodriguez or that he’d ask McClunis to consider his niece. His departure implied there was a deeper personal schism ongoing inside the firehouse.
Honoring his request had clearly been a mistake.
One mistake had compounded another and led to another protocol violation, which built on the next until it resulted in this God-awful disaster. Noah needed to get to the bottom of the mess before he searched for a different captain candidate.
All he had to do was be his introverted self and let the team talk. The less he said, the more they would speak. Silence was a powerful tool, and a commander listened first before he acted.
All would be revealed with time and patience.
He allowed himself a small smile. Except maybe with yoga girl. That woman needed action, which he sadly didn’t have the chance to give today.