Where There's Smoke

Sloane ignored him and kept going. An angry tangle of graffiti covered the walls of the building she passed. Here where the southern Boston neighborhoods of North Dorchester and Roxbury came together, even the sidewalk looked hard used. Sloane genuinely didn’t notice. She wasn’t concerned with young boys or with her surroundings. She was only concerned with the men in the firehouse ahead.

Her stomach tightened.

When she stepped through the doorway, she would start the final phase of five years of intense—some might say obsessive—effort. Five years to design equipment that would help ensure no firefighter, anywhere, would be lost in a blaze. Five years to help ensure that no more men would be devoured by the gaping maw of the flames.

The main doors of the station were open as she walked up. She slowed as she reached the dark crack in the concrete that marked the threshold. It had been a long time since she’d set foot in a firehouse. She’d thought she was ready for it.

She’d been wrong.

Just do it, she told herself grimly, fighting to ignore the quick twist of anxiety. She was so close to achieving her goal, so close. This was no time to let the past take over the future.

Taking a deep breath, she crossed the line and passed into the fluorescent cool of the garage. A compact, dark-haired man with a boyish face stacked air canisters against the wall. A young firefighter in a Red Sox cap swept the floor around the trucks. The sweeping came to an abrupt halt as he glanced up, hastily setting the broom aside and wiping off his hands as Sloane approached. “Can I help you?”

The click of her heels rang in the cavernous garage. “Hello.” She smiled, wondering if he could have been a day past nineteen. “I’m looking for Nick Trask.”

The boy was blushing, trying to act cool. “The captain? I think he’s up in his office. I’ll go get him.”

The dark-haired firefighter turned before they took two steps. “Yo, Red! She looking for Trask?”

Sloane froze, her chest suddenly constricted.

“He’s not up in his office. He’s with O’Hanlan.” The man pointed toward the ladder truck at the far side of the garage. “Over there.”

“Thanks, Beaulieu.” The boy smiled shyly. “My mistake.” He looked at Sloane more closely. “Are you okay?”

Sloane forced herself to breathe. “I’m fine, thanks.” She saw it now, bright auburn hair curling around the edges of his ball cap. “I knew someone else called Red once.”

“My name’s Jim Sorensen,” he said ruefully, taking his hat off and scrubbing it through his wavy brush. “But you know how it goes. They took one look at my hair and that was that.”

“I know how it goes,” she agreed.

“Okay, I’ve got hold of the nut if you can get the bolt through,” Nick muttered, jaw set in concentration. “Let’s give it a push and get the holes lined up.” They leaned on the ladder together and the metal creaked as it moved.

“Let me get my hand in there. It’s just about…ah!” O’Hanlan cursed to the ceiling as he barked his knuckles on unforgiving metal. “I signed up to be a firefighter, not a damn mechanic.”

“You were the one who was dead against calling in the motor squad,” Nick reminded him. “Come on, action guy, repeat power steering to yourself three times and let’s try it again.”

“Power steering, power steering, there’s no place like home, there’s no place like home,” O’Hanlan’s voice rose an octave. “There’s no place—” Abruptly he gave a low whistle. “Well, well, well. Looks like I should have volunteered for clean-up detail.”

Without turning, Nick knew it was a woman. Her voice floated over to them, low, slightly rough, a smoky contralto that belonged in the bedroom and made him tighten before he ever looked at her. When he did, the first thing he saw was her hair. She had it pulled back and looped up in a clip, but not bound into submission. It was thick, nearly down to her waist, he’d guess, and flamed a deep, splendid red. The face…the face went with the voice, decidedly, recklessly sensual. Slavic cheekbones, challenging eyes, a mouth that made him wonder how it would feel on his skin. Her narrow, forest-green suit played up the sleek curves of her body enough to make his imagination temporarily run rampant. There was more, something about the lift to her shoulders, the cool self-assurance in her stance that intrigued and enticed him.

“Look at Red.” O’Hanlan chuckled. “He’s falling all over himself, poor kid.” He turned back around. “Hey, Nick?”

He’d been staring, Nick realized, shaking himself loose. “And you, of course, are a master of self-control.” He gave O’Hanlan a derisive look before bending back to the ladder. “C’mon, let’s finish this.”

“I’m a happily married man,” O’Hanlan reminded him, grunting as he leaned on the ladder and threaded the bolt in place. “And Leanne would skin me alive if she caught me looking at another woman.” O’Hanlan peeked over his shoulder at the approaching redhead. “Which is why I do it here.”

Nick squeezed his hand in between ladder struts to work a nut onto the bolt. “Stick to fighting fires,” he advised, manipulating the wrench expertly. “It’s safer.”

“Hello? Excuse me?” The words echoed up from beside the truck. “I’m looking for Nick Trask.”

At close range her voice whispered over his skin and into his bones, mesmerizing, arousing. He leaned across the top of the ladder until their eyes locked. Up close, she was all the glimpse had promised and more. “I’m Nick Trask. Give me a minute, I’ll be right with you.”

“A minute?” O’Hanlan grinned. “Take over for me here and I’ll be down there in thirty seconds.”

“Easy, big fella.” Nick passed the wrench to O’Hanlan and patted him on the shoulder. “Skinned alive, remember? Save your strength for Leanne.”

She’d always been a sucker for men in uniform, Sloane thought, watching the lean, stripped-down lines of his body as he swung down from the ladder truck. That was all it was. Of course, he filled the uniform as though it had been designed for him. Off limits, she reminded herself. She didn’t do firefighters. He neared and Sloane’s pulse skittered unevenly, then steadied.

“Nick Trask,” he said, wiping his hands on a rag.

Dark, Sloane thought, and dangerous. His looks hit her with the slamming impact of a hundred-mile-an-hour collision. Black hair, tanned, almost swarthy skin and eyes darker than jet combined on a face that simultaneously compelled and alarmed. It was a face that was not so much conventionally handsome as it was filled with the essential character of the man.

Her guard was up in a heartbeat.

“Sloane Hillyard, Exler Corporation.” She reached out her hand when he drew near. “Councilman Ayre’s office asked me to stop by.” She wasn’t sure what she found more disconcerting, the almost imperceptible chill that swept over his face as she spoke, or the flush of heat that assaulted her at the touch of his hand. Nerves, she told herself. She was just on edge over being in a firehouse again. “Nice to meet you, Captain Trask.”

“And you.” There was a cursory politeness in his voice but no warmth. This close to him Sloane could see that his eyes weren’t black. They were deep gray, the color of darkest smoke, the color of a stormy sky at dusk. “What can I do for you and the councilman?”

Focus, Sloane reminded herself. “I’m here for our meeting.”

“Our meeting?”

“I called to confirm yesterday.”

“I didn’t get any…” He checked himself and pulled a pink slip of paper covered in illegible script from his pocket. “Ah. This must be you. Sorry, but I didn’t get this until about five minutes ago and it’s been a really hectic day, so if—”

“That’s all right,” she cut in smoothly. “I’ll only need a few minutes of your time. We need to talk about the gear.”

“The gear?” He put his hands on his hips and gave a nod. “Ayre doesn’t waste time, I’ll give him that.”

Sloane didn’t need to know the reason for the sarcasm to understand that she was at least a partial target. Irritation pricked at her. “We need to talk about scheduling, plan the testing,” she continued, not about to be derailed. “Councilman Ayre’s office—”

“Yeah, I know, Councilman Ayre’s office.” Nick cut her off, glancing at the number of men with sudden, pressing business in the immediate vicinity. “Look, let’s go to my office and you can tell me what Ayre’s up to this time.”

He didn’t offer it as a choice, but in the clipped tone of command. “Yes sir,” Sloane muttered, following him up the stairs. Perhaps the man could put out fires, but graciousness was clearly not his strong suit.

Nor, she thought a moment later, was neatness.

“Right through there. Have a seat.”

Sloane stood in the doorway of his tiny office and threw a glance of disbelief at the jumble of paperwork and books everywhere. “Which stack of paper did you have in mind for me to sit on, Captain Trask?” Her tone was deceptively sweet, as was her face. The sarcasm lurked only in her gaze, which warned him not to push too hard, not to presume too much.

Nick shifted a pile of books to the floor. “There.” The telephone jangled for attention and he answered it impatiently. “House sixty-seven, Trask. Oh yeah, right. Giancoli says the brakes on the pumper are down.” He slid into his chair, instantly absorbed, leaving Sloane standing in the middle of the room.

Setting down her briefcase, she took the opportunity to look around. Photographs covered the walls: smiling fire-fighters in front of shining engines, men crowded together at the kitchen table, competing in the Firefighters’ Olympics. A newspaper clipping showed grim men in helmets and turnouts, lines of exhaustion etched into their soot-streaked faces as they carried stretchers out of a smoke-filled building. Hillview Convalescent Home Burns but the Fire Claims No Victims, the caption read. The men in the picture were from Ladder 67.

Sloane glanced further along and her interest sharpened. Stacked haphazardly atop the filing cabinet were a pair of plaques, the top one an award of valor presented to one Nick Trask for action above and beyond the call of duty. Impressed in spite of herself, Sloane glanced over to where he sat at his desk, absorbed in his call.