A Firefighter in the Family

Randi rolled her eyes. “Yeah, I’m making so much money I don’t know what to do with it all.”

“Okay, I’ll spring. Pick you up in ten.”

Randi slipped on a pair of white canvas mules, an oddity in her collection of dirty boots and athletic shoes. Even her running shoes were scuffed and smelly from her morning jogs.

When Eric pulled into the parking lot, Thor leaped into the bed of the black Dodge Ram without being told. Randi slid into the passenger seat.

“Hey, you clean up decent,” Eric said.

Randi sniffed the air. “You, too. I don’t smell you quite so much anymore.”

Eric punched her lightly in the arm, like he’d done as a kid. It caused a pang in her chest, and she wished things were that simple and carefree again.

“So, where we going?”

Eric didn’t answer, but he turned east, away from most of the town’s restaurants. Toward home.

Anger and anxiety made her muscles tighten. She stared hard at Eric’s profile, but he refused to look her way. “Damn it. You ambushed me.”

“Come on,” he pleaded. “It’s not like I’m dragging you to prison or the gates of hell.”

“No, just the land of thinly veiled hostility.”

“It’s not that bad, and you know it.”

“I don’t know it. You just refuse to see what’s right in front of your nose. Now turn around.”

“No.”

Randi looked at her brother in stunned surprise.

“Carol will have my hide,” Eric said, sheepish.

If there existed someone more determined than Eric to rebuild the burned bridges in the Cooke family, it was her sister-in-law Carol, Will’s wife. The irony never failed to strike Randi. If Will was strong and determined and sometimes bullheaded, Carol was every bit his equal but somehow managed to be a sweet person at the same time.

“That’s freaking fantastic.” Randi crossed her arms and watched the shops of downtown Horizon Beach zip by as Eric drove toward their parents’ house on the outskirts of town. She hated having control of a situation taken from her.

“Give it a rest. You’re here at Thanksgiving and Christmas. What difference does the day make?”

“I have time to prepare for the holidays.”

“So now you have to ‘prepare’ to see your family?”

“When half that family still holds a grudge against me, yes.” Not that there wasn’t cause. Still, it hurt.

“Randi, it’s time to move on.”

She turned toward her brother and pierced him with the stare that put fear into the hearts of otherwise heartless arsonists. “Did you happen to hear Will this morning? Did you notice I wasn’t exactly the person he most wanted to see?”

“He was tired. We were up all night.”

“Fatigue doesn’t put that look in a man’s eyes.”

Eric didn’t argue further, and Randi was sorry. She needed the outlet to vent steam. Honestly, she’d love to reconnect with her family, to experience the intense love and camaraderie they’d once enjoyed. But no longer could she hang out with her brothers and father and talk shop. It hurt that they didn’t seem to want to, either, but she couldn’t blame them.

When Eric parked in front of their parents’ two-story on Sand Dune Drive, Randi let out a long, anxiety-filled breath. The number of vehicles in the driveway and on the side of the street struck her as odd. “Why is everyone here?”

“It’s an engagement party. Karl finally asked Shellie.”

Despite her roiling emotions, Randi smiled. At least she was home for a happy occasion. Hopefully, everyone would be in a good mood. “It’s about time. So, that leaves you as the sole Cooke bachelor, huh?”

He smiled, looking relieved as the tenseness in his body eased. “Unless we count you.”

“We don’t, seeing as how I don’t even have time to date.”

“Hon, there’s always time to date.”

She thought of a romantic dinner on the beach, the sound of the waves and soft music mingling. Zac Parker appeared in her daydream.

Good grief, she must be rattled if she was fantasizing about the man who’d crushed her heart when she was already hurting. She needed a good, stiff drink and about a month in the Bahamas after this job.

She started to ask Eric about when Zac had left the department and why but decided she didn’t even want to utter his name and add to her current discomfort. Plus, she was itching to see Karl so she could offer a good-natured “I told you so.” She hoped he’d set aside the past for at least tonight, long enough to accept the sisterly barb.

Thor jumped out of the truck and padded after her.

“Stay,” she said when they stepped onto the porch.

He whined then plopped down on the porch and laid his muzzle on his outstretched paws.

“Trust me, boy, I’d rather stay out here with you.”

Randi trailed Eric as they passed through the empty living room and followed the sound of loud Cooke voices coming from the back of the house. When they reached the kitchen, their mother looked up from frosting a cake. Inga’s eyes widened. She set down the frosting and came over to hug Randi.

“Honey, what a nice surprise.”

Randi hated how she dissected her mother’s words for any hint of falseness.

Inga pulled away and wiped back a strand of her hair, still its Norwegian white-blond even at age sixty.

Carol stepped into the kitchen from the deck. In a house full of blond, blue-eyed Cookes, the petite brunette stood out.

“I’m so glad you came,” Carol said. She didn’t pause before crossing the room to give Randi an enthusiastic hug. Having such a true-blue ally felt good, even when Randi herself didn’t believe she deserved it.

Randi wondered if she would have been invited to this gathering had she not already been in town. The pang in her chest caused her to bite down on her bottom lip. She’d gotten on with her life after leaving Horizon Beach, but the passage of nearly three years had done nothing to ease the pain of her loss.

“So, when did Karl pop the big question?” she asked Carol, determined to get through the night without falling apart.

“Yesterday.”