Her brow lifted. “I’m a work in progress.”
“Okay,” he said, sighing deeply. “But I gave you a chance to get out of this. Remember that.”
“What, more blood?”
He glanced at her again. “I hope not.”
They drove in comfortable silence until they reached a large, boxy city building in the town of Cashmere. Mark parked the car, his pulse already up. He turned off the engine and sat there, turning his keys over in his fingers, his knee bouncing.
“So,” she said, eyeing the building. “The fire department.”
“Yep.”
“What are we doing here?”
“We’re going to go into the fire department and talk to someone about volunteering.” His keys continued to turn in his fingers.
“Volunteering? You mean . . . to be a fireman?”
He nodded again. He felt her hand on his arm, and his leg stilled.
“Mark, that’s . . . that’s big.”
“Yep.”
“Are you ready?”
He shrugged. “I can’t just do nothing anymore. This is what I know. I’ve got my comp pay, but I can’t just . . .”
“I get it,” she said. “I do. My dad spent a lot of time teaching me what he knew. A camera. A lens. He taught me how to shoot, how to develop. I got to work with the best equipment.” She shook her head. “But any other time—most any other time—I was drawing or painting. I can hardly remember a day going by without getting something on paper or canvas. Or a wall.”
He watched her, silent, recognizing that it was hard for her to share this about herself. He didn’t want to spook her.
“My dad was teaching me, but I was also learning about him. He was demanding. Brilliant, but a perfectionist. Always needing to get the best lighting, the best minutes of the day, the best side—to capture the symmetry, the ideal. It’s what made him successful. But he was teaching me that I couldn’t be myself. In my young mind, his focus on perfection only emphasized my imperfections. I wasn’t the ideal. My mom always worried about being enough for him. And the things I wanted to photograph or paint . . . they were the broken things. Gradually, we grew apart, and though I studied photography, I got my degree in education with a minor in art. The paintbrush won out; I got to teach what I knew and loved best. And then something weird happened.”
“What?” he asked.
“My dad offered me a job on a crew, and I took it. I had reasons. And it was good. Until it wasn’t.” Her expression darkened. “That’s when I knew I needed to get back to what I loved. Where I knew I needed to be.” The light in her eyes returned. “Like the fire truck in your parade.”
He nodded. Nobody had gotten it before. Nobody had understood what he lost.
After a minute of silence, she spoke again. “It’s volunteer, right? So only as needed?”
“Yep.” He looked out his window. “We really need snow. But it’s November, and we’ve only had a few inches. They’ll need volunteers. That’s all they’ve got for Cashmere and Miracle Creek.”
“All right,” she said, grabbing her purse. “Let’s go.”
She placed her hand on the door handle. The determined look in her eyes stirred something hungry inside him.
He looked at his door handle and reached for it.
Riley’s heart beat erratically as they approached the front desk of the Cashmere Fire Department. She wanted to take Mark’s hand or hold his elbow—anything that would ease his nerves. She dug through her purse and found a sucker.
“Here,” she said, pushing it into his hand.
He looked down at it in confusion.
“I got it at the bank. It’s a mystery flavor. It might be watermelon; it might be butterscotch. Who knows?”
He blinked at her, then put it in his back pocket. “I’ll save it for later.”
“Good idea. I bet all that mystery-flavor anticipation will keep your mind off what we’re doing here.”
He shook his head. But his posture relaxed as he continued to the desk.
A man with glasses and a goatee got up from his chair and held out his hand. “Mark Rivers. To what do we owe this pleasure?”
Mark shook his hand. “Good to see you, Don. How are things?”
“Quiet. Good. Prayin’ for snow.”
“Aren’t we all?” Mark said.
As the two men made small talk, Riley’s heart raced.
Mark’s standing at the edge of a cliff and about to jump, she thought. And I’m at the bottom telling him the water’s fine. Who am I to say how the water is? It could be full of . . . not-fine water.
When Mark set his hands on the desk, pressing down to still the tremors, Riley held her breath. This was the moment.
“Don, I think I’m here to sign on as a volunteer.”
Don took his glasses off and studied him. “Are you sure?”
“No. Honestly, I can’t believe my feet got me into the building.” He glanced at Riley, and she nodded. “But I’ve got the experience, all the know-how in my head. Even if I’m just training or working here in the office. Running the radio. I can do that. Unless you think . . .”
Don cocked his head. “Unless I think what?”
Mark looked out the window, pressing his lips in a thin line. He turned back to Don. “Unless you think me being here would be uncomfortable. For the fighters.”
Riley’s mouth opened, but Don spoke first.
“I think you being here would be one of the best things to happen to this little unit. You have experience, you have nerve, obviously or you wouldn’t be at this desk, and you’re one of us. We’ll put you anywhere you want to be. Anywhere.”
Mark held Don’s gaze, then nodded. “Thanks.”
Don turned to grab some forms, and when he set the papers on the counter, Riley picked up a pen on impulse.
“Me, too,” she said.
Don and Mark looked at her.
Her gaze bounced between them. “Women can volunteer, too, right?”
“Of course, they can,” Don said. “Do you have any training?”
“Not even a little,” she said, smiling broadly.
Don chuckled at her enthusiasm. He picked up another form. “This is the
