Saved by the Fireman

She did not. Now that was just dirty pool, letting someone like her beat him to a place like this.

Some jilted part of him wanted to tell her the house was chock-full of danger, but it wasn’t true. Nothing looked dangerous to his contractor’s eye, just old and likely finicky. The greatest danger she faced was blowing a fuse if she plugged her hair dryer in while the dishwasher was running. Charlotte had nice hair. Platinum blond in a city-sleek rather than elegant cut. She looked relatively smart, but what did he know? Do smart people set their teakettles on fire?

He avoided looking at her by inspecting the stove knobs. “Nothing about wiring came up in the home inspection?” He almost hated to add, “You did have a home inspection, didn’t you?” It was killing him—she looked as if she didn’t even own a hammer, much less the belt sander it would take to bring those hardwood floors in the dining room up to snuff. Still, she had a certain spunk about her. It hadn’t been there when he and the other guys first barged in the door, but he could see it now returning to her eyes. If she made the right choices, she might do okay. Not that he wanted her to succeed.

“Of course I did. Only now I’m thinking maybe it wasn’t so thorough.” She crossed her arms over her chest and her eyebrows furrowed together. “Honestly, the guy looked like he did inspections for laughs in between fishing trips. Mrs. Bearson said he was reliable, but...”

Helen Bearson. He could have guessed she’d made the sale. Helen was a sweet lady, but the kind Jesse referred to as a “hobby broker.” Dollars to donuts the inspector was her brother. “Larry Barker?” Even someone he resented as much as Charlotte Taylor deserved better than that guy—Jesse wouldn’t pay him to inspect a shoe box.

Charlotte raised an eyebrow. “A mistake, huh?”

He couldn’t just sit there and let her make choices from what was likely bad information. Well, he could, but he wasn’t the kind of guy who would—even under these circumstances. Jesse shucked off his heavy firefighter’s coat and squatted down in front of the appliance, opening the oven door and peering inside. “Let’s just say he wouldn’t be my first choice,” he said, giving Barker more benefit of the doubt than he deserved. “I haven’t seen anything that should have stopped your sale.” In fact, he knew there were no massive problems because he’d given the house a thorough once-over himself, far beyond his ten-minute walkthrough just now. Still, the word sale stuck in his throat. “This could really be just an old stove, not faulty wiring or anything.” He stared at a layer of grime so thick he could sign his name in it with a fingernail. “I don’t think this has been used in a couple of years. You’ll want to replace it.”

She groaned. “But I love the way this one looks. Does it cost a fortune to rehab a stove?”

Dark brown eyes and blond hair—the effect was striking, even with a frown on her face. “You can’t really rehab a stove. Still there are ones that look old-fashioned but function like new. They’re pricey, but you had to have known you were going to put some money into the place.”

“Well of course I did, but I was hoping to wait longer than two hours before the first repair.”

Despite his irritation, Jesse liked her sense of humor. He glanced out the window to where the three other firemen were putting gear back into the truck. Normally he didn’t fish for contractor work while on firefighting duty—especially given this particular circumstance—but she was pretty and clearly on her own and, well, seemed at a loss. Sure he’d regret it but unable to stop himself, Jesse swallowed the last of his pride and pulled a business card from his pants pocket. “I’m a licensed contractor over at Mondale Construction. If you like, give me a call tomorrow and I’ll walk through the house with you over the weekend. I can go over what Larry said and either confirm it or tell you differently. I’ll help you figure out what really needs work right away and what can wait until you’ve gotten over the sticker shock.” If he couldn’t have the house, maybe he could at least get the work, much as it would dent his ego.

She narrowed her eyes. “Why would you do that?”

He hated when people gave him “the contractor out to take you to the cleaners” look. “Because you’re a friend of the chief’s. Because I’m a nice guy.” Because I’m an idiot and am trying not to be a sore loser. “And because I can make sure Mondale gives you a good price for work I could do and recommend a couple of guys for the other stuff—guys who will do it right and not empty your checkbook for the sport of it.”

She took the card but still eyed him. Good. She shouldn’t be trusting everyone who walked in here offering to help her, even him. She looked smarter than that, and he could bring himself to be glad she was acting like it. “So maybe you really are a nice guy,” she said, still sounding a bit doubtful.

“Don’t take my word for it. Look, you ought to know I don’t normally pitch work on duty. Only I think Chief and Melba might ride me if I didn’t offer my help, given the—” he waved at the smoke now almost completely gone from the kitchen “—circumstances. It’s the least I can do.”

She looked unconvinced, and a part of him was ready to be rid of the obligation. He’d tried, wasn’t that enough? He gave it one last shot of total honesty. “Frankly, this place is a contractor’s dream—good bones but needing loads of work. And I could use the work.” After a second, he looked out the window and added, “Why don’t you think about it? I’ve got to get back to the truck anyway—the guys are waiting for me.”

She planted her hands on her hips. “No, I don’t need to think about it. Can you come by after church Sunday?”

She went to church. Of course she went to church; she was a friend of Chief Bradens and his wife. Not wanting to look like the stranger to services that he was, he hazarded a guess based on when he usually saw his friends out and about on Sundays. “Eleven-thirty?”

“Perfect.” She smiled—an “I’m rattled but I’ll make it” lopsided grin that told him she’d do okay even if this wasn’t the last disaster of her new home. Her new home. Life was cruel some days.

Jesse nodded at the kitchen’s vintage molding and bay widows. “This will make a nice weekend place. You’ll do just fine.”

She made a face. “That’s just what I was telling myself when the stove caught on fire.”

“Everything looks okay, but I’d hold off on teatime until we check out all the appliances if I were you.” His radio beeped, letting him know the rest of the crew outside was getting impatient. “Once you get the rest of your utilities up and running, turn on the fridge so we can check how cold it gets.”

She perked up. “Did that already. Turned it on, I mean.” To prove her point, she opened the ancient-looking refrigerator and made a show of peering inside. “Chilling down, nothing scary inside.” Her head popped back out and she shut the door. “The dishwasher, I’m not so sure. It looks older than I am.”

For an intriguing second, Jesse wondered just how old that was. She looked about his age, but he’d never been good at guessing those things. “Yeah, I’d hold off.” He gestured to the single mug sitting beside a box of fancy-looking tea on the otherwise bare 1950s-era Formica countertop. “Not like you’ve got a load of dishes to do anyhow.”

That lit a spark in her eyes. “Oh, I own tons of dishes. I collect vintage china. I’ve got enough to fill all the shelves in this house and my apartment back in Chicago twice over. Not that I’d put any of them in this old dinosaur, anyway.” She shrugged. “Well, thanks, Officer—” she squinted down at the card “—Sykes.” She held out her hand.

He shook it. “I’m not an officer, I’m just part of the volunteer brigade. So Jesse will do. I’ll see you Sunday at eleven-thirty. And as for your new house celebration, go on down to Karl’s Koffee and tell him what happened. If I know Karl, he’ll give you a free cup of tea and maybe some pie to smooth things over. You deserve a better welcome to Gordon Falls than one from us.” Jesse decided he’d call from the truck and ask Karl to do just that. Only, knowing Karl, he’d have done it with no nudging at all.

He felt a tiny bit better for pulling that sweet smile from her. “Maybe I’ll do just that. Thanks.”

Jesse tried to ignore the teasing looks that greeted him as he climbed into the truck. “Isn’t she the prettiest run of the day.” Yorky, an older member of the department who could never be counted on for subtlety, bumped Jesse on the shoulder.

“Of the week,” Wally Forman corrected, waggling an eyebrow for emphasis. “Only it’s not so fun for you given the circumstances, is it, Jesse?”

“Could have fooled me,” Yorky snickered.

Jesse merely grunted and settled farther down in his seat. Maybe Wally would let it go.

Wally stared at him. “It is, isn’t it? That’s the one?”

Narrowing his eyes in the strongest “not now” glare he could manage, Jesse didn’t answer.

Wally leaned back in his seat and pointed at Jesse. “It is. I knew it. Oh, man, tough break.”

Yorky looked at Jesse, then at Wally, then back at Jesse again. “What? What am I missing?”

Jesse cocked his head to one side in an “I’m warning you” scowl aimed straight at Wally.

Not that it did any good. “That’s the house. The one Jesse talked about buying. Sweetie-Pie up there just bought it right out from underneath him. How many more months before you would have saved up enough for the down payment, Sykes? It had to be soon.”

Was Wally going out of his way to drive the sore point home? “Two.” Up until this moment Jesse had managed to let Little Miss China Cabinet’s sweet smile tamp down his irritation at being beat to the purchase table.

Yorky hissed. “Ouch!”

“Yeah,” Jesse repeated, craning his neck back to look at the tidy little cottage. “Ouch.”

Chapter Three (#ulink_25d41a55-50fa-5215-bc1f-c34121d109ea)

“Melba, I’m not the first person in the world to lose my job,” Charlotte told her dear friend as they sat at her table after dinner that night. Charlotte had managed to avoid the topic of conversation with Melba for days, but tonight Clark was down at the firehouse for the evening and her friend had cornered her in the kitchen. “I wasn’t even the last at Monarch—there were three other envelopes on Alice’s desk.”

Melba had Maria settled in the crook of her arm. “I’m just worried about you. Are you okay? You seem to be taking it well, but...”

Charlotte kept telling herself that she was handling it as well as could be expected, but she also spent too many moments stuffing down a deep panic. “Do I have a choice?”

“Not you. You’d never go to pieces, even at something like this.” She caught Charlotte’s eye. “But you could. I mean, don’t feel like you have to put on any kind of front with me. I’ve gone to pieces enough times in front of you.”

While Charlotte was sure Melba meant what she said, the idea of giving in to the fear—even for a moment and even with a dear friend—felt like opening the big green floodgates at the end of town. Best to keep that door firmly shut. “I’m okay. I think I’m okay. I mean, I’m scared—you’re supposed to be in my situation—but I can push through this. I’m choosing to feel more like I’m waiting for whatever God’s got around the corner than I’ve been broadsided by a job change.”

Melba leaned in. “The best part is you get to wait here. I’ll be so happy to have you around.”

“Well, part of the time. I expect I’ll need to take lots of trips back to Chicago for job-search stuff and interviews eventually. Only it’ll be great to have the cottage as a distraction. All the books say to take on inspiring new projects so it doesn’t become all about the job search. This is a great time to get a serious creative groove on. I need a place outside of my résumé to channel all this energy.”

All that was true, but there was still a small corner of her chest that felt as if she had planted her flag at the top of a very high mountain with no idea how to climb back down. She nodded to the thick file of plans, the one she’d taken from her desk on her last day at Monarch. “I wonder if Mima had any idea the incredible gift this is going to be. To get to fix this place up exactly the way I want it? To have enough to do that after I bought it? Debt free? It’s a huge blessing.”

Melba gave her a cautious smile. “I know you got it at a great price, but it needs so much work.” She thumbed through the file of clippings and swatches with her free hand while Maria gave a tiny sigh of baby contentment in her other arm. “Don’t you think it’s a big risk to take at a time like this?”