With Courage And Commitment

With a whispered “Sorry” she stepped away from him.

Amid giggles and screams, the preschoolers had cleared the way.

Still unable to figure out quite what had happened, Danny stood, tugging Buttons to heel as a way to distract himself and get his reactions back under control.

Alice swept up beside him. “Perhaps we’d better let Fireman Sullivan put the medal around his own neck.”

“Good plan,” he muttered. Stephanie was still staring at him as if she’d felt the earth move. Or maybe she’d been offended by his reaction to having her in his lap. Or maybe she knew he wanted her there again without such a big audience.

Somehow they managed to make the exchange, their fingers barely brushing as she handed him the medal, which sent off a new round of sparks. He reversed his earlier conclusion. It had to be the dry air and static electricity that was giving him jolts with a high-powered charge. Not Stephanie.

“Thank you so much for coming,” Alice said, her voice as soft and sweet as ice cream as he looped the ribbon around his neck.

“No problem,” he lied.

“If you’re not doing anything this weekend, Stephanie and I are planning to paint the kitchen on Saturday. You know, spruce up the place after the fire.”

His head whipped around to nail Stephanie with a frown. “She shouldn’t be painting. She’s—”

“If you and some of your friends were to drop by, that might be a good idea.”

He got a seriously uncomfortable feeling in his midsection. He was being manipulated. He knew it and still he couldn’t figure out how to avoid the inevitable. He couldn’t let Stephanie expose herself to paint fumes. Not while she was pregnant. Who knew what that would do to the baby?

Grimacing, he swallowed hard. “I’ll be here.”

Alice smiled in a way that suggested she’d known all along he was a sucker.

“No, wait!” Stephanie protested. “I don’t want you to—”

He ignored her. “Bye, kids. Thanks for the medal.” They waved to him, and he made a hasty retreat out the door with Buttons on a short leash.

Naturally Stephanie didn’t leave it at that.

“Danny, wait!”

Running away wasn’t an option. He’d just been awarded a medal for bravery, hadn’t he? So he halted at the fence gate. He could still make a quick getaway if she’d gotten the wrong idea about him. About them. There wasn’t any them. There couldn’t be.

“I don’t want you to help paint the kitchen.”

“You shouldn’t be exposed to the fumes.”

“There’ll be ample ventilation.”

“I doubt your father would agree with that.”

“It’s not my father’s problem. It isn’t yours, either, and I don’t appreciate you trying to boss me around.”

“Me?” His hand covered his chest in mock surprise. “I never bossed you around in my life. Even if I tried, you wouldn’t listen.”

“You’ve always tried to boss me around, ever since I was a little kid. But you’re right about one thing.”

He frowned. Stephanie rarely conceded he was right about anything. “What’s that?”

“I don’t listen. Now will you please forget about coming in to paint on Saturday?”

He considered her request. He wanted an excuse to stay away but her health and that of the baby came first. “If you won’t listen to me, will you at least ask your doctor? Listen to him?”

“To her.” At the sound of recorded music coming from inside the school, she glanced back over her shoulder. “All right, I guess that’s fair. I’ll check with my doctor.”

A compromise. That felt like progress. Maybe he’d found a way out. “You’ll let me know if she says no so I can help out?”

She gave a weary shake of her head. “You certainly are pushy, aren’t you?”

“Yep.” He grinned. “That’s why the ladies find me so irresistible.”

With an audible sigh, she rolled her eyes.

“Gotta go. Keep me posted, huh?”

“Sure. And, Danny, I’m sorry about what happened in there.” She looked at him with her clear hazel eyes, the sparks of amber tamped down for the moment.

Danny decided to play it dumb. He knew what she was talking about. His reaction to her being in his lap. But he wasn’t going to admit anything. It would take the jaws-of-life to pry the truth out of him. “It’s okay. I just didn’t think I deserved a medal, is all.”

She tilted her head, a quirk she’d developed when she was puzzled by something.

The time was ripe for his escape before she asked any questions. “Come on, Buttons. Gotta go.”

Stephanie stood on the walkway as Buttons trotted out of the gate beside Danny and they both got into his SUV. Inside the school, the children were singing “Itsy-Bitsy Spider.” Stephanie felt as though she’d just been washed down the waterspout.

She couldn’t have imagined the sparks that had flown between them when she’d landed in Danny’s lap. In all the years they’d known each other, he’d never once given her a hint that he was attracted to her. Until today.

Not that it mattered. He’d made it pretty obvious he didn’t like kids. They made him nervous. He’d been uncomfortable the whole time he’d been inside the preschool, despite the fact he’d easily handled the children’s questions, and they’d warmed up to him immediately.

Very soon she’d be having a baby, who would quickly turn into a kid. Whatever his physical reaction might be to her awkward plop into his lap, Danny Sullivan wouldn’t be interested in pursuing a personal relationship with her. Not in this lifetime.

Given Edgar’s reaction to her pregnancy, she was all too familiar with a man’s aversion to paternity.

With a weary sigh, she headed back into the school as the kids began the final chorus of “Itsy-Bitsy Spider.” She’d have to find her own way back up the spout and learn how to stay there without getting washed down the next time a few raindrops came into her life.

Chapter Three

Carrying his uniform on a hanger, Danny headed into the station house shortly before the 8:00 a.m. shift change. The wide doors to the bay area yawned open revealing two fire engines, a ladder truck and a paramedic unit gleaming bright red in the overhead lights.

No hose lay stretched out drying, there was nobody hurrying to wipe down the trucks after a run. It looked as though B shift had had a quiet night.

Maybe C shift would be luckier and catch a good fire before their twenty-four hours were up.

The fire department’s administrative offices occupied the first floor of the main station—a fairly new building in town—with sleeping quarters, the kitchen and dining area on the two floors above that.