Boston Fire: Heat Exchange Part 14

"You went out after the bar closed last night? Where did you go?"

Lydia sighed, but quietly so he wouldn't hear it, and lied. "I had to stop by Becca's and we got talking and it was late enough so I just crashed on her couch."

"Fine. Go see what's up with your sister. I swear, those two really need to get their s.h.i.t together, so talk some sense into her, would ya?"

Once the call was over, she changed into some clean clothes and put her hair up, muttering unflattering things about her father the entire time. She knew as dads went, others had worse. Hers didn't drink more alcohol than he could handle. He'd never laid a hand on his wife or kids in anger. But he was also gruff, emotionally hands-off and-perhaps worst of all-not exactly progressive when it came to his thoughts about women and family. The implication Ashley should just get over whatever her problem was made Lydia want to dump a full mug of ice-cold beer over his head.

Ashley, who was leaning against the counter, gestured to the mug on the table when Lydia walked into the kitchen. "I made you a coffee, but you don't have to drink it. I know you have to get to work, and I'm okay now. I just had a moment, that's all."

"Why were you crying?" Lydia pulled out the chair and sat in front of the coffee. "What happened?"

"Nothing happened. He texted me and asked if he could stop by again, and I said yes. When he stopped by in the morning, he only grabbed his dress shoes, so this time I thought he was ready to talk. But when he got here, he just wanted to talk about the financial situation. We have joint accounts, of course, and he said he didn't feel right taking money out of them without talking to me, but he was running low on cash."

"That's better than him taking the money out and screw you if you don't like it." Ashley stared into her coffee mug, looking like somebody had just kicked her favorite dog. "I asked the wrong question. You told me what happened, but what were you expecting to happen?"

She knew she'd hit the right b.u.t.ton when her sister's eyes filled up with tears. "I want him to fight for me-for us. I want him to tell me he loves me and that he doesn't want our marriage to be over, and not sound like he's reading it from a script or something."

"When you told him you weren't sure you wanted to be married anymore, you were testing him, weren't you? Pushing him into a corner so he'd have to give you some kind of emotional validation."

Ashley took a deep breath and then shrugged. "I don't know. I honestly wasn't sure if I wanted to be married to him anymore, but I saw it as some kind of wake-up call that we needed to work on it before it got worse. I guess he saw it as my way of saying I wanted a divorce."

"And you don't."

"I love Danny. I don't want a divorce."

"You need to tell him that."

"No," Ashley said, and Lydia sighed. She really wanted to go to work. If somebody was having a bad day, you set a beer and some pretzels in front of them and put a game on the television. "If I tell him that and he comes back home, nothing's changed. Maybe we won't be divorced, but the problems that drove me to that point will still be there. I need for him to show me he loves me. I'm not going to let him keep a.s.suming I know."

Lydia wrapped her hands around her mug and took a long drink of her coffee to give herself time to think of how to phrase what she was thinking. While Ashley was the most even-tempered of them, she could be pretty stubborn.

"Just say it," Ashley snapped. She was also perceptive.

"Have you told him any of that, or are you expecting him to read your mind?"

"A guy doesn't have to be psychic to know if his wife says she's so unhappy she's not sure if she wants to be married to him anymore, that he should sit down and talk to her about it."

"You've told me yourself Danny doesn't like emotional confrontations. That his parents are always screaming at each other and that he'll walk away before he'll lose his temper. Maybe it's not just his temper he keeps a tight hold on. And you told him you needed s.p.a.ce. Maybe he's just trying to give you that and doesn't realize you're expecting him to push back."

"I should have let you go to work."

Lydia laughed and got up to rinse out her cup. "You know I always have your back, even if that means telling you something you don't want to hear. And let me ask you one more question. Have you asked him straight-out if he wants a divorce?"

Ashley's long silence was telling, but she waited her out and made her say it. "No, but he's made it sound like he doesn't. He's putting it all on me."

"Your communication problem is not all on Danny, love."

"You should go to work now," Ashley said, and Lydia kissed her cheek and made a break for it.

Kincaid's Pub felt like a drama-free oasis after her sister's kitchen, and Lydia quickly settled into the rhythm of the bar. Even though the basic job description was the same, it was amazing to her how much different it seemed than the job she'd quit in New Hampshire. Granted, an old neighborhood bar and a nice restaurant weren't the same, but serving customers was serving customers.

At some point, she was going to have to decide what she wanted to do when Ashley was ready to return to Kincaid's. Going back to her old job wouldn't be an option, even in the unlikely event they were willing to take her back. Being here behind her father's bar again had reminded her how much she loved bartending. But it didn't make a lot of sense to go tend bar for strangers somewhere-and for less money-when she had Kincaid's. At the rate her sister and Danny were going, Lydia had plenty of time to start making decisions, but the question of her future was definitely simmering in the back of her mind.

About nine o'clock, Scotty walked in and Lydia tried not to be disappointed he was alone. In fact, it might even be for the best, since it was hard to know how awkward it would be to see her brother and Aidan at the same time. Hopefully it wouldn't be too bad, since it was inevitable that moment would come, but at least it wouldn't be tonight.

"Hey, sis." He draped his hoodie over the back of the seat and hopped up onto the stool. After waving to Fitz a few seats down, he turned back to her. "Where's Dad tonight?"

"He said he was going out with a friend."

Scotty jerked his thumb toward the end of the bar. "Fitz is here."

She shrugged. "I a.s.sume he has more than one friend. I don't know. Maybe he's got a special lady friend."

"No." He took the beer she handed him, scowling. "He can't have a special lady friend if I don't. That makes me feel really inadequate."

They laughed together, because it was hard to believe their old man could find a woman who'd put up with his c.r.a.p at this stage of his life, and because there wasn't much that would make Scott feel inadequate.

"You eat already?" she asked.

"Yeah, I made a couple of sandwiches at home, but then I got bored so I thought I'd come have a beer with the old man and see who all was here." He looked around the bar, which wasn't too full of familiar faces tonight. "I probably should have looked for some infomercials and nodded off to promises of all things new and improved."

Lydia opened her mouth to tell him that was almost as bad as Aidan's confession he used animal doc.u.mentaries to the same effect, but then realized she'd have to explain how she knew that and closed it again. And then she felt stupid because if Scott asked how she knew that, she would just say that Aidan told her. She'd known him as long as Scotty had and, though they'd never spent a lot of quality alone time together, Aidan had spent many hours leaned against the bar over the years.

She couldn't imagine how Aidan was dealing with this. He probably had the same incidents of almost casually mentioning something about Lydia and having the same conversation with himself that she'd just had. Only it would happen to him more often because he spent a h.e.l.l of a lot more time with Scotty than she did. No wonder the poor guy was having stress dreams.

She was delivering cheese fries to the table by the door when the old scanner by Fitz squeaked out some noise. It was usually quieter than that, which meant he'd turned it up. Looking over her shoulder, she saw him leaned as close as he could get to it.

"Somebody's hurt," Fitz said in a voice that carried over the small talk going on around the bar.

The hush was immediate and all heads swiveled in his direction. He had his ear to the scanner, which was ancient and barely worked anymore. Everybody tended to use text messaging and social media for updates nowadays, so they'd never gotten around to replacing it with a newer model. It was practically antique, too, and her dad liked the novelty of it.

Fitz said the engine company's number, but it wasn't familiar to Lydia. Saying a quick and silent prayer for whoever was involved, she made her way down the bar, checking on her customers.

Scotty leaned closer to Fitz, though. "Have they said who? Or what happened?"

"This piece of junk," Fitz grumbled, slapping the side of it. "I get more static than anything."

Scott pulled out his phone and there was a sense of urgency about his movements that alarmed Lydia. They all worried about each other because that was how the community worked, but it looked like more than standard worry on his face, so she walked over to him.

"Do you know those guys?" she asked.

"I know them all," he said, scrolling through something on the phone. Then he paused. "Hit by a car? Jesus."

"Who?"

"I don't know yet. They're not going to release his name and the last thing they need on-scene is a s.h.i.tload of texts asking who it is."

"Hopefully you'll know something soon." That was how it went. Waiting for news. Waiting to find out who was involved. She'd always hated that part.

"Jesus, I just hope it's not Hunt."

The room seemed to spin for a second and Lydia placed her palms on the surface of the bar to steady herself. No. She'd left Aidan that morning and he'd said nothing about working. He would have told her. But she couldn't tell her brother any of that. "Aidan's out with those guys?"

Scotty nodded without looking up, intent on his phone's screen. "One of their guys is out because his wife just had a baby, and then another guy called in sick, so Aidan picked up a night tour with that company."

Lydia felt the chill slowly taking over her body and her lips parted as she tried to breathe normally.

Aidan might be hurt.

She didn't know if it was him. She didn't know how badly, if it was him. Frustration rose like a scream in the back of her throat and she forced it down. She'd been here before. Waiting for news on her dad. On her brother. More than once for her husband.

When she'd packed up and moved to New Hampshire, it was supposed to mean she'd never do this again. She wasn't supposed to be standing behind the d.a.m.n bar, waiting to find out if somebody she cared about was going to make it home.

"Anything?" she asked, and even though it was only one word, she must have sounded funny because he looked up at her. His brows were knit together in concentration and her stomach sank even further when he shook his head.

"Screw this." He stood and grabbed his hoodie. "I'm going to go outside and call the house. Maybe they know something."

"Let me know, okay?" she said, wanting more than anything to go outside with him. "If it's Aidan or not."

"I will."

She felt helpless. That was the worst thing. Knowing there was nothing she could do but wait was h.e.l.l on her nerves. She wanted to do something. Drive to the scene. Drive from hospital to hospital until she had the answer she was looking for. But that wasn't how it was done.

All she could do was wait. And pray.

AIDAN SAW IT coming and there wasn't a d.a.m.n thing he could do to stop it. The engine company was helping the police officer trying to clear traffic so the ladder crew could get the outriggers down and the aerial ladder up, but it was dark. It was the third alarm, so apparatus clogged the street. And though it wasn't raining hard, it was enough to refract the bright lights of the engines through windshields.

One a.s.shole in a luxury SUV was in a hurry and Aidan saw a guy named Jones stepping out from behind the ladder truck's outrigger. He shouted a warning and waved his light at the firefighter, but the guy in the SUV saw nothing but an opening and gunned the engine.

Aidan was running, yelling into his radio before Jones rolled off the hood of the SUV and hit the pavement. Within seconds, he was on his knees beside the firefighter and he said a quick prayer of grat.i.tude when Jones looked up at him, his eyes focused on his face.

"Ow."

Aidan smiled and placed his hand gently on the man's forehead. Jones had had his helmet on, but Aidan had no idea where it was now. "Don't move. They're bringing the board."

"I remember reading that Chapter in the book," Jones said, the humor not quite masking the pain in his voice.

"He ran right out in front of me," SUV guy was yelling, and Aidan realized the man had gotten out of his vehicle.

He did his best to ignore the a.s.shole until the EMS guys took over on Jones and then Aidan pushed himself to his feet. A police officer Aidan vaguely recognized was talking to the driver, who was gesturing with his hands.

"It wasn't my fault! He ran out in front of me."

The officer saw Aidan coming and there must have been something on his face that alarmed the guy because he held up a hand. "I'll take your statement later."

"What the h.e.l.l kinda moron are you?" Aidan yelled at the driver, whose mouth dropped open. "Huh? What were you thinking?"

"Hey," the police officer shouted to somebody behind Aidan. "Come get your guy."

"Hunt," he heard, recognizing the voice as that of the incident commander. "Let's go. Striking fourth alarm, so we've got more companies incoming and we need to get this s.h.i.t under control."

He itched to get his hands on the a.s.shole whose time was more important than their safety, but that wouldn't help Jones and it sure as h.e.l.l wouldn't put the fire out. He started to walk away, but turned back to speak to the officer. "You make d.a.m.n sure you get a statement from me when this is over."

As the ambulance carrying Jones pulled away, Aidan double-checked his gear and went to do his job.

His phone vibrated a few times, but it was almost two hours before he had the opportunity to dig under his gear and pull it out of its holster. There were a few from Scotty, asking him if he was dead.

Not dead, which you probably know by now. Jones has concussion & waiting on hip X-ray, he texted back.

And there was one from Lydia sent not too long ago.

I swore to myself I'd never do this again.

It might have been short, but it said a lot. He tried not to picture her waiting for news. He hadn't even told her he'd picked up a tour for another guy, and he wondered how she'd found out he was there. He didn't know that, but he did know she'd probably spent the past couple of hours kicking herself in the a.s.s for getting involved with another firefighter.

I'm sorry, he typed. It was crazy, but I'm okay.

She immediately texted back.

I want to see you later.

Tour doesn't end until 0600.

I'll be asleep on your couch when you get home. Wake me up.

He smiled, but he wasn't sure how that was going to work.

Door's locked.

I stole the key from Dad's office. See you in the morning.

He'd forgotten about that key. When he moved into the apartment, he'd given Tommy a key to keep in the office in case anything happened to him. And if he ended up in the hospital at a weird hour and wanted something from home, he didn't want Tommy having to drag his landlord out of bed in the middle of the night.

After securing his phone, he took a deep breath and looked around. The scene was a mess. The fire had gotten in the pipe chase and, from there, it had free run of the three-decker building. They were still finding hot spots and checking the integrity so the investigators could get in there and determine the cause and origin.

There were three families in the street, getting some help from the Victims a.s.sist Team, and there were hoses and tools all over the d.a.m.n place. It was going to be one long d.a.m.n night. But as he hefted an axe and went back inside with his temporary company, he found himself smiling.

When it was over, he was going home to Lydia.

LYDIA OPENED HER EYES, her sleep-fuzzy brain trying to figure out what was going on and why she was awake. The realization she was on a couch came first, followed quickly by the fact it was Aidan's couch.

She jerked upright and saw him standing at the kitchen island, putting his keys in the wooden bowl he kept there and plugging in his cell phone. A small duffel bag was at his feet and she knew it held some toiletries and a change of clothes for when he was going to a firehouse besides his own. He'd showered, though he hadn't shaved, but he looked exhausted.

He looked over at her and smiled when he saw she was awake. "Sorry. I tried to be quiet."