Asher laughs. "Remember when he reorganized the entire equipment bay because he couldn't sleep?"
"It needed organizing," I protest, climbing into the engine. "Half that stuff hadn't been touched since the nineties."
"It was alphabetized by manufacturer," Griffin says, pulling the engine into traffic. "That's not organization, that's obsession."
"Alphabetization is a perfectly reasonable system."
"For books, maybe. Not for rescue equipment."
The familiar banter washes over me, comfortable as worn-in boots. This is what I have now, what I've built in the eight years since I left everything behind. A crew that's more family than most blood relations, a job that matters, a life that's simple and contained and safe.
Safe for everyone, including me.
We're ten minutes from the station when the radio crackles to life. Not the emergency band, the regular station line.
"Engine 7, this is base." That's Maggie, our dispatcher and also Captain Dallas's daughter. She works the desk three days a week while she finishes her degree in emergency management. "You guys need to step on it. Someone's here at the station asking for Cade."
I feel five pairs of eyes turn toward me. I shrug, genuinely confused. Nobody comes to the station asking for me. I don't have family, and my friends are all sitting in this engine right now.
"Did they say what it's about?" Dallas asks, keying the radio.
There's a pause. Then Maggie's voice comes back, and there's something in her tone. Uncertainty, maybe. Or concern.
"Negative, Dad. But I think you should get here. Like, now."
Dallas meets my eyes in the rearview mirror, one eyebrow raised in question. I shake my head. I've got nothing.
"Copy that. ETA seven minutes."
Griffin accelerates, not quite hitting lights and sirens but pushing the speed limit. The mood in the engine has shifted from post-call exhaustion to curiosity and something that might be concern.
"You got a secret admirer we don't know about?" Rowan asks, trying for levity.
"Right, because I'm such a catch." I lean back against the seat, trying to ignore the uneasy feeling settling in my gut. "Thirty-six, emotionally unavailable, comes with PTSD and a judgmental cat. The dating apps would love me."
"Scout is not judgmental," Asher says. "She's discerning."
"She hissed at you for twenty minutes straight last time you came over."
"Because I sat in her chair."
"It's my chair. I pay rent on the apartment."
"Try telling her that."
The banter continues, but I'm only half-listening now. My brain is running through possibilities, trying to figure out who would show up at the station asking for me. Someone from my old life? That seems unlikely after eight years of radio silence. Someone I saved? Possible, but they usually send cards or call, they don't show up in person.
The station comes into view, a low brick building with three bay doors and the Blackwater Falls town seal painted on the side. It's home in a way nowhere else has been since I left, since I ran, eight years ago.
Griffin pulls the engine into the bay, and I'm unbuckling before we've completely stopped. That uneasy feeling has graduated to a full-blown anxiety, the kind that makes my skin feel too tight and my chest constrict.
Maggie appears in the doorway to the main building before we're even out of the engine. She's twenty-four, whip-smart, and usually unflappable. Right now, she looks nervous.
"Cade." She catches my eye. "They're in the conference room. I offered coffee, but—" She hesitates, then says quietly, "Maybe you should just go see."
"They?" I pull off my turnout coat, already moving toward the building. "Who's 'they'?"
But Maggie just shakes her head, stepping aside to let me pass.
