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During their first week back working together, going on calls together to a structure fire with a baby in the household, or if a resident was pregnant, Geri had a strong reaction. His concern was the distraction it might cause, and he didn’t want her safety to be jeopardized. He confronted her, that concern for her safety more than his fear that she’d get ticked off at him.
“We need to see someone,” he said, holding her. “A therapist or a grief counselor. I’m feeling it, too. I’m not trying to make you feel like you’re doing anything wrong.”
“I know, Jake. I probably need to see someone,” she said, her hands against his heart. “I know I’m not feeling any better. I feel sad constantly. If I see a pregnant woman when we’re out, I want to tell her I was once pregnant, too. I want people to know we were going to have a baby together.”
“It hasn’t been that long,” Jake said. “Maybe we’re expecting too much of ourselves.”
“How long is it supposed to take to get over it?” Geri said, wiping her eyes again.
“Longer than we’ve had. Look, I don’t expect anything of you, Geri. I think we’ll feel better if we get help.”
That was what they did. Their health insurance provided by the fire district would pay for them to see a therapist, who in turn put them in touch with a grief-support group. It wasn’t something Jake wanted to do, but he went the first time with Geri, and she went alone after that.
“It really helps,” she told Roberta. “I kind of wish Jake would have kept going with me.”
“I went after Mike died. Big Mike wouldn’t go, but I understood why. It was too emotional for him to talk about his feelings in a group of mostly women. Men grieve a little differently. Mike worked more, saying being with the guys helped him.”
Smiling to herself, Geri knew all about that. Definitely motivated now, Jake was going to enroll at the local beauty school, itching to throw himself into the curriculum. He didn’t hide it from the guys at the station either, who made him promise to do free haircuts if they didn’t tease him.
Chapter 10
Almost a Year Later
The envelope looked suspiciously like the one containing cruise tickets. They were sitting on Geri’s couch, recovering from the fire season from hell, but one in which no firefighters had lost their lives or sustained major injuries.
“What’s this?” Jake asked, frowning. “I’m scared to open it.”
“Go ahead. I have my reasons,” she said.
He tore the flap off, and sure enough, two tickets for a three-day cruise up the coast to Santa Barbara and back for Valentine’s Day the following week.
“I was really enjoying myself when the sad thing happened.”
It was how they had agreed to refer to it:the sad thing that happened to usrather thanwhen I lost the babyorwhen you lost the baby.They’d losttheirbaby.
Jake sighed, nodding. “Okay, well, thank you.” He leaned over and kissed her. “We’ll try a cruise again.”
The time to go rolled around, and they found themselves walking up the gangplank of the same ship, leading to its shiny teak deck, through the same, thick carpeted passageway to their stateroom. This was a different one, still on the starboard side so they could watch the coastline, and the ship cruised north.
After they unloaded the suitcases in their stateroom, Jake invited Geri to take a walk around the ship, like they’d done on the first trip the year before. The weather was a little different, it had been raining earlier, and fog rolled in, just beginning to obscure the lights on the shore. The outdoor speakers played the top forty.
“Listen, Geri. It’s the same song the band played the first night we were out last time.Music’s in the air,” Jake sang, sliding his arm around Geri’s waist. “It makes me want to dance with the prettiest girl around.”
“It was the first and last time we danced together, too,” she said, laughing.
He held her close, humming the tune in her ear, and her heart melted, it was so romantic.
“I love you, Jake Saint. I don’t care about anything else right this second, about my job or school or any goals. All I care about is you.”
He held her out at arm’s length and looked into her eyes. “Are you serious?”
“I’m dead serious,” she said. “I never, ever thought I would feel this way about anyone, and here I am.”
“Yep, and here I am,” he said, dropping to one knee.
“Jake, you’re going to get your pants wet,” she said, trying to pull him up. Then she realized what he was preparing to do. “Oh man!”
“Yep. Geri, will you marry me?”
