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Sean O’Neill. The man who was her best friend, a man whom she played pool with and hung out with on Friday nights like one of the guys. He was her partner and treated her as if she were just another firefighter. And Lana would think that Sean viewed her like that, if she didn’t catch him looking at her every so often.
With lust in his eyes.
In the split second that his hand stayed on her arm, Lana felt all the frustrating sexual urges come to the fore. No, it wasn’t a good idea to have him touch her.
Not after that mind-blowing dream.
She swung her feet to the floor and right into the black rubber boots, pulling up and fastening the heavy canary-yellow overalls more commonly known as bunker pants.
The sound was earsplitting as Lana emerged into the engine bay where the big ladder engine was kept, along with the vibrant red pumper, glossy from the day’s exhaustive cleaning.
Before taking her designated seat on the engine, she grabbed her turnout coat. It and the bunker pants, with three protective components, provided added defense against burns.
The equipment had saved her too many times from fatal burning for her to ignore any piece. She always placed safety first before comfort. Of course, the equipment was heavy, but thanks to the stringent physical requirements of her job, she didn’t even notice the weight. She hooked up the jacket without thinking about it and smoothed down the Velcro strip to seal it completely. After pulling on the nomex hood, she grabbed her yellow helmet, jammed it on and tightened the chinstrap.
After climbing on the engine all within one minute, her gloves tucked into her equipment belt, she pulled the self-contained breathing apparatus or SCBA for short from its bracket behind the seat and shrugged into it.
As soon as the alarms had gone off, the doors to the firehouse began to open. The engines were now loaded with firefighters ready to do battle with an unpredictable and deadly enemy. In her experience, the darkness would only hinder this early Monday morning attack on the fire.
As the impressive ladder engine roared down the freeway blowing its loud horn, Lana listened to the details they were getting about the type of building, the construction, and the number of people who might be caught in the fire. It was close to two in the morning on the first day of her two-day shift and already they had what sounded like a serious one.
Against her will, she looked over at Sean seated next to her, no doubt his thoughts were also on the blaze.
She hoped this wasn’t another arson-induced fire. A number of suspicious fires had occurred in San Diego the last two months. And the most recent one, she’d discovered the evidence of trailers and accelerants.
So far, this firebug was more interested in apartment buildings than empty commercial property, but Lana took nothing for granted. The adrenaline in her blood urged the engine faster. Her body tightened in anticipation of what lay ahead.
When the big red rig arrived on the scene, Lana realized they were third in, which meant she would be on search-and-rescue detail. Standard operating procedure dictated that the first-arriving engine attacked the fire with tank water, the second-arriving engine laid a supply of lines to the first engine and the third-arriving crew performed necessary forcible entry, search, rescue and ventilation. Lana automatically was on the lookout for Battalion Chief Johnson for his specific orders, all her thoughts going to the task at hand.
Before she could get to the battalion chief, she heard a scream and her head snapped toward the direction of the voice. A woman ran right for her. She clasped Lana’s arm in a death grip. She felt the strength of the woman’s desperate hold even through the thickness of her canvas jacket. A policeman followed right behind the woman.
“Lady, I told you to stay behind the barrier.”
“It’s all right, Officer. Can I help you, ma’am?” Lana asked, covering the woman’s hand with her own. The woman’s face was stark-white, her eyes wide and frightened looking.
“My Angie. Dear God, where’s my baby?”
“What does she look like?” Lana asked the distraught woman.
“Curly hair, big blue eyes, and she’s dressed in pink pajamas.”
Lana turned to Sean, but he was already speaking into his radio. With quick, curt words, he discovered that no one had rescued a child meeting Angie’s description.
“What apartment?” Lana asked urgently.
“Apartment 3B on the third floor. My sister was babysitting her while I worked. Please, please,” she whispered, “save them.”
When they found the apartment, the door was locked. Ever mindful of the potential for a backdraft where carbon dioxide mixed with air could cause a violent explosion, she took off her glove and felt the wood.
It wasn’t hot so she used her ax to break the lock. Pulling a latch strap from the equipment belt, she hooked it over the lock on the door. She was pretty sure that it wouldn’t lock behind them, but she didn’t want to take any chances. She stayed near the wall, using a deliberate search and rescue procedure that had been drilled into her.
It took them precious minutes to move around a room that was filled with smoke. Whenever they found a window, one of them would swing the ax and break it to help with the crucial ventilation of the building.
When Lana bumped into the couch, she spied a teenage girl. She was unconscious but breathing shallowly. Lana rolled the teenager off the couch onto the floor.
“I’ve got her,” Sean yelled over the noise of the fire and the efforts of the firefighters to stop it.
“I’ll look for the child.” Then she went into the back bedroom. She removed her mask so that she could yell into the room. Acrid smoke stung her nostrils and made her cough. “Angie, where are you?”
