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“I’m not,” I responded. “The heroes are the people who noticed what was going on and called for help. The folks at Tennessee Lumber, the other firemen who spent all night fighting it, the other counties that sent help, those folks are heroes. I’m just the guy who told people what to do.”
For about ten minutes, the questions came at me, and then I was ushered away, back into the station and into the chief’s office. I was there alone for a little bit before the chief returned, the mayor laughing jovially as he told the chief a story the mayor clearly found hilarious. Chief McDaniel looked like he had just smelled an egg fart.
Of course, that wasn’t terribly different from his normal facial expression.
“Kieran,” the mayor said, coming over to me and shaking my hand vigorously. “You were great out there for the cameras. Very photogenic. Modest. All the things we need to help revitalize the image of the Ashford Fire Department. Great job.” He stopped suddenly and took an exaggerated breath. “Perhaps you might be suited for politics one day, eh? You have a look that people respond to, Kieran. And what a name! Kieran Duggan! I can see it on yard signs now. Of course, you’ll have to wait until I move on from being mayor, though, ha, ha, ha. Perhaps I’ll be governor by then?”
“Only if I’m president,” the governor said as he came into the room and shut the door behind him, blocking out several staffers who were clearly upset by the situation.
“Good to see you, Harvey. You too, Arn. Kieran, nice to meet you in person. Well done out there, son.”
“Thank you, Governor,” I said.
“If we could all take a seat for a moment,” Chief McDaniel said.
I sat down after the other three, wanting to keep the comfortable chair available for the other two should they want it, but they each sat down on folding chairs along the back of the room.
“Kieran,” the governor said, “I feel as though this might be beyond my normal prevue, but considering the state of things here in Ashford, I thought it my duty to see to it myself. The mayor here has asked me for help before, but this most recent situation was a damned disaster, and you handled it fantastically. We need a leader like you in southeast Tennessee. I want you to know that what you are about to be asked is not just from the mayor and the chief but from me as well.”
Confused, I turned my attention to the mayor, who seemed overjoyed at being able to say whatever it was he was about to say.
“Kieran, Chief McDaniel is retiring next year,” the mayor said. “We have all spoken, and we would like to offer you the position when he steps down.”
I blinked a few times, looking between the mayor and Chief McDaniel. The chief was beginning to have what looked like an actual genuine smile forming at the corners of his lips.
“Wow,” I said. “I am extraordinarily honored that you asked me. I promise, I will not let you down.”
“So that’s a yes, then?” the governor asked.
“Absolutely,” I said.
“I know you won’t let us down, son,” the governor said. “Now, as I understand it, there is some training that you will need to do beforehand while you learn the position. Chief?”
“That’s right,” Chief McDaniel said. “Right back to your old stomping grounds, actually. You’ll have to do a few weeks in Nashville and Memphis, working under their chiefs and shadowing them for a bit. We want you to know the job both from a high-capacity and our low-capacity situations so when you take over, you’re fully prepared. When I first got the job, they put me on for six months in Nashville, but since you were just there in your current position, and how you handled our fire last night, we thought we could do with maybe six weeks.”
“Of course,” I said. “When is that?”
“It would start on the second. Right after the cook-off on the first.”
“Oh, good. I didn’t want to miss that.”
“We’re depending on you to help the department go two for two on the local news, Kieran,” the mayor said.
“I’ll do my best,” I said. “Thank you.”
As I walked out of the department and toward my truck, my first thought wasn’t excitement about the new position and pride over how much they thought of me. It was worry. Worry because what had begun this morning between Sofia and me was something I didn’t want to jeopardize. I wondered how she would take the news of me being gone so long.
I was going to have to make every single second with her as enjoyable as possible before training. Because when I left, who knew how things would go?
21
SOFIA
For the last couple of weeks, Kieran and I had been together pretty much all of the time that we weren’t at work. Even then, that didn’t completely stop us as I had dropped off a few of Papa’s famous pizzas at the fire station one evening, and he had come by to meet my sisters and Papa himself during one of my shifts. The whole night had been a blur, but Papa seemed pleased with him, and my sisters would not stop gushing about how I had somehow wound up with the hottest man in Ashford.
