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“Hey, doll.” Her voice grates on my nerves. “How was the run? I didn’t hear you leave.” She smiles at me and lays her head on my chest as soon as I walk into the kitchen.
This feels wrong.
“Hey, you. It was good. Intense. Yeah, I came in late and got up early.” I glance at the clock and see that it’s ten till six. She will be walking out the door soon, then I can crawl back into bed.
“Okay, I’m headed out. I don’t think I’ll see you in the next few days, but I’ll text you. See you later, doll.” And she is out the door.
I sigh and look around my kitchen. Red walls greet me, with black-and-white appliances that I picked out specifically to fit the room. It’s a country kitchen from the floor to the ceiling, and it makes me feel like I’m home. Sometimes, I swear that I can smell pies baking when no one else is in the house. It’s something I long for. Not the pie itself, but the comfort of having someone else in my house that I can share my life with. Knowing my night is going to be a long one, I drag myself to the bedroom and crawl into bed without checking my phone.
My shift is uneventful, allowing me to work on my reports and get everything squared away for my off days. The working schedule at the department means that I work for six days in a row and then have four days off. As a lieutenant, I’m now responsible for arranging the schedule every week, and since I’ll be off for the start of the week, I need to have it done before I leave for the night. It consumes me until Poppy calls me into dispatch.
I walk in and take a seat at the third station, left empty so people can pass through and work as needed. “What’s up?” The look on her face says enough. She knows that Margot is home.
“You know exactly what’s up, and I think we all want to know what you’re going to do about it.” Abby pipes up from behind the monitors on the other side of the room.
“Why won’t anyone leave this alone? It was a long time ago.” I put my head in my hands and pray that they won’t say anything else about Margot.
“What the hell are you talking about? I’m asking what you’re going to do to fix the schedule you messed up.” Poppy stares directly into my eyes, a smile lighting up her face.
“Oh.” I can feel the heat rising into my face. I cough to cover my embarrassment and take the schedule she is holding. “I’ll go get this squared away.” I leave the room, but I can hear their laughter as I go.
“I think he’s losing it. And she hasn’t even started work yet. I wonder what’s going to happen…” I can’t hear the rest of their conversation because the door to dispatch closes.
“Great,” I mutter to myself as I look over the schedule I need to fix.
* * *
Margot
I take my time settling into my new office. The commissioners only convened for five minutes before giving me the job. My official start date won’t be for another week, but I’m determined to get things the way I want them in my office. Especially since there’s so much to fix with the county’s emergency protocols and procedures.
In the large historical building that the county holds all of its offices in, the EMA department is on the ground floor along with dispatch, patrol, and maintenance. I’m familiar with it, having worked in dispatch before. Still the office itself needs to be cleaned out. Paperwork dating back twenty years is littered throughout the messy work area.
It takes me the better part of the week to get everything sorted by year and into boxes that I’ll have to sort through once I’m officially employed by the county. During that time, I’ll also get moved into my new house. It’s a small A-frame with wide-open windows that sits back on a dirt road across the river from the sheriff’s office and on the same street as the elementary school. I can sit in my living room and watch cruisers come and go throughout the night. It’s almost as entertaining as watching TV, but I’m happier with it being off and reading a book. It gives me something calming to look forward to at the end of the day.
Days turn into weeks, which turns into two months gone by before I realize it. Soon, I find myself completely settled in at work and just going through the motions. I love the work I’m doing, and even more than that, I crave the routine that it offers. When I go into the office every morning, I drink my coffee and go through the emails that came in throughout the night. After that, I start working on the plans for expanding emergency preparedness for our county, chapter by chapter, starting at the very beginning. It eats up most of my day, and I have lunch at my desk more often than not. By the time I’m ready to leave, it’s always after the time I’m supposed to be done. There’s so much for me to do, and it’s exactly what I want. Plans to keep our area safe. To keep the people who live here safe in an emergency.
Living in Maine, there is a lot that can go wrong and it’s all over the board. Snowstorms regularly knock out power for days on end in the winter, even in the city. There are a lot of vacationers and older residents who can’t take care of themselves when that happens. Not everyone has a woodstove, and those that don’t have generators either, have no way of staying warm. Part of my goal as the new director is to set up a safe place in every town that can harbor the residents when they have no heat or electricity during storms. The most obvious choice is the fire department or library in each town, but there are a lot of hoops to jump through and complications that I’m encountering.
That’s just one potential problem that I face, in one very specific instance.
The redheaded firefighter finds me in my second month at work. Walking into my office, he smiles down at me from his full turnout gear.
“There you are. Since I found you, does that mean you’ll go out to dinner with me?” He chuckles as he leans on my doorframe.
I look him over, recognizing the smell of smoke and knowing he has just come from a call. “Maybe. But tell me this, how did you figure it out?”
“Well, it isn’t too hard to find you. You are the new EMA director after all. Plus, I may have seen a picture of you hanging up on a wall over at the station from when you were younger. Different hair, same eyes.” He pushes off from the door and approaches my desk. “Seriously, Margot. Go on a date with me. You won’t regret it.” I look at him and see apprehension in his eyes. He’s afraid of what my answer will be.
Maybe my first impression of him was wrong.
“One date. This weekend. I’ll meet you at Lucy’s on Friday at eight, okay? I have a meeting at six with the fire chiefs, and I don’t know how long it will take but I should be done by then.”
“Deal. I’m gonna leave before I say something stupid and you change your mind. But here’s my number in case you want to call or text.” He picks up a pen from my desk and writes his number on a piece of scrap paper sitting next to it. “I’m Raymond Jones, by the way. But everyone just calls me Ray.”
“I’ll see you later, Ray.” I smile to myself as he leaves my office. My dating life was pretty much nonexistent before moving back to Birch, but now I have a chance. The opportunity to make a life for myself and I want to give it everything I can.
Even if it feels like it’s with the wrong man.
