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First stop, the firehouse.
Lucas had become friendly with Gerard Chartier, winning the man’s loyalty when he agreed that fire services outranked the other two. (Lucas had also told Levi that police services were the most important, and agreed with Kelly Matthews that EMS clearly came first. Hey. It made everyone happy.) At any rate, Gerard told Lucas they were hiring five new people; apparently there’d been a big house fire up at Blue Heron, and the good people of Manningsport had agreed to fund a paid department.
Perfect job for Bryce’s type. Bryce was in great shape, liked people and...and...well, maybe he’d make a good firefighter.
Bryce seemed suitably awed as Gerard gave him the talk, staring in childlike wonder at the fire trucks. Lucas felt the same way. Every little boy wanted to be a firefighter, after all.
“This would be awesome,” Bryce said. “Not to brag, but I have already saved someone. Lucas? Remember? When I saved you?”
“Yep.” At Gerard’s questioning look, he added, “I got my foot caught in the train tracks, and Bryce knocked me free.”
“In the nick of time, too,” Bryce said happily. “So what do you have to do to qualify?”
“There’s twelve weeks at the fire academy,” Gerard began. “Firefighter I, Firefighter II—”
“Whoa. There’s school?”
“Yeah. You learn about hazardous materials and how to contain them, incident command system, blood-borne pathogens. Oh, and you have to be an EMT, too, but that’s easy. Just a six-week class.”
“Bummer. That’s really not my thing.” Lucas’s head jerked back a little. “But thanks for your time, Gerard!” Bryce shook the firefighter’s hand vigorously. “See you at O’Rourke’s!”
“Bryce,” Lucas said as they crossed the green, “what’s the problem here? Is it fire academy? Twelve weeks will go by like that.”
“I’m not going back to school,” he said.
“It’d be fun,” Lucas said.
“Yeah. I mean, jumping out of windows and rescuing dogs and stuff?Thatwould be fun. Hazardous material containment? No way.”
“You’re not stupid, Bryce,” he said, though he did sometimes fear that his cousin had taken a sharp blow to the head. “You could pass, I’m sure.” Especially if Lucas tutored him.
“You’re probably right,” his cousin said blithely. “I’m just not interested. Plus, it might interfere with my work at the shelter.”
“You’d have health benefits, vacation...”
“You know, the more I think about it, the less I want to do it. I mean, what if I got hurt on the job? I could be disabled for life.”
“Or not.”
“No, it’s a good thing I thought this through. Kinda dodged a bullet there.”
Lucas closed his eyes briefly. Once Bryce made up his mind, there was no talking him down.
Their next stop was the bakery. Lorelei, the owner, had advertised for an apprentice baker; apparently she supplied quite a few of the local restaurants with bread and desserts. “Hi, guys!” she said with a sunny smile. “Bryce, what happened to your hand?”
“Oh, it’s nothing,” he said, proudly holding up the heavily bandaged extremity. Honestly, amputees used less gauze. “Put a nail through my hand when my cousin and I were doing this job up on the Hill.”
“You poor thing,” she said, melting a little as Bryce stepped closer to show her his boo-boo.
“You’re looking for help, Lorelei?” Lucas asked.
“Yes! Do you know anyone?”
“Bryce might be interested, right, buddy?”
“Sure,” Bryce said amiably.
“Really?” Lorelei said, blushing. “Wow. That’d be...that’d be great.”
