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“Even when your CO tells you to stand down?”
She nodded. “Yes. That fire was all over the place, and I meant what I told Captain Bridges. I know I broke the rules. I don’t take that lightly. But I do stand by my actions.”
Tilting his head, her father said, “Well, I’ve got to hand it to you. You picked one hell of a hill to die on, kid. You really sure a hothead like Sam Faurier is worth it?”
Lucy’s scowl was immediate. “I didn’t go into that warehouse forhim. I did it because I was trained to always have my team’s back.” Plus—and she didn’t want to say this out loud because, hello, she was still flaming mad at the guy—there had been evidence of at least one squatter in the same room where he’d seen someone. Faurier’s decision had been brash, yeah, but he’d been well motivated.
A thought connected in her mind, and oh, God. “Did they…Station Twenty-Nine didn’t find anyone inside, did they? After the fire was out?”
“No,” her father said, punctuating the word with a shake of his head. “If anyonewasinside, they got out unnoticed.”
Lucy exhaled in relief, but the sentiment didn’t last when her father said, “You know, the chain of command exists for a reason. Captain Bridges wasn’t telling you and Faurier to stand down out of principle, or to be an ass. He did it for your safety. It’s a hell of a difficult call to make.”
“I know,” Lucy said, but her father shook his head.
“You might understand, but you don’tknow, and you won’t unless and until you’re a captain making that call with your own firefighters’ lives one day. The weight of that decision is heavy, Lucy. Especially when civilians might be inside a building no one’s walking out of.”
Heat flared on her cheeks, and she dropped her chin a fraction. As right as she felt, she also knew that what her father was saying held more than a kernel of truth, too.
He took a step toward her, waiting until she looked up again before saying, “What you did today was brave, but it was also stupid. You could have died in that fire. I know you could die in any fire,” he added quickly, holding up a hand to quell the argument he must’ve seen her working up, “and that’s something I have to live with every day. But I also know how hard you’ve worked to get here, and how much you love this job, so I’m going to say this, loud and clear. Orders don’t just exist so we can knock down fires properly. They exist to keep firefighters safe. You either follow commands or you find a new calling, because your captain won’t give you another second chance, nor would you deserve one if you do this again. You understand?”
Lucy swallowed past the snarl of emotions in her throat. “Yes. I understand.”
“And you know I love you, even though I disagree with what you did today?”
Here, she couldn’t hold back. “The same way I love you even though I see both sides of the coin on this one?”
“Anyone ever tell you you’re stubborn as hell?”
“Yep. I get it from my dad,” she said, finally managing a smile when he let out a down-deep laugh.
“Well, that explains a lot. Now, come on. Let’s go get a big breakfast at the Fork in the Road. After all, if you’re going back to the academy for three weeks of training, you’re going to need all the fuel you can get.”
* * *
Sam paced aroundhis loft apartment in an effort to burn off some of his excess energy. Not that it was going to work any better than the seven-mile run he’d taken on the trails behind his place when he’d arrived home, the two hundred push-ups he’d done when he’d returned from his run, or the forty minutes of yoga stretching he’d been desperate enough to try after that. Hell, he’d even resorted to cleaning his entire place from top to bottom, vacuuming the floors and emptying the fridge of anything that smelled even the tiniest bit questionable and changing his sheets. It was barely late afternoon, and he’d exhausted his list of things to exhaust him. Well, other than sex, anyway. But Sam was hardly in the mood to think about getting laid, and hell if that wasn’t a big, fat indicator that something was well and truly wrong. He’d gotten the whole denial-by-orgasm thing down years ago, and he wasn’t too proud to say he was damned good at it—both givingandreceiving. Okay, so all of those casual hookups and one-night stands had gotten kind of old lately, not quite distracting him enough and definitely not filling the loneliness that had started to form late at night, when he lay in the shadows, too brain-buzzed to sleep. They were worth the price, though, keeping his armor fine-tuned and locked into place.
Better cocky than the alternative. Even if it had landed him in a shitload of trouble today.
But someone had been inside that warehouse. Sam was sure of it. He’d beenrightto go in. Even if they hadn’t found the person.
Where the hell had the guy gone? And how the hell had that fire traveled so fast?
A knock on the door yanked Sam out of his head, delivering him back to his apartment. He wasn’t expecting anyone, so he eyed his front door cautiously until a familiar voice sounded off from the other side.
“I know you’re in there, just like I know you’ve gotta be stir crazy by now. Open up, Faurier.”
Sam moved to the door, trying to decide if he should be irritated or relieved. “Here to read me the second verse of the riot act?” he asked once he’d opened the door, taking in Hawkins’s turnouts and radio with a pang.
“A little bit,” Hawk said, tipping his head at the door in a wordless request for entry. “But mostly wanted to check on you.”
Sighing, Sam stepped back. “Are Dempsey and Gates outside?”
“In the vehicle, just in case we get a call,” Hawkins confirmed, and that explained both his bunker pants and his radio. “But you ignored my texts, so I figured we’d take a ride.”
Sam had ignored Hawk’s texts so they wouldn’t get into it over the phone. Now, he guessed he had no choice, so he used the time it took Hawkins to cross the threshold and shut the door behind him to throw on a smile. “I appreciate it, but everything’s fine.”
Hawkins arched a light brown brow. “You’re a ten-year veteran of the RFD, seven of them on the most elite rescue squad in the city, and you got your ass sent back to the academy for three weeks because you straight-up ignored a direct order on a fire call. Things are far from fine, brother. Question now is, are you ready to talk it out, or do you want to keep your head in your ass a little while longer?”
