Heat Exchange (4 page)

Lydia shoved back at the guilt that threatened to overwhelm her and make her say something stupid, like offering to stay in Boston so Ashley could go to college. Her dad had accused her of being selfish when she’d taken off, and maybe she was, but she couldn’t be responsible for everybody’s lives. She was still working on her own.

“I’m going to take a shower,” Lydia said when it became clear Ashley had nothing else to say at the moment. “We should go out for breakfast.”

“I already made pancake batter. I was just waiting for you to get up.”

Her sister wasn’t the best cook in the world, but she made amazing pancakes. “I hope you made a lot. I’m starving.”

Ashley’s face lit up with a real smile. “I know you and my pancakes. I practically had to mix it in a bucket.”

* * *

A
IDAN
HELD
UP
a metal rod and looked over at Scotty. “What is this? Does this go somewhere?”

They both looked at the piece of playground equipment they’d spent the past hour assembling, and then Scotty shrugged. “It doesn’t look like it goes anywhere.”

“I don’t think they said, ‘Hey, let’s throw a random metal rod in there just to mess with the idiots who have to put it together,’ do you?”

“I don’t know. If you set something on fire, I know what to do with it. Building things? Not my job.”

Chris Eriksson joined them, scratching at a slowly graying beard. “I don’t think you’re supposed to have extra pieces. A bolt maybe. A few nuts. That looks important.”

“Where did the instructions go?” Aidan asked, scanning the playground to see if they’d blown away.

“There were instructions?”

“Funny, Kincaid.” Eriksson shook his head. “My kid’s going to climb on this thing. If we can’t figure it out, we’re breaking it down and starting over.”

Aidan stifled the curse words he wanted to mutter as he started circling the playground structure. They were surrounded by an increasingly bored pack of elementary students and a photographer waiting to snap a few pictures of the kids playing on the equipment the firehouse had donated and built. When Eriksson had come to them, looking for some help for his son’s school, they’d been all-in.

And they still were. This was their community and they all did what they could. But it would have been nice if somebody had been in charge of the directions. After a few minutes, one of the teachers—a pretty brunette with a warm smile—moved closer and beckoned him over.

“We built one of these where I did my student teaching, and I think it’s a support bar for under the slide,” she whispered. “If you look up at it from underneath, you should see the braces where it bolts on.”

“Thank you.”

“No, thank you. We really appreciate you volunteering your time.”

He gave her his best public relations smile, secure in doing so because of the ring on her finger and lack of
I’m hitting on a firefighter
vibe. “Just doing our part for the children, ma’am.”

She nodded and went back to her students, leaving him relieved he’d judged the situation correctly. Having a teacher flirt with him in front of her students would be a level of awkward he didn’t care to experience. He’d learned fairly quickly that, for whatever reason, there were women out there who really liked men in uniform, with police and fire uniforms ranking right up there. Fake kitchen fires were rare, but not unheard of, and it seemed like every firehouse had a story about busting through a front door to find the lady of the house wearing little to nothing.

For a few years, he’d been like a kid in a candy store, so to speak, but it had gotten old after a while. He’d grown to hate not being sure if a woman was attracted to him or his job, so one time he’d actually told a woman he was interested in that he was a plumber. It was a lie he kept going for several weeks, until she suffered a plumbing emergency and he was forced to admit he had no idea why disgusting water was backing up into her bathtub.

That had been his longest relationship, surviving his confession and lasting about a year and a half. He’d even been thinking about an engagement ring, but she struggled with his job and in the end, she opted out. Or rather, she opted for a guy who worked in a bank and was home by five and never worked weekends.

There had been a few almost-serious relationships since then, but they always fizzled out under the strain of his job. Flipping back and forth between day tours and night tours was something that came naturally to him at this point, but it was a lot harder on the people in his life.

He tried to stay hopeful, but sometimes it was hard to be optimistic about finding a woman he’d spend the rest of his life with. Even Scotty’s sisters—who’d grown up with Tommy Kincaid and surrounded by firefighters—hadn’t been able to make their marriages to firefighters work. Sure, there were a lot of strong marriages if he looked around enough, but it got discouraging at times.

“Hey, Hunt, you gonna stand around yank—” Scotty bit off the words, no doubt remembering just in time they had a young audience. “Doing nothing, or are you gonna help?”

Once they’d gotten the metal rod bolted into the proper position, Chris Eriksson turned testing it out into a comedy skit that made the children laugh and then, finally, it was time for some press photos. The kids gave them a handmade thank-you card that the firefighters promised to hang on their bulletin board, and then it was time to get back to the station. Several guys had agreed to cover for them, but only for a few morning hours.

Once they were on their way back, in Eriksson’s truck, Chris looked over at Scott. “Hey, I heard Lydia’s back.”

Aidan was glad he’d been too slow to call shotgun and was wedged into the truck’s inadequate backseat because he felt the quick flash of heat across the back of his neck. He was going to end up in trouble if he didn’t figure out how to stifle his reaction to hearing Lydia’s name.

But the way she’d looked at him at Kincaid’s last night...

“Yeah,” Scotty said. “She’s going to help out at the bar so Ashley can take a little time off while she and Danny figure out what the hell they’re doing.”

“I heard Walsh was staying with you. That’s cozy.”

Aidan wondered if Lydia knew that part yet, because he couldn’t imagine she’d take it well. He’d known the Kincaid family almost a decade and a half, and he knew that Ashley was the older sister, but Lydia was the junkyard dog. If you messed with the family, Ashley would try to talk it out with you, but Lydia would take your head off your shoulders.

“Lydia can worry about the beer and burgers and stay out of the rest of it,” Scotty said.

Aidan laughed out loud. “I wouldn’t recommend you tell
her
that.”

“Hell, no. I’m not stupid.”

As they got close, Eriksson sighed. “Fun time’s over. Chief says we’ve gotta clean the engine bays today. And everything else that needs cleaning.”

“That’s bullshit,” Scotty said. “I swear to God, the guys on night tour last week were all raised in barns. We should go drag their asses out of bed and make
them
clean up.”

Aidan didn’t mind the thought of filling the time around any runs with cleaning. It was mindless work that would keep him from having to look his best friend in the eye until he’d gotten a handle on thinking dirty thoughts about the guy’s sister.

He didn’t think the
she started it
excuse would cut it with Scott Kincaid.

Chapter Three

L
YDIA
ALMOST
MADE
it to Kincaid’s Pub without getting sidetracked. She might have made it all the way if she hadn’t heard sirens in the distance, which made her think of her brother. And thinking about her brother brought her back to the fact that—in her eyes—he’d chosen a fellow firefighter over his own sister.

She detoured down an alley and then over two blocks until she was standing in front of three stories of old, red brick. The bay doors were open so she could see the gleaming fronts of both trucks—Engine 59 written over the door on the left and Ladder 37 written over the right in big gold letters that gleamed against the chalky brick.

When she was a little girl, she’d thought it was a castle. She’d even drawn it into a picture for art class, the bricks towering behind a dark-haired princess in a long pink gown. The assignment had been fairy-tale illustrations, so the teacher had drawn a sad face on her picture. Lydia had been crushed. She’d also been the one who hid the unsealed bag of pastrami in the depths of the art teacher’s desk supply cabinet, but nobody knew that but her.

Over the years, the tall and narrow brick building became less of a princess castle and more of a place that competed for her father’s attention. More often than not, it had won. But there was no denying this place was woven into the fabric of her life.

There were a couple of webbed folding chairs in front of L-37, so she knew the guys had been sitting on the sidewalk, but there was nobody out there now. She stepped inside the open bay door, running her hand down E-59’s glossy, red side as her eyes adjusted to the light.

She’d shown up in high temper, but the sights, sounds and smells of the house wrapped around her like a blanket that brought her familiar comfort, even if it chafed a little bit.

“Can I help you?”

Lydia looked at the guy standing in front of her, who looked as if he was about twelve years old. “I’m looking for Scott Kincaid.”

He frowned, and then his expression morphed into a wide grin. “You must be his sister. You look just like him. I’m Grant Cutter. I was assigned here right after you moved away, I guess.”

“Lydia,” she said, shaking his hand. “Is Scotty around, do you know?”

“He was back in the cage with the air tanks. Let me—” There was a clang of metal and Grant broke off, peering around the end of the truck. “Here he comes. Hey, Scotty, your sister’s here.”

When her brother stepped around the back of the truck, a clipboard in his hand, Lydia nodded. “Hey, Scotty.”

“Hey.” He handed the clipboard to Grant. “Can you take this to Cobb?”

“Sure thing.”

“Don’t just put it on his desk or he’ll claim he never saw it. Hand it to him directly.” When Cutter nodded and headed for the stairs, Scotty turned his attention to Lydia. “Aren’t you supposed to be at the bar?”

“I was on my way and took a little detour. I’ve got enough time and Don’s cooking.” Don had been with the bar since before the ownership and name change, and her dad trusted him with a key and the safe combination. If she ran late, he’d cover out front until she got there.

“So just a little detour for grins, or were you looking for me?”

She knew him well enough to hear the slight edge in his voice, which meant he was already feeling defensive. And that meant he knew he was doing something wrong. “I stopped by to talk about Danny, actually.”

“Oh yeah?” Her brother put his hands on his hips, tilting his chin up slightly. “What about him?”

He knew very well what about him. “You don’t think maybe it would have been more appropriate if he stayed with one of the other guys?”

“I have a spare bedroom and the other guys don’t. Doesn’t make sense for him to crash on a couch or burden a family when I have an extra bed. And when a guy’s having a hard time, you try to be there for him. It’s called loyalty, you know.”

“How about your loyalty to our sister? Where’s
that
loyalty?

“Lower your damn voice. And I
am
being loyal to our sister. If Danny goes out and rents an apartment, and then starts making do for himself, it’s just that much harder for them to get back together, and that’s what we all want, right?”

“It doesn’t matter what
we
all want. Do you want them back together because it’s better for Ashley or because it’s better for Danny?”

“I think it’s better for both of them. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t
want
them back together. I love Ashley—and you’re a liar if you claim you think otherwise—but I love Danny, too. He’s like a brother to me.”

“I get the whole brotherhood thing, trust me. I know all about it. But you’re taking it too far in this case, Scott. You need to remember whose brother you
actually
are.”

“You haven’t even been around for two years. Who the hell are you talking to about remembering who you are? You left. You walked away.”

“I left because of the same stupid bullshit Ashley is going through now, but at least when I left Todd, you had my back. It sucks that you don’t have hers.”

“You’re out of line, Lydia.”

“No,
you’re
out of line.”

The younger firefighter—Grant, she thought—walked back into the bay as she shouted at her brother and froze. After looking back and forth between the two of them, he turned and retraced his steps to make a hasty exit.

“Great. Nothing like a family spectacle to brighten everybody’s day,” Scotty said, his voice dripping with sarcasm.

“Ashley should be able to visit her own father without running into Danny,” Lydia said, trying to dial back the temper. Not because she cared about being a spectacle, but because she wouldn’t get anywhere butting heads with him. “You have to see that.”

He shrugged. “Ashley goes in the front door. Danny always uses the back stairs. She probably wouldn’t even know he was there.”

“Trust me, she’d know.”

“It’s not like she’s in the habit of stopping by for regular visits, anyway.”

“That’s not the point. She should be able to if she wants to. The family home should be a safe place for her.”

He rolled his eyes so hard she wondered if it hurt. “That’s a little dramatic, even for you. They’re just going through a rough patch.”

“I’m going to show you dramatic in about thirty seconds if you don’t get your head out of your ass. It doesn’t matter if it’s just a rough patch or if they end up divorced. Right now, they’re separated and Danny shouldn’t be living under Dad’s roof.”

“Look, Lydia, I’m working here, okay? And I’m not tossing Danny out. So why don’t you go to work and leave Ashley and Danny’s marriage to them.” He turned and started walking away.

“I’m not done talking to you,” she said, and he flipped her the bird without looking back.

Lydia inhaled deeply through her nose, trying to resist the urge to run after him and bring him to the ground in a full body tackle. That would be a family spectacle they wouldn’t get over anytime soon.

When Scotty walked away, leaving Lydia alone in the bay, Aidan knew he needed to leave it well enough alone. Not only because he should mind his own damn business, but because Lydia in a temper could be a lot to handle.

But when her shoulders sagged and she looked up, as if looking for some kind of divine guidance, he walked around the back of the truck. “Hey, Lydia. You okay?”

She jumped, and he wondered if the heat in her face was from being startled or if she was thinking about whatever it was she’d been thinking last night. “Oh, hey. I didn’t know you were there.”

When she tucked her hands in the back pockets of her jeans, it took every ounce of control Aidan had to keep his eyes on her face. But his peripheral vision happened to be excellent, so he couldn’t miss the way the Kincaid’s Pub T-shirt she was wearing stretched over her breasts when she put her arms behind her.

“Sorry. I wasn’t trying to eavesdrop, but you guys aren’t great at keeping things quiet.”

She shrugged. “I don’t care who knows. So I’m pissed my brother’s letting Danny stay with him. It’s not a secret.”

Aidan didn’t have a lot of experience with family dynamics outside of his own, and his own family was nothing like the Kincaids, but he suspected there was more to this than Danny crashing in Scott’s spare room.

If things were heated and sides were being taken, he could see it. If Danny had gotten caught stepping out on Ashley or he’d put his hands on her or something, then Scotty would have to close the door in his face. But as far as he knew, Danny and Ashley were just going through a rough patch and needed a little space.

He held up his hands in a conciliatory gesture. “I’m Switzerland.”

“Yeah, right.” She shook her head, looking around the bay. “There’s no Switzerland when firefighters are involved. Brotherhood first. Everybody else gets what’s left.”

And there was that
more to it
that he’d suspected might be an underlying problem. “That’s not entirely true, you know.”

She arched an eyebrow at him. “And you know what it’s like to be on
this
side of it how exactly? Doesn’t your family count money for a living?”

“It’s a little more complicated than that, but I see what you’re saying. But to us firefighters, that whole brotherhood thing kind of
includes
our families.”

“In theory, maybe.”

“Look, I love Tommy. You know that. He’s been more of a father figure to me than my own father has been, but he’s a hard-ass. Any...shortcomings he might have in the nurturing category might be his personality and not the job.”

She stared at him for a few seconds, that dark gaze locked with his, and then she smiled. “Good effort, kid.”

Kid?
What the hell was that? She might have four years on him, but what was with the patronizing pat on the head? “It’s my take on it. Whatever.”

“This is exactly why I’m stuck back here again. Ashley can’t even show her face at the damn corner market—never mind the bar—without somebody trying to convince her Danny’s such a great guy and if she could just be more understanding and more supportive and give him another chance.” She took her hands out of her pockets to point at him. “Not a single one of you—not even her own father or brother—has told her that maybe she did the right thing for
her
and that Danny needs to make an effort to resolve their problems, or that
he
needs to be more understanding and supportive.”

Goddamn, but she was hot as hell when she got fired up. He tried to shove that awareness to the back of his mind, but it wasn’t exactly a switch that could be flipped. “I admit that sucks.”

“Yeah, it does.” She stopped pointing at him, but he could still see the temper on her face and in the set of her shoulders. God help Scotty should he walk back in at that moment. “But I’m here now. And since you say you know my family so well, you know I’m not going to let anybody shit on Ashley. If Danny gets his head out of his ass, then good. If not, screw him.”

She turned and walked away before he could say anything, not that he had any idea what to say to that. He actually was fairly neutral on the matter of the Walsh marriage, whether Lydia wanted to believe him or not. He liked them both a lot and he hoped they worked things out. And if they couldn’t, he hoped the split was amicable and they both found happiness. That was about it for him.

Even though she left without giving him a chance to respond, he had to admit he liked watching her leave. She was a little taller than average, and nice and curvy. The long, angry strides did nice things for her ass, and Aidan was once again left with a Lydia-inspired hard-on.

And there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it.

The last thing he needed was to get caught jerking off in the bathroom. That had happened to a new kid once and they’d called him Palmer for so long they would have forgotten his real name if it wasn’t written or sewn on his gear.

“Is my sister gone?”

Scotty’s voice killed the hard-on as effectively as a cold shower. “Yeah. You’re not exactly her favorite person at the moment.”

“No shit.” Scott walked to the bank of metal lockers and yanked his open. “No wonder Todd drank so much and went looking for less bitchy company.”

Anger rose in Aidan’s chest and he turned away before it spilled out. Siblings fought and he was aware nobody knew your soft spots like family, but that was a cheap shot. It wasn’t Lydia’s fault her ex had turned out to be an asshole. And blaming her made Aidan want to plant his fist in his best friend’s face.

“That guy was a dickhead,” was all he said.

“Yeah, he was.” Scott sighed and slammed his locker. “I didn’t mean that. She just... God, she drives me crazy, you know?”

Aidan was starting to know a little something about being driven crazy by Lydia, yes. Just, in his case, for an entirely different reason.

Danny Walsh watched Lydia leave from the third-story window. He could tell by the way she was walking that she was pissed off and he knew she must have stopped by to see Scott. Those two pushed each other’s buttons without even trying.

Leaving the window, Danny turned off the television he’d had on for background noise while he cleaned up the living room area and then went into the kitchen. After giving the beef stew he’d made a quick stir, he turned the slow cooker to low. They used the slow cooker a lot because it meant not having to throw a meal away and start over if they had to go on a run before they got a chance to eat it.

He pulled out his phone and sent a group text announcing lunch was ready and then pulled out a stack of paper bowls and a loaf of bread. There wasn’t a lot of butter left in the tub in the fridge, so he jotted that down on the list they kept on the door. Hopefully it would be enough for today.

The guys started showing up, serving themselves from the slow cooker before taking seats around the huge and ancient kitchen table. Danny was pretty sure the chairs were all older than him, with yellow vinyl seats spackled here and there with duct tape, but they were sturdy and nobody had ever complained enough to merit stretching the budget for new ones.

“That’s all the butter there is,” he warned them. “So have a little more bread and a little less butter with your bread and butter.”