Nothing Left to Burn (18 page)

I was early, so I sat in the car, my note spread on the center console, and jotted down another line or two, waiting for my squadmates. A knock on the window startled me out of my thoughts. Amanda stood there wearing turnout pants, and I sucked in a sharp breath. The sun did things to her hair—things that made me wish I could reach out and touch it. The suspenders on her pants emphasized her chest. With that strong, tall body, Amanda Jamison could totally pose for one of those firefighter calendars. She didn’t care how she looked, and damn if that didn’t make her hotter.

But looking was all I could ever do. She’d made that clear.

“You gonna stare all day or are you ready to work?”

I gulped hard and nodded. “Oh, yeah, right. Okay.”

“Come on.” She strode off, and for a second, I stood and watched her move. The way she walked made me want to pull up a chair. I wanted to be like her. I wanted to strut like that and have people watch me when I did.

I sighed. Yeah, right. I couldn’t even talk to my own dad.

I stuffed the note back into my pocket, locked up the car, and jogged to catch up to Amanda. Across the lot, Engine 21 was parked. I’d never heard it pull in. She opened a compartment and started handing me gear. “I asked Chief Duffy for a set of turnouts for you. The helmet and the coat are pretty new, but the pants have seen better days. It’s practice gear. You stick it out until you’re seventeen, you’ll get your own brand-new ensemble.” She smiled like she really wanted that to happen.

“Cool.”

“Suit up and meet us over there.” She pointed west where a cluster of people in turnouts gathered by a replica of a shopping strip. “We’re doing a little informal competition with the squads from Holtsville and Laurel Point. Winner gets a stupid trophy.” She rolled her eyes, but something in her tone told me she wanted that win.

Badly.

“I can do this,” I assured her. “I’m ready.”

She nodded. “First up is hose handling. We’ll go in with charged lines and fight pretend fires.”

I nodded and put on the practice gear.

Two hours later, I swore I’d sweated off five pounds dragging the charged line. Hose handling was a lot harder than it looked. But now I totally understood why Amanda had me drag a weighted rope around every day. We’d spent the morning learning how to connect, charge, and advance the line. Now it was time to apply that training.

“Sweat in training so you don’t bleed in battle.” Dad grinned at us. “It’s an old saying. You guys ready for this?”

“Copy that.” Gage grinned back.

We took shifts going inside the replica of a shopping center—a
taxpayer
, Amanda called it. It was just a strip of single-level stores, empty except for a few obstacles.

“Team Two, ready!” Dad shouted.

Amanda and I took our positions, with me clutching the nozzle and her directly behind me, supporting the hose. It took two firefighters to handle a hose under pressure.

“Remember what we practiced. Keep your hands here.” Amanda adjusted my grip so that the nozzle was as far from my hands as my arms would allow. “At the signal, open the nozzle. Aim high, then go low.”

I didn’t quite get that part. We’d been instructed to aim water high before we got inside, and then aim it
at
the fire. Combination attack, Amanda said it was called. It had something to do with maintaining a thermal balance. I’d read all about this, but so far, it was just another fact I had memorized without understanding it.

“Go!”

In tandem, we moved the hose to the front of the single-story unit
.
Amanda tapped my shoulder, and I opened the nozzle, almost losing my grip. The force, Jesus, the force was unbelievable. Who knew water could have so much power? The hose jackhammered in my hand.

“Too much! Close it a bit,” Amanda shouted.

I pulled back on the lever, and the recoil smoothed out. Water shot from the nozzle like a cannon. We moved into the store, and I did what Amanda taught me, spraying water high and around. Our job was to advance the attack line to the back of the store. We kept the hose to our right and slowly crawled on hands and knees through the interior. Keeping my balance was damn near impossible with the hose fighting me and the equipment suffocating me, but I managed not to fall.

“Keep looking around!” Amanda ordered. “Look for flames crawling across the ceiling, buckling in supports.”

Right. I learned the stream of water went wherever I looked.

Abruptly, the water cut off.

“Switch!” Dad’s instructions came over our radios. Amanda took the nozzle, and I fell behind her to act as backup. The line was charged, and I took hold of it, tapping Amanda’s shoulder to signal I was ready. Smoothly, she opened the nozzle—there was no kickback—and began advancing toward the rear. The stream of water hiccupped. I looked behind me to see the hose had gotten caught on the door of the building. I tapped Amanda’s shoulder and jerked my thumb at the door. She nodded, and together, we followed the hose line backward, out of the building, so we could unkink it.

Outside, we were met with applause from the rest of J squad.

I peeled off my helmet and mask and wiped my face.

“Holy shit, Logan! Didn’t think you’d remember not to leave your partner. I almost had a heart attack when the lieutenant looped the hose over the door.” Kevin clapped me on the back.

Dad stood with lieutenants from the other stations, conferring quietly over their clipboards. I slid him a look. Of course he’d deliberately try to trip
me
up.

Dad caught my eye and snapped, “Get back in the rotation. Practice opening and closing that nozzle until you can do it with no jackhammering.”

I vibrated with fury, my hands curling into fists. I wanted to hit him so badly. Instead, I just pressed my lips together while he sneered. I opened my mouth, but nothing came out. Murmurs of frustration went up among my squadmates.

“Logan.” Amanda shot me a look of exasperation. “Why don’t you ever stand up to him?”

You
wouldn’t understand.
I just shook my head and walked away.

I popped the trunk on my mother’s car and started unfastening all my borrowed gear. A cluster of guys were laughing as they stowed their own gear in the SUV parked across from me. I chugged water from a bottle, poured some over my sweaty head, and jerked when one of those guys called out.

“Hey, Logan.” A cadet from Holtsville waved at me. He wore a station uniform with the slogan
Professionally
Staffed
by
Volunteers
inscribed over his heart. “You’re Matt Logan’s brother, right?”

I nodded, wary.

“When I was twelve, I volunteered at LVFD. Your dad trained me,” he said and waited a beat to see if I’d smile and call him by name and invite him to Sunday dinner or something.

I didn’t.

Half the county could say they were trained by my dad. Didn’t mean anything…to
me
. But to Dad? I knew the fire service forged some strong bonds. Dad claimed they were stronger than fire itself. I didn’t know about that. I did know they were stronger than blood.

“Sorry to hear about your brother, man.”

I snapped up straight. “Oh, um, yeah, thanks.”

“All of us were damn sorry to hear about him.” He waved a hand to include his group. Some of those guys jerked their chins in acknowledgment, and before I could scrape my jaw off the ground, they’d piled into the SUV and pulled away. I managed to lift a hand to wave as they drove off.

Yeah. Strong bonds.

A sudden breeze blew, and I put aside those thoughts. I shrugged out of my bunker coat. My T-shirt stuck to my back, so I peeled that off too. I rolled my shoulders and stretched out the kinks. I shoved a hand into my pocket. Phone, wallet—oh God, it was gone. I patted all my pockets, then turned them inside out—nothing.

The note was gone.

I stood there, practically hyperventilating, dimly wondering why I kept hearing my name.

“Logan! Logan!”

I blinked and found Gage jogging up to me. “Is this yours? I think it fell out of your pocket.”

In his hand, he held a damp, folded square of paper. My knees buckled. “Yeah. Thanks.”

“What is it?” Gage peered at me, his eyes narrowed.

I sighed. “A good-bye letter I’ve been working on.”

Frowning, Gage stuffed his hands into his pockets. “Thought you said you were in this all the way.”

“Oh, I am. I was thinking of enlisting. You know. Army. Maybe Marines.”

Gage’s dark eyes popped. “You’re kidding me.”

“Well, it’s no secret my dad doesn’t want me around. I figured if I…left, he and my mom might get back together.” I shrugged. “Now, I’m not so sure.”

Gage studied me until I squirmed. “Okay. Stow your gear, then come back to the field. They’re gonna present the trophy.”

Yay.

He took a step, then turned back and scratched the back of his neck. “Um, look. I know you probably have, like, real friends, but if you ever need to, like, talk or whatever—”

Oh
fuck
me.

“Yeah. Thanks.” I cut him off before this ended in one of those awkward guy hugs.

“Okay.” He took off at a jog. “Oh, um, nice ink!”

I smoothed the paper out, frowned at it, and read it over. When I was done, I closed my eyes and clutched the note to the tattoo on my chest.

“You okay?”

I jolted and spun, my breath almost choking me. Amanda stood with a hip braced on somebody’s car, arms crossed over her chest, and damn if that wasn’t a crime against nature. “Yeah.” I carefully refolded the paper and tucked it deep into my pocket.

“Really?” She laughed once. “Doesn’t look like it.”

My spine snapped straight, and I put my back to her. “Let me rephrase. Nothing to you.” I whipped back around when I realized she must have been standing there for a while. “How long were you watching me anyway? You got some kind of thing for my naked body?” I dropped my voice low and peered at her from under my lashes, and she snapped off the hood of the car like she’d been shot from a rifle.

“Get real.” She flipped me off, her cheeks going pink, and strode away.

“Hey, come on, I was kidding.” I pulled on a clean shirt and topped it with a hoodie bearing the PROUD AND READY emblem that I found in Matt’s box of stuff in the basement.

I caught up to her back on the field, where the juniors were gathered around an older guy in uniform.

“Congratulations, Lakeshore Junior Squad,” he said, handing a small silver trophy to Amanda, who grinned and held it high over her head like it was the freakin’ Stanley Cup.

Hands slapped my back, applause rang out, and cheers of “Yeah!” echoed around the field. I smiled so hard, my facial muscles began to burn. In the chaos of cadets still in turnout gear, congratulations and high fives from a bunch of people I didn’t know, I lost sight of my own crew. I scanned the area but didn’t see Dad anywhere either.

That didn’t bother me at all.

I shrugged and started walking to the car, a kind of heavy warmth settling in my limbs. Suddenly, the air was shattered by a loud
crack
.

“You don’t know anything about me or my son, Cadet. Dismissed,” my father shouted.

I whipped around, vision narrowing, blood pulsing, and found my father jabbing a finger at Amanda’s face over near Engine 21. I never gave my body the command to move, never thought about it.

I just…
did
.

In a split second, I was standing between them, pinning my father to the truck by his throat.

Chapter 16

Amanda

After the training facility chief awarded us our trophy, I’d scanned the crowd, pissed off to find John Logan didn’t even bother to stick around. I finally found him over near Engine 21.

I’d had enough of this bullshit.

I strode over to him. “John.”

He looked up from the clipboard he carried, shifted his weight, and waited.

So I dove straight in. “Whatever’s wrong between you and Reece? Fix it.”

His jaw went tight. “Excuse me?”

I was too pissed off to find the right words, the right tone. “He’s trying. We’re all trying. Everybody’s trying. Except you.”

“Oh really?” John’s voice held that tone it always did right before he popped. Usually, it was at Matt. Occasionally, it was at Max or Ty. But never at me.

Until now.

“Our squad—the squad you now instruct—just won this month’s trophy. And you don’t even bother to stick around and give your cadets a high five. Is it really so hard for you to actually give your kid a compliment?”

John spiked the clipboard to the ground, and the sound was deafening. He pulled in a lungful of breath and let it out in slow motion, like he was doing his best to control his temper, but the tension in his arms, in his shoulders, told me that plan wasn’t working so well. “You don’t know anything about me or my son, Cadet. Dismissed,” he shouted right in my face.

I glared at him, arms crossed, and finally shook my head.
Fine.

I turned away, just in time to avoid a seriously pissed-off Reece Logan, charging straight for his father like a bullet train. In a heartbeat, he’d shoved John up against the side of the truck, T-shirt bunched in his fist.

“Do not,” he said in a low tone that sent shivers skating up my back, “ever take out your fucking problems with me on her or anybody else on this squad.” Teeth clenched, neck muscles corded, breath snorting from his nostrils, Reece looked ready—and able—to tear John in half.

“Reece! It’s okay. Back off.” I tried to break them up, but Reece’s arms were like iron bars.

“Hey, hey, cool off, guys. Let him go, Reece.”

Firefighter Jimmy Haggerty shoved his way between father and son and managed to back Reece up a few steps.

John’s lips curled into their usual smirk. “Not bad, Peanut. You’ve been lifting.” He smoothed out his shirt and picked up his clipboard.

“Stop with the Peanut crap,
Jackie
.”

John’s eyebrows shot up.

My mouth fell open.