Point of Origin (7 page)

“Then why come to us at all?” Mayor Davis asked with the mumbled assent of the twelve-person council. “Why not just start up a new one somewhere else?”

“This is a needed area. We can respond faster from here. Wasn’t that why the original team was based in this region?”

“Then why not a few counties over?” Mrs. Anderson asked.

I swallowed the need to throat-punch her and then blinked. When had I started taking Bash’s side on this? Did I actually want the team reinstated? The sons to stand in where the fathers had died?

“Because this isn’t establishing a new team.” He looked directly at me. “This is resurrecting the one we lost. Slight modifications to budget, training and makeup, but the same team.”

“Absolutely not.”

“Ludicrous.”

“No respect.”

The replies weren’t soft, nor kind, and each of them hit me with the force of a punch. I looked from one council member to the next, each so sure their opinion was right, each acting as if this would personally rip them to shreds were it allowed to happen.

Something ugly twisted in my stomach. Suddenly this council wasn’t made up of the same citizens who had painstakingly rebuilt this city from scratch. They were a bunch of self-righteous asshats who spewed things like “too young,” and “worst idea ever.”

“I understand your feelings, but try to look at this for the good it can do, as a way to heal our town and truly finish the rebuild.” Bash kept his tone even and calm, but the whitening of his knuckles on the podium told me he was anything but. Both Ryker and Knox looked like I felt—disgusted, not by the feelings of the council, but the way they were attacking Bash.

“You have no clue what this could do to us!” Mr. Henry called out, his usually-pasty face bright red.

To them?

To them!

“Enough!” I shouted, and the council fell silent, no-doubt in shock.

“Emerson?” Mayor Davis looked at me like I’d lost my mind.

“’
Do you have any clue what this could do to us?’
Is that really what you just said to Mr. Vargas?” I asked Mr. Henry, on record and with full notes by the recorder.

“He’s not looking at the bigger picture,” he defended himself, sitting taller in his chair.

“Do you really think that the loss of your home and the need to rebuild your bank is really the biggest tragedy from that day?” I asked.

He rolled his eyes. “Young lady—”

“Oh no, I’m a fully-grown, tax-paying woman with Masters degree that I worked my ass off for. I’m the woman who helped put this town back on her feet and never stopped fighting. You don’t get to belittle my gender and act like I don’t know what I’m talking about.”

His mouth opened slightly, then shut.

I met each of the council member’s gazes. “Each of you lost something that day. Each of you fled, just as we did. Each of you rebuilt your homes, your businesses, and your lives. But you take a good, long look at Sebastian, at Knox, at Ryker…at me. We all lost something that you cannot comprehend, so don’t you dare ask him if he knows what it cost
you
. You can argue his plan, the costs, the impact on the town, but when it comes to emotional cost,
we
already paid that bill. Not you, and if there’s four of us here, asking you to consider this, then you can damn well listen respectfully.”

“Ms. Kendrick,” Mayor Davis chastised.

My chin rose in response. There was zero chance in hell I was backing down.

“Perhaps you should stop telling us why we can’t do this, and instead offer us your conditions,” Bash suggested.

The attention shifted back to him, and I nearly gasped. The look in his eyes was pure, barely-restrained murder, and it was aimed at the very people he was arguing to save. “I’m not asking your permission. If you don’t agree, I’ll withdrawal the petition to include my new land in the city. You’ll lose the taxes. The Forest Service has already agreed to oversee the new team. I. Do. Not. Need. You. Or your understanding,” he shot at Mr. Henry. “My father died on that mountain with seventeen of his closest friends. He died protecting this town, and the work they accomplished allowed you the time to flee. I am here only out of respect for his wishes, and those of his brothers and sisters who lay with him in Aspen Cemetery. Do not mistake my courtesy, my love for my hometown, for begging. I may want the Legacy name, but I sure-as-hell don’t need it, or you.”

The room was eerie silent as Bash stood his ground, looking at each of the members as I had, but never meeting my eyes.

“What will it take?” Knox asked, standing next to Bash. “If we, who lost the most that day, can offer to stand again in defense of this town, in honor of our parents, then you can give us a path to do it.” He spoke directly to Mr. Henry. “That’s the least you can do, considering you were the first to evacuate.”

Mr. Henry sagged in his chair.

“Imagine the press, though, the criticism of allowing the same team to be reestablished,” Mrs. Anderson said with a soft voice.

“Imagine the press when we come out under a different name because our home refuses to honor the heroes that saved it,” Ryker argued, standing on Bash’s other side.

“You will have a hotshot team on that mountain,” Bash said, the tone in his voice final. “You can either be on the right or the wrong side of this. It’s your choice.”

The council members talked amongst themselves, covering their microphones, leaving us all in the dark as to what the hell they were thinking.

Bash finally looked at me, and everything else faded away. There were only the two of us in that room, locked together by a tangible connection that even time couldn’t sever. His face was an unreadable mask, still in its control, but his eyes, they burned me, entranced me, intoxicated me. They were slightly wide with amazement, but so fucking hot for me that my heart skipped and stark, undeniable need pulsed between my thighs.

Fire and gasoline.

God, I was desperate to burn.

Greg sighed heavily next to me, taking his seat after conferring with Mayor Davis. “That’s why you won’t go out with me,” he laughed in self-deprecation.

“What?” I asked, turning to face him. “We’re not together. We haven’t been in…forever.”

“But he’s what keeps you from trying,” he said softly, no anger or malice in his tone, just understanding…because he was Greg.

My gaze shifted back to Bash, whose narrowed stare flickered between Greg and me, despite Knox and Ryker both talking to him. “He’s Bash,” I admitted quietly, not just to Greg, but to myself.

“He’s not staying,” Greg answered in the kindest tone imaginable.

I tried to smile. “I know,” I said, looking straight at where Bash stood, wishing I was next to him instead of across the room. “But it’s always going to be him, and it doesn’t matter if he’s here or not. It will always be Bash.”

As if saying that aloud freed me, I felt both lighter and heavier in an instant. Lighter because I knew that I hadn’t been a stupid teenager, I’d simply found my soulmate as kid. Heavier because it didn’t matter how I felt, I could never have him, not completely.

My fingers trembled, as if the knowledge was too much for my body to process, and Greg reached across the table and squeezed my hand gently. “Okay.”

“Thank you,” I told him, knowing I was shutting the door on something that could be perfectly acceptable to me in time, perfectly safe…perfectly…lovely.

But lovely wasn’t what I had with Bash. It was messy, and hard, and imperfect, and so very
us
.

“Well, gentlemen,” Mayor Davis said, taking his seat with the rest of the council members. “I think we have a solution.”

All three of the firefighters tensed as they awaited the verdict. “What will it be?”

“You made quite a showing here—four of you standing up for your own legacy. We’re not immune to the display, especially when it comes from a quarter of the surviving children of that team, and when three of you are willing to form a new team—to stand in for your fathers.”

Bash tensed, and I knew why—he wasn’t planning on standing in for his father. Not here. Here was too much, too close. He wanted to honor his father’s memory, but he wasn’t putting that same patch on.

“We think it should be up to the legacies. We made the mistake earlier of speaking for you when we have no right to. We won’t make the same mistake twice. You plan for a twenty-member team?”

Those hazel eyes narrowed. “That’s the plan, but we can function at eighteen within mandates.”

“At least half of your team—”

“Sixty percent,” Mr. Henry called out.

Mayor Davis sighed, but too many of the council members nodded for him to disagree. “Fine. At least sixty percent of your team must agree—”

“Done,” Knox agreed.

“—by being on your team. If you want a Legacy Hotshot team, then you will have one comprised of legacies.”

Bash’s jaw locked and the other two men shook their heads. “That’s not possible.”

“Emerson?” Mayor Davis asked.

“No!” Bash shouted.

“It’s okay,” I said to him, “he’s asking me to talk numbers.”

Bash stepped back, but didn’t lose any of his tension. He looked like a coiled spring, ready to launch at the next person.

“There are twenty-one legacy kids,” I started, doing the math in my head. “If you have a nineteen-member team, you need twelve of them on the hotshot team. Eleven if you go to the minimum of eighteen.”

Bash shook his head. “This isn’t right.”

“These are our conditions. You can only do it with overwhelming, physical support from the legacies.”

“So you can have your perfect press,” Knox spat before Bash silenced him with an upraised hand.

“There’s only seventeen of us even legally old enough to do it,” I argued. “Damien Lee is the next oldest, and he’s only seventeen, and do you expect little Violet Carpenter to join up at nine years old? She never even met her father.”

“You asked for a path to do this,” Mayor Davis said after cringing at the numbers. “I’ve given it to you.”

“How long do we have?” Bash asked. I could already see the gears turning in his genius mind.

“I think the memorial ceremony would be a fitting deadline,” Mr. Henry said.

Two weeks. What. An. Asshole.

“That’s ridiculous. I have a fully-trained team lined up and ready to step in.”

“Your money won’t buy this, Sebastian,” Mr. Henry argued. “You want this town to reopen this wound? To bleed? Then we’ll see what your blood is made of.”

It’s in my blood.

The others… so many of them were already firefighters.

I turned my notebook to a fresh sheet and started to scribble. Indy was on a team in Montana, and the only girl at that. The Maldonaldo brothers… Lawson… that would give them seven… Braxton wasn’t a hotshot, but still a firefighter in Chicago, but his sister was still so young.

Bash looked up at me and I gave him an almost imperceptible shrug. It was close. “Well, we’ve taken up enough of your time,” Bash addressed the council. “I think I saw Mrs. Greevy outside, pretty upset about a stop-sign.”

I groaned.

Bash walked out with Knox and Ryker…and without a backwards glance. Damn, that was getting annoying.

As soon as the door shut, the room burst into argument. Everything was up for grabs, the validity of such a team, if there was a need for it, if the funding was legitimate, how the town would handle another tragedy…the impudence of this younger generation.

The longer I sat there, the sicker I felt, until I couldn’t bear to stay silent any longer. I stood, remarkably calm for the turmoil raging inside me, and pushed my seat under the large table. Then I placed my files, minus my doodled paper, in front of Mayor Davis.

“What is this?” he asked me, looking up in confusion.

“I quit,” I said, clear and without so much as a waver.

“You what?” he sputtered. “You can’t. The town needs you.”

“The town. Right. I’ve dedicated the last ten years of my life to helping the town, and I always will. I am a Legacy girl through and through. And while I applaud your selfless service, all you talked about was the town, the press, the finances.”

“It’s our job to look after Legacy,” Mrs. Anderson argued.

“We are a small town, Mrs. Anderson. We fight for everything we have, and we’re proud of that. But one of the benefits of a small town is that you’re not just here to serve an entity but her
people.
When you talk about the school, you know it’s Mr. Hartwell you’re discussing, that you grew up with. The same goes when you talk about parking in front of the Chatterbox. You’re discussing Agnes, not just the traffic implications. We’re not nameless faces, and neither is Sebastian. You knew our fathers, loved our fathers. This isn’t just a town matter, it’s an intensely personal one, and as it involves my family, I won’t work for you anymore. It’s out of the question. Consider this my resignation.”

I turned on my heels and concentrated on not ruining my exit by falling on my face. Greg grinned up at me and nodded his support as I passed.

“If you walk out that door, the town will not pay to send you to London,” Mayor Davis threatened.

My stomach plummeted, but the warning only served to solidify my choice. “When I walk out this door, I won’t need an internship to learn how to run a city. You can do that on your own without my impudent generation.”

I swallowed the pain of losing that little piece of my dream and walked out of the door.

There was only one place I wanted to be, and it wasn’t with that group of tight-ass pricks.

Chapter Seven

Bash

Slam. Slam. Slam. The sounds echoed off the gym walls in the lower level of the Clubhouse.
Great, her little nickname sticks.

I threw my weight behind every punch, rocking the seventy-pound bag before hitting it again, and again.

Fuck them and their mandates. I didn’t need them or the town’s approval. I owned this land, the very area where they died, and I could do with it what I damn-well wanted to. Hell, I owned half that fucking town if I wanted to call in favors on the money I’d gifted and the notes on what had been lent.

I didn’t need them.