A Home for the Firefighter Read online

  She had nothing to regret, and as far as she knew, he had bought his dream house and carried a bride over the threshold in the long months since she had last seen him.

  Kate drove to the next stop, which was centrally located between two large chain hotels on the northern end of the beach strip. Along the drive, she hardly heard the familiar spiel Holly was reeling out over the trolley’s speaker system. It was familiar. Too familiar. Maybe she was wrong to come back to Cape Pursuit for another summer. She seldom kept a job for long and loved the feeling of freedom that came with packing up and leaving.

  It was the money and steady hours that drew her back to Cape Pursuit. And the tips. The tourist town had filled her bank account enough for her to travel, hike and ski all winter between jobs. One more summer of shuttling beach guests would fund her way to a job that was like a permanent vacation.

  Her trolley emptied out at the hotel stop and Holly, once again, appeared beside her, phone in hand. “Have you downloaded the summer employee app? It’s going to be fun. The company is running all kinds of incentives and rewards for participating in employee events and team building.”

  Kate sighed. Getting to know people and risking relationships that would make it tough to move on was something she’d successfully avoided since she left home. Her relationships had shelf lives and expiration dates for a good reason.

  “No, thanks,” Kate said.

  “You don’t even know what’s on the app. The prizes are pretty tempting,” Holly said.

  “Let me guess. Cape Pursuit T-shirts and flip-flops?”

  Holly frowned. “Those are nice prizes, you know. And they’re not the only ones. If you play the ice-breaker games and do other fun things, you build up points for a beach party—”

  “We could have our own beach party,” Kate suggested.

  “And the grand prize is a grand.”

  “Grand what? Piano?”

  “A thousand bucks at the end of the season.”

  Sunlight glinted off the windshield of an oncoming car as Kate’s trolley idled at the beach stop. The light raked her eyes, but it was the thousand bucks that caught her attention. Cash like that meant a larger slice of freedom. Flight attendant school tuition, plus a bankroll while she searched and held out for just the right job.

  “Of course the app also has our schedules posted and any updates we need to know about, like weather cancellations,” Holly said. “I just pulled up next week’s schedule that posted this morning, and guess who’s driving the trolley again this summer?”

  “Me and you?” Kate said.

  “And?”

  “Albert Einstein? Martha Washington?”

  Holly smiled and held the phone in front of Kate’s face so she could see for herself that Brady Adams was on the roster.

  “Déjà vu, right?” Holly asked.

  “I don’t think that’s what déjà vu really means,” Kate said. “And either way, I plan to keep my mind on my plans and my eyes on the road.”

  Holly shrugged. “I got a quick look at the guy in the passenger seat in the fire truck. Maybe I’ll see if Brady can introduce me. Summer only has one hundred days, and I don’t plan to waste them by keeping my mind on my plans and my eyes on the road.” She mimicked Kate’s tone, and Kate laughed.

  “Then I think I’ll do the driving and you better keep playing hostess.” She handed Holly a roll of trolley stickers and pointed at the line forming outside the door. People with big hats, big beach bags and wiggling kids were ready for an air-conditioned ride on the Cape Pursuit Trolley Line, and driving them was one of the best jobs Kate had ever had.

  Holly could laugh, but Kate was determined to stay focused, and that meant keeping Brady at arm’s length.

  CHAPTER TWO

  TWO DAYS LATER, Kate picked up the early-afternoon tourists getting on at the public beach. She’d only been in Cape Pursuit for a week, but the routine was already familiar, just like last year with a few subtle changes. She didn’t mind a routine as long as she saw different people every day.

  A blonde girl wearing a pink towel over her shoulders climbed up the steps onto the trolley, using both hands to steady herself. Kate smiled at the girl and then raised her eyes to the man right behind her.

  Brady Adams. He had a blue towel over his shoulders, sunglasses perched in his wet hair and the same broad grin and broad shoulders as last summer. The child was new.

  “Tickets?” Kate asked. The habitual greeting was the only way she could distract herself from the reckless thought that it was nice to see Brady again. And who was the child?

  Brady smiled a long, slow smile at Kate and then leaned down and held out his palm in front of the little girl. “You’re in charge, remember?”

  The girl reached into her purple beach bag and pulled out a spray can of sunscreen, an empty water bottle and a trolley pass. She dropped the sunscreen and Brady caught it in midair. The little girl smiled and gave the trolley pass to Kate.

  “Uncle Brady told me I could hold on to it. And I did,” she said.

  “Your uncle is very lucky to have you to help him,” Kate said. Brady was an uncle? She thought she had known more about him than she should have the previous summer and when she’d flirted close to starting a relationship. But she didn’t know he had a brother or sister. She smiled at the little girl. “Welcome aboard the Cape Pursuit trolley. I hope you enjoy your ride.”

  It was her standard line for boarding guests, and Kate was glad to fall back on it instead of asking the questions swimming in her brain.

  “You’re holding up the line,” a man behind Brady said.

  Brady grinned. “You can charge my brother double for being a pain in the neck.”

  A man who was a carbon copy of Brady, but a year or two younger with slightly lighter hair, stuck his head out from behind Brady’s shoulder and handed Kate his pass.

  “Welcome,” she said.

  Kate craned her neck to see the line behind Brady’s family, and she was relieved when they took the hint and went to a seat.

  Except the seat was in the front row where she could already feel Brady’s scrutiny. Maybe there was a chance he’d forgotten all about their kiss last September. She risked a glance at him and caught him looking right at her with a question in his chocolate brown eyes.

  Nope. No chance.

  In all fairness, she hadn’t forgotten the kiss. She’d just assigned it to a low level of importance in the grand scheme of things.

  Kate drove two blocks and tried to tune in to what her trolley partner, Josh, was saying over the speaker. By the second or third week of summer, none of the workers needed the quick reference card with talking points, and Kate tried to listen and memorize the new material. She preferred to drive, but she took the host role sometimes, too, out of fairness.

  Josh was giving the weather report and some common-sense warnings about the sun. He moved on to the tide schedule and the useful information almost distracted Kate from the feeling that Brady Adams was right behind her. Almost.

  At the next stop, she parked and allowed guests to disembark. Company policy called for a two-minute time delay at the trolley stop even if there was no one waiting and no one in sight. As the summer got busier, there were always guests ready for an air-conditioned ride.

  As she waited, with Brady practically breathing down her neck, Kate realized it was going to be a long two minutes unless she took matters into her own hands. Kate swiveled around, fully intending to address the little girl with friendly conversation. Even though she had very little experience with children, Kate reasoned that the little girl would make a safer conversationalist than Brady. However, her plan failed immediately when Kate saw the girl had leaned against her dad’s shoulder and closed her eyes. Brady’s brother also had his eyes closed.

  “I’m awake,” Brady said in a cheerful low voice.

 
Kate took a breath and resolved to conduct a light and impersonal chat. “Are you still a firefighter?”

  “Yes,” he said, smiling and waiting as if he was going to make her work toward pleasant conversation.

  She could turn right back around and ignore him, but she had no idea how long his group would be on the trolley. She could be in for another hour of torture.

  “And you’re working for the trolley company, too,” she said.

  He nodded.

  Was he really going to make her do all the work? She almost considered bringing up the subject of the kiss and telling him it was seawater under the pier and she didn’t want to hear a single word about it.

  “You noticed,” he said.

  She raised an eyebrow.

  “That I’m working the trolley.”

  “Your name is on the schedule on the app,” she said. “I saw it on my iPhone.”

  Brady’s smile faded. “Do I have to look online this year? They gave us printed copies of the schedule last year.”

  “Just download it on your phone,” Kate said. “It’s easy.”

  Brady held out his phone.

  “Sorry,” Kate said. “I have to get the trolley moving.”

  She skipped ringing the bell because she didn’t want to wake up Brady’s adorable niece, whose mouth had fallen open in a deep sleep.

  “There’s usually a long break at the next stop,” Brady said. “Maybe you could help me then.”

  Kate had just been thinking the same thing about the next stop and its longer boarding time and wondering if she should offer to trade jobs with Josh. Perhaps her partner would like to drive, even though it was only his second day on the job. She blew out a long breath and eased away from the trolley stop. There was no need to risk anyone’s safety when she was perfectly capable of keeping her thoughts on her own goals. She was the captain of her own ship, and that strategy had been working for her since she was eighteen.

  The next stop was in front of a four-corner section of resorts. Each resort had at least fifteen floors and the trolley felt small in comparison. Beach-weary guests bundled off with their towels and bags, and afternoon sunseekers lined up for their chance to board. Kate imagined them going off to lunch in the hotel snack shops or taking cool refreshing showers in their rooms. Travel and vacations were her favorite things, and her nomad life occasionally included a stay in an upscale resort. She kept those stays short so she wouldn’t be too tempted to remain longer.

  Her funds were bottomed out at the moment, but a summer of taking as many trolley shifts as she could get would put her back in the money and on to her next adventure. Winning the cash prize for participating in the employee social app would be pure bonus. Was there a chance Brady would play along, too, and would that mean—

  Kate felt a tap on her shoulder.

  “If you’ll just find the app for me and get the download started—” Brady’s words were much too close to her ear “—I’ll fill out a comment card and say your customer service was five-star.”

  “I’m sure you can manage.”

  “Usually, yes, but when my brother came to town just over a week ago, we both upgraded to new iPhones. It was a ‘buy one get one free’ special and we got the family plan. I used to have a much older Android phone.”

  “Is he working for the trolley company, too?” Kate asked, indicating Brady’s sleeping brother.

  Brady shook his head. “Noah’s not sure of his plans yet, but I’m lucky to have him and Bella staying with me while he figures it out. If you don’t want to help me, I could wake up Noah and ask him, but the poor guy’s perpetually tired. I had no idea how much energy a four-year-old girl has.”

  Kate swiveled in her driver’s seat, hesitated just a moment as she contemplated one of the few men who’d ever tempted her to want more, and then took his phone. It was better to get it over with, and she didn’t want him to have to interrupt his brother’s nap. She searched the app store, found the summer worker’s app and clicked the install button. She handed it to Brady, but he didn’t reach for it.

  “Better hold on to it a minute and make sure it works,” he said.

  Kate shook her head. She wanted to put her hands back on the wheel and move along. “It’ll work,” she assured him.

  “I know,” he said, smiling. “I have confidence in you.”

  And that was just like Brady. Kate was tempted to ask him how he’d been and if he’d fulfilled his dream of buying a house yet, but she didn’t. It was too risky to let herself fall into an easy friendship with someone who would expect more. Besides, if his plans had fallen through, he wouldn’t want to talk about it. His dreams didn’t match hers in any shape or size, but they were his dreams and she respected that. She knew what it meant to want something that was very hard to get.

  * * *

  AFTER BRADY GOT off the trolley at the stop only a block from the fire station, he waved to his brother and his niece as they pulled away. Noah would indulge Bella for a little while yet on the trolley, and then he’d get off at a stop within walking distance of the house they were sharing. Bella’s little pink face in the window made him laugh, but the firefighter in him also hoped his brother would wash off all her sunscreen and make certain she drank a lot of fluids for the rest of the day.

  Brady was almost jealous that his brother would always have a piece of his heart walking around in Bella, but he was glad he’d get to share at least part of the summer with his niece.

  After a quick change into one of the uniforms he always kept in his station locker, he started his shift with an ambulance call to a residence on the edge of Cape Pursuit. Brady and his partner, Ethan, took an older man with chest pains to the hospital and returned to find that the rest of the crew had done the station chores and made dinner. Taking advantage of a quiet moment, Brady enjoyed the evening sunshine while he sat on a bench outside the fire station. He pulled out his phone and contemplated the new icon on the home screen.

  “I thought you hated your new phone,” Ethan said as he came outside and sat beside Brady.

  “I’m making peace with it. My second job has decided to post our schedules online and use direct deposit for all paychecks.”

  Ethan nodded at the phone. “Are you working a lot?”

  “I hope so,” Brady said. “I asked George to give me as many hours as I can work around my shifts here.”

  “Down payment?” Ethan asked, smiling.

  “That’s the plan.”

  The firefighters all knew at least something about the personal lives of their colleagues, and Brady had made no secret of his hopes regarding a home of his own. Those hopes had expanded in a different direction since his brother and niece had come to town unexpectedly, and having the chance to offer them a home—even just a slice of his rental house—made Brady’s dream both more real and more urgent.

  The sooner he could choose, finance and move into his own four walls, the better. For himself, Noah and Bella. Noah’s relationship with his girlfriend, Corrinne, was a question hanging in the air and Brady hadn’t wanted to press his brother. He knew there had been marriage talk at one time, a separation that went on for several months and now some family emergency for Corrinne that meant she had to trust Noah with their daughter for a month or maybe more.

  “Maybe I should get my trolley license,” Ethan said.

  Brady laughed. “You don’t need a special license. And you don’t need extra cash, do you?”

  Ethan was the quietest and most serious firefighter at the station. Not unfriendly. In fact, he showed great compassion for patients and his colleagues. He was always the designated driver, always had a big-brother ear for anyone who needed it. Brady had confided a few details about his absent father, his single mother and a childhood that could be summed up in the word uncertainty. Ethan had listened, nodded and revealed just enough about his own parents to make
Brady understand why he never drank and always watched out for his friends.

  “My parents haven’t made the wisest decisions financially since my dad was...encouraged...to retire early.” Ethan forced a smile. “Think they’d let me ring the bell if I drove the trolley?”

  “You’re overqualified after driving the fire truck and blowing the siren, but I bet they’d give you a chance.”

  Brady put his finger on the app button and tapped it open. He read a welcome message from George, who owned the company employing summer workers on the trolley and at several other tourist locations in town. George owned a miniature golf course, a bicycle rental and an ice cream shop on the beach in addition to the trolley.

  “This seems either good or bad,” Brady said. He held the phone so Ethan could see the screen as he scrolled through the app. “It looks like a summer-long game. You have to participate in all these activities and you win points toward the grand prize.”

  “What’s the grand prize?”

  “A thousand dollars,” Brady said.

  “That’s some motivation.”

  Brady’s mind went immediately to his down payment savings account. The money would help a lot, but the online game appeared to be social and interactive. He didn’t have a lot of time on his hands, working two jobs.

  “Your first assignment is the classic two truths and one lie game,” Ethan said, reading over Brady’s shoulder. “You should try it.”

  “I’m not sure what I’d say.”

  “I’ll help you,” Ethan offered. “Two truths would be that you’re a firefighter and an uncle. The lie could be something involving your dancing ability.”

  “That sounds boring,” Brady said.

  “Say you’re a traveling Flamenco dancer and you hire yourself out to parties,” Ethan suggested. “Although that would be better if it were true because no one would suspect you did that if they knew you.” Ethan scrubbed a hand over his face. “Maybe I’m not very good at this.”