Rescued By Her Rival. Amalie Berlin

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      During his first year, back when it’d seemed he could do no wrong, he’d still had to actively work to be something like what they expected off duty. They’d accepted his tendency to go off on his own when he got a whiff of something during a fire. Let him come around to telling them whatever he’d concluded when he was certain.

      He didn’t know where that sixth sense had gone, could only hope it had come back over the winter. Knowing how far he’d fallen in the chief’s esteem chafed.

      After marking the rookie’s reps and still carrying his clipboard, Treadwell strode in Beck’s direction. The stout man was in his fifties, and probably as fit as when he’d joined. “What’s the call?”

      “Us and two other units.” Beck nodded down the field to where the other groups were breaking up. “About a forty-five-minute flight. Kolinski said he’d pack our gear and hold the plane.”

      Treadwell listened and nodded, but just when Beck thought he was going to turn around and give the grunts the afternoon off he said, “Not you.”

      “It’s a big fire. You need me.”

      “Not like this I don’t.”

      The urge to argue burned his throat, but he clamped his teeth together. Not that he didn’t buck orders on occasion, but only when he had some measure of certainty he was right to do so. He wanted to argue that no one in the unit read fires like he did, but he simply wasn’t sure that was the case any longer. That was last year’s argument. Before his mistakes. Before he’d been trapped by the flames.

      Treadwell handed him the clipboard. Accepting the transfer of the hard acrylic gave him a sensation somewhat like the first time he’d jumped from a plane. Plummeting. Ground that approached far too rapidly.

      He stood straighter. Even without that one selling point, he was still as capable as anyone else. “You’re sure? I’m still boots on the ground.”

      “Your boots are on whatever ground you see fit. This is the first day. Prove me wrong and we’ll talk.”

      He wanted to, if he actually knew how to follow orders he knew were wrong. As annoying as the yellow badge might be, at least probation gave him more time to sort things out.

      When Beck said nothing else, the chief turned to summon Autry with a wave.

      She’d been watching—everyone in the group had been—and at the summons she popped out of her sulk and trotted right over.

      “You two finish morning PT with the group,” Treadwell said, adding, “There’s a fire, and Ellison has already expended too much energy to give one hundred percent this morning, he doesn’t need to throw himself into the blaze at less than full capacity.”

      Yes, he did. He needed that.

      “I’m fine,” he argued finally, the prospect of minding rookies worse than simply sitting out a fight.

      Treadwell shot him a hard look, one that Beck could also interpret. Punishment or probation, it didn’t matter, he was out of the game until this was done, and Treadwell was trying to save face on his behalf.

      Beck would’ve gladly taken the ding to his pride if it would’ve gotten him back into the fray. Sitting around with a clipboard while his team jumped into danger didn’t sit right.

      Treadwell thumped him on the shoulder once and before Autry could ask any of the questions bouncing around in those strange green eyes he finalized his orders. “Handle the rest of the baselines. Classroom was going to be protocols, but since it looks like most of us will be in the field, Ellison’s going to do a Q&A about service, lessons learned his first couple years. Then you can all amuse yourselves for the rest of the day, but be on the field at daybreak tomorrow before the siren blasts.”

      Autry still looked confused, but she nodded and had now shifted her attention to him, her expression saying things he didn’t want to hear—like she got just how little he wanted to do this. “What do you want me to do?”

       All of it.

      Eager to get rid of the clipboard, he passed the cursed thing over and gestured for her to follow. The sooner they got on with it, the sooner he could get it over with.

      “Three crews have been called to a blaze, Treadwell wants us to continue,” he announced, straight to the point, then added, because it would help them to know the course when it became mandatory, “After that, lunch, and then a five-mile run around the woodland course.”

      Autry cleared her throat, and for a second he thought it was because she was going to correct him about the run, but instead she said, “Don’t forget the classroom Q&A before the run.”

      One tiny twitch of an eyebrow challenged him to argue, but she didn’t correct Treadwell’s orders—probably because she was obsessive about exercise. Couldn’t rightly fault her for it, except that she didn’t let him get away with sidestepping the exercise in public speaking.

      “Q&A after lunch. Five questions. Then run.” He returned her look. In unison, her brows and shoulders popped up. She might as well have just said, Whatever.

      Whatever. He got back to the task at hand, gesturing to the man Treadwell had been testing, still on the ground. “Who are you?”

      “San Giovanni.”

      “He only has sit-ups left,” Autry added.

      He’d have been happy to let her continue on her own, but Treadwell’s opinion wasn’t going to be raised by his desire to maintain the ten-foot ring of emptiness around himself he preferred.

      “How many are left after him?”

      “Six.”

      He nodded once for the man to continue and silently counted while the man got on with it.

      * * *

      Lunch came and went, and Lauren found herself back on the field with the other rookies, waiting for Ellison.

      He’d said about twenty words before lunch, and most of those had been numbers, or Next. He’d been chattier two years ago.

      If saying more than one word per breath could ever be considered chatty. He only barely communicated at a level higher than grunts and too-easy-to-read judgmental faces. But he had communicated more last time. His current level of terseness seemed the type usually reserved for people who’d caused offense. Which couldn’t be her.

      Unless he thought she stank at everything and couldn’t believe she’d returned for a second try? Wouldn’t be the first time she’d encountered that. Or the thousandth.

      Women weren’t unheard of in the service, but they weren’t abundant either. Even with her firefighting pedigree, the weight of the Autry name probably just meant people would expect her to be better. Not making it two years ago had contradicted that notion, even though she’d served her family’s station since fresh from high school and her father had known better than to turn her away lest she go to a station where he couldn’t control her. Then six years of hard-fought experience, and the arguments it had taken to get it.

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