Page 11 of Return By Fire

And resenting the baby’s father even more, I think sadly.

Still, “For the record, you can see a man’s hard on for you shrink through his clothes.” This sets off my friends again. “I was very quickly dubbed the station ‘little sister’ thereafter.”

“And Silver?”

My lips curve as Maris recounts to our friends a story Jed shared with her—how my brother, in his late thirties, crushed the arrogance out of a probie.

Humored, all these years later, I share, “Don’t think Dean still couldn’t do it.”

Maris lifts her glass in my direction. “I have no doubt. Just like I have no doubt you could walk into that station today and be propositioned.”

I shake my head at my friend’s lunacy.

CHAPTER EIGHT

“You’re getting old, Malone!” is hurled at me as I race through the soupy Florida humidity in full turnout gear with a hose tossed over one of my shoulders. I suck wind into my lungs as the probie I’ve been taunting tries to sneak his way past me.

Right. Like I’m about to let that happen despite the fact I’m fifteen years his senior.

Air whooshes out as I climb faster, harder, cursing the mandatory drills now as much as I did when I was as young as this kid who thinks he can outmaneuver me.

He’ll never surpass me, I think smugly, as I ascend the stairs to the fourth level. This rookie doesn’t have the fire inside eating him alive from the inside out, crawling insidiously through his veins, ready to catch ablaze at the slightest provocation with no remedy.

And I do.

The beast wants men like me to hunt her so she can make us her prey, I muse as my foot hits the top of the fifth-floor landing. Somehow, the fire knows. The bitch dismisses those she sees as an unworthy opponent.

Much like my parents. My feet falter, giving the probie trailing me up the tower the chance to catch up. I redouble my efforts even as my thoughts darken like the clouds off the Atlantic.

I reach the top of the tower and drop the hose with a huff. Lifting my hand to block the glare, I stare in a southern direction toward St. Augustine. Ahh, there it is. The Malone compound—rebuilt by one of my relatives who, to this day, don’t have a damn thing to do with Kara or me.

The place should have stayed burned to the ground. It’s where Kara and I were born, raised, and disowned because neither of us lived up to our parents’ idea of perfection.

It’s been five years since I set foot on Malone land, and I’m stronger for it—and in that case, I had no choice. Duty called and despite having no desire to save hell from burning, I swore to protect and serve.

Then again, for two misfits who were kicked out of having wealth available at our fingertips, we haven’t done too poorly for ourselves. Instead of falling apart, we fell together—forming our own branch of the family tree that embodied the nurturing spirit of our grandparents.

Wiping my fingers across my face, I still recall the day my sister told me about the man she fell in love with when she worked as a summer intern at the Mendenhall Glacier in Juneau, Alaska. She blubbered while I held her hair back as she vomited again into the toilet. “Jennings—his full name is John Jennings.”

“What does he do?”

“He-he’s a-a...”

Christ, don’t tell me this son of a bitch is married, I thought crossly. My hands tightened inadvertently in my sister’s hair.

After she gagged again, she managed, “He’s a lumberjack.”

Her words caught me so off guard I fell against the bathroom vanity. “A what?”

A weak smile lit Kara’s pale face and she flapped her hand in my direction. “I’ll explain the significance of The Jacks when I feel well enough to leave my second bedroom...”

I couldn’t help but laugh then and for the next seven months until Kara gave birth to my nephew.

As she put it, “The Jacks are five men who were brothers even if they didn’t share a single drop of blood. They started out as colleagues working together on the Great Alaskan Lumberjack Show in Ketchikan, Alaska.” Her hand smoothed over her small baby bump as she gave me a small dossier on each one—two way more important than the others.

I have them—and their faces—committed to memory should they pop up to disturb Kara’s life now that she’s gotten it back on track.

Thinking about the motley bunch, she never had anything but warm regard for Bradley Meyers and his now wife Rainey. The high school sweethearts were, per Kara, “Simply meant to be, Dean. It was almost tangible when they were together.”

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