Page 23 of A Gift for her Festive Firefighter

“… And I was asking her to dinner,” Cade interrupted hotly, looking back at Jude and laying claim to his woman bluntly. The bear had been poked directly in a wound, and if Jude thought Holly was going out with anyone else…

His thoughts paused as he heard the three men start laughing in awareness just before they started exchanging money. Mayberry handed a twenty-dollar-bill over his shoulder as Jude snatched it, winking at him.

“Y’all had a bet going?” Cade blurted out.

“Layin’ odds – yes.”

“You thought I was going to ask Beary out?”

“Ya’ shoulda seen your face, captain,” Jude grinned. “I ain’t never seen you go all soft and mushy that quickly.”

“Who all knows about this bet?”

“Well, I’ve gotta collect my money from the chief and…”

“The chief bet on me?”

“He bet that you wouldn’t ask Beary out.”

“You all bet that I would?”

“Nawww,” Rodney laughed. “I told Jude that you wouldn’t do it.”

“I didn’t think you had it in you either, captain,” Mayberry agreed.

“Why?” Cade asked simply, kind of taken aback. Why were they all so certain that he wouldn’t be interested in Holly?

“She’s not your type,” Rodney volunteered, and Mayberry nodded before adding to the comment. “You are kinda highfaluting or pretentious if you don’t mind me saying. You want things a certain way, people to fall into line when you snap your fingers, and that just isn’t how a small town works.”

“I’m from a small town,” Cade gaped in shock. “And I’m not highfaluting – nor am I pretentious. Ember Creek was no bigger than Sweet Bloom, but everyone understood their role.”

“And you think we don’t?”

“I don’t know!” Cade retorted bluntly, looking over his shoulder and beside him at the three men as they pulled back into the fire department from their last call. “I honestly don’t know. I mean, let’s take Mayberry…”

“Oh boy,” Rodney muttered under his breath.

“Mayberry is our engineer – but every time you guys are running into a house that is on fire, you’d like water or foam… wouldn’t you? Well, you know what Mayberry is doing at the truck? He’s jawing with the onlookers, scratching himself, and checking his cell phone! That’s your water, your lifeline, your backup from the truck,” Cade hollered, no longer holding back his temper as the three men looked at him in shocked silence. “I’ve told you I want lights and ladders on every fire, giving these two men an exit – and it’s an argument, or you roll your eyes at me. What if they got trapped?”

Cade drew in a deep breath, knowing he should stop, but couldn’t help himself – and pointed at Rodney, whom Jude nudged silently with his eyes wide and staring at Cade as if to tell the other man, ‘You’re next!’…

“Rodney is so distracted by the gossip being texted to him that he is not capable of telling Mayberry if he needs another line, more pressure, or if he’s in trouble. He’s too busy on his phone, even in a fire, to focus – and you know what gets a firefighter killed on the scene? Distraction!”

His hands were shaking and he knew he was getting well beyond the point of no return – and if he was getting fired for saying what had been building the last few months, it was time he cleared the table. If he got canned, they would at least be alive when he packed up his gear and left.

“Jude, you are so young, so innocent, that you think all of this is normal – and fall in line with them because you want to learn… and God help me, that is the scariest part. You are learning from people whose ‘Give-a-crap’ attitude broke long ago. I tell you what needs to happen, yet you look to Rodney or Mayberry and do what they say; but I’m your captain.”

It wasn’t a temper-tantrum but a heartbreaking plea for help and understanding.

“I’m your captain and responsible for your lives. I wake up each morning wondering how I can reach you, tell you how things should be, try to teach you like I was taught. Every night, I go to bed with an upset stomach, tension headache, and fraught with worry because I know it’s a matter of time before one of you dies in front of me,” Cade hissed, his eyes burning with tears as he looked each of them in the eye. “I’m going to fail you because I cannot seem to reach through the bad habits to show you how to save yourselves in an emergency.”

Nobody said a word for several seconds as they sat staring at each other, and Jude spoke first.

“Why do you want Mayberry to put up ladders and lights at every fire… captain?”

Cade sniffed and cleared his throat, looking away and feeling ashamed that he’d let himself get that upset. If they didn’t care, maybe he shouldn’t, but he wasn’t built like that. He wanted to be so much like Reese and felt like an abysmal failure right now.

“I was on a call one time and got trapped in an attic space that someone had converted to a toy room, so my nearest exit was the roof. I used my ax and pike to pull myself upward away from the fire – and my engineer ran forward to put up a ladder for me. Ever since then, my captain insisted there was a ladder no matter if it was one story or three because we had to have an exit.”

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