Page 21 of That One Heartbreak

When there were only smoking black logs left, they began to pack up the equipment.

“Not such a bad one tonight,” Tayto said. “Could have been worse.”

“You see anybody you know?” Marley asked. “Apart from Connelly.”

“Yeah. A couple of kids from my son’s football team.” Tayto lifted a brow. “Don’t worry, I’ll be calling their parents tomorrow. And I’ll find out who the rest are, too.”

Some departments would have called the police. Not just because of the fire and the underage drinking, but because the kids needed to learn a lesson.

But the truth was, they didn’t get a lot of trouble from the youth around here. And experience had taught him that getting the parents involved was always better than calling the law. Notleast because the police department was so small and they had better things to do than chase stupid kids.

“Thanks.” Marley nodded, because that was one less thing he needed to do.

“We taking him home?” Tayto asked, looking at James. The kid was still sitting silently in the cab of the truck, watching them. He looked sick, but Marley couldn’t tell if it was from the alcohol or the fact that he’d been caught doing something completely idiotic.

“Yeah, I think I should probably talk to him and Kate.”

Tayto slapped his arm. “That’s the right thing to do. I guess it was always going to happen. The kid lost his dad. He’s gonna act up.”

“He’s lucky it wasn’t anything worse than this.” Marley pulled his helmet off and unfastened his coat.

“For sure,” Tayto agreed.

“Get in the back,” he told James when they reached the truck, his voice letting the kid know just how annoyed he was. James sullenly climbed down from the front seat, his sneakers thudding on the hard ground.

“Please don’t tell my mom,” James muttered as he walked around to the back seats. He really did look nauseated.

“How much have you had to drink?” Marley asked him, because the last thing they needed was to have him throw up in the cab. It can’t have been too much, not since he could string a sentence together. But still, if needed he’d get him some medical attention. It was Marley’s job to make that happen.

James blew out a mouthful of air. “Just one beer.”

Thank God. It could have been so much worse.

“And how old are you again?” Marley folded his arms across his chest as James scooted across the seats and did his belt up without asking.

“Fifteen,” James mumbled.

“And what’s the legal age for drinking?”

James looked down at his feet. “Twenty-one.”

“Exactly. So you can be damn sure I’ll be telling your mom.”

James winced. Good. The kid needed to feel bad.

“I’m disappointed in you,” Marley told him. “One minute you’re begging me for help to be a firefighter. The next you’re setting fires where they could get out of control.”

“I told them not to do it,” James said quickly. “It was only supposed to be a bit of fun. I told them a fire was stupid.”

“You shouldn’t have been here in the first place,” Marley said. “Does your mom know about this?”

Tayto had started the engine up. Sian was sitting in the seat beside him, and the others had gone in the second engine.

“No she doesn’t. I won’t do it again. Please don’t tell her, it’ll kill her.”

Marley winced, because he knew that. Or at least he knew it would hurt her. And the last thing Kate needed was to be hurt.

But she was James’ mom. She needed to know. It wasn’t his place to hide something like that from her.

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