Page 47 of When We Burn

“Thanks.”

Leisurely, we sip our wine and soak. Bridger’s knee comes up out of the water, and I run my fingertips over it, enjoying the way the water sluices through the light spattering of dark hair on his skin.

“Can I ask questions about your job?” I ask him softly.

“You can ask me questions about literally anything.”

“If you don’t want to answer, just say so.”

He sighs and kisses my head again. “Okay, but I won’t. Shoot.”

“What was the scariest call you’ve been on?”

He doesn’t answer for a minute, so I tip my head back and look up at him.

“I’m thinking. Do you mean scariest in what was happening at the scene, or scariest in what could have happened tome?”

I swallow hard and turn back around, leaning against him. I might not want to know.

“Either.”

“We got a call for a cat in a tree,” he begins. “And it was pretty high up there. Stupid cat. We got the ladder up, and I climbed it, and I almost fell.”

I gasp. “What?”

“Boot slipped, I reached wrong, and I thought for sure I was going to fall and break my neck. Scared the hell out of me. The fires don’t scare me because we’ve been trained extensively on how to handle them. We have gear and tools, and we’re never careless. Don’t ever think that if I walk into a fire I might not walk out.”

I have to swallow hard around the lump suddenly in my throat. “Okay.”

“It’s all the other shit. Car accidents can get sticky because drivers don’t slow down to get around us. I had a buddy in Idaho get hit by a car on the scene of an accident, and now he’s paralyzed and in a wheelchair.”

“That’s awful.” I take his hand and kiss it, not caring at all that it’s wet, and then link his fingers with mine, holding on tightly.

“I’ve seen some bad shit. I won’t lie. We’re a small town, so we’re ambulance as well as fire, and sometimes we walk into things that are just tragic. Some death, a lot of illness. But there’s good stuff, too. Like saving more lives than you don’t and helping people.”

“I know this is the understatement of the year, but it’s not an easy job,” I add.

“No, but I really love it.”

I tip my head back again, and now he’s grinning at me with satisfaction, and I can see the truth in his eyes.

“I know, and I’m glad. Life’s so much easier whenyou love what you do. I had jobs to get me through college that I wasnota good fit for.”

“Like what?” He kisses my cheek, and his free hand roams under the water to my hip, causing my body to come alive again.

“I was a waitress. A horrible waitress. Back then, I wouldn’t say boo to someone, so when customers got mad about stuff, I couldn’t stick up for myself, even if it was just to tell them to hang on a minute or to lower their voice. So, yeah, that was not for me. Then I tried working in a call center.”

“A callcenter?”

“Yeah, you know, like phone sex.” I press my lips together, and suddenly my shoulders are in his grasp, and he’s turning me to look in my face. “Kidding. I couldn’t even hardly say c— that word earlier.”

“Which word, kitten?”

I roll my eyes and continue my story.

“Anyway, it was just a call center for an electric company. You know, in case there’s a power outage or someone’s having issues or something?”

“Sure.”

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