Page 3 of Crash and Burn

Though he was laughing, thinking he made a joke, Kalan’s words froze her blood.

“Serial killers. That’s who.”

Chapter Three

Maggie wheeled Hannah’s stroller into the open bay of the fire station for the second time in twenty-four hours. This time the place buzzed with a shift change. Men were already cleaning the engines while others were throwing their bags over their shoulder and heading out the door.

She looked for Rex in the crowd as A-shift left and B-shift came on.

“Hey, Maggie!” Sebastian headed toward her.

She smiled back at him until he asked, “Are you okay? You look tired.”

“Jesus, man!” Rex butted in. “Never tell a woman she looks tired!”

Maggie wanted to laugh, but she couldn't. Rex offered a quick kiss and a quicker thanks. “Thank you for taking Hannah, babe.”

“Of course,” she told him, resenting the words even as they rolled off her lips. He’d told her he was going to find a sitter, but it was a small town, and he hadn't found anyone yet—not for the twenty-four hour shifts he worked.

She’d been up several times during the night with Hannah and she now had eight hours of volunteer work at the station. She was exhausted but she’d readily signed up for the position before Hannah had come into the picture.

Rex took the stroller from her and commented, “I don’t know how I’m going to keep up with her after working a shift.”

Maggie’s irritation flared. “I just had her for a full day and I have a shift to work now, too.”

“But you only have eight hours.” He smiled as though he wasn’t devaluing her extremely generous donation to his family. That’s what it was: she was watching his daughter for free.

Tamping down her feelings, Maggie handed over the diaper bag, and told him what Hannah had eaten and when she'd slept. Then she watched as he wheeled his happy daughter out the door. When she turned back to head into the station house, Sebastian was still standing there waiting. She could tell he was a bit upset.

“I'm sorry I said you looked tired.”

This time she did laugh. She shouldn’t have, he looked sheepish and fully regretful, but she’d seen the mirror this morning. “I'm not offended by the truth, and I’m exhausted. Hannah didn't sleep last night and now I've got an eight-hour shift to work.”

He looked like he wanted to say something else, but Sebastian motioned over his shoulder toward the house and B-team. “I hope they go easy on you … I miss having you on A.” Then he turned away as though the conversation were over and he was starting to leave.

She missed A-team, too. Maggie didn’t like the resentment that kept creeping up about Rex and Hannah, but Sebastian’s shy smile softened some of her irritation.

With his bag slung over his shoulder, he looked like the quintessential bad boy. What Maggie had discovered in the past few months, was that his bold looks and on-site confidence were deceiving and he was actually quite shy.

She was about to wish him a good day when he turned back and popped an unexpected question into the space between them. “You don't want kids?”

Her heart sank. There was no good way to answer this. So she fumbled it. “I do want kids. Just not like this. Not yet.”

Sebastian nodded. “Rex got dealt a tough hand.”

That was understating it, and probably why Maggie didn't resist more than she did. Though he'd known about his daughter and paid regular child support, he didn’t have much contact with Hannah. Then, when he'd moved here, training as a firefighter after he left the Los Angeles Police Department, Hannah's mother had done her best to cut Rex out of his daughter’s life completely.

But suddenly, Maggie's carefree boyfriend had become a full time dad. And she'd somehow become his full-time babysitter. So now she looked at Sebastian, wondering if she had dated the wrong guy in the first place.Not that Sebastian had asked her…

She had what she had. “He did get dealt a rough hand, and I adore Hannah. I would do anything for her, but …” She shrugged, letting the words fall away.

Sebastian might not be loud, but he was relentless. He still stood there, bag over his shoulder, clearly ready to go home after his own shift, but he wasn't budging until she told him what was up. “But what?”

“I'm supposed to be renovating the house, which, of course, is going slower than it was supposed to.”

He tilted his head. “You've got your offices all set up in the front room. You've been seeing clients.”

She smiled, glad that he knew that. Then again, Sebastian just seemed to know things. Maybe it wasn't clear to everyone that she was fully set up despite the shingle she'd hung out front. The crowds weren’t rolling in yet. Advertising needed some of her time, too.

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