Total pages in book: 78
Estimated words: 77422 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 387(@200wpm)___ 310(@250wpm)___ 258(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77422 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 387(@200wpm)___ 310(@250wpm)___ 258(@300wpm)
“What’s that look for?” Tai asked, leaning back and snagging his Dr. Pepper off the hood of the ambulance.
“I was just thinking about dropping off my clothes tomorrow and hearing the lovely old Chinese woman tell me I needed to take better care of myself,” I explained to him.
“Ming?” Tai asked. “She’s the shit. I love her, and she gives me every fourth cleaning free.”
“She does that for every first responder,” I told him. “You’re nothing special.”
He snorted.
“My wife doesn’t say that,” he said. “In fact, just yesterday morning, before I left, she told me I was the best.”
I rolled my eyes, my mind once again wandering to July.
I hadn’t actually lived with her, but I imagined if I had—and hoped I would eventually—that she’d be much the same as Mia was with Tai.
“Fuck yes!” Tai grabbed his keys out of his pocket. “Narcotics exchange, and I’m going home and showering. Then I’m taking a seven-hour nap!”
I laughed and pulled my keys out as well, waving to Able who was my relief.
“You got a good one last night, didn’t you?” Able called as we passed each other.
I nodded.
“We did,” I confirmed. “You would’ve liked it.”
All firemen lived for the fire calls.
As much as we loved helping people during the medical calls, it was the fire calls that fueled our blood. Made the adrenaline pump harder. Faster.
Last night had been that kind of call for me.
The one thing that would keep me sane until the next fire call.
“You always get all the good stuff,” he muttered as he tossed me a mock glare. “Last month it was the kid, remember?”
The ‘kid’ was actually a fifteen-year-old girl who’d been in a car wreck, and I’d stayed with her for nearly an hour as the rest of the firefighters had worked tirelessly around me to get her free.
She’d been so pinned in that they’d had to remove the guardrail from around her before they could get started on the car that she was in.
It’d been nerve-racking but thrilling, especially once she was free and had walked away without a scratch.
“Have a good shift, Able,” I called as I pulled my truck door open, then jumped inside.
Able waved me off, and I pulled out in front of Tai, earning myself a glare from the man’s dark eyes.
“Sorry,” I called, waving at him.
He flipped me off, and I couldn’t help the snort that slipped past my lips.
Geez, the man was impatient. Although, if I had a wife like Mia at home and a baby that was growing like a weed, I’d be anxious to get back to them as well.
Instead of taking the cutoff back to my house, I headed to the interstate.
The drive to Wolf’s office, the first place I was going to look for him, took forty-nine minutes exactly.
I pulled up in front of his office, got out of my truck, and headed inside without notice.
Wolf was bent over a desk in the very back corner of the room, and he didn’t look up from the notes he was taking.
He shifted the phone back under his ear, and I headed toward him, ignoring the other man in the room who was also on the phone.
Instead, I walked straight to Wolf, took a seat in the chair in front of his desk and waited for him to get finished.
I didn’t try to hide the fact that I was listening to his phone conversation, either.
“I haven’t been able to track down any information on his whereabouts on the twenty-first,” Wolf was saying in the phone. “Do you remember seeing him that night?”
I twiddled my thumbs, looking at him for long moments before he finally looked up.
The moment his eyes connected with me, his face slipped into a blank mask.
“If you can think of anything else, don’t hesitate to call me. Thank you, Maria,” Wolf murmured into the phone.
Once he’d received a ‘goodbye,’ he hung his phone up, leaned back in his chair, and stared at me for long moments. Long enough for most men to start squirming in their seat.
Most men didn’t grow up with Buchanan Dean Hargrove as their father, either.
My father was a career military man. The army had recruited him at seventeen, and the rest had been history.
In fact, my father was still in the military.
I grew up with a man who never once went easy on his son. It didn’t matter that I was young or that I was sick.
He believed that everyone, regardless of nationality, health or rank should be treated the same.
There was no acceptable excuse for anything less than perfection.
If they weren’t perfect, or at least striving to be, they weren’t good enough for Sergeant Major Hargrove’s time.
Wolf broke the silence first, nearly making a smile appear on my face.
Almost.
“What are you doing here?” He leaned even further back in his chair.