Over the next couple of days, Roman realized he should have kept his mouth shut. Upping the ante, Annabelle Hatfield went on a pre-Christmas blitz of national media appearances. On CNN she talked about her grief over the rift with her daughter.
“We were always so close. I never thought it would come to this.” She dabbed at her eyes with a handkerchief. “Even though we worked together almost every day on the show, we rarely fought. It was just the two of us against the world.” She raised beautiful green eyes, fogged with tears, toward the camera and delivered the kicker.
“If only she knew how proud I am of her.”
Fanculo! He’d handed her a weapon and she’d snatched it up and run with it. Roman cursed again and picked up the remote control someone had left on the couch. The Engine 1 crew was out on a call—grease fire at a fast-food joint at the edge of town. The Truck 1 crew was in the apparatus bay, cleaning the remaining rigs and planning a Christmas skiing trip. He was the only one in the training room. He switched the channel to another station, where Annabelle was chatting with a reporter in an intimate living-room setting.
“My daughter chooses to risk her life every day to save others, how can I not be proud of her? Any mother would be. But it also terrifies me. She’s my only child, and as a single mother, our bond was especially strong. Every time I hear sirens my heart races. That could be my baby in that fire engine, riding to some poor family’s rescue. It’s so very hard. I’m sure everyone with a loved one who’s a police officer, firefighter, or a member of the armed forces shares my feelings. I’m here to tell you, I feel your pain. I understand your fears. Let’s keep on praying and hoping and believing in our sons and daughters.”
The reporter leaned forward and held her hand. “What a moving speech. You just brought tears to my eyes.” She dabbed at her face with a tissue. “Do you have any message for your daughter today?”
“Darling, I love you and I’m very, very proud of you. In the spirit of Christmas, let’s come together and work out our differences. Just you and me.” At this point shots of the San Gabriel firehouse flashed on the screen, followed by a montage of clips of Sabina on the job.
Roman let out a growl. Annabelle Hatfield’s message to her daughter was perfectly clear. You and Me? Come together? Work out their differences? Despite her tender manner, Annabelle knew exactly what she was doing. One way or another, she was going to get the attention she wanted, no matter the cost to Sabina.
He switched off the TV, then went a step further and unplugged it. If he could somehow program the TV set to avoid all mention of the Hatfield family, he’d do it. If he had to ban TV watching until all this blew over, he’d do that too. He wasn’t about to let a media-hungry actress disrupt his station.
“Enjoying the show?” Chief Renteria strode into the training room.
Roman bit back another curse. “Not one bit.”
“Neither is anyone else. What do you plan to do about it?” The chief was a gruff, businesslike man with striking, Aztec warrior–like good looks, a graying buzz cut, and a sharp manner.
“Ride it out. Ignore it.” He’d thought about it long and hard and couldn’t think of any other good plan.
“Have you talked to Firefighter Jones about it?”
“Yes.”
The chief gestured impatiently. “And?”
“She’s as annoyed as the rest of us. She’s just trying to do her job.”
“She’s making it damn difficult for anyone to do their job. I nearly tripped over a cameraman in the bushes out front.”
Psycho strolled into the training room, then stopped short at the sight of the fire chief.
“Chief,” he said with a sharp salute and an ironic click of his heels.
“This ain’t the army,” growled Renteria. “Chief Roman, in your office.”
Nothing for it but to grit his teeth and ride it out. Roman led the way into his office and closed the door.
Renteria launched right into his lecture. “In all the years Captain Brody led this station, we never had this much media attention. I thought the Bachelor Fireman crap was bad; well, this is ten times worse. The Bachelorette Fireman? Next she’ll be handing out roses and picking a wedding dress. We have a movie star who won’t shut up and a firefighter whose every move gets a damn press release. Do you know how many calls our public information officer is fielding about Jones? One every fifteen minutes.”
“Decline all interview requests.”
“It gets worse. The dispatchers are getting fake calls. People requesting Taffy McGee to get their cats out of their trees.”
“Press charges. That’s illegal.”
“You know why I’m here. It’s time, Roman. I can’t trust a temporary captain with this.”
Roman tamped down his churning anger. He’d known this was coming. Renteria was just doing his job, watching out for the force. He’d do the same himself. In fact, maybe he’d be saying the exact same thing, if he didn’t know Sabina, if he didn’t . . .
He didn’t finish the thought. Instead, he picked up a paperweight from his desk. Left by Brody, it was shaped like a volcano, and for some reason he found it soothing. He hefted it in his hands, shifting it from one to the other.
Renteria went on. “I checked her records. You just gave her a notice to improve. But generally, she’s perfectly adequate. Couple awards. No disciplinary problems. Above average in all performance categories. But not spectacular.”
Roman stifled the urge to wing the paperweight at Renteria’s head. Sabina, adequate? That word didn’t fit. In fact, in his opinion, “spectacular” worked pretty damn well. “I have to be honest here. She’s done her job faithfully and well ever since she joined the station. We have no grounds to take any action against her. She’ll have her lawyers all over us and I wouldn’t blame her.”
“Section 4B in the Rules and Regs.”
Section 4B. Roman’s mind raced. He’d had to learn a whole new set of regulations when he’d taken the job here. What was 4B again? “The public appearance section?”
“ ‘No firefighter shall bring discredit to the department.’ That’s why we turned down Playgirl when they wanted to do a Bachelor Firemen spread.”
“Sure, but Jones hasn’t done anything like that.”
“No?” Renteria raised one arm. Roman watched, shocked and bemused, as the grizzled chief pretended to soap his chest while he whistled a tune. “The shower scene heard round the world?”
“That was years before she came here. She hadn’t even applied to the academy yet. The regulations don’t apply.”
“Those regulations were written before YouTube. It might be a matter for the lawyers, but it’s worth looking into. Doesn’t matter how you do it, but take care of it, Roman. This is why you were hired. To crack down and hold their feet to the fire. Provide an extra layer of authority. Consider this test number one.”
The man wheeled around and headed for the door.
“Chief Renteria—”
“I told you I’m done with this crap. The guys here say you’re a hard-ass. Now prove it.”
Roman watched his superior officer stride through the training room with barely a glance for the firemen gathering for the next drill. He put the paperweight down before he was tempted to end his career with one swing of the arm. He knew some guys called him a hard-ass, but he didn’t see it that way. He aimed for tough but fair, harsh but never capricious. By the book. Disciplined. Rigorous.
When Renteria was gone, Stan shuffled in, licking his chops. Apparently the dog had been snacking while Roman had been having his ass handed to him. Stan plodded toward the dog bed in the corner, cast one scornful glance at Roman, curled up, and instantly dozed off.
The dog disliked him. His crew called him a hard-ass and might even be on the verge of mutiny. Instead of improving the situation he’d been hired to fix, he’d made it infinitely worse in just a couple short weeks. And his fire chief had just issued an ultimatum.
Savagely, he tossed the paperweight into the wastebasket, where it landed with a satisfying clunk.
Psycho snagged Sabina as soon as she hopped off Engine 1. “Renteria was here.”
“The fire chief?” She frowned, peeling off her brush jacket. “So?”
“He yelled at Roman about you. I loitered around the kitchen to listen.”
“Classy move.”
“Thought you’d appreciate it.”
Reality returned in a miserable rush. While hauling the hose to fight the grease fire, she’d been able to put all the Bachelorette drama out of her mind. It was the only time she’d felt like herself lately. But she couldn’t be on the job every single minute.
“What did he say?”
“I heard something about Bachelorette, something about Roman proving himself. I think Roman threw something. Stan came running out of there like the office was on fire.”
“He threw something at Stan?”
“No. But you know how Stan is. I think he has post-traumatic stress disorder.”
“Whatever, Dr. Psycho.”
“Don’t mock. I’ve got a diagnosis for your mother too.”
Sabina stepped out of her boots and pulled off the suspenders of her pants. Her T-shirt was soaked with sweat. “She’ll be thrilled. I’ll give you her number, you can discuss it with her.”
“Yeah, like I want to talk to someone with narcissistic personality disorder.”
“Shove it, Psycho.” It was one thing for her to criticize her mother, but she didn’t want to hear it from Psycho. She arranged her turnout for the next call and shouldered her way past him.
“That’s the thanks I get for warning you?”
Vader strolled over. “Warning her about what?”
“Renteria showed up. A case of soda says Two’s going down.”
Vader’s eyes went wide. “Shut the fuck up.”
Sabina flung herself away from them and shut herself into her room to strip off her T-shirt and change into a new one. Fine, she’d been warned. Not that she needed it. As soon as she’d seen the new True Hollywood Story thrown together by the E! Network, she’d seen the handwriting on the wall. They’d shown her shower scene over and over again. They’d replayed bits of various Bachelor Firemen stories. They’d managed to find a scene from You and Me in which Taffy had set the kitchen on fire while lighting a candle for a séance. And they’d shown an interview with Annabelle in which she tearfully expressed her regret over the mistakes she’d made as a single mother, and pleaded for a Christmas reunion with her only daughter, the light of her life, the brave, death-defying Bachelorette Fireman.
How could the San Gabriel Fire Department possibly continue to put up with this? Sabina had seen so many video cameras at fire scenes lately, she was starting to think she was back in Hollywood.
She slipped into a new SGFD T-shirt, wondering if this would be one of the last times she did so. A sick feeling ate at her insides. If the fire chief knew how much her job meant to her, maybe he’d show some mercy. But he wouldn’t care about that. With hundreds of firefighters under his command, why should he give a crap about one especially troublesome one?
Her feet felt like lead as she dragged herself out of the bathroom and toward the training room. It was almost time for dinner. It was Stud’s turn to cook. That meant meatball soup. After the other recipes he’d attempted, they’d taken a station-wide vote and restricted him to his only successful dish. At least Stan would enjoy it.
Would this be the last firehouse dinner she got to make fun of? Would this be the last meatball she’d slip into Stan’s dish?
When she reached the training room, the other firefighters were milling around in the kitchen. A quiet buzz of whispers filled the room, but she couldn’t make out any words. Probably teasing Stud about the meatballs. She glanced around the room. For once, the TV was off, which was a small mercy. One more shot of Annabelle’s tearful, soft-focus face and she’d follow Roman’s example and throw something.
Vader glanced up and met her eyes. He looked so serious she barely recognized him. Then the others turned and saw her as well. No one smiled. Why did they look so grim? Her gaze traveled from one to the other, scanning the faces of the guys she’d spent the past ten years with. Double D’s usually jovial face might as well have been a Kabuki mask. Double D had never liked her, no matter how hard she’d worked to prove herself to him.
Suddenly she understood. They’d had it with her and the chaos she’d brought down on the station. She couldn’t blame them—she was sick of it too. But the pain of that realization hit deep. She actually brought her hands to her stomach, afraid she might throw up on the spot.
Rooted to the ground, she watched helplessly as Double D marched to the door of Roman’s office and pounded on it. Everything seemed to be moving in slow motion. His chubby fist banged on the door. The other firefighters shifted nervously, but they hung together as a group. They were clearly united. United against her.
She tried not to think about all the times they’d had each other’s back on the fire lines. No sense in torturing herself.
The office door opened and Roman stepped out, looking like a giant greeting supplicants at his castle. He scanned the crowd of firemen, and his face took on a forbidding scowl. “Yes?”
“We got something to say,” said Double D. “And I’m saying it because I’ve been here the longest.”
Under the daunting weight of the chief’s glare, he hesitated. A couple of the other firemen murmured, “We’re with you, D. Spit it out.”
“Good advice. Spit it out,” Roman barked.
Sabina couldn’t take it another second. She couldn’t bear to listen to her fellow firemen reject her in public. Besides, they shouldn’t have to put up with this crap. They were collateral damage in the war between her mother and her, and that wasn’t fair. She opened her mouth and forced some strangled words out of her tight throat. “There’s no need for this. I don’t want to hurt the firehouse. Chief Roman, I’ll submit my resig—”
Roman held up his hand in a brisk motion so commanding her mouth snapped shut.
“Firefighter Jones. You’ll have your say. Right now Firefighter Lee has something on his mind and I want to hear it. Continue.”
Double D shot Sabina a look of utter outrage. Why was he angry at her when she’d been trying to save him the trouble of kicking her to the curb?
Double D stiffened his shoulders, sucked in his belly, faced Chief Roman, and launched into his speech.
“Chief Roman, it’s about Two.”
She knew it. She squeezed her eyes halfway shut, unable to bear it in full screen. Here it came. The end of the best years of her life. The end of everything she wanted.
“That is”—Double D indicated Sabina—“Firefighter Jones is a top-notch fireman in every respect.”
What? What? Sabina didn’t understand. What was he saying?
“Even though she’s a woman and used to be a TV star, she’s no different from the rest of us. She does her job, she works hard, she’s saved my ass and everyone else’s here. She ain’t done nothing to deserve suspension or anything else. If you and the rest of the brass try to get rid of her, you’re going to have an empty firehouse because if she goes, we all go. We stand by our own, and Sabina Jones is one of our own.”
Once the crew had been called to the scene of an apartment fire that turned out to involve a meth lab. Something had exploded, and Sabina had felt the shock waves travel through the air, through her body, before the sound struck her eardrums. That’s exactly how this felt.
She stared, uncomprehending, at the firemen, until the words came crashing into logical sense around her.
Double D was standing up for her. They all were.
Her vision went blurry as she fought a doomed battle against tears. If she cried in front of them, she’d never hear the end of it. Blinking furiously, she gripped the closest support, the back of an armchair.
Say something, Sabina. Say something.
But she couldn’t. Her throat muscles worked, but no words came. Emotion swamped her. This had never happened to her before. No one had ever taken her side, had ever stood behind her. With her.
Say something.
Like a lifeline, Chief Roman’s deep voice resonated through the room, capturing the crew’s attention. “Duly noted.”
“Duly noted? That’s all?” Vader shouldered his way to the front of the group. Sabina took advantage of the distraction to swipe her forearm across her face and clear the tears away.
“I’ve heard your perspective, and I will take it under advisement. There are a lot of factors here.”
“What factors? You can’t blame any of this on Sabina. She tried to keep it secret so it wouldn’t affect us. She didn’t even tell me!”
Sabina blinked away more tears. Vader got it. He really got it. She didn’t have to explain anything to him.
“I’m not saying otherwise.”
“What are you saying?” Vader took a step forward until he stood nose to chin with Roman. “That you’d deep-six one of your own firefighters just to make the brass happy? We won’t let you do that.”
“You don’t have a say in it,” snapped Roman.
Oh God. This was exactly what she didn’t want to happen. She didn’t want the station torn apart over her.
“This isn’t necessary.” She croaked the words, then cleared her throat to repeat them more loudly. Everyone looked in her direction. She summoned every bit of acting skill she’d formerly possessed. “As I was about to say before, this station means a lot to me. I don’t want to be the cause of anything that distracts from doing our job. We’re supposed to put out fires, remember? Not dodge camera crews and reporters. I’ll . . .” God, it was hard to say. She was about to hand over her life, her precious, hard-won job, like a lamb to the slaughter. But it had to be done. “I’ll step down. I’ll resign.”
“Your resignation is not accepted,” snapped Roman.
She gaped at him. So did everyone else. You could have heard a pin drop in the kitchen. The only sound was the low murmur of the police scanner in the training room.
“As I told Fire Chief Renteria a few minutes ago on the phone, I see no grounds for action against Firefighter Jones. Anything less than full support for Firefighter Jones would reflect badly on the department and on us as firefighters. Jones, you represent ten years of experience and training. You’re needed here. In fact, if you so much as request time off, I’ll consider it a dereliction of duty. You’re a firefighter, and you’ll damn well stay here and put out fires with the rest of your crew. Got it?”
By the end of his speech, his voice had risen to a thunderous level. He pinned them all with a glare of fire, like a warrior inciting his troops to battle.
Stunned silence vibrated through every corner of the fire station.
“The media can do whatever they want. We do what we always do. Our job. Are we all clear?”
A rumble of “yes, sirs” followed. All eyes were riveted to Roman, who had transformed from grim hard-ass to mighty leader right before their eyes. Sabina called on every ounce of willpower she possessed to stay upright and not make a fool of herself.
Roman relaxed his stance. “Now is that meatball stew I smell?”
Just like that, the atmosphere loosened. Roman strolled away from the office door and joined the firemen, who clapped him on the back and shook his hand. Stan trotted behind him, sniffing the air eagerly. Sabina forced her shaking legs to carry her forward.
Never had she loved anyone as much as she loved the San Gabriel firemen at that moment. They’d had her back, every single one of them. Even the new guy from New York.