Once Burned (Firehouse Fourteen Book 1) Read online

  ONCE BURNED

  Firehouse Fourteen Book 1

  Lisa B. Kamps

  ONCE BURNED

  Copyright © 2016 by Elizabeth Belbot Kamps

  All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the express written permission of the author.

  All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation to anyone bearing the same name or names, living or dead. This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to any individual, place, business, or event is purely coincidental.

  Artwork by Jay Aheer of Simply Defined Art

  http://www.jayscoversbydesign.com/

  Table of Contents:

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Other titles by this author

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  Other titles by this author

  About the Author

  In Memory of Randy P. Meyer

  May 27, 1959-April 11, 2009

  You were taken too soon.

  I miss you, my friend.

  Other titles by this author:

  THE BALTIMORE BANNERS

  Crossing the Line, Book 1

  Game Over, Book 2

  Blue Ribbon Summer, Book 3

  Body Check, Book 4

  Break Away, Book 5

  Playmaker, A Baltimore Banners Intermission Novella

  Seduced By The Game Cancer Charity Collection

  Delay of Game, Book 6

  Shoot Out, Book 7

  Available April, 2016

  FIREHOUSE FOURTEEN

  Once Burned, Book 1

  Playing With Fire, Book 2

  Breaking Protocol, Book 3

  Available July, 2016

  STAND-ALONE TITLES

  Emeralds and Gold: A Treasury of Irish Short Stories (anthology)

  Finding Dr. Right

  Time To Heal

  CHAPTER ONE

  Mike Donaldson stood frozen just inside the doorway, her hand clenched around the axe handle, squeezing until she imagined she could feel the impression of the raised grains along the poorly varnished wood through her thick gloves. The urge to hurl the axe across the room, to tear into walls and smash everything around her, grew. Overwhelming. Suffocating.

  She didn’t need this shit. Not now, not today. Not any day.

  She swallowed the destructive urge with a mouthful of smoke and bit back a cough. Dammit to hell anyway.

  What the hell was wrong with her? She shouldn’t be hesitating, shouldn’t be questioning. She had a job to do, why the hell wasn’t she doing it?

  Because her conscience, something she thought long dead and buried, had picked today, this minute, to come roaring back to life. And what the hell was up with that? Since when did she let anything get between her and her job? Why was she standing here, breathing in smoke, practically frozen in place while her long-lost conscience pricked the nerves behind her eyes and soured her stomach?

  Dammit. She didn’t need this shit. Not now.

  The only thing Mike wanted to do was tear the room apart. Pull the ceiling down, rip holes in the wall. Break the windows and enjoy that split-second sound of shattering glass.

  She wanted to grab that guitar in the corner and splinter it into a million pieces. That damned fucking guitar. It couldn’t be. No. No way in hell. That would be a twist of fate too cruel for even her to tolerate.

  “Yo Mikey, what are you waiting for already?” Somebody knocked into her from behind and she took another step into the room, moving out of the doorway. “You got this room or what?”

  “Yeah, I got it,” she answered, her mind on autopilot as she looked around once more. A haze of smoke hung over the room, already staining the ceiling and top fourth of the walls a sooty gray. She breathed through her mouth, not worrying about the mask that hung limply around her neck: the fire downstairs was out and they were on the clean-up phase.

  Salvage and overhaul. Seek and destroy. The best part of the clean-up phase was the chance to take your aggressions out on the house around you. But not today. Not here, not now. No, for some reason, her damned conscience wasn’t going to let her play fast and loose, wasn’t going to let her stretch the rules this time.

  Shit. She pinched the bridge of her nose with her free hand and squeezed her eyes shut, trying to stop the nervous twitch building in the left one. An ominous rolling in her stomach quickly followed and she groaned, cursing herself for drinking too much the night before. Maybe it wasn’t her conscience that was souring her stomach. Maybe it was all that freaking tequila from the night before. Whatever was causing it, it needed to go away. She wasn’t in the mood to deal with any of it.

  Mike squeezed her eyes closed once more, took another shallow breath through her mouth, then opened them and looked around. Nope, everything was still the same. First she had to deal with a colossal hangover, and now this.

  Great.

  Her gaze drifted back to the set-up on the far side of the room, clearly visible through the haze. Several amps of different sizes were stacked neatly alongside narrow hard plastic cases that no doubt held microphones. A wooden bookshelf held a variety of binders and folders, probably sheet music. Several guitars, both in and out of their cases, were grouped together. There was no doubt in her mind that this room was being used as a music room. Yeah, it didn’t take a genius to figure that one out.

  But whose room was it?

  Mike stepped closer, not caring that her turnout boots tracked wet and sooty marks along the beige carpet. She wanted, needed, to get a closer look at that damn guitar in the corner, to make sure she wasn’t seeing things.

  “What are you doing?” The voice snapped her out of her daze. She looked over shoulder and shot an impatient glare at her partner, Jay Moore. He was leaning against the doorframe, the shoulder of his turnout coat smudging the painted wood. His flint gray eyes were rimmed in red, though whether from the smoke or from his own hangover was anyone’s guess. It was the expression in them that she didn’t care for: studying, worrying, maybe a little cautious, like he wasn’t sure what she was doing. Yeah, right. Jay, of all people, knew better.

  “Just checking something out. I said I have this room, so go already.”

  “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine, now go.” She pivoted on her heel and took another step then lowered herself to one knee, lea
ning closer to study the guitar.

  As far as instruments went, it was a beautiful piece of craftsmanship. Book matched flamed maple top and a cherry burst finish that glowed on its own. Abalone inlays in an ebony fretboard and gold-plated hardware. She knew without touching it, without studying it too closely, that the body and neck of the guitar were crafted from Hawaiian Koa wood.

  It was a Carvin DC400 Limited Series, and cost its buyer a tidy sum of money when it was purchased more than twelve years ago. She knew because she was the one who bought it all those years ago, she was the one who had ordered the custom hardware installed. It had taken her what seemed like forever to save enough money to buy that damn guitar.

  And she had given it away. A gift.

  God, had she really been that fucking stupid? That utterly and hopelessly naive?

  Yeah, she had been. Dammit.

  Mike cursed under her breath and pressed the heel of her hand against her twitching left eye. It was possible, likely even, that the guitar had been sold to someone else at some point in time in the last twelve years. It was possible that she was not kneeling in the music room of a man she had not seen in a decade, a man she hoped to never see again.

  Yes, it was possible. Please, God, let that be the case. Just thinking of the alternative was enough to send the tequila sloshing in her empty stomach and threaten to make a reappearance. And wouldn’t the captain just love that? Nothing like giving him even more ammunition to use against her. The bastard.

  She muttered a quick prayer that she was right, that this was some complete stranger’s house, and slowly stood. The sudden and intense desire to smash everything in sight was an overwhelming urge that had nothing to do with completing overhaul at the scene of a fire. Mike took a deep breath and squeezed the axe in both fists to stop it.

  An image of Nicky Lansing popped into her mind, unbidden and completely unwelcome. Laughing brown eyes, black hair that cascaded past broad shoulders, an incongruous dimple in his right cheek that had ultimately led to her downfall. Nineteen-year-old Nicky Lansing, a modern-day, leather-clad rebel who had gone for a ride and taken her down with him.

  In more ways than one.

  The axe came up and started swinging, almost on its own accord, almost as if it was possessed. The blade stuck into the top of the wall near the soot mark; Mikey pulled it out with a grunt before swinging again and again, not stopping until a one-square-foot hole marred the plaster. She lowered the axe and stared at the damage in front of her, then back at the equipment in the corner.

  At the damn guitar.

  Shit. She wasn’t in the mood for this. Not today.

  “Dammit,” she muttered. There was so much more damage she could do, wanted to do, but some inner voice stopped her. She tossed the axe to the floor, where it landed with a heavy thud, then turned to leave the room. Jay collided with her as she turned the corner.

  “Hey, look out.” He pushed her back with a steadying hand, his gray eyes narrowed in his lean face. “Are you sure you’re okay? Your eye’s twitching again.”

  “Yeah, whatever. I’m fine.”

  “If you say so. Where are you going? Did you check for any extension up here?”

  Mike looked at Jay then back at the room she had nearly run out of to escape. She shook her head. “None that I can see, just some smoke damage. I’m going to get some tarps, though, and cover that equipment so it doesn’t get ruined.”

  “You, getting tarps? Since when do you worry about that shit?”

  “Can it, Jay. That’s expensive gear in there.” She hooked her thumb in the direction of the room then pushed past him, shaking her head at her own actions. Jay was right, she rarely worried about that kind of thing. In fact, none of them really worried about it, not very often. Usually, on the fires they had, there wasn’t much left to worry about protecting.

  But this was a simple room and contents fire downstairs with limited smoke and water damage. To tear down ceilings and open walls when it wasn’t necessary would be a waste. To needlessly destroy the equipment in that room would be a sin, even if it did, by some impossible long shot, belong to him.

  Mike took a deep breath and blew it out in a rush as she descended the stairs and made her way to the fire engine outside. There was a chance, a very good chance, that the guitar had been sold sometime in the past decade. She couldn’t destroy such a beautiful piece of work out of spite.

  Even she hadn’t fallen that far.

  She stopped on the sidewalk and turned to look at the house, noticing the trimmed lawn and careful landscaping. The probability of Nicky Lansing living in this immaculate split-level in this upscale neighborhood was nil. Slim, at the very least.

  After pulling several blue plastic tarps from a side compartment of the engine, she paused again to study the expensive landscaping that framed the front of the house. Her mood lightened at the sight of a multitude of colorful late summer flowers and well-maintained greenery that gave the impression of June instead of early-September.

  No, there was no way Nicky Lansing could be living here. He would have had to change too much, would have had to grow up. And the Nicky she knew was incapable of that.

  CHAPTER TWO

  “Mr. Lansing, I had a question about this assignment.”

  Nick paused in the middle of tossing files in the briefcase and closed his eyes at the sound of the soft voice, searching for patience. He mentally counted to ten, took another deep breath, then opened his eyes and faced the girl leaning in the doorway.

  “Yes, Sheila. What is it?”

  The girl straightened, a slight smile turning up the corners of a mouth overdone with lipstick, and took a few steps into the room. She perched one hand on her jean-clad hip and stared at him with a look entirely too old for her sixteen years. “For this report, do we have to actually read the book or can we just download the movie?”

  “I’m going to pretend I didn’t even hear that.” Nick turned back and added another file to the briefcase then closed it with a soft click, noticing from the corner of his eye that the girl made no move to leave. He sighed again, preparing to usher her from the room if necessary, but was stopped by a deeper voice that boomed with authority.

  “Move along, Ms. Curtis, or you’ll miss the bus.” The girl darted her eyes at the newcomer then turned and left the room with a stomp of one foot, mumbling under her breath. Nick was too far away to catch the words, but apparently Chris wasn’t. He rolled his eyes in the direction of the retreating student then quirked an eyebrow at Nick. “How do you do it?”

  “Do what?”

  “Catch the attention of every female between six and sixty. Is there no one immune to your charms?”

  Nick stared at his friend and colleague Chris Dalton, opened his mouth for a comeback then thought better of it. He lowered himself into the worn desk chair with a weary sigh. The metal creaked under his weight, sounding nearly as decrepit as he felt. He reached up and tugged at the noose around his neck, sighing again as the knot of the tie loosened.

  “Despite your faith in me, I do not attract as much attention as you think. And certainly not as much as you do.”

  Chris laughed, a deep booming noise that rumbled from his broad chest. Even though he was dressed in khakis, polo shirt, and tennis shoes, he looked exactly like what he was: a football player. Or rather, coach of Buckley High’s football team, as well as head of the school’s physical education department.

  “Yes, well, you can’t deny you get your fair share.” Chris’s laughter subsided and he leaned his massive frame against the desk edge, studying Nick with a shrewd amber gaze. “So, how’s the house coming along? Need more help with anything?”

  “No, it’s just minor stuff now. The drywall guys finished yesterday, and the professional cleaners have been through the place from floor to ceiling. I swear I can still smell smoke on everything, though.” Nick suppressed the urge to sniff his shirt in demonstration, knowing that the smell was only his imagination. “Hopefully the painters
will have finished today, and I can get back to some sense of normalcy.”

  “Well, you’re lucky. It could have been worse than it was, you know.”

  Nick muttered a noncommittal grunt, his focus on the pen that he was rolling back and forth between his palms. Chris was right, it could have been worse. The fire itself had been extinguished quickly, according to what he had been told. A few pieces of furniture downstairs had been destroyed and the walls of the room where the fire had been needed to replaced. There were a few walls upstairs that needed to be patched but that was it, other than the smoke damage throughout the rest of the house. Everything was covered by insurance, nothing sentimental had been destroyed, and his music equipment had been untouched and undamaged.

  Yes, it could have been worse.

  His stomach still clenched at last week’s memory of arriving home only to discover that his house had caught fire. A small fire contained to a single downstairs room, he had been assured by the single uniformed man who had met him in the driveway. Nick briefly wondered if more people would have been on hand to greet him if the fire had been more catastrophic in nature, then shook the bitter thought away. It didn’t take an army to deliver bad news, after all.

  And even Nick had to admit that it seemed as if whoever had put out the fire did a professional job of it. At least, as far as he could tell. He remembered the tarps someone had tossed over the assorted music equipment and again said a brief prayer of thanks to whichever fireman had thought to add the protection.

  “I know it could have been worse. They said the firemen that responded did a nice job of stopping it from spreading.”