All Fired Up (Green Valley Heroes #7)

Chapter 30

Chapter Thirty

MADELINE

“ W hat?” He seems completely confused. He probably doesn’t even realize what he did.

“You hijacked the whole exercise,” I whisper-yell, not wanting the others to hear us. “You didn’t let me do anything.”

There’s a thickness in my throat I can’t get rid of, and it has nothing to do with the smoke in the air.

His forehead wrinkles. “I helped you a little.”

“No, you did it for me. How do you think that makes me look to the team? To the captain and chief? You made me seem weak.”

He stares at me silently, and I know what he’s thinking, because I’m thinking the same thing.

I am weak.

Even after all that training, I’ll never be as tall as him, or as strong. I’ll never be as good of a firefighter.

“I get what you’re saying,” he says softly, his tone making me want to wring his neck, like he’s calming a wild animal. “But I wasn’t trying to make you look bad.”

“Well, you did. I would have got it on my own eventually.”

His jaw tightens. “And how long would eventually take? We didn’t have the luxury of time inside a burning building.”

He has a point, but that’s not the point. “It was a controlled fire.”

“Which was quickly becoming out of control with those two dipshits at the hose. We don’t know what could have happened, even if it was supposed to be controlled. It’s still a fucking fire.”

“You put me in the corner!” I shout, my anger exploding out of me. It’s not only toward him, though. It’s toward myself, too. That experience wasn’t what I thought it’d be at all.

“You froze up. I called your name and you didn’t respond.”

He did? All I remember is staring at the fire coming toward us.

“And I’m not going to apologize for trying to get us out of there safely. When the woman I love is in a dangerous situation, I’m going to do everything I can to protect her.”

His breathing is slightly elevated, but other than that he seems composed. He either doesn’t realize what he said, or it isn’t a big deal to him.

It is to me, though.

I’ve been wanting him to say it for weeks, even as I wondered if it was too soon to feel this way. Then again, nothing about our relationship has been conventional. And I can’t deny that what I feel for him...is love.

Even if I’m mad at him.

I swallow hard, the words coming out shaky. “You’re not off the hook because you said you love me.”

He blinks at me. “What?”

Oh, so he didn’t realize he said it. “You said you love me.”

“I did?”

Disappointment sinks hot in the pit of my stomach. He must not have meant it. Was it a slip of the tongue?

“I mean, I do,” he clarifies. “I love you. But I didn’t mean to tell you like this.” He motions around us. “Here, where we’re all sweaty and gross.”

My heart beats harder, faster even than when we were in that fire. “When did you mean to tell me?”

He rubs at the back of his neck, suddenly nervous. “You know, over a candlelit dinner or something.”

A candlelit dinner of frozen pizza? I don’t say that out loud, though. The man has other redeeming qualities than his cooking skills.

“That sounds really romantic.”

“Yeah?” He looks up at me, and though his hair is plastered to his head with sweat and there are trails of soot over his face, he’s never been more handsome to me.

I nod. “I love you, too.”

The grin that breaks over his face has my heart fluttering like mad, ready to break free as he comes in close and slides his hands around my waist, kissing me thoroughly.

My arms instinctively wrap around his shoulders, loving how he consumes me, how he makes me?—

A loud ahem has us drawing apart. Chief McClure is there, staring at us in disbelief. Beyond him, Grizz mouths, What the fuck . Harry and Silas are watching from a distance, also with identical expressions of incredulity.

Shit. This is exactly what I didn’t want to happen. Then again, it was bound to come out sooner or later.

Hunter keeps his arm around my waist. “We’re dating,” he says, shrugging, as if that explains everything.

Chief McClure eyes us warily. “Didn’t you just hate each other?”

“You made us play nice and now we’re in love.”

Again, an extreme simplification, but Chief McClure only blinks, then shakes his head. “Okay, well, I came over to talk to you, Madeline.”

Me? Am I in trouble? Am I kicked out because Hunter finished the tasks I was supposed to do?

Hunter squeezes my hip in reassurance, then walks away. Grizz falls into step with him and asks, “How long have you two been sneaking around behind everyone’s backs?”

I can’t hear Hunter’s reply as Chief McClure moves to fill my vision.

“Have to say, I didn’t see that coming,” he says.

Well, whatever he has to say must not be too bad if he’s making small talk first. “It was a bit of a surprise to us, too. But thank you for making us work together.”

He barks out a breath of laughter. “Yeah, sure. That’s not what I came over here to talk to you about, though. I wanted to address your performance.”

My lips press tightly together. Right.

“How do you think you did today?”

Great. He’s going to make me say it? “I, um...I think the first session went okay. I’m good at laying hose and assisting with the attack line.”

He nods, as if he agrees with me, but that’s not the issue.

“And then during the session just now...Well, I struggled a little with the Halligan bar. Getting the leverage I needed was difficult. And I was getting the hang of the pike pole, but then the fire came in...”

For the first time today, I’m thankful for the sweltering heat. Maybe he’ll attribute my red cheeks to that instead of shame.

“Today made it all pretty real, huh?”

“Yes.”

“Everyone’s first time is more difficult than they think it’ll be.”

Not Hunter. He’d jumped into action with no problem.

“I’m glad we had the chance to practice” is all I say.

He nods. “You never know how you’ll react until you’re in the thick of things. In my training academy a million years ago, I watched a grown man run away crying the first time we were put in a situation like this.”

Oh, Jesus. Well, at least I didn’t do that.

“Thankfully, no one here did that,” he says, echoing my thought, “but this is why we do training drills. It shows us what areas we need to work on. It also shows us what our strengths are.” He looks over his shoulder, toward the group of guys by the equipment table, Hunter among them. “Your boy there was cool, calm, and collected.”

He was. If I hadn’t been partnered with him, what might have happened? And as mad as I was that he took over, he’s right that we were out of time. I had my chance and I...I failed. Maybe it wasn’t anger I was feeling, so much as jealousy.

“I’ve watched his confidence grow the past couple of months since I assigned you two together. I think you’ve had a lot to do with that.”

“I’m proud of him,” I whisper, my throat tight. Really, I am. His success is mine, too, even if I’m feeling a little envious at the moment.

“I am, too. You need to stop the comparisons, though.”

I meet his eye, a serious gravity in his gaze.

“You’re not Hunter. You’re not any of the guys here. It’s important for you to have the basics down, but remember we’re a team. Not everyone gets to be the hotshot hero carrying people out of burning buildings.”

If he’s aiming for this to be a pep talk, it’s not exactly working. “So, you’re saying I should be happy to be on the sidelines?”

He purses his lips. “Maybe I’m bungling this. What I meant was you should play to your strengths. I’ll bet you can calculate pump pressure on the fly faster than any of the rest of them. You can identify all the hazmat symbols in your sleep. You could help in an extrication where the rest of us are too big to fit into a space. The firefighters assisting behind the scenes are just as important as anyone else. The ones on the frontlines can’t do their jobs without them.”

I nod, knowing he’s right. I knew going into this I’d have my work cut out for me. And, to be honest, that fire had been scary. I’m not sure how soon I want to revisit something like that. Focusing on assisting could be a blessing in disguise.

“I understand,” I tell him. “And thank you for talking to me about it.”

He nods. “You think my talk with the Clewis boys will go as well?”

“Um . . .”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought, too.”

He heads inside the fire station and Hunter returns to me, running his hands up and down my arms. Guess the cat’s out of the bag now, so there’s no reason to remind him not to do that. It’s actually been kind of exhausting to hide our relationship here the past couple of weekends.

“Everything okay?” he asks, a wrinkle between his brows. “Did he say anything about what happened in there?”

“He didn’t mention it outright, but he implied I should focus on stuff other than being on the frontlines.”

“Shit, I’m sorry.”

“No, it’s okay. He’s right. And someone has to do the prep work and behind-the-scenes stuff. That can be what I’m good at.”

He eyes me skeptically. “You’re accepting this way too calmly.”

A laugh escapes me. Yeah, I’d normally fight like tooth and nail over a setback like this, but the live fire exercise had introduced a whole new perspective I wasn’t prepared for. “The stuff I do on the sidelines would help protect people like you in the thick of it. That’s more important to me than trying to prove I’m someone I’m not.”

The corners of his mouth quirk up. “You want to protect me?”

“Of course I do. I love you.”

He bites at his bottom lip, heat flashing in his gaze. “Yeah, I’m going to need you to say that again in bed tonight. A lot.”

Warmth curls in the pit of my stomach. “I promise.”

Life with Hunter will never be dull, that’s for sure.

And as I’ve discovered lately, that’s just the way I like it.