Done (Harmony Haven #1)

Chapter 2

Chapter Two

EASTON

“You’re done,” Captain Reed called out after the last drills were run.

“Apparently not,” I mumbled, wrapping a hose around my hand and forearm. Obviously, I was still obsessing over the gauntlet Gramps had thrown down during dinner the week before. His words were consuming me, which was silly, but I couldn’t help it. Somehow, it felt like I had let him down, and that was the last thing I wanted to do. He may have driven me to the brink of insanity, but he raised me, and there was no one I admired more.

“Hey,” Daniel slapped me on the back as we headed to the showers. “You going to Sunday dinner tonight?”

“Nah,” I shrugged. “I’m taking the night shift for Richards.”

“To be nice, or so he can return the favor later?”

“Both,” I winked. “He wanted to head to Fiddler’s, and I wanted to avoid dinner. Win-win.”

“Avoiding Sunday dinner? Whatever is going on with you must be serious. Can I go and pretend to be you?”

“Sure,” I laughed, “You know Grams would feed you well.”

“Could you imagine me not taking my pregnant wife a cheeseburger and, instead, going to your grandparents’ house for dinner? I’d be divorced by morning.”

Yeah, right. Daniel had been my best friend since we were kids, and he and Carlee had been together since we were in ninth grade, thanks to me. I told Carlee that Daniel liked her, and she took over from there, telling him he was her boyfriend and that he needed to bring her flowers. He did, and they had been together since.

They exuded joy and contentment with their third child on the way. They were the perfect version of happily ever after, and had I not been completely happy being the cool Uncle Easton to his kids, I’d have been envious.

But love was not something I had ever needed or wanted. The only two people I had ever loved died when I was 12, and that heartache changed my entire life. I wasn’t interested in letting my heart get too involved with feelings that were so easily taken away. My love for my brothers and grandparents was scary enough.

After quick showers, some of the crew left while others settled in for their overnight shift. Most everyone headed to the day room to watch TV and play video games while I made my way into the kitchen to see if Captain Reed needed help with dinner. I knew if he was left alone, none of us would be eating for hours.

“Good evening, Lieutenant,” he gruffed under his big mustache when I swung the door open. “Grab a knife.”

“Toss me the peppers,” I offered, then got to work quietly preparing dinner for everyone on shift. “Hoping for a quiet night?”

Captain Reed huffed and nodded, but we both knew quiet would be an understatement. Sundays in Harmony Haven were downright boring. The entire town shut down at seven. Even the grocery stores closed, and most traffic lights started blinking yellow. The only place open would be Fiddler’s, the dive bar on the main highway, and any calls from there would be for the police department.

“Hey,” Rory Marte popped her head into the kitchen. “Need help?”

“If you want to eat any time soon, then yeah. You know, Captain here is a slow poke.”

I pointed to another knife and rolled her a few more vegetables to cut. Even with a long counter to work with, she got up beside me, her elbow slightly rubbing mine. It was just like her to be intentional when it came to being close to me. It irritated me, but I usually let it go for the sake of the station. Plus, it was never more than a few touches or amorous looks. I had been dealing with those since high school.

“Oh,” I set my knife down. “I need to call West. Y’all eat without me.”

Captain grumbled again to let me know he heard me, but Rory’s eyes shot up in disbelief. She hadn’t come to help, she’d come to be close to me, and even though I had no intention of calling West, I had decided that I couldn’t deal with Rory until after I’d had a good night’s sleep.

Not only had it been a long week of overthinking Gramps’ idea of a pop quiz, but I had also been retraining at work, and renovating my house. My older brother had taken it upon himself to buy, and slowly restore, every old home in Harmony Haven. It worked out well, though, because I got a free place to live. I didn’t mind the work I put into it, either. I considered myself pretty handy, and even though my body ached after bigger projects, I realized that renovating and using my hands to build was a hobby I hadn’t expected to love. It felt fulfilling to see the changes come to life.

As the lieutenant in charge, I had my own bunk room, and that included my own stash of protein bars, which I munched on as I scrolled Pinterest and organized my boards. Judge me all you want, but my Pinterest boards were sacred.

“Yes,” I whispered to myself, clicking and pinning an outdoor seating area to my board labeled “Summertime.” It was a fire pit with several wooden swings facing the center. It may have been too big for my small backyard, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t tuck it away for an idea later on.

In the meantime, I had a hole in my backyard ready for an understated yet intricate fire pit to be built. I needed ideas, something that would fit and wouldn’t cost me an entire month’s salary to create.

I had scrolled and pinned for a little while, but by eleven o’clock, I finally felt myself dozing off. I set my phone down and closed my eyes, and my first thought was about that fire pit with the swings. I envisioned Daniel’s kids roasting marshmallows while Carlee panicked that they might burn themselves. I placed myself on one of the swings and looked around, seeing Gram and Gramps, Miles and West.

The closer I got to sleep, the easier it was to envision my parents there, laughing at me and my brothers while looking lovingly at each other. They used to do that all the time. I may have been young when they died, but I will never forget the way they looked at each other. It was the same way Gramps and Grams looked at one another. The way I never thought I’d look at anyone.

My eyes popped open at the unexpected blaring of the alarm. It was the ring we dreaded, the telling sound of someone being in trouble, and my body went on autopilot.

Jumping from my bed, I grabbed everything I needed from my locker and ran into the hall to gear up. Everyone, myself included, was shocked to hear the alarm, and some of the guys weren’t moving at the speed we were trained to use.

“Come on, guys,” I clapped. “This isn’t a drill. Gear up. Load up.”

Everyone kicked it up a notch as I descended the stairs, taking control of the response and preparing myself to be in charge at the scene. Any other night, Captain Reed would have been with us, but we were a small station and we did what we had to do. Captain would stay behind, fielding calls while we handled the front lines.

My first stop was his office to get the information we needed. It would also be communicated to us in the truck, but Captain Reed was old school and didn’t always trust the radios.

When he saw me approaching, he ripped a piece of paper from its pad and handed it to me, and then I ran. Less than a minute after the alarm sounded, I was in the truck, rattling off the address to our engineer. It was also coming through the radio and up on a GPS, but we all knew our way around town.

Once again, I held the tiny paper up, getting ready to read the address just as a reminder. “Again, the call is coming from...”

Instead of repeating the address for the driver, I looked at Captain’s messy script and paused. Thankfully, the engineer was following the GPS, and it didn’t matter that I had just been smacked in the head with a realization.

The house was one of my brother’s. I knew that address and was with him when he first saw it. As far as I knew, it was still in disarray, not ready to be sold, and supposedly vacant. Yet there we were, headed to a call that the operator had to trace because the caller couldn’t give her an address.

“Maybe the old wires,” I suggested, but no one else could hear me over the truck's sirens. There was a sigh of relief in my chest, though, because no one should be in the house. That meant we shouldn’t have to pull anyone from a fire. No one should be in danger except the neighbors, who I prayed woke up and got away from the blaze.

The note also said a kid had called the emergency number and demanded a fire truck, not to mention that it was a traced call from inside the house.

Shit, there were so many unknowns, and I was anxious to get there and see for myself. It crossed my mind that it could have been a prank from a few kids who were bored and thought it would be funny, but I let that thought go, praying the kids in town weren’t that stupid.

Still, I wondered if Miles was on duty, and if he and the police department were also responding to the call. I had been so out of it since seeing that address that it didn’t dawn on me to look for a police response.

The house was less than five minutes away and we were approaching quickly. I couldn’t see smoke, or even smell it, and when we pulled into the front, I realized that there was no fire at all. The idea of it being a prank was now at the top of my list, and I bristled with anger. My fists clenched and wadded the paper with the address on it.

As the lieutenant and highest ranking on the scene, I knew that we had to be sure even if I suspected it was a false alarm.

“Give me a five-minute head start,” I ordered, then exited the truck just as an ambulance pulled up behind us. Rory hopped out of the passenger seat and I held my hand up to her. “Stand back, give me five.”

They all held back, waiting as I walked through the small gate and up the sidewalk. A car was in the driveway, and I could see the lights were on through the house’s window. There were also lace curtains that made the house look lived in. West hadn’t told me anyone was living in the house, but clearly, I was wrong.

That was when I should have checked to make sure Miles was coming. He was the police , after all. I was just a fireman, and although I could hold my own, it seemed as though I was about to walk into something that would be better handled by law enforcement.

When I stepped up the few steps to the rickety porch, the boards below my feet didn’t break like I had thought they would. But they groaned enough that I signaled to the crew behind me to be careful when they came.

Knocking on the door, I waited to see if someone answered. For all I knew, West could have rented the house out without telling me. But if he had, I needed to kick his ass because then I wouldn’t have been so worried about what I was walking into.

When no one answered, I turned the knob and pushed the unlocked door in. There was some old furniture that hadn’t been there before and a lamp on that made it look quaint.

“Hello?” I called out. “Anyone here?”

“Fire truck!” I heard from a voice that couldn’t have been old enough to spell the word “fire.” His repetitive words pushed me into immediate action, though, and I ran up the stairs to find the source. “Fire truck!”

Hurdling over a baby gate, I turned the corner into the main bedroom and locked eyes with a young boy. He was no older than three, holding an iPhone and happily saying "fire truck.” His big brown eyes widened with bewilderment. His hair was messy, and his mouth was open, suddenly quiet as he saw me approach.

“Hi!” I said softly, not wanting to scare him. Looking down, I saw the red fire trucks on his white pajamas and smiled. “Did you call for me?”

His stunned face turned slightly, scared at seeing a stranger, and he dropped the phone he had been holding tightly in his little hand. As I made my way closer and started to lean down to pick up the phone, a blood-curdling scream stopped me in my tracks.

The quiet Sunday night I had hoped for was going from bad to worse, and I had no idea what was about to happen as I stood up and took in the sight before me.