His Greatest Treasure (Greatest Love #4)

Chapter 2

2

OLIVER

Shaking out of my turnouts, I take a deep breath and swipe away the thin layer of soot from my forehead. Exhaustion makes my bones heavy, the back-to-back-to-back calls the past two days making my sleep heavy but short. Even if we weren’t called to the barn fire this morning, I still wouldn’t have been recuperated. Not with the adrenaline racing through me from the call before it.

The sun has started to break over the horizon and sneaks beneath the bay door before it shuts, blocking us from the early morning. With a yawn, I grab my turnouts and dump them in the bin that’ll be wheeled in for the next shift to wash.

Brent Adams, one of the longest-standing squad members, bumps into me from behind, and I’m too tired to keep from swaying on my feet. “You coming for a drink, Lieutenant?”

“No. Going right home.”

“Thank fuck for that! You need a nap, old man!” Hart, a rookie fresh from the academy, shouts, her expression far too lively for the end of a four-day shift.

“Not everyone is old because they’re older than you, new blood,” Adams says.

He tosses an arm around my shoulder, and while he’s a couple of inches shorter than me, he’s jacked. His biceps bulge obnoxiously against my neck when he tightens his hold and tugs me closer.

While a handful of years older than me, he’s young at heart. His spirit is impossible to crush, and that’s a feat in our line of work.

“I hate when you call me that,” Hart hisses.

I glance across the garage and cock my head when I see her standing around with her hands on her hips instead of heading in for a shower. Even when trying to appear intimidating, she looks like an innocent puppy in a house full of wolves. As the first of only two women in the station, I admire her for carrying her own, and I’ll admit to testing her a bit more than I do the others.

She can handle it, and I know that her continuing to succeed in tough situations has grown the respect the others have for her. If they didn’t respect her, they wouldn’t speak with her so freely and would have probably stuck to calling her by her first name, Rebecca, or Rookie, instead of by her last name.

“Go shower, Hart,” I tell her, jutting my chin to the exit. “Good work today.”

The other members of our squad are already gone, most ready to get the fuck out of here and back home to their families. Four days is a long time to be away from them, only home in time to fall into bed. Something I haven’t had to worry about thus far in my life.

“Yes, sir. Whatever you say, sir,” she retorts before ducking out and disappearing.

Brent leads us after her, his arm still wrapped around my neck. I shrug it off and step to the side as we duck through the doorway and into the fire station entrance. It’s already loud and full as the shifts switch and the fresh squad tumbles in.

A few familiar faces pass us, and I use the minuscule bit of energy I have left to greet them with nods on my way to the locker room.

“You sure you don’t want to come out with us? You don’t have to stay for long. Just one drink,” Brent says, trying too hard to convince me.

“The only thing I want is to sleep.”

“You’re a bore, Bateman.”

“Don’t you have a wife to get home to?”

I head directly for my locker once we step into the room and tug it open to grab my duffle bag and the change of clothes I keep inside of it.

Brent does the same but wastes time slapping the backs of the guys around us like he always does. “Yeah. Doesn’t mean I can’t slip out for a drink before coming home to her. She’ll be sleeping by the time I get home, so I can just slip into bed with her and crash before having to find it in me to chat about the week. Don’t worry your pretty head about it.”

“Okay,” I relent, not in the mood to push. His marriage isn’t my problem.

He blows air between his teeth. “Okay, he says. “Shit, you’re the one that asked.”

“I asked, and you answered.”

“Don’t even think about judging me, Bateman. Not when you’re the one who refuses to so much as spend even one night with a woman.”

“I’m not judging you. I’m dog-fucking-tired. End of discussion.”

He tightens his stare on me for a beat before letting it go with a nod. “I’m a bit touchy. You know how things have been.”

I do. Not because I’ve asked to be brought into the drama with his wife but because he’s a talker, and all of his problems become the station’s problems. We’re a family here, yeah, but shit. His marriage has been on the rocks for years now, and he hasn’t done much to fix it. Not as far as I know. But again, it’s not my business.

“Yeah. I know.”

With a pile of clean clothes tucked beneath my arm and my toiletry bag in my hand, I leave the conversation and duck into the showers, finding the closest available stall before stripping out of my tee and blue uniform pants. Steam fills the space soon after I crank the dial as hot as it’ll go and step into the water.

My neck aches when I drop it and let the pulsing stream of water massage the tight muscles. I’m only twenty-six, but some days, I feel older. Weathered and weighed down. It’s this career, but even still, I don’t think I’d change it for anything.

Being a firefighter gives me a purpose. Something I always felt I lacked in comparison to everyone else in my family. I didn’t grow up with a dozen talents and a head for schoolwork like Jamie did. My grades sucked, and when it came to university, there were no scholarships waiting or a football coach going to boot for me. But I didn’t let that stop me from searching for a passion outside of the normal secondary school route. The moment I found firefighting, I latched onto it and didn’t let go.

Now, seven years out of the academy, I’m one of two lieutenants in our station. A respected member of the team and the entirety of Vancouver Fire. It’s a good life, if not sometimes a harsh and lonely one.

If I have to continue the long stretches of sleepless nights and the overworking of my body in order to continue living the life I have, then that’s what I’m going to do. I’ve never been easily distracted, and I’m content with that.

I don’t see my life changing anytime soon.

I shoot up in bed, my eyes wide and searching my surroundings for the culprit of the bang that woke me. It’s hard to make out anything in the blackness, but as the cloud of sleep starts to drift from my mind, I remember where I am.

The blackout curtains hung over my bedroom window block almost all the light from outside, but as the air-conditioned air blows up from the vent beneath them, they sway, exposing tiny bursts of sun.

Fuck, I’m tired. Throbbing pain between my brows makes me wince. There’s no way I slept as long as I wanted or needed to. I’ve become accustomed to sleeping like shit most of the time, yet with how tired I am right now…

Another loud bang accompanied by a rattling noise makes the pain in my head worsen. My body lags as I stand from the bed and grow dizzy for a second before slumping my way to the window. Parting the curtains, I curse at the blinding sun and squeeze my eyes shut.

“Definitely early morning, then,” I mutter.

Slowly, I open one eye at a time and blink to focus them. The street is relatively full of vehicles, with most people still at home getting ready to leave for work or, like me, sleeping . Nothing I see is out of the ordinary.

I live in a quiet, family-friendly neighbourhood, and over the four years that I’ve been here, I’ve never been woken up by the noises on the street, even while sleeping during the day. Nothing I can see would be the reason for the banging?—

I narrow my stare when I spot a potential culprit. The moving van parked in front of the house beside mine with the wide-open back door that swings in the wind, its chain whipping at the sides.

A breath gets stuck in my windpipe when a woman jumps out from inside of it, a pair of black shorts riding up beneath a round ass and a tank top with the bottom tucked under itself, exposing the entire lower half of her back. Her pink Converse sneakers touch the road a second before she reaches inside the truck and collects a cardboard box with the top open.

A long braid of dirty-blonde hair has slipped over her shoulder and lies along her spine as she carries the box up the sidewalk before disappearing from view. I spin and round my bed in search of my phone. It’s plugged into the charger, but I rip the cord out when I check the time and see that it’s just after seven in the morning .

I’ve only been home for twelve hours, and now I’m more than annoyed at the disruption. I’m pissed off. Both the exhaustion and throbbing in my head create a terrible concoction of intense irritability.

After finding a pair of sweatpants on the ground, I tug them up my legs and storm out of the room. The porch scrapes against the bottoms of my feet due to the fact I didn’t bother with shoes, but I ignore that as I rush down the stairs and along the sidewalk.

The woman is heading back outside when I abandon the sidewalk and cut across the lawn we share. Her eyes widen, and she takes a step back when she notices me, a surprised sound escaping her. I move another few steps before stopping, now close enough to stare at her mouth and the way her lips shine in the sun, as if she’s just freshly applied lip gloss. It’s odd, considering her face looks otherwise bare of makeup.

Without the window and a large number of yards between us, I notice far more than just her shiny lips. The long braid at her back is messy, with stray strands falling and framing her full cheeks and narrowed chin. Her eyes are round as she watches me and as blue as the sky above us. The freckles splattered over her nose and forehead are a stark contrast to the paleness of her skin. With her clothing choice today, I hope she at least put sunscreen on, or she’s going to be burnt to a crisp.

Speaking of clothes . . . she’s missing some from what I gathered during my earlier look. My jaw tightens when I force myself to keep my eyes above her shoulders and not examine the expanse of exposed paleness.

“Do you know what time it is?” I snap. It comes out gruff and really fucking rude.

She blinks slowly, her lips rolling before parting. “What?”

“Do you. Know. What time. It is?”

Her throat jumps with a swallow, and I don’t miss the downward glide of her eyes. They fall to my chest, and I follow them before realizing I only grabbed pants and not a shirt. An unmistakable sensation of smugness hits me when she continues to stare at my abdomen.

I clear my throat pointedly, and she flinches, snapping her gaze upward and taking a second step back. A splotchy shade of red crawls up her neck before swallowing her cheeks and ears.

“I don’t know the time. Is—is that—is that why you came out here?” she stammers, something soft and almost expectant in her eyes that has me stiffening. I pick up on an almost familiar accent that hangs on to her words.

Crossing my arms, I stare down at her with obvious annoyance, not bothering to hide it. She’s medium height but still far shorter than me.

“No.”

“Okay, so?”

“So?”

“So, why are you asking me what time it is, then?”

I look at the moving truck and then back at her. “It’s seven in the morning on a Saturday . Why are you being so goddamn loud? You’re going to wake the entire neighbourhood with all your banging and clanging.”

“I wasn’t under the impression there’s a certain time I’m allowed to make noise.”

“And you need to be told not to slam shit around at this time? I assumed it was common courtesy.”

She arches a brow at that, eyes flaring with anger, that soft emotion long gone. “I don’t have to explain myself or my reasons for moving at this time of day to you.”

“Look,” I begin, trying to level my tone. “You just bought the place, right? The house wasn’t on the market for very long, but the old owners were nice people.”

“And you assume I’m not a nice person because I’ve started moving in too early?”

“Should I assume differently?”

“Yeah, actually.” She scoffs, darting her eyes to the door of her place. “If you’re done yelling at me now, I want to finish hauling my stuff inside.”

I rake my fingers through my hair, my head pulsing harder than minutes ago. “Can you wait?”

She tilts her head at me, looking at me a bit too closely. “Why?”

“Because it’s never a good idea to make enemies of your neighbours on your first day in a new place?”

“And that’s what I’ve become? An enemy all because I needed to unpack my things this morning?”

“Glad we cleared that up.”

Hurt flickers in the blue of her eyes before she blinks it away. Surely, I haven’t been that rude. I can’t have hurt her feelings. Annoy and anger her, yeah. But hurt? I narrow my stare and try to dig inside her head to figure out what’s going on.

She jams her hands onto her sloped hips and glares at me. “The only thing we cleared up is that you’re an ass .”

“Just keep the noise down. Some of us are trying to sleep,” I grit out before spinning on my heels and leaving her on the lawn.

I don’t want to hear another word. Silence sounds like fucking bliss right now. So does a solid eight hours of sleep. It’s what I would have gotten before I was woken early.

Maybe then I’ll wake up with no pain in my head and a calmness that I’m severely lacking. One can hope, anyway. If not, my brother is going to regret asking me to come to his game.