Jonah's Return (Detroit Heat Book 3) Read online

  Copyright © 2015 by Davida Lynn. All rights reserved.

  Cover design by Mayhem Cover Creations

  This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Also By Davida Lynn:

  Detroit Heat:

  Book One: Kade’s Rescue

  Book Two: Rico’s Recovery

  The Rising Sons Universe:

  The Rising Sons Motorcycle Club

  Rising Sons - The Virtues Series:

  Book One: Hope

  Book Two: Faith

  Book Three: Charity

  Standalone Work:

  Brutal

  Acknowledgements

  A big shout out to my writing partner Rayna Bishop, my faithful companion in telling stories. She keeps me honest and true.

  All the lovely ladies that encourage me, I can’t thank you enough. Donna, Lisa, Krystal, Rayna. Thank you all so much!

  I thought I knew tired. I thought I knew what it meant to be drained and still continue on. I’d worked other 48 hour shifts, but none like this one. This was the kind where the only sleep I got was against the tail of a fire truck, the diesel roaring out its deep, constant rumble, which was enough to relax me into a restless doze.

  I cracked one eye to confirm my suspicion. The sun was coming up. It must have been seven hours that we were on an apartment fire. That’s the last time I trade shifts with anybody. It just wasn’t worth it.

  We were called in to assist another department. Their chief wasn’t exactly on the ball, and that meant things got way out of hand. The fire should have gotten knocked down easy enough. We pulled a young woman out in the first three minutes, but the fire kept giving us the slip. Five hours later, it was a smoldering mess. Salvage and overhaul lasted two hours after that, and I was dead on my feet.

  I looked up at the sky. The eastern horizon was clear, but above us, the clouds decided to dump rain. It was the icing on the shit cake. I rolled my eyes, thinking it couldn’t get any worse. Somehow, though, it always did.

  Captain Parnell came up and shoved the visor on my helmet down, pulling me from a stupor. “Let’s get the hell outta here, huh?” Music to my ears. I nodded and dragged my body to the officer’s seat of the engine. Once the last door slammed shut, Fonz throttled up.

  “You remember that chick last week?” One of the guys in the back of the engine was yapping. I couldn’t tell who over the growling diesel just to my left.

  “Who?”

  “House fire, near Mandale I think. Now that chick was easily a ten out of ten.”

  I think it was Havens. I checked the mirrors for Alfonzo before he pushed in the parking brake. The drive back to the station would take my mind off of the bullshit chatter going on behind me. That was my hope, anyway.

  “Havens, what in the hell are you talking about?” Dougie Capri was sitting right behind me, and he called out Havens. “Are you talking about the woman that McCaffery pulled from the structure?”

  “Sure am.”

  “Wanna explain that one?” Capri always loved playing the devil’s advocate. Normally, he was a good guy, but in that moment, I just wanted everyone in the engine to shut the fuck up.

  “Don’t egg him on, Doug. It’s only gonna be fuckin’ gross. I promise you that.” Fonz was on my side and didn’t even know it. It was late, I was tired, and I could already tell where the conversation was headed.

  Havens didn’t listen. “Yeah, the woman McCaffery and Jonah pulled out. I gotcha back, Jonah.” He called up to me, but I didn’t turn around. If I had known that our rescue would get the guys going, I wouldn’t have told them anything about it. I raised my head enough for him to know I heard him. Havens was a pig, and I was tired of his shit. He was the instigator, but everyone else followed along like it was all fun and games.

  “Obviously you gotta imagine her not all burned up and shit, but I saw when they was doin’ compressions. She had firm tits that were bouncing. Kade worked her all the way in. He’ll be able to give us a definite ruling.”

  I clenched my jaw hard. We were taking it easy back to the station, but I wanted desperately to run lights and sirens and cut the return time in half. I could feel an aneurism coming on. Fucking Havens. Everything about him pissed me off.

  Dougie couldn’t read my mind. Instead, he let the conversation go on. “Are you saying completely based on her tits, that woman was a ten? Half her hair was burnt off, she was unconscious, and I’m pretty sure she was a squatter.”

  Havens didn’t seem to like that, “I’m just saying, I bet she’d clean up real nice.” The conversation faded away, and I thanked god above for that. We pulled up to a red light just two blocks from our station. All I wanted was a shower and a hard nap.

  “Fuck me, left side, left side!” Havens called out, and I could hear everyone in the engine look to the left. I turned my head out of curiosity, looking past Fonz I wish I hadn’t.

  Three younger girls were in a Jeep with all the doors off and the windshield down. I rolled my eyes and turned away. I knew the comments were about to start flying. My attention went out the window to the right, where nothing at all was happening.

  “Christ almighty, that is a Jeep full of talent!” Havens seemed to have completely forgotten about the woman from the fire. “I mean, I’ve got a savings account that I could drain in about an hour on just the driver alone.”

  “The tits on the one in back, though. Fuck me. That’s as good as it gets.”

  “Niiiice.”

  It was the last straw. I couldn’t take it anymore. The light changed, the Jeep turned left, and we headed back to our station. In my head, it was the last call I’d ever go on as a firefighter. It was the last call I ever wanted to go on, anyway.

  “Jonah, you’re pretty quiet. That fire on your last trick shake you up?” Dougie pointed his half-eaten drumstick at me. “The victim’s probably gonna live. I talked to one of my buddies on the ambulance crew. She was stable when they brought her in, which I’m sure Havens will just love.” A few of the other fire fighters laughed.

  I just smiled. “Just tired. Didn’t get much sleep last night, and if things keep up like this, I don’t expect much sleep tonight either.” It was a flimsy excuse, but one that fire fighters heard often. If you weren’t tired, you were doing it wrong.

  I was tired, but not from lack of sleep. I was tired of Engine 37. It broke my heart, but I couldn’t do it anymore. The work was great, and I loved being a firefighter; it was all the other fire fighters around me. I didn’t even consider them brothers, anymore. I considered them to be self-centered, sexist, exclusive assholes. Not all of them, but the ones that weren’t kept their mouths shut.

  It took me two very long years to realize how much I hated this place. Saves were tainted with conversations like the one on the way back. That woman could have died if not for Kade, but all Havens could talk about was her tits? Unbelievable.

  What was the worst thing for me was the hypocrisy. For a group of guys who love women so much, when we had one working with us, they were the most chauvinistic pricks I’d ever seen. They scared Abbey away, they ruined my relationship with her, and they destroyed my image of the fire service.

  The rest of dinner was spent talking about the movie we were going to watch after dinner. Havens had gotten some B-movie skin flick from Redbox. Great. I couldn’t wait to sit down and watch that one. I ate the rest of my dinner in silence.

  While I was mopping the kitchen, my thoughts were with Abbey. They were often with her. Every third day when I worked a twenty-four hour shift protecting the citizens of
Detroit, I thought of her. Sometimes, she helped me pass the time, but others, she made it crawl. She kept me up some nights, and others, she was the only thing that could get me to finally pass out. All of that, and she probably got nothing but pissed off when I came into her head.

  I sat in my recliner, barely paying attention to the movie in front of us. The other guys were cracking up at every single dick joke. I sighed. That was not the life I saw for myself when I joined the fire service. I envisioned the chili cookouts for the community, rescuing kids, and being proud of what I did. I wasn’t proud.

  If I wasn’t proud, my head wasn’t in it, and if my head wasn’t in it, I was going to get myself hurt or killed. Worse, I could get a victim hurt or killed. As some college girl flashed the camera, I made a decision: Monday morning, I’d talk to my captain, and then put in my transfer papers downtown.

  If there was another engine company that wasn’t like mine, I would have considered the switch, but I knew enough guys in the DFD to know that I wouldn’t find what I was looking for. The prospect of desk duty didn’t thrill me one bit, but I was wrecked. I didn’t know if I could actually fight fire, anymore.

  Clay watched me for a long time after I said my piece. I didn’t name any names, I just said that I couldn’t take the atmosphere any longer. He was aware of it, but it wasn’t so personal to him. He hadn’t lost someone because of it.

  “Well, I can’t stop you. If your heart’s not in it, I don’t want you out there. Not trying to cut you down, Jonah, because you are a hell of a firefighter, but I need guys that are dedicated one hundred percent. I feel like I’m losing a brother, and that’s after one hell of a string of bad luck this year.”

  Clay spoke with genuine wisdom. Between Kade and Rico, Engine 37 was hurting. It only made things harder for me to see the rest of the guys not dealing with that hurt. They were covering it up and over-compensating to the max, but it was like Rico never existed; it was like Kade’s accident never happened.

  “It’s not just this year, Cap.”

  Clay gave a knowing smile. I hadn’t mentioned Abbey once during my speech, but he knew. When it all went down, Clay did everything he could, but in the end, I had already been defeated. The pressure caused me to break up with her, and a few months later, she transferred from Engine 37 and out of my life.

  I heard from friends that worked at headquarters that she was doing well, and it made me happy. Well, happy tinged with sadness and regret. I knew she’d do well, but it stung, anyway.

  “I know it’s not just this year. Jonah, life is messy. Some lives are messier than others, and it’s not all our own mess. If you really want out, I’ll autograph your request.” He pulled a pen from his desk drawer. “But my autograph doesn’t take you from point A to point B. It takes you from point A to who-the-fuck-knows what point. I hope you find out what it is you really want.”

  I nodded. With nothing more to say, I stood up. Clay handed me the transfer request, his signature at the bottom.

  I knew what I really wanted. I was going to do maybe the hardest thing ever: I was going to try and convince Abbey to give me a second chance.

  The start of another week slapped me around a little until I beat it back with coffee. I had a few appointments lined up. Workman’s comp, transfer requests, and any number of other forms that required interviews with the fire fighters submitting them. My current job wasn’t nearly as exciting as my previous one, but it paid the bills. I told myself that I was still making a difference in my community, even if it was behind the scenes.

  When Jonah dropped down into the chair across from my desk, I was shocked. Shocked and then embarrassed. I had completely forgotten about the form he submitted weeks before. His smile reminded me of everything in a heartbeat.

  That stupid smile, I thought. It brought back so many memories. I remembered the first time I saw it. I was a rookie and nervous about my assignment to Engine 37. Its reputation had been spread around the academy. When my assignment was handed down, I was fearful. That fear must have been tattooed all over my face when I met the crew, because Jonah gave me a warm smile that managed to set me at ease. Not only did it set me at ease, it also set our relationship in motion. Despite all my fears and the bad that went along with being a fire fighter, Jonah had been able to wash all that bad away.

  As soon as the crew found out what we did on our days off, they set to work splitting us up. Women can't fight fire; couples can’t fight fire; men can't do their job with a woman around. We heard it all. At first, Jonah didn’t pay it any mind, but the weeks dragged on, and it wore him down.

  It hurt when he ended things between us, even though in retrospect I saw it coming. I guess at the time, I thought we’d be strong enough to make it through. Jonah must not have shared my thoughts. He ended it quickly. He used the usual lines: It’s me; I can’t handle this pressure. Bad work environment, blah blah blah.

  I knew he was right, but it was still crap.

  One month later, I couldn’t take it anymore. I got no respect from the guys, and I felt awful working with a man that I had fallen for. He had made me feel welcome at a station where no one wanted me. He had made me feel competent when everyone else called me “girlie.” He had made me feel sexy when everyone else called me a distraction. What made it all unbearable was that I know he still felt the same way I did, we just couldn’t be together. My transfer was accepted quickly.

  Sexual harassment is something the department doesn’t like to mess with, so if they have a request to get women out of station, they don't waste time.

  Two years later, and I still thought about him. I thought about him on dates with other men, and I thought about him when I was in bed with other men. God damn Jonah Swain.

  I stared. He may have been stuck on my mind, but I wasn’t a pushover. He’d be the first to speak.

  “Good to see you, Abbey.” He was telling the truth. I could hear it in his voice. There was embarrassment mixed in, as well. Jonah had been thinking about me. Maybe not regret, but at least I wasn’t just another ex, or even worse; a faded memory.

  With a freezing cold voice, I said, “Jonah. Give me a minute to dig up your request.” I turned to the stuffed filing cabinet behind me. I could have pulled up the digital copy, but I didn’t want him to be just in and out of my office. I don’t know why. Maybe to torture, maybe for a bit of sport.

  Jonah must have felt the tension, because he broke the silence, “So, how’ve you been?”

  Without turning back to him, “Hanging in there. Hanging in there.” I wasn’t about to give him anything but ice. My fingers found his file, but I kept flipping. I took a little bit of pleasure in dragging things out.

  After my nothing-reply, I thought he’d stay silent, but he didn’t. After he cleared his throat, Jonah asked, “You like this job? I mean, is it satisfying?”

  My fingers stopped flipping through the folders. It was a plain question. Just an ordinary one, but it buried itself beneath my skin. I probably shouldn’t have taken it so personally, but I felt like Jonah was rubbing salt into the wounds. I thought those wounds had healed over, but a few sentences from my old lover, and they were torn open as if no time had passed. Two years on, and they were as fresh as ever.

  I spun around, my finger aimed right at him. I was ready to lay into him with every bit of my being. The sexism, the elitism, the “brotherhood;” I was ready to trash it all and lay the blame on him for everything.

  Jonah saw it, too. He moved back in his chair, no longer leaning towards my desk. His eyes widened in panic. It must have all hit him in that moment. The lingering doubts. I hope that’s what hit him the hardest. He and I had been amazing together. Amazing for forty-eight hours, terrible for twenty-four.

  There was no plan. I didn't have some grand speech rehearsed. Stream of consciousness got the better of me. “Is that why you came here? To see what I’m like now? To see what it means to say goodbye to your dreams and a relationship? Well, here it is.” I would have liked to hav
e made my voice get lower, but it did the opposite as emotion began to well up inside. It grew louder as I went on, “Here’s my office. My desk that I never leave. Christ, Jonah. Still an inconsiderate dick two years later. I just didn’t think it would still hurt.”