bodies for him.”
“I’ll check with the cops and see if the parents have been notified or if they want me to go with them to notify.” Julie moved her hand away, and for a split second, he didn’t let it go.
His eyes continued to stare into hers for a moment longer, then he stepped back and walked toward the car.
Julie watched him, a little shaken by the intimacy in that last lingering look. Her first impression of him had been that he was an emotional lightweight. But he had clearly been upset by the accident which showed her a whole new side of him. She suspected it was not a side he let many people see. It gave them a strange connection, one that she wasn’t sure she welcomed.
Rusty didn’t want to be alone. He picked up his cell phone and flipped through his Contacts list. Amanda, Ava, Becki, Carly, Denise, Emily, Fiona, Ginger, Heather, Kim, Pam, Rachel, Stacy, Tamara, Tawny. None of them stirred anything in him. Nothing.
It had been a tough shift. The day had started with the car accident. He had barely gotten back and cleaned up when there was a fire on the third floor of an office building downtown. Papers, furniture and the typical chemicals generally found in an office had provided enough fuel to turn that one into a roaring inferno, but everyone had safely evacuated. It had taken several hours to completely extinguish the fire and make sure it hadn’t spread. Luckily it had been a quiet night after they returned from that one. But the shift had been exhausting, both physically and emotionally.
He’d gotten a few hours of sleep at the station. His, and all his fellow firefighters, worked a 24/48 schedule which meant he worked twenty-four hours, from 7:30 a.m. to 7:30 a.m., then was off forty-eight hours. Unless he was out all night on a fire, he preferred to not go to bed as soon as he got home in the morning, but to try to keep to a regular nightly sleeping schedule.
That narrowed down who he could spend his days off with because most non-fellow emergency responders worked normal eight-to-five hours. He didn’t really want to spend time with his brothers either. Besides, they probably had other plans.
He popped the top on a can of beer and plopped down on his recliner. He selected an episode of a popular TV drama that he had recorded on his DVR. For several minutes he stared at the screen, the plot not capturing his attention. Instead, for some reason, his thoughts wandered to Julie.
The deaths of the three teenage boys had shaken him to his core. It was awful when an adult didn’t survive, but it was always worse when there were kids involved. They hadn’t had time to really experience life and love or to make their mark on their futures. No one would ever know if they would have discovered a cure for cancer or some other remarkable invention. So much potential lost.
And Julie had understood. As they stood together at the accident scene yesterday morning, she had comforted him with more than words. He had felt her empathy. Every day she walked in his shoes and saw the same tragedies he did and shared the anguish of loss or the thrill of success. Like him, she went on calls without knowing what to expect on the other end. Like him, she dealt with it on a daily basis.
What he didn’t know was what sort of support system she had at home.
He’d heard rumors. She wasn’t married. Or she was married, but no one had ever met her husband. Or she was gay … or straight. No one knew for sure.
Julie was sort of an enigma in the department. The only things that were known by all were that she didn’t have any kids, she worked hard, but didn’t socialize with her co-workers … and she didn’t date cops. But what was her policy on firefighters?
Rusty smiled. Where did that thought come from? There were enough women to choose from. He, too, had a personal policy of not dating people he worked with. Now that women in the firehouse were common, it just wasn’t good for long-term
“I’ll check with the cops and see if the parents have been notified or if they want me to go with them to notify.” Julie moved her hand away, and for a split second, he didn’t let it go.
His eyes continued to stare into hers for a moment longer, then he stepped back and walked toward the car.
Julie watched him, a little shaken by the intimacy in that last lingering look. Her first impression of him had been that he was an emotional lightweight. But he had clearly been upset by the accident which showed her a whole new side of him. She suspected it was not a side he let many people see. It gave them a strange connection, one that she wasn’t sure she welcomed.
Rusty didn’t want to be alone. He picked up his cell phone and flipped through his Contacts list. Amanda, Ava, Becki, Carly, Denise, Emily, Fiona, Ginger, Heather, Kim, Pam, Rachel, Stacy, Tamara, Tawny. None of them stirred anything in him. Nothing.
It had been a tough shift. The day had started with the car accident. He had barely gotten back and cleaned up when there was a fire on the third floor of an office building downtown. Papers, furniture and the typical chemicals generally found in an office had provided enough fuel to turn that one into a roaring inferno, but everyone had safely evacuated. It had taken several hours to completely extinguish the fire and make sure it hadn’t spread. Luckily it had been a quiet night after they returned from that one. But the shift had been exhausting, both physically and emotionally.
He’d gotten a few hours of sleep at the station. His, and all his fellow firefighters, worked a 24/48 schedule which meant he worked twenty-four hours, from 7:30 a.m. to 7:30 a.m., then was off forty-eight hours. Unless he was out all night on a fire, he preferred to not go to bed as soon as he got home in the morning, but to try to keep to a regular nightly sleeping schedule.
That narrowed down who he could spend his days off with because most non-fellow emergency responders worked normal eight-to-five hours. He didn’t really want to spend time with his brothers either. Besides, they probably had other plans.
He popped the top on a can of beer and plopped down on his recliner. He selected an episode of a popular TV drama that he had recorded on his DVR. For several minutes he stared at the screen, the plot not capturing his attention. Instead, for some reason, his thoughts wandered to Julie.
The deaths of the three teenage boys had shaken him to his core. It was awful when an adult didn’t survive, but it was always worse when there were kids involved. They hadn’t had time to really experience life and love or to make their mark on their futures. No one would ever know if they would have discovered a cure for cancer or some other remarkable invention. So much potential lost.
And Julie had understood. As they stood together at the accident scene yesterday morning, she had comforted him with more than words. He had felt her empathy. Every day she walked in his shoes and saw the same tragedies he did and shared the anguish of loss or the thrill of success. Like him, she went on calls without knowing what to expect on the other end. Like him, she dealt with it on a daily basis.
What he didn’t know was what sort of support system she had at home.
He’d heard rumors. She wasn’t married. Or she was married, but no one had ever met her husband. Or she was gay … or straight. No one knew for sure.
Julie was sort of an enigma in the department. The only things that were known by all were that she didn’t have any kids, she worked hard, but didn’t socialize with her co-workers … and she didn’t date cops. But what was her policy on firefighters?
Rusty smiled. Where did that thought come from? There were enough women to choose from. He, too, had a personal policy of not dating people he worked with. Now that women in the firehouse were common, it just wasn’t good for long-term
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