The Slow Burn
Autore
Caro Carson
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21
Chapter One
“Which one of us is going to invite the hot fireman to join us at the pub?”
Tana McKenna heard the question, sort of, as she frantically scrolled through the calendar on her phone. Urgency made her all thumbs.
A too-long, too-silent pause made her look up from the screen. Her friends were all staring at her.
“What?” Tana grasped for the last thing she’d heard. “Something’s hot?”
“Not something. Someone.” Ruby, an executive assistant at Masterson University, lowered her voice and leaned a little closer. “Wait until you see who is teaching the CPR class tonight.”
Next to Ruby, the university’s diving coach giggled like a Shirley Temple GIF. “Oh, my goodness. For once, I am so happy that we have to get certified every year.”
A third member of the Masterson University faculty lowered her voice, too, leaning in as if they were conspiring together in the hallway of the academic building. “We should all flunk this evening. Get him to come back next Friday, too.”
Tana kept what she hoped was a polite expression of interest on her face while trying to add nine months to today’s date. Her brain wouldn’t work. Her stomach was in knots.
The diving coach giggled again. “We can tell him we need extra tutoring during happy hour to prepare.”
Everyone was smiling. These women, Tana’s new friends at her new job at Masterson University, were making the effort to include her in their conversation. Tana didn’t want to be rude, so she nodded along on autopilot as her brain raced.
It was September. Tana glanced at her phone’s calendar. October, November, three, four, five... June. She would be nine months pregnant in the broiling heat of Central Texas in June. Just thinking about it made her mouth feel dry.
The conversation flowed around her, “What a sweetheart,” followed by “I can’t believe he’s not wearing a wedding band.” Then, in a tone of agreement, “Someone needs to put a ring on that, fast.”
I’m pregnant. Not possible.
Well, it was possible, of course. She and Jerry, her boyfriend for the past year and a half, did have sex. But Tana had been an athlete all her life, always in tune with her body. Two weeks ago, when she’d noticed tiny changes, a little fatigue, a bit of bloating, she’d done a home pregnancy test. It had been negative. She’d been relieved. Jerry wasn’t ready to settle down.
One week ago, because she was the Masterson University swim team’s new coach, Tana had made her way through a doctor’s office assembly line for the routine physical that cleared all the athletic staff and student-athletes for participation in this year’s sports. A blood pressure check by a nurse, a quick once-over by the doctor with a stethoscope, a blood draw for some standard labs, no big deal. She’d waited in the lobby for two dozen freshmen swimmers to finish doing the same.
Five minutes ago, the doctor’s office had called. Coach McKenna? Your team’s results are in. Everyone looks fine, but one person tested positive for pregnancy. Tana’s heart had sunk as she foresaw a difficult conversation with a student and her parents. That physical had been taken by the team’s freshmen. Eighteen was such a young age for motherhood. Which girl?
Before she could ask, the doctor had chuckled over the phone. Fortunately, that person is you, but you knew that, didn’t you? Congratulations, Coach.
“Such a babe, but he’s funny, not just handsome,” one of Tana’s new friends said. “He’ll be fun to drink a Guinness with.”
“You have to invite him to come to the Tipsy Musketeer with us after class.”
Nine months. Another expectant pause pulled Tana’s attention from her phone’s calendar and its blurring numbers.
“Me?” Tana looked from one woman’s face to the next and the next. They grinned and nodded at her enthusiastically, as if she would start grinning and nodding, too, while her life imploded. This year was supposed to be the year of her redemption, finally, in the eyes of her sport as well as her family. For the team doctor to call her just now—just no.
“Yes, you.” This was from the giggling Shirley. “I’m married. I can only be friends. I’ll focus on his personality while you all focus on whichever other parts you like most.”
“Be a sport and ask him,” Ruby said. “Then we can eat some Irish stew and feast on the eye candy.”
The thought of Irish stew made Tana feel slightly seasick. Pregnant, pregnant—no wonder I haven’t been able to eat all day. Or yesterday.
“Poor Tana. We’ve all gotten to enjoy an hour with him already. He had us in stitches for the first-aid training. I actually feel sorry for you that you didn’t have to take the first-aid class with us.”
Pay attention. These nice women are speaking to you. You need to make friends.
“Um...first aid? I’m certified already. Just need to do the CPR class today...” Tana’s appetite had been off for two weeks, so that meant she’d already been pregnant in August, even though the store-bought test she’d done at home had been negative.
Heart pounding, she recalculated. August, September, October... April. She’d be due in April. Which meant she’d have to coach the Masterson Musketeer swimmers through the NCAA finals in March while she was massively pregnant. A lifetime ago—one decade ago—one of the trainers for the Olympic team had missed the Games because the airlines wouldn’t let her fly close to her due date.
Tana had to fly with her team to the NCAA finals this March. She simply had to, because she was the head coach. The new head coach. She couldn’t lose this job. She had something to prove.
Now, she would have someone to provide for.
“You won’t regret it, I promise you.” Ruby bumped her with her shoulder and smiled. “Ask him after class.”
“Who?”
Ruby frowned. “What the heck is so interesting on your phone?”
Tana focused on Ruby’s friendly face. She’d liked Ruby since meeting her during her first day on campus. That meant she’d known Ruby for six weeks, which made Ruby her oldest and closest friend in the entire town of Masterson, Texas.
Tana needed a friend to confide in, but her assistant diving coach was standing right here—Shirley Tarkington, not Temple. The other woman Tana barely knew, but she was part of the evening’s plan to go out to dinner together after the CPR class. There was a man in suit and tie by the vending machine, too, and he was probably close enough to hear them. Tana had to keep her shattering news to herself.
“Nothing,” she said. “I’m fine.”
“So, you’ll invite him? To the pub?”
Tana didn’t want to ask who again. “I’m already dating someone. You know that.”
“Jerry.” Ruby said the name with disapproval—disgust, even. “Jerry, who is leaving you for Peru. It’s time for you to upgrade. I’ve got a hot fireman who is perfect for you.”
Shirley squeezed Tana’s arm. “Look. He’s right over there.”
Tana looked.
Okay...wow. By any objective measure, the man was indeed hot. Strong jaw, short hair, walkie-talkie on the belt of his firefighter uniform. He looked tall, even while leaning back against the wall. He had his arms crossed over his chest, and the bulk of his shoulders and the bulge of his biceps weren’t really beefy, just simply...strong. Eye candy, for certain.
Who needed eye candy when the entire world had been flipped over like a flimsy card table? Not Tana.
But just as she was going to shrug and turn her back on him, the firefighter bent forward, practically doubling himself over, because the tiniest grandmother in the world had started speaking to him. She was known as Granny Dee around campus. Her job was to check student IDs at the entrance to the campus dining hall, but she was legendary at Masterson University for hugging every student who needed a hug at breakfast and lunch, before a test or after a heartbreak. She’d been doing so for two generations. Ten years ago, she’d given Tana hugs to congratulate her, when Tana had been the star of the Masterson swimming program. Granny Dee was an institution in herself.
She was very concerned, very animated about something. The firefighter listened until Granny Dee fell silent, then he answered her seriously. Granny Dee beamed at him as she held out her arms, and that hunk of a man pushed himself off the wall, still bent in half, so that Granny Dee could throw her arms around his neck. A chuckle, a pat on her back—he turned his head toward Tana—their eyes met.
Her stomach flipped.
Just eye candy. Tana couldn’t quite pull off an uncaring shrug, but she turned back to her friends. Ruby gave her an arch look.
“What?” Tana asked, feeling thirstier than ever. She hadn’t eaten much in two days, but she could buy herself a bottle of water out of the vending machine. She patted the pockets of her khaki shorts. No cash or cards. Only her van’s keys.
From behind her, the firefighter made a general announcement. “All right, CPR time. Let’s get started.”
Tana knew it was him, because it was exactly the kind of masculine voice that one would expect a man who was that masculine to have. The dozen or so people in the hall obediently headed toward the classroom.
Ruby held Tana back. “Ask him to come to the pub, okay?”
“I can’t ask him out.”
“Sorry, but we elected you to do it.”
“I’m dating someone. So are you.”
She and Ruby and their guys had double-dated last weekend, when Jerry had driven up from Houston to see her. Jerry was still on the faculty at the much smaller Houston City College, where they’d both been working for the past two years. Tana had resigned her coaching position there for this more prestigious position, director of the aquatic program at Masterson University.
Redemption.
She’d wondered if Jerry would leave Houston and relocate to Masterson for her. If not, would absence make the heart grow fonder? Maybe he’d pop the question at the end of the semester.
She’d gotten her answer. He’d been planning to leave Houston and her, both, on a research trip he’d gotten funded an entire month before Masterson had started interviewing Tana. Only for a year, he’d said. Jerry, whom she’d been dating for eighteen months, hadn’t realized she was hurt.
Ruby, her friend of six weeks, had. “I don’t see a ring on your finger. Are you two supposed to stay exclusive while he’s off to do whatever it is he’s leaving you to do?”
I don’t know.
Tana had been too chicken to ask. Jerry was going to communicate through letters while he was on his remote field study. She’d thought maybe they’d both find it easier to write about their feelings, since talking usually led to uncomfortable silences, but she was going to have to ask now. She was going to have to ask him not to go to Peru at all, in fact. A year from now, they’d have a four-month-old baby. Five months old?
She and Jerry had said their goodbyes over the phone last night, but his flight to South America wouldn’t depart until midnight. She had time to reach him. She closed the calendar screen and opened her text messages. Jerry hadn’t sent her one message.
That was fine; he’d told her he wouldn’t. Jerry hadn’t wanted to deal with any strong emotions today while he was tying up all his loose ends and heading for the airport.
Yesterday, Tana had been flattered by that. It meant she wasn’t a loose end to be tied up. It meant she was a person toward whom he had strong emotions.
Ready or not, she was about to give him a reason to feel even more strongly about her. The phone trembled in her hand as she typed. Please call me ASAP.
She waited a moment. He’d reply, because she was important to him. Even though he is willing to leave me to spend a year in Peru. Even though he never asked me to wait for him or to be faithful to him...or to marry him...
It wasn’t necessary, it really wasn’t, but as she drifted toward the classroom, she added another text: This is important.
She sensed a warm presence at her shoulder a moment before an equally warm voice spoke by her ear. “You must be Montana McKenna.”
The fireman was holding the door for her. He was quite...something...close up. He had a Texas-summer tan, like an outdoorsman, so the blue of his eyes was almost startling in contrast.
“I go by Tana. Coach Tana McKenna.” Her response was automatic. So was the way she held out her hand to shake his, as though he were the father of a swimmer she wanted to recruit. It was awkwardly formal for this situation. She was merely the last straggler in the hallway, and he already had one hand on the door.
He looked a little amused, but he let go of the door to shake her hand. “Lieutenant Caden Sterling. I go by Lieutenant, Caden or Sterling. Take your pick. I saw your name on the roster. No first-aid training. Just the CPR?”
“I renewed my first-aid cert in June at—at my old job. In Houston. I’m here now.” Text me back, Jerry. “I mean, I’m here at Masterson now as a coach, not that I’m here at your class now, although I guess I’m that, too.”
Stop for a breath, already. She was still holding the fireman’s hand. Her cheeks were warm, as if the heat from his palm had transferred to hers and rushed upward to make her blush.
She let go. “Sorry. I’m distracted. I’m waiting on an important call. I hate to disrupt your class, but it’s critical that I take it. I’ll slip out quietly. I promise you, I’ve been certified in CPR so many times, I’ll be able to pass the test, even if I miss your instructions.”
He was listening to her as attentively as he’d been listening to Granny Dee, looking directly at her, as if she were saying something that mattered.
She tried to return that respect. “If you’ll let me take the test, that is. I understand if you don’t want to pass someone who didn’t participate in the entire class. I don’t really have a choice about the phone call, but if you’d rather me not take the class tonight, that’s your right.”
“You have to do what you have to do, Coach. Take the call. We’ll work it out.”
“Thank you. Really.” She dropped her gaze from his ocean-blue eyes as another wave of dizziness threatened to pull her under. She brushed past him to find the nearest chair in the classroom and dropped onto the hard plastic seat. At the next break, she was going to get some money out of her van and get something to eat out of the vending machine and choke it down, nausea be damned. She looked at her shaky phone screen. Nothing.
She managed to pay attention to the fireman’s CPR introduction for an entire minute before she peeked at her phone screen again. This time, Jerry had answered.
I’ll send you an address once I’m settled. Write me about your important thing. It will be the best way for me to focus on your problem. Today is my day to focus on the logistics of my journey.
Tana’s head swam.
Another text came in: As you already knew.
“Are you okay? Can you hear me?” The fireman asked the questions loudly, urgently.
Tana looked up, but he was speaking to the CPR dummy, the mannequin upon which they would all practice and then be tested. Students would have to try to rouse the dummy as if it were a person they’d found unconscious. The fireman was demonstrating the proper steps by shaking the mannequin’s shoulder.
“Are you okay?” he repeated.
No, I’m not.
But she was no mute mannequin, and she didn’t have time to play along with Jerry’s elaborate designs for how and when he could best focus on her problem. He’d best communicate with her now.
“When there’s no answer,” the fireman said, “call for help.”
Tana hit the call button next to Jerry’s name as she slipped out the door.
