Baby Lessons
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Teri Wilson
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16
Chapter One
Vermont hates me.
It was an undeniable fact. Nothing had gone right in the ten days since Madison Jules had relocated from Manhattan to Lovestruck, Vermont. Not one single thing.
Seriously, why?
She squinted at her reflection in the mirror, trying to assess the situation as best she could in the semidarkness. Even without electricity, she could tell that it was bad. Half her hair was smoothed into a perfect glossy bob, while the other half was a mass of uncontrollable curls. And since the power clearly had no intention of returning, things probably weren’t going to improve anytime soon.
Perfect. Just perfect. She was going to have to go to the office like this. But first, she was going to have to deal with whoever had decided to pound on her door at six thirty in the morning.
Six thirty! If Vermont was an individual human instead of a geographic location, it would be a morning person. Yet another thing it didn’t have in common with Madison.
“Coming!” She shuffled to the door in her favorite Kate Spade slippers—the cute velvet ones that said Eat Cake for Breakfast—and wrapped her polka dot robe more tightly around her frame. “Aunt Alice, if it’s you, do you have electricity up at the main house? Because I sure don’t.”
It wasn’t her aunt, as Madison found out when she swung the door open to reveal a fireman dressed in full firefighter regalia—bulky jacket with reflective trim, heavy pants, scuffed black boots. A fire helmet was jauntily positioned on his head, perfectly angled to accentuate the scowl on his face.
Maybe she wasn’t the only nonmorning person in Vermont, after all. Finally, someone who understood her.
“Hi,” Madison said, peering past him in search of flames. Her aunt’s house looked perfectly unscathed, thank goodness. “Where’s the fire?”
“In your apartment,” he said flatly.
“What?” She shook her head. A copper ringlet from the left side of her hair fell across her eyes, and she blew it out of the way. “There’s no fire.”
“I’m afraid there is,” he countered.
Seriously? She would know if her own apartment was on fire. Perched in her aunt’s barn, it wasn’t exactly spacious—barely larger than her fourth-floor walk-up in New York. But very much unlike her former big city digs, her Vermont apartment was rent-free. So she had no problem whatsoever with its close quarters. Bonus: if any part of it were aflame, she would definitely know.
“No, really. There’s not. I was in the middle of flat-ironing my hair and the electricity went out, that’s all.” She tilted her head to properly accentuate her hair’s good side.
The fireman remained unimpressed. “A heat sensor in this building activated an alarm at the fire station. I need to come in and take a look around.”
“Okay.” Madison blinked as she held the door open wide and he strode past her. “But...”
He carried a fire extinguisher in one hand and an ax rested on one of his broad shoulders. How had Madison missed the ax? Her hair mishap was beginning to seem less and less important. It was official—Vermont had finally broken her.
She shifted from one slippered foot to the other, acutely aware of just how ridiculous she must look. Probably because there was suddenly a cranky yet attractive fireman filling up the tiny space of her apartment. “Um. What’s with the ax? You’re not going to hack away at my walls, are you?”
Because technically, they weren’t really her walls at all. They were Aunt Alice’s, and for some reason, it seemed like a bad thing to have them destroyed on her watch—even if the one doing the destroying was a heroic firefighter-type figure.
Not that Firefighter Cranky Pants struck Madison as remotely heroic at the moment. Weren’t firemen supposed to be nice? Or at least somewhat pleasant? Particularly to people whose apartments were on—invisible—fire?
“I cut off all power to the building,” someone said.
Madison turned to see another burly man in weighty fireproof clothing standing in the doorway. Oh goody, there were two of them. At least this one was smiling at her.
“Good morning, ma’am.” The new arrival nodded. “I assume Lieutenant Cole informed you that an alarm sounded at the station and up at the main house a few minutes ago?”
“Sort of.” Madison shot an accusatory glare at the grumpy one—Lieutenant Cole, apparently—but he was too busy glowering at her flat iron to notice. “He mentioned an alarm, but I didn’t realize it went off at the main house.”
Aunt Alice must have headed out for an early-morning coffee before opening up the yarn store she owned on Main Street. Had she been home, she definitely would’ve let Madison know a fire alarm had sounded.
“The heat sensor for this building is wired to signal an alarm at the farmhouse rather than here.” The fireman made a circular motion with his pointer finger, indicating Madison’s living space. “The barn.”
Right, as if she needed a reminder that she’d gone from living three blocks off Madison Avenue to sleeping in a barn. Technically, it was a tiny area above the barn—more like a garage apartment than a hayloft—but still.
“You sure you didn’t see any flames? Not even a flash?” Lieutenant Cole arched a brow as he aimed his flashlight at the plug closest to her bathroom vanity. The plastic plate covering the outlet was covered in dark soot.
Madison blinked, horrified. “Oh my gosh. I...um...no.”
Her back had been facing the outlet when the lights flickered before going out entirely. Shouldn’t she have heard something, though? Had this grumpy public servant been right, and she’d failed to notice an actual fire in her home?
The indignities were multiplying by the second, but Madison no longer cared. The thought of the barn burning down around her was terrifying, to say the least.
“Is this the part where you use that?” She winced in the general direction of the ax.
Lieutenant Cole’s frown deepened as if the struggle to fight off an eye roll was causing him physical pain. What was his problem? “No need. The flame burned itself out.”
“How can you know that for sure?” She swallowed hard.
He sighed and crooked a finger at her, beckoning her forward.
She took a tentative step, butterflies swarming low in her belly. If she didn’t know better, she would have mistaken the feeling for attraction. But that was impossible, obviously. It was probably just a normal reaction to her recent near-death experience, even though she hadn’t actually been aware she was experiencing it.
Lieutenant Cole sighed again, regarding her with piercing blue eyes.
Madison’s mouth went dry as the butterflies beat their wings even harder. What was happening?
“May I?” He flicked a finger toward her wrist.
He wanted to hold hands? High-five? What was going on, and why was she suddenly mesmerized by the square set of his jaw?
Her hand drifted toward his, seemingly of its own accord. He took it, placed her palm flush against the wall and held it in place with his own manly grasp. “Feel anything?”
Goose bumps cascaded up and down her arm. She felt everything all of a sudden. Everything. Everywhere.
“Um,” was all she could manage to articulate and to her complete and utter horror, her gaze drifted toward his mouth. He had a small scar near the corner of his upper lip. Madison wondered if it might be the result of some heroic act during a fire.
Then she wondered if she might be having a stroke, because what was she doing?
She forced her gaze away from his perfect bone structure and back toward her hand, still flat against the wall with Lieutenant Cole’s strong fingers ringing her wrist like a bracelet.
“Heat,” he clarified. “Does the wall feel hot at all to you?”
“No.” She shook her head.
“That’s how I know.” He dropped her wrist and shrugged. “If the flash hadn’t burned itself out, either a fire would be visible or the Sheetrock would be warm, indicating a flame inside the wall.”
Madison nodded. “Obviously.”
“But if you really want us to hack away at your walls, that could be arranged.” He narrowed his gaze, studying her for a moment until a hint of amusement crept its way into his eyes. Then Madison caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror behind him and realized he was looking at her mismatched hair.
“That won’t be necessary.” Good grief, he was annoying. She was willing to bet whatever was going on beneath his fire helmet wasn’t much better than her current half-done mess.
She flashed him a triumphant grin, fantasizing about the state of his helmet hair.
But then, as smoothly as if he’d just read her mind, Lieutenant Cole removed his helmet and raked his hand through a head of dark, lush waves. He looked like he’d walked straight out of a shampoo commercial. Or one of those sexy firefighter calendars.
It was maddening.
“Are we done here?” she said tartly.
“Yes, ma’am. You’ll need to get an electrician out here to replace your outlet.” He jammed the helmet back on his head and then pointed at her flat iron. “Don’t use that thing anymore. It’s not safe.”
“It’s from Sephora,” she said, but he’d already begun walking away, covering the distance from her vanity to the front door in three easy strides.
The other fireman—the nice one—smiled at Madison as Lieutenant Cole brushed past him. “Sorry for the intrusion.”
She glared at the lieutenant’s back, silently cursing both her lingering butterflies and his fine head of hair.
“Is your colleague always so charming?” she said, injecting her voice with a massive dose of sarcasm.
The fireman offered her a conciliatory smile. “Again, my apologies. If you experience any more trouble, please give us a call.”
He turned to follow Lieutenant Cole back to the fire engine parked at the foot of the gravel drive, where two additional firemen stood waiting and a crowd of curious onlookers had gathered. Odd. In New York, no one paid attention to flashing lights.
But Madison wasn’t in her beloved New York anymore. Clearly.
She shut the door and fought her sudden urge to cry by channeling all of her energy into disliking the smug lieutenant and his smug, handsome face. On some level, she knew she was overreacting. But after ten days of trying her best to look on the bright side...to pick up the pieces of her shattered life and move on...she just couldn’t do it anymore. Vermont had won. She needed to find a way to get her life back. She didn’t belong here—that was the real emergency. Somebody call 911.
The nice fireman’s parting words rang loudly in her consciousness as she picked up her flat iron.
If you experience any more trouble, please give us a call.
She hurled the hair appliance in the trash with more force than was probably necessary. But seriously, like she’d even want to risk having to call for help and roll out the welcome mat for the perfectly coifed Lieutenant Cole?
Not in this lifetime.
Lieutenant Jack Cole was dreaming.
It was a bothersome dream, plagued by a nagging voice, the sort that would ordinarily drag him back to wakefulness. But he hadn’t slept in such a long time—weeks, months, years—so he fought it. He fought it hard.
Just closing his eyes felt so damn good, even better than he remembered. He just wanted to ride it out. Go with it. Let the dream take him wherever it wanted if he could just keep sleeping for ten more minutes. Five. Anything.
“Dude.” Someone snapped his fingers in Jack’s face. “Wake up. I’m talking to you.”
With no small amount of reluctance, he cracked one eye open and realized he wasn’t dreaming at all. He’d fallen asleep on the rig. Again. The annoying voice that kept breaking through the heavy fog of sleep belonged to the firefighter sitting across from him as the engine bounced along the rural road back to the station.
And now that firefighter was shaking his head and eyeing him with sympathy. Jack wished he could close his eyes again. He’d seen enough pitying glances aimed his direction over the past six months to last him a lifetime.
“You’ve got to get some sleep, man,” Wade said. “Either that or take another leave of absence.”
Jack shook his head. “Not an option.”
He was a firefighter. It’s what he did, and he was damn good at it. Or he used to be, back when sleep was a thing that happened with any sort of regularity.
“Well, you can’t keep nodding off on the rig. At least wait until we get back to the station where there’s a recliner with your name on it,” Wade shouted above the jostle of the engine.
Jack shouldn’t have been able to sleep through such a noisy ride, especially in one of the jump seats. No one should. Firefighters sometimes carried earplugs for this very purpose.
He scrubbed his hand over his face and did his best not to succumb to his near-constant overwhelming feeling of exhaustion. The passing scenery helped, but only marginally. Wade was right. He couldn’t go on like this.
“Speaking of things you probably shouldn’t be doing...” Wade jerked his head in the direction of the farmhouse and accompanying barn with its converted apartment space where they’d just completed their first call of the morning. “What was that back there?”
“What do you mean?” Jack narrowed his gaze.
Their captain and the driver were situated in the cab of the truck behind Wade. The call at the farmhouse had been simple enough that they hadn’t needed more than two team members to take a look around. Good thing, since there hadn’t been room for any more people in the tiny apartment.
Wade shot him a knowing look. “Come on, man. You weren’t yourself just now. Don’t you think you were a bit harsh?”
“Harsh?” Jack shook his head. “No. You weren’t there when I first knocked on her door. She tried to argue with me about whether or not there was a problem when, in fact, her fancy hair straightener almost burned the place down.”
“You mean the one from Sephora?” Wade deadpanned.
Jack laughed, despite his foul mood.
“Seriously, though. You could have been nicer.” Wade held on to his seat belt as the engine rounded the curve leading back to the station. “Or at the very least, civil.”
“I was perfectly civil,” Jack said. Granted, he hadn’t exactly been chatty, but he’d done his job. What more did Wade want from him?
“Don’t you think she seemed a little...” Wade’s brows rose, prompting Jack to fill in the blank.
“Out of place?” Granted, she’d been beautiful—in a just-rolled-out-of-bed sort of way. But she’d had big city written all over her. It was practically stamped across her forehead. “Yeah. Definitely.”
“That’s not what I meant at all.” Wade frowned. “I was going to say she seemed vulnerable.”
The engine slowed to a stop in front of the familiar red brick building decorated with a large American flag blowing just below block letters that spelled out Engine Co. 24. They idled for a moment until the diesel engine powered down with a prolonged whoosh that almost made it seem like the big red truck had sighed. Jack could relate—he felt like sighing himself.
“Vulnerable?” He let out a sharp laugh as he unfastened the buckle of his harness and hopped down from the jump seat. “I don’t think so. She’s a grown woman. Adults aren’t vulnerable. Babies are vulnerable.”
The second the words left his mouth, he wanted to swallow them up again and reel them back to the place where he kept all his frustration buried deep. Talking about it didn’t help matters. So far, the only thing that had made him feel better about his current difficulties were the ridiculous letters he’d been writing lately. They were strangely cathartic, and they weren’t hurting anyone.
Were they?
For a brief moment Jack wondered what Wade would have to say if he knew about his recent correspondence. Nothing good, that was for sure.
“You’re right. Babies are indeed vulnerable.” Wade shrugged out of his turnout gear as they walked toward the station. “But I don’t think you noticed how that woman back there looked at you. I sure did.”
Jack just shook his head. Maybe she’d seemed a little lonely, standing there all wide-eyed in her polka dot bathrobe. Jack recognized loneliness when he saw it. Hell, he knew that feeling better than anyone.
He’d even caught a glimmer of a spark between them when their fingertips touched. But a spark didn’t mean anything other than a simple transfer of electrons. It was just science, and as Jack knew all too well, sometimes a spark could set off a burning rain of destruction.
No, thank you. Not again.
“Not all women are like Natalie, you know,” Wade said. The earnestness in his voice made Jack’s head hurt.
“Never mind,” Jack muttered.
He’d said too much. He knew better than to drag his daughters into this conversation.
Adults aren’t vulnerable. Babies are vulnerable.
Why hadn’t he just kept his head down and his mouth shut? Now he was sure to be on the receiving end of more pitying looks from Wade. The rest of the guys at the station, too.
He could feel Wade’s gaze on him even now, weighted down with concern. He didn’t dare look up.
Jack didn’t need anyone’s pity. He had a roof over his head, food on his table and two precious babies waiting for him at home. Other than being a little sleep deprived, he was perfectly fine. Not lonely. Not wounded. Not miserable.
Certainly not vulnerable...
Even if he almost felt that way, every now and then.
