A Firehouse Christmas Baby
Autor
Teri Wilson
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HarlequinChapter One
Here’s the juicy secret no one tells you about firemen: pretty much of all them, Wade Ericson included, are deathly afraid of one thing. And it’s probably the thing you’d least expect.
Scratch that. It’s definitely the thing you’d least expect. Burning buildings? No problem. Smoke inhalation? Not a picnic, but firefighters have equipment to deal with that sort of danger. Fires that burn hotter than the surface of the sun? Again, just an ordinary day at the office.
A tiny, newborn baby, on the other hand, will leave most firefighters quaking in their flame-resistant boots. That’s right—a baby.
Technically, it’s the imminent arrival of said baby that’s terrifying. If a woman in labor is relying on a firefighter to deliver her child, something unexpected has likely already happened. The number of things that can go wrong seems endless. Firefighters are in the business of saving lives, and no life seems quite as pure or precious as an innocent newborn. No one wants to screw that up.
No one, including Wade Ericson.
Wade would’ve quite literally rather walked through fire than respond to the call a few weeks ago for an expectant mom in distress in a stalled car on the state highway on the outskirts of Lovestruck, Vermont. Lovestruck was a quiet, sleepy little town—the sort of place where firefighters actually rescued kittens in trees. Just a month ago, Wade had shown up at a call for a house fire that turned out to be a doghouse. Muffin, the resident of the doghouse, was tucked safely inside her owner’s arms and watched as Wade valiantly sprayed the animal’s tiny three-foot-by-three-foot structure with his fire extinguisher. Mission accomplished, day saved.
Which is all to say that no one in the history of the LFD had ever been called upon to deliver a baby before—not even Cap, Wade’s long-time supervisor and overall father figure of the guys at Engine Co. 24, Lovestruck’s lone fire station. There’s a first time for everything, though, and in the wee hours of the morning on Thanksgiving Day, Wade delivered his very first baby. With any luck, he thought hours later as he stood at the window of the labor and delivery unit at the big hospital in Burlington and watched the newborn sleep, it will also be my last. One and done.
He returned to a hero’s welcome at the firehouse. The guys all clapped him on the back, and Cap hugged him so hard that he thought his bones might break. Jack Cole, LFD’s lieutenant and Wade’s closest friend, even baked him a cake—devil’s food with rich chocolate icing and a plastic baby rattle perched jauntily on top. Jack himself was a dad to twin baby girls, which probably explained why he had easy access to a baby rattle, but even his response to the news of Wade’s heroics was “Better you than me.”
Wade ate his cake, and even though he’d been awake for probably thirty-six hours straight at that point, he posed for a picture for the front page of the local paper, the Lovestruck Bee. The mayor called to thank him for his service and then sent half a dozen pizzas to the firehouse. But when the celebration was finally over and, at long last, Wade stretched out on his bunk to close his weary eyes, he cried like a (yep, you guessed it) baby.
He was so damned relieved. The baby was healthy and happy, and the mother—though at fifteen or sixteen, practically a child herself—was resting comfortably up in Burlington. He’d managed to deliver a happy ending, all wrapped up with a neat little bow. It was over.
Except it wasn’t. Not really.
“Are you going to this thing?” Jack asked two weeks later as he and Wade were perched atop the LFD’s ladder truck, stretching a banner across Main Street advertising the upcoming Lovestruck Christmas festival.
Two weeks, one day and six hours after the birth of the baby, if Wade was keeping track. Which he wasn’t—not intentionally, anyway. He just couldn’t seem to shake the memory of the infant boy’s delicate little fingers and toes. Or the way the newborn child had looked at him when he’d stopped crying and opened his eyes for the very first time, as if he’d been nothing short of awestruck by the circumstances surrounding his birth. Join the club, Wade had thought.
“The Christmas festival? I don’t have much of a choice.” Wade squinted at the banner through a swirl of snowflakes. It looked a little high on the right. “I’m in it.”
“You’re in it?” Jack nudged the banner higher and then frowned as Wade tugged it down a few inches. “What does that mean?”
“It means I’m in it. I’m playing the part of one of the Christmas characters,” he said without quite meeting Jack’s gaze.
Wade had been avoiding this conversation for the past few days, for multiple reasons. If it had been up to him, he wouldn’t have been forced to have it to begin with. But when the mayor of Lovestruck specifically asks a firefighter to do something, the firefighter does it, even if that something involves dressing in a ridiculous costume for the entire town to gaze upon. Wade didn’t make the rules. The mayor didn’t just send congratulatory pizzas—she signed his paycheck, as well. He had no choice in the matter.
Jack let out a bark of laughter. “You’re going to be Santa Claus?”
“What? No.” Wade started making his way down the ladder so he could check the banner from the street. Santa? How old did Jack think he looked? Normally that role went to one of the retirees from the library’s rocking chair crowd. Delivering the baby might have aged him a bit, but he was pretty sure he had a few decades to go before climbing into a plush red Santa suit.
“An elf? Please tell me it’s an elf. You’d look great in green hosiery.” Jack snorted. “Eat your heart out, Will Ferrell.”
He was practically yelling from the top of the ladder. Wade glared at him from the cobblestone street. Now he’d get to share his news with Jack at full volume in front of the greater population of Lovestruck, most of whom were lingering outside the entrance to the Bean with peppermint mochas in hand as they watched the banner go up. Super.
“I’m going to be Joseph, you idiot,” he said tersely.
Jack’s brow furrowed. “Seriously?”
Was it really that hard to believe? Granted, Wade didn’t exactly have a reputation as a Biblical-type figure, but Jack had apparently forgotten that Wade had recently become the town poster boy for anything and everything baby-related. If anyone in Lovestruck was suited to play Joseph in the living nativity display, it was Wade. The mayor and the entire town council thought so, anyway.
“Yes. You know the drill—the living nativity runs every night leading up to Christmas, so laugh it up. Starting tonight, I’ll be freezing my butt off in a pile of brown robes next to a live donkey and some cantankerous sheep from Old Bob’s farm.”
And a plastic baby. Can’t forget the baby.
An ache burned deep in Wade’s chest, which he pretended to believe was a product of the frigid December air.
Banner securely in place, Jack climbed down the ladder to stand next to him. They both gave it another once-over, making sure it looked decent before lowering the ladder.
“I’m not laughing,” Jack finally said, crossing his arms. “I think it’s nice, actually. In a way it will make the Christmas festival’s living nativity scene a little more meaningful this year.”
Wade took a deep inhale of frosty air. Instinct told him to argue. He’d only been doing his job—he’d delivered a baby, which in no way compared to being the father figure to the infant Jesus. And the experience had left him more rattled than he cared to admit.
But he understood Jack’s point. He also understood his hometown, and there was no doubt at all in Wade’s mind—Lovestruck was going to eat it up.
From the looks of things, they already were. The crowd outside the Bean was beaming at him from a distance. Clearly the moms pushing strollers and holding the hands of their bundled-up, mittened preschoolers had overheard. Word would surely spread far and wide by the end of his shift.
He averted his gaze. Weeks ago, if anyone had told him that he’d suddenly become Lovestruck’s unofficial bachelor of the year, he would have been thrilled. It was weird, though. Mothers stopped him in the Village Market and wanted to snap photos of him kissing their babies’ foreheads. Someone had started an online crowdfunding site for an LFD beefcake calendar, starring Wade as the cover boy. Women were dropping by the station, bringing him casseroles.
Be careful what you wish for. “It’s Christmas, and we’re talking about the birth of Jesus. Expecting me to improve upon it might be asking a bit much, don’t you think?”
“Point taken.” Jack shrugged one shoulder. “I just have one question—if you’re playing Joseph, who’s Mary?”
“Good gravy, Felicity. You look downright angelic.”
Felicity Hart glanced down at the huge swathe of silky blue fabric that her friend Madison Jules had just artistically draped over her body. Instinct told her to check her reflection in the huge mirrored wall of her brand-new yoga studio, but she knew it wasn’t necessary. Like Felicity, Madison had once worked on New York’s Fifth Avenue, at one of the most respected fashion magazines in the country. She could probably drape a Virgin Mary costume better than Coco Chanel, may she rest in fashionable peace.
Coco, not Madison, obviously. Madison was perfectly fine, living her best life with her new firefighter husband and his precious twin babies in Lovestruck, Vermont, the most adorable Vermont town that Felicity had ever seen. In fact, Lovestruck was so adorable that, after she’d served as Madison’s maid of honor, Felicity had impulsively quit her job, packed up every last Louis Vuitton handbag she owned and opened a yoga studio smack in the middle of Main Street.
Felicity and her Vuittons lived above the studio in a tiny attic apartment with a pitched ceiling, knotty pine walls and a pile of handmade quilts that she’d found in an old trunk in the studio’s storage room. It was all very sweet, very wholesome. Very Hallmark movie–esque. And honestly, that’s what she needed now, more than anything. Because the move from New York to Vermont hadn’t quite been as impulsive and whimsical as she’d let everyone believe.
But Felicity was trying her best not to think about that right now. There were more pressing matters to contend with, like the fact that her yoga studio hadn’t exactly gotten off to a rip-roaring start. Perhaps she’d overestimated the appeal of bendy fitness practices in a place where people used idioms like “good gravy” on a regular basis.
She arched a brow at Madison. “You’re really leaning into the whole small-town thing, aren’t you?”
“What do you mean?” Madison blinked back at her, seemingly bewildered.
“Never mind.” Felicity made a mental note to start using similar, cutesy expressions. Maybe if she did, she’d finally start fitting in, and Madison would no longer be her sole yoga student. “Are you sure I look Christmassy enough? You know, in a nativity-scene-appropriate sort of way?”
“Absolutely.” Madison looked her up and down again before adjusting a fold in the white gown Felicity wore beneath the silky blue cape. “You make a gorgeous Mary. Joseph won’t be able to keep his eyes off you.”
Felicity’s face went warm. “That’s not what I meant and you know it.”
She wanted to look Christmassy, not gorgeous. If she’d learned one thing about Lovestruck so far, it was that people really got into Christmas around here. It was one of the main reasons she’d let Madison talk her into playing Mary in the living nativity scene to begin with.
The fact that local firefighter Wade Ericson—Lovestruck’s honorary patron saint of newborns—would be stepping into the part of Joseph was nowhere on her list of reasons to say yes. If anything, it was a deterrent.
Madison sighed. “You know every woman in a fifty-mile radius without a ring on her finger would kill to play Mary to Wade’s Joseph this year, don’t you?”
“With one notable exception,” Felicity said.
She loved her best friend. She really did, but this wasn’t the first time Madison had ventured dangerously close to matchmaking territory. Plus, she knew good and well that dozens of women, if not hundreds, would probably kill for the chance to dress up like Mary and spend a silent night, holy night with Wade Ericson and a handful of live farm animals in the town square. It reminded Felicity of that line from her favorite movie, The Devil Wears Prada—“A million girls would kill for this job.”
Well, guess what. Anne Hathaway wasn’t one of those girls, and neither was Felicity.
“Fine, I know you have a lot on your plate right now.” Madison held up her hands. “I just don’t get it. Jack and I were both sure we noticed serious sparks between the two of you at the wedding.”
“That was then.” Felicity swallowed around the lump in her throat that sprang out of nowhere every time the topic of conversation veered anywhere close to the vicinity of babies. Ugh, when was that going to stop? It had been six months already. Madison didn’t even know—no one in Lovestruck did. “And this is now.”
“I’m just going to nod like that makes sense,” Madison said.
“And that’s precisely what makes you a good friend.” Felicity spun around in her Mary robes and struck a ridiculous catwalk pose. Anything to change the subject. “Plus the fact that you’re a fashion genius.”
Madison laughed, and then her gaze snagged on something outside the front window of the empty yoga studio. “Speaking of Joseph-slash-Wade, he just pulled up to the curb. Are you two riding together?”
“Yes. The mayor didn’t want us walking the full length of Main Street in our costumes because she thought it would spoil the surprise of who got the Joseph and Mary roles, so she asked us to drive. But the parking lot is sure to be packed, so we’re carpooling.”
“Carpooling,” Madison echoed. “Kind of like sharing a donkey in Biblical times. You have to admit it’s sort of romantic.”
“You have got to stop,” Felicity said, even though her heartbeat kicked into high gear at the sight of Wade’s masculine profile behind the wheel of the LFD’s small utility vehicle.
Good gravy, he was handsome.
She swallowed hard. Listen to yourself. You’re actually starting to sound like a Vermonter.
On any other day, Felicity would have considered that a good thing. Alas, today wasn’t any other day. Today was the opening night of the Lovestruck living nativity scene, and she was about to spend hours pretending that she, Wade and their fake baby in a manger were a family. She was just about ready to call an Uber to take her back to Manhattan.
Why on earth did I agree to this?
“I should probably go before your Aunt Alice sends out a search party,” Felicity said.
Madison’s aunt owned the yarn store next door to the yoga studio and was as plugged in to Lovestruck’s social scene as she could be. She’d apparently been the city’s volunteer coordinator for the living nativity display for decades, which was the other major reason Felicity had agreed to participate. No one wanted to disappoint Aunt Alice.
“Jack and I are bringing the girls later, so keep an eye out for us!” Madison gave her a quick one-armed hug so as not to crush her costume and waved at Wade while Felicity locked up the yoga studio.
“Have fun.” Madison grinned and headed toward Main Street Yarn while Felicity’s face went warm again.
The awkward truth of the matter was that Madison and her husband were 100 percent correct. There had definitely been sparks between Felicity and Wade at the wedding last month—so many sparks that Felicity had been grateful for the dozen or so firefighters in attendance. In the back of her mind, she’d almost hoped that once she moved to Lovestruck, something would come of those sparks.
But moving day happened to fall on the morning after Wade delivered the baby and, well...
She couldn’t go there. Felicity’s new life in Lovestruck came with a strict anti-baby policy, even if those babies were on the periphery. It was a matter of self-preservation. The only exceptions were Emma and Ella, Jack and Madison’s twins, because she couldn’t exactly avoid her best friend’s stepdaughters. She could, however, avoid Wade Ericson and his baby-saving aura.
Except for now.
“Hey, Felicity.” Wade’s mouth curved into a lazy grin she felt down to the tips of her toes.
“Wade,” she said primly, and then frowned once she managed to drag her gaze away from his chiseled features and flirty dimples long enough to realize he wasn’t dressed in anything remotely resembling Biblical garb.
He was dressed in his regulation dark blue LFD T-shirt and cargo pants, which had the annoying effect of reminding Felicity that he was a bona fide hero. Equally annoying—the apparent firefighter fashion code that required the sleeves of his T-shirt to intimately hug every bulge of his rock-hard biceps. It was snowing, for heaven’s sake. Shouldn’t he be wearing a coat? Or better yet, a drab brown robe?
“Where’s your costume?” she blurted, feeling ridiculous all of a sudden in her virginal attire.
“It’s at the station. I got stuck on a call for a medical assist and came straight from the hospital.”
Of course you did, thought Felicity. She wondered if the medical assist involved an infant, but she didn’t dare ask.
“I didn’t want to be late picking you up.” He strode to the passenger’s side of the car in three easy strides and held the door open for her. “Do you mind if we swing by and get my costume on the way?”
“Sounds great.” She aimed for a beatific smile, but it quickly turned awkward as she tried to scoop miles and miles of blue silk into her arms so she could climb into the car.
So much for looking angelic.
Wade laughed, deliciously low. “Here, let me help.”
He gathered an armful of fabric trailing the ground behind her, and Felicity did her best not to stare. Why did a vision of herself as a bride and Wade helping her with the train of her Vera Wang suddenly flash in her mind? Good gravy, indeed.
“Here you go,” he said, gently placing the blue silk onto the seat of the car beside her. “All tucked in.”
Then he reached across her to fasten her seat belt, and Felicity didn’t dare breathe.
But it was too late. She could feel his warmth, and his swoony firefighter scent—reminiscent of a campfire under a snowy starlit sky—was already making her head spin.
Too close. Way too close.
She muttered a thank-you and closed her eyes until she heard the car door shut.
“Thank you, by the way,” Wade said as he climbed behind the wheel.
Felicity felt herself frown. “For what, exactly?”
“For not asking if my medical assist involved delivering another baby.”
At first Felicity thought it was a joke, but the serious set of his jaw told her otherwise. “Is all the attention getting to be too much?”
“Not exactly, it’s just...” Wade shook his head as they headed toward the firehouse at the far end of Main. “I don’t know. It’s not something I want to keep dwelling on, that’s all.”
“I understand,” she said, a little too quickly. “No baby talk tonight, I promise.”
He turned to smile at her, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes.
Interesting. Wade seemed different, for lack of a better word. Ordinarily, he was all easy charm and flirty banter. But, if he didn’t want to dwell on baby-related conversation, she was all for it.
“Here we are.” He shifted the vehicle into Park in front of the firehouse and glanced at Felicity’s costume filling up most of the space in the floorboard. Then his mouth hitched into a half grin that made him look much more like the old Wade who’d lowered her into an over-the-top dip on the dance floor at Jack and Madison’s reception. “Given your billowy robes, do you want to just stay here while I run in and change real quick?”
She nodded. “That would be a definite yes.”
“I’ll be Bethlehem-ready and back in a flash.” He winked, and it seemed to float deliciously through her.
How was she going to do this for the entire festival? Thank goodness there would soon be a number of live sheep between them to serve as a buffer.
She took a deep breath and toyed with the gold locket she always wore on a chain around her neck. Everything was going to be fine. The Joseph costume would probably work wonders in helping her forget about Wade’s biceps. But, just as she was beginning to feel the tiniest bit confident about the coming hours, a sharp rap on the car window caught her off guard.
She gasped, heart hammering. And when she swiveled her head to see who’d knocked on her window, her surprise crystalized into panic.
A young girl stood on the other side of the glass—she couldn’t have been more than fifteen or sixteen years old. She wore a long puffer coat that gave the impression of being part winter attire and part security blanket, and the pink knit hat on her head had a fuzzy pompon on top. It fluttered in the icy Vermont wind. But Felicity couldn’t seem to focus on anything but the bundle in the girl’s arms.
A baby.
The infant was so tiny, so delicate. It looked like a newborn. What was a baby this fragile doing out in the cold?
Felicity fumbled with the controls but couldn’t get the window open, so she opened the car door and tumbled outside in a pile of blue silk. Only then did she notice the tears streaming down the teenager’s face.
“Are you okay?” Felicity asked, and a terrible fear began to swirl low in her belly.
Please don’t let this be what I think it is.
The girl sniffed. “I need you to take my baby.”
Felicity swallowed hard, panic beating its frantic wings against her rib cage. She’d heard of this kind of thing before—the Safe Haven law, which allowed parents who were unable to care for their children to anonymously leave them at a designated place like a hospital or police station.
Or firehouse, she thought, glancing at the building where Wade had just vanished inside. Her gaze darted to the apparatus bay, hoping against hope that another firefighter would notice what was happening and come rushing to her aid. But the bay was empty, and then she remembered that the fire department was always a big part of the Christmas festival. They were probably all already down at the town square, passing out candy canes from atop fire engines wrapped in twinkle lights.
“Um, why don’t you let me go get someone to help you?” Felicity said, trying her best to calm the tremor in her voice. The girl seemed frightened to death. “There’s a fireman right inside. I’m sure he’ll know what to do.”
“No! No way. He might recognize me. Google said I could leave the baby here and someone could adopt him and give him a real home. I don’t even have to leave my name.” The girl waved a hand at Felicity’s costume. “And look at you. You’re the Virgin Mary, right? It’s like a sign.”
It wasn’t. It couldn’t be, but the girl seemed so desperate, and Felicity was beginning to worry about what might happen if she didn’t take the baby. “I want to help you. I do. Please just let me get a firefighter...”
The girl thrust the whimpering infant toward Felicity. “Please. I would’ve just dropped the baby off at the doorstep, but I didn’t want to leave him alone in the cold. Please just take him and give him to the fireman.”
Leave the baby out in the cold?
Just the mention of that dangerous possibility had Felicity reaching for the child and holding him tight against her chest. He mewed like a kitten, so tiny, so fragile, and at that very first contact with his soft little body, time seemed to stop. The snowflakes drifting down from above danced in aching slow motion. The sounds of the Christmas festival down the street faded into background noise. All Felicity seemed to hear was the infant’s tiny puffs of breath and the beat of his sad little heart, crashing wildly against hers. She felt herself start to shiver, and she knew without a doubt it had nothing to do with the cold.
Felicity took a deep breath as her mothering instincts came back in full force. Muscle memory was a wondrous thing—as much as she wanted to resist the sweet, unfortunate child, she knew just how to hold him to warm his chilled little body. He stopped whimpering and burrowed into her embrace. She bit down hard on her bottom lip to keep herself from crying.
Hold it together.
“Are you sure you don’t want to leave your name, in case you change your...” Felicity looked up, and her voice fell away.
The girl was already gone. She’d left nothing behind with her newborn child except a trail of scattered footprints in the snow.
“It’s okay,” Felicity whispered against the baby’s downy head. “Everything is going to be okay.”
But she wasn’t altogether sure if she was talking to the baby or to herself. She rocked back and forth in an effort to soothe them both, and when Wade called her name, the sound was like music to her ears—the sweetest Christmas carol she’d ever heard.
“Felicity?” He stopped dead in his tracks, his brown robes whipping in the wind as every last bit of color drained from his face. “Is that...”
She nodded, and hot tears spilled down her cheeks. “A baby.”
A Christmas child.
