Take Me Back Read online

  “What? She’s going to move here? Be a firefighter here again?”

  “That’s what she told me.”

  “This isn’t good for our relationship, Rafe.”

  I know. He crossed to Melanie and took her in his arms. “We don’t have to let her interfere with us, no matter how much she’s around.” He kissed her hair. “But I will be seeing Tommy.”

  “I suppose you have to,” she mumbled into his chest. “But don’t forget about me.”

  “I won’t do that.”

  And he meant it. Despite the shock and sadness plaguing him, he wasn’t giving Kate Cassidy another chance with his heart because six years ago, she’d shattered it into pieces that never really fit back together.

  o0o

  “You’re all seasoned firefighters, except you, Lane, but I want you to know this task is going to be tough no matter how long you’ve been on the job.” He pointed to the long cylindrical pipe, about three feet wide and high that sat on the floor of the firehouse bay. “I still sweat when I’m in there.”

  “We did this drill at my old house,” Lieutenant Beth Bronson added, leaning against the rig off to right. She was a top-notch firefighter and officer. “Everybody hated it every time.”

  “Ours, too,” Luke Ruggero grumbled. Luke, too, was a good firefighter, especially in determining quick egress from a burning building. “It took me a long time to conquer it.”

  Firefighter Tim Murray shuffled from one foot to the other. “I, um, still haven’t.” A six-year veteran of the fire department, he’d recently made it onto Rescue Squad 2, an elite squad that went to all fires in West Hidden Cove to do a variety of tasks.

  Eric Ernst shook his head. “It’s times like these I wish I wasn’t a paramedic. I know everything all too well what’s going to happen to my body.”

  Brick, a testament to his name, was as strong as a bull. He leaned against the wall and didn’t comment.

  Lane bit her lip. “God, what happens?” She was finishing her rookie year in the department and was taking a three-month rotation on the squad. Sometimes a rookie showed an uncanny ability for the work. But Rafe was unsure if she’d ever make a squad like his, she was so goddamn skittish.

  Rafe nodded. “Go ahead, tell her.”

  They took turns.

  Bronson: “The pipe’s disinfected but that doesn’t mask the iron smell. It seeps into your skin and you can’t get it out for days. Your pretty skin is going to stink, Lane.”

  Brick: “The space is like a freakin’ tunnel. Smothering. You feel like you’re buried alive.”

  Ruggero: “You’ll get a coppery taste in your mouth. It’ll make you gag. Maybe even puke.”

  Murray: “I pass.”

  Bronson again: “Your stomach twists like a knot. Ten times worse than menstrual cramps.”

  As the comments were made, Lane’s face gradually turned paler and at the end she rushed out of the room.

  Rafe called out, “Street, come back here.”

  Rookies always got nicknames. The guys branded her Street when she came on the group because her name, Lorelei Lane, sounded like a road.

  Sighing, Rafe scanned the rest of them. “You know what? I made the wrong decision. I shouldn’t have let you guys get so graphic.”

  All but Murray smirked. He said, “I can go after her.”

  Rafe had noted he was friends with Lane. “Go ahead.”

  The others chimed in with, “We will, too,” and “I’m worried about her.”

  “No way. You’re doing this drill. Now.”

  They gathered closer around the pipe. And Rafe gave instructions. “First, remember if you don’t get all the way through it’s okay. We’ll work on it in subsequent practices.”

  Ernst straightened. “I’ll go.” His was medium height, shoulders the span of about two feet.

  Rafe pointed to an opening. “Bronson, cover that end with the curtain. I’ll do this end.” The pipe had to be dark, with absolutely no light getting in. Firefighters routinely worked in the dark, but this drill was for situations when they got trapped in tight spaces on stairways, in basements and in closets.

  Ernst dropped to his knees. He edged his shoulders inside. Then his torso. Finally, his feet disappeared. Bronson put the curtain down. Rafe did the same at the other end, then yelled, “Come on Eric, you can do it.”

  A minute later, Bronson yelled, “Keep it up, buddy. Good job.” She knew, as an officer, how to facilitate success.

  When Eric’s head popped through the curtain on Rafe’s end, everybody chuckled. His stylishly cut hair was dripping wet.

  “Wait till your women see you like this, Ernst,” Ruggero teased. “They’ll bolt like Lorelei did.”

  Everyone took their turns, including Rafe. He, Ernst and Bronson were successful. Surprisingly, Brick didn’t make it through. A big bulk of a man, he’d been in the department for twenty years and was the only one who knew Kate personally. Shit, Rafe didn’t want her popping up in his mind, had successfully blocked thoughts of her since he got to the firehouse.

  When Murray came back, he was frowning. “She’s in bed. She barfed a lot, so I told her to sleep some.”

  Rafe gripped his clipboard. “We all know she’s more sensitive than most rookies. She may not make it because of that. We won’t treat her any different from any of the other firefighters, but we will not push her out. Like I said, I went too far today. Got it?” He scanned them and each person nodded.

  He made Murray do the drill, too, and the guy made it halfway. When he backed out, he said, “I made it longer than before.” No one told him that backing out was the same distance and length in the pipe as finishing. Fear wasn’t rational. Something Kate had told him last night.

  “Let’s share what made you successful, or unsuccessful.”

  “I couldn’t stand the closeness of the walls.” This from Murray.

  Eric smiled. “I kept picturing something pleasant to make it all the way through.”

  “Do we dare ask what?” Ruggero grumbled. Sometimes, Ernst grated on him.

  “Enough. You all did well, even if you didn’t make it. There’s apple pie and ice cream in the fridge and oven. Go get some.”

  “Is it your mama’s, Rafe?” Murray asked.

  “You betcha, so save some for me.”

  Everyone left the bay and walked into the firehouse. Except Beth, who approached Rafe. He’d worked with her for two years. She had come to know him well, probably because she was an officer too.

  “You okay, Rafe?”

  He wasn’t. He kept thinking about Kate, and his son. “No.”

  “I suspected something was wrong when you let us tell Lane all that crap.”

  He kicked the concrete wall of the bay then turned to her. “My ex-fiancée, who abandoned me six years ago, weeks before the wedding, came back to town.

  “Wow.”

  “That’s not all. She had my son with her.”

  “Oh, Rafe.”

  He walked to the rig and leaned against the cold steel. “I can’t believe it, Beth. My son.” His voice broke on the word son. “She kept him from me for five years.”

  “You must be furious.”

  “I am. I didn’t think she could hurt me anymore than she did when she left. But this…this…makes me sick to my stomach when I think about what I missed. All this time…”

  “You can make up for lost time now.”

  “In some ways, I can. And in some ways, I can never make up for not being around in Tommy’s formative years. I don’t know if I can ever forgive her for that.

  o0o

  Rafe had called each of his siblings to give them the bare bones of Kate’s return. And that he had a son. So, later in the day, he was surprised to see his brother Seth walk in the door of the firehouse. Rafe came out of his office into the corridor. “Hey, buddy, is anything wrong?”

  “Nothing like you mean. I just have to talk to you.”

  The youngest of the four Casella siblings, at twenty-ni
ne, Seth had a wide-eyed innocence about him and had chosen to work at Legal Aid when he finished law school three years ago.

  “Come into my office. Should I close the door?”

  “Yeah.”

  Rafe moved a stack of folders from a chair to the top of one of the filing cabinets and when they were seated, Seth held his gaze. “I was stunned last night when you told me about Kate. Hurt and confused, too. But today, I’m focused on the boy with her.”

  “You mean my son.”

  “Rafe, you have no proof of that.”

  He frowned. “He looks like Alessia and me.”

  Both his brothers had the same Northern Italian looks—lighter hair and blue eyes. He and Ali sported dark hair and dark eyes.

  “Your looks aren’t that rare. You only have Kate’s word that he’s yours.”

  “I-I-” He was at a loss for words. “She wouldn’t do that to me.”

  “She might be desperate.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Seth came to the edge of his seat. “Her new husband died, you said. Maybe she can’t afford to work, pay daycare, support herself and the boy.”

  “You don’t know her like I do, Seth. She’s fiercely independent.”

  “That might have been true six years ago, but you don’t know the woman who’s been away for so long.”

  “Why are you telling me all this, Seth?”

  “Because, as a lawyer, I want you to get a DNA test before you get too close to the kid.”

  “A paternity test?”

  “Yes.”

  “Whew!” Rafe stood and opened the rectangular window on the far wall. A warm April breezed flowed in. He turned to his brother. “I don’t know about getting that test.”

  “What do you have to lose by doing it?”

  “Kate’s trust, I guess.”

  “You’ll tell her what you’re planning, so you won’t be going behind her back. You need a sample from Tommy, anyway.”

  Rafe stared over Seth’s shoulder at a corkboard covered with memos and notes. “I’ll think about it.”

  Seth drew something out of the side pack he carried. Gideon teased him that it was his man-purse, but Seth laughed the remark off. “I pulled these documents for you. Getting a DNA test is easy. We do this all the time at Legal Aid. Follow the directions.”

  Rafe didn’t take the papers from his brother.

  “All right. Tell Kate, then get a swab from Tommy’s mouth. Bring it to me, we’ll take a swab of your mouth, then I’ll do the rest.”

  Rafe took the papers. “Hell, Seth. This makes me even crazier than yesterday.”

  “I figured it would and I’m sorry. You know how much I love you, right?”

  “Of course.”

  “I’m only doing this for your own good.”

  “You sound like Dad when he punished us.”

  Seth smiled.

  “But I trust you. I’ll think about it.”

  Chapter 2

  The day after Kate arrived in Hidden Cove, she sat out on the Malvaso’s brick patio with Megan. Before them spread out a huge yard, big old trees and playsets and sandbox toys. Meg was married to the fire chief, and they lived in the house where he’d grown up. The two of them meant more to her than anybody except Rafe and Tommy.

  “Still thinking about yesterday?” Megan asked. Kate had filled them both in on the disastrous encounter with Rafe when she’d come back from his house.

  “Um, yeah. I felt battered emotionally. And I dreamed about him last night. In it, he forgave me and totally embraced his son.”

  “You told us he wanted to be in Tommy’s life.”

  “He said he did. But you know Rafe. He gets that dark expression on his face and doesn’t let anybody know what he’s feeling.”

  Kate used to hate that…

  “Stop doing this with me, Rafe. I know you’re mad but you have to share.”

  “Yeah, like you share everything.”

  Her face fell. “I shared what I could. Some things I can’t say out loud.” She wouldn’t get teary-eyed over what happened to her in the past, but emotion welled inside her.

  He saw it and caved. “I’m sorry, babe. I know where your head is. And I know I close down sometimes. I’ll be better.”

  Nosing into his big broad chest, that always smelled like the outdoors, she whispered, “Maybe someday I can…”

  But in the five years they were together, she never did reveal the worst.

  “Kate, where’d you go?” Megan asked.

  “Into the past.”

  “Stay in the present, honey.”

  “You told me that when I was fifteen and you arrested me.” Beat cop Megan Hale had picked her up for drunk and disorderly and mentored her into a sane life. Megan didn’t get to her before she’d experienced the horror of the streets of New York, but afterward, got her into a shelter, and then settled into an apartment. At eighteen, she got into a two- year college.

  “It’s still good advice.”

  Tommy came out onto the patio. He had his pajamas on inside out and wore no shoes or socks. “Mommy.” He hugged her then stood back.

  “Good morning, sweetie. How’d you sleep?”

  “Great. I like the big bed.”

  Meg said, “Hey, Tommy.”

  He eased closer to Kate, shy now. “Hi.”

  Kate pulled him on her lap. “What do you want to do today?”

  He frowned. It’s was Rafe’s frown. Living with that expression for the last few years just about killed her. “Can I see that guy from yesterday?”

  “He’s your daddy, Tommy.”

  “Yeah, him.”

  “I’m afraid he’s working today.”

  “Can he come after work?”

  “I can call him.” Mitch had given her Rafe’s schedule and his cell number.

  “’kay.”

  “Are you hungry?”

  “Did you bring my favorite cereal?”

  “Uh, huh. Let’s go inside.”

  Tommy ran ahead of her. Megan reached over and grabbed Kate’s hand. “It’s going to be tough, but this is what you want, right? Contact with Rafe?”

  “Yeah, I wish seeing him yesterday hadn’t hurt so much.”

  o0o

  As if yesterday wasn’t enough to make his head spin, Kate had called Rafe this morning and told her Tommy wanted to see him after work. His heart leapt at the sound of her voice, and at the knowledge that his son sought contact, then it crashed into the gutter when he remembered how she left him, how she’d kept the boy from him.

  Now, at four, he sat in the main conference room at the fire academy, waiting for the chief of the fire department. The man who was harboring Kate. The space held large windows that let in the light, and now smelled faintly of the coffee on a sideboard provided for all.

  Mitch strode in carrying some files. His dark eyes were full of worry. “Sorry I’m late. The mayor called.”

  No more explanation needed. The mayor controlled their budget.

  “She’s part of the reason you’re here.” Mitch took a seat they’d left open for him at the head of the big oak oval table. “As you can see if you look around, I asked reps from each firehouse in the city to attend. Once I explain what’s happened, I’m going to form a committee consisting of all here who are willing to work on this project. Then we’ll form subcommittees and meet in the larger group.” He cleared his throat. “But first, I need to hear agreement to keep this private. None of what we’re doing can be discussed outside of this room. Let me see a show of hands to that effect.”

  Everyone raised their hands.

  “That’s cryptic.” Zach Malvaso, Mitch’s brother spoke out first.

  “I’m not trying to be mysterious, Zach. Let me explain. The mayor informed me a few days ago that there’s a push for Hidden Cove to consolidate with five local districts.”

  “Which towns?” This from Grady O’Connor, Mitch’s brother-in-law, a lieutenant and a paramedic.

  “Camden C
ove, Brookdale, Jackson Inlet, Wilmington and Ellenville.”

  Stunned silence. For a long time. Then Lucy Coretta, an experienced firefighter who was on maternity leave, said, “That’ll cause a lot of upheaval.”

  “You can’t fight city hall,” a battalion chief, Abe Rehnquist commented. “Consolidations are the new budget slicer.”

  One captain asked, “Who’s behind this?”

  “Our town council, headed by our newly elected mayor, along with the town councils of the other districts. As Abe said, it’s all about money.”

  “Sure, they’ll save by cutting out from our ranks.” This from Ben Gianni, the head of the HCFD union, a very powerful entity. “They’ll be able to manage with fewer firefighters.”

  “How far along are they?” Rafe asked.

  “At the beginning stages. Mayor Daniels said Hidden Cove will be doing the analysis because we’re the biggest department. Which is why you’re here. We need facts and information. So, if you’re onboard, each of you is getting homework. My staff and I have narrowed the research down to these areas: the consolidation effects on service quality, meaning what’s sacrificed when departments combine; benefits and pay to all firefighters; management issues; and what happens to fire departments during the process of consolidation, which takes about five years, and also what happens long term.

  Grumbles around the room. Life would be very different if they did this kind of reorganization.

  “Here are your assignments and who you’ll be working with on subcommittees.”

  As the papers circulated, Rafe checked his watch. It was five. He was supposed to pick up Tommy at six. Suddenly the thought of his son lightened his mood, despite the fact that he’d have to face Kate again.

  o0o

  “No, honey, you wait on the porch. I’ll be right inside.” Kate and Tommy sat on the living room couch, near the front door.

  He stomped his foot. “No.”

  Frustrated, Kate raked her hair back. “You wanted to see your daddy.”