After spending another hour as close to the fire as he could safely get, he headed to his truck to grab a drink of water.
Fire Chief Henry Rodriguez stepped up beside him. “Your shift is over, Benfield.”
Mason shook his head. “We don’t keep to our regular shifts during something like this.”
The chief raised a bushy eyebrow. “Let me rephrase that. You need a break.”
Mason twisted the cap off his water bottle. Men with families needed breaks. No one was waiting for him at home—not anymore. Unless he counted Clara and Rick, who treated him like a son and always set an extra place at the dinner table on the chance that he’d make it in time.
The chief held up a hand. “It’s not up for discussion. Get out of here.”
Mason frowned. There was no arguing with his chief. He got inside his truck and drove to the Teen Center for a quick minute, then headed to the Carlyles’ house. He was late for dinner, but at least he’d made it.
So had someone else, he noticed, seeing the unfamiliar gold sedan in the driveway. Clara was always caring for someone. It’s what she did best. He wasn’t a man who usually liked to be doted on, but Clara made it feel like he was doing her a favor when he let her.
Walking up the porch steps on the side of the house, he noticed a pair of woman’s shoes. They were smaller than Clara’s. More feminine. As Mason removed his own boots, something inside his gut rang out like a fire alarm detecting smoke. He suddenly had an uneasy feeling he knew exactly who Clara had invited for dinner tonight.
Mason shouldn’t have been surprised. Helping people was what Clara did. That’s how he’d come to live here. He entered the house as Clara set a steaming serving dish in the middle of the dining room’s table.
“Oh, Mason! I thought you said you wouldn’t make it tonight.” She hurried over to hug him. “This is wonderful.” She pulled away and gestured at the redhead standing shyly in the corner of the room. Mason recognized her from earlier in the morning, although she’d been unconscious at the time. “Look who else is joining us for dinner,” Clara said.
Mason nodded. “I didn’t expect to see you out of the hospital so soon,” he said to the woman.
“Well, expect to see a whole lot more of Lexie. She’ll be staying in the guest room here while her neighborhood is under evacuation,” Clara told him. “And—” Clara clasped her hands in front of her chest excitedly “—Lexie is also going to be working with the teens in Carolina Shores! Isn’t that wonderful?”
Mason stiffened. He was fiercely protective of the teens in this area, and he didn’t know much about this woman, Lexie. The things he did know, however, led him to believe she was impulsive, foolish and not a person he intended to let the local teens have as a role model. Not on his watch.
Lexie met the man’s gaze. “Thank you for rescuing me this morning.” She offered her hand to the dirt-smudged fireman in front of her. He shook it, and just that simple touch made her knees weaken. She’d always thought weak knees at the sight of a man were a myth. She was a medical professional and there was no good reason for knees to go weak just because...
Because when God designed this one, He’d tailored him with every trait she’d ever found attractive in the opposite sex.
She averted her gaze, hoping to steady her pulse.
“Nice to meet you under better circumstances,” he said in a deep voice with just a hint of Southern drawl.
“I don’t know what I would’ve done if you hadn’t driven by.”
“God put Mason in the right place at the right time.” Clara turned to her husband, Rick, who had slipped into the room and was now seated quietly at the head of the table. “We can wait a few minutes, right?” She gestured to Mason. “A man deserves to be clean while he eats. Especially one who’s worked so hard helping others today.”
“Indeed.” Rick nodded. “Of course we’ll wait.”
Clara made a shooing motion at Mason. “Go, go. When you come back we’ll eat and get to know our new houseguest.”
Mason frowned, glancing over at Lexie. She felt exactly the same way that he appeared to. Not that she didn’t like Mason—he seemed nice enough—but she’d embarrassed herself with him this morning.
“Go on and clean up before the food gets cold,” Clara told him. “We’ll be waiting.”
With a sideways glance at Lexie again, neither smiling nor frowning anymore, Mason disappeared down the hallway. Lexie stared after him. He was the tenant who lived here with Clara and Rick? The man she’d hoped to avoid for the rest of the summer?
She took a seat at the kitchen table and resisted any negative thinking. She’d kept her spirits up all day despite running toward wildfires and landing herself in the hospital. Living next door to a man she’d hoped to avoid the rest of the summer really wasn’t that big of a deal.
A few minutes later, Mason reappeared, clean-faced and dressed in a T-shirt and pair of jeans. He sat at the table across from her and just the close proximity made her blood pressure rise. Her heart bounced around nervously in her chest. Lexie tried to focus on Clara and Rick instead of the man in front of her. Tried and failed.
“Let’s pray.” Clara turned to Rick. She extended her hand to him and to Mason on her other side. Mason took her hand and then reached for Lexie’s.
Lexie swallowed, completing the chain by taking Rick’s hand on her left and Mason’s on her right.
Rick bowed his head. “Heavenly Father, thank You for the food You’ve provided for us,” he said. “We know that You are our source. Thank You for these friends and family, old and new,” he said, referring to Lexie. Then he prayed for the safety of the town and the firemen as the forest fire raged a few miles away. “Keep us all safe, Lord. You are our protector. In Jesus’s almighty name we pray.”
Everyone around the table said, “Amen.”
Then Clara started to pass the serving bowls to the right.
“She does this every night,” Mason said, serving himself several slices of honey-coated ham.
“And he rarely misses a dinner. Not unless there’s an emergency. Or it’s his night at the Teen Center.” Clara smiled proudly at him, just as she probably would for her own sons if she had any. Lexie didn’t see any pictures of children in the house, though, so she gathered that the older couple didn’t. “You work at the Teen Center, too?” she asked.
“Oh, Mason runs the place, dear.” Clara beamed.
“And I don’t recall okaying any new volunteers lately,” he said, lifting his gaze to meet hers.
Lexie swallowed. There was a hard tone to his voice that made her uneasy. “Dr. Marcus okayed it with you.”
“You work with Dr. Marcus?” he asked.
Lexie got the distinct impression that Mason wasn’t thrilled with her involvement. “Yes. I’m the new doctor who will be assisting him at the free health clinic.”
She tried to smile. She was happy to be able to officially call herself a doctor. “I just passed my boards. Dr. Marcus was a professor of mine in medical school. He asked me to come to Carolina Shores and help him. He says there’s a big need for medical care here.”
“Oh, there is,” Clara agreed, between bites.
“Good medical care,” Mason said, his posture growing stonier by the second.
Was he implying that she wasn’t good at what she did?
Lexie