Sloane paled for an instant, then shot to her feet, two spots of color burning high on her cheekbones. “This equipment is going to get qualified, no matter what it takes. I don’t give a damn if I’m a tool or a pawn or whatever the hell you think I am if it means that I save one person’s life, just one.” Her voice rose in fury. “And you are not going to stand in my way.”
They faced each other, inches apart, crackling with tension. Something kinetic surged through the air between them then, something elemental that had nothing to do with firefighting and everything to do with heat.
Sloane moved away first, because she had to, because she felt the shudder of weakness in the wall of anger surrounding her. “Where’s your telephone?” she demanded. “You don’t want to do this, Captain Trask? I’ll save you the trouble. Forget about wasting your time, testing with you would be a waste of my time.” She crossed to his desk and snatched up the telephone receiver. “Where’s the number for the fire chief’s office?”
He studied her a moment, his brows drawn together in a frown of concentration. Then he plucked the receiver from her hand. “I’ll dial it for you.” He punched in the numbers rapidly and waited. “Bill Grant please. Yes, I’ll hold.” He handed the receiver back without a word.
Sloane waited, listening to Nick stalk out into the hallway. There was a click on the line, then a voice. “Bill Grant here.”
“Hi Bill, it’s Sloane Hillyard.”
“Sloane, good to talk to you.” The words were ever so slightly shaded with relief. “You have perfect timing. I was just trying to reach you.”
“Well, you’ve got me now. What do you need?”
“Can you hold off contacting Ladder 67 for a day? We had a little paperwork snafu here and the memo that should have gone to them is still sitting here in my office. Give me a day to get everything set up with them and we can go ahead.”
Sloane glanced out toward the hall and found her gaze pinned to Nick Trask’s. He was yards away, but she felt a clutch on her chest as sure as a physical contact. The breath of a shiver that passed up her spine was composed partly of anxiety, partly of feelings she was afraid to identify. She tore her eyes away and turned back to the desk. “Too late, Bill. I’m calling you from the firehouse.”
“Oh.” He paused for a moment and Sloane heard the rapid, nervous tap of a finger against the phone, maybe, or the desk. “Um, is everything okay?”
“Not exactly. In fact, after talking with Captain Trask, I think it would be best for me to work with a different company.”
“Let’s not be hasty, Sloane. Nick Trask’s one of the best men we’ve got.” Now she heard all four fingers begin to drum the desktop in sequence. “If there’s any hitch here, it’s my fault. Why don’t you let me talk to him and see what the problem is?”
The problem, thought Sloane, was that she didn’t want to be anywhere near Nick Trask, certainly not for a period of weeks. “All right.” She turned to Nick. “It’s for you.”
Sloane walked out into the hall where she could finally breathe. The testing couldn’t be interrupted. Everything depended on getting the gear qualified. Everything.
After a moment, she looked around. To her left was the stairway that ran down to the apparatus floor. To her right, the hall ended in a T, with the dormitory on one side and probably a kitchen and rec room on the other. Without even trying she could picture the latter—worn, comfortable furniture, a TV and VCR, probably some back issues of Fire Engineering magazine tossed down on a table. Before she could block it, the image of a lanky, boyish-faced redhead sprawled on a firehouse couch came to her with painful clarity. Oh Mitch, she thought and grief and loss surged in for a blinding instant.
“Ms. Hillyard,” Nick’s voice called to her. “Grant wants to talk with you again.”
She responded automatically, entering the office, reaching for the phone. “Yes?”
“Hi, Sloane,” Grant answered cheerily. “I just wanted to apologize for the mixup over there. I’ve discussed the situation with Nick and he’ll be happy to work with you on this project.” Sloane glanced over to where Nick stood, staring at her again. Oh, she could see how happy he was about the project. “It’s up to you, of course,” Grant continued, “but it’s really best. It could take quite a while to get another company lined up.”
Sloane bit back a protest. Grant had her neatly cornered. The testing had to be finished in two months, when production was scheduled to begin. There could be no delays and he knew it. Sloane sighed. “All right. Let’s stick with the plan.”
“Wonderful.” She could hear the satisfaction in Grant’s voice. “If you have any more hitches with the testing, just give me a ring and I’ll take care of things, okay?”
“Sure. Anything else?”
“Actually, yes. Can you put Nick back on?”
The clamor of the alarm bells shattered the quiet of the firehouse. Sloane couldn’t prevent herself from jumping.
Nick was galvanized into action instantly. “Tell him I’ll call him back,” he barked over his shoulder, sprinting for the fire pole in the dormitory.
“He’s got…”
“I know, an explosion at the oil-tank farm. It just came in here. Sloane, thanks very much.” Grant’s voice was hurried as he said goodbye.
The previous atmosphere of calm had been replaced by one of controlled urgency, the air charged with tension. Even as Sloane rushed down the stairs, most of the men were on the apparatus floor pulling on turnouts, grabbing waiting helmets and gloves. A stocky firefighter turned away from the enormous district map that covered one wall and climbed into the cab of Ladder 67. “I got it, cap. Let’s fly.”
Sloane hurried to get clear as the last of the men vaulted aboard the gleaming apparatus. Already the motors throbbed, the station door was peeled back. She slipped outside as the ladder truck and the pumper hit the street, lights flashing and sirens shrieking.
The firefighters were on their way.
Chapter Two
If he ever won the lottery, Nick thought, he’d hire people to shop for him. Not just certain kinds of shopping—pretty much anything that involved cash registers and standing in line. Certainly anything with narrow aisles and those shiny chrome racks crammed so close together that he was perpetually bumping them with his shoulders.
“Can I help you?”
A teenaged sales clerk popped up at his elbow. The fixed, Mouseketeer smile on her face scared him a little. On the other hand, having to spend more than two more minutes in the boutique scared him more.
He looked at the piles of silky scarves and fancy handbags. “I need a birthday gift for my mother.”
“Well, you’ve come to the right place. How about something to add a little color to her winter wardrobe?” she asked, holding up a sheer band of fabric with a twisting pattern of burgundy and gold.
The dark red brought Sloane Hillyard to mind. Not that he needed a prompt. She’d been in his thoughts since she’d come to the station two days before. Granted, she had a face that was hard to forget, but if it had only been that, he could have dismissed her as a high-tech huckster. What had made her linger with him was the way she’d looked at the end. There had been that instant that she’d paled. And the words, so impassioned she’d practically vibrated with them: If I save one life, just one life…
There was something driving her, that much was obvious. He couldn’t