All around them, other classes poured out of the building, some well controlled and others as chaotic as Dinah’s had been. Some classes had stopped to grab jackets, but most of the students were shivering and fidgeting to keep warm. High-pitched voices chatted about the supposed causes of a fire and the amount of time until recess.
Dinah scanned down the names in her grade book—from Austin Carlyle to Lily Polson to Kellan Stolz. As always she felt a twinge of nervousness until she’d made certain that all of her students stood with her on terra firma.
When her gaze fell to Chelsea White’s name, she looked back to the fire engines. Though all four trucks were still parked in front of the school, most of the firefighters remained inside them. Was Alex Donovan one of the men in the truck, or maybe one of those still in the building? Not that she really cared or anything. She was only curious, and he happened to be the only firefighter she knew in Chestnut Grove.
Still, her cheeks and neck warmed at the thought of him, an unfortunate reaction she’d experienced too frequently these last few days, even more problematic since she thought of him so often.
Dinah shrugged. No matter what she thought and even no matter that they’d made a connection of sorts in their first meeting, the handsome firefighter would probably lose interest the minute he discovered from which branch of the Fraser family tree she’d sprung.
The alarm stopped blaring as suddenly as it had started. Another false alarm. There had already been three since school started. Someone had probably pulled it again and was standing out here, just as cold and miserable as everyone else but now holding a secret, too.
For the next few minutes, they all stood shivering and waiting for the bell that would signal their permission to return to the building. Dinah was so focused on the school entrance as she waited for the firefighters to exit through it that she didn’t notice the other firefighter who approached from behind her and touched her sweater-clad arm.
“Hey there, Miss Fraser.”
She didn’t need to see his face to know who was there. His familiar voice felt like a warm caress sliding up her neck, and her arm tingled where he’d touched it. The sensation surprised her because she’d thought her skin was too numb to feel anything.
Still, when she turned to face him, she did her best to appear surprised. Already a large man, Alex appeared massive wearing bunker pants and a cumbersome tan jacket with reflective bands on its chest, bottom edge and sleeves. He must have left his helmet in the truck.
“Oh, Mr. Donovan, it’s good to see you again.” She cleared her throat. “I mean…well, the circumstances aren’t the best, but—”
“I know what you mean.”
She smiled, grateful he’d saved her from whatever inane thing she would have said if she’d had time to come up with one. “Sorry about the false alarm.”
“Yeah, me, too.”
“We’ve had a few lately.”
His nod and his frown combined. “It’s unfortunate and not just because it’s illegal to trigger a false alarm. If you have a lot of false alarms, people begin to not take them seriously.”
It was Dinah’s turn to frown. She’d worried about that exact thing. “You don’t mean…”
He shook his head as he must have picked up on her meaning. “No, the fire department responds every time as though it’s a real emergency. Even to those locations where there’s a bad track record.”
Dinah grimaced. Her school certainly had one of those.
But instead of criticizing as he had every right to, Alex waved away the situation as water under the bridge.
“What can you do?” he said with a sigh as he scanned the rows of students. “Since I was here anyway, I thought I would come over and say hello to my best girl.”
Dinah swallowed hard, and her neck tingled before she had the chance to really process what he’d said. Best girl? Did guys in the New Millennium still use an old term like that? Maybe they did when they were referring to a child who looked up to them with adoration in her huge, light brown eyes.
Chelsea was doing just that when Dinah caught the tiny blonde’s approach in her side vision. The child’s cap of straight, chin-length hair blew every which way, and her long-sleeved T-shirt probably wasn’t keeping her warm, but Chelsea still grinned like a child on Christmas morning as she stared at her hero.
Best girl. Of course. It humiliated Dinah to admit that, just for a second, she’d wished Alex had been talking about her. Who could blame the little girl for some hero adoration over Alex when Dinah had a mild case of that herself, and she was nowhere near a child.
“Hi, Uncle Alex,” Chelsea said almost shyly as she stepped closer to him.
“Get over here, you goofy kid.” Alex bent at the waist and held his hands wide.
That wouldn’t have been Dinah’s choice for what to say to a child, but the petite nine-year-old grinned and ran into his arms. So much for what she knew.
“Did you come here to put out the fire?” Chelsea asked him when she pulled back.
“There’s no fire. It’s a false alarm.”
“Oh.” The child stared back at the building and nodded as if just realizing that it wouldn’t be burning to the ground today.
“But you should always react to an alarm as if there could be a real fire,” he reminded her.
“Okay.”
Dinah couldn’t help but smile at that. Alex was so worried about being an inadequate guardian, and already Chelsea accepted his direction without question. Sometimes she would have given anything to have that kind of authority in the classroom.
“What are you smiling about?”
Alex lifted an eyebrow when Dinah turned after hearing his question. His bare hands must have been cold because he stuffed them in the pockets of his jacket.
When he might have looked away, he continued to watch her. His intelligent eyes seemed to see right through her, to recognize the loneliness in her that she’d always tried to hide. She wasn’t used to feeling this exposed, and yet for the life of her, she couldn’t look away.
If not for the bell that rang, signaling the all clear and making her leap back at least four inches, she might have gone right on staring back at him. Alex seemed to look away reluctantly, as well.
As if they both remembered where they were at the same time, Alex and Dinah glanced down at Chelsea. The two of them hadn’t been the only ones staring the last few minutes, and the child’s knowing smile hinted at just what she’d seen. Chelsea looked back and forth between them, her smile widening. If Alex really had been able to look into Dinah’s eyes and sense her thoughts, maybe Chelsea shared that family trait.
Dinah cleared her throat and turned to the rest of the class. “Okay, everyone. It’s time to go back inside. Please keep quiet and stay in line until we reach the classroom.”
“Well, I’d better get back to the truck. See you tonight, kiddo.” Alex gave Chelsea one last hug.
“Good seeing you, Mr. Donovan.”
Dinah started forward, putting on an air of nonchalance that she hoped Alex would buy. She couldn’t remember ever being around a man who put her nerve endings on alert the way he did. Her palms were so damp that she would be embarrassed if one of her students took her hand on the way inside the building. Despite her best resistance, she glanced over her shoulder at Alex, hoping he wouldn’t catch her.
He did, and he smiled and waved. “Goodbye, Miss Fraser. Tell Reverend Fraser I said