April Embers_A Second Chance Single Daddy Firefighter Romance Read online

  That family included Haley. We weren’t madly in love with each other or anything like that, but we were both united by a common interest, our daughter.

  At least, I thought we were…

  Haley waited until our daughter was four years old to decide that she wasn’t cut out for motherhood. There wasn’t a big fight or a dramatic confrontation. One day she just packed her bags and walked out of our apartment.

  I tried my best to fill the void that Haley had left, but it wasn’t easy juggling daddy duty with being a full-time fireman. Charlotte tried her best, too, but I knew that she missed her mom. No matter how many times I let her paint my nails or host teddy bear tea parties in the firehouse breakroom, I knew that it didn’t make up for the mother figure she was missing. I couldn’t be the daddy and the mommy.

  Then, a few months ago, I got that phone call, beckoning me back to the hometown that I hadn’t seen since I was fifteen years old.

  The ‘old acquaintance’ was Darren Rogers, and he happened to be the Chief of Police back in Hartford. We had had more than our fair share of run-ins when I still lived with my mother and stepfather, but he was one of the few people who had always seen the best in me.

  We had stayed in touch over the years, and when he saw an opening at the local firehouse, I was the first candidate that came to mind.

  I tried to turn the job offer down immediately, but the Chief insisted that I take a few days to think it over.

  On the third day, Haley Scott’s face was plastered on the front page of every newspaper in town. It was a mugshot. She had been arrested on felony drug charges, among other infractions, and she was facing serious jail time.

  I had heard rumors before, but I had always tried to protect Charlotte from the truth about her mother. Now that it was front page news, that would be next to impossible.

  Suddenly Hartford didn’t seem like such a bad idea. Maybe it was the fresh start we needed, after all…

  I glanced down at the little sniffling seven-year old that was sprawled across my lap and I smoothed out the wrinkles in her soft brown curls.

  “I know you’re not crazy about Hartford,” I said gently, “But we’re here now, and we’ve gotta give it a chance.”

  Charlie sniffled silently into my chest, and I felt her tears soak through my black t-shirt. I hugged my daughter even tighter and kissed the top of her head.

  “Maybe we can make this place feel a little more like home,” I suggested. “Do you have any ideas?”

  She raised her head and glanced up at me with puffy pink eyes.

  “Can we invite Mommy?”

  My heart sank. I’d go to hell and back for my little girl, but that was one wish I couldn’t grant.

  “Not right now, Charlie.”

  I saw the sadness in her eyes, and it crushed me. I had to change the subject, “Hey… do you hear that?”

  Charlotte frowned and shook her head slowly.

  “Shh… listen!” I pressed my finger to my lips, then -- subtly, so Charlotte couldn’t see -- I knocked on the floor with the heel of my foot.

  Thump. Thump. Thump.

  Charlotte’s face immediately froze, and her eyes swelled.

  “What is that?!”

  “I don’t know…” I said, pretending to be just as puzzled as she was. “It sounds like a… dolphin!”

  “Mr. Flipper!” Charlotte gasped, scrambling out of my lap. “He’s trapped! You have to find him, Daddy!”

  “Ok, ok!” I said. I pushed myself up off the floor and crossed the room, heading towards the stack of boxes.

  I vaguely remembered packing the plush dolphin into a box of toys back in Boston, and now I sure as hell hoped that my memory paid off…

  As Charlotte watched with wide-eyed panic from the bedroom floor, I picked up the first box from the stack and gave it a quizzical shake. The contents inside jostled softly.

  Clothes, I decided.

  “He’s not in this one,” I chucked aside the box dismissively, then I reached for the next box in the stack and raised it to my ear. Charlotte sucked in a breath and waited anxiously for the verdict.

  I gave the box a firm shake, and this time I heard the rattle of plastic.

  “This could be it,” I said urgently. I propped the box up on my knee and ripped off the packing tape, then I yanked open the flaps and dug my hands inside. I immediately felt the soft grey fur of Mr. Flipper.

  I hid my relief as I pretended to dig around in the box. Then, arms buried deep in a random assortment of plastic toys, I jabbed my fist against the inside wall of the cardboard box. The box jostled around on my knee, and with my free hand I pretended to hold it steady...

  THUMP! THUMP! THUMP!

  “DADDY!” Charlotte squealed, jumping to her feet. “Did you see that? He’s in that box!”

  “I saw it!” I said urgently. I made a production of readjusting the box on my knee, then I dramatically started digging through the contents of the box, flinging out plastic toys and baby dolls as I frantically ‘searched’ for Mr. Flipper.

  THUMP! THUMP! THUMP!

  “Daddy, hurry!”

  In one swift movement I grabbed ahold of the dolphin and chucked the box aside. The cardboard box crashed onto the floor, spilling out the remaining contents, and I held up the dolphin triumphantly.

  “MR. FLIPPER!” Charlotte squealed. She flung herself across the room, but she didn’t reach up for the stuffed dolphin toy. Instead, she wrapped her arms around my legs and hugged me tight.

  “You saved him, Daddy!” she grinned up at me.

  That’s when I realized that this was never really about reuniting a little girl with her beloved dolphin toy; this was about reminding my daughter that I’d always be her hero.

  CHAPTER SIX | DESIREE

  There was fresh bottle of Sauvignon Blanc chilling in the fridge, a party-size bag of Totino’s pizza rolls in the freezer, and at least five new episodes of House Hunters International waiting for me on the DVR… all the necessary components for a night of relaxation and recovery after a brutal first day of school.

  But when I threw open the door of my apartment and kicked off my shoes, I didn’t make a beeline for the corkscrew or the TV remote. Instead, I padded swiftly towards my bedroom.

  I was a woman on a mission, and that mission didn’t involve sweatpants or HGTV...

  Bypassing the cozy clothes that I had left out for myself, I dropped onto my knees in front of the bed and thrust my arm through the plain dust ruffle. I felt around until my hand hit plastic, then I gripped onto the handle of a Rubbermaid storage bin and dragged it out from under the bed.

  The plastic had gone stiff with age, and the lid was covered in a thick blanket of grey dust that tickled my nose when I inhaled.

  I brushed away a patch of dust with my fingertips, revealing a strip of duct tape that had been affixed to the center of the lid. My name was written on the tape in faded Sharpie ink,

  DES LEDUC

  I couldn’t remember the last time somebody had called me ‘Des.’ Nowadays I was known as ‘Ms. Leduc.’ Occasionally ‘Ms. La-duck,’ or ‘Ms. L,’ or ‘bitch.’ Or sometimes simply ‘Desiree.’

  But never ‘Des.’

  I hadn’t been ‘Des’ in a long time…

  Remembering that I was on a mission, I took a deep and dusty breath, then I pried open the lid and glanced down at the contents of the box.

  The plastic vault was filled to the brim with souvenirs and mementos from a former life; my former life.

  The first thing that caught my eye was the program from my father’s funeral. It had only been four years since he passed away, but the paper was already starting to yellow with age. His old Army headshot was printed on the front of the program, but I didn’t recognize the man in the photograph.

  I couldn’t remember the color of my father’s eyes or what he looked like when he smiled. All I could remember was the stiff bark of his voice, and the way the whole house used to s
hake when he got angry.

  I was a constant source of disappointment for my father. I must have been a constant reminder of the wife that left him, too, because he punctuated almost every insult with the words “...just like your mother.”

  “You’re a whore just like your mother,” he had snarled when I asked for permission to attend my high school junior prom.

  “You’re lazy, just like your mother,” he had grunted in disgust when I got fired from my summer job at an ice cream stand.

  According to my father, my mother was the root of all evil. I never actually knew her. I was less than a year old when she left. She said she was going to the grocery store to buy milk and bread, but she never came back.

  She didn’t even pack a bag or kiss me goodbye. In my father’s mind, that was proof positive that she had left him for another man. To me, the only thing it proved was that she was terrified of my father, and she felt like she had no other choice but to run.

  My throat started to tighten up, and I flipped the funeral program over so I didn’t have to see my father’s face.

  Maybe I could use that glass of wine, after all…

  I muscled through the tough memories as I continued to dig my way through the contents of the box, the leather folder that housed my Hartford High School diploma, the keys to my first car, a felt pennant from my alma mater, a strip of faded pictures from a photobooth…

  I was shuffling through a stack of papers when my fingers touched down on smooth, flat plastic.

  My heart lurched in my chest as I uncovered a CD. The white label was completely blank, besides a red heart had been drawn with Sharpie around the hole in the center of the disc.

  I cradled the CD between my hands, and when I blinked my eyes shut I saw that fireman’s face reflected in my rear-view mirror.

  That was him… I told myself. It had to be him!

  I scrambled up to my feet and reached for my laptop. I quickly tapped in my password, then I fed the CD into the disc drive. The laptop made a mechanical munching sound as it accepted the disc, and then it purred thoughtfully as it attempted to process the antiquated medium.

  Finally an iTunes window popped open, displaying a queue of all fifteen tracks on the CD. Above that, in a bold font, was the name of the disc, ‘For Des.’

  The Cure’s ‘Lovesong’ started playing through the tinny speakers on my laptop, and I sank down onto the floor.

  I pressed my eyes shut, and I tried to remember everything about that night at the park.

  I remembered how I had seen him sitting all alone on the picnic table. I remembered how he had played this song for me on his Walkman. I remembered him popping out the CD and giving it to me. I remembered him giving me a cryptic smile when I asked what it meant. I remembered how badly I wanted him to kiss me.

  I remembered the cigarette burn on his arm, and then the flashing police lights. I remembered him saying that he’d be right back; that he just wanted to make sure everything was ok.

  I remember waiting and waiting… but he never came back.

  That night was the last time I ever saw Rory McAlister.

  It took a few days for me to piece together what had happened that night. I learned that his mother and stepfather had both been arrested, but nobody could tell me where Rory went.

  A few weeks later, a realtor in a black Lincoln drove by and stuck a ‘FOR SALE’ sign in front of their house.

  That’s when I realized that Rory wasn’t coming back.

  I didn’t realize that I was crying until I blinked open my eyes and felt the hot sting of tears clouding my vision.

  When Rory left Hartford, that CD was the only piece of him that I had left. I always treated it like a clue; like a puzzle piece that would help me unravel the mystery of his disappearance.

  I had listened to those fifteen tracks constantly, until I had committed every lyric to memory. Then I had scribbled the lyrics down in my diary and dissected them. I thought that if I could uncover the subliminal message that Rory had planted in the playlist, then maybe it would lead me back to him.

  It didn’t.

  After playing Nancy Drew for a year, all I had was Rory’s red Sharpie heart and a diary full of melancholy love song lyrics.

  There have been a lot of things that I’ve had to reconcile in my life. I had to reconcile how my mother could leave me with an abusive father, and I had to reconcile how my father could be so viciously cruel and full of hatred.

  The only thing I could never reconcile was losing Rory...

  We met the summer I turned eight years old. My father had left me home alone, and I was taking full advantage of my freedom by watching Nickelodeon and eating Jello for lunch.

  My wild afternoon was interrupted by the sound of the doorbell. It didn’t just ring once or twice… it chimed over and over again, until I finally pulled open the door. There was a woman standing on the front porch, and she was gripping the collar of a sullen little boy. She frantically explained that she needed a babysitter, and asked if I would watch her son.

  Before I could object, she shoved the boy into the house and stomped off. After a few awkward moments of silence, Rory tried to leave, too. I blocked the door and told him that I was the babysitter, and he wasn’t allowed to leave until his mom came back.

  Rory was a year older than me and easily twice my size, but he didn’t object. He dutifully shadowed me for the rest of the afternoon. Neither of us said a peep, but I liked having the company. I had never had a friend before…

  When dinner time rolled around and Rory’s mom still hadn’t returned to claim him, I started to panic. I knew that my dad would be home at any minute, and I knew that he would kill me if he found out that I had a friend over.

  I didn’t need to explain any of that to Rory. As soon as he saw my father’s car pull up the driveway, he slipped through the back door and vanished.

  I assumed that he had just gone back to his house, but that wasn’t the case. As I was getting ready for bed that night, I happened to glance through my bedroom window at the neighborhood park.

  It was dark, but I could see the shadowy figure of a little boy. He was curled up on the picnic table. That’s when I realized that his mother had never come home for him. He was sleeping in the park because he had nowhere else to go.

  I waited until I heard my father snoring through the walls, then I stripped the covers off of my bed and slipped out of the house.

  From that moment on, we were inseparable.

  He was my rock, and I was his soft spot. When kids bullied me at school, Rory stood up for me. And when his mother threw him out of the house, I comforted him.

  We were--

  BANG!

  I jolted upright, startled by the sound of a door slamming shut.

  The childhood memories that had been playing in my head suddenly dissolved into dust, replaced with a shrill sense of panic. My heart hammered in my chest, and my blood felt ice-cold. I was tense from head to toe as I listened through my bedroom wall.

  I heard footsteps enter the apartment, then thud softly towards the kitchen. A deep voice rumbled something, but I couldn’t make out the words through the wall.

  The refrigerator door swung open, and I heard the clatter of glass condiment jars clinking together. I gulped.

  That deep voice rumbled again. I couldn’t understand what he was saying, but it must have been something funny because it was followed by the squeal of a high-pitched giggle.

  I blew out a sigh of relief and let my shoulder sink back against the side of my mattress. I recognized that nails-on-a-chalkboard giggle immediately; it was my roommate, Kasmine Curtis.

  “Hey, is that a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc?” her muffled voice asked through the wall.

  My wine!

  I scrambled to pack everything back into my plastic vault of memories, then I snapped on the lid and shoved it under the bed.

  I jumped up to my feet and pushed through my bedroom door, then wheeled ar
ound the corner to the kitchen--

  POP.

  I was too late. Kasmine slid the cork out of the bottle, then she glanced up at me.

  “Oh, hey roomie!” she giggled drunkenly, then she lifted the wine bottle by its neck and waved it in front of me. “Look what I found hiding in the back of the fridge!”

  “Yeah… I sorta bought that,” I said awkwardly.

  “Oh...” Kasmine glanced at the bottle, then she shrugged, “Oops! So umm… do you want a glass?”

  I rolled my eyes. Kasmine Curtis was living, breathing proof that you should never find a roommate on CraigsList.

  We were only six months into our twelve-month lease, but Kasmine had already proven herself to be selfish, inconsiderate, and downright annoying.

  Oh, and she went through men faster than I went through my annual stipend of Dry Erase markers from the school supply closet. Every other night I found a new strange man in my apartment.

  Tonight’s specimen was digging through our fridge with his back to me. I gave him a dismissive once-over and was about to turn my attention back to Kasmine, then I noticed the white letters on the back of his black t-shirt,

  HARTFORD FIRE DEPARTMENT, FIREHOUSE 56

  I froze. My mind immediately flashed back to the firefighter that I had spotted on the side of the road.

  What are the odds...

  Before I could weave my far-fetched fantasy any further, the fireman straightened up and slammed the fridge door.

  His arms were bare, his hair was too light… and then he turned around, and I saw his face.

  “Hey,” he grinned flirtatiously at me as he cracked open a can of Hog River beer -- also mine.

  It wasn’t him. It wasn’t the same fireman that I had seen earlier on the side of the road… and it definitely wasn’t Rory.

  CHAPTER SEVEN | RORY

  “Alright, little lady,” I dropped a skillet onto the stovetop and cranked on the heat. “What are we making today?”

  “I haven’t decided yet, Daddy,” Charlotte mumbled, blinking thoughtfully down at her iPad.

  The way her face wrinkled up with concentration, you’d think she was trying to pick the next President of the United States. Actually, the stakes weren’t that high… she just had to pick a breakfast recipe.