Between Honor And Duty. Charlotte Maclay

Chapter Fourteen

      Chapter One

      He couldn’t stay away any longer.

      It had been a month since the warehouse fire that had cost Ray Gainer his life. Now Logan Strong was en route to his widow’s house in a tract of homes on the outskirts of Paseo del Real in central California. He’d never be able to tell her or her kids the truth about what had happened that day. He wasn’t going to destroy the heroic legacy Ray had left behind when death had claimed the city’s firefighter.

      But Logan owed Janice Gainer something. And Ray’s kids, too. If he’d acted on his instincts that morning, Ray never would have died. Janice wouldn’t be a widow, the kids would have a father.

      The truth twisted in Logan’s gut. He’d vowed to bury the knowledge of what had happened that morning six feet under the ground along with Ray’s remains. Being a firefighter meant you were part of a closed fraternity. You didn’t blow the whistle on a brother, particularly when your brother’s own stupidity had let the red devil claim his life.

      Maybe, if he handled it right, Logan could help Janice’s transition from wife to widow with the least pain for all concerned. Despite what had happened, he owed Ray that much. It didn’t matter that Logan had trouble looking the men of Station Six in the eye these days, afraid he’d give the truth away.

      He’d never forget that he shouldn’t have allowed Ray to go up on the warehouse roof in the first place, or forgive himself. That was his failing—not listening to his own instincts.

      He parked his Mustang at the curb in front of a two-story stucco house with a Spanish tile, fire-resistant roof. Like most of the houses on the curving street, there was a three-car garage, a postage-stamp lawn and a wide entry.

      In this case, there was also a woman on the porch wrestling with an oversize, metal-framed screen door.

      Logan smiled to himself as he got out of the car. Janice was no shy, retiring female, but he hadn’t pictured her as a handyman, either. She did, however, look fit in a pair of shorts and a tank top, her skin a golden tan.

      At mid afternoon, the late-August sun baked down on the neighborhood, drying out the lawns and softening the tar strip between the asphalt of the street and the concrete gutter. He walked up the driveway and onto the walkway to the house just as Janice swore under her breath.

      “Could you use some help?” he asked mildly.

      She whirled, still balancing the screen door with her shoulder. Both her smile and her surprise were genuine.

      “Logan! Oh, my gosh! I didn’t hear you drive up.”

      Firefighters and their families socialized frequently, although Janice wasn’t always part of the group. Logan was secretly pleased at her instant recognition and her warm smile.

      He reached for the pre-fab screen door, which included hinges and a latch, and held it up. “Looks like you were otherwise occupied.”

      “Tell me about it.” Using her forearm, she swiped at the sweat on her forehead. Her dark hair glistened with the same perspiration, the natural curl frizzing around her face in a sable outline that emphasized its heart shape. “I’ve been telling Ray for years we needed a screen door to let the west breeze in on hot days and to keep out the flies. He finally bought the door a year ago but he never—” She stopped abruptly, then shrugged. “I decided if I was going to get my screen door, I’d have to do it myself.”

      Logan pulled the door away from her. It was fairly heavy since the bottom half was ionized metal, only the top half a screen. “I’ll do it.”

      She studied him a moment, her ginger-brown eyes assessing him. He saw lines of fatigue around her eyes, a sense of being overwhelmed in their depths, and none of the sparkle that had drawn him in during their prior encounters, despite her marital status. The urge to restore her optimistic spirit rose with the speed of a flame racing up a gasoline-drenched wall, and he forced himself to remember she’d been recently widowed. And why.

      Slowly, she shook her head. “I’m trying to learn to stand on my own two feet.”

      “Great. Think of me as a hired hand. My price is a cool glass of lemonade or a beer, whatever you’ve got.”

      Relinquishing her hold on the door, she stepped back. “I really hate it that I don’t know how to do certain chores around the house. Ray always said he’d take care of things, forget my honey-do list was about two miles long. He didn’t like the idea of me doing a man’s job.”

      “So let me get this door installed and you can check off one of the honey-do’s.”

      “Guess I shouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth.”

      “That’s what friends are for.” Resting the screen against the doorjamb, Logan examined the contents of the tool caddie on the porch. It looked as if Ray had amassed everything he needed. “Have you got the screws?”

      “Oh, yes.” Janice pulled a packet of screws from her back pocket and handed it to Logan. He was a quiet, serious man, one of her favorite people to talk with at firefighter get-togethers. A gentle spirit in a powerful body, she’d always thought.

      Today he was wearing faded beige Dockers and a cotton sport shirt that tugged across his wide shoulders and tucked in at a narrow waist. His sandy-brown hair was trimmed to a medium length and combed back, lying neatly on his well-shaped head. Unlike some of the firefighters Janice knew, Logan always looked pulled together, even on his days off.

      She’d often wondered why such a tall, good-looking firefighter wasn’t married, but she’d never thought it was her business to ask. Certainly Ray wouldn’t have been pleased if she’d expressed any particular interest in another man.

      She watched as Logan measured where the hinges would go and marked the screw holes with a pencil. He appeared comfortable in the role of carpenter, going about the task with a minimum of wasted effort. She’d always thought of him as unflappable, both personally and on the job. A good firefighter.

      “So how’s it going?” he asked as he picked up a drill and slid in a bit, tightening it in place.

      “Some days are better than others.” The first week after Ray’s death had been a total blur, her children distraught, relatives coming in from out of town, neighbors helping out, firefighters and their wives trying to lend a hand.

      She still felt numb, not so much with grief, although that was part of it, but with the frightening array of decisions she’d had to make. Ray hadn’t been real good about keeping her in the loop.

      “My biggest problem right now is getting the insurance money. Chief Gray says the state is always slow. Since Ray was only in the department six years, what little pension I get barely covers the grocery bill.”

      Lowering the drill, Logan looked at her, his gaze both sympathetic and intense. His eyes were hazel with touches of green and gold, she mused, realizing this was the first time she’d noticed that detail.

      “There’s a widows’ and orphans’ fund that can help out in an emergency.”

      “We’ll be all right. I filed the papers a couple of weeks ago for the life insurance we’ve been paying for since Kevin was born. I had to wait for copies of the, ah—” she stumbled over the word and swallowed hard, still unable to totally accept the fact that Ray was dead “—death certificate before I could do that.”

      To her amazement, he tenderly cupped her face with his hand, using his thumb to wipe away a tear she hadn’t known she’d shed. His gentleness nearly undid her. She was striving so hard to survive on her own, she didn’t dare let herself fall apart. She might never be able to pull herself together again.

      “I’m sorry,” she murmured, a lump of determination lodging in her throat. “I didn’t use to spring leaks like that at the drop of a hat.”

      “You