Laughing, the men stood up. "What should I do with her, Tuck? Should I put her on a shelf?"

"No! Unca Con! She's a baby! Babies don't go on shelves!" Again, he considered the problem. Connor and Demon exchanged an amused look and let him think. "Give Lala to Pa. Pa knows what to do. Right, Pa?"

"You bet, buddy. I got this."

Demon took his daughter and set her in the portable swing, where she would sail happily through the meal, probably sound asleep in about five minutes.

When they were sitting around the table pa.s.sing bowls around to fill their plates, Connor took a minute to think about what he and Demon had said. Life was good. They had the club family, and it was tight. And they had this family, sitting around this smaller table. His mother and father. His sister and brother. Their kids.

His relationship with his parents had always been good. He'd needed no rebellion, because they'd always respected him for who he was, and he'd always wanted to follow Hoosier into the club. His mother was nigh to perfect, as far as he was concerned. Sure, they'd all had their fights, but they were rock solid and knew it even while they shouted.

Neither Faith nor Demon could boast an upbringing as stable as his, which was how they'd come to be welcomed into his little family. And now he got to be Unca Con.

He was a lucky son of a b.i.t.c.h.

The main reason he was living in the clubhouse at thirty-six years old was that he didn't want to live alone. He wanted family around him. He was too old to live at home, so he'd done the next best thing.

But sometimes he wondered if he might someday want a table like this of his own.

CHAPTER EIGHT.

Fire Station 76 was located deep in the heart of Old Towne, the neighborhood that had, in the days when California was a frontier territory rather than a state, been the entire town of Madrone. In those days, the town had been little more than a depot, a few rough-hewn blocks of commerce surrounded by dusty ranchland.

That small town had not officially expanded its borders into the desert floor of the foothills until the latter half of the twentieth century, when the first middle-cla.s.s stragglers began to flee the booming growth of the Los Angeles area, a sort of mini-reversal of the westward expansion that had fed the state its residents for decades. In the late twentieth century, when real estate values had exploded into absurdity, picturesque Madrone burgeoned into the quiet, tidy commuter community that it was.

Most of the town, then, was shiny and new, full of gated developments and landscaped, irrigated green s.p.a.ces. The Chamber of Commerce renamed the original Madrone 'Old Towne,' adding an 'e' for flair, and exploited the rustic, Wild West feel of the clapboard buildings and wooden walkways.

Station 76 was housed in what had been the old livery stables. The emergency vehicles lived on the first floor of the livery. The sleeping quarters, showers, and rec room were above it. An addition had been built on in the Eighties to expand the kitchen and include administrative s.p.a.ce and a gym. During the restructuring of the fire district a few years back, another building had been added to garage the brush unit and ambulance.

Station 76 didn't have a ladder truck. The layout and architecture of Madrone was low profile, and few buildings were taller than two stories. The whole district had two ladder trucks, both at the same station. When a ladder was needed, Station 58 was called in.

Pilar rented a duplex only a few blocks from the station, in the small residential area that had been the home of the shopkeepers and bank tellers back when Old Towne was just Madrone. It was one of the only parts of the town that didn't look, to her eyes, like every other part of the town. While the houses in almost all of Madrone were stucco faux villas in neutral tones with composite tile roofs, Old Towne was mostly wood-sided cottages with a faint Victorian flair. The trees and gardens were less uniformly landscaped. People took pride and care, but they weren't so worried about perfect lines and patterns. The people, and their homes, were just more interesting in Old Towne, as far as she was concerned.

As close as she was-she ran by the station on her morning runs-she always drove or rode to work, because she never knew whether she'd go straight home or head out somewhere at the end of the watch. Even a twenty-four hour watch, like the one she was on now, which would end at seven o'clock in the morning, didn't mean she'd go straight home.

After she'd pushed Connor out her front door so she could get ready for work, she'd showered and dressed, then she'd mounted her Victory and ridden the half mile or so to the station. She hadn't bothered with breakfast, because nothing she could make herself at home would be as good as what was waiting for her at the station.

It was a stereotype and a cliche that firehouse cooking was great, but it was a true stereotype and cliche. Firehouse cooking was f.u.c.king awesome. Every watch had at least one, usually two or three, fantastic cooks. Her watch had Ron Reyes. That man knew what he was doing with a spatula. Her best buddy Kyle Moore was good, too-he was their master griller-but Reyes, man. They were always pushing him to try out for one of the cooking shows, but he was quiet and shy and simply shook his head.

That morning, with Connor slowing her down, she was one of the last ones in the barn. Everybody was already around the table, though Reyes was still at the range, and Moore and Perez were laying trays in the middle.

Perez was the first to greet her, turning with a serving spoon in her hand and asking, "So? Did you go back for seconds of bear meat? How was it?"

White backed her up with, "Must've been juicy-Cordero's never late!"

Guzman stopped in the act of pouring orange juice. "You been at it with that guy since last watch? How're you walking?"

Pilar simply flipped them all off and went to the counter to pour herself a mug of coffee. Moore came over and hip-checked her gently. "Come on, girl. Spill. You know we won't let you up until you do."

Her mug full, Pilar turned and went to her place at the table. "Get your thrills in your own lives, chismosas."

"Don't talk spic to the gringos, Guzman rejoined. "They don't get it when you're dissing them."

Most of the firefighters spoke Spanish, but Guzman knew that and was just throwing shade at the Caucasians in the room. "I was dissing you, too, ese. I'm not talking about my s.e.x life with you trolls. When have I ever?"

Just then their Captain came in, and they all stood. He waved them down and sat at the far end of the table with them.

Clayton Harrison had been Captain of Station 76 for all of Pilar's years there. As Captain, his job was mainly administrative, and he hardly ever put on turnout gear anymore, though his was prepped to go just like everybody else's. As leader of the station, he had the luxury of scheduling himself for a Monday-to-Friday, eight-to-five job, but he didn't. He worked at least one weekend a month.

Pilar liked him. Everybody did. He wasn't friendly, necessarily, but he was fair. And he respected his firefighters.

They didn't talk smack around him. It was like their father had walked into the room.

"You want coffee, Cap?" Scott Nguyen, Perez's paramedic partner, asked.

Harrison shook his head and reached for the pitcher of orange juice. "No, thanks, Nguyen. I've shot my limit already this morning." As he sat back with his gla.s.s of juice, he grinned and said, "So, anybody got news besides Cordero?"

Pilar could have hugged him. Usually, she didn't mind all the smack and banter, but she was feeling defensive about Connor. She knew why, too. She liked him. A lot. He had a wry sense of humor and a devil-may-care att.i.tude. That could come off as superficial, and it had, at first. But he was smart, too. And thoughtful.

And he was smoking hot and a great lay.

Though she thought she'd covered it well, she'd been p.i.s.sed when he'd said he was heading to the clubhouse to grab some p.u.s.s.y. She'd been more p.i.s.sed at herself, however, that she was p.i.s.sed at him.

Nothing serious. She wanted nothing serious, and neither did he. That was a good thing. A perfect scenario. It was fine that he was getting more p.u.s.s.y. It meant that she didn't have to worry that he'd want more from her than she could give. He had no more to give than she. A good thing.

She didn't have a life or a job that made room for a serious relationship. Every watch, there was a chance she could get killed or f.u.c.ked up. She literally lived half her life at her job. Yeah, there were people in the barn who had families, but she didn't have the temperament for it.

It was a spiel she knew well, and it was running through her head on a loop this morning.

So Pilar was very glad when Captain Harrison filled his plate and they all sat around the table and spent the rest of the meal talking about the weather and the drought.

After breakfast, they did their daily checks and a.s.signments, making sure the equipment was in shape and the supplies were stocked and the barn was clean. It was Sunday, so they didn't have training or public service to do. Weekday watches often included trips to schools or school trips to the station, blood drives, and a variety of other kinds of community engagement obligations. Pilar and Perez spent a lot of time on those details-they were two of the very few women in this job at all, and they made good press.

Especially Pilar, since she was the only woman in the county whose primary job wasn't medical.

All the firefighters were EMTs, it was a requirement of the job, but there were two paramedics on every watch, and they took the lead in first-response medical calls. Pilar's primary job was rescue. She was often the first into a burning building-or second, behind Moore. They were a team.

For a woman, Pilar was fairly average in size: just shy of five-seven, about one-twenty-five. For a firefighter, she was small. But she was strong; those one hundred and twenty-five pounds were solid muscle. She was agile, too-and fierce. The package helped her excel at rescue. She could get places a man could not, even in full gear. And she could lift well more than her own weight.

Moore was much bigger than she was; in fact, he was one of the bigger guys in the whole station. About Connor's size. He was her brawn. Those places too tight even for Pilar to get into, Moore and she could clear together.

When people told her she was brave, she normally corrected them, at least in her head. She didn't think she was brave. She preferred the term 'fierce.' To be brave, one needed to overcome fear. Pilar didn't feel fear. She had respect for the risks, and she knew her job. She did her job. She barely noticed the danger. When she was on scene, fire was just something to be dealt with. She trusted her training and her instincts, and she did the thing she was there to do.

The truth was, though, that burning-building calls were the least common calls they went on. Much more common were the accident calls-vehicular or otherwise-and medical calls or public safety calls like gas leaks or water main breaks. There was a reason a structure fire made the news. It didn't happen all that often.

In California, especially in the summer, though, they went on plenty of fire calls. They had an actual wildfire season, the way the Midwest had a tornado season. Though the Forest Service had its own firefighters, all firefighters were trained in wildfire management and took calls to a.s.sist, and the department jumped on brush fire calls like they were harbingers of Armageddon itself.

Because they well might be.

This summer, so far, despite the dry winter, the fire season had been quiet. But it was still early yet, really. As the dry season progressed, everything got more precarious, and August and September were often the worst months. There was always an extra layer of vigilance over every watch in the summer and early fall. One cigarette b.u.t.t tossed out a car window could destroy hundreds of thousands of acres of forest and brush. It happened all the time.

And those f.u.c.kers were nearly impossible to fight.

But the watch on the Sunday after she'd been with Connor was quiet. The truck and ambulance went out on a vehicular call about eight hours in, but the only injury had been a driver whose airbag had made meat out of his face. Both cars had been obviously totaled, so they'd kept the truck around to block the lane. They'd milled about for an hour or so, directing traffic until the tow company could get the wrecks onto a flatbed and out of the way.

Then they'd gone back to the barn and run their checks again.

After dinner that night, Pilar and Moore were on cleanup detail, so they were alone in the kitchen while everybody was upstairs in the rec room watching the Dodgers game.

While Pilar loaded the dishwasher, Moore put away the cooking supplies. Reyes was a great cook, but a real slob at the counter. Leaning over her to put the spices away in the cupboard, Moore asked, "You got plans tomorrow? Want to head to Joshua and do some climbing after watch?"

It sounded like a plan to her. "Yeah-but I need to check on my brother first. Can we make it an overnight, ride out in the afternoon and climb in the morning?" It was too hot to climb past noon in the desert. "Indian Cove should be pretty light on a Monday night. Not too many tourists."

She and Moore were both rock climbing enthusiasts; their friendship was based as much on their off time as it was on the teamwork on watch. They weren't close in a 'share-our-deepest-secrets-and-braid-each-other's-hair' way, but they understood each other without that kind of sharing. They'd come into the station within a year of each other, Moore after Pilar, and had hit it off right away. They experienced the world in similar ways, most of them physical. But they'd never been physical together, despite countless camping trips sleeping in the same little pack tent.

They'd come close once, a couple of years ago, when they'd been up on Big Bear and an unexpected rain had driven them into the tent early. They'd spent the night drinking terrible wine they'd picked up at a convenience store on their way up, and they'd ended up making out for about three minutes.

At which point, they'd dissolved into drunken giggles and then pa.s.sed out. So no. They weren't into each other. It would be like f.u.c.king her brother. If she had a brother she actually liked.

"How's he doing?"

Pilar had told Moore about Hugo, giving a highly edited version of the story-no showdown at the High Life, no Night Horde shield, no threat to her personally. But her friend knew enough about her brother to know that he was always in some kind of s.h.i.t soup, so she'd told him that he'd gotten in bad with the a.s.sa.s.sins and had landed in the hospital because of it.

"I called Nana earlier. He's awake and doing okay. They're keeping him for a couple of days, and then he'll be home moaning for Nana to wipe his a.s.s, but he'll live. Probably lost his job, though. That was the best job he'd had for a while."

"I'm telling you, that kid needs to join up." Moore hadn't served in the military, but his younger brother, Jude-who also had his challenges getting along in the world-had enlisted in the Army a couple of years out of high school. The main reason he'd enlisted had been to hurt their mom when she'd tried to put her foot down. He'd succeeded at that. But actually serving had turned him around.

"He's not a kid. He's twenty-five."

"Not too old to enlist."

"Unless we can roofie him and throw him on a C-5, I think it's not going to happen. Besides, it'd kill Nana. She thinks he'll straighten out. As long as she keeps a.s.sa.s.sins ink off of him, she thinks he'll find his way."

While Moore took a sponge and wiped down the counter, Pilar took the special cleaner to clean the table. It was a big, oblong pine table. The emblems of their station, of their district, and of their profession had all been carved into it, with the founding date carved at the head. 1913, when the livery stable first housed a fire engine. They didn't wipe that table down with just a wet sponge.

"She's wrong, you know. If he's not turning around yet, he's going to keep going in the direction he's in. And that's down."

Pilar knew that. Of course she knew that. And deep down, her grandmother knew it, too. But it infuriated her that an outsider was standing there with a lime-green sponge in his hand and handing down judgments. Even an outsider that was closer to the inside than any other. Maybe he was too f.u.c.king close.

"b.u.t.t out, Moore. Didn't ask for your opinion or your help."

He glared at her through the hanging pots and pans for a second, and then he nodded and went back to his work.

The next morning, after a quiet night without a call, Pilar and Moore made plans to meet up in the afternoon, ride out to Joshua Tree, and set up camp in preparation for an early-morning climb. No hard feelings had lingered after their terse exchange in the kitchen; by the time they'd turned out the lights and headed up to the rec room, they'd been fine. They understood each other, and they didn't take their disagreements to heart.

After the new watch came in, Pilar changed into her street clothes and rode to the hospital. When she got up to Hugo's room, her brother was having breakfast, and their grandmother was fussing around, unpacking an overnight bag.

Hugo noticed her right away and set his carton of milk back on his tray. "Hey."

"Hey." She came into the room and closed the door. Hugo looked terrible. His face was a swollen mess, and he had sutured lacerations across his nose and along his chin. His chest and arms were wrapped in bandages. Pilar knew he had a serious concussion, too, but he looked alert, his eyes focused inside his swollen, darkened face.

"I'm glad you're here, mija. Dolores brought things from home, but I need to run out for some things Hughie wants. Can you stay with him?"

Dolores was their grandmother's next door neighbor and good friend. "Sure. But if you'd called, I could have picked it up, whatever it is." But she wouldn't mind a chance to talk to her brother alone. They had some things to get straight.

"You know I hate to bother you at work. I don't mind. I'd like to get out in the sunshine for a bit."

Pilar picked up a wedge of white toast from her brother's tray. "Okay. Take your time. I don't have plans until later. Kyle and I are going out to Joshua Tree tonight."

"Oh, that sounds fun. Kyle is such a good boy. And handsome, too."

"Yeah, yeah, Nana. You should ask him out, since you're so into him."

Her grandmother put her hand on her hip in a saucy little pose. "Don't think I won't. I was quite the beauty in my day. Your abuelo used to brag about what my legs could do."

"Ugh! Nana, no! That is not something I need to have in my head." Their grandfather had died long before Pilar had been born, but their grandmother had lots of stories. He sounded like he'd been a cool dude. And yes, Nana had been a great beauty. She still was.

She laughed and patted Pilar's arm. "I'll take Kyle. You take that furry one from the other night. Connor, right? I like him, too."

"Okay, okay, go get your sunshine. I'll babysit the brat."

With a gentle kiss to Hugo's swollen cheek and a promise to be back soon, their grandmother left them alone.

And Pilar turned on her brother. "You f.u.c.ked up in a big way, pendejo."

Hugo finished his milk and sat back against the pillows. "Opening with the lecture. Great."

"I pulled your a.s.s out of the back room at the f.u.c.king High Life, Hugo. What do you expect? Raul says you owe him. What the f.u.c.k did you get into?"

"None of your business."

"It is my business. You drag me into it, and my friends, and now I'm on a.s.sa.s.sins radar."

"We're always on their radar. Both our fathers died wearing a.s.sa.s.sins colors. I didn't ask for your f.u.c.king help, Pilar. And didn't ask for you to find me or save me or anything. Whatever trouble you're in now, that's on you."

"Nana asked me to find you! And they were killing you!"

"They weren't. It was a beating. They won't kill me. I'm family. And, anyway, I haven't paid my debt yet." He twitched, like he'd realized that he'd given her an opening.