It's a Wonderful Fireman: A Bachelor Firemen Novella (The Bachelor Firemen of San Gabriel) Read Free Page B

lifeline that led from the hot roof to Truck 1. Then, quick as a spark, everything changed.
    The IC crackled over dispatch. “Engine company, pull out. Pull out now.” Fred, still on the aerial, looked back at Mulligan and waved him urgently toward the ladder. A rumble from underneath shook the building. Get to the ladder, get to the ladder . Someone shouted on the tactical channel, something about the façade. Mulligan looked down as a crack appeared beneath him. Ladder, ladder. But no, he couldn’t make it to the ladder, not without jumping over that gap ripping across the roof. The façade . Oh my God . The façade was falling away, the entire front of the building sinking backward like an exhausted person collapsing onto a bed.
    He stepped backward, away from the gulf opening beneath his feet, and then he was falling, down, down, down a rabbit hole of smoke and blackness. Something came out of his mouth—a shout? A laugh?—but the constant roar of flames drowned it out and there was no one to hear anyway.
    “Mayday, Mayday, Mayday,” he heard on his radio. “Firefighter Mulligan through the roof on the Delta side.” Then silence, as all talk on the tactical channel stopped, and all sound disappeared.
    A last thought flashed through his mind—he was going to die inside a Christmas store. How absurd was that?
    Worse, he was going to die without ever seeing Lizzie again.

Chapter Two
    A T THE C HILDREN’S Wing of the San Gabriel Good Samaritan Hospital, Lizzie Breen helped six-year-old Miles Stark unfold the piece of construction paper he was turning into a snowflake. His eyes lit up as the intricate pattern was revealed.
    “Nice one, dude!” She held up her hand to give him a high five, which he enthusiastically returned, even though his leukemia had sapped much of his strength. “I think that’s the best one yet. No two snowflakes are alike, you know.”
    “If we put two pieces of paper together when we cut them, those snowflakes would be.”
    She tilted her head, pondering that. “Your logic is impeccable. I stand corrected.”
    He grinned, so his pale face didn’t look quite as drawn. “Can we put this one on the window?”
    “Absolutely.” She picked up the purple snowflake and crossed to the wall of windows that let light into the recreation room of the Children’s Wing. Outside, the December sky looked washed-out and dismally overcast. Thanks for reflecting my mood perfectly. She taped one side of the snowflake to the window, then paused to peer more closely at the cityscape of office buildings that surrounded the hospital. Was that smoke behind the Hanover Insurance building?
    Her stomach tightened as she thought of the San Gabriel crew battling a fire on the eve of Christmas Eve. Any fire made her nervous, but ever since she and Mulligan had . . . well, whatever they had . . . her fear had gotten even more personal.
    “What’s that?” Dr. Stacy Fisher, a pediatric intern and her good friend, joined her at the window.
    “Looks like a fire. I can call my mom. She always has the scanner on.”
    “Is your brother on shift?”
    “Yes.”
    “That means . . .” Stacy trailed off since everyone knew Mulligan was a sensitive topic for Lizzie.
    “Yes, Mulligan’s on shift too. No, he doesn’t want to come for Christmas. Or Christmas Eve. Oh, and he thinks I shouldn’t move to Canada because it’s a foreign country.”
    Stacy shook her untidy mop of curls, which were the color of milk chocolate. Once Lizzie had offered to set her up with a haircut by Cherie, Vader’s wife, but the doctor refused, saying her unruly frizz made her young patients more comfortable. “If he said that, it’s because he doesn’t want you to move.”
    “No,” Lizzie answered gloomily. “Mulligan pretty much says exactly what he means. If he didn’t want me to go, he’d tell me. He’s not the shy type.”
    “But he is a man. And you know what that means.”
    A thousand images fluttered through Lizzie’s