Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter Colletion_ Books 6-10 - Laurell K. Hamilton [310]
Reynolds was suddenly beside us. “What’s wrong?”
“You tell her. I’ll go talk to Dolph.”
“Sure,” Larry said, voice strained. He needed to be in bed, knocked out on painkillers. Maybe he wasn’t that much smarter than me.
It wasn’t hard to spot Dolph. Pete McKinnon was standing with them. It was like walking towards two small mountains.
Dolph’s dark suit looked freshly pressed, white shirt crisp, tie knotted against the collar. He couldn’t have been out in the heat long. Even Dolph sweats.
“Anita,” he said.
“Dolph.”
“Ms. Blake, nice to see you again,” Pete McKinnon said.
I smiled. “Good to know someone’s happy to see me.”
If Dolph got the dig, he ignored it. “Everyone’s waiting for you.”
“Dolph always was a man of few words,” Pete said.
I grinned at him. “Good to know it’s nothing personal.”
Dolph frowned at us. “If you two are through, we’ve got work to do.”
Pete and I grinned at each other and followed Dolph across the wet street. I was happy to be back in my Nikes. I could walk as good as any of the men, in the right shoes.
A tall, thin fireman with a grey mustache watched me stride across the street. He was still wearing a helmet and coat in the July heat. Four others had stripped down to T-shirts with just the rubbery-looking pants on. Someone had sprayed them down with water. They looked like an ad for a beefcake wet T-shirt contest. They were drinking Gatorade and water like their lives depended on it.
“Did a Gatorade truck just roll by or is this some arcane post-fire ritual?” I asked.
Pete answered, “It’s damned hot in a fire with full gear on. You dehydrate. Water to rehydrate and Gatorade for the electrolytes so you don’t pass out from the heat.”
“Ah,” I said.
The fireman who’d been rolling up the hose came over to us. A delicate triangle of face peered out from under the helmet. Clear grey eyes met my gaze. There was a lift to the chin, a way that she held herself that was a challenge. I recognized the symptoms. I had my own mountain-sized chip on my shoulder. I felt like apologizing for assuming she was a man, but didn’t. It would have been insulting.
Pete introduced me to the tall man. “This is Captain Fulton. He’s Incident Commander on this site.”
I offered my hand while he was still thinking about it. His hand was large, big-knuckled. He shook hands like he was afraid to squeeze too hard, and dropped contact as soon as he could. I bet that he was just pleased as punch to have a female fireperson on his unit.
He introduced the fireperson in question. “Corporal Tucker.” She offered her hand.
She had a nice firm handshake and eye contact so sincere it was aggressive.
I smiled. “Nice not to be the only woman on the scene for a change.”
That brought a very small smile to her face. She gave the barest of nods and stepped back, letting her captain take over.
“How much do you know about a fire scene, Miss Blake?”
“It’s Ms. Blake, and not much.”
He frowned at the correction. I felt Dolph shift beside me, unhappy with me. His face wouldn’t show it, but I could almost feel him willing me not to be a pain in the butt. Who, me?
Corporal Tucker was staring at me, eyes wide, face very still as if she was trying not to laugh.
One of the other firemen joined us. His damp T-shirt clung to a stomach that had required far too many sit-ups, but I enjoyed the view anyway. He was tall, broad-shouldered, blond, and looked like he should have been carrying a surfboard or visiting Barbie in her Malibu dream house. There was a smear of soot on his smiling face, and his eyes were red-rimmed.
He offered his hand without being introduced. “I’m Wren.” No rank, just his name. Confident.
He held my hand just a little longer than necessary. It wasn’t obnoxious, just interested.
I dropped my eyes. Not out of shyness, but because some men mistake direct eye contact as a come-on. I had about as much beefcake on my plate as I could handle without adding amorous firemen.
Captain Fulton