The Firefighter's Vow. Amie Denman

      TONY CAUGHT HIS BREATH. Despite his nearly dozen years of firefighting, his blood still pumped with excitement whenever a call came in. Fires, heart attacks, car accidents, beach rescues. All of them activated his love of coming to the rescue, no matter what. Helping other people live was his reason for living.

      Catching his breath was pretty darn hard when he realized the woman on the beach was Laura Wheeler. He had no idea why she was in Cape Pursuit, or at the scene of a beach rescue, but he remembered three things about her from the summer before.

      He remembered her eyes filled with pain and vulnerability—a look he’d seen so many times in the fire-and-rescue service. He recalled her hair, soft as silk in his fingers as he’d held it while she vomited up her mistakes from the Cape Pursuit Bar and Grill. And he couldn’t forget her dismissal of him... Her dismissal and rejection as if his help had burned her.

      Looking at her now, he saw something else. She had the same long dark hair, now streaming with water, but her shoulders were square. Her eyes were the radiant blue he remembered, but the expression in them was...different.

      “Everyone seems okay, Chief,” his partner, Travis, said, taking Tony’s attention away from Laura and reminding him that he was the officer in charge, superseding lifeguards and anyone else when he showed up on a scene. “Lifeguards did a good job.”

      Tony grunted. Laura was walking over to her lifeguards, who were standing together in a group, animatedly discussing the event. She touched the shoulders of two of them and talked with them in a low, calm voice while Tony and his partner knelt and talked with the rescued swimmers.

      He wondered when Laura had arrived in town. If she had moved to Cape Pursuit, he was surprised his cousin Kevin hadn’t mentioned it. Kevin’s upcoming wedding to Laura’s sister, Nicole, meant Tony had expected he’d see Laura in July. But why was she already in town?

      “Sure you don’t want to go to the hospital?” Travis asked. “Just in case?”

      “We’re fine,” one of the teens said.

      “Where are your parents?”

      “At the hotel,” the other one said, pointing to one of the many beachfront hotels with balconies overlooking the Atlantic.

      “We’ll need to talk to them,” Tony said. “Which hotel?”

      The teen gave him the information and Tony made the call. Within minutes, a middle-aged man and woman were running across the sand, even though both teens were on their feet and waving sheepishly at their approaching parents.

      Tony had seen a similar scene more times than he could remember. The relatives showing up at the hospital just after a car accident, concerned adult children skidding into their parents’ living rooms as the paramedics were loading up someone with chest pain. He’d seen happy endings like this one, but also gut-wrenching sad ones that both tested and reinforced his resolve to continue being a first responder.

      “We’re okay,” both boys said at the same time. Their parents hugged them, not seeming to care about getting wet or sandy, and Tony gave them space for a minute before he approached. The teens needed a lesson about getting too far out and going beyond the limits of their swimming abilities, and Tony knew they were probably hearing that message now. He would talk with the parents in a moment and give them their options for further medical care if they felt it was needed.

      “Experience is a hard but good teacher,” Laura said seriously, her eyes meeting Tony’s as she came up to him. A touch of the vulnerability he’d seen the previous summer reappeared for a moment, but then she looked away.

      “That’s the truth,” he said. “I’ll write up a full report after I talk to their parents.”

      “Can I get a copy of that?”

      “Uh...sure.” Now that the initial shock of seeing her had worn off somewhat, Tony could have a polite conversation. They weren’t strangers. “How have you been, Laura?”

      Her lips parted for a moment as if she was considering her answer. It was strange, meeting this way after not seeing each other for so long. Tony had wondered about her over the past year.

      “I’ve been fine. How about you?”

      “Fine,” he said. “I’m just surprised to see you.”

      “I’m here for the summer,” she said. “Working at the Pursuit of Fun beach shack and supervising all the teen workers.”

      A summer job. Spending time with her sister before she got married. The pieces began to fall into place and Tony felt his shoulders relax.

      “Teaching high school is good practice for that, I’d bet,” he said.

      Laura tilted her head and raised both eyebrows a hair. “You remember I’m a teacher.”

      “I remember,” he said. He didn’t elaborate on what else he remembered from the previous summer, as he thought Laura was just as likely to want to forget it. “Are you a lifeguard?”

      She shook her head.

      “You’re not a lifeguard, but you ran into the ocean and tried to save people anyway,” he said. Exactly the kind of bystander he and his partners on the fire department didn’t love. The kind that often needed to be rescued, too.

      “We actually did save them,” she said. Her cheeks colored and she crossed her arms.

      “You shouldn’t put yourself in danger.”

      “You do it all the time,” she said.

      “That’s different. I’m a trained first responder with a lot of experience.”

      “You weren’t here,” Laura said. “And I was. Besides, I’m more capable than you think.”

      Tony clenched his jaw, not wanting to argue with Laura, knowing he wouldn’t win. She was right about being there and being successful, but it could have quickly gone in another direction. Good intentions only went so far and often ended up getting people killed.

      “I’ll make sure you get a copy of that report,” he said.

      He grabbed his boots and stomped his feet into them without bothering to tie the laces. He didn’t want to think about what could have happened to Laura and how that would have devastated her family, who had already suffered enough.