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  Blue Eyes folded his arms across his chest. “Then why are we here?”

  Gemma studied the floor.

  “No offense, ma’am, but this incense is too strong.” He removed his helmet. Thick, black curls sprang to life as those gorgeous eyes scoured the ceiling. Gemma felt a small flutter in the pit of her stomach. He was movie star handsome, with a strong jawline. And those eyes…

  “Do you have a working smoke detector?”

  Gemma turned pink. “I guess.”

  “You guess?”

  She didn’t want to tell him she’d deliberately removed the batteries from it precisely so she could bum this particular sweet, smoky incense. Blue Eyes was shaking his head. She caught the glance he exchanged with the other two firefighters and her blush deepened. They think I’m a strange, eccentric idiot who burns repulsive, stinky incense and wastes the fire department’s time.

  “Where is the smoke detector?” Blue Eyes asked.

  “In the bedroom.”

  “Mind if we check it?”

  “I take it that’s a rhetorical question.”

  “Why, yes, ma’am, it is.”

  Gemma sighed her capitulation, and pointed the way then followed, praying she hadn’t left the room in a mess. Blue Eyes flicked on the light switch inside the doorway. Her bed was indeed made; but one of her black silk teddies was flung against her carefully arranged pillows. It looked provocative, an invitation without words. She tried to ignore it as each of the firefighters’ eyes darted to the item in question. Aztec sniggered audibly and Blue Eyes cracked “Nice jammies” under his breath, thinking she wouldn’t hear.

  “Thank you,” Gemma said pointedly, and he looked distinctly uncomfortable. Good, Gemma thought. That’s what you get.

  Mustache unscrewed the top of the smoke detector. Gemma tensed, knowing what he would find.

  “Ma’am?” he inquired politely, removing his helmet to scratch his head. Mustache was bald as a newborn. With the handlebar mustache, gleaming pate, and firefighter garb, he could moonlight as a member of the Village People. “There’s no battery in this smoke detector.”

  Gemma feigned surprise. “Oh?”

  “It’s also older than God,” Mustache continued. “You could use a new one.”

  “I’ll get one first thing tomorrow.”

  Meanwhile, Blue Eyes’s attention was drawn to the walls, decorated with photos of animals: whales, elephants, dolphins, and monkeys. Gemma caught his eyes darting to the picture of Michael and Theresa she kept on her dresser, along with other family photos. His gaze seemed to linger there before returning to the walls. He studied her wildlife photos quietly but seriously—so seriously that Aztec followed suit.

  “You cut those out of National Geographic?” Aztec asked.

  “No, I took them myself.”

  Blue Eyes’s gaze locked on her. “Really?”

  “Yes. I love animals. I like to vacation where there’s wildlife.”

  “Interesting,” Blue Eyes murmured.

  Mustache rolled his eyes. “We done here, Marlin Perkins?”

  Blue Eyes gave Mustache a scowl, and Gemma was glad not to be on the receiving end of it. His expression remained grave as he addressed her. “You realize if there’d been an actual fire in here, it could have been quite serious, ma’am?”

  “Please. My name is Gemma.” When did I go from a “miss” to a “ma’am”?

  “Gemma,” Blue Eyes repeated, trying it out. “Interesting name.”

  “Thank you.” Gemma’s smile was genuine.

  “Please get some fresh batteries and a new detector,” he continued. “If not for your own safety, then for the safety of others in the building.”

  “I will,” she promised. “I’m sorry about this.”

  “You should be. This could have been quite serious.”

  But it wasn’t, Gemma thought. Talk about beating a dead horse! Were they taught to do that? “Are we done here?” she asked.

  Aztec nodded.

  Turning off the light, Gemma led them back into her living room. Was there a protocol here? Was she supposed to offer them coffee or something, especially since this was a false alarm? Was she supposed to make a donation to the FDNY?

  Blue Eyes turned to Gemma. “Would it be possible for you to burn a less smoky brand of incense, miss, um—”

  “Dante,” Gemma supplied.

  “Dante,” he echoed thoughtfully. “Could you do that? Please?”

  “I suppose.” She’d been using this brand of incense for years. Now, thanks to Mrs. Croppy, she was going to have to find something else.

  “A less smoky brand wouldn’t trip a smoke detector,” Blue Eyes continued.

  Gemma bit her lip. “What if I took the batteries out whenever I burned the incense?”

  It was a bad question.

  “Do you know how many people take the batteries out of detectors when they’re cooking and forget to put them back?” Blue Eyes said wearily. “Look, just buy a new smoke detector, put the batteries in, and leave them there. In the meantime, try to find a less pungent brand of incense”—he sounded amused, which bugged Gemma— “burn it for a shorter period of time, and keep a window ”cracked. That should take care of the problem.“

  Then he smiled at her, his blue eyes so alive and full of life that Gemma thought, Old soul, Good heart, and goose bumps rose up on her arms. Ushering them to the front door, she apologized again for wasting their time.

  ———

  “Yo, Birdman, whaddaya think? A wacko or what?”

  Hanging up his turnout coat back at the station, Sean Kennealy turned to answer the question posed to him by Sal Ojeda, who, along with Mike Leary, had just helped him perpetrate a minor fraud on his neighbor.

  “Could be.” Sean shrugged. “I just hope she stops burning that crap.”

  “Oh, she will,” Leary predicted, sliding out of his boots. “You were very professional.”

  Sean chuckled. For over a month, the smell coming out of Theresa Falconetti’s old apartment had been driving him crazy. He’d come home from his shift, desperate for sleep, but he couldn’t. The stinky smell wafting its way to his apartment was so strong it was suffocating. Opening all of his windows didn’t help. The stink clung to the air, tormenting him. One morning, sleep deprived and pissed off, he slipped a note under the apartment’s door, hoping that would do the trick.

  Then two nights later the stench returned.

  That bugged him.

  Years earlier, someone down the hall had complained that Pete and Roger squawked their heads off whenever he wasn’t home. He’d tracked down a vet who was able to prescribe some antianxiety meds. Presto! Problem solved. If he could respond to a neighbor’s request, why couldn’t the incense burner? Was his note too nasty? True, he’d scribbled it in haste. Maybe he should have knocked on the door and asked The Stinker to stop? But he was in no mood to get into it with someone who might be a wacko. What kind of person wants their apartment to smell like that?

  Instead, Sean asked two of his buddies from the fire-house to help him take care of the problem once and for all. They waited until their shift was over, then bunkered up and walked over to his building on Fifty-ninth and First, feeling like three naughty schoolboys. Seeing where he lived, Leary and Ojeda razzed him about being Yuppie scum, but Sean offered no apologies. Years back, he’d worked hard on Wall Street to buy his apartment. Now he owned it outright and was proud of it.

  “You catch that teddy on the bed?” Leary drawled. “I bet she was waiting for her guru to come over and take her to a higher plane, if you know what I mean.”

  Ojeda laughed. “All the way to nirvana, baby.”

  Sean laughed, too. He had expected The Stinker to be some kind of urban ascetic, gaunt and unsmiling. Instead, the door was opened by a tiny, curvaceous woman with wild, tumbling red hair and the kindest eyes he had ever seen. Her poise impressed him; so had the photos on her bedroom walls. Leary’s “Marlin Perkins” crack had annoyed him, becau
se it kept him from finding out more about Gemma Dante, who was obviously related to the hockey player, Michael Dante, Theresa’s husband. The photo on the dresser was a dead giveaway. Was Gemma his sister?

  On the other hand, Leary’s ribbing was a good thing. Yeah, they rode him hard about being “Birdman,” but teasing the shit out of the guys at the house was a firefighter’s favorite pastime. Since he’d come from Wall Street, it had taken them a long time to accept him. The wisecracks meant he was one of them.

  Down the hall, the current shift at Engine 3 I/Ladder 29 was sitting down to dinner. Sean could smell the enticing aroma of Al Dugan’s famous “Help! My butt’s on fire!” chili as it wafted onto the apparatus floor, making his stomach rumble.

  “You guys up for a burger and a beer?” he asked.

  “Depends,” Ojeda said. “You paying?”

  “What, in return for services rendered?”

  “Shit, you make us sound like hookers,” Leary said. He turned to Ojeda. “Don’t make the man pay for a favor, you cheap little bastard.”

  “What?” Ojeda whined. “It’s burgers and beers, for Chrissakes, not filet mignon and Dom.”

  Leary thought a moment then turned back to Sean. “The little bastard’s got a point.”

  Sean grinned. “Geez, if I’d known you two were such cheap dates, I’d have asked you out sooner. Shall we?”

  Together, the three men left the firehouse and headed down the street.

  ———

  The first thing Gemma did when she saw her cousin Michael in the green room at Met Gar the next night was playfully punch him in the arm.

  “Ouch!” Michael recoiled, rubbing the spot where her fist had landed. “What was that for?”

  “That blind date you set me up on! All he talked about was screwdrivers and gum!”

  “He’s a nice guy!” Michael retorted.

  “There’s a difference between nice and boring.”

  Michael shrugged philosophically. “So it didn’t work out. What matters is you did a nice thing, right?”

  ‘True.“

  “C’mere, give cousin Mikey a hug, you do-gooder, you.”

  Gemma stepped into her cousin’s embrace. It always amazed her how solid he felt. He’d been a scrawny little thing when they were kids, all pointy elbows and knobby knees and lack of coordination. And now look at him, Gemma marveled. Mr. NHL Bigshot.

  And happily married, too, to the woman of his dreams, with a new baby girl. Pride burgeoned within Gemma as she recalled the pivotal role she’d played in getting Michael and Theresa together. It hadn’t been easy; both were stubborn as mules, not to mention melodramatic. But with a little help from some tarot cards and a big, heaping dose of Dante family-style meddling, she’d helped them past their foolish pride and into each other’s arms.

  “So, who are you playing tonight?” she asked as they gently broke their embrace.

  Utter disbelief flitted across Michael’s face. “Do you ever bother to crack open a newspaper? Or are you too busy stirring your cauldron?”

  “You’re hilarious.”

  “I try.”

  “Seriously, Michael, who are you playing?” Gemma repeated, pushing back the hair from her forehead. Sometimes she just wanted to cut it all off, it was so wavy and unruly. “I’ve been really, really busy, I didn’t have time—”

  “Sshh.” He put his index finger to her lips. “Relax. It’s okay.” Removing his hand, he said, “We’re playing an exhibition game against the FDNY hockey team. The proceeds will benefit the Uniformed Firefighters Association Scholarship Fund. It’s for kids whose dads got badly burned, or, you know…”

  Died, Gemma supplied in her head. Kids whose dads died. Though it had been over four years since 9/11, it was still hard for New Yorkers to talk about it. Gemma nodded her understanding.

  “I had a little adventure with the fire department myself,” she said, trying to lighten the mood. She told Michael about the incense and the false alarm.

  His response was typical. “Well, if it was the same stuff you burn in the store, I’m not surprised someone called the fire department. You could clear the block with that crap.”

  Gemma clucked her tongue. “You’re an idiot, you know that?”

  “Yeah, but you love me, anyway.” His eyes shot to the clock on the wall. “I gotta go get dressed. You know where to sit, right?”

  “Of course.” Gemma glanced around the green room. She recognized some of the players there. The rest, she assumed, were members of the players’ families, just like her. But why was she the only Dante present? “Theresa is coming, right?”

  “Yeah, she’s just running behind. She’ll be here.”

  “And Anthony?”

  Anthony was Michael’s older brother, as well as the head chef and half owner of the family restaurant they owned in Brooklyn, Dante’s. Hearing Gemma’s question, Michael guffawed.

  “Yeah, right. Like I could get him to leave his battle station at the stove on a Saturday night.” He launched into an imitation of his brother. “ ‘I run a business, Mikey. I can’t just drop my freakin’ ladle and run every time you shoot a puck down the friggin‘ ice for some ubatz charity.’”

  The impersonation was so accurate Gemma erupted into appreciative laughter. “I guess that answers the question.” Rising up on tiptoes, she gave Michael a kiss on the cheek. “I’m kind of beat, so I don’t know if I’ll see you after the game. But good luck.”

  “Thanks.” He went to leave, then turned back, ,eyes gleaming with mischief. “Oh, and Gem?”

  “Yeah?”

  “We’re the guys in blue and white with BLADES written on the front of our jerseys. Just so you know.”

  CHAPTER 3

  Met Gar was packed. Gazing at the sea of exuberant faces as she took her seat behind the Blades’ bench, Gemma noticed most of the people were families, many wearing T-shirts and baseball caps bearing the FDNY logo. Watching a father ruffle his young daughter’s hair before rising to order a hot dog for each of them, Gemma ached with envy and longing. Though she adored her family, she was considered somewhat of a “black sheep.” Her eyes continued surveying the buzzing crowd, her attention drawn to the many children there. How many were fatherless? How many had lost cousins, uncles, sons, brothers? Like most New Yorkers, she’d pretty much taken firefighters and what they did for granted. That is, until over three hundred of them died trying to save others on a bright, clear morning in September. Ever since then, they’d been lauded as heroes and christened sex symbols. Gemma hadn’t thought about them being sexy until Blue Eyes and his cohorts came pounding on her door.

  Blue Eyes. Just picturing his handsome, rugged face made her run hot and cold all over. She wondered if he was here to cheer his buddies on, and if so, if their paths might cross.

  “There you are!”

  At the sound of Theresa’s voice, Gemma turned. Silly though it was, she was feeling semiconspicuous sitting there alone, wondering if the surrounding families thought she was a puck bunny. She certainly didn’t dress like a hockey groupie; that much she knew for sure. Unless bunnies had taken to wearing chunky, silver earrings, flowing floral scarfs, and maroon velvet trousers.

  “Hey, you.” Theresa’s smile was warm as she maneuvered herself into a seat. “Know how I knew you were already here?”

  “How?”

  Theresa lifted her nose in the air and sniffed. “Your perfume. Very distinctive.”

  Gemma chuckled. “Is that good or bad?”

  “It’s good. Kind of tangerine-y.” Theresa took in the crowd. “Madonn‘, the place is packed.”

  “They’ll raise a lot of money.”

  “Hope so.”

  Reaching into her purse, Theresa took out a scrunchie and pulled her black, wavy hair into a loose ponytail. Gemma detected a few strands of gray in the mix; not that it mattered. If anything, it made the beautiful Theresa look even more exotic. Though she did look tired in that way many new mothers do.

  “So, ho
w’s the baby?” Gemma wanted to know, squeezing Theresa’s arm.

  Theresa’s smile was weary but happy. “Great.”

  “Have you named her yet?” Though their daughter was a month old, Theresa and Michael had yet to agree on a name. Michael wanted Philomena, after his mother. Theresa’s reaction had been concise: “Over my dead body.” Theresa was pushing hard for Galen. Michael said that sounded like an antacid.

  “The way we’re going, she’s going to wind up being called ‘Miss X.’”

  Gemma smiled sympathetically. “Don’t worry, you’ll come up with something.” Taking the jumbo-sized bottle of Evian from Theresa’s hand, she helped herself to a sip. “I’m surprised you’re here. I thought for sure you’d be home with Miss X.”

  “The first baby ever born in the history of the world is with my mother, God save her tiny, unnamed soul. No, I’m here because one of the Blades is a client and he’s slated to do an interview after the game. I want to make sure he doesn’t say anything stupid.” She took the water back from Gemma. “And I wanted to support Michael, of course.”

  “Of course.”

  Gemma opened her mouth to say something else but was drowned out by the blaring horn signaling the game was about to begin. Since it was a charity game, they’d be playing only two periods. Though she enjoyed watching her cousin play, Gemma wasn’t a big sports fan in general. She traced it back to elementary school phys ed, when she was always chosen last for basketball because of her height and teased unmercifully for her inability to hit a softball.

  Since Met Gar was the Blades’ home ice, they skated out first. A rousing cheer rose up from the crowd as each player skated out into the spotlight. Gemma noticed that Michael, especially, got a thundering reception, proof of his status as hometown favorite. He loved it, too, waving and smiling as he made a circuit round the ice before gliding to the players’ bench.

  “Your husband is such a ham,” she remarked to Theresa, who heartily agreed.

  As loud as the cheers were for the Blades, the decibel level went sky high when the FDNY hockey team ap-peared, their bright red jerseys dazzling against the white ice. Unlike the Blades, the players for the fire department hockey team came in all shapes and sizes. There were neckless little runts who would be pulverized by one modest hit from a Blades defenseman, refrigerator-sized brutes, and tall, sleek geeks Gemma could envision being blown over by the passing breeze created by a fast-skating teammate.