Hearts on fire, p.1
Hearts On FIre, page 1
Hearts On Fire
Hartland FD 2
Shea Balik
Copyright ©2023 by Shea Balik
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Cover by Harris Channing
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Contents
1. CHAPTER 1
2. CHAPTER 2
3. CHAPTER 3
4. CHAPTER 4
5. CHAPTER 5
6. CHAPTER 6
7. CHAPTER 7
8. CHAPTER 8
9. CHAPTER 9
10. CHAPTER 10
11. CHAPTER 11
12. CHAPTER 12
13. CHAPTER 13
14. CHAPTER 14
15. CHAPTER 15
16. EPILOGUE
17. About the Author
CHAPTER 1
“Oops, sorry,” Austin Pierce said as he opened the door to his office and nearly ran into a delivery guy with a package in his hands. “Is that for me?”
“Are you Austin Pierce?” the man said.
“Yep,” he confirmed, even though he really needed to pee. “You can put it on the counter,” he said as he pointed in that general direction. “Excuse me, I need to be somewhere.”
He’d had nearly thirty-two ounces of water and felt as if he was about to burst. Not waiting to see if the delivery man did as he suggested or not, Austin rushed down the hall to the second-floor bathrooms.
Breathing a sigh of relief a few minutes later, he left the bathroom and headed back down the hall when his phone rang. “Austin Pierce,” he answered.
“Yes, this is Todd Wilson. We have an appointment in fifteen minutes, and I was just making sure you were going to meet me in your office like we planned,” the voice on the phone said.
Switching direction, Austin headed to the stairwell. “Of course. I will be here, Mr. Wilson.”
Hanging up, Austin raced up the stairs to the third floor. Once he arrived at only one of the two suites that were still available for lease, he inserted the master key and opened the door. It was the space he would show Mr. Wilson and wanted to ensure it was ready for him. Checking the space once more, he made certain there were no dead bugs, or God forbid, mice. Switching on each light, he was happy to find they all worked.
Five minutes later, he shut the door and headed back down the hallway. Checking his phone for the time, he let out a breath of relief that he would still easily make it back to his office before Mr. Wilson arrived.
“Mr. Pierce.”
Austin couldn’t help but wince when he heard that disapproving voice calling him from behind him. Plastering a smile on his face, Austin turned around to face the one tenant that seemed intent on causing him nothing but grief. “Mr. McGraw, what a pleasure to see you.”
The man’s gaze grew harder at that. “You might see me more often if you’d ever come to work.”
Forcing himself to remain pleasant, Austin gently reminded him, “As I’ve explained in the past, I’m a nurses’ aide, not a building manager. My parents left me this building when they died, but even when they owned it, they were only here a few times a month, same as I am.”
He really wished he’d had the heart to sell his parents’ empire of office buildings, but he just hadn’t been able to give up that part of them yet. Admittedly, the monthly income didn’t hurt either. Although, he was certain the amount he’d make selling the buildings would be enough to live off for the rest of his life.
Even though he’d grown up watching his parents deal with the business owners who leased the offices, Austin had no idea how they did it without shoving them down the stairs. Considering he cared for sick, elderly people, that was saying something.
He did not know how, but that gaze got even colder, causing a chill to run up Austin’s spine. Used to stubborn, pig-headed people who thought the world should revolve around them, he refused to show any weakness even though he seriously wanted to run back to the safety of his office and slam the door closed where no one could get to him.
Why didn’t he have a problem when he was caring for someone who was ill or injured, but when it came to the tenants who leased offices from him, he was terrified? Not that those he cared for didn’t often piss him off, but he could go toe to toe with them.
“In case you don’t listen to your messages, we’ve had an issue with our air conditioning this last week. Each room is too cold or too warm.” The snide tone had Austin once more wanting to push the man down the stairs. Okay, not really, but… who was he kidding, he most definitely did.
“Yes, and when I called you back, your receptionist told me you were unavailable the five times I tried to get a hold of you.” Was that snarky? Yes, it was, and it was well deserved. “Each time I let her know that each office space is required to take care of their air conditioner unit, which you agreed to in the contract you signed when you leased the space ten years ago.”
He was seriously tired of Phil McGraw’s constant complaints about every little thing, especially when they were his issue, not Austin’s. Once one problem had been resolved, another would pop up when it came to Phil.
“Why should I be responsible for a piece of equipment that was bought before I even started leasing?” Phil asked with so much sarcasm, Austin swore he could see it dripping from his mouth.
He didn’t even have to look at his phone to know he was running late for his appointment. Hoping to stop this conversation, he reminded Phil, “If you’d had an issue with it, you really should have brought it up before signing your lease.” Yes, Austin knew he shouldn’t be feeling superior, but it was difficult not to be in that moment when he had Phil dead to rights.
Why did he feel so satisfied at the moment? Technically, he knew he’d won, but that didn’t mean this was over. That was especially true when it came to dealing with Phil.
Whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop.
“What the fuck?” Phil yelled above the siren of the fire alarm. “You’re supposed to let us know when they are testing the alarms.”
Austin, who had frozen at the ominous sound, shook his head. “They aren’t testing it.”
“Fire!” someone yelled from down below them.
“Get your people out of here,” Austin called out as he turned and ran to the next office, opened the door, and yelled, “This is not a drill. Evacuate.”
By the time he’d finished warning everyone on the third floor and raced down the steps to the second floor, it was engulfed in flames. With no way to warn anyone on that floor, Austin prayed everybody had made it to safety before heading down to the first floor.
It wasn’t much better, but he got out of the stairwell to do everything he could to help people out of the building. When the flames became too much, he finally fled.
Standing outside the front of the building, Austin felt tears prick his eyes as he watched one of his parents’ pride and joys go up in flames. He did not know how this had happened, but it was like losing his parents all over again.
They’d loved buying various spaces and turning them into offices that could be used by others. If that meant one, or both, couldn’t make it to one of Austin’s school events, he’d been expected to understand.
As a child, he hadn’t. The older he’d gotten, the more he’d realized they nurtured their business more than they ever had him. As a child, he’d resented it. As a teenager, he’d abused their absence to his advantage. When he graduated from college, he’d accepted it.
That was the reason he couldn’t sell any of the buildings they’d bought, renovated, and leased. Those structures were their babies. Austin was just someone they’d provided for financially. How was he supposed to get rid of the very things his parents had truly loved?
Now one of them was burning in front of his eyes. Even though his parents were no longer alive, he felt as if he were letting them down—again. In a rush, all those emotions of being inadequate swamped him as the flames crackled and roared in his ears.
Was there ever going to be a time when he would make them proud? Austin already knew it wouldn’t happen. He’d hoped by keeping their ‘empire’ alive they might smile down upon him. He really should have known better.
Heart shattered, Austin could only watch as his parents’ dreams quite literally went up in flames.
CHAPTER 2
“Papi, this has to stop.” Mateo Herrera was at his wit’s end with his father’s dogged refusal to listen to him and the doctors and his ability to take care of himself. “You’ve driven away four nurses and eight aides in the past two months. And now I need to find another home health agency because the last two refuse to send anyone else, and I quote, ‘to be verbally abused.’”
“I already told you I can take care of myself,” his father, Diego, belligerently told him. The scowl on his face let Mateo know this was going to be another fight. One he had no choice but to win, which would also mean hurting his father’s pride once again.
It was something Mateo hated doing but had little choice unless he forced his father into an assisted living facility, something he was loath to do. “Really?” he asked sarcastically to get his point across. “Because last time you were home without supervision, you were found lying in the front yard with nothing but a towel on.”
His father sighed as if Mateo was making a bigger deal out of it than it was. “I just thought I would dry out in the fresh air after my shower.”
That the man could say that with a straight face still stunned Mateo after the incident two months ago when his neighbor called him at work. “You were taken to the hospital. You just got the cast off your arm two weeks before,” Mateo reminded him.
“Bah.” His papi waved as if it had been nothing. “That doctor made a big deal out of nothing. It was merely a sprain.”
Shaking his head, Mateo never ceased to wonder how his papi could minimize everything that had to do with him, yet if it had been Mateo who’d been hurt, the man would have claimed Mateo had nearly been at death’s door for his stupidity. “You broke your wrist and two fingers. How was that a sprain?”
The scowl was back as his father glared at him. “I told you that the doctor made a big deal of it, even though it was nothing. I don’t need a babysitter. This is still my house and I’m not about to let you dictate to me how to live my life.”
It was always the same argument. Mateo could record it and just hit play the next time his papi drove another nurse or aide running from their house in either fear or aggravation. “This is also partly my house, as I paid you for half before I moved back in.”
He was still wondering if that had been a mistake. After his mom died, his papi had gone into a serious decline. Then again, Sofia Herrera had been the driving force behind their family. She may have been a Beta, but she’d acted more like an Alpha, as she dictated everything Diego did.
Diego may have been the breadwinner as a dentist, but Sofia had run his office, and their home, with military precision. What Mateo hadn’t realized was how much his dad had needed that structure until his mother had died. As an Alpha, Mateo hadn’t understood that his Beta father would flounder without direction, especially as he’d retired several years before.
Mateo had always been driven. At a young age, he’d decided to become a firefighter. His entire life had been dedicated to achieving that goal.
He’d been shocked when two months after his mother’s death, Mateo had visited his father to discover the house was in shambles and his dad wasn’t much better. There were dirty dishes piled everywhere, as well as some take-out containers. The garbage can had been empty, which made sense since it appeared his father hadn’t thrown one thing out in the month since Mateo had last seen him.
Nor had his dad taken a shower or washed his clothes as they were strewn across the floor of the bedroom. Spending the entire day cleaning, Mateo then made a schedule for his father to follow. Every few days, he would come over to check on his dad and was pleased to find he had mostly followed the list.
It had taken some tweaking and gentle reminders, but within two months, his father had learned to take care of himself. Yet as much as it pained Mateo to admit, he could see there was something still wrong with his dad. Nothing obvious, but sometimes he didn’t seem to quite know what was happening around him.
One year after Sofia had died, Mateo had come into the house to find his father yelling for her to make him something to eat. When Mateo tried to remind him she wasn’t alive any longer, he nearly punched Mateo for daring to say such a thing about his own mother.
Several doctor visits and numerous tests came back with his father suffering from dementia. His father was too proud of a man to ever consider moving into a facility of any kind, so Mateo moved into his home. To help pay for home health help, Mateo bought half of the house.
That money was dwindling far faster than Mateo had hoped. Between the cost and his father getting worse, not to mention how he kept chasing off those who were trying to help, Mateo feared he was going to have to do the unthinkable and put his father in a home.
“I bought this house with your mother,” his father yelled. “I will not allow my son to take over my life as if I’m some sort of child.”
“I’m not trying to do that, papi,” Mateo tried to reassure. “But you need someone here when I have to work.”
“I already told you I don’t need a babysitter,” his father demanded. “I will not have some kid in here telling me to take a shower or hand me pills like I’m some idiot.”
Taking a breath, Mateo tried to keep from yelling back. “That’s not what they’re doing, papi, and you know it. They are just trying to help when you sometimes forget.”
That earned him another scowl. “I have a mind like a steel trap. I knew every single one of my patients by name. That isn’t someone who forgets things like taking my pills.”
It took all of Mateo’s love for his father to not laugh at that ridiculous statement. Still, he had to get through to his father. “Then why did Mr. Grist find you swimming in his pool at two in the morning, four months ago… naked?”
That had been the impetus for him to hire a home health aide to stay with his dad for Mateo’s twenty-four-hour shifts at the fire station.
Once more, his father shrugged off Mateo’s point. “It was a hot night, and I wanted to cool off.”
There were so many things wrong with that statement, Mateo wasn’t sure where to start. “It was forty-five degrees out. You’re lucky you didn’t get hypothermia.”
“Bah.” His father waved off his concern. “It felt hotter than that.”
All he could do was blink as he stared at his father who was bundled under a blanket. “It’s seventy-five in here and you’re wearing long pants, a long-sleeved shirt, and a sweater with a blanket on top of you. How in the hell could you have been hot?”
Dark brown eyes so like his own narrowed. “Are you calling me a liar?”
Crap. This wasn’t going well. Not that he expected it to. “And was there a reason you felt it was okay to use the neighbor’s pool in the middle of the night?”
Another shrug. “What are neighbors for?”
“You were naked,” he exclaimed.
“I couldn’t find my swim trunks.” That his father thought any of it was perfectly acceptable continued to stun Mateo after all these months.
Why, considering his dad explained away every mistake he’d made because of his dementia in the most ridiculous manner possible, Mateo wasn’t certain. Each time his father did it, Mateo was positive it would be him who’d lose his damn mind.
“They have three children. You can’t be naked around them, papi. You’re lucky you weren’t arrested.” Thankfully, Mr. Grist had laughed it off, as he’d known Diego for years. Still, he’d made Mateo pay for a secure fence to be installed around their backyard to keep his father out.
In fairness, it had given him peace of mind since things could have ended up a lot worse. If Mr. Grist hadn’t heard him out there, it was possible his father would have gotten confused about where he was and drowned. That thought still caused Mateo’s heart to stop.
“You know what?” Mateo finally said. “I get that you don’t like having someone here to watch over you, but it is that or a nursing home.” He hated being so blunt, but it was necessary. “You choose.”
