Burning for Alexander (Made Marian Legacy #2)
ALEX
_____________________
If the accidental conflagration had occurred at any other time, it wouldn’t have been a problem. We’d have put it out with a wet bar mop before anyone was the wiser and gone on with our lives.
Unfortunately for me, tonight was not my night.
So when the fire started, it happened to be at the exact same moment our town’s new fire chief walked into my restaurant with the sheriff.
“What the actual fuck?” the angry man in a navy blue Legacy FD fleece asked again, glaring at me.
He stood too close, wedged behind the bar, wielding my two-hundred-and-fifty-dollar Amerex fire extinguisher… which he’d just discharged all over my beautiful, hand-carved bar as if he had no idea the effect potassium citrate and acetate had on burled walnut.
I ignored him and called through the opening behind the bar to the kitchen. “Karim, please grab some clean, damp cloths and dry cloths. Quickly!”
Chemical solution came close to dripping from the edge of the bar as I lunged to stop the flow with the towel tucked into my back pocket. “Fuck. Fuck,” I muttered under my breath. “Can you please move? I have to clean this before it gets all over everything.”
The man reached for the small bottle lying next to the charred remains of my napkin and straw holder and held it up.
It was the sanitizing spray Tavo had been using, too close to the Bacardi 151 float I’d been flicking a lighter on. The combination of the two had caused the flaming kerfuffle in the first place.
The grumpy fire chief nudged me back with a fingertip to the shoulder. “You will not touch anything.”
I ignored the odd twinge I got from feeling his finger on me. The older man was sexy as fuck, no doubt about it. Thick, wavy hair that was more salt than pepper, dark eyes that seemed happiest pinning people like bugs on a board, and broad shoulders. Most of all, a commanding presence.
But so far, it seemed like he had the personality of a meat grinder.
He continued with another soft poke. “This is now a crime scene, and disturbing it is a violation of—”
“Crime scene?” I barked out a laugh. “Guy, it’s a small mishap at best.”
“Your ‘mishap’ appears to be deliberate arson, and as such, I will be doing a full investigation.”
I opened my mouth to tell him just how ridiculous he was being when I remembered the first time he’d come in here a few weeks ago.
“Wait, is this about the day we met? About me not knowing who you were? Is this some kind of retaliation for my bad memory?” Hopefully, my voice didn’t sound as high-pitched and unhinged as I felt.
Annoyance and incredulity bubbled up, and I wanted to deck the man. “I told you, we’ve never met before!”
And I could say that with certainty because the man was sex on a stick. I would’ve wanted to climb him and beg him to do dirty things to me. But now that it turned out he was an asshole, maybe it was a good thing we’d never met.
His jaw clenched. “We’ve met. More than met, in fact. And if you want to pretend otherwise, that’s your decision. But, no, this has nothing to do with our previous… encounter. It has to do with fire safety. Public safety.”
“When exactly did we meet?” I asked, letting Karim take over the cleanup from the other side of the bar while I kept the chief’s focus turned slightly away.
The less “evidence” of this minor incident, the better.
“Because I’d remember you with all this…
” I waved my hand to indicate the whole of him. “Bluster and general assholery.”
His eyes widened and then narrowed. “Three years ago in Amsterdam. Ring a bell?”
I thought back to the only time I’d ever been to Amsterdam. It was during a layover from France on the way to meet the rest of my family in Iceland. But that had been more like eight years ago because I’d been at Chateau de Pommard finishing my level three WSET qualification.
Before I could tell him any of this, Sheriff Westland approached and made eye contact with the frothing fire chief.
“Chief Kincaid, I’m sure this was nothing but an accident, and since you were so quick to react, there’s not much harm done other than a ruined… whatever that was,” he said, nodding toward the melted napkin caddy.
“And the finish on my bar from the K-class extinguisher,” I muttered under my breath.
Chief Kincaid made a growling sound, clearly directed at me. I kept my eyes averted and tried to look innocent as a lamb.
“I need to know who started the fire so I can write it up,” Kincaid said. “Arson or not, it was still a careless fire in a restaurant and needs to be reported. Also…” He met my eyes, cold blue searing into me. “No more fiery drinks.”
“That’s not fair!” I cried. “We’re known for the Slingshot Flame. People come from all over to try it! You can’t just take it away from us. Besides, I have a fucking fire effect permit—”
He shrugged. “Not anymore. Consider it revoked as of now.”
Nerves coiled in my gut.
The Slingshot Flame was talked about in hotels, campgrounds, and Airbnbs all over the area.
I’d only been running Timber for two and a half years, and I was counting on this summer’s tourist traffic to help solidify my place on the map.
Timber couldn’t afford to lose one of the things that made it unique and fun.
It was hard enough sustaining a restaurant under any conditions, but in a very small town with large swells and dips, thanks to the fickle tourist population, it was impossible to know what might bring about the end of a place’s popularity.
I took a deep breath and dug deep, searching for any shred of patience and respect I could find for this asshole.
“Chief. What can I do to get the permit reinstated?”
“Fuck-all,” he growled.
Sheriff Westland sighed and shook his head.
“Let’s all just calm down. I believe de-escalation is called for here.
Alex, I agree with Chief Kincaid.” He held his hand up at the angry fire chief’s smug expression.
“But I think it’ll most likely be a temporary permit suspension while you and your crew undergo more rigorous training and submit to a full safety inspection. ”
Kincaid’s eyes were smoking embers, and if the sheriff hadn’t been fully hydrated, the man might have incinerated on the spot. “I believe I carry the decision-making power for the Legacy Fire Department, Elias, do I not?” His voice was cold as he addressed our friendly sheriff.
Sheriff Westland’s golden retriever aura didn’t hide the fact that he had teeth like any other good dog.
“Of course you do, but I don’t believe you’ve been in Legacy long enough to see the bigger picture.
Maybe I can explain it to you back at the station.
And maybe Alex, here, can make us a stack of pizzas to take to your crew while we’re at it? ” He lifted his eyebrows at me.
If it had been anyone other than the sheriff, I probably would have told him where to shove my gourmet pizzas.
But it wasn’t. And I owed Elias Westland a lot for his support over the past three years.
“Absolutely. That sounds like a good idea,” I said quickly, moving around Chief Asshat to inform the kitchen to get started on the order.
The sound of the two alphas faking cordiality faded as I moved deeper into the kitchen. “Juni, sorry to do this to you, but I’m going to need an assortment of ten pizzas, garlic knots, and a variety of salads for the firehouse as soon as we can get them ready.”
Her steely eyes glinted at me. “You tell that posturing piece of sh—”
“I got it!” Deena said, pivoting to the prepared dough mounds on a tray in a nearby rack. “Karim will put together the salads, right, Karim?”
He nodded and moved past me to the sink before washing his hands.
After everyone settled down, Juni, my head chef, glanced up at me with a reluctant nod. “You did good.”
That was all she said, but enough of the kitchen crew heard it, as tuned in to her as they were, that the room filled with nods and murmurs of agreement.
I blew out a breath and glanced back out the kitchen door to see if anyone was close enough to hear. “Did anyone see Tavo? The sheriff or the fire chief?”
Juni shook her head. “No way. That kid bolted, just like you told him to. He’s probably tucked away deep in the library by now. Maureen will look out for him, don’t you worry.”
She was right, but I still worried. Our kitchen assistant was a young man with the weight of the world on his shoulders and enough legitimate stress distracting him to have accidentally sprayed accelerant at the drink I was making.
As soon as I realized what was happening and who was walking in the door of the restaurant at the worst possible time, I’d shoved him toward the kitchen with a hissed “Run.”
The last thing we needed was nosy law enforcement officers, including an asshole fire chief with something to prove, getting up in our business.
The kitchen staff hustled, working well together as a team, and got the order out as quickly as possible. There was a silent understanding in the kitchen that the sooner we got rid of the LEOs, the sooner everyone could take a deep breath and relax.
Poor Tavo didn’t turn back up until almost closing time, much later that night.
“You okay?” I asked, spotting him behind the dumpster after I tossed in a bag of trash. As soon as he stepped into the beams of safety floodlights on the back of the building, I saw how scared he looked.
“Alex, I’m so sorry! I promise it was an accident!”
I held open my arms. “Oh, honey, c’mere. We’re okay. I promise.”
He raced across the remaining yards of asphalt and launched himself into my arms. His small frame wasn’t enough to even make me stumble. Poor thing needed some meat on his bones, as my great-great-aunt Tilly would say.
Tavo’s body was racked with sobs I was fairly sure weren’t just about the fire at Timber, so I held him tightly until he was ready to let go. When he pulled back, his eyes were shimmery. “Can I… can I still, um, stay with you? Because I’ll understand if the answer is no.”
I rolled my eyes and grinned at him. “Don’t be ridiculous. Of course you can. Come on.”
I turned to head toward the old wooden stairs leading up to the place I called home over the restaurant. Unlike my friend Maddox, who lived over his family’s hardware store in town in a residence resembling an actual apartment, I lived in more of a rabbit warren.
The building was an old timber roadhouse that had been around for almost a hundred years.
Over time, it had been added onto like a LEGO house with rooms originally built to expand the kitchen, store beer kegs, bulk food supplies, pool tables, and various other things as the mood had struck various owners over the years.
My place was a motley collection of little rooms forming the interconnected and finished attic spaces of the add-ons. Thankfully, it meant Tavo had a tiny room to himself—one just large enough to fit a simple twin bed and small wooden dresser.
Unfortunately, the rooms were connected by narrow passageways that made sharing the living space a challenge at times.
Once we made our way upstairs, Tavo ducked into his room and waited for me to do my nightly bathroom routine before taking his turn.
I moved into my bedroom to throw both dormer windows wide open and let out the stuffy heat of the day.
I flicked on the large box fan and set it in one window to create some airflow, and then moved back out of my room to the small kitchen in search of a glass of ice water. The stress of the day began to melt away as I moved through my nightly routine.
It wasn’t until I was setting tomorrow morning’s alarm on my phone after slipping into bed that I saw the email notification from the Legacy Fire Department. I clicked it open to see the “Official Notice of Permit Suspension.”
As my eyes scanned down the page, my anger began to simmer and then boil over.
Incident involved ignition of alcohol-based sanitizer aerosol in proximity to open flame being used for bar drink presentation.
Resulting fire involved napkin holder and was extinguished with in-house Class K extinguisher.
Preliminary cause determined to be procedural negligence and failure to adhere to fire safety protocols. Referred for code compliance review.
I was going to kill that overreacting motherfucker. Before taking a moment of maturity to catch my breath and calm down, maybe even sleep on it the way a professional adult would have, I hit the Reply button and gave Legacy’s new fire chief a piece of my fucking mind.