Page 13 of Built of Flames
When she had herself in control, she opened the door to find Aisling waiting at the conference table that filled the main cabin room she used for her office.
“You okay?” Her friend’s voice and face both showed concern.
Bella glanced out the window to the deck. “They’re not ganging up on Mitch, are they?”
Aisling shrugged. “We’re all concerned.”
Bella sighed and sat in the chair across from her friend. “If you had asked me yesterday, I would have told you I wasn’t ready to see him. But he showed up without knowing it was me and I’m glad he did.”
Aisling eyebrows shot up, but she waited for Bella to continue.
“It surprises me too. I’ll tell you the whole sordid story one day. To trim it to the basics for now, I was a firefighter in Kelsor. My father was the chief. Mitch and my brother Christo were also firefighters. During a warehouse fire, my partner had a heart attack. We got out, but he was unconscious and needed surgery. When I got back from the hospital to the station, the Chief reamed me out in front of everyone, blaming me for making mistakes that caused my partner’s injuries. Everyone believed him even though I’d done nothing wrong. I did some reaming of my own, stormed out and haven’t spoken to any of them since.”
Saying it like that had Bella realizing she most definitely wasn’t without fault in the scenario. Which was part of the reason she was ready to accept Mitch and Christo back into her life.
“Wow. That sounds the tip of the iceberg to that story. I can’t imagine how awful that was. Were you and Mitch a couple back then?”
Bella shook her head. “No. The Chief didn’t allow fraternization between firefighters and Mitch has never seen me that way.”
Aisling snorted. “Doubtful. Not with the way he was looking at you out there.”
“Seriously?”
“Very. So he’s not the big bad wolf in this story? You’re really okay with him being here?”
Bella nodded. “I am. I’m kind of overwhelmed at the moment, but I think it’s going to be a good thing. My brother is off shift in a couple of hours. Mitch wants me to be with him when he calls him. He says he and Christo have been searching for me.”
Aisling frowned. “Have you been hiding?”
She shrugged. “Kind of. I’ve been using B. Martinez in my arson investigator work. They all know me as Isabella or Izzy, not Bella. The only one who called me that was my partner. I’d always preferred my full name, but switching to Bella made sense.”
Aisling nodded. “Okay. So we put him to the test through dinner. Find out if he’s a decent guy. Then you can decide from there. Any time you want to talk about it or if you need a sounding board, I’m always here. And I know that goes for Tansy, Sam, and Graham too.”
More tears filled her eyes. She was so lucky to have come to Midnight Lake. “Thank you.”
“Now, let’s go see if your hottie is as good as he seems.”
Bella laughed. “Hottie? What would Graham think if he heard you say that?”
Aisling waggled her eyebrows. “He’d just go about proving to me that I only need one hottie. Which is all I want. How about you?”
Heat flared on Bella’s skin. Everything about Mitch was appealing from his deep brown eyes to his strong jaw to his muscled body. He’d always been her dream guy. Always.
Could they move beyond their past? And why was she thinking like that when she’d only had him back in her life for an hour?
Shaking her head at herself and Aisling, Bella pushed back from the table. “I think it’s time to rescue Mitch.”
Aisling smiled as she rose as well, but before they headed out the door, she put her hand on Bella’s arm. “Sometimes it only takes a minute to know it’s right.”
Then they were on the deck where the men were chatting about Midnight Security, the business Graham and Sam had created, along with several other friends in law enforcement. No one appeared to be upset or angry. Had Mitch won them over so easily?
And why did her heart soar at the thought?
Mitch watched Pennyworth—a robot named after Batman’s butler—wash the dishes from their supper and place them in a drying rack. When the rack was full, Pennyworth dried everything and stacked things in appropriate piles on the counter. “How does he do that?”
Isabella laughed. “No idea. Tansy isn’t a fan of cleaning. She was here for a few months by herself, so she created sets of CleanySaur robots to do the cleaning on each floor. Pennyworth is her latest addition to the line.”
Mitch already knew a bit about Tansy from conversations with Marcus. She was a scientist with a wider range of interests than anyone he’d ever known. The kid of a buddy at the firehall was obsessed with her TeenySaur toys. The tiny robots worked collaboratively to build and teach kids coding at the same time.