Free On Fire by Stef Ann Holm Page A

had
baked, the little cups overflowed and left a huge mess in her oven. The dropped
batter had smoldered and smoked, setting off the alarm. Thankfully, once she
opened the sliding door of her town house, the detector had stopped sounding.
    Throwing in the towel on the cupcakes, she’d dashed to the car for another
trip to the grocery store — only this time rather than trying to be ambitious,
she decided instead to visit the bakery. She bought all the cupcakes she needed.
    Once back home, the town house still smelled like a forest fire, so she
decided to self-clean the oven. And that’s what started the disaster. The
remnants of batter had somehow caught fire, but now the oven door was locked
tight and she couldn’t do a darn thing about it.
    A knock on her front door caused her to groan as she opened it to face her
upstairs neighbor.
    “Hello, Mrs. Banks.”
    Mrs. Banks was eighty-four, and for someone who wore hearing aids and
complained of poor hearing, she never missed a sound.
    “I’m trying to watch Jeopardy and your smoke alarm has been going off
for ten minutes,” she grumbled. “So I called the fire department.”
    Kate’s eyes widened. A lump formed in her throat, making it difficult to
swallow. She knew which fire district she was in, and she also know what time it
was. “Please say you didn’t!”
    “I most certainly did. I’ve missed most of my show!”
    Mrs. Banks turned and ambled back up the stairs while Kate leaned in the
doorway as the sounds of sirens grew louder and louder.
    The screech of the smoke detector wouldn’t let up, hurting her ears and
making her want to scream in frustration. She’d tried everything shy of a
crowbar — not that she had one — to get that oven door open. Nothing had worked.
She knew, deep down, she would not be able to stop it without help.
    But as three big firemen arrived at her unit wearing full gear, oxygen tanks
and boots, she wished she’d come up with a plan that could have somehow included
throwing the oven out the window.
    “Lady,” the captain greeted with a sour expression on his weathered face. He
was the very same captain who’d warned her not to call them away from the
Superbowl. “You really got a fire or is this some kind of a dumb joke?”

     
Chapter Three
    Hoseman Rockland “Rocky” Massaro entered the town house behind his captain
and the driver, Bud Hailey.
    The woman put her hands on her hips. “No, this isn’t a joke. I’m sorry, but I
really do have a fire.” The blare of the smoke alarms continued. “Trust me — I
wish you weren’t here.”
    “Ditto,” Rocky said, moving around the sofa and giving her a casual glance as
he headed into the kitchen.
    She followed them and pointed at the oven. Rocky peeked inside. A small fire
burned, flames flickering upward in a tiny blaze. He attempted to open the door.
It wouldn’t budge.
    Captain Evans motioned to the settings. “Self-cleaning.”
    The time remaining before the door would unlock was exactly three hours and
twenty-three minutes.
    “Good one,” Rocky replied to no one in particular before he thought the
better of it.
    “I didn’t do it on purpose,” she bristled, her eyes tempered with hazel fire.
    “Nobody said you did,” Captain Evans replied calmly. The captain was royally
irritated they’d been called out, but he was keeping his feelings under his hat.
These things happened, and it always seemed that a call came during dinner,
their favorite program or the biggest football game of the season.
    “Well…I know I made that comment at the grocery store, but I was just
kidding.” She bit her lower lip, her brows arching.
    Normally, Rocky would have made a flirtatious comment. But he was too
preoccupied, not to mention the hellacious sound of smoke alarms was making it
next to impossible to talk.
    Rocky dragged a chair from the kitchen table, stood on it, and disengaged the
electric smoke detector. Muffled, but steady,