Free Threaded for Trouble by Janet Bolin Page B

old ball field near the state forest at six on Tuesday evening. “Will you need a ride?” he asked.
    “I have a car.” I raised my chin. “It will get me to fires, too.” Or Haylee and I could ride together in her appropriately red pickup truck.
    He blushed. “That wasn’t part of the test. I figured you wouldn’t have applied if you had to run to fires.” He scuffed his shoes against the floor like I’d forced him to stay after school. “Or walk,” he added. He reached into his chest pocket and pulled out a business card. “Here, in case you need to get in touch with me without phoning 911.”
    He was barely off my porch when Susannah asked, “What are you doing applying to the volunteer fire department? That could be dangerous.”
    Susannah used to be full of fun. Her caution since her divorce saddened me.
    “I’ll stay out of danger.” Slipping the card like abookmark into the manual, I dislodged a bright pink flyer for a flea market during the Harvest Festival.
    Laughing, I showed Susannah the ad. “Now I understand why they’re recruiting new members. They’re raising funds for new fire-fighting equipment and need volunteers to run the flea market.”
    “Fine,” Susannah retorted. “Help with that. But don’t go fighting fires. It’s not safe.”
    “I’ve heard that by the time the fire trucks arrive in rural areas, there’s hardly anything to do besides watch.”
    She stepped back. “There’ve been lots of fires lately. People are saying they may have been set.”
    “We’ve had barely a drop of rain all summer. The fields are tinder dry. Anything sets them off, including the lightning that zaps out of thunderclouds without bringing us any water.” The story was the same all over the Midwest. “I want to help. Don’t worry. I’ll be careful.”
    Susannah looked down at her hands, which were clutching each other in seeming desperation. “It’s just that—” She raised her head and met my gaze. I was certain I saw the remnants of fear in her eyes. “Our house burned down when I was eight. I don’t think people realize how powerful and terrifying fires are. They scare me just thinking about them.”
    The day’s students came pounding into the shop, eager to start our lesson. Susannah, who was a very accomplished seamstress, was still learning about embroidery. She helped wherever needed, but like the other students, she took her turn on one of our wondrous machines and stitched the design she’d created during the week.
    She must have been silently fretting about fires all afternoon. Before she left for the evening, she pointed at the outlet in the dog’s pen, the one that had malfunctioned on Wednesday. “Did you get that outlet fixed?”
    I hid a sigh. “Not yet. I guess I should.”
    “Definitely. Call Clay Fraser. It could start a fire.” Then as if a fire were beginning that very moment, she ran outside.
    Great, call Clay and act needy again. I liked him, but I’d had a chance with him and lost it.
    Besides, I never used that outlet, and everything had worked fine since that one glitch.
Witch-glitch,
I thought, picturing Felicity. She’d probably put a curse on the outlet.
    The phone rang. Dr. Wrinklesides wanted me to visit him in his office.
    That was odd. Usually, patients phoned doctors and asked to be seen, not the other way around. And Dr. Wrinklesides wasn’t my official doctor. His fresh-out-of-med-school colleague was, and I hadn’t seen her recently or gone for tests that would require a doctor to ask me to visit him. Especially not after work on a Friday.

10
    A T SEVEN, OPAL WOULD HOLD HER WEEKLY storytelling night in Tell a Yarn, but that was more than an hour from now. I told Dr. Wrinklesides I’d be there in a few minutes.
    His office was three blocks from In Stitches, so I leashed the dogs and walked down Lake Street. We passed the other Threadville shops, Sam’s hardware store with its old wrought-iron sign,
The Ironmonger
, and Mona’s Country