Free It's a Wonderful Fireman: A Bachelor Firemen Novella (The Bachelor Firemen of San Gabriel) by Jennifer Bernard Page B

all these men at some point, except Chief Roman, and those two were close friends now.
    “Mulligan’s first day. When the armed intruder entered the station,” said Chief Roman.
    Lizzie let out a gasp. “An armed intruder? I can’t believe he didn’t tell me about something like that!”
    “You know Mulligan,” said Matt. “He performs these crazy acts of heroism but shrugs them off like he doesn’t deserve any praise. If it was me, I’d be tooting my horn all over town. Mulligan . . . he likes the bad-boy image, I think.”
    “Crazy acts of heroism . . . what are you talking about?”
    “Maybe this isn’t the best time for that story.” Captain Brody directed a thunderous frown at the little knot of firemen. “Lizzie has enough to worry about.”
    “No. I want to hear it.” Lizzie crossed her arms over her chest. “Obviously he survived the armed intruder. Please, I want to hear it!”
    “Brody, you were there, weren’t you?” said Ryan. “I remember you told me all about it later that day, at the academy.”
    “Yes, I went in for a meeting. Chief Renteria saw the whole thing, too. So did Vader and Stud and Double D and Sabina. Sabina, she can tell the story really well.” He turned to go, but Lizzie grabbed at his arm.
    “Please! I want to hear it. It’ll distract me.” She tried a winning smile, the one that worked on her brothers. “There’s nothing any of us can do, right? The crew’s still trying to get inside, and everyone else is pulling hoses. Stacy’s over there handing out juice. You’re all here because you can’t stand to be anywhere else, but we can’t do anything.”
    “We’re doing something. We’re supporting you. That’s what Mulligan would want.” Ryan slung a friendly arm around her shoulders.
    “Exactly. If you want to support me, tell me what happened on Mulligan’s first day!”
    Brody gave a heavy sigh, and scrubbed at the back of his neck. “Are you always this—”
    “Determined?” She held his gaze. “You have no idea. ”
    W HEN M ULLIGAN FIRST walked into San Gabriel Station 1, he was having a very bad day. He’d gotten a middle-of-the-night phone call from his mother, who was fighting the battle to stay clean and losing, as she had every previous time she’d tried. When Dottie Mulligan did drugs—her preference was crystal meth, but she’d do anything in a pinch—she got cruel and nasty. As a kid, Mulligan had grown accustomed to violent behavior. He’d become a scrapper, someone you didn’t mess with.
    But when it came to his mother, things were different. He couldn’t fight back against his mother. Even though she lost him to foster care twice, and allowed his stepfather to nearly kill him, he still loved her.
    For years he’d sent her money, until he became convinced he was just enabling her. Now he’d send her money only for rehab, or if she’d completed rehab and needed rent money. He didn’t want money stress to make her turn to drugs. But he kept his policy clear and strict: the second he believed she was back on drugs, he stopped sending her money. He couldn’t stand the thought of paying to support her habit.
    During this morning’s phone call, she’d admitted to doing a hit of cocaine and screamed at him for refusing to send her “grocery” money. The details of her rant weren’t pretty, but he’d gone through it before and her cruel words just rolled off his back.
    Or maybe they didn’t, because on his first day of work as a San Gabriel firefighter, he couldn’t even manage a smile as Captain Jeb Stone introduced him around. He shook hands, he spoke his name, he paid attention, but at the back of his mind horrible words kept repeating in a constant loop. “No-good bastard . . . pig-headed ass . . . should have drowned you in the bathtub . . . should have left you with the system . . .”
    She doesn’t mean it , he told himself. It’s the drugs talking. But those kinds of words cut deep, and he’d been hearing them