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child, foster, adopted, or otherwise. If anyone deserved a happy family, Brody did. Personally, Ryan had no experience of such a thing. “So . . . uh . . . I was hoping we could talk.”
    “Sure. Come in the office.”
    “Anyone around?” He didn’t want to see any of his former crew members until he knew where he stood.
    Brody seemed to understand. “Business first, then you can catch up.” He clapped a hand onto Ryan’s shoulder and led him down the corridor that passed through the living quarters of the station. Ryan didn’t let his eyes stray to the tiny room where he’d spent two nights a week for so many years. It hurt too much. They passed through the kitchen, where the sound of a TV echoed. Someone was watching the Iron Chef . Maybe looking for ideas for that night’s dinner.
    When they were safely in Brody’s office with the door closed, Ryan sank down into a chair. The office looked different, though it took a moment for him to pin it down. It had toys in it, that’s what it was. A smiley-face doll lay slumped in a corner, about to get run over by a plastic tricycle. Stan, the firehouse dog, a beagle mutt with a mangled ear and an obsession with Captain Brody, napped among the toys. “I didn’t know how tough it was going to be to come back here.”
    “We’ve missed you,” said Brody as he took his seat behind his desk. “You’ve been gone longer than I expected.”
    “Well, I had a lot of thinking to do.”
    “Did you?” Brody gave him that see-to-the-bottom-of-his-soul look. “What have you been up to since you left?”
    Ryan shifted in his chair. He trusted Brody above all men, but some things were hard to talk about in a testosterone-loaded place like a firehouse. “I went to the desert. Camped out. Looked at the stars. Read a lot.”
    “Yeah?”
    “I’ve always liked to read, you know.” Ryan said this defensively. Fire stations were notorious for their relentless teasing, and he’d always been a favorite target thanks to his looks. He’d learned to keep a lot of stuff private.
    “I know.”
    Of course he did. Brody knew everything.
    “Anyway, I ran into this hermit guy who lives out in the desert, and we got to be buddies. He had some damn good cactus . . .” Ryan cleared his throat. “He told me about this monastery. So I went there.”
    Brody’s quick look of surprise told Ryan he’d finally caught his captain off guard.
    “ You can never tell the guys .”
    Brody merely lifted one shoulder a fraction of an inch, but that single motion conveyed so much. Ryan relaxed, knowing Brody wouldn’t say a word, and that he was eager to hear all about the monastery.
    “It was the first time in my life I wasn’t moving around all the time, you know? That’s what I liked most. They had some talks too, not that I understood everything they were saying. Mostly I liked having a chance to catch my breath. Especially after what happened.”
    Brody leaned back in his chair. “So you did some contemplating.”
    “I guess so. Then I ran out of money, so I hitched into Los Angeles and picked up some work there.”
    “What kind of work?”
    “Nothing to do with fires. Landscaping, mostly. Digging, building rock walls.” He’d worked harder than he ever had in his life, but every blister-ridden moment had felt good.
    “So. You did some thinking at the monastery. Then you sweated it out with some manual labor. Now what?”
    “I want to come back, Captain. I think I’m ready.”
    Brody picked up a paperweight shaped like a volcano and hefted it in his hand.
    “It wasn’t just the damage you did to the plug-buggy.”
    “I know.”
    “That woman nearly died.”
    “I swear to God, I didn’t even know she was there.”
    “You should have known. We had girls pulling all kinds of crazy stunts after Melissa’s report aired.”
    “I know. Whoever came up with that Bachelor Firemen of San Gabriel crap ought to be shot. Oops.” He paled. “It wasn’t Melissa, was