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it?”
    “Of course not. Don’t try to blame this on her.” The fire in Brody’s eyes rivaled the lava that would have poured out of that volcano had it not been a paperweight.
    “God, no. It was my fault. I should have checked inside the rig.”
    The girl, Ginny Lee, had hidden herself in the station’s pickup truck, known as the plug-buggy, after she’d seen him return from EMT recertification. She’d hoped to surprise Ryan. Instead she’d gotten a gunshot wound when a fire scene had gone haywire. If Ryan had followed procedure and not rushed out alone, she would have faced nothing worse than a scolding from the captain. When Ryan had tried to visit her at the hospital, she’d refused to see him. Then she’d moved back to Illinois, no forwarding address.
    “You were careless and thoughtless and reckless.”
    “I know.” Ryan looked at the floor. Of course he’d been those things. But how could he convince Brody he’d changed?
    “It practically killed me to lose you.” Brody slapped the paperweight onto the desk with a sharp crack . Stan opened an eye halfway, then dropped it shut again. “The best goddamn firefighter I’ve ever known. You were like a force of nature, Ryan. It was a thing of beauty to watch you fight a fire. Not to mention all the work I put into training you. All that, up in smoke thanks to one moment of stupidity.”
    Ryan tried to speak, but Brody rolled right over him, growing ever more heated with each word.
    “And yet it wasn’t one moment. If it had been only one moment, I could have overlooked it. A couple days without pay, end of story. But no. It was a pattern of reckless, daredevil behavior. Every time you risked your own neck, you put the rest of my guys in danger.”
    Ryan felt sick. In the heat of the moment, he didn’t think about the others. He thought about the fire and how he could beat it.
    “You were goddamn lucky you never killed anyone. And now you want me to put you back on the job?”
    Ryan stared at a spot on the floor, a stain on the scarred linoleum, fighting to not explode into anger. The biting tone in the captain’s voice made him want to beat up ten more back-alley guys. He breathed deep. The captain had some good points, harsh as they might be. He’d fucked up. Nearly gotten a girl killed. How dare he ask to come back?
    And yet . . . slowly, he got a grip on himself. He lifted his eyes and squarely met the captain’s blistering gaze.
    “Yes. I want to come back.” He was a firefighter, through and through. He ought to be fighting fires.
    “What’s that cut on your knuckle?”
    “Nothing.” Ryan had forgotten about it.
    “Were you fighting?”
    Ryan got to his feet. In the old days, he would have either hidden the truth or lashed out. Now he gave Brody a level look. “I don’t fight anymore, not unless I have to. Two guys were beating down a bouncer. I had to step in. I’m not going to say I didn’t enjoy it. But I didn’t start it.” He hoped Brody would believe him, but he wasn’t going to beg like a child.
    Brody’s eyebrows drew together. “Well, I guess that is a change.”
    Ryan held his gaze, something that had always been a challenge in the past. A long moment passed while they took each other’s measure. Brody spoke first.
    “I’ll have to think about it. Give me a couple of days.”
    “Thanks, Captain.” It was all he could ask. More than he could ask.
    “Now go say hello to everyone. Gone over a year and only one postcard? Of a cactus?”
    “A Christmas cactus. Didn’t you see the twinkle lights?”
    “I saw. Very festive. I’ll call you soon.”
    Ryan spent the next hour shaking hands and hearing about all the fires he’d missed while he’d been gone. He gritted his teeth and listened to Double D tell him how he and Vader had put out a fire at a day care center while everyone else was busy with a brushfire in the hills. He heard how Captain Brody had added thirteen more lives to his long list of rescues. It