Page 16 of Christmas with Three Firemen

“Sure.”

“You don’t believe me?”

“I’m not interested in assigning belief value to your subjective statements. I am interested in doing my job, Mateo Ruiz.”

“And what if getting more involved in the day-to-day of a New York City firefighter will help you do your job, Noelle Meadows?”

She heaves a loud sigh, clearly reaching her limit. Shoving back her chair, she shoves her laptop into her bag and glares me down from across the table.

“Fine. Take me on this fucking toy run.”

I beam. “That’s the fucking spirit!”

Five minutes later, she’s climbing into the passenger seat of Engine 2 making room for herself between boxes of donated toys.

She doesn’t say anything as we pull out of the station, but she does let out another loud sigh when she spots Cap and Wes observing our departure.

“He always watches us pull out,” I say, tipping my head back toward Cap. “Runs a tight house. Last guy he had to let go didn’t take it quietly—Danny still won’t talk about it.” I flick the blinker. “Anyway. You’re gonna love this next part.”

Honestly, the annual toy run is my favorite day of the year. Not because it’s a relatively easy task that requires almost no manual labor and lets me drive one of the trucks around town without the pressure of emergency response crushing down on me.

It’s actually kind of chaotic. But it’s the sort of chaos that reminds you why this job matters in the first place.

It’s simple enough, and Noelle doesn’t need to ask questions as I explain the process on our way up into Harlem.

She stays in the truck as I drop off the boxes at the usual shelters, health centers, and other affiliated organizations. Still, she doesn’t put up a fuss when it takes me a while to get us to the next location because I’m too busy being buried under a mountain of kids who are eager to touch the shiny red fire engine.

Around ten-thirty, we are down to the last box, which will be dropped off at a small children’s shelter high up near the tip of Manhattan.

The building is old. I already know that the elevators barely work, because I highly doubt they’ve been repaired since last Christmas. The hallways smell faintly like cooking oil and ancient carpet, but I’ve timed the drop-off to accidentally coincide with nap time, so there are no gaggles of children rushing after me on my way back out to Noelle.

But when I look toward the truck, she’s not in there.

I halt in my tracks, scanning the fairly ordinary, if not rough around the edges, city block. There’s no way she was kidnapped, right?

“—ah, gracias, Señora. Eres una salvavidas.”

I turn around at the voice, surprised to find Noelle marching up the steps of the apartment building next to the shelter, arms laden with grocery bags. There’s an older lady hovering behind her, hand gripping a cane.

“No hay problema,” Noelle replies with an unexpectedly soft smile as the woman fumbles with arthritic hands to open the door.

I stand there, unnoticed by both of them, as Noelle disappears briefly inside to carry the old woman’s groceries the rest of the way to her apartment. I wait only a couple of minutes, and then she reemerges. That gentle smile is still on her lips as she hops down the steps.

But then it disappears the second she sees me standing beside the truck, smirking at her.

“What?” she grumbles, stalking past me.

“Looks like someone got bit by the Christmas spirit bug,” I croon, opening up the passenger door for her.

She climbs up. “Nope. I’m just a good person regardless of what season it is.”

“And you speak Spanish.”

“What? Like it’s hard?”

I snort. “Ay, no. Es mi primera lengua.”

Noelle shrugs, flopping down onto the seat. “Okay. Good for you.”