posturing earlier when I told you to watch your back. These folks have the right to be arrogant, considering everyone’s skill levels, but there are also several adrenaline junkies who consider themselves God’s gift to humanity. And I’m including the women.”
“Which again begs the question of why you agreed to be chief.”
His amusement returned. “Because I’m the worst of the lot.”
Katy had no trouble believing that particular boast, despite having met the man just this morning. If his handling of the citizen complainer hadn’t told her Gunnar Wolfe didn’t suffer fools lightly, what she’d witnessed a few minutes ago had certainly been . . . educating.
“So, how was your course in Colorado?” he asked.
“It was four weeks of adrenaline overload punctuated by moments of sheer terror.”
Her honesty earned her a rumbling chuckle that shot all the way down to her toes. Anxiety washed over her. God help her, for all the years she’d been hoping and praying to meet a man who made every cell in her body shiver, why this one? But even more maddening, what ugly twist of fate had her meeting him now? What kind of cruel God answered a prayer after tearing its owner to shreds, body and soul?
“Just wait until this winter,” he said with lingering amusement, “and the tones go off for an ice climber stuck on—”
He stopped midsentence and went perfectly still, his head canted slightly as he appeared to be listening. “Bring the jump bag,” he said and bolted toward the front of the station.
Crap. Katy ducked back into the ambulance, grabbed the triage bag, and found herself running down the driveway behind two other firefighters also sprinting toward the frantic screams in the distance.
Once they reached the road, she broke into a flat-out run, which had her entering the small park at the base of the sixty-foot waterfall two strides behind the chief—who followed closely behind a large brown dog wearing a ballistic vest and racing toward the panicked little boy standing next to the pool of frothing water.
When they reached him, Katy realized the kid was screaming in a foreign language. He pointed at where the fast-moving stream rushed under the train-trestle-turned-footbridge before spilling into the Bottomless Sea.
Chief Wolfe spoke calmly to the kid in what sounded like the same language just as the dog bolted toward the trestle and plunged into the stream.
“Higgins! Welles!” Chief Wolfe shouted over the roar of the falls as he also ran along the edge of the pool, his gaze locked on the two children clinging to a boulder beyond the car bridge that ran alongside the trestle. “Get below the bridges and be ready to catch them if they’re swept downstream.”
He started emptying his pockets as Katy ran beside him. “Head over with them,” he instructed, handing her his cell phone and wallet. “And bring the boy with you. Dammit, that dog’s going to make the older kid lose his grip.”
Katy slid to a stop when Chief Wolfe muttered something in yet another unfamiliar language and plunged into the water without breaking stride. Turning to find the five- or six-year-old boy right behind her, she shoved the cell phone and wallet in a side pocket on the jump bag before sliding it on her shoulder, then took hold of the boy’s hand and headed directly up the steep bank.
“Katy,” she said, thumping her chest. “My name is Katy. And don’t you worry,” she went on brightly, hoping her tone would reassure him if he didn’t speak English. “They’ll get your friends.”
Forced to halt after crossing the trestle footpath in order to avoid being trampled by the small stampede of people rushing onto the car bridge to see what was happening, Katy simply scooped up the boy, tucked him under her arm like a football, and sprinted across the road.
“Shep, hold in place!” Niall MacKeage shouted to the dog in what Katy did recognize as Gaelic as he ran up the side lane while also emptying his pockets. He dropped everything on the grassy bank and waded into the water, angling cross-current until he was waist-deep in the stream several yards below the boulder.
Katy gasped, knowing that waist-deep for Niall meant treacherous depth for an average-sized person and that there was likely a drop-off near the rocky falls. She stood her young charge on the ground and crouched down beside him, slipping a protective arm around his waist as she studied the two children on the boulder. In a few seconds, Chief Wolfe reached