attendant, so she’d been gone for half of that time.
“Huh.”
Kal slanted a smug smile at him. “See? You’ve never had a long-term girlfriend.”
“I guess not. I don’t know why not. I like women.”
Kal swept the broom down to the end of the shop and out the door before turning to face Rafe. “Yeah, for short durations. Then you get bored. Or maybe they get bored with you.”
He frowned as he swept. “I am not boring.”
“Are the women you date boring?”
“No.”
Kal shrugged. “Then you must be the problem.”
“Fuck you.”
His brother laughed and grabbed Rafe’s broom, sliding both of their tools back in their spots on the wall in the workshop. “Maybe it’s time for some self-reflection.”
“Oh, this coming from a guy who also doesn’t do relationships?”
“We aren’t talking about me. Plus, I had a long-term girlfriend in high school. So at least I know I can have one. Can you say the same thing?”
He couldn’t, so he let the subject drop and went back into the fire station. They got a call right after that, so Rafe had to clear his head and concentrate on his job.
It felt great to be back in his rig again, to have his gear on, to hear the sirens roar, to know that he was healthy and capable of doing his job. The ride to the scene took about five minutes, and it was the best damn five minutes he’d ever had. The rush of adrenaline made him feel alive.
They pulled up in front of an older one-story. A middle-aged man came running toward them from the side of the house.
“It’s my wife. She was cleaning out the storage shed, and a shelf fell on her.”
Their EMTs had also been called to the scene, but Engine 6 was going into the shed first.
“What’s your wife’s name?” Jackson asked.
“Shelly.” The man was shaking. “I told her I was gonna get to cleaning it out, but she got mad and she went in to do it. I told her not to.”
Jackson grasped the man’s arm. “It’s okay. We’ll get her out.”
Jackson turned to them. “Rafe, you and Mitchell take lead. Ginger, see if you can get up on a ladder and shine some light into that shed.”
“Yes, sir.” Rafe never gave a second thought to taking orders from his older brother. At least, not on the job. Jackson had earned his lieutenant’s bars, and on scene, he was in charge.
The oversize shed was filled to bursting with junk piled so high it wasn’t a surprise that it had tumbled down on Shelly. Rafe had no idea how an actual person was in there. But then he saw a path off to the left, so he made his way in.
“Right behind you,” Mitchell said.
Rafe took careful steps. There were plastic boxes, cardboard, file cabinets and all kinds of things in his way. And the piles weren’t steady, so the last thing he wanted was stuff coming down on top of Mitchell and him. Then there’d be two more people to rescue.
“You hear anything?” Mitchell asked.
“No.”
But then Rafe thought he heard a moan. He raised his hand to halt Mitchell, hoping the quiet would let him hear it again.
He did. It was a soft moan, coming from the back of the shed.
“This way,” he said to Mitchell.
As they rounded the corner, Rafe bumped a tower with his shoulder and a couple of boxes came tumbling down on top of them. He braced himself for the impact, wincing at the weight. Fortunately, they were only cardboard boxes, so he was able to lift them up and stacked them to his left.
“You okay?” Mitchell asked, helping him readjust the pile. “Yeah. How about you?”
“Fine.”
Rafe nodded. “Let’s keep moving.”
The moans were getting louder, and then they were blasted by a bright burst of light.
“Does this help?” Ginger asked, holding a flashlight.
“Better, thanks,” Mitchell said.
“More to the left, Ginger,” Rafe said.
The light moved to the left, which guided them to a woman on the floor. A sizable amount of debris had fallen on top of her. She had a cut on the side of her head, and she was in and out of consciousness.
“We found her,” Rafe radioed to his team. “She’s semiconscious. We’re going to free her from the debris.”
“Roger that,” Jackson said.
“Shelly,” Rafe said, “can you hear me?”
She blinked, then frowned. “Yes. My head hurts.”
Okay, at least she was coming around now. “We’re going to fix that, Shelly. You just stay still.”
They had to maneuver in a tight space and pull