Page 10 of Up In Flames

I don’t comment about how he treats his wife as more of a servant than a partner, but I can’t help thinking it. Still, the couple has been married for fifty years. After all that time, their relationship must work for them, or one of them would have left the other. Instead, Mrs. Baggins makes the sweets, Mr. Baggins makes the bread, and Baggins Bakery still operates as the foundation at the heart of Mossburg.

“I hope I’m as lucky with a partner one day,” I say instead. Another image of Nina flashes into my head. I push it right back out and into the trash heap where it belongs.

“You will be, son. Why, all the ladies in this town want a piece of you. Won’t take long for you to find the right one, not once you decide to settle down.”

Mrs. Baggins walks through the swinging door from the kitchen, wiping her hands on her apron. She looks like Santa Claus in female form with her gray hair, apple red cheeks, and sparkling blue eyes, not to mention her obvious appreciation for her own goods. “Did I hear you’re looking to settle down, Sammy? Because I know just the girl. She’s a pretty little thing, and partial to jelly donuts, which I know you like, too. I always say, find a pastry match, and you’ve found your match for life.”

“Sure enough,” Mr. Baggins agrees, nodding his balding pate behind the glass counter before squinting at a mark and worrying it with his elbow. “The missus and I bonded over custard, and look at us.”

“I’m just coming off a relationship, Mrs. B. I don’t think I’m ready to jump into another one.” Which isn’t exactly the truth, but I don’t want to be set up with Miss Jelly Donut, though if it was Nina…

I push the thought out of my head again. Darned if it doesn’t have glue on its feet.

“That’s a pretty fierce scowl, son. Save it for the miscreants who’ve been setting forest fires on the eastern edge. Now, you’d best skedaddle before the entire department faints from hunger,” Mr. Baggins pushes the boxes loaded with sugar across the glass counter towards me.

“I haven’t paid you yet,” I remind him. “And I need to at least approximate what all these pastries cost.”

“After you saved me last month?” Mrs. B. exclaims. “If he takes one red cent from you, he’s going to get the back of my hairbrush.” She frowns before her eyes draw down, and she sniffs. “I still don’t know what happened. Spontaneous combustion, Doctor Martino says. I thought that was just a myth.”

“Well, you were sitting next to the fireplace, and you had just drunk half a bottle of that sherry you like,” Mr. Baggins reminds her. “We’ve been reading up on it,” he adds, addressing me, “and apparently, nearly everyone who’s spontaneously combusted did so after their acidic levels rose too high.”

Mrs. B. nods her head. “It’s the wick effect. Spark must have gotten on me, and you know,” she adds with a jolly smile as she pats her belly, “I’ve got a lot of fat to melt.”

“But you weren’t sleeping,” I argue. “And I was sitting closer to the fire than you were.”

“Just lucky you were there,” Mr. Baggins says. “Why, if you hadn’t accepted our dinner invitation, the missus would be nothing but ash by now. Good thinking, pouring milk down her throat.”

Which is what I did when she began to smolder and smoke. I’ve never seen anything like it, and at first, I thought I was seeing heat waves from the flames that burned in the grate. Once I realized the old woman was generating her own inferno, all I could think to do was to douse her insides with cold milk.

“All I could think in the moment was to get something cold into her to balance the heat, and the last time I ate ghost peppers, I drank a gallon of milk to calm the burn,” I admit, a bit sheepishly, sure, but I try to be honest when I can. I shake my head. “Anyway, we still need to pay you for the pastry.”

But though I argue, the couple refuses to take payment. Next time, I’m sending one of the other guys from the MFD for our breakfast donuts. Maybe they’ll take payment from him.

Loaded with boxes, I finally make my way down the street to the fire department. The old brick building was constructed in 1865, but it still stands tall and proud. Outside, rows of flowers just planted by the Mossburg Garden Girls enliven the eyes of every passerby. The society of horticulturalists, none of them under sixty years of age, planted a spread this year that blooms in gold, pink, red, white, and purple splendor. The flowers make the firehouse look festive. Anyone spying the front would think the building must be a private residence, except for the extra-wide drive and the three large garage bays next to the main building.

A warm feeling of belonging fills me, the same emotion I get every single time I see the place. In a way, the MFD has been my home since I was born.

I push that thought away, too. Pretty soon, there’s going to be so many things I’m not thinking about that they’ll all pile up into a gigantic wall that will crash upon my head with the slightest tremor of earth.

But not today. My cell goes off the moment I step through the front door of the MFD, lasering my thoughts in a different direction, one I need to think about. Dropping the bakery boxes on the front desk where Melissa sits, filing her nails, I run towards the back. When I burst through the swinging doors, there’s a flurry of activity as the guys throw uniforms over their jeans and tee-shirts.

“Blaze in Sunderland by their western border. Forest. Five alarm, out of control. They’ve got choppers coming in from Charlotte,” Joe Ruggerio snaps.

I’m already shrugging into my jacket and pants. “What happened?”

“Not sure, but suspected arson. At least six points of origination. We’re taking the most western flank because it’s spreading up the mountain.”

That’s bad. There’s nothing but trees and brush between Sunderland and the rest of the small mountain towns, all of which will burn as quickly as setting a match to dry kindling. The blaze has to be stopped quickly, or it will soon run out of control.

Our fire chief, Stanley Kowalski, throws his helmet on his head and bangs it down into place. “Hate leaving Mossburg unattended, though. Paul, Roger, double radios. Take the car. If you need to get back, you’re on duty, so stay alert.”

Paul and Roger nod. They’re used to doing double-duty. If there’s an emergency in Mossburg, they’ll return faster in their MFD vehicle. It’s an old refitted SUV with an extended cab that has oxygen tanks, a collapsible bed, and other emergency equipment in the back. There’s even a small water tank on the roof, and hoses wound in two twin circles on the sides. The car resembles an overloaded donkey, but it’s a lot swifter than the engines.

With a nod, the two men disappear out the door, grabbing the car keys off the wall as they move.

“Sam, ride with me. I want the hose unstrapped the moment we arrive. We’ll do the tree line first and build a wall.”

“Got it.” I rush to the truck’s front passenger seat. The chief likes to drive the front steering wheel. When he doesn’t ride along, I get the privilege, but that’s okay. Sometimes it’s better just to follow. My father always said, “Being a hero means taking orders that make sense,” and the chief always makes sense. Plus, he’s good behind the wheel.