The Pike: Ships In The Night Read Online Free PDF

been saddled with.  And once I knocked the rough edges off of him, he was a decent firefighter.  He was no doorway dancer and always wanted to plunge right in to help people as the hose jockeys beat down the flaming beast, that's probably why I liked the kid so much.
    I made my way over and slid into the other side of the booth.  Greeting him.  “Trip.”
    He smiled and raised a hand toward Mille, the lunch shift head waitress and pointed at me.  The woman nodded and headed over with a coffee mug.  He looked back at me. “Hey, Sparky.  I'm surprised you came.”
    I'd call the man a smartass if he didn't have a reason to say that.  More often than not I would come up with an excuse not to come, or just not show up.  But I would occasionally break down and meet him or some of the other guys when I was missing the family from the Station.
    I countered with a well thought out response to the ribbing.  “Yeah yeah.  Shut up, Tanner.”
    Millie set a mug in front of me and poured me some coffee that smelled almost as good as the Pike's.  “Hey sweetie, you staying for lunch or just the coffee?”
    I smirked at Trip and said to the woman, “Since Trip here wanted this meeting, then that must mean he's buying.  So lunch would be great.”
    She nodded as Tanner slumped in dismay.  Sucker.  Then he grinned at her sheepishly.  She winked and wandered off saying as she headed toward the kitchen while writing on her order pad, “Two French dips and onion rings, coming up.”
    I grinned.  I loved being a regular at places, it always made ordering so much easier.  I thought about it and amended the notion slightly since I have never really ordered anything at the Pike... Zoey just sort of makes whatever and brings it out to me.  And it is always mouth watering.  I swear, if she weren't married, and swung my way...
    I asked with mock sweetness, “Whatever did you need to talk with me about that you volunteered to buy me lunch?”
    He grumbled, “Why is being your friend always so detrimental to my pocketbook Allie?  Not even a chance of first base.”
    I shrugged and sipped my coffee, “Eh.  Buy me pie and I'll let you tell the guys I kissed your cheek.”
    He chortled. “Your idea of fist base and mine differ significantly, woman.”
    I grinned into my mug at our ages-old joke and took another swig of the hot nectar of the heavens.  Then set the mug down in front of me, stretched out on the table between my hands, looking at him expectantly.
    He asked in a mock indignant tone, “Can't a guy ask his old partner to lunch without there being an ulterior motive?”
    I stared at him, and he broke, “Fine whatever.  Cap asked me to pass a message along to you. Apparently, you have been avoiding his calls.  And Hank's, and George's, and...”
    I held up a hand to stop him, “I get the point.  I've just been... busy.”
    He had the common decency not to push.  He knew the real reasons I avoided most of them.  What good was a firefighter who couldn't fight fires?
    He eyed me for a long moment and said, “We miss you at the Five.  It isn't the same without a woman kicking our collective asses.”
    I hid a grin.  “What about Bridget?”  She was our... well, 'their' truckie.  The ladder company driver of our station.
    He countered, “Bridget's a woman?  I thought she was an angry grizzly.  Don't be obtuse, you know what I mean.  She doesn't mingle with us mere mortals.”
    True, Bridget was pretty solitary.  We all had our reasons for being what we were when we took up the job, and we never pry.  If the muscled brunette wanted to keep to herself, that was fine as long as she had our backs on a call, and she did.  But the moment her shifts were over, she was out of the station like a shot.  I don't think she ever spoke of her life outside the station and didn't have any personal photos inside her locker like the rest of us had.
    I saw I was going to have to pry the reason for the meeting out of