Excerpt of Legally Tender by Michele Dunaway

She had never felt so incompetent in her life. It was her fault the thick gray smoke billowed, the fire alarms blared and the fire trucks honked obnoxiously in the distance.

This time it wasn't because she'd burned the Thanksgiving turkey. No. This time she'd ruined Halloween.

Her eyes watered as the acrid smoke traveled from the large gym into the elementary-school cafeteria. She could almost hear her ex-husband's condescending voice over the clanging fire-alarm bells: "Christina Sanchez Jones, when will you learn to do something right?" And yet Christina had graduated with honors from prestigious Harvard Law School.

"Mama? Are you crying?" a tiny voice asked as the harsh bells finally ceased.

Christina blinked and glanced down at her eight-year-old daughter. Bella sported black cat whiskers. A beaded black headband complete with furry black-and-pink cat ears held her dark-blond hair away from her face. "We won't have to cancel the Halloween party, will we, Mama? There wasn't a fire. Only fake smoke."

"No," Christina said, wiping the back of her left hand across her eyes. Through the cafeteria windows, Christina could see that a fire truck had pulled into the parking lot. "We are not canceling. We still have bobbing for apples and a craft left to do. We just won't have the haunted house."

"That's okay! I don't care!" Bella shouted. She turned back to the other second-grade members of her Brownie troop. Like Bella, they were dressed in Halloween costumes. "The party's still on!" she whooped.

"Why don't you all go eat your snacks," Christina suggested as a group of firemen raced through the cafeteria into the gym. Their heavy boots thudded on the freshly buffed floor. "Mrs. Sims," Christina called,

"let's do snack now. Does that sound good?"

"Absolutely," Mrs. Sims replied. Darla Sims was an unofficial troop leader, and within seconds, she had all the girls organized at a cafeteria table, eating pumpkin- shaped cookies and drinking witches' brew — a concoction of orange juice, lime sherbet and white soda pop.

Christina sighed and entered the gym. The firemen were checking out what was to have been a haunted house.

There really hadn't been a fire, but Christina should have known better. She should have realized that a smoke machine would not only create a spooky atmosphere, but it would also trigger the smoke detectors and, in turn, the school's fire-alarm system. She'd known exactly what was happening the moment the first fire bell pealed. Now her mother's voice resounded in Christina's head. The good woman had supported Christina's divorce from Kyle Jones, but she hadn't wanted her daughter to move to Morris- ville, Indiana. Too Midwest, too far from Houston, too small town and simply too far from home and the myriad of relatives who lived just a short plane ride over the Mexican border. "If you're such a hotshot lawyer," her mother had argued, "you should have been able to get around that seventy-five-mile child-custody restriction in your divorce decree. You should have been allowed to move anywhere. Like home. Morrisville, Indiana? Do they even have a McDonald's in that town?"

The answer was yes. Morrisville did have the fast-food restaurant, right at the Highway 74 overpass and next to the town's new gas station —

A deep voice cut through her turbulent thoughts. "They said you were the one in charge."

Actually, the woman in charge of the Brownie troop's Friday-night Halloween party was home with the flu. Her directions had included plugging in the smoke machine. But that didn't give Christina an excuse. One of her role models was law-school graduate and thirty-third president of the United States, Harry S. Truman. To paraphrase Truman, The buck stopped with her.

Prepared to accept full responsibility, she turned and looked behind her.

And into the clearest blue eyes she'd ever seen. She resisted her instinct to step back, and took a deep breath. "I'm in charge," she admitted.

"So you're responsible for this?" The fireman made a wide sweeping gesture with his right hand, his serious gaze holding hers.

"Yes," she replied as her breath lodged in her throat. He had to be six-foot-one, only a smidgen shorter than her ex- husband, Kyle. As the firefighter continued to stare at her, Christina shifted under his appraisal.

She knew exactly what he saw: skin the color of a light suntan, hair the color of ripened wheat, brown eyes with a hint of gold, and a genie costume complete with exposed midriff and curled blue shoes that were fast causing her feet to ache. At five foot nine, she was model tall, and she'd long ago accepted that she was the nonstereotypical one in her Mexican family. She didn't have the cliché dark hair and dark skin. Instead, her lighter hair and skin came from genes dating back to the time of Cortez, and intermingling of Spanish and Aztec blood.

She regained her composure. She'd dealt with being labeled incompetent and second rate long enough. She'd lived with not meeting anyone's expectations, and she'd determined that, with her move to Morrisville, the only ones she had to live with now were her own.

She was a take-charge woman at this point in her life, in control of her own mistakes and her own destiny. She would lace on metaphorical boxing gloves and step into the ring with anyone who wanted to teach her otherwise.

She lifted her chin slightly to answer the attractive firefighter who waited impatiently. "Yes, I'm the one who plugged in the smoke machine. As soon as the alarm went off, I knew why. I guess the lady who left me directions for setting up the party thought the gym ceiling was high enough."

"It wasn't."

"Obviously," Christina said dryly. She would not let this college-age boy affect her or her newfound empowerment. However, as he took off his black helmet, she saw he was much older than she'd thought. Late twenties, perhaps, judging from laugh lines that weren't showing any amusement at the moment. But if he smiled….

The man shrugged out of his firefighter's coat. Underneath he was wearing a long-sleeved navy Morris-ville Fire Department T-shirt. Suspenders held up his black firefighter pants. The man's muscular build indicated he was a strong believer in physical fitness. Bodies were something Christina noticed — especially after having been married to a professional football player whose body was his life. The man in front of her wasn't bulky enough to play pro football, but the hard, lean lines of his physique communicated innate strength.

The helmet had flattened the firefighter's dark-brown hair. Now he tousled the strands with his free hand. "We'll use fans to air out the gym and cafeteria and clear away any residual smoke. That's about all we can do.You'll need to clean the rest up yourselves," he said.

"We will," Christina promised.

He shook his head, obviously still disgusted by her foolish mistake. He moved aside as a member of his crew carried in a huge steel fan and proceeded to set it up on the floor by the gym exit door. "You'll also need to leave the outside doors open. Luckily for you, it's un- seasonably warm tonight. It won't get too cold in here."

"Yes," Christina said. She glanced down as a small hand tugged on hers.

"We want to see the fire truck," Bella said hopefully, speaking for her friends. "Please, Mama?"

Christina shot the firefighter an apologetic look. Children, she tried to tell him. "Honey, he's busy, and you should not be in here."

"I'm never too busy for a group of kids," the fire-fighter said, surprising Christina. He finally cracked a smile, one so endearing she suddenly wished he could have directed it at her, too, instead of only at Bella.

"Come on, now that all you little girls have got us out here, you must see the fire truck."

"Do you live at the firehouse?" Bella asked as she followed him, her long black cat tail swishing behind her.

"Nope," the man said as the Brownie troop gathered around him. "We're all volunteers. We come from our homes whenever we get the call that someone needs us."

"The smoke machine set off the alarm," announced Megan, the girl who had become Bella's best friend.

"And that's why we're here," he said with another large smile. "Now, walk around this big fan — careful now — and you can all see the fire truck."

The firefighter's grin widened, revealing straight white teeth. It was a Dennis Quaid smile, Christina decided, like in The Parent Trap or The Rookie. She'd watched both films recently with Bella. The grin, complete with dimples, covered the firefighter's entire face. A lifetime ago he might have been her type, she thought wistfully.

The Brownie troop dutifully followed him outside, past the circular fan. Careful not to bump into it herself, Christina hovered at the door as several firefighters began to show the girls the equipment on the fire truck.

"Well, that'll keep them occupied for a bit," Mrs. Sims commented as she approached.

"Yes," Christina said, her gaze never leaving the scene in the parking lot. "Even though it appears everything's okay, I should probably go out there and supervise."

"That sounds wise. I'll get the crafts set up. The girls are pretty much finished eating. At least one thing will go right tonight. I don't know what Lula was thinking. A smoke machine."

"What a fiasco," Christina agreed.

"Mistakes happen to the best of us. Don't worry, Christina, those guys get called out of their homes all the time and at all hours. They know it when they sign up to volunteer."

"Volunteer?"

"Yes." Mrs. Sims's brow creased for only a second.

"I forgot that you're not from here. Morrisville's fire department is an all-volunteer force. No one's paid. Even Batesville's fire department is entirely volunteer, and Batesville is a much larger town that's home to a Fortune 1000 company."

Christina winced. She hadn't realized that volunteer fire departments still existed. Actually, up until two weeks ago, she hadn't realized quaint little rural communities like Morrisville, population 4,231, still existed. When she'd first interviewed with the law firm of Lancaster and Morris, she'd received a tour of the place, but it had lasted all of ten minutes — the time it took to drive from the Highway 74 exit, through the town square, to the farms on the other side of town.

"Most people around here who aren't farmers work ten miles away in Batesville at one of the Hillenbrand Industries," Reginald Morris, the senior partner, had told Christina during the tour. "There are several other smaller manufacturing companies in the area, but none with a large output. We're hiring you for the case against the Morrisville Garment Company, a small company located just on the outskirts of our town. A Title VII class-action suit is being brought on behalf of a group of Hispanic women, mostly of Mexican descent. One priority for our success in this harassment case is having a partner who can speak Spanish and relate to our clients."