In Love With The Firefighter
In Love With The Firefighter
Amie Denman
He’s definitely a hero…But is he the right hero for her?Moving to Cape Pursuit, gives Nicole Wheeler the fresh start she desperately needs. But there’s a catch: Kevin Ruggles, the handsome firefighter who welcomes her to town. Kevin is brave, ambitious and committed to the same career that killed her brother. Nicole can’t go down that path again…no matter how much her heart protests.
He’s definitely a hero...
But is he the right hero for her?
Moving to Cape Pursuit, Virginia, gives Nicole Wheeler the fresh start she desperately needs. But there’s a catch: Kevin Ruggles, the handsome firefighter who welcomes her to town. Kevin is brave, ambitious and committed to the same career that killed her brother. Nicole can’t go down that path again...no matter how much her heart protests.
AMIE DENMAN is the author of twenty contemporary romances full of humor and heart. A devoted traveler whose parents always kept a suitcase packed, she loves reading and writing books you could take on vacation. Amie believes everything is fun, especially wedding cake, show tunes, roller coasters and falling in love.
Also by Amie Denman (#ulink_b6128dd3-6692-50ec-987b-3dcb535e4035)
Under the Boardwalk
Carousel Nights
Meet Me on the Midway
Until the Ride Stops
Back to the Lake Breeze Hotel
Her Lucky Catch
Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
In Love with the Firefighter
Amie Denman
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
ISBN: 978-1-474-07793-4
IN LOVE WITH THE FIREFIGHTER
© 2018 Amie Denman
Published in Great Britain 2018
by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF
All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.
By payment of the required fees, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right and licence to download and install this e-book on your personal computer, tablet computer, smart phone or other electronic reading device only (each a “Licensed Device”) and to access, display and read the text of this e-book on-screen on your Licensed Device. Except to the extent any of these acts shall be permitted pursuant to any mandatory provision of applicable law but no further, no part of this e-book or its text or images may be reproduced, transmitted, distributed, translated, converted or adapted for use on another file format, communicated to the public, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher.
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www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
My thanks to all the wonderful people at Mills & Boon,
especially my editor, Dana Grimaldi.
Contents
Cover (#u7e64dc74-797d-5dea-918e-24038a955f1d)
Back Cover Text (#u95b22914-413d-52a3-abda-35121888f7fb)
About the Author (#ud54e02c8-2e7e-5fda-8775-00a97446b5fe)
Booklist (#ulink_095836c8-7a99-5b5d-aee3-1c68e3fe0cf3)
Title Page (#u8ce07062-2757-577e-9584-d8aaf7bc500a)
Copyright (#ub67d690a-de5a-55e4-acd9-af1199a6c2d8)
Dedication (#uab40d3e6-9958-57a2-b821-a1d46a64db7e)
CHAPTER ONE (#u2e4c1a0c-d543-5729-a44a-39d92c09b68c)
CHAPTER TWO (#u3051d6d0-3df9-5c43-bd35-8b0910f5a180)
CHAPTER THREE (#u55102999-1e87-5e69-9694-60188406c48a)
CHAPTER FOUR (#ua978baee-6dc9-5745-a9ae-ebba8eea3f9f)
CHAPTER FIVE (#u53bd81c7-2ddc-5f23-b2e4-6eb78098f201)
CHAPTER SIX (#ub1403ddf-dd16-5aba-839f-b50963a63de7)
CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ELEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWELVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER THIRTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FOURTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FIFTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SIXTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER NINETEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWENTY (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR (#litres_trial_promo)
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ONE (#ulink_e3980bf9-8aed-52fe-988c-fa501b2882d8)
TONY LEANED FORWARD in the passenger seat and braced one hand on the dashboard.
“I think you can make it,” he yelled. “But it’ll be close.”
Kevin kept his hands on the wheel of the rescue truck and frowned, his neck and shoulders tight with concentration. “Wish these tourists would learn to park,” he muttered.
A small red car was double-parked on a bustling downtown street. During the height of spring break season in Cape Pursuit. And the driver’s-side door was standing open, just asking to be taken off by the rescue truck. Kevin remembered the tense voice dispatching them to a 911 call for a child who wasn’t breathing. Every second counted when someone’s life was on the line. The siren was loud, even inside the cab, and his adrenaline still rushed as much as it had when he was a new firefighter, over five years ago.
Tony pulled the air horn and the noise reverberated off the commercial buildings lining the street. “You’ll barely squeeze by if nobody does anything stupid.”
Kevin hoped, as always, that no one would risk their life by stepping into the street. His heart sank when three teenagers on bicycles suddenly swerved off the sidewalk and pedaled against traffic on Kevin’s left. No helmets, no brains. Tourists.
The teenagers, cords from their earbuds flapping, looked up in panic at the massive emergency vehicle bearing down on them.
“Anyone in that red car?” Kevin shouted. He knew it was too late to stop, and even slowing down wouldn’t help much.
“Not that I can see,” his partner said.
Kevin held his breath and veered to miss the cyclists at the last second. The heavy-duty ambulance barely shuddered when it sliced the door off the double-parked red car and deposited it in the street in a sparkling rain of shattered glass.
Tony twisted to look backward out the passenger-side window. “No injuries. Unless you count heart-stopping surprise.”
“Call it in,” Kevin said. “We can’t stop. Other two ambulances are already out.”
Tony got on the radio to the local police and reported the non-injury accident. Kevin glanced in the side mirror and saw a blonde woman rush into the street toward the destroyed car. She carried a large box in her arms. He couldn’t see her face, but he could guess she’d just learned a valuable lesson about double-parking and leaving her car door open. At least she wasn’t hurt. It was bad enough hitting a car, but if he’d hurt someone in the line of duty, he’d turn in his helmet and boots.
“Never gonna live this one down,” Tony said.
Kevin breathed heavily through his nose, trying to calm his racing heart and focus on getting to the call. Kid not breathing. The worst. Focus.
“Remember how much crap you gave your brother when he backed into a post with the pumper last year?”
“Shut up, Tony.”
“This wins. No contest.”
“Look for the address,” Kevin replied. Not that it would be hard. Cape Pursuit was a town of fifteen thousand year-round residents. Just large enough to have problems, but just small enough for the fire department to know every street in town. During tourist season, the population doubled but was mostly concentrated in the hotels, bars and restaurants that lined the coast along the Atlantic Ocean.
The address the dispatcher gave them was on a street with small cottages usually rented out to tourists. Kevin wasn’t worried about finding the place. He’d been to that street before. And with a call this serious, there’d be someone waiting for them out front. Panicked. Waving their arms.
There always was.
* * *
“OH, NO!” JANE SAID, surveying her friend’s car with wide eyes.
Nicole felt empty. As if the screaming ambulance had either squashed her flat or taken her with it. She stood in the street holding her box, broken glass glistening on the pavement at her feet. The door of her car lay crumpled in front of it. Hysterical laughter bubbled up her esophagus. This could not be happening. She’d been in Cape Pursuit five minutes.
“Say something,” Jane said, brows furrowed, staring at Nicole.
“They didn’t even stop,” Nicole said, her voice sounding far away. “Don’t they have to stop?”
“Technically, but maybe they were on their way to a life-threatening emergency. They did have the lights and siren going,” Jane said.
A tear slid down Nicole’s cheek, but her hands were full so she let the tear drip onto the pavement, which was already shimmering with broken glass. If she’d used her severance package to go to Italy, she was sure this would not be happening. Mental note: run away to a foreign country next time, not a beach town in Virginia.
“Not that I’m defending them,” Jane added, hands up in the air.
“Firefighters,” Nicole huffed, her voice shaky.
“Sorry, honey,” Jane said. She took the box Nicole was holding and set it on the sidewalk before returning to give her friend a hug. “It’s going to be okay. Just a freak accident. You’ll like it here. It’s a fresh start.”
Nicole gave her friend an openmouthed look. “A fire truck took off my car door on my first day in town.”
“It can only get better from here. Right?”
That was what Nicole had been telling herself for the past year. When one of the worst things that can happen to you happens, your luck has to improve after that. She took a deep breath and pulled herself into the present. “Maybe I’ll get a new car,” she said, nodding as if she were encouraging herself. Her chin-length blond hair bobbed with the movement.
“That’s the spirit,” Jane said. “If I were you, I’d punch whoever was driving that truck right in the gut and then just shake it off. But not until you talk to the city’s insurance agent. Make them sweat so they’ll replace your whole car.” She shook her finger at her friend. “Don’t settle for a new door.”
Nicole gave a wobbly smile. “I could get a better car. Like a crossover or something with leather seats. This was almost paid for.” She swiped away tears with the back of her hand. “They owe me.”
She stood shoulder to shoulder with Jane, her best friend of six years, staring at the wrecked car. She sighed. This definitely would not happen in Tuscany or Milan or Naples. They have sunflowers and wine there. Ruined villas with flowery vines. Endless vistas and possibilities.
A police car approached, its siren echoing off the shops, bars, restaurants and hotels that occupied the strip one block back from the ocean.
“Want me to do the talking?” Jane offered. “I know everyone in the fire and police departments. After all, I’m on the town council that pays their salaries. I’m your muscle.”
Nicole looked at her friend. Even at five-five, Nicole towered over Jane. An artist specializing in watercolors, Jane wore a smock and had her long red hair wound up and secured with a pencil.
“I’ll see how it goes,” Nicole answered. “But I’ll call out the big guns if I have to.”
An attractive, graying police officer stopped behind Nicole’s car, blocking the street completely and leaving his flashing lights on. Now that the initial shock was over, Nicole’s stomach lurched and her hands were clammy and cold.
“Any injuries?” the officer asked.
Both women shook their heads. A large crowd had gathered on the sidewalk. Many of them had cell phones in hand, taking pictures of the spectacle. What great spring break stories they were going to have. Someone had probably gotten the actual door destruction on video. Nicole thought it might come in handy for her case, but it was the last thing she wanted to see on social media.
“Want to tell me what happened?” the officer continued.
“A fire truck took off the door of my car,” Nicole said. She tried for a competent and neutral tone, one she had practiced in business meetings at her former job in Indianapolis. The tone that said everything is fine; we just have things to discuss.
“It was technically an ambulance,” Jane interjected. “The big rescue squad. Red.”
“Thanks, Jane,” the cop said. “How’s the painting business?”
“Good. Busy week with spring breakers. My kind of busy. I’d take a whole summer of this.”
“I hope you get it.” The cop smiled and turned back to Nicole. “So how did the ambulance grab your door?”
“It was open,” Nicole said.
“You were just getting out of the car?”
“Not exactly.” Nicole was starting to get that notguilty but not exactly blameless feeling.
“I see,” he said. He raised both eyebrows and wrinkled his forehead. “And was your car parked like this at the time of the accident?”
Nicole felt heat in her cheeks. She was the victim here! The ambulance wrecked her car. But...okay, yes, she was illegally parked. And, sure, she had left the door hanging open. The box with her computer and her desk supplies was heavy. It really was.
Rats.
“Yes, but...” she began.
Jane stepped between her friend and the police officer. “I think I can explain. Nicole just arrived from out of town after a very long drive. She’s my new business manager and an old friend. I had her pull up out front to unload a box of stuff. Very heavy stuff. There’s a delivery truck behind the grocery store next door. That’s where I usually unload. You should really talk to them about hogging the whole loading zone back there. Especially during tourist season.” Jane shrugged and smiled at the man. “I’d say it’s technically their fault.”
The police officer pulled a notepad from his breast pocket and clicked a silver pen against his shiny badge. “Out-of-state license plates, double-parked, left car door open, using the street as an unloading zone,” he said aloud as he jotted down notes.
“Hey,” Nicole said, hustling over and looking at what he was writing. “The ambulance never even slowed down. There were dozens of witnesses.”
The cop raised his eyes and looked at her for a moment before flipping his notepad closed and putting it away.
“I’m usually very responsible,” Nicole grumbled. This was true. Her life had been orderly and ordinary at one time. National Honor Society in high school, dean’s list in college, excellent credit score, not even a speeding ticket to put a black mark next to her name. But since last summer, she could only make it through a day by hanging on with both hands.
She’d hoped moving to a new town would help her let go. Perhaps she’d chosen the wrong place to start over.
The cop smiled and cocked his head. “I’ll send a report to the city’s attorney since it involved a city employee, although which one I don’t know.” He winked at Jane. “You know I’ll find out.”
“I thought I saw Tony Ruggles in the passenger seat, but I didn’t see who was driving,” Jane said.
“Chief’s son riding shotgun,” the officer commented as he wrote the fact in his notepad.
“And will the city replace my car?” Nicole asked. With each question her case grew dimmer.
“That’ll be up to the insurance companies. Yours and theirs.”
Nicole sighed. Maybe tomorrow would be the day her luck would change.
“Welcome to Cape Pursuit,” the police officer added. “I’ll call you a tow truck.”
* * *
HOURS LATER AFTER the art gallery had closed for the day, Nicole got in the passenger seat of Jane’s Volkswagen Beetle. The car was sunny yellow and decorated with ads for Jane’s art studio, Sea Jane Paint. It also enjoyed the luxury of having all its doors.
“I’ll drive next time,” Nicole offered, smiling and trying to be cheerful despite the events of the day. “Even if I have to steal a car.”
“Tourists leave rentals unlocked sometimes,” Jane suggested. “Just a thought.”
The spring break weather and happy vibe of the beachside town was something to celebrate. People in colorful shorts and T-shirts strolled the walks, lovers kissed under awnings and the calm sea appeared in glimpses between the buildings they passed.
The evening sky stretching over the Atlantic Ocean nearly transcended the sight of her almost-paid-for car being hauled off by a tow truck, its dismembered door tucked underneath it on the flatbed. Nicole had the feeling she was never going to see it again, but the insurance adjuster on the phone assured her that doors got lopped off all the time. The car might live to ride again—after a few weeks in the body shop.
“We could go to a restaurant,” Jane said. “There’s at least a dozen of them within walking distance of my studio, some of them really good. But I don’t feel like fighting the spring break crowds on the strip.” She turned down a residential street, heading away from the ocean. “I’m taking you to a place on the edge of town the locals like.”
“Do they have fried food and alcohol?”
“That’s all they have,” Jane said.
“Perfect.”
The low brown building’s painted sign said it all: Cape Pursuit Bar & Grill. It was not the kind of place that would attract the tourist crowd. Out of the way and under the radar, it had local watering hole written all over it, from the pothole-riddled parking lot to the mismatched faux shutters.
Nicole followed Jane inside to a row of dark, high-backed booths and slid in across from her. She picked up a colorful laminated menu and smiled. Fried macaroni bites. Fried mozzarella sticks. French fries. Fried onion straws. Five different kinds of burgers, nearly all with some combination of bacon, cheese, barbecue sauce, fried onions and fried pickles.
Her stomach growled. The car fiasco had robbed her appetite for lunch, but she was starving now. She deserved saturated fat after all she’d been through, and she had a feeling she’d be on her feet working hard in the art gallery. Life in a sunny beach town where she’d be likely to walk everywhere now that she was without a car was a far cry from the sedentary office job she’d left several states behind.
“Thanks for letting me stay with you until I find a place,” Nicole said. “I looked at some rental houses and condos online, but I was afraid to commit before I actually saw the properties.”
“Someone’s looking for a place to live?”
A man with a face straight out of a magazine slid into the booth next to Jane. He had blue eyes, rugged cheekbones, a day’s growth of beard and dark hair that was just a little too long. He wore a T-shirt with Cape Pursuit Fire Department screen-printed over the left side of his chest.
“Charlie Zimmerman,” he said, extending his hand across the table. “I can help you buy or rent a place if you’re interested. I’m a part-time Realtor here.”
“And a full-time pain in the butt,” Jane added.
“Keeps me busy,” Charlie agreed, smiling.
“This is Nicole Wheeler,” Jane said. “My best friend from college. We both went to Michigan State, but she majored in something far more practical than I did.”
Charlie turned his seaglass-blue eyes toward Nicole. “Horseshoeing? Latin?”
Nicole studied their guest and wondered what the heck he was talking about. Did she look like a horseshoer?
“Anything’s more practical than what my flaky artist friend here does,” Charlie explained jovially.
“Hey,” Jane said. “I helped personalize gifts for your last three girlfriends, not that it did you much good.”
Charlie’s smile faded for a moment and he drummed his fingers on the table. “Can’t blame a guy for trying,” he commented. “And there’s no doubt your paintings will easily outlast any of my relationships.”
Jane stacked up the menus and folded her napkin into neat triangles, creasing them mercilessly with one finger. “I hope so,” she said.
“So you’re not an artist?” Charlie asked, looking at Nicole.
Nicole leaned back in her seat. “I majored in business. I just finished my MBA and I’m trying to figure out what to do with it.”
“And you’re new in town.”
Five or six men, all big, all loud, burst through the door and headed straight for the bar.
“Yes,” Nicole said, raising her voice over the noise. “I’m going to be Jane’s business manager.”
Charlie exchanged a look with Jane, one eyebrow raised just enough to imply a question.
“Lucky me,” Jane said. “You know I’m lousy at spreadsheets and paperwork. And Nicole’s a great photographer—”
“Hey, Charlie,” one of the new arrivals, a big buzz-cut blond at the bar, shouted. “Get over here. You gotta hear this one.”
The man next to him on the bar stool turned around and locked eyes with Nicole. From a short distance away, his green eyes reminded her of a stormy sea. His dark hair and shoulders as wide as a truck combined with those stormy eyes mesmerized her. The blond buzz-cut guy slapped stormy-sea man on the shoulder.
“Kevin here has a peach of a story.” He paused to laugh. “He took the door off some stupid tourist’s car with the squad this afternoon.”
Nicole felt her face fall, all the warm blood draining away to be replaced by ice water.
“Those double-parking sons of guns,” one of the other guys added.
Charlie laughed and Jane elbowed him in the ribs.
“What?” he said. “I’m joining the cool kids at the bar.” He nodded to Nicole. “Nice meeting you. Jane can give you my number if you’re serious about finding a place.”
“Thank you,” Nicole said coldly. She made brief eye contact with him and then turned back to the group at the bar. So Kevin of the stormy green eyes was the man who welcomed her to Cape Pursuit by slicing off her car’s door?
“Maybe this wasn’t a good idea,” Jane said. “I forgot Thursday night was Testosterone Night.”
A waitress appeared at their table, blocking off the bar stool crowd and asking for their drink orders.
“I’m not sure we’re staying,” Jane said, raising a questioning glance to Nicole.
“Sure we’re staying. They have fried everything on the menu, and we’re already here,” Nicole replied, her tone like that of a lion handler assuring the terrified crowd that everything is just fine. “I’ll have wine. Moscato, if you have it.”
“Still having your love affair with Italy?” Jane asked. A smile lit her eyes. She turned to the waitress. “Orange soda for me. I’m the driver for the night.”
“Rub it in that you still have a car,” Nicole said after the waitress left. “After I have that wine, I may just go over there and tell—what was his name? Kevin?—just how much I appreciated the special welcome he gave me this afternoon.”
Jane’s smile disappeared. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“Why? Will he accuse me of being one of those double-parking sons of guns?”
“Kevin didn’t say that. Rick did.”
“Rick of the blond buzz cut?”
“Affectionately known by several unflattering names,” Jane confirmed.
Loud laughter echoed from the bar. It wasn’t much of a mystery what they were all laughing about. Nicole’s cheeks heated. She swallowed. Maybe Jane was right. They should leave.
The waitress placed a wine glass on a paper coaster in front of Nicole. Little bubbles rose from the stem to the top. It smelled like heaven. Fermented heaven.
Maybe they could stay.
The twentysomething server parked a steaming basket of french fries in the middle of the table. “They’ll keep you company while you decide what to order,” she said. “Kitchen’s a little backed up tonight and we hate seeing people go hungry.”
They were definitely staying.
CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_75d6f801-4bc3-58d7-a905-9f30d20eb650)
NO MATTER HOW much fun the other guys were having, the accident was a dark cloud over Kevin’s day. He had no choice. He knew that. Kid not breathing, life or death. He couldn’t stop, and he couldn’t hit those teenagers on bikes. And who the heck had asked that red car to park right there in the street and leave the door open?
But still. He felt bad about it. The two-year-old lying on the sofa in the house where a panicked father had flagged them down was, technically, breathing. But he was unconscious due to a febrile seizure. It was the kind of thing Kevin had seen a number of times, but the child’s parents had not. And the terror in their eyes made Kevin wonder if he was ever brave enough to have children of his own.
But everything had worked out. The boy would recover once the hospital got his fever down. The damage to the front bumper of the ambulance was minimal. The department’s insurance agent had chalked it up to one more statistic, one more example of the 10 percent of emergency vehicles involved in scrapes and accidents every year. The chief had talked to him, and the write-up in his employee folder declared it not his fault, unavoidable. No disciplinary action assigned. The chief had even congratulated him on following the department’s mantra: life over property. No exceptions. Ever.
But he was never going to hear the end of it from his fellow public servants who were currently buying him drinks. They weren’t impressed by his life-saving defensive driving. They all did that kind of thing every day. The firefighters and cops leaning on the bar were raising their beers over the gritty details.
“Did the door actually get airborne or was it more of a twist-off?” Rick asked. He punctuated his question by twisting the cap off his beer with his bare hand.
Kevin’s cousin Tony slid a basket of fries down the counter to Kevin. “No air,” he declared. “Saw it all in the side mirror.”
Kevin stuffed a handful of fries in his mouth and hoped desperately for a kitchen fire. A false alarm. Anything to change the subject.
“Kev here had his eyes on the road, so I’m the one you should be asking,” Tony added. “Barely even felt it when the bumper tore off that door and dropped it right in front of the car. Like roadkill. Glass shattered to hell.” He paused and swigged his beer. “Great story for the Wall of Flame. Hope one of the hundreds of tourists who witnessed it got it on video. Maybe they’ll put it on social media.”
Kevin cringed. The Wall of Flame was likely to be misunderstood by normal people. People who were not in the business of responding to accidents, digging through gutted houses for the cause of the fire, and facing some of the truly lousy things that happen to people. Every day. The Wall of Flame was just a bulletin board with an attached shelf. It hung in the bunk room at the station, where they posted newspaper clippings, photographs, thank-you notes and the occasional artifact. It was a daily reminder of what they did, but its goofiness took the edge off the seriousness of the job. Department humor. It meant survival in a tough field.
Currently the wall had a picture of one of the lieutenants swearing in the newest firefighter, but the lower half of the new recruit’s body was a chubby baby wearing a diaper. A picture printed from the internet of Smokey Bear lighting a fat cigar was stapled in the upper corner. A before-and-after photo of the chief as a young recruit with hair, and the current bald version was tacked up next to a colorful photo of a training fire. The house was destroyed by fire on purpose, but the large caption drawn in marker said it all: Oops.
“This is not going on the Wall of Flame,” Kevin grumbled.
“My cousin drives the tow truck,” Ethan said. “He saved the side mirror of the door you took off. We’ll put it in the Stupid Tourist section of the board.”
Kevin groaned and shook his head.
Rick left his bar stool next to Kevin and headed for the restroom in the back of the restaurant. A gorgeous blonde slid onto the stool, an empty glass of wine in her hand. There was something oddly familiar about her.
“Moscato,” she said to the bartender, handing over the empty glass.
She swiveled and faced Kevin, her eyes the color of new plants in spring. He froze. There was definitely something about her.
She had the full attention of the men assembled at the bar, but she was only looking at Kevin.
“I’m Nicole Wheeler,” she said.
Could this be happening? Other guys attracted women, even used their badges and uniforms to negotiate themselves into a night in bed. But Kevin’s last girlfriend took off eighteen months ago, leaving him an ancient dog and no apologies.
Maybe his luck was changing.
“Kevin Ruggles,” he said. “You must be new in town. I’d remember you if we’d met before.”
“I’m definitely new. Just arrived this afternoon, in fact.”
Something in her tone signaled a warning, but Kevin forged ahead. She was sitting next to him at the bar, waiting for a drink. He should offer to buy. She was beautiful. Her fingers tapped on the bar, with no wedding ring in sight. What could go wrong?
“I’d like to personally welcome you to Cape Pursuit,” he said.
Her lips formed a cold line. “You already did.”
“Uh-oh,” Tony said.
Silence replaced the friendly banter at the bar. Kevin’s comrades in arms were sharks, waiting for blood they sensed was coming.
The bartender popped a cork and filled Nicole’s empty glass, taking his time. He stood still, also waiting.
Kevin felt heat rise up his neck and set his ears on fire. He had a better chance escaping a burning building alive than surviving the next thirty seconds.
He remembered. It was only a glance in the side mirror of the truck. A blonde woman standing in the street staring at the wreckage of her car. The wreckage he had caused.
“You don’t happen to own a small red car,” he said slowly. “Do you?”
“I do.” She sipped her wine, never taking her eyes off his.
“And...I almost hate to ask...but...is it missing a part? Maybe a door?”
“It is.”
The silence was how Kevin pictured people waiting tensely in the eye of a hurricane. Hunkered down, knowing the worst was coming, thinking perhaps they should have evacuated when they’d had the chance.
Where is that kitchen fire?
“I’d also like my mirror back,” she said, directing her words to Ethan. “So don’t bother to add it to your asinine tourist museum.”
She picked up her wine glass and returned to her table, only ten feet from the bar and easily within earshot. Close enough to make everyone uncomfortable.
Kevin sat on his bar stool like someone had soaked his pants in superglue. Even if she’d given him the chance to explain, what would he have said? Sorry, lady, but your car was in the way. Life over property.
But she had no use for him or his explanations. She’d made that clear.
* * *
JANE SMILED AND waved at the firefighters now silently holding on to their beer bottles as if they were lifelines.
She leaned forward and whispered to Nicole. “I think you ruined Testosterone Night.”
“I’ll cry myself to sleep tonight,” Nicole said quietly. “I know they’re your friends, but I just couldn’t sit here and listen to their bravado.”
“Don’t blame you a bit. They’ll live.” Jane grinned. “It’s good for them to get a reminder once in a while that not every female on earth finds them irresistible.”
Nicole regarded her friend, one eyebrow raised. “Have you ever dated any of them?”
“Not officially. I briefly dated a cop who left for the bigger department in Virginia Beach. Also dated a firefighter who was only here for the summer. Somehow I got little sister status with that group, so dating is off the table. Maybe I know too much about them.”
“Nothing going on between you and Charlie?”
Jane blew out a breath and sat back, crossing her arms. “Nothing I want to burden you with tonight. It’s a...well...it’s a story.”
Their burgers arrived, covered in barbecue sauce, cheese and bacon as promised. “To new beginnings,” Nicole said, clinking her nearly empty wine glass against Jane’s orange soda.
“Benvenuto,” Jane said, laughing. “See, I learned something in that Italian class we took when we were juniors.”
While they ate, the firefighters at the bar moved to a corner table closer to a flat-screen television. The baseball game was on, and the noise of the game and the bar patrons covered their conversation. Twice, Nicole’s glance strayed to the table in the corner. Both times Kevin was looking at her.
“I’m hoping you can do something about my computer now that you’re here. I think I need a new system,” Jane said. “Maybe I should put everything in the cloud.”
“I’ll look at it. You mostly place online orders for supplies, track expenses and print receipts for purchases, right?”
“Yes,” Jane said, nodding.
“And you don’t have any employees?”
“Nope. Just you.”
“Are you sure you actually need me?”
“I definitely do.”
When Jane had asked Nicole to move to Cape Pursuit, the timing had seemed too perfect. Just when the top layer of scars from her brother’s accident had scabbed over, the foolish office romance Nicole was involved in bubbled over and fizzled out.
It had been far better when she and her boss, Bryan, at the furniture plant were just flirting. Flirting has the potential for danger, but she told herself it was harmless. She ran his human resources department and online sales accounts, was flattered when he asked her to sit next to him at meetings and enjoyed an occasional lunch on his dime. It was a nice distraction.
Until they’d traveled for business and she ended up in his hotel room. The match was struck and burned hotly for about a week. Then it fizzled, and they both discovered there was no fuel left. The cold ashes remaining would make it impossible for her future with Bryan as a boss.
Jane happened to call to say hello at just the right time. Nicole told Jane about the big office mistake and the downward career spiral she was now being flushed along. And Jane begged Nicole to leave Indianapolis behind, swearing she needed someone with a head for business. Getting away from her work, Bryan, her memories, was such a tempting offer, Nicole couldn’t refuse.
But she’d worried every day in the weeks since—as she’d finished out her lease, given her notice and packed her things—that Jane was only being nice. Being a friend. That she didn’t need a business manager any more than Nicole needed another pair of shoes.
“I know what you’re thinking, but you’re wrong,” Jane said, scrutinizing Nicole. “I really need your help. I have big plans to take my painting business to the internet. When the tourists are gone—nearly half the year—my sales are so dismal I can hardly pay the rent. I want to set up a website and sell online.”
“Really?” Nicole brightened.
“Yes. That’s where you come in. Since you’re also an excellent photographer, I’m hoping you’ll photograph and post my pieces on my website that doesn’t exist yet.”
Nicole felt a weight lift from her chest. “I could do that,” she said, energy infusing her voice.
“I’ve thought of selling my one-of-a-kind stuff online, but I also need your opinion about doing some stock or custom items. I just have to figure out exactly what people want. Market surveys, you think? You know about that.”
“I do,” Nicole said, thinking of the market research she’d conducted for the furniture company and how excited she’d been to share the results with her former boss. She’d been foolish enough to think that working extra hours for Bryan’s approval was some kind of honor.
Working for Jane would be better.
“And I don’t know if I’m opening a can of worms offering to do custom pieces,” Jane continued. “I’ve just done a few for close friends, but I’m worried about going online. People can be a real pain. They think they know what they want, but sometimes they only know it when they see it.”
“We’ll look into it, do a search and see what other artists like you are doing.”
Jane nodded and scooped the last fries out of the basket.
“I think I’ll start tomorrow by securing your web domain. I have to do a search and see if seajanepaint.com is taken,” Nicole said.
“What are the chances?”
“About as good as having the door of your car taken off by a fire truck,” Nicole said. She chuckled, the laughter scattering the tension from her neck and shoulders. For the first time in a long time, she felt free. Maybe this would work out.
When Jane and Nicole asked their waitress for the check at the end of their meal, she told them it had already been covered. “Tip, too,” she added, smiling.
Nicole looked at her friend, eyebrows raised.
“It wasn’t me,” she said. “Although I was planning to buy since you’ve had a tough day and I wanted to wine and dine my favorite new employee.”
Nicole risked a glance at the corner table where all eyes were on the television. Except for one stormy green pair. It was no mystery who had paid their tab, but Nicole wondered what had motivated the gesture. Guilt? Remorse?
She hadn’t seen any of that in the testosterone club at the bar.
“Least they could do,” Jane commented. “And don’t you dare think of going over there and saying thank you.”
“Believe me, that’s not what I was thinking,” Nicole commented. She picked up her purse and followed her friend from the bar, carefully resisting the urge to look at the back corner.
CHAPTER THREE (#ulink_d43bc040-4ff6-5892-8d78-09db2b983d8a)
A PILE OF Nicole’s luggage took up a corner of the back room at Sea Jane Paint, hastily unloaded from the trunk of her damaged car before it got hauled away a few days earlier. When Nicole left Indianapolis, she had no definite plans, but she didn’t intend to go back anytime soon. Her summer clothes were already unpacked neatly into her closet and dresser drawer at Jane’s house. The winter clothes could stay in the heavy suitcase until at least October. If she was still there.
“We should be able to fit it all in my car after we close up today and we’ll get you permanently moved into my guest room,” Jane said, smiling at Nicole. “I hope you know I’m happy to have you stay as long as you want to.”
“Thanks,” Nicole said. She handed her friend a diet soda from the mini-fridge. “I appreciate it. Maybe I’ll meet your Realtor friend to look at a few places. Now that I’m actually here I think I could commit to something. At least a rental.” Nicole cracked open an orange soda. “Not that renting a place is much commitment.”
“I rent,” Jane said. “It’s nice not having to fix the roof or unclog the kitchen drain.”
“Did Charlie help you find the place?”
Nicole watched her friend’s expression when she mentioned him. She’d noticed a hint of something between them at the bar. Was it her imagination? Jane tapped the top of her aluminum can and then exchanged it for a bottle of water from the fridge, avoiding Nicole’s gaze the whole time.
“He did. He was one of the first people I met when I moved to Cape Pursuit five years ago. I had no idea at that time that I’d be renting a house and a running a gallery now.”
“To the future,” Nicole said, clinking her aluminum can against Jane’s bottle. “Whatever it may be.”
The front door opened and set off the chime, a foghorn sound that scared Nicole every time. It fit the nautical theme of the gallery and the tourists loved it, but to Nicole it sounded like a freighter about to run over a tiny boat. After the car door incident, she was jumpy about big loud things wreaking havoc on little ones. Too jumpy. There were a lot of things she was trying to get over. That was why she was here in Cape Pursuit.
“I’ll get it,” Nicole said. “You finish your lunch.”
She moved aside the filmy curtain that separated the back room from the gallery and store and stopped in her tracks. It was not a tourist at the door.
Dressed in a navy blue shirt and pants, a fire department insignia over the left side of his chest, Kevin Ruggles stood inside the door of Sea Jane Paint. He shifted from foot to foot, rubbed his forehead with the back of his hand and glanced out the front window. Uncomfortable, she noted. He ought to be.
Her movement caught his attention and he strode toward her, closing the gap. He was tall, over six feet. Broad chest. A day’s growth of beard darkened his square jaw. His dark hair was tousled as if he’d been up all night. He was far more attractive than she wanted him to be, considering that his occupation put him on her do not touch list.
He stood in front of her as if he wanted to say something, an expectant look on his face. Maybe the guy was used to a hero’s welcome wherever he showed up, but Nicole wasn’t handing out any accolades. She waited, giving him no encouragement other than one raised eyebrow.
“I brought you this,” he finally said, holding out a plastic grocery bag. He smiled and tucked his chin, the gesture making him appear vulnerable. “It’s the side mirror of your car.”
He has no right to be so cute. He was about her age, but his demeanor was boyish, eager. Nicole took the bag and looked inside, heat creeping up her neck.
“I know it’s broken,” he said. “And your insurance company will replace it when they replace your door. But I feel better if it’s in your hands and not...”
“On the Wall of Flame?” she asked.
He nodded, a pink flush spreading over his cheeks. “Yes.”
“So you brought me this so you’d feel better?”
His flush deepened. He smiled and raised both eyebrows, a goofy, charming look that probably worked on women from his mother to his girlfriend. She glanced at his left hand. No ring, no tan line where a ring had recently been.
“The other guys were giving me all kinds of crap about it. I’m getting rid of the evidence.”
It should have annoyed her, his selfish reason for bringing her the mirror. But somehow his raw honesty was cute. Too cute.
She held the bag at arm’s length and dropped it in the garbage can by the cash register with a clunk. Kevin swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple at her eye level. His smile faded.
He took his dark sea green eyes off hers for a moment and glanced out the front window. He turned slightly so she could see what was behind him. An ugly brown pickup truck with its side window rolled down was parked in front of the gallery. A huge dent marred the bed of the truck. Two wide paws and a nose rested on the open window frame.
“Your dog?” she asked. It was her first attempt at friendly conversation. She’d have to be a marble statue not to at least ask about the paws and nose. They were adorable.
He nodded, a hint of smile returning. “Arnold. I worked last night and ended up staying over to cover the day shift until they got back from a call. Poor guy was lonely so I brought him with me.”
Nicole craned her neck and tried to look around Kevin’s very broad shoulders. The dog’s head was visible now, and he appeared to be a beagle attempting to climb out the window.
“He loves a car ride,” Kevin added.
“Does he ever jump out?”
Kevin laughed, a deep, rumbling laugh. “He tries. Never made it yet and he’s at least twelve years old.”
Nicole stepped to her right and saw the paws and nose disappear into the truck. “It looks like he gave up.”
Kevin nodded. “He’s probably tired. He doesn’t sleep well when I’m gone all night. Arnold’s a worrier. I think he knows I have a dangerous job.” Kevin took another glance at his truck. “Dogs are sensitive,” he added. “Or he wonders who’ll feed him if I die in a fire.”
The air left Nicole’s lungs, and her shoulders dropped. Of course he had a dangerous job. The same dangerous job that had killed her brother when he was only twenty-one. Robbed him of his future, stole happiness from her parents, her sister and herself. She swallowed. Goose bumps rose along her chilled back.
A breeze behind her told her Jane had swept the curtain aside.
“Shopping for a painting?” Jane asked, her tone chipper and businesslike.
Kevin glanced at Jane and returned his attention to Nicole with a forehead wrinkle. As if he realized he’d said the wrong thing but didn’t know what.
“Uh, no. I was bringing something over.” He gestured to Nicole, but she had nothing in her hands.
“What did you bring?” Jane asked.
Nicole looked at Kevin, eyebrows raised, wondering what he’d say. She knew Jane had heard the entire exchange through the thin curtain. Jane always had her back and had been on her side since they’d moved into their freshmen dorm in college.
Kevin crossed his arms and faced the two women. Just when Nicole expected him to flee, he surprised her and held out his right hand.
“Let’s start over,” he said. “I’m Kevin Ruggles. I grew up here in Cape Pursuit. I’ve been a firefighter for about six years and the worst mistake I’ve made on the job was two days ago when I crashed into your car.”
Shocked, Nicole held out her hand. He took it. His hand was large, warm, rough. But gentle. His touch made her want to withdraw her hand and run for the safety of the back room before he drew her in further than she wanted to go.
“And I really brought you that mirror,” he nodded toward the trash can, “so I’d have a good excuse to come by and say I’m sorry. I’m sorry I smashed your car and made your first day in town a lousy one. I’m very glad you weren’t in the car and I didn’t hurt you.”
His solemn expression, eyebrows drawn together, underscored his sincerity.
“I couldn’t live with that,” he added.
Nicole didn’t say anything. Didn’t encourage him to go on. But the heat returned to her face and ears.
“We got called to a kid not breathing and I was driving fast. Thought I could make it, but some tourists on bikes swerved into the street,” he said, not dropping her hand or taking his eyes off hers. “I couldn’t hit them.”
Nicole swallowed, pulled her hand back and crossed her arms. She needed a barrier. Something about Kevin made her want to forget the agony she felt every time she heard a siren or saw a fire truck. Every time she thought of her brother, perishing in the flames of a forest fire he’d thought he could outrun.
“What happened to the kid?” Jane asked, filling the silence.
“He’ll be okay,” he said, directing his words to Jane. “It wasn’t as bad as his parents thought, but things often look worse than they really are.”
Kevin turned back to Nicole, a sad smile on his face. “Anyway, I’m sorry about your car. And I hope you like it here.”
She nodded, acknowledging him. “Thank you,” she said, her words hollow.
Kevin pivoted and walked past watercolors propped on shiny easels. He opened the front door, setting off the foghorn, and got into his truck. Nicole heard his door shut and watched him put on his seat belt and pet his dog before he pulled away from the front curb. The dog sat up in the passenger seat and stuck his nose out the window.
“Since you weren’t making that easy for him, you should have asked him to let you drive his truck while your car’s in the shop,” Jane commented, grinning. “Would have been fun to see what he said.”
“It’s probably a stick shift,” Nicole said, disgust in her voice. “I never learned to drive one of those. He seems like the kind of man who would drive a standard. It’s all about the ego. And why should I have made that easy for him anyway?”
Jane shrugged. “Coming in here was a nice gesture. He wanted to explain himself.”
“He probably just felt guilty and wanted to make himself feel better,” Nicole huffed. She kicked the trash can for emphasis.
“You need lunch,” Jane said. “Go back and sit down, take your time.”
“I’m fine.”
Jane leaned one elbow on the glass counter. “If a garbage truck had taken out your car, would you feel better about it?”
“No.”
Jane nodded. “So if a sanitation worker came in here in his uniform exuding sweetness and vulnerability, and he told you a sad story about swerving the trash truck to miss a kitten and how sorry he was he’d knocked your car silly, you’d give him the cold shoulder.”
“Now you’re being ridiculous,” Nicole said, a small grin turning up the corners of her mouth.
“But you see my point.”
Nicole sighed. “I hate the fire department.”
Jane gave her a hug. “I know. And you have a right. But you have to admit fire trucks are sexier than garbage trucks.”
“Everything is sexier than a garbage truck.” Her shoulders sagged and Nicole felt like crying. “I just thought I would get away and start over. And bam. First thing that happens is I get knocked on my butt by the same guys who took Adam from us.”
Jane held her friend by the shoulders. “Not the same guys. Different place. Different situation.”
Nicole bit her lip and focused on breathing in through her nose, out through her mouth.
“I know you,” Jane said. “When life knocks you down, you get up and dust yourself off.”
Nicole swallowed. “I’ll have some lunch and then get to work,” she said.
* * *
“UNCONDITIONAL LOVE, HUH, ARNOLD?” Kevin said, scratching his dog’s head between shifting gears on his aging F-150. “That’s what everyone says dogs are good for.”
Arnold scooted over and surrendered to the temptation of the open truck window, sticking his nose out.
“Fine,” Kevin said.
Arnold sneezed and the wind blew snot back into the truck.
“Maybe I should take you to live at the station. You could be the mascot.”
Kevin drove to the house he was currently painting on his days off from the station. An irregular schedule of twenty-four on, then thirty-six or twelve on gave him time to work in the sunshine on outside projects. Even if it meant sacrificing sleep.
Charlie Zimmerman stood in the driveway, holding a hammer. He walked up to Kevin’s open window as soon as the truck stopped.
“Just got the for-sale sign put up,” he said. “The house looks lousy now, but once you get it painted it’ll sell fast. Especially with summer coming up.”
The house was constructed exactly like the others on the street. Originally beach rentals, they were all one-story, wood-sided, with single-car garages and tiny front yards. Some of the houses had acquired character over the years with brightly painted walls, redesigned front entrances, creative landscaping. This house was like a wallflower cousin asked to the prom out of obligation. It needed color and life.
“Decide on the paint?” Kevin asked.
Charlie nodded. “Come see.”
Kevin got out, walked around the truck, and opened the passenger door for Arnold. He lifted the beagle down.
“He doesn’t get any better looking with age,” Charlie said.
“Neither do you.”
“So,” Charlie continued, ignoring the insult, “the homeowner thought white was the best choice because it’s a standard and it wouldn’t scare off any potential buyers. My office thought color would make this place pop. At least that’s what the ladies said. So we compromised.”
“How?” Kevin asked.
“White with green shutters.”
Charlie showed Kevin the buckets of paint stored in the garage, a swipe of color on each lid identifying the contents. The spring green shutter paint was a perfect match for Nicole’s eyes. Not that she liked what she saw out of those eyes, at least not when she was looking at him.
He’d blown it. He just didn’t know how, aside from the obvious business of wrecking her car.
“While you’re here, I wondered if you’d want to think about a little business venture with me. You’re a good painter and pretty handy with other stuff. And I’ve got the inside track on Cape Pursuit real estate.”
“No, I don’t want to buy and flip houses with you,” Kevin said, his tone implying they’d talked about this before.
“You’d make some dough.”
“I have enough money. And I’m taking classes this fall to get my fire science degree. So thanks, but no.”
“If you change your mind, let me know.”
Kevin unloaded a wooden ladder from the bed of his truck and set it next to the paint cans in the garage. He planned to go home and get a few hours’ sleep while the sun was hot and then come back in the evening and start in. The house was already pressure washed, the loose paint scraped off. Covering ugly wood with fresh paint was one of Kevin’s favorite things. It was just as satisfying as dousing a fire, but the paint lasted longer.
He’d been painting houses in Cape Pursuit since he was a teenager, and he remembered them all, always noticing them when he drove by and evaluating how well their paint was sticking.
“I thought I might see about getting Jane’s friend a place to rent,” Charlie said, helping unload painting supplies from the truck bed. Drop cloths, brushes, a bucket of paint thinner. “The blonde.”
Kevin felt heat under his collar. It was hot in the garage, but that wasn’t the only reason. “Did Jane mention how long her friend is staying?”
“Nicole,” Charlie said. “Jane implied Nicole was here to stay. Permanently. Making a big move of some kind.”
“Good for her. Nice place to live,” Kevin commented.
“That all you have to say?”
“At the moment.”
“She gave you a hard time at the restaurant. And nobody’s seen the mirror that was supposed to go on the wall at the station.”
“I think we should leave her alone. She’s new in town. She’s Jane’s best friend. Maybe she’s off-limits,” Kevin said. “Like Jane is,” he added, waiting for a reaction from Charlie. Everyone knew Charlie protected Jane as if she were a little sister.
Arnold bumped into a table in the crowded garage and knocked over a stepladder leaning on it. The ladder clattered to the floor and Arnold stared at it for a moment before lying down and putting his face on his paws.
“He’s going blind,” Kevin said. “It’s worse when he’s tired. We’re headed home for some sleep, but I’ll be back this evening to start in. If I get a coat of primer on before the sun goes down, I can start putting paint on tomorrow.”
“Make fun of me if you want, but this place will make me a pile of cash. Think about it, Kevin. You can only fight fires for so long, and the real estate business is a great fallback plan.”
Kevin shrugged. “Fighting fires is in my blood. If I ever get too old to do it, I’ll hang around the station and bore the young guys with stories about how we used to do things back in my day.” He grinned and scratched Arnold’s ears while he talked. “Maybe they’ll let me toss my walker in the back of the truck and drive them to the fires.”
Charlie leaned against the wall. “You putting your name in for a promotion? When the chief retires in a few months, everyone will probably move up a notch. Might open up a lieutenant’s job for you, maybe even captain.”
“Thought about it,” Kevin admitted. His older brother was already a lieutenant with just a few more years than Kevin on the department. “How about you? Are you applying?”
“No thanks,” Charlie said. “I’m happy to stay out of paperwork at the station. Leadership is a whole lot of responsibility.”
“Fighting fires is a responsibility,” Kevin said.
Charlie shook his head. “Not the same thing. When you’re an officer, the place owns you, body and soul. And I’m not interested in being owned by anything.”
“Or anyone?”
Charlie laughed. “Definitely not. I’m in the rental business for the foreseeable future. Pretty women, ugly houses.”
“Give me a few days and this one won’t be ugly anymore,” Kevin said. He hoisted Arnold into his truck, got in and backed out of the driveway. Charlie waved as he pulled away, and Kevin wondered how his friend could choose selling houses instead of aiming for the top job at the fire department.
CHAPTER FOUR (#ulink_fe5e40eb-1a54-5a2a-b080-a463714a749a)
JANE OPENED HER front door, stepped out of her shoes and dropped her purse on a chair in the living room. Her feet hurt and she was starving, but it had been a good afternoon. Several small paintings and a few gift items had sold, and she’d also enlisted Nicole to rearrange the displays in the front windows of the gallery. Business was picking up on the waves of spring sunshine, and she had a lot to hope for in her future—more than she’d even admitted to her best friend.
“We could order a pizza,” Jane said. “I think I could eat the entire thing myself.”
“No way. I’ve been here five days, and I haven’t cooked once,” Nicole said as she took off her shoes and left them by the front door. “Either I’m living a dream, or I’m being a lousy friend.”
Jane wandered into the kitchen with Nicole right behind her. She took a can of cat food from a lower cabinet and smiled at her houseguest. “You’re not a lousy friend. You’ve been busy moving in and helping me build my art empire.”
“You look exhausted,” Nicole said, giving Jane a long look. “And I like cooking.”
“I’m thrilled to have you here, but I’ll make you a deal if it’ll make you feel better. I’ll feed Claudette, and you make dinner for us two.”
“Deal,” Nicole said.
Nicole took a skillet from a rack near the sink while Jane found a clean bowl for her cat. It was nice having someone else in her kitchen. As much as she loved owning and running her gallery and living a peaceful life in a seaside town, the loneliness hit her every night when she came home. Having Nicole living with her gave her someone to talk to.
Someone she should confide in. Soon.
As Nicole sliced vegetables, Jane peeled back the metal lid on the can of cat food. Claudette circled her legs, excited about her evening meal. Without warning, the sight and smell of the wet food hit Jane like a wave of filthy water. She put her hand to her mouth, nearly retching, and dropped the can on the counter. It rolled, crashing loudly into the stainless steel sink.
“What’s the matter?” Nicole asked, rushing over. “Did you cut yourself on the lid?”
Jane shook her head and gripped the edge of the counter, fighting nausea. She heard a chair scrape the kitchen floor and felt Nicole pressing her into it.
“Jane, say something,” Nicole said. “Do you need a cold cloth or a drink?”
“I’m all right,” she protested. “The cat food smell just got me there for a minute.”
Claudette danced around the chair legs, sniffing the air, and then jumped into Jane’s lap. Nicole grabbed the cat and set her gently on the floor. She wound through Jane’s legs and tickled her bare feet.
“She’s hungry,” Jane whispered.
“She can wait a minute. What’s going on with you? You’ve smelled cat food a million times, and if I know Claudette, she’s been eating the same kind of food since we were in college. She knows her own mind.”
Jane sat back and took a deep breath. “I’m okay now. It was a passing thing.”
Nicole put the food in the cat’s bowl and set it on the floor on the far side of the kitchen. She grabbed a chair and pulled it close to Jane’s.
“Talk to me,” Nicole commanded.
Before she could say a word, Jane’s tears betrayed her. “I was planning to tell you, but I wanted you to get settled in first.”
Nicole put an arm around Jane’s shoulders. “Tell me what? Oh, God, are you sick? What’s wrong?”
Noticing the worry in her friend’s eyes, Jane tried to smile. “I’m not sick. At least not permanently.” She sucked in a deep breath. “I’m pregnant.”
It was the first time she had said the words aloud. Jane hadn’t spoken of it to anyone, even after her doctor confirmed it several weeks ago. It was her secret, the new life growing in her body. She hadn’t even told her parents, though she knew she couldn’t conceal it from them much longer. They lived an hour away, and she was surprised her mother hadn’t already figured out there was something going on, just from her voice over the phone.
“I wondered,” Nicole said.
“You did?”
“There were just a few things that didn’t seem...right.”
“You can say that again,” Jane said, sniffing and swiping at her tears. She’d already accepted the change her life was taking. A baby. For the past few weeks, the thought had come over her like sunshine through a window. Exciting, warming, but illuminating, too. How was she going to manage a baby along with her gallery? Was she ready to be a single mother? Or a mother at all?
Jane had found her own peace and joy about the child, but her emotions overwhelmed her as she tried talking about it for the first time. It was liberating but frightening, and she choked back sobs. Nicole jumped up and came back with a box of tissues.
“It’ll be okay,” Nicole said.
Jane wiped her eyes while Nicole rubbed her back and didn’t ask questions. “I’m not crying because I’m sad,” Jane mumbled from behind her tissues. “Having a baby isn’t a tragedy.”
“Of course not,” Nicole assured her. “And you’re not alone. I’m here. And Claudette will be a wonderful babysitter while we’re at the gallery.”
Jane laughed and wadded up her tissues. She looked at her friend’s sincere, supportive smile. “What am I going to do?”
“Be a wonderful mother.”
“I hope so,” she whispered. “At first I was stunned. Couldn’t believe it. But then I realized there was only one thing I could do. Be excited that I’m getting a wonderful and unexpected gift.”
“Can I be Aunt Nicole?”
“Of course. I’m an only child, so you’re the only aunt my baby is going to get.”
Nicole nodded and waited silently, hands on her knees.
“You know you want to ask,” Jane said. She would have been dying to ask if the tables were turned.
“Ask what?” Nicole said. “I’m here for you, and that’s all I need to know.”
“The father.”
Nicole got up and poured two glasses of water. “You only have to tell me what you want to tell me.”
Jane took a long, soothing drink. There was no reason to keep the truth from Nicole. Perhaps her best friend could help her figure out what to do.
“Charlie Zimmerman,” she said. “Realtor, firefighter, baby daddy.”
Nicole sucked in her lower lip but didn’t say anything.
“I’ve known him for five years. We’re friends,” Jane said swiftly. “He’s funny and attractive...but I didn’t think he was interested in me other than my status as the kid sister of the fire department. And then...”
“Then?”
“Stupid Valentine’s Day,” Jane muttered. “What a dumb holiday. It should be outlawed. It just makes single people feel unworthy and couples feel like they have to come up with some magical present or date. And then sometimes you go on dates you never would have accepted if it weren’t Valentine’s Day.”
“True,” Nicole conceded. “I spent it watching my favorite movie and drinking wine by myself this year.”
“Under the Tuscan Sun?”
Nicole nodded. “I swear I’m going to run away to Italy one of these days.”
“I wish I had been there watching it with you,” Jane said. “I wouldn’t have ended up single and pregnant.”
“So you went on a date with Charlie on Valentine’s Day?”
“No. We both had dates with other people.”
Nicole leaned back. “This is getting interesting.”
Jane laughed. “It’s not funny.”
“I’ll be the judge of that. Right after I get our dinner cooking.” She stood and turned on the burner. “You need to eat, and I’m happy to listen and cook at the same time.”
Jane watched Nicole scoop ingredients into the pan, and the aroma reminded her she was actually hungry. The sick feeling from the cat food was long gone. Poor Claudette. She might need to switch to dry food for a few months. And when the baby came along...how would an aging house cat, set in her ways, adjust to the change?
How would she adjust to the change?
“He doesn’t know,” Jane said as Nicole stirred.
“I assumed. When he sat with us at the bar, I thought there might be something between you.” She turned and held a large spoon in the air. “But I had no idea.”
“I have to tell him.”
“You do,” Nicole agreed. “But not tonight.”
Jane laughed. “No, not tonight. But it’s not the kind of thing you can hide forever. Not that I’d want to.”
“And what do you think he’ll say?”
“I have almost no doubt about it. He’ll ask me to marry him.”
“That jerk!” Nicole said, grinning. “And everyone thinks those firefighters are such heroes. Everyone except me, of course.”
“That’s exactly the problem. He’ll offer to do what he thinks is the right thing without a second thought.”
“But you’d have second thoughts.”
“Of course I would. I’ve known him a long time, and he’s no fan of commitment. Dated one girl after another, never staying with anyone for long. He would only marry me out of obligation, and I don’t want to be someone’s obligation. I’m worth more than that.”
* * *
FOLLOWING POLICE ORDERS, Charlie and Ethan waited behind the shelter of the fire truck while several officers entered the dilapidated home in a neglected section of Cape Pursuit. Far from the eyes of tourists, it was a five-minute ride from the fire station. Calls to the Dune Heights area of town often ended in a refusal of treatment, and domestic violence calls left Charlie and his fellow firefighters with the sick feeling that someone needed their help but wasn’t going to get it.
“I hate these calls,” Ethan muttered.
Charlie nodded. Everyone hated seeing drunk guys threaten their wives and families. His father would have cut off his own arm before threatening his wife and son. He would also have given that arm to have more years with Charlie’s mother, who died far too young of breast cancer.
“Maybe it’s a false alarm,” Charlie said. He listened closely for any sounds coming from the house. “It happens.”
Ethan blew out a breath and leaned against the truck. The midday sun flashed off the chrome pump. Charlie peered through the open middle of the truck, where the pump operator usually stood. Both he and Ethan wore full turnout gear and smelled like smoke. The Dumpster fire behind a fast-food restaurant in town hadn’t taken long to put out, and they were returning to the station when the call came in. The rest of their crew had returned to the station to grab the ambulance, but Ethan and Charlie went straight to the scene. The massive pumper truck was stocked with first aid and rescue equipment.
“I’d take a false alarm,” Ethan said. “Police only came to my house once when I was a kid, despite my parents constantly drinking and fighting. It wasn’t a false alarm that day.”
Charlie knew Ethan had a tough background. Instead of letting it destroy his life, he funneled every ounce of pain into doing the right thing. He fought fires, saved lives and never touched alcohol. He went along to the bar with his friends, and he drove them all home every single time. The eight-passenger SUV he owned probably cost him a fortune in car payments and gas.
“My dad spent the night in jail and it educated him for quite a while about his drinking limit.” Ethan took off his helmet and ran his fingers through his damp hair. “I can’t believe some days they’re both still alive.” Ethan shrugged and sat on the chrome step on the side of the truck. “Well, I don’t see them much even though they live right up the street.”
Charlie sat next to him and rested his elbows on his knees. It was hot on the shiny chrome bumper, blistering in his turnout gear. A cool shower at the station sounded like heaven, but he and Ethan would stay and sweat it out, hoping for the chance to help.
A police officer stepped around the front of the truck, and Charlie and Ethan jumped to their feet. “You better come in here,” he said. “We took out the husband in cuffs, but the wife could use some attention.”
Charlie hoisted the medical bag on his shoulder, and he and Ethan trudged up to the house behind the cop. The front steps had a missing board and one of the numbers over the front door was missing. A faded outline of the number two indicated where it had been. Still wearing his helmet, Charlie ducked out of habit as he went through the front door.
A woman sat on the only cushion left on a decrepit couch. She held a kitchen towel to her head. Charlie knelt in front of her and quickly snapped on the gloves his partner handed him. “I’m Charlie,” he said gently. “I’m a firefighter and I’m here to help you. Can I look at your injury?”
He heard Ethan talking with one of the police officers, asking if there were any other injured people in the house. The room looked like a battlefield. A table was overturned, a window was broken and there was a sizable hole in the wall above the couch.
The woman looked warily at Charlie. He took off his helmet and set it next to him on the floor so she could see him better. He opened his hands and held them in front of her so she could see there was nothing in them. “I’m not going to hurt you,” he said.
She lowered the towel and Charlie didn’t flinch when he saw the bloody mess on the side of her face. Although he’d seen worse at fire scenes and car accidents, the wounds inflicted by a person’s supposed loved ones always seemed to be the ugliest.
The police officers had left the room so Ethan and Charlie could help the victim. Ethan snapped open an ice pack and handed it to Charlie. He stood back, letting Charlie take the lead because he was the first person to talk to the patient. Charlie heard the ambulance’s siren approaching. “A few of my partners are coming, and they’ll take you to the hospital.”
“What makes you think I’m goin’?” the woman asked. Her lip quivered when she spoke.
“You need to,” he said gently. “Your cut needs a few stitches.”
“I don’t know.”
“I’ll go with you,” Charlie said, hoping he’d gained some of her trust. Ethan could take the truck back. He could wear his heavy turnout gear just a little longer. He placed sterile gauze on the open wound on her temple and held the ice pack over the bandage. She didn’t object. Her dirty hair, streaked with gray, had already stuck to the drying blood on the side of her face. Charlie was afraid she’d crumple if they tried to pick her up.
“What’s your name?” he asked.
“Karleen,” she said.
“Hey,” a loud voice yelled in the adjoining room. Charlie glanced up in time to see a massive bearded man staggering into the living room. He was shirtless and disheveled. “You can’t take my brother to jail just for beating up this—”
Charlie stood and shielded the woman on the couch, and Ethan moved swiftly and pinned the large man against the door frame. He fought back, and a lamp crashed to the floor, but Ethan was almost as large and had the advantage of a thick suit of turnout gear. Charlie wanted to jump into the fight, but his first duty was to protect his patient, so he stood his ground. Ethan was winning anyway.
At the sound of the scuffle, two cops rushed back into the living room and were followed by Tony Ruggles and his father, the fire chief. When the assailant saw he was outnumbered by six men ready to fight, he backed off.
“I ain’t going to jail, too,” the bearded man said. “I was just sayin’ it ain’t right to take her word over his. She’s just as drunk.”
Charlie turned to Karleen, keeping his body between her and the other man.
“Can we go?” the woman whispered to Charlie. “I need to get away from him.”
He offered her a hand. “Ready when you are.”
As Charlie helped his patient out of the house and into the back of the ambulance, he mentally reviewed any rental properties he owned that were empty. He’d do anything it took to help Karleen find a new home. Even though he’d never be half the man his father was, he could try.
CHAPTER FIVE (#ulink_aa689f6c-8bbc-5cdd-8e1b-1db411bc6874)
NICOLE AWOKE TO the sound of sirens. Wailing sirens. She lay awake listening for a moment and then drifted into a dream that was her worst nightmare—a startlingly realistic memory of her brother.
* * *
TALL, HANDSOME ADAM. He was blond and green-eyed like her and had the gift of long limbs and broad shoulders. The last time she saw him, he was boarding a plane in Indianapolis to go out West for his summer job with the forestry service. He already wore the T-shirt with the fire insignia on the front and one large word on the back: FIRE.
In the dream, he smiled and waved to her and her parents as they stood in the area just before the airport security line. They watched him navigate bag check, walk through the metal detector and head off to fight flames and save lives. He turned and smiled at her one last time.
* * *
NICOLE AWOKE AGAIN, sweat drenching her nightshirt. She had never seen him alive again.
The sound of noise in the kitchen, clanging pots, metal on metal, had awakened her this time. She pulled on a thin robe and headed toward the clamor.
Claudette lay curled on a kitchen chair, watching Jane pour coffee into a large thermos. The tabby cat kept one sleepy eye open, and Jane herself was wide awake and zipping around her small kitchen.
“Sorry to wake you up,” Jane said. She screwed the lid on the thermos and filled another, smaller carafe.
“You’re making coffee at one in the morning?” Nicole asked. Her dream still made her feel disoriented, almost as if someone was going to knock on the door and deliver the news that was every family’s nightmare.
“Fire down the street, and it looks like they’ll be there awhile.” Jane opened the cabinet over the sink and pulled out two sleeves of disposable white cups. “I’m taking the guys coffee.”
Jane was already dressed in jeans and a long-sleeved T-shirt. Although it was early May, the nights on the Virginia coast were still chilly.
“Can I help?” Nicole asked.
“Spare blankets. I keep them in the closet outside the bathroom, bottom shelf. Would you grab three or four? And you could throw on some clothes if you want to help carry this stuff.”
Jane flipped the switch to brew another pot. She glanced up and met Nicole’s eyes. “I’ll understand if you don’t want to.”
Nicole hesitated. She wanted to help. But her dream was still so raw, her damp nightshirt clinging to her and chilling her. She swallowed and steadied her breathing. “I’ll get dressed and grab the blankets,” she said.
Claudette followed her down the hall, winding between her legs and apparently hoping for something interesting to happen. Nicole dressed quickly in jeans and a sweatshirt, slipped into sneakers, and went to the linen closet. She wanted to hurry, but her legs were lead. The door creaked in the nighttime silence and she pulled the chain to turn on the bulb in the closet. Claudette crept stealthily inside, her tail twitching. A stack of industrial-looking rough blankets were on the lower shelf. Nicole pulled out four of them, toed the cat out of the closet, turned off the light and closed the door.
She gathered the blankets in her arms and steeled herself. She was going to a fire in the middle of the night. There would be firefighters, flashing lights, danger. Was anyone hurt? She nearly lost her nerve, but she took solace in the fact that Jane would be there with her. It would be okay. Starting over in a new place meant she had to face the things that were holding her back. But she wasn’t sure she could.
As they went through the front door, Jane lugging the big thermos and cups and Nicole holding blankets, they saw the flashing lights and spotlights of the fire scene only eight houses down the street.
The house on fire was a large one, a storybook house with fancy trim and detailed paint. White with rose, sage and soft gold accents. She’d snapped a photo of it two days ago when she took an evening walk with her camera slung over her shoulder.
Fire trucks with hoses snaking from hydrants robbed the house of its fairy-tale quality. Neighbors gathered, their faces red and white in the flashing lights. Jane walked quickly, but Nicole lagged a few steps behind. Lights were on in houses they passed even though it was the middle of the night. It appeared the whole neighborhood had beaten them to the scene.
But Nicole and Jane had an advantage. They had coffee and blankets.
A small group of people wearing bathrobes and sweatshirts, clothing disheveled and untucked, gathered just outside the fire scene. Nicole stopped, but Jane stepped over a hose and walked right up to a firefighter in full gear. A reflective stripe defined the bottom of his heavy yellow coat. The word Zimmerman flashed in reflective letters across his back. Jane put her thermos on the truck’s silver running board and waited next to Charlie while he listened to a radio pressed against his ear and adjusted gauges on the massive pump on the side of the truck.
Nicole felt like she was in a war zone. She didn’t follow Jane, hanging back and mutely holding on to the blankets. How could Jane be so brave? Not only had she marched up to the scene, but she was talking with the father of her baby. Putting other people’s problems before her own—that was the source of Jane’s bravery.
“Can I borrow those?” A police officer, an older man whom Nicole recognized as the officer who wrote the report on her car, stood at her elbow. “The family would sure appreciate it.”
He took two blankets off the top and cocked his head, indicating she should follow him. She wanted to help, wanted to offer comfort to people whose house had windows broken out, charred furniture on the lawn, smoke seething from the upper floors. She took a breath and followed the police officer, resolving to be strong. Her brother would be in there fighting the fire.
If he were here.
If he were alive.
“Here you go,” the police officer said. He handed a blanket to a woman wearing a nightgown and a man’s coat that was much too large for her. She wrapped the blanket around a little girl and tucked in the folds in front. The girl sat down, the long tails of the blanket spreading around her as if she were on a picnic.
A firefighter came over. Kevin Ruggles. “Any accelerants in the garage or basement? Gas cans, propane tanks, anything like that?”
The little girl’s father shook his head. “No gas cans. We have a lawn service. Nothing else like that.”
Kevin nodded, his helmet bobbing. He pushed his helmet up and nodded to Nicole.
“Thanks,” he said. He turned and trudged back to the front porch where a man in a red helmet was giving orders.
The little girl got up and followed him, her blanket dragging on the ground. Her parents didn’t notice, but Nicole did. She waited, watching. The girl wasn’t in danger. Kevin was talking with the man who appeared to be in charge of the fire scene, and the worst seemed to be over. The girl pulled on the edge of Kevin’s coat and looked up at him. He leaned down and put his ear as close to her as he could manage with his helmet on, listening and nodding. Then he turned the girl around by her shoulders and pointed at her parents.
“Where did you go?” the mother asked, panic and despair in her voice as her daughter approached. “I told you to stay close by, honey. It’s dangerous.”
“I was asking him to look for Eddie,” she said, and started to cry. “I can’t find him. What if he died in the fire?”
The parents exchanged pained looks.
Oh, God, Nicole thought. Who is Eddie? Her brother? She felt tears stinging her eyes as she relived the pain of losing Adam.
“He was sleeping on my bed when the smoke alarm woke me up,” the girl continued.
“Maybe he followed us out,” her father said, putting an arm around his daughter. “He can see really well in the dark.”
Nicole let out the breath she was holding. Okay, we’re obviously talking about a pet. Breathe.
“I asked the fireman to look for him and he promised he would,” the child continued.
“I’m sure he will, baby,” her father said.
“I’ll help you look,” Nicole offered. “Is Eddie a dog or a cat?”
“Cat,” the girl said.
“Maybe he followed you, just like your dad said. We could stay out of the way and look around together.”
Nicole had no idea why she was insisting on searching for a cat that probably perished in the fire. But in a way, she understood the girl’s grief. Knew what it was like to hope someone or something you loved had somehow survived against the odds.
“I’m Nicole,” she told the girl’s parents. “I’m staying with my friend Jane who owns the art gallery in town.”
“We know Jane,” the mom said. To her daughter, she said, “If you stay far away from the firemen and the trucks, you can go with this nice lady and look around.” Her face softened. “Maybe he climbed a tree to hide and he’s just waiting for you to come get him.”
Nicole took the girl’s hand. “What color is your cat?”
“Black. He’s all black.”
Great. Looking for a panicked black cat that may or may not even be alive. In the darkness. At least it was better than watching the firefighters systematically carry out smoldering furniture and other belongings. Anything was better than that.
“I’m Julia,” the girl said, her voice small. Her dark hair fell around her face and she looked tiny under the rough blanket. “Do you think we’ll find Eddie?”
“Yes,” Nicole said, trying to sound convincing. “He could be sound asleep in the mailbox.”
“Or my sandbox.”
“I’ll bet you’re right. We’ll check those places and then start looking under plants and in trees. Is Eddie a good climber?”
Julia wrinkled her forehead. “He never goes out of the house. He usually sleeps all day unless I’m playing with him.”
“So,” Nicole said. “He’s a beginner climber. That’s good. He won’t be too far up. But we’re going to need a flashlight.”
Nicole took the child’s hand and approached Kevin, who was now digging through a cabinet on the side of one of the fire trucks.
“Excuse me,” she said. “Do you have a flashlight in there we can borrow?”
At the sight of Nicole and the little girl, his brows came together in a skeptical look. “What are you planning to do with it? You can’t go in the house.”
“I’m not a fool,” Nicole said. “We’re looking for Eddie.”
Kevin glanced at the little girl. “The cat?” he asked.
“Uh-huh,” Julia said. “Nicole is helping me find him. We’re looking in the mailbox and up in the trees.”
Kevin smiled. “That’s really nice of Nicole, and I’m sure you’ll find him. He’s probably just scared. Fires are scary.”
He took a flashlight from the large front pocket of his heavy coat and handed it to Nicole.
“I’ll bring it back,” she said.
“I know where to find you,” he replied, smiling at her and holding eye contact as if he wanted to emphasize that they were on the same side.
“Thank you,” Nicole said. She took the child’s hand and they crept around the edge of the property, checking every hiding place they could find on the lawn. Trying to ignore the damp, smoky smell of the fire, she swept the flashlight into trees, under shrubs and beneath the swing set. Nicole smiled encouragingly at the little girl even though it seemed hopeless.
One set of searchlights went off. A fire truck left, and neighbors went home. It had to be two in the morning at least, but there was no sign of Eddie. Nicole felt tears of frustration, exhaustion and something she didn’t want to think about well in her eyes. Julia’s mother found them in the backyard and claimed her daughter’s hand. “Sorry we didn’t find Eddie tonight,” Nicole told the girl, “but I’m sure he’ll come back tomorrow.”
“We’re staying with my sister across town,” the mother said. “If you happen to see a lonely black cat around, here’s her number.”
Nicole took the scrap of paper and promised to keep an eye out. She watched the family climb wearily into an SUV with only the clothes and blankets on their backs. The fire chief and another firefighter put up yellow caution tape across the doors.
Nicole still had the flashlight and most of the trucks had left, so she approached the man in the red helmet. “Please give this to Kevin Ruggles,” she said, her voice faint with disappointment and unshed tears.
“He’s right here,” the chief said, handing the light over Nicole’s head to a man behind her. She turned and faced him.
Although he was covered in black grime, the light from the remaining fire truck illuminated his smile. “Did you find the cat?” he asked.
She shook her head, not wanting to talk about the cat or anything else related to the fire.
“Hope he didn’t die,” Kevin said, “but I’m afraid it’s pretty likely. Animals tend to hide and the flames go right over them.”
Nicole thought her heart would explode. Her brother, when he realized he couldn’t outrun the forest fire, had hunkered down with his partners under fire-resistant blankets. Two of his partners survived, although seriously burned. Adam did not. He was lying under the blanket when they found him.
She couldn’t help it. Tears ran down her cheeks and a sob choked her.
“Hey,” Kevin said, touching her arm. “Sorry. I didn’t think you knew the...uh...cat.”
Jane appeared out of the darkness. “Ready to go home?” she asked.
Nicole nodded, unable to speak. Kevin took off his helmet and ran a hand through his hair. “I think we’re all ready for this night to be over,” he said.
Jane glanced at Nicole and she knew her teary face must look a mess.
“Okay, Nikki?”
In answer, Nicole turned and headed toward the street. She heard Jane murmur something to Kevin and then her friend was at her side, arm around her, as they trudged home.
* * *
KEVIN AND THE chief were the last two on scene, finishing cleanup for the time being. There would be plenty to do tomorrow when the fire and insurance inspectors showed up.
“Call it a night,” the chief said.
Kevin tossed the flashlight Nicole had returned to him into the side compartment of the truck. It bounced against the back of the bin and rolled out, falling on the ground and rolling under the truck.
“Dangit,” Kevin said, dropping to his knees to look for it. The flashlight was hidden in the grass, but he saw something else under the truck. A black blob. The black blob moved and light reflected off a pair of eyes.
“Hey, buddy. You must be Eddie.”
He ducked low and reached for the cat, but the frightened animal recoiled and slunk farther back.
“Don’t make this hard on me, cat.”
He extended his arm slowly toward the animal and then made a quick lunge, grabbing the cat before he could run away, but whacking his head on the running board of the truck at the same time. He held the cat in one hand and got up. Tucking the cat inside his coat, he glanced down the street toward Jane’s house. It had only been a half hour since the women left. Could they still be awake?
“Got everything?” the chief said.
“Yup. And I think I found the homeowners’ cat under the truck.”
“We didn’t run over it, did we?” the chief asked. “I hate when we do that.”
“No, he’s alive. Can we stop by Jane’s house on the way back to the station? If she’s still up, I think she can help us with it.”
The chief stared at the lump inside Kevin’s turnout coat. “Didn’t know you were such a cat person,” he said.
Kevin shrugged. “You drive.”
They parked in the street in front of Jane’s house. Lights were still on inside. “Be right back,” he said.
Approaching the front door, Kevin tried to gauge which rooms had lights on. He guessed they were the kitchen and living room. A good sign.
He tapped on the door just loud enough so anyone who was already awake would hear him. A moment later, someone moved a curtain, and the porch light came on overhead. Jane opened the door wide.
“What happened to you?” she asked.
Not what Kevin expected. “Happened?”
“Your head. It’s bleeding. Come in.”
Kevin stepped into the house, keeping one hand on the warm lump inside his coat. He toed the door shut and swiped the other one over his forehead. Blood smeared his grimy hand. “Oh,” he said. “I guess I did that when I was trying to fish the cat out from under the fire truck.”
“You found Eddie?” Jane exclaimed.
Nicole appeared behind Jane wearing only a short pink nightshirt. Her hair was wet and her bare feet and legs under the short edge of the shirt riveted Kevin’s attention. “You found Eddie?” she echoed.
Kevin pulled open the flap of his coat and revealed black fur. “He’s been fighting me under here.” Eddie stuck his head out and hissed.
“Did he claw your head?” Nicole asked, gesturing over Kevin’s eye.
“Nope. That happened while I was trying to catch him. He was hiding under the pumper. He’s fast for a house cat.”
“Poor Eddie,” Nicole said. She approached and reached toward him, her fingers brushing his neck. Her wet blond hair tickled his chin.
He would bring home a wild cat every night of the week for attention like that. But it was over too soon. Nicole unsnapped his coat and pulled out the cat, cuddling him against her chest. His coat flapped open and he wished he could think of a reason for her to reach in again. Her green eyes were darker in the dim light of the entryway. She smelled like shampoo, as if she’d just stepped from a shower to erase the soot and smoke of the night.
The cat enjoyed Nicole’s attention for a moment and then struggled to get down.
“Close the door behind you,” Jane said. “Want to come in for something to eat?”
“Love to, but the chief’s waiting in the truck.” He watched Nicole’s every move as she bent over to put the cat on the rug. He cleared his throat. “We have to clean hoses and write reports until dawn. Then at least one of us will be back in the morning combing through the mess with the fire inspector and probably the insurance claims person.”
Jane’s tabby cat came around the corner, back up, tail high. She saw Eddie, and a low growl emanated from her throat. Eddie bounced to his feet and fled, a black blur down the hallway, the tabby right on his tail.
Kevin rubbed his head. “Think you could keep that little devil for the night and get him back to the owners tomorrow?”
“Will you stop rubbing your cut with your filthy hands?” Jane said. “And yes, Nicole has the number where they’re staying. We’ll call in the morning and meet up with them.”
“That little girl will be so happy,” Nicole said, smiling at Kevin as if he’d just made a rainbow appear over Cape Pursuit. It was the happiest he’d seen her in the short time he’d known her. “Thank you for catching him. And for bringing him over. I can sleep now.”
“You’re welcome. I really got lucky. I dropped that flashlight you borrowed and it rolled under the truck right to the cat’s hiding place. Like it was meant to be.”
A searchlight shone through the glass on the door and toggled back and forth.
“I think my uncle’s ready to get back to the station,” Kevin said. “Can’t blame him.”
“Good night,” Nicole said.
“Night,” he replied, staring at her bare feet and nightshirt. “Thanks for bringing blankets and coffee,” he said, directing his words to both Nicole and Jane. “We always appreciate it.”
He opened the door just wide enough to slip outside, in case the cats came racing back through. As he walked down the front sidewalk toward the fire truck on the street, he had the feeling a set of green eyes was on his back. And the feeling cleared the smoke from his head and lifted his heart.
CHAPTER SIX (#ulink_a4015179-50ca-52da-b2b5-12ca0641b358)
KEVIN PULLED THE ladder truck out of the station and parked it on the front concrete apron. He got out, slid the wheel chocks under the rear dual wheels and headed for the cab of the pumper. One by one, he pulled the pumper, light rescue pickup and heavy rescue squad out and parked in front of the station’s four bays. He drove the Jeep with the dive trailer and then three ambulances out the huge overhead doors in the back, totally clearing out the Cape Pursuit fire station.
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Amie Denman
He’s definitely a hero…But is he the right hero for her?Moving to Cape Pursuit, gives Nicole Wheeler the fresh start she desperately needs. But there’s a catch: Kevin Ruggles, the handsome firefighter who welcomes her to town. Kevin is brave, ambitious and committed to the same career that killed her brother. Nicole can’t go down that path again…no matter how much her heart protests.
He’s definitely a hero...
But is he the right hero for her?
Moving to Cape Pursuit, Virginia, gives Nicole Wheeler the fresh start she desperately needs. But there’s a catch: Kevin Ruggles, the handsome firefighter who welcomes her to town. Kevin is brave, ambitious and committed to the same career that killed her brother. Nicole can’t go down that path again...no matter how much her heart protests.
AMIE DENMAN is the author of twenty contemporary romances full of humor and heart. A devoted traveler whose parents always kept a suitcase packed, she loves reading and writing books you could take on vacation. Amie believes everything is fun, especially wedding cake, show tunes, roller coasters and falling in love.
Also by Amie Denman (#ulink_b6128dd3-6692-50ec-987b-3dcb535e4035)
Under the Boardwalk
Carousel Nights
Meet Me on the Midway
Until the Ride Stops
Back to the Lake Breeze Hotel
Her Lucky Catch
Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
In Love with the Firefighter
Amie Denman
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
ISBN: 978-1-474-07793-4
IN LOVE WITH THE FIREFIGHTER
© 2018 Amie Denman
Published in Great Britain 2018
by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF
All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.
By payment of the required fees, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right and licence to download and install this e-book on your personal computer, tablet computer, smart phone or other electronic reading device only (each a “Licensed Device”) and to access, display and read the text of this e-book on-screen on your Licensed Device. Except to the extent any of these acts shall be permitted pursuant to any mandatory provision of applicable law but no further, no part of this e-book or its text or images may be reproduced, transmitted, distributed, translated, converted or adapted for use on another file format, communicated to the public, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher.
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www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
My thanks to all the wonderful people at Mills & Boon,
especially my editor, Dana Grimaldi.
Contents
Cover (#u7e64dc74-797d-5dea-918e-24038a955f1d)
Back Cover Text (#u95b22914-413d-52a3-abda-35121888f7fb)
About the Author (#ud54e02c8-2e7e-5fda-8775-00a97446b5fe)
Booklist (#ulink_095836c8-7a99-5b5d-aee3-1c68e3fe0cf3)
Title Page (#u8ce07062-2757-577e-9584-d8aaf7bc500a)
Copyright (#ub67d690a-de5a-55e4-acd9-af1199a6c2d8)
Dedication (#uab40d3e6-9958-57a2-b821-a1d46a64db7e)
CHAPTER ONE (#u2e4c1a0c-d543-5729-a44a-39d92c09b68c)
CHAPTER TWO (#u3051d6d0-3df9-5c43-bd35-8b0910f5a180)
CHAPTER THREE (#u55102999-1e87-5e69-9694-60188406c48a)
CHAPTER FOUR (#ua978baee-6dc9-5745-a9ae-ebba8eea3f9f)
CHAPTER FIVE (#u53bd81c7-2ddc-5f23-b2e4-6eb78098f201)
CHAPTER SIX (#ub1403ddf-dd16-5aba-839f-b50963a63de7)
CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ELEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWELVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER THIRTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FOURTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FIFTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SIXTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER NINETEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWENTY (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR (#litres_trial_promo)
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ONE (#ulink_e3980bf9-8aed-52fe-988c-fa501b2882d8)
TONY LEANED FORWARD in the passenger seat and braced one hand on the dashboard.
“I think you can make it,” he yelled. “But it’ll be close.”
Kevin kept his hands on the wheel of the rescue truck and frowned, his neck and shoulders tight with concentration. “Wish these tourists would learn to park,” he muttered.
A small red car was double-parked on a bustling downtown street. During the height of spring break season in Cape Pursuit. And the driver’s-side door was standing open, just asking to be taken off by the rescue truck. Kevin remembered the tense voice dispatching them to a 911 call for a child who wasn’t breathing. Every second counted when someone’s life was on the line. The siren was loud, even inside the cab, and his adrenaline still rushed as much as it had when he was a new firefighter, over five years ago.
Tony pulled the air horn and the noise reverberated off the commercial buildings lining the street. “You’ll barely squeeze by if nobody does anything stupid.”
Kevin hoped, as always, that no one would risk their life by stepping into the street. His heart sank when three teenagers on bicycles suddenly swerved off the sidewalk and pedaled against traffic on Kevin’s left. No helmets, no brains. Tourists.
The teenagers, cords from their earbuds flapping, looked up in panic at the massive emergency vehicle bearing down on them.
“Anyone in that red car?” Kevin shouted. He knew it was too late to stop, and even slowing down wouldn’t help much.
“Not that I can see,” his partner said.
Kevin held his breath and veered to miss the cyclists at the last second. The heavy-duty ambulance barely shuddered when it sliced the door off the double-parked red car and deposited it in the street in a sparkling rain of shattered glass.
Tony twisted to look backward out the passenger-side window. “No injuries. Unless you count heart-stopping surprise.”
“Call it in,” Kevin said. “We can’t stop. Other two ambulances are already out.”
Tony got on the radio to the local police and reported the non-injury accident. Kevin glanced in the side mirror and saw a blonde woman rush into the street toward the destroyed car. She carried a large box in her arms. He couldn’t see her face, but he could guess she’d just learned a valuable lesson about double-parking and leaving her car door open. At least she wasn’t hurt. It was bad enough hitting a car, but if he’d hurt someone in the line of duty, he’d turn in his helmet and boots.
“Never gonna live this one down,” Tony said.
Kevin breathed heavily through his nose, trying to calm his racing heart and focus on getting to the call. Kid not breathing. The worst. Focus.
“Remember how much crap you gave your brother when he backed into a post with the pumper last year?”
“Shut up, Tony.”
“This wins. No contest.”
“Look for the address,” Kevin replied. Not that it would be hard. Cape Pursuit was a town of fifteen thousand year-round residents. Just large enough to have problems, but just small enough for the fire department to know every street in town. During tourist season, the population doubled but was mostly concentrated in the hotels, bars and restaurants that lined the coast along the Atlantic Ocean.
The address the dispatcher gave them was on a street with small cottages usually rented out to tourists. Kevin wasn’t worried about finding the place. He’d been to that street before. And with a call this serious, there’d be someone waiting for them out front. Panicked. Waving their arms.
There always was.
* * *
“OH, NO!” JANE SAID, surveying her friend’s car with wide eyes.
Nicole felt empty. As if the screaming ambulance had either squashed her flat or taken her with it. She stood in the street holding her box, broken glass glistening on the pavement at her feet. The door of her car lay crumpled in front of it. Hysterical laughter bubbled up her esophagus. This could not be happening. She’d been in Cape Pursuit five minutes.
“Say something,” Jane said, brows furrowed, staring at Nicole.
“They didn’t even stop,” Nicole said, her voice sounding far away. “Don’t they have to stop?”
“Technically, but maybe they were on their way to a life-threatening emergency. They did have the lights and siren going,” Jane said.
A tear slid down Nicole’s cheek, but her hands were full so she let the tear drip onto the pavement, which was already shimmering with broken glass. If she’d used her severance package to go to Italy, she was sure this would not be happening. Mental note: run away to a foreign country next time, not a beach town in Virginia.
“Not that I’m defending them,” Jane added, hands up in the air.
“Firefighters,” Nicole huffed, her voice shaky.
“Sorry, honey,” Jane said. She took the box Nicole was holding and set it on the sidewalk before returning to give her friend a hug. “It’s going to be okay. Just a freak accident. You’ll like it here. It’s a fresh start.”
Nicole gave her friend an openmouthed look. “A fire truck took off my car door on my first day in town.”
“It can only get better from here. Right?”
That was what Nicole had been telling herself for the past year. When one of the worst things that can happen to you happens, your luck has to improve after that. She took a deep breath and pulled herself into the present. “Maybe I’ll get a new car,” she said, nodding as if she were encouraging herself. Her chin-length blond hair bobbed with the movement.
“That’s the spirit,” Jane said. “If I were you, I’d punch whoever was driving that truck right in the gut and then just shake it off. But not until you talk to the city’s insurance agent. Make them sweat so they’ll replace your whole car.” She shook her finger at her friend. “Don’t settle for a new door.”
Nicole gave a wobbly smile. “I could get a better car. Like a crossover or something with leather seats. This was almost paid for.” She swiped away tears with the back of her hand. “They owe me.”
She stood shoulder to shoulder with Jane, her best friend of six years, staring at the wrecked car. She sighed. This definitely would not happen in Tuscany or Milan or Naples. They have sunflowers and wine there. Ruined villas with flowery vines. Endless vistas and possibilities.
A police car approached, its siren echoing off the shops, bars, restaurants and hotels that occupied the strip one block back from the ocean.
“Want me to do the talking?” Jane offered. “I know everyone in the fire and police departments. After all, I’m on the town council that pays their salaries. I’m your muscle.”
Nicole looked at her friend. Even at five-five, Nicole towered over Jane. An artist specializing in watercolors, Jane wore a smock and had her long red hair wound up and secured with a pencil.
“I’ll see how it goes,” Nicole answered. “But I’ll call out the big guns if I have to.”
An attractive, graying police officer stopped behind Nicole’s car, blocking the street completely and leaving his flashing lights on. Now that the initial shock was over, Nicole’s stomach lurched and her hands were clammy and cold.
“Any injuries?” the officer asked.
Both women shook their heads. A large crowd had gathered on the sidewalk. Many of them had cell phones in hand, taking pictures of the spectacle. What great spring break stories they were going to have. Someone had probably gotten the actual door destruction on video. Nicole thought it might come in handy for her case, but it was the last thing she wanted to see on social media.
“Want to tell me what happened?” the officer continued.
“A fire truck took off the door of my car,” Nicole said. She tried for a competent and neutral tone, one she had practiced in business meetings at her former job in Indianapolis. The tone that said everything is fine; we just have things to discuss.
“It was technically an ambulance,” Jane interjected. “The big rescue squad. Red.”
“Thanks, Jane,” the cop said. “How’s the painting business?”
“Good. Busy week with spring breakers. My kind of busy. I’d take a whole summer of this.”
“I hope you get it.” The cop smiled and turned back to Nicole. “So how did the ambulance grab your door?”
“It was open,” Nicole said.
“You were just getting out of the car?”
“Not exactly.” Nicole was starting to get that notguilty but not exactly blameless feeling.
“I see,” he said. He raised both eyebrows and wrinkled his forehead. “And was your car parked like this at the time of the accident?”
Nicole felt heat in her cheeks. She was the victim here! The ambulance wrecked her car. But...okay, yes, she was illegally parked. And, sure, she had left the door hanging open. The box with her computer and her desk supplies was heavy. It really was.
Rats.
“Yes, but...” she began.
Jane stepped between her friend and the police officer. “I think I can explain. Nicole just arrived from out of town after a very long drive. She’s my new business manager and an old friend. I had her pull up out front to unload a box of stuff. Very heavy stuff. There’s a delivery truck behind the grocery store next door. That’s where I usually unload. You should really talk to them about hogging the whole loading zone back there. Especially during tourist season.” Jane shrugged and smiled at the man. “I’d say it’s technically their fault.”
The police officer pulled a notepad from his breast pocket and clicked a silver pen against his shiny badge. “Out-of-state license plates, double-parked, left car door open, using the street as an unloading zone,” he said aloud as he jotted down notes.
“Hey,” Nicole said, hustling over and looking at what he was writing. “The ambulance never even slowed down. There were dozens of witnesses.”
The cop raised his eyes and looked at her for a moment before flipping his notepad closed and putting it away.
“I’m usually very responsible,” Nicole grumbled. This was true. Her life had been orderly and ordinary at one time. National Honor Society in high school, dean’s list in college, excellent credit score, not even a speeding ticket to put a black mark next to her name. But since last summer, she could only make it through a day by hanging on with both hands.
She’d hoped moving to a new town would help her let go. Perhaps she’d chosen the wrong place to start over.
The cop smiled and cocked his head. “I’ll send a report to the city’s attorney since it involved a city employee, although which one I don’t know.” He winked at Jane. “You know I’ll find out.”
“I thought I saw Tony Ruggles in the passenger seat, but I didn’t see who was driving,” Jane said.
“Chief’s son riding shotgun,” the officer commented as he wrote the fact in his notepad.
“And will the city replace my car?” Nicole asked. With each question her case grew dimmer.
“That’ll be up to the insurance companies. Yours and theirs.”
Nicole sighed. Maybe tomorrow would be the day her luck would change.
“Welcome to Cape Pursuit,” the police officer added. “I’ll call you a tow truck.”
* * *
HOURS LATER AFTER the art gallery had closed for the day, Nicole got in the passenger seat of Jane’s Volkswagen Beetle. The car was sunny yellow and decorated with ads for Jane’s art studio, Sea Jane Paint. It also enjoyed the luxury of having all its doors.
“I’ll drive next time,” Nicole offered, smiling and trying to be cheerful despite the events of the day. “Even if I have to steal a car.”
“Tourists leave rentals unlocked sometimes,” Jane suggested. “Just a thought.”
The spring break weather and happy vibe of the beachside town was something to celebrate. People in colorful shorts and T-shirts strolled the walks, lovers kissed under awnings and the calm sea appeared in glimpses between the buildings they passed.
The evening sky stretching over the Atlantic Ocean nearly transcended the sight of her almost-paid-for car being hauled off by a tow truck, its dismembered door tucked underneath it on the flatbed. Nicole had the feeling she was never going to see it again, but the insurance adjuster on the phone assured her that doors got lopped off all the time. The car might live to ride again—after a few weeks in the body shop.
“We could go to a restaurant,” Jane said. “There’s at least a dozen of them within walking distance of my studio, some of them really good. But I don’t feel like fighting the spring break crowds on the strip.” She turned down a residential street, heading away from the ocean. “I’m taking you to a place on the edge of town the locals like.”
“Do they have fried food and alcohol?”
“That’s all they have,” Jane said.
“Perfect.”
The low brown building’s painted sign said it all: Cape Pursuit Bar & Grill. It was not the kind of place that would attract the tourist crowd. Out of the way and under the radar, it had local watering hole written all over it, from the pothole-riddled parking lot to the mismatched faux shutters.
Nicole followed Jane inside to a row of dark, high-backed booths and slid in across from her. She picked up a colorful laminated menu and smiled. Fried macaroni bites. Fried mozzarella sticks. French fries. Fried onion straws. Five different kinds of burgers, nearly all with some combination of bacon, cheese, barbecue sauce, fried onions and fried pickles.
Her stomach growled. The car fiasco had robbed her appetite for lunch, but she was starving now. She deserved saturated fat after all she’d been through, and she had a feeling she’d be on her feet working hard in the art gallery. Life in a sunny beach town where she’d be likely to walk everywhere now that she was without a car was a far cry from the sedentary office job she’d left several states behind.
“Thanks for letting me stay with you until I find a place,” Nicole said. “I looked at some rental houses and condos online, but I was afraid to commit before I actually saw the properties.”
“Someone’s looking for a place to live?”
A man with a face straight out of a magazine slid into the booth next to Jane. He had blue eyes, rugged cheekbones, a day’s growth of beard and dark hair that was just a little too long. He wore a T-shirt with Cape Pursuit Fire Department screen-printed over the left side of his chest.
“Charlie Zimmerman,” he said, extending his hand across the table. “I can help you buy or rent a place if you’re interested. I’m a part-time Realtor here.”
“And a full-time pain in the butt,” Jane added.
“Keeps me busy,” Charlie agreed, smiling.
“This is Nicole Wheeler,” Jane said. “My best friend from college. We both went to Michigan State, but she majored in something far more practical than I did.”
Charlie turned his seaglass-blue eyes toward Nicole. “Horseshoeing? Latin?”
Nicole studied their guest and wondered what the heck he was talking about. Did she look like a horseshoer?
“Anything’s more practical than what my flaky artist friend here does,” Charlie explained jovially.
“Hey,” Jane said. “I helped personalize gifts for your last three girlfriends, not that it did you much good.”
Charlie’s smile faded for a moment and he drummed his fingers on the table. “Can’t blame a guy for trying,” he commented. “And there’s no doubt your paintings will easily outlast any of my relationships.”
Jane stacked up the menus and folded her napkin into neat triangles, creasing them mercilessly with one finger. “I hope so,” she said.
“So you’re not an artist?” Charlie asked, looking at Nicole.
Nicole leaned back in her seat. “I majored in business. I just finished my MBA and I’m trying to figure out what to do with it.”
“And you’re new in town.”
Five or six men, all big, all loud, burst through the door and headed straight for the bar.
“Yes,” Nicole said, raising her voice over the noise. “I’m going to be Jane’s business manager.”
Charlie exchanged a look with Jane, one eyebrow raised just enough to imply a question.
“Lucky me,” Jane said. “You know I’m lousy at spreadsheets and paperwork. And Nicole’s a great photographer—”
“Hey, Charlie,” one of the new arrivals, a big buzz-cut blond at the bar, shouted. “Get over here. You gotta hear this one.”
The man next to him on the bar stool turned around and locked eyes with Nicole. From a short distance away, his green eyes reminded her of a stormy sea. His dark hair and shoulders as wide as a truck combined with those stormy eyes mesmerized her. The blond buzz-cut guy slapped stormy-sea man on the shoulder.
“Kevin here has a peach of a story.” He paused to laugh. “He took the door off some stupid tourist’s car with the squad this afternoon.”
Nicole felt her face fall, all the warm blood draining away to be replaced by ice water.
“Those double-parking sons of guns,” one of the other guys added.
Charlie laughed and Jane elbowed him in the ribs.
“What?” he said. “I’m joining the cool kids at the bar.” He nodded to Nicole. “Nice meeting you. Jane can give you my number if you’re serious about finding a place.”
“Thank you,” Nicole said coldly. She made brief eye contact with him and then turned back to the group at the bar. So Kevin of the stormy green eyes was the man who welcomed her to Cape Pursuit by slicing off her car’s door?
“Maybe this wasn’t a good idea,” Jane said. “I forgot Thursday night was Testosterone Night.”
A waitress appeared at their table, blocking off the bar stool crowd and asking for their drink orders.
“I’m not sure we’re staying,” Jane said, raising a questioning glance to Nicole.
“Sure we’re staying. They have fried everything on the menu, and we’re already here,” Nicole replied, her tone like that of a lion handler assuring the terrified crowd that everything is just fine. “I’ll have wine. Moscato, if you have it.”
“Still having your love affair with Italy?” Jane asked. A smile lit her eyes. She turned to the waitress. “Orange soda for me. I’m the driver for the night.”
“Rub it in that you still have a car,” Nicole said after the waitress left. “After I have that wine, I may just go over there and tell—what was his name? Kevin?—just how much I appreciated the special welcome he gave me this afternoon.”
Jane’s smile disappeared. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“Why? Will he accuse me of being one of those double-parking sons of guns?”
“Kevin didn’t say that. Rick did.”
“Rick of the blond buzz cut?”
“Affectionately known by several unflattering names,” Jane confirmed.
Loud laughter echoed from the bar. It wasn’t much of a mystery what they were all laughing about. Nicole’s cheeks heated. She swallowed. Maybe Jane was right. They should leave.
The waitress placed a wine glass on a paper coaster in front of Nicole. Little bubbles rose from the stem to the top. It smelled like heaven. Fermented heaven.
Maybe they could stay.
The twentysomething server parked a steaming basket of french fries in the middle of the table. “They’ll keep you company while you decide what to order,” she said. “Kitchen’s a little backed up tonight and we hate seeing people go hungry.”
They were definitely staying.
CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_75d6f801-4bc3-58d7-a905-9f30d20eb650)
NO MATTER HOW much fun the other guys were having, the accident was a dark cloud over Kevin’s day. He had no choice. He knew that. Kid not breathing, life or death. He couldn’t stop, and he couldn’t hit those teenagers on bikes. And who the heck had asked that red car to park right there in the street and leave the door open?
But still. He felt bad about it. The two-year-old lying on the sofa in the house where a panicked father had flagged them down was, technically, breathing. But he was unconscious due to a febrile seizure. It was the kind of thing Kevin had seen a number of times, but the child’s parents had not. And the terror in their eyes made Kevin wonder if he was ever brave enough to have children of his own.
But everything had worked out. The boy would recover once the hospital got his fever down. The damage to the front bumper of the ambulance was minimal. The department’s insurance agent had chalked it up to one more statistic, one more example of the 10 percent of emergency vehicles involved in scrapes and accidents every year. The chief had talked to him, and the write-up in his employee folder declared it not his fault, unavoidable. No disciplinary action assigned. The chief had even congratulated him on following the department’s mantra: life over property. No exceptions. Ever.
But he was never going to hear the end of it from his fellow public servants who were currently buying him drinks. They weren’t impressed by his life-saving defensive driving. They all did that kind of thing every day. The firefighters and cops leaning on the bar were raising their beers over the gritty details.
“Did the door actually get airborne or was it more of a twist-off?” Rick asked. He punctuated his question by twisting the cap off his beer with his bare hand.
Kevin’s cousin Tony slid a basket of fries down the counter to Kevin. “No air,” he declared. “Saw it all in the side mirror.”
Kevin stuffed a handful of fries in his mouth and hoped desperately for a kitchen fire. A false alarm. Anything to change the subject.
“Kev here had his eyes on the road, so I’m the one you should be asking,” Tony added. “Barely even felt it when the bumper tore off that door and dropped it right in front of the car. Like roadkill. Glass shattered to hell.” He paused and swigged his beer. “Great story for the Wall of Flame. Hope one of the hundreds of tourists who witnessed it got it on video. Maybe they’ll put it on social media.”
Kevin cringed. The Wall of Flame was likely to be misunderstood by normal people. People who were not in the business of responding to accidents, digging through gutted houses for the cause of the fire, and facing some of the truly lousy things that happen to people. Every day. The Wall of Flame was just a bulletin board with an attached shelf. It hung in the bunk room at the station, where they posted newspaper clippings, photographs, thank-you notes and the occasional artifact. It was a daily reminder of what they did, but its goofiness took the edge off the seriousness of the job. Department humor. It meant survival in a tough field.
Currently the wall had a picture of one of the lieutenants swearing in the newest firefighter, but the lower half of the new recruit’s body was a chubby baby wearing a diaper. A picture printed from the internet of Smokey Bear lighting a fat cigar was stapled in the upper corner. A before-and-after photo of the chief as a young recruit with hair, and the current bald version was tacked up next to a colorful photo of a training fire. The house was destroyed by fire on purpose, but the large caption drawn in marker said it all: Oops.
“This is not going on the Wall of Flame,” Kevin grumbled.
“My cousin drives the tow truck,” Ethan said. “He saved the side mirror of the door you took off. We’ll put it in the Stupid Tourist section of the board.”
Kevin groaned and shook his head.
Rick left his bar stool next to Kevin and headed for the restroom in the back of the restaurant. A gorgeous blonde slid onto the stool, an empty glass of wine in her hand. There was something oddly familiar about her.
“Moscato,” she said to the bartender, handing over the empty glass.
She swiveled and faced Kevin, her eyes the color of new plants in spring. He froze. There was definitely something about her.
She had the full attention of the men assembled at the bar, but she was only looking at Kevin.
“I’m Nicole Wheeler,” she said.
Could this be happening? Other guys attracted women, even used their badges and uniforms to negotiate themselves into a night in bed. But Kevin’s last girlfriend took off eighteen months ago, leaving him an ancient dog and no apologies.
Maybe his luck was changing.
“Kevin Ruggles,” he said. “You must be new in town. I’d remember you if we’d met before.”
“I’m definitely new. Just arrived this afternoon, in fact.”
Something in her tone signaled a warning, but Kevin forged ahead. She was sitting next to him at the bar, waiting for a drink. He should offer to buy. She was beautiful. Her fingers tapped on the bar, with no wedding ring in sight. What could go wrong?
“I’d like to personally welcome you to Cape Pursuit,” he said.
Her lips formed a cold line. “You already did.”
“Uh-oh,” Tony said.
Silence replaced the friendly banter at the bar. Kevin’s comrades in arms were sharks, waiting for blood they sensed was coming.
The bartender popped a cork and filled Nicole’s empty glass, taking his time. He stood still, also waiting.
Kevin felt heat rise up his neck and set his ears on fire. He had a better chance escaping a burning building alive than surviving the next thirty seconds.
He remembered. It was only a glance in the side mirror of the truck. A blonde woman standing in the street staring at the wreckage of her car. The wreckage he had caused.
“You don’t happen to own a small red car,” he said slowly. “Do you?”
“I do.” She sipped her wine, never taking her eyes off his.
“And...I almost hate to ask...but...is it missing a part? Maybe a door?”
“It is.”
The silence was how Kevin pictured people waiting tensely in the eye of a hurricane. Hunkered down, knowing the worst was coming, thinking perhaps they should have evacuated when they’d had the chance.
Where is that kitchen fire?
“I’d also like my mirror back,” she said, directing her words to Ethan. “So don’t bother to add it to your asinine tourist museum.”
She picked up her wine glass and returned to her table, only ten feet from the bar and easily within earshot. Close enough to make everyone uncomfortable.
Kevin sat on his bar stool like someone had soaked his pants in superglue. Even if she’d given him the chance to explain, what would he have said? Sorry, lady, but your car was in the way. Life over property.
But she had no use for him or his explanations. She’d made that clear.
* * *
JANE SMILED AND waved at the firefighters now silently holding on to their beer bottles as if they were lifelines.
She leaned forward and whispered to Nicole. “I think you ruined Testosterone Night.”
“I’ll cry myself to sleep tonight,” Nicole said quietly. “I know they’re your friends, but I just couldn’t sit here and listen to their bravado.”
“Don’t blame you a bit. They’ll live.” Jane grinned. “It’s good for them to get a reminder once in a while that not every female on earth finds them irresistible.”
Nicole regarded her friend, one eyebrow raised. “Have you ever dated any of them?”
“Not officially. I briefly dated a cop who left for the bigger department in Virginia Beach. Also dated a firefighter who was only here for the summer. Somehow I got little sister status with that group, so dating is off the table. Maybe I know too much about them.”
“Nothing going on between you and Charlie?”
Jane blew out a breath and sat back, crossing her arms. “Nothing I want to burden you with tonight. It’s a...well...it’s a story.”
Their burgers arrived, covered in barbecue sauce, cheese and bacon as promised. “To new beginnings,” Nicole said, clinking her nearly empty wine glass against Jane’s orange soda.
“Benvenuto,” Jane said, laughing. “See, I learned something in that Italian class we took when we were juniors.”
While they ate, the firefighters at the bar moved to a corner table closer to a flat-screen television. The baseball game was on, and the noise of the game and the bar patrons covered their conversation. Twice, Nicole’s glance strayed to the table in the corner. Both times Kevin was looking at her.
“I’m hoping you can do something about my computer now that you’re here. I think I need a new system,” Jane said. “Maybe I should put everything in the cloud.”
“I’ll look at it. You mostly place online orders for supplies, track expenses and print receipts for purchases, right?”
“Yes,” Jane said, nodding.
“And you don’t have any employees?”
“Nope. Just you.”
“Are you sure you actually need me?”
“I definitely do.”
When Jane had asked Nicole to move to Cape Pursuit, the timing had seemed too perfect. Just when the top layer of scars from her brother’s accident had scabbed over, the foolish office romance Nicole was involved in bubbled over and fizzled out.
It had been far better when she and her boss, Bryan, at the furniture plant were just flirting. Flirting has the potential for danger, but she told herself it was harmless. She ran his human resources department and online sales accounts, was flattered when he asked her to sit next to him at meetings and enjoyed an occasional lunch on his dime. It was a nice distraction.
Until they’d traveled for business and she ended up in his hotel room. The match was struck and burned hotly for about a week. Then it fizzled, and they both discovered there was no fuel left. The cold ashes remaining would make it impossible for her future with Bryan as a boss.
Jane happened to call to say hello at just the right time. Nicole told Jane about the big office mistake and the downward career spiral she was now being flushed along. And Jane begged Nicole to leave Indianapolis behind, swearing she needed someone with a head for business. Getting away from her work, Bryan, her memories, was such a tempting offer, Nicole couldn’t refuse.
But she’d worried every day in the weeks since—as she’d finished out her lease, given her notice and packed her things—that Jane was only being nice. Being a friend. That she didn’t need a business manager any more than Nicole needed another pair of shoes.
“I know what you’re thinking, but you’re wrong,” Jane said, scrutinizing Nicole. “I really need your help. I have big plans to take my painting business to the internet. When the tourists are gone—nearly half the year—my sales are so dismal I can hardly pay the rent. I want to set up a website and sell online.”
“Really?” Nicole brightened.
“Yes. That’s where you come in. Since you’re also an excellent photographer, I’m hoping you’ll photograph and post my pieces on my website that doesn’t exist yet.”
Nicole felt a weight lift from her chest. “I could do that,” she said, energy infusing her voice.
“I’ve thought of selling my one-of-a-kind stuff online, but I also need your opinion about doing some stock or custom items. I just have to figure out exactly what people want. Market surveys, you think? You know about that.”
“I do,” Nicole said, thinking of the market research she’d conducted for the furniture company and how excited she’d been to share the results with her former boss. She’d been foolish enough to think that working extra hours for Bryan’s approval was some kind of honor.
Working for Jane would be better.
“And I don’t know if I’m opening a can of worms offering to do custom pieces,” Jane continued. “I’ve just done a few for close friends, but I’m worried about going online. People can be a real pain. They think they know what they want, but sometimes they only know it when they see it.”
“We’ll look into it, do a search and see what other artists like you are doing.”
Jane nodded and scooped the last fries out of the basket.
“I think I’ll start tomorrow by securing your web domain. I have to do a search and see if seajanepaint.com is taken,” Nicole said.
“What are the chances?”
“About as good as having the door of your car taken off by a fire truck,” Nicole said. She chuckled, the laughter scattering the tension from her neck and shoulders. For the first time in a long time, she felt free. Maybe this would work out.
When Jane and Nicole asked their waitress for the check at the end of their meal, she told them it had already been covered. “Tip, too,” she added, smiling.
Nicole looked at her friend, eyebrows raised.
“It wasn’t me,” she said. “Although I was planning to buy since you’ve had a tough day and I wanted to wine and dine my favorite new employee.”
Nicole risked a glance at the corner table where all eyes were on the television. Except for one stormy green pair. It was no mystery who had paid their tab, but Nicole wondered what had motivated the gesture. Guilt? Remorse?
She hadn’t seen any of that in the testosterone club at the bar.
“Least they could do,” Jane commented. “And don’t you dare think of going over there and saying thank you.”
“Believe me, that’s not what I was thinking,” Nicole commented. She picked up her purse and followed her friend from the bar, carefully resisting the urge to look at the back corner.
CHAPTER THREE (#ulink_d43bc040-4ff6-5892-8d78-09db2b983d8a)
A PILE OF Nicole’s luggage took up a corner of the back room at Sea Jane Paint, hastily unloaded from the trunk of her damaged car before it got hauled away a few days earlier. When Nicole left Indianapolis, she had no definite plans, but she didn’t intend to go back anytime soon. Her summer clothes were already unpacked neatly into her closet and dresser drawer at Jane’s house. The winter clothes could stay in the heavy suitcase until at least October. If she was still there.
“We should be able to fit it all in my car after we close up today and we’ll get you permanently moved into my guest room,” Jane said, smiling at Nicole. “I hope you know I’m happy to have you stay as long as you want to.”
“Thanks,” Nicole said. She handed her friend a diet soda from the mini-fridge. “I appreciate it. Maybe I’ll meet your Realtor friend to look at a few places. Now that I’m actually here I think I could commit to something. At least a rental.” Nicole cracked open an orange soda. “Not that renting a place is much commitment.”
“I rent,” Jane said. “It’s nice not having to fix the roof or unclog the kitchen drain.”
“Did Charlie help you find the place?”
Nicole watched her friend’s expression when she mentioned him. She’d noticed a hint of something between them at the bar. Was it her imagination? Jane tapped the top of her aluminum can and then exchanged it for a bottle of water from the fridge, avoiding Nicole’s gaze the whole time.
“He did. He was one of the first people I met when I moved to Cape Pursuit five years ago. I had no idea at that time that I’d be renting a house and a running a gallery now.”
“To the future,” Nicole said, clinking her aluminum can against Jane’s bottle. “Whatever it may be.”
The front door opened and set off the chime, a foghorn sound that scared Nicole every time. It fit the nautical theme of the gallery and the tourists loved it, but to Nicole it sounded like a freighter about to run over a tiny boat. After the car door incident, she was jumpy about big loud things wreaking havoc on little ones. Too jumpy. There were a lot of things she was trying to get over. That was why she was here in Cape Pursuit.
“I’ll get it,” Nicole said. “You finish your lunch.”
She moved aside the filmy curtain that separated the back room from the gallery and store and stopped in her tracks. It was not a tourist at the door.
Dressed in a navy blue shirt and pants, a fire department insignia over the left side of his chest, Kevin Ruggles stood inside the door of Sea Jane Paint. He shifted from foot to foot, rubbed his forehead with the back of his hand and glanced out the front window. Uncomfortable, she noted. He ought to be.
Her movement caught his attention and he strode toward her, closing the gap. He was tall, over six feet. Broad chest. A day’s growth of beard darkened his square jaw. His dark hair was tousled as if he’d been up all night. He was far more attractive than she wanted him to be, considering that his occupation put him on her do not touch list.
He stood in front of her as if he wanted to say something, an expectant look on his face. Maybe the guy was used to a hero’s welcome wherever he showed up, but Nicole wasn’t handing out any accolades. She waited, giving him no encouragement other than one raised eyebrow.
“I brought you this,” he finally said, holding out a plastic grocery bag. He smiled and tucked his chin, the gesture making him appear vulnerable. “It’s the side mirror of your car.”
He has no right to be so cute. He was about her age, but his demeanor was boyish, eager. Nicole took the bag and looked inside, heat creeping up her neck.
“I know it’s broken,” he said. “And your insurance company will replace it when they replace your door. But I feel better if it’s in your hands and not...”
“On the Wall of Flame?” she asked.
He nodded, a pink flush spreading over his cheeks. “Yes.”
“So you brought me this so you’d feel better?”
His flush deepened. He smiled and raised both eyebrows, a goofy, charming look that probably worked on women from his mother to his girlfriend. She glanced at his left hand. No ring, no tan line where a ring had recently been.
“The other guys were giving me all kinds of crap about it. I’m getting rid of the evidence.”
It should have annoyed her, his selfish reason for bringing her the mirror. But somehow his raw honesty was cute. Too cute.
She held the bag at arm’s length and dropped it in the garbage can by the cash register with a clunk. Kevin swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple at her eye level. His smile faded.
He took his dark sea green eyes off hers for a moment and glanced out the front window. He turned slightly so she could see what was behind him. An ugly brown pickup truck with its side window rolled down was parked in front of the gallery. A huge dent marred the bed of the truck. Two wide paws and a nose rested on the open window frame.
“Your dog?” she asked. It was her first attempt at friendly conversation. She’d have to be a marble statue not to at least ask about the paws and nose. They were adorable.
He nodded, a hint of smile returning. “Arnold. I worked last night and ended up staying over to cover the day shift until they got back from a call. Poor guy was lonely so I brought him with me.”
Nicole craned her neck and tried to look around Kevin’s very broad shoulders. The dog’s head was visible now, and he appeared to be a beagle attempting to climb out the window.
“He loves a car ride,” Kevin added.
“Does he ever jump out?”
Kevin laughed, a deep, rumbling laugh. “He tries. Never made it yet and he’s at least twelve years old.”
Nicole stepped to her right and saw the paws and nose disappear into the truck. “It looks like he gave up.”
Kevin nodded. “He’s probably tired. He doesn’t sleep well when I’m gone all night. Arnold’s a worrier. I think he knows I have a dangerous job.” Kevin took another glance at his truck. “Dogs are sensitive,” he added. “Or he wonders who’ll feed him if I die in a fire.”
The air left Nicole’s lungs, and her shoulders dropped. Of course he had a dangerous job. The same dangerous job that had killed her brother when he was only twenty-one. Robbed him of his future, stole happiness from her parents, her sister and herself. She swallowed. Goose bumps rose along her chilled back.
A breeze behind her told her Jane had swept the curtain aside.
“Shopping for a painting?” Jane asked, her tone chipper and businesslike.
Kevin glanced at Jane and returned his attention to Nicole with a forehead wrinkle. As if he realized he’d said the wrong thing but didn’t know what.
“Uh, no. I was bringing something over.” He gestured to Nicole, but she had nothing in her hands.
“What did you bring?” Jane asked.
Nicole looked at Kevin, eyebrows raised, wondering what he’d say. She knew Jane had heard the entire exchange through the thin curtain. Jane always had her back and had been on her side since they’d moved into their freshmen dorm in college.
Kevin crossed his arms and faced the two women. Just when Nicole expected him to flee, he surprised her and held out his right hand.
“Let’s start over,” he said. “I’m Kevin Ruggles. I grew up here in Cape Pursuit. I’ve been a firefighter for about six years and the worst mistake I’ve made on the job was two days ago when I crashed into your car.”
Shocked, Nicole held out her hand. He took it. His hand was large, warm, rough. But gentle. His touch made her want to withdraw her hand and run for the safety of the back room before he drew her in further than she wanted to go.
“And I really brought you that mirror,” he nodded toward the trash can, “so I’d have a good excuse to come by and say I’m sorry. I’m sorry I smashed your car and made your first day in town a lousy one. I’m very glad you weren’t in the car and I didn’t hurt you.”
His solemn expression, eyebrows drawn together, underscored his sincerity.
“I couldn’t live with that,” he added.
Nicole didn’t say anything. Didn’t encourage him to go on. But the heat returned to her face and ears.
“We got called to a kid not breathing and I was driving fast. Thought I could make it, but some tourists on bikes swerved into the street,” he said, not dropping her hand or taking his eyes off hers. “I couldn’t hit them.”
Nicole swallowed, pulled her hand back and crossed her arms. She needed a barrier. Something about Kevin made her want to forget the agony she felt every time she heard a siren or saw a fire truck. Every time she thought of her brother, perishing in the flames of a forest fire he’d thought he could outrun.
“What happened to the kid?” Jane asked, filling the silence.
“He’ll be okay,” he said, directing his words to Jane. “It wasn’t as bad as his parents thought, but things often look worse than they really are.”
Kevin turned back to Nicole, a sad smile on his face. “Anyway, I’m sorry about your car. And I hope you like it here.”
She nodded, acknowledging him. “Thank you,” she said, her words hollow.
Kevin pivoted and walked past watercolors propped on shiny easels. He opened the front door, setting off the foghorn, and got into his truck. Nicole heard his door shut and watched him put on his seat belt and pet his dog before he pulled away from the front curb. The dog sat up in the passenger seat and stuck his nose out the window.
“Since you weren’t making that easy for him, you should have asked him to let you drive his truck while your car’s in the shop,” Jane commented, grinning. “Would have been fun to see what he said.”
“It’s probably a stick shift,” Nicole said, disgust in her voice. “I never learned to drive one of those. He seems like the kind of man who would drive a standard. It’s all about the ego. And why should I have made that easy for him anyway?”
Jane shrugged. “Coming in here was a nice gesture. He wanted to explain himself.”
“He probably just felt guilty and wanted to make himself feel better,” Nicole huffed. She kicked the trash can for emphasis.
“You need lunch,” Jane said. “Go back and sit down, take your time.”
“I’m fine.”
Jane leaned one elbow on the glass counter. “If a garbage truck had taken out your car, would you feel better about it?”
“No.”
Jane nodded. “So if a sanitation worker came in here in his uniform exuding sweetness and vulnerability, and he told you a sad story about swerving the trash truck to miss a kitten and how sorry he was he’d knocked your car silly, you’d give him the cold shoulder.”
“Now you’re being ridiculous,” Nicole said, a small grin turning up the corners of her mouth.
“But you see my point.”
Nicole sighed. “I hate the fire department.”
Jane gave her a hug. “I know. And you have a right. But you have to admit fire trucks are sexier than garbage trucks.”
“Everything is sexier than a garbage truck.” Her shoulders sagged and Nicole felt like crying. “I just thought I would get away and start over. And bam. First thing that happens is I get knocked on my butt by the same guys who took Adam from us.”
Jane held her friend by the shoulders. “Not the same guys. Different place. Different situation.”
Nicole bit her lip and focused on breathing in through her nose, out through her mouth.
“I know you,” Jane said. “When life knocks you down, you get up and dust yourself off.”
Nicole swallowed. “I’ll have some lunch and then get to work,” she said.
* * *
“UNCONDITIONAL LOVE, HUH, ARNOLD?” Kevin said, scratching his dog’s head between shifting gears on his aging F-150. “That’s what everyone says dogs are good for.”
Arnold scooted over and surrendered to the temptation of the open truck window, sticking his nose out.
“Fine,” Kevin said.
Arnold sneezed and the wind blew snot back into the truck.
“Maybe I should take you to live at the station. You could be the mascot.”
Kevin drove to the house he was currently painting on his days off from the station. An irregular schedule of twenty-four on, then thirty-six or twelve on gave him time to work in the sunshine on outside projects. Even if it meant sacrificing sleep.
Charlie Zimmerman stood in the driveway, holding a hammer. He walked up to Kevin’s open window as soon as the truck stopped.
“Just got the for-sale sign put up,” he said. “The house looks lousy now, but once you get it painted it’ll sell fast. Especially with summer coming up.”
The house was constructed exactly like the others on the street. Originally beach rentals, they were all one-story, wood-sided, with single-car garages and tiny front yards. Some of the houses had acquired character over the years with brightly painted walls, redesigned front entrances, creative landscaping. This house was like a wallflower cousin asked to the prom out of obligation. It needed color and life.
“Decide on the paint?” Kevin asked.
Charlie nodded. “Come see.”
Kevin got out, walked around the truck, and opened the passenger door for Arnold. He lifted the beagle down.
“He doesn’t get any better looking with age,” Charlie said.
“Neither do you.”
“So,” Charlie continued, ignoring the insult, “the homeowner thought white was the best choice because it’s a standard and it wouldn’t scare off any potential buyers. My office thought color would make this place pop. At least that’s what the ladies said. So we compromised.”
“How?” Kevin asked.
“White with green shutters.”
Charlie showed Kevin the buckets of paint stored in the garage, a swipe of color on each lid identifying the contents. The spring green shutter paint was a perfect match for Nicole’s eyes. Not that she liked what she saw out of those eyes, at least not when she was looking at him.
He’d blown it. He just didn’t know how, aside from the obvious business of wrecking her car.
“While you’re here, I wondered if you’d want to think about a little business venture with me. You’re a good painter and pretty handy with other stuff. And I’ve got the inside track on Cape Pursuit real estate.”
“No, I don’t want to buy and flip houses with you,” Kevin said, his tone implying they’d talked about this before.
“You’d make some dough.”
“I have enough money. And I’m taking classes this fall to get my fire science degree. So thanks, but no.”
“If you change your mind, let me know.”
Kevin unloaded a wooden ladder from the bed of his truck and set it next to the paint cans in the garage. He planned to go home and get a few hours’ sleep while the sun was hot and then come back in the evening and start in. The house was already pressure washed, the loose paint scraped off. Covering ugly wood with fresh paint was one of Kevin’s favorite things. It was just as satisfying as dousing a fire, but the paint lasted longer.
He’d been painting houses in Cape Pursuit since he was a teenager, and he remembered them all, always noticing them when he drove by and evaluating how well their paint was sticking.
“I thought I might see about getting Jane’s friend a place to rent,” Charlie said, helping unload painting supplies from the truck bed. Drop cloths, brushes, a bucket of paint thinner. “The blonde.”
Kevin felt heat under his collar. It was hot in the garage, but that wasn’t the only reason. “Did Jane mention how long her friend is staying?”
“Nicole,” Charlie said. “Jane implied Nicole was here to stay. Permanently. Making a big move of some kind.”
“Good for her. Nice place to live,” Kevin commented.
“That all you have to say?”
“At the moment.”
“She gave you a hard time at the restaurant. And nobody’s seen the mirror that was supposed to go on the wall at the station.”
“I think we should leave her alone. She’s new in town. She’s Jane’s best friend. Maybe she’s off-limits,” Kevin said. “Like Jane is,” he added, waiting for a reaction from Charlie. Everyone knew Charlie protected Jane as if she were a little sister.
Arnold bumped into a table in the crowded garage and knocked over a stepladder leaning on it. The ladder clattered to the floor and Arnold stared at it for a moment before lying down and putting his face on his paws.
“He’s going blind,” Kevin said. “It’s worse when he’s tired. We’re headed home for some sleep, but I’ll be back this evening to start in. If I get a coat of primer on before the sun goes down, I can start putting paint on tomorrow.”
“Make fun of me if you want, but this place will make me a pile of cash. Think about it, Kevin. You can only fight fires for so long, and the real estate business is a great fallback plan.”
Kevin shrugged. “Fighting fires is in my blood. If I ever get too old to do it, I’ll hang around the station and bore the young guys with stories about how we used to do things back in my day.” He grinned and scratched Arnold’s ears while he talked. “Maybe they’ll let me toss my walker in the back of the truck and drive them to the fires.”
Charlie leaned against the wall. “You putting your name in for a promotion? When the chief retires in a few months, everyone will probably move up a notch. Might open up a lieutenant’s job for you, maybe even captain.”
“Thought about it,” Kevin admitted. His older brother was already a lieutenant with just a few more years than Kevin on the department. “How about you? Are you applying?”
“No thanks,” Charlie said. “I’m happy to stay out of paperwork at the station. Leadership is a whole lot of responsibility.”
“Fighting fires is a responsibility,” Kevin said.
Charlie shook his head. “Not the same thing. When you’re an officer, the place owns you, body and soul. And I’m not interested in being owned by anything.”
“Or anyone?”
Charlie laughed. “Definitely not. I’m in the rental business for the foreseeable future. Pretty women, ugly houses.”
“Give me a few days and this one won’t be ugly anymore,” Kevin said. He hoisted Arnold into his truck, got in and backed out of the driveway. Charlie waved as he pulled away, and Kevin wondered how his friend could choose selling houses instead of aiming for the top job at the fire department.
CHAPTER FOUR (#ulink_fe5e40eb-1a54-5a2a-b080-a463714a749a)
JANE OPENED HER front door, stepped out of her shoes and dropped her purse on a chair in the living room. Her feet hurt and she was starving, but it had been a good afternoon. Several small paintings and a few gift items had sold, and she’d also enlisted Nicole to rearrange the displays in the front windows of the gallery. Business was picking up on the waves of spring sunshine, and she had a lot to hope for in her future—more than she’d even admitted to her best friend.
“We could order a pizza,” Jane said. “I think I could eat the entire thing myself.”
“No way. I’ve been here five days, and I haven’t cooked once,” Nicole said as she took off her shoes and left them by the front door. “Either I’m living a dream, or I’m being a lousy friend.”
Jane wandered into the kitchen with Nicole right behind her. She took a can of cat food from a lower cabinet and smiled at her houseguest. “You’re not a lousy friend. You’ve been busy moving in and helping me build my art empire.”
“You look exhausted,” Nicole said, giving Jane a long look. “And I like cooking.”
“I’m thrilled to have you here, but I’ll make you a deal if it’ll make you feel better. I’ll feed Claudette, and you make dinner for us two.”
“Deal,” Nicole said.
Nicole took a skillet from a rack near the sink while Jane found a clean bowl for her cat. It was nice having someone else in her kitchen. As much as she loved owning and running her gallery and living a peaceful life in a seaside town, the loneliness hit her every night when she came home. Having Nicole living with her gave her someone to talk to.
Someone she should confide in. Soon.
As Nicole sliced vegetables, Jane peeled back the metal lid on the can of cat food. Claudette circled her legs, excited about her evening meal. Without warning, the sight and smell of the wet food hit Jane like a wave of filthy water. She put her hand to her mouth, nearly retching, and dropped the can on the counter. It rolled, crashing loudly into the stainless steel sink.
“What’s the matter?” Nicole asked, rushing over. “Did you cut yourself on the lid?”
Jane shook her head and gripped the edge of the counter, fighting nausea. She heard a chair scrape the kitchen floor and felt Nicole pressing her into it.
“Jane, say something,” Nicole said. “Do you need a cold cloth or a drink?”
“I’m all right,” she protested. “The cat food smell just got me there for a minute.”
Claudette danced around the chair legs, sniffing the air, and then jumped into Jane’s lap. Nicole grabbed the cat and set her gently on the floor. She wound through Jane’s legs and tickled her bare feet.
“She’s hungry,” Jane whispered.
“She can wait a minute. What’s going on with you? You’ve smelled cat food a million times, and if I know Claudette, she’s been eating the same kind of food since we were in college. She knows her own mind.”
Jane sat back and took a deep breath. “I’m okay now. It was a passing thing.”
Nicole put the food in the cat’s bowl and set it on the floor on the far side of the kitchen. She grabbed a chair and pulled it close to Jane’s.
“Talk to me,” Nicole commanded.
Before she could say a word, Jane’s tears betrayed her. “I was planning to tell you, but I wanted you to get settled in first.”
Nicole put an arm around Jane’s shoulders. “Tell me what? Oh, God, are you sick? What’s wrong?”
Noticing the worry in her friend’s eyes, Jane tried to smile. “I’m not sick. At least not permanently.” She sucked in a deep breath. “I’m pregnant.”
It was the first time she had said the words aloud. Jane hadn’t spoken of it to anyone, even after her doctor confirmed it several weeks ago. It was her secret, the new life growing in her body. She hadn’t even told her parents, though she knew she couldn’t conceal it from them much longer. They lived an hour away, and she was surprised her mother hadn’t already figured out there was something going on, just from her voice over the phone.
“I wondered,” Nicole said.
“You did?”
“There were just a few things that didn’t seem...right.”
“You can say that again,” Jane said, sniffing and swiping at her tears. She’d already accepted the change her life was taking. A baby. For the past few weeks, the thought had come over her like sunshine through a window. Exciting, warming, but illuminating, too. How was she going to manage a baby along with her gallery? Was she ready to be a single mother? Or a mother at all?
Jane had found her own peace and joy about the child, but her emotions overwhelmed her as she tried talking about it for the first time. It was liberating but frightening, and she choked back sobs. Nicole jumped up and came back with a box of tissues.
“It’ll be okay,” Nicole said.
Jane wiped her eyes while Nicole rubbed her back and didn’t ask questions. “I’m not crying because I’m sad,” Jane mumbled from behind her tissues. “Having a baby isn’t a tragedy.”
“Of course not,” Nicole assured her. “And you’re not alone. I’m here. And Claudette will be a wonderful babysitter while we’re at the gallery.”
Jane laughed and wadded up her tissues. She looked at her friend’s sincere, supportive smile. “What am I going to do?”
“Be a wonderful mother.”
“I hope so,” she whispered. “At first I was stunned. Couldn’t believe it. But then I realized there was only one thing I could do. Be excited that I’m getting a wonderful and unexpected gift.”
“Can I be Aunt Nicole?”
“Of course. I’m an only child, so you’re the only aunt my baby is going to get.”
Nicole nodded and waited silently, hands on her knees.
“You know you want to ask,” Jane said. She would have been dying to ask if the tables were turned.
“Ask what?” Nicole said. “I’m here for you, and that’s all I need to know.”
“The father.”
Nicole got up and poured two glasses of water. “You only have to tell me what you want to tell me.”
Jane took a long, soothing drink. There was no reason to keep the truth from Nicole. Perhaps her best friend could help her figure out what to do.
“Charlie Zimmerman,” she said. “Realtor, firefighter, baby daddy.”
Nicole sucked in her lower lip but didn’t say anything.
“I’ve known him for five years. We’re friends,” Jane said swiftly. “He’s funny and attractive...but I didn’t think he was interested in me other than my status as the kid sister of the fire department. And then...”
“Then?”
“Stupid Valentine’s Day,” Jane muttered. “What a dumb holiday. It should be outlawed. It just makes single people feel unworthy and couples feel like they have to come up with some magical present or date. And then sometimes you go on dates you never would have accepted if it weren’t Valentine’s Day.”
“True,” Nicole conceded. “I spent it watching my favorite movie and drinking wine by myself this year.”
“Under the Tuscan Sun?”
Nicole nodded. “I swear I’m going to run away to Italy one of these days.”
“I wish I had been there watching it with you,” Jane said. “I wouldn’t have ended up single and pregnant.”
“So you went on a date with Charlie on Valentine’s Day?”
“No. We both had dates with other people.”
Nicole leaned back. “This is getting interesting.”
Jane laughed. “It’s not funny.”
“I’ll be the judge of that. Right after I get our dinner cooking.” She stood and turned on the burner. “You need to eat, and I’m happy to listen and cook at the same time.”
Jane watched Nicole scoop ingredients into the pan, and the aroma reminded her she was actually hungry. The sick feeling from the cat food was long gone. Poor Claudette. She might need to switch to dry food for a few months. And when the baby came along...how would an aging house cat, set in her ways, adjust to the change?
How would she adjust to the change?
“He doesn’t know,” Jane said as Nicole stirred.
“I assumed. When he sat with us at the bar, I thought there might be something between you.” She turned and held a large spoon in the air. “But I had no idea.”
“I have to tell him.”
“You do,” Nicole agreed. “But not tonight.”
Jane laughed. “No, not tonight. But it’s not the kind of thing you can hide forever. Not that I’d want to.”
“And what do you think he’ll say?”
“I have almost no doubt about it. He’ll ask me to marry him.”
“That jerk!” Nicole said, grinning. “And everyone thinks those firefighters are such heroes. Everyone except me, of course.”
“That’s exactly the problem. He’ll offer to do what he thinks is the right thing without a second thought.”
“But you’d have second thoughts.”
“Of course I would. I’ve known him a long time, and he’s no fan of commitment. Dated one girl after another, never staying with anyone for long. He would only marry me out of obligation, and I don’t want to be someone’s obligation. I’m worth more than that.”
* * *
FOLLOWING POLICE ORDERS, Charlie and Ethan waited behind the shelter of the fire truck while several officers entered the dilapidated home in a neglected section of Cape Pursuit. Far from the eyes of tourists, it was a five-minute ride from the fire station. Calls to the Dune Heights area of town often ended in a refusal of treatment, and domestic violence calls left Charlie and his fellow firefighters with the sick feeling that someone needed their help but wasn’t going to get it.
“I hate these calls,” Ethan muttered.
Charlie nodded. Everyone hated seeing drunk guys threaten their wives and families. His father would have cut off his own arm before threatening his wife and son. He would also have given that arm to have more years with Charlie’s mother, who died far too young of breast cancer.
“Maybe it’s a false alarm,” Charlie said. He listened closely for any sounds coming from the house. “It happens.”
Ethan blew out a breath and leaned against the truck. The midday sun flashed off the chrome pump. Charlie peered through the open middle of the truck, where the pump operator usually stood. Both he and Ethan wore full turnout gear and smelled like smoke. The Dumpster fire behind a fast-food restaurant in town hadn’t taken long to put out, and they were returning to the station when the call came in. The rest of their crew had returned to the station to grab the ambulance, but Ethan and Charlie went straight to the scene. The massive pumper truck was stocked with first aid and rescue equipment.
“I’d take a false alarm,” Ethan said. “Police only came to my house once when I was a kid, despite my parents constantly drinking and fighting. It wasn’t a false alarm that day.”
Charlie knew Ethan had a tough background. Instead of letting it destroy his life, he funneled every ounce of pain into doing the right thing. He fought fires, saved lives and never touched alcohol. He went along to the bar with his friends, and he drove them all home every single time. The eight-passenger SUV he owned probably cost him a fortune in car payments and gas.
“My dad spent the night in jail and it educated him for quite a while about his drinking limit.” Ethan took off his helmet and ran his fingers through his damp hair. “I can’t believe some days they’re both still alive.” Ethan shrugged and sat on the chrome step on the side of the truck. “Well, I don’t see them much even though they live right up the street.”
Charlie sat next to him and rested his elbows on his knees. It was hot on the shiny chrome bumper, blistering in his turnout gear. A cool shower at the station sounded like heaven, but he and Ethan would stay and sweat it out, hoping for the chance to help.
A police officer stepped around the front of the truck, and Charlie and Ethan jumped to their feet. “You better come in here,” he said. “We took out the husband in cuffs, but the wife could use some attention.”
Charlie hoisted the medical bag on his shoulder, and he and Ethan trudged up to the house behind the cop. The front steps had a missing board and one of the numbers over the front door was missing. A faded outline of the number two indicated where it had been. Still wearing his helmet, Charlie ducked out of habit as he went through the front door.
A woman sat on the only cushion left on a decrepit couch. She held a kitchen towel to her head. Charlie knelt in front of her and quickly snapped on the gloves his partner handed him. “I’m Charlie,” he said gently. “I’m a firefighter and I’m here to help you. Can I look at your injury?”
He heard Ethan talking with one of the police officers, asking if there were any other injured people in the house. The room looked like a battlefield. A table was overturned, a window was broken and there was a sizable hole in the wall above the couch.
The woman looked warily at Charlie. He took off his helmet and set it next to him on the floor so she could see him better. He opened his hands and held them in front of her so she could see there was nothing in them. “I’m not going to hurt you,” he said.
She lowered the towel and Charlie didn’t flinch when he saw the bloody mess on the side of her face. Although he’d seen worse at fire scenes and car accidents, the wounds inflicted by a person’s supposed loved ones always seemed to be the ugliest.
The police officers had left the room so Ethan and Charlie could help the victim. Ethan snapped open an ice pack and handed it to Charlie. He stood back, letting Charlie take the lead because he was the first person to talk to the patient. Charlie heard the ambulance’s siren approaching. “A few of my partners are coming, and they’ll take you to the hospital.”
“What makes you think I’m goin’?” the woman asked. Her lip quivered when she spoke.
“You need to,” he said gently. “Your cut needs a few stitches.”
“I don’t know.”
“I’ll go with you,” Charlie said, hoping he’d gained some of her trust. Ethan could take the truck back. He could wear his heavy turnout gear just a little longer. He placed sterile gauze on the open wound on her temple and held the ice pack over the bandage. She didn’t object. Her dirty hair, streaked with gray, had already stuck to the drying blood on the side of her face. Charlie was afraid she’d crumple if they tried to pick her up.
“What’s your name?” he asked.
“Karleen,” she said.
“Hey,” a loud voice yelled in the adjoining room. Charlie glanced up in time to see a massive bearded man staggering into the living room. He was shirtless and disheveled. “You can’t take my brother to jail just for beating up this—”
Charlie stood and shielded the woman on the couch, and Ethan moved swiftly and pinned the large man against the door frame. He fought back, and a lamp crashed to the floor, but Ethan was almost as large and had the advantage of a thick suit of turnout gear. Charlie wanted to jump into the fight, but his first duty was to protect his patient, so he stood his ground. Ethan was winning anyway.
At the sound of the scuffle, two cops rushed back into the living room and were followed by Tony Ruggles and his father, the fire chief. When the assailant saw he was outnumbered by six men ready to fight, he backed off.
“I ain’t going to jail, too,” the bearded man said. “I was just sayin’ it ain’t right to take her word over his. She’s just as drunk.”
Charlie turned to Karleen, keeping his body between her and the other man.
“Can we go?” the woman whispered to Charlie. “I need to get away from him.”
He offered her a hand. “Ready when you are.”
As Charlie helped his patient out of the house and into the back of the ambulance, he mentally reviewed any rental properties he owned that were empty. He’d do anything it took to help Karleen find a new home. Even though he’d never be half the man his father was, he could try.
CHAPTER FIVE (#ulink_aa689f6c-8bbc-5cdd-8e1b-1db411bc6874)
NICOLE AWOKE TO the sound of sirens. Wailing sirens. She lay awake listening for a moment and then drifted into a dream that was her worst nightmare—a startlingly realistic memory of her brother.
* * *
TALL, HANDSOME ADAM. He was blond and green-eyed like her and had the gift of long limbs and broad shoulders. The last time she saw him, he was boarding a plane in Indianapolis to go out West for his summer job with the forestry service. He already wore the T-shirt with the fire insignia on the front and one large word on the back: FIRE.
In the dream, he smiled and waved to her and her parents as they stood in the area just before the airport security line. They watched him navigate bag check, walk through the metal detector and head off to fight flames and save lives. He turned and smiled at her one last time.
* * *
NICOLE AWOKE AGAIN, sweat drenching her nightshirt. She had never seen him alive again.
The sound of noise in the kitchen, clanging pots, metal on metal, had awakened her this time. She pulled on a thin robe and headed toward the clamor.
Claudette lay curled on a kitchen chair, watching Jane pour coffee into a large thermos. The tabby cat kept one sleepy eye open, and Jane herself was wide awake and zipping around her small kitchen.
“Sorry to wake you up,” Jane said. She screwed the lid on the thermos and filled another, smaller carafe.
“You’re making coffee at one in the morning?” Nicole asked. Her dream still made her feel disoriented, almost as if someone was going to knock on the door and deliver the news that was every family’s nightmare.
“Fire down the street, and it looks like they’ll be there awhile.” Jane opened the cabinet over the sink and pulled out two sleeves of disposable white cups. “I’m taking the guys coffee.”
Jane was already dressed in jeans and a long-sleeved T-shirt. Although it was early May, the nights on the Virginia coast were still chilly.
“Can I help?” Nicole asked.
“Spare blankets. I keep them in the closet outside the bathroom, bottom shelf. Would you grab three or four? And you could throw on some clothes if you want to help carry this stuff.”
Jane flipped the switch to brew another pot. She glanced up and met Nicole’s eyes. “I’ll understand if you don’t want to.”
Nicole hesitated. She wanted to help. But her dream was still so raw, her damp nightshirt clinging to her and chilling her. She swallowed and steadied her breathing. “I’ll get dressed and grab the blankets,” she said.
Claudette followed her down the hall, winding between her legs and apparently hoping for something interesting to happen. Nicole dressed quickly in jeans and a sweatshirt, slipped into sneakers, and went to the linen closet. She wanted to hurry, but her legs were lead. The door creaked in the nighttime silence and she pulled the chain to turn on the bulb in the closet. Claudette crept stealthily inside, her tail twitching. A stack of industrial-looking rough blankets were on the lower shelf. Nicole pulled out four of them, toed the cat out of the closet, turned off the light and closed the door.
She gathered the blankets in her arms and steeled herself. She was going to a fire in the middle of the night. There would be firefighters, flashing lights, danger. Was anyone hurt? She nearly lost her nerve, but she took solace in the fact that Jane would be there with her. It would be okay. Starting over in a new place meant she had to face the things that were holding her back. But she wasn’t sure she could.
As they went through the front door, Jane lugging the big thermos and cups and Nicole holding blankets, they saw the flashing lights and spotlights of the fire scene only eight houses down the street.
The house on fire was a large one, a storybook house with fancy trim and detailed paint. White with rose, sage and soft gold accents. She’d snapped a photo of it two days ago when she took an evening walk with her camera slung over her shoulder.
Fire trucks with hoses snaking from hydrants robbed the house of its fairy-tale quality. Neighbors gathered, their faces red and white in the flashing lights. Jane walked quickly, but Nicole lagged a few steps behind. Lights were on in houses they passed even though it was the middle of the night. It appeared the whole neighborhood had beaten them to the scene.
But Nicole and Jane had an advantage. They had coffee and blankets.
A small group of people wearing bathrobes and sweatshirts, clothing disheveled and untucked, gathered just outside the fire scene. Nicole stopped, but Jane stepped over a hose and walked right up to a firefighter in full gear. A reflective stripe defined the bottom of his heavy yellow coat. The word Zimmerman flashed in reflective letters across his back. Jane put her thermos on the truck’s silver running board and waited next to Charlie while he listened to a radio pressed against his ear and adjusted gauges on the massive pump on the side of the truck.
Nicole felt like she was in a war zone. She didn’t follow Jane, hanging back and mutely holding on to the blankets. How could Jane be so brave? Not only had she marched up to the scene, but she was talking with the father of her baby. Putting other people’s problems before her own—that was the source of Jane’s bravery.
“Can I borrow those?” A police officer, an older man whom Nicole recognized as the officer who wrote the report on her car, stood at her elbow. “The family would sure appreciate it.”
He took two blankets off the top and cocked his head, indicating she should follow him. She wanted to help, wanted to offer comfort to people whose house had windows broken out, charred furniture on the lawn, smoke seething from the upper floors. She took a breath and followed the police officer, resolving to be strong. Her brother would be in there fighting the fire.
If he were here.
If he were alive.
“Here you go,” the police officer said. He handed a blanket to a woman wearing a nightgown and a man’s coat that was much too large for her. She wrapped the blanket around a little girl and tucked in the folds in front. The girl sat down, the long tails of the blanket spreading around her as if she were on a picnic.
A firefighter came over. Kevin Ruggles. “Any accelerants in the garage or basement? Gas cans, propane tanks, anything like that?”
The little girl’s father shook his head. “No gas cans. We have a lawn service. Nothing else like that.”
Kevin nodded, his helmet bobbing. He pushed his helmet up and nodded to Nicole.
“Thanks,” he said. He turned and trudged back to the front porch where a man in a red helmet was giving orders.
The little girl got up and followed him, her blanket dragging on the ground. Her parents didn’t notice, but Nicole did. She waited, watching. The girl wasn’t in danger. Kevin was talking with the man who appeared to be in charge of the fire scene, and the worst seemed to be over. The girl pulled on the edge of Kevin’s coat and looked up at him. He leaned down and put his ear as close to her as he could manage with his helmet on, listening and nodding. Then he turned the girl around by her shoulders and pointed at her parents.
“Where did you go?” the mother asked, panic and despair in her voice as her daughter approached. “I told you to stay close by, honey. It’s dangerous.”
“I was asking him to look for Eddie,” she said, and started to cry. “I can’t find him. What if he died in the fire?”
The parents exchanged pained looks.
Oh, God, Nicole thought. Who is Eddie? Her brother? She felt tears stinging her eyes as she relived the pain of losing Adam.
“He was sleeping on my bed when the smoke alarm woke me up,” the girl continued.
“Maybe he followed us out,” her father said, putting an arm around his daughter. “He can see really well in the dark.”
Nicole let out the breath she was holding. Okay, we’re obviously talking about a pet. Breathe.
“I asked the fireman to look for him and he promised he would,” the child continued.
“I’m sure he will, baby,” her father said.
“I’ll help you look,” Nicole offered. “Is Eddie a dog or a cat?”
“Cat,” the girl said.
“Maybe he followed you, just like your dad said. We could stay out of the way and look around together.”
Nicole had no idea why she was insisting on searching for a cat that probably perished in the fire. But in a way, she understood the girl’s grief. Knew what it was like to hope someone or something you loved had somehow survived against the odds.
“I’m Nicole,” she told the girl’s parents. “I’m staying with my friend Jane who owns the art gallery in town.”
“We know Jane,” the mom said. To her daughter, she said, “If you stay far away from the firemen and the trucks, you can go with this nice lady and look around.” Her face softened. “Maybe he climbed a tree to hide and he’s just waiting for you to come get him.”
Nicole took the girl’s hand. “What color is your cat?”
“Black. He’s all black.”
Great. Looking for a panicked black cat that may or may not even be alive. In the darkness. At least it was better than watching the firefighters systematically carry out smoldering furniture and other belongings. Anything was better than that.
“I’m Julia,” the girl said, her voice small. Her dark hair fell around her face and she looked tiny under the rough blanket. “Do you think we’ll find Eddie?”
“Yes,” Nicole said, trying to sound convincing. “He could be sound asleep in the mailbox.”
“Or my sandbox.”
“I’ll bet you’re right. We’ll check those places and then start looking under plants and in trees. Is Eddie a good climber?”
Julia wrinkled her forehead. “He never goes out of the house. He usually sleeps all day unless I’m playing with him.”
“So,” Nicole said. “He’s a beginner climber. That’s good. He won’t be too far up. But we’re going to need a flashlight.”
Nicole took the child’s hand and approached Kevin, who was now digging through a cabinet on the side of one of the fire trucks.
“Excuse me,” she said. “Do you have a flashlight in there we can borrow?”
At the sight of Nicole and the little girl, his brows came together in a skeptical look. “What are you planning to do with it? You can’t go in the house.”
“I’m not a fool,” Nicole said. “We’re looking for Eddie.”
Kevin glanced at the little girl. “The cat?” he asked.
“Uh-huh,” Julia said. “Nicole is helping me find him. We’re looking in the mailbox and up in the trees.”
Kevin smiled. “That’s really nice of Nicole, and I’m sure you’ll find him. He’s probably just scared. Fires are scary.”
He took a flashlight from the large front pocket of his heavy coat and handed it to Nicole.
“I’ll bring it back,” she said.
“I know where to find you,” he replied, smiling at her and holding eye contact as if he wanted to emphasize that they were on the same side.
“Thank you,” Nicole said. She took the child’s hand and they crept around the edge of the property, checking every hiding place they could find on the lawn. Trying to ignore the damp, smoky smell of the fire, she swept the flashlight into trees, under shrubs and beneath the swing set. Nicole smiled encouragingly at the little girl even though it seemed hopeless.
One set of searchlights went off. A fire truck left, and neighbors went home. It had to be two in the morning at least, but there was no sign of Eddie. Nicole felt tears of frustration, exhaustion and something she didn’t want to think about well in her eyes. Julia’s mother found them in the backyard and claimed her daughter’s hand. “Sorry we didn’t find Eddie tonight,” Nicole told the girl, “but I’m sure he’ll come back tomorrow.”
“We’re staying with my sister across town,” the mother said. “If you happen to see a lonely black cat around, here’s her number.”
Nicole took the scrap of paper and promised to keep an eye out. She watched the family climb wearily into an SUV with only the clothes and blankets on their backs. The fire chief and another firefighter put up yellow caution tape across the doors.
Nicole still had the flashlight and most of the trucks had left, so she approached the man in the red helmet. “Please give this to Kevin Ruggles,” she said, her voice faint with disappointment and unshed tears.
“He’s right here,” the chief said, handing the light over Nicole’s head to a man behind her. She turned and faced him.
Although he was covered in black grime, the light from the remaining fire truck illuminated his smile. “Did you find the cat?” he asked.
She shook her head, not wanting to talk about the cat or anything else related to the fire.
“Hope he didn’t die,” Kevin said, “but I’m afraid it’s pretty likely. Animals tend to hide and the flames go right over them.”
Nicole thought her heart would explode. Her brother, when he realized he couldn’t outrun the forest fire, had hunkered down with his partners under fire-resistant blankets. Two of his partners survived, although seriously burned. Adam did not. He was lying under the blanket when they found him.
She couldn’t help it. Tears ran down her cheeks and a sob choked her.
“Hey,” Kevin said, touching her arm. “Sorry. I didn’t think you knew the...uh...cat.”
Jane appeared out of the darkness. “Ready to go home?” she asked.
Nicole nodded, unable to speak. Kevin took off his helmet and ran a hand through his hair. “I think we’re all ready for this night to be over,” he said.
Jane glanced at Nicole and she knew her teary face must look a mess.
“Okay, Nikki?”
In answer, Nicole turned and headed toward the street. She heard Jane murmur something to Kevin and then her friend was at her side, arm around her, as they trudged home.
* * *
KEVIN AND THE chief were the last two on scene, finishing cleanup for the time being. There would be plenty to do tomorrow when the fire and insurance inspectors showed up.
“Call it a night,” the chief said.
Kevin tossed the flashlight Nicole had returned to him into the side compartment of the truck. It bounced against the back of the bin and rolled out, falling on the ground and rolling under the truck.
“Dangit,” Kevin said, dropping to his knees to look for it. The flashlight was hidden in the grass, but he saw something else under the truck. A black blob. The black blob moved and light reflected off a pair of eyes.
“Hey, buddy. You must be Eddie.”
He ducked low and reached for the cat, but the frightened animal recoiled and slunk farther back.
“Don’t make this hard on me, cat.”
He extended his arm slowly toward the animal and then made a quick lunge, grabbing the cat before he could run away, but whacking his head on the running board of the truck at the same time. He held the cat in one hand and got up. Tucking the cat inside his coat, he glanced down the street toward Jane’s house. It had only been a half hour since the women left. Could they still be awake?
“Got everything?” the chief said.
“Yup. And I think I found the homeowners’ cat under the truck.”
“We didn’t run over it, did we?” the chief asked. “I hate when we do that.”
“No, he’s alive. Can we stop by Jane’s house on the way back to the station? If she’s still up, I think she can help us with it.”
The chief stared at the lump inside Kevin’s turnout coat. “Didn’t know you were such a cat person,” he said.
Kevin shrugged. “You drive.”
They parked in the street in front of Jane’s house. Lights were still on inside. “Be right back,” he said.
Approaching the front door, Kevin tried to gauge which rooms had lights on. He guessed they were the kitchen and living room. A good sign.
He tapped on the door just loud enough so anyone who was already awake would hear him. A moment later, someone moved a curtain, and the porch light came on overhead. Jane opened the door wide.
“What happened to you?” she asked.
Not what Kevin expected. “Happened?”
“Your head. It’s bleeding. Come in.”
Kevin stepped into the house, keeping one hand on the warm lump inside his coat. He toed the door shut and swiped the other one over his forehead. Blood smeared his grimy hand. “Oh,” he said. “I guess I did that when I was trying to fish the cat out from under the fire truck.”
“You found Eddie?” Jane exclaimed.
Nicole appeared behind Jane wearing only a short pink nightshirt. Her hair was wet and her bare feet and legs under the short edge of the shirt riveted Kevin’s attention. “You found Eddie?” she echoed.
Kevin pulled open the flap of his coat and revealed black fur. “He’s been fighting me under here.” Eddie stuck his head out and hissed.
“Did he claw your head?” Nicole asked, gesturing over Kevin’s eye.
“Nope. That happened while I was trying to catch him. He was hiding under the pumper. He’s fast for a house cat.”
“Poor Eddie,” Nicole said. She approached and reached toward him, her fingers brushing his neck. Her wet blond hair tickled his chin.
He would bring home a wild cat every night of the week for attention like that. But it was over too soon. Nicole unsnapped his coat and pulled out the cat, cuddling him against her chest. His coat flapped open and he wished he could think of a reason for her to reach in again. Her green eyes were darker in the dim light of the entryway. She smelled like shampoo, as if she’d just stepped from a shower to erase the soot and smoke of the night.
The cat enjoyed Nicole’s attention for a moment and then struggled to get down.
“Close the door behind you,” Jane said. “Want to come in for something to eat?”
“Love to, but the chief’s waiting in the truck.” He watched Nicole’s every move as she bent over to put the cat on the rug. He cleared his throat. “We have to clean hoses and write reports until dawn. Then at least one of us will be back in the morning combing through the mess with the fire inspector and probably the insurance claims person.”
Jane’s tabby cat came around the corner, back up, tail high. She saw Eddie, and a low growl emanated from her throat. Eddie bounced to his feet and fled, a black blur down the hallway, the tabby right on his tail.
Kevin rubbed his head. “Think you could keep that little devil for the night and get him back to the owners tomorrow?”
“Will you stop rubbing your cut with your filthy hands?” Jane said. “And yes, Nicole has the number where they’re staying. We’ll call in the morning and meet up with them.”
“That little girl will be so happy,” Nicole said, smiling at Kevin as if he’d just made a rainbow appear over Cape Pursuit. It was the happiest he’d seen her in the short time he’d known her. “Thank you for catching him. And for bringing him over. I can sleep now.”
“You’re welcome. I really got lucky. I dropped that flashlight you borrowed and it rolled under the truck right to the cat’s hiding place. Like it was meant to be.”
A searchlight shone through the glass on the door and toggled back and forth.
“I think my uncle’s ready to get back to the station,” Kevin said. “Can’t blame him.”
“Good night,” Nicole said.
“Night,” he replied, staring at her bare feet and nightshirt. “Thanks for bringing blankets and coffee,” he said, directing his words to both Nicole and Jane. “We always appreciate it.”
He opened the door just wide enough to slip outside, in case the cats came racing back through. As he walked down the front sidewalk toward the fire truck on the street, he had the feeling a set of green eyes was on his back. And the feeling cleared the smoke from his head and lifted his heart.
CHAPTER SIX (#ulink_a4015179-50ca-52da-b2b5-12ca0641b358)
KEVIN PULLED THE ladder truck out of the station and parked it on the front concrete apron. He got out, slid the wheel chocks under the rear dual wheels and headed for the cab of the pumper. One by one, he pulled the pumper, light rescue pickup and heavy rescue squad out and parked in front of the station’s four bays. He drove the Jeep with the dive trailer and then three ambulances out the huge overhead doors in the back, totally clearing out the Cape Pursuit fire station.
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Amie Denman
Тип: электронная книга
Жанр: Современные любовные романы
Язык: на английском языке
Издательство: HarperCollins
Дата публикации: 16.04.2024
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О книге: He’s definitely a hero…But is he the right hero for her?Moving to Cape Pursuit, gives Nicole Wheeler the fresh start she desperately needs. But there’s a catch: Kevin Ruggles, the handsome firefighter who welcomes her to town. Kevin is brave, ambitious and committed to the same career that killed her brother. Nicole can’t go down that path again…no matter how much her heart protests.