LITMIR.BIZ

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from Chicago to do good in his hometown. I read all about him in the paper.”

      Everything was in the Santa Rey paper. Not that Zach needed to read it. Not when he and the chief were becoming intimately familiar with each other; every time Zach put his nose into Tommy’s business regarding the arsons, he got some personal one-on-one time in the chief’s office. “After all he saw in Chicago, he’s not going to think this qualifies as an emergency.”

      “But it was an emergency.”

      “I’m sorry, Phyllis.”

      “Yes.” The older woman sighed. “I know. I’m old, not senile. I get it.” She lovingly stroked the cat, who sprawled in her lap, purring loudly enough to wake the dead. “It’s just that Cecile loves the great outdoors. And you always come—”

      Seemed his heart was going to get tugged on plenty today. “That’s my point. We can’t always come. If we’re here when there’s an emergency, then someone else might go without our help. I know you don’t want that to happen.”

      “No, of course not.” She hugged the cat hard. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”

      “No apologies necessary.” He scratched the cat behind her ornery ears and rose to leave.

      Brooke blocked his path. She still held her stethoscope and blood pressure cuff, looking sweetly professional while she tried to maintain her composure, but her annoyance at being played was clear.

      “I’d like to talk to you,” she said primly.

      He enjoyed that, too, the way she sounded so prissy while looking so damn hot. So put together, so on top of everything, which perversely made him want to rumple her up. Preferably the naked, hot and sweaty kind of rumpled. “Talk? Or bite my head off?”

      “I don’t bite.”

      “Shame.” Passing her, he headed back to his rig to help Aidan put away the ladder. But she wasn’t done with him yet, and followed.

      “I nearly climbed that tree, Zach. Without the benefit of the ladder, I might add.”

      Aidan shot Zach a look that said Good Luck, Buddy and moved out of their way. Zach turned to face a fuming Brooke. “No one was going to let you climb that tree.”

      “Really? Because I think that the crew thinks I was sent here to amuse them.”

      “You have to understand, you’re the seventh EMT—”

      “To walk out, yeah yeah, got it. But I’m not going to walk out. I’m not.”

      “I believe you.”

      “You do?”

      He smiled at her surprise. “I do. And I was never going to let you climb that tree, Brooke. Never.”

      She stared at him for a long, silent beat. “Is your word supposed to mean something?”

      He was a lot of things, but a liar was not one of them. Not that she could possibly know that about him yet. “Hopefully it will come to mean something.”

      She continued to look at him for another long moment, then turned and walked away with a quiet sense of dignity that made him feel like an ass even though, technically, he’d done nothing wrong.

      OVER THE NEXT FEW DAYS the calls came nonstop, accompanying a heat wave that had everyone at the firehouse on edge, Zach included. If they’d had the staff that they used to, things would have been okay, but they didn’t. So they ran their asses off in oppressive temperatures with no downtime, while the higher-ups got to sit in airconditioned offices.

      By the end of the week, they were all exhausted.

      “Crazy,” Cristina muttered on the third straight day of record-high temperatures and calls. “It’s like with the heat wave came a stupid wave.”

      They were all in the kitchen, gulping down icy drinks and standing in front of the opened freezer, vying for space and ice cubes. Cristina rubbed an ice cube across her chest, then gave poor Dustin the evil eye for staring at her damp breasts.

      Zach didn’t blame Dustin for looking; the view was mighty nice. He did worry about the dreamy look in the EMT’s eyes. Dustin tended to put his heart on the line for every single woman he met, which left him open to plenty of heartbreak. If Cristina caught that puppy-dog look, she’d chew him up and spit him out. Instead, she elbowed everyone back and took the front-and-center spot for herself.

      “You forgot to take your pill this morning,” Blake told her, not looking at her chest like everyone else but nudging her out of the way so he could get in closer.

      “I’m not on the pill,” Cristina said.

      “Not that pill. Your nice pill.”

      Dustin snorted and Cristina glared at him, zapping the smile off his face.

      Zach cleared some space for Brooke to get in closer, and she sent him a smile that zapped him as sure as Cristina had zapped Dustin, but in another area entirely.

      He wished she was rubbing an ice cube on her chest. He maneuvered himself right next to her. Their arms bumped, their legs brushed and every nerve ending went on high alert.

      The bell rang, and with a collective groan, they all scattered. It was exhausting, and he was seasoned, as was the crew. He could only imagine how Brooke felt. If he’d had time to breathe, he’d have asked her.

      As it was, they couldn’t do much more than glance at each other, because between the multitude of calls, they still had the maintaining and keeping up of the station and vehicles, not to mention their required physical training.

      But he did glance at her.

      Plenty.

      And she glanced back. She appeared to hold up under pressure extremely well; even when everyone else looked hot, sweaty and irritated, she never did. Look sweaty and irritated, that is.

      Hot? That she most definitely looked.

      It’d been a long time since he’d flirted so slowly with a woman like this, over days, mostly without words. A very long time, and he’d forgotten how arousing it could be. He figured if they had to pass each other one more time without taking it to the next step—and he had plenty of ideas on what that next step should be, all involving touching and stripping and nakedness, lots of naked-ness—they’d both go up in flames.

      One late afternoon a week and a half into Brooke’s employment, he headed toward her to see about that whole thing, but of course, the bell rang.

      It was a kitchen fire, with a man down. Zach and Aidan were first on scene, with Dustin and Brooke pulling in right behind them in front of a small house that sat on a high bluff overlooking the ocean. By the time they got inside, the fire had been extinguished by the supposedly downed man himself, who was breathing like a lunatic and looked to be in the throes of a panic attack. Zach and Aidan checked to make sure the doused fire couldn’t flare up and then began mop-up while Dustin tried to get the guy to sit, but he wasn’t having it.

      “No.” Chest heaving, covered in soot, he pointed at Brooke. “I want her. The chick paramedic.”

      Everyone looked at Brooke. For some reason, she looked at Zach. He wanted to think it was because they’d been looking at each other silently for days, building an odd sense of anticipation for…something, but probably it was simply that he’d been the first person she’d met here.

      “I’m an EMT,” she told the victim. “Not a paramedic.”

      “I don’t care.” The guy was gasping for air, clutching at his chest. “It’s you or nothing.”

      HER OR NOTHING. Brooke could honestly say that she’d never heard that sentence before, at least directed at her. She looked at the crew around her, all of whom were looking at her, perfectly willing and accepting of her taking over.

      And in that moment, she knew. They

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