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"Are you going to a fire?" the receptionist asked as Fiona O'Brien hurried past her desk in the blue and beige lobby of The Northern Lakes Insurance Agency.
Her briefcase swinging from her hand, she spun on a heel to turn back to Rita. "No, no fire…"
But her pulse was racing as if there was one. She drew in a deep breath and forced herself to calm down. Unfortunately, the old adage about redheads had proven true in her case, no matter how hard she tried to control her temper.
"I am going to see a firefighter, though," she admitted.
Rita arched a blond brow. "I would hope you're seeing him for a date, but since your weekly delivery of insipid carnations came today, I know you're still seeing the boring accountant."
Fiona cursed. She'd forgotten her date with Howard—although she wasn't certain how when they went to the same place on the same night at the same time every week. Actually, she did know how…
That damn firefighter.
"So do you have a business appointment with the firefighter?" Rita asked.
No. Wyatt Andrews had no idea she was coming to see him. Until the call she'd just taken, Fiona had had no idea and no desire to see Wyatt Andrews again, let alone talk to him. Not that she'd seen very much of him.
Six feet plus a few inches or more of muscle and arrogance and attitude. Black hair that was too long—like the stares from his brilliant blue eyes. Fortunately, she hadn't seen him that often over the past four or five years.
Nor had she ever really talked to him.
"So it's not business?" Rita prodded her.
Fiona shook her head and glared at the lock of hair that wriggled out of her bun to fall across her eyes. "There's no way I would ever sell a life insurance policy to a firefighter. The risk is too great."
Rita moved her thin shoulders in a shrug and casually remarked, "Everybody's going to die someday."
With her dyed blond hair and heavy makeup, the receptionist's age was impossible to determine. So Fiona didn't know if the other woman was too young or too old to care about death.
"But firefighting is a hazardous profession," Fiona said. "According to the statistics, a firefighter is far more likely to die than say…an accountant." And that was why she hadn't ever really talked to Wyatt Andrews on the few occasions she'd seen him. She had learned to not waste her time or her attention on a man with a death wish.
"If you marry ol' Howard, you might wish accountants died sooner," Rita warned her, her pale blue eyes glinting with laughter. "He might bore you to death."
Fiona would rather be bored than scared to death. And what her younger brother had told her moments earlier on the phone had scared her to death—or at least to outrage. She wasn't mad at him, though. She knew who'd put that outrageous, dangerous idea in his head: Wyatt Andrews.
Since he had become her brother's mentor six years ago, he'd had too much influence on Matthew's life. Now he was even endangering Matthew's life, or at the very least his future.
That was why she had to see Wyatt Andrews again. Why she had to have a real conversation with him. Her temper reignited, and she spun back toward the door.
But before Fiona could get away, Rita asked another question. "So if you're not going to date him and you're not going to sell him an insurance policy, why do you have to see this fireman?"
"To tell him to mind his own damn business!"
"Anybody ever tell you to mind your own damn business?"
Wyatt Andrews chuckled. Then he raised his hands, palms up, from the weights he'd been lifting. "Hey, it was just a suggestion!"
"That I need to get laid?"
Wyatt laughed harder at the outrage in his friend's deep voice. Captain Braden Zimmer glared at him from across the firehouse workout room. It was all whitewashed cement block, no mirrors, no fancy mats. It was a serious room—because they had to be in serious shape. Their lives depended on it.
"You're the one who admitted you're all tense and edgy," Wyatt reminded him.
A muscle twitched along Braden's jaw, and he ran a hand over his brush-cut brown hair. It was still wet from his shower; he'd just finished working out when Wyatt had hit the gym. "Yeah, that's the way I get when there's a fire out there."
"But there isn't a fire." At least not one big enough for the forest service's elite unit of firefighters to have been called. Wildfire season hadn't even officially started yet. So the Huron Hotshots twenty-member team wasn't together yet. Just the firefighters who worked the off-season out of the Northern Lakes firehouse—he, Braden and a couple of other guys.
Braden glanced at the cell phone he clutched in one hand—probably checking for a missed call.
"The alarm would have gone off," Wyatt pointed out.
"I sent Dawson out to check for smoldering campsites."
"It's too early for camping. Too cold at night…" He shivered at the thought.
"There are some die-hard campers," Braden reminded him. "And they're the ones who build the biggest fires."
"If there was a big fire, Dawson would have called," he pointed out.
Braden shrugged. "Maybe the fire's just getting started."
"Maybe you need something else to focus on besides your job," Wyatt suggested. "Like a woman." Braden glared at him again. "That's the last thing I need. And who the hell are you to talk? I don't see you in a relationship."
Wyatt shuddered. "God, no."
A relationship was the last thing he wanted. Every guy he'd worked with who had settled down with a wife and kids had eventually left the job. Or in Braden's case, the wife had left him.
"That's the whole point, Captain," he told Braden. During the off-season, Braden was the captain of the Northern Lakes Fire Department. During the wildfire season, the retired captain resumed his position in Northern Lakes with a team of new forest service firefighter recruits, and Braden became superintendent of the Huron Hotshots team. In both positions, Wyatt was his assistant—one of two for the Hotshots and the only assistant for Northern Lakes. He was his professional wingman. Maybe it was time to make that personal, too. "You just got divorced. You don't want a relationship. You just want to have some fun."
"Fun?" Braden snorted with derision.
"You must've been married too long if you don't think sex is fun anymore." Another reason Wyatt never intended to get serious with anyone. Serious equaled boring.
Braden gave him another look. It wasn't a glare. It was more a pitying glance. Then he shook his head.
"What?" Wyatt asked. Nobody had ever pitied him before. Envied? Hell, yeah. Pitied? Never.
"You have no idea what you're talking about," Braden told him.
And nobody had ever accused Wyatt of not knowing women. "I don't know what the hell you're talking about." And he truly had no idea.
"Random sexual encounters don't sound fun," Braden explained. "They sound sad and empty."
Wyatt laughed, but it echoed oddly in the weight room, sounding hollow and uncertain. It wasn't as if Braden was getting to him. It wasn't as if Wyatt was about to question the lifestyle he'd chosen. He shook off those niggling doubts and laughed harder.
"You've been out of the game too long," Wyatt said. "You've forgotten what it's like to be single."
"Unfortunately I haven't…" Braden sighed. "I'm going to my office to make some calls. See if there's anything out there."
He knew the captain was talking about fires. But he chose to be obtuse. "I'll show you what's out there," he offered. "I'm going to finish a few more reps before I hit the showers. Then I'll take you out on the town." Not that the village of Northern Lakes was much of a town. It was a resort area, though, and quite the party town during tourist season. "And I'll show you what you've been missing."
Braden laughed now. "You're the one who has no idea what you've been missing." His laughter continued, growing fainter as he walked out of the weight room.
Wyatt didn't get guys like Braden. The captain should have known better than anyone that the job and marriage didn't mix. And now that it was over, Braden needed to just move on instead of dwelling on it. Wyatt had never had any problem walking away after spending some time with a woman. But he'd been careful to date the right kind of woman—the kind who only wanted a good time, too. He steered clear—very clear—of women who wanted commitment. Because commitments led to marriage and ultimatums and heartbreak.
He shuddered again. Then he focused on the weights, lifting with renewed energy. Braden wasn't the only one who was feeling edgy. But at least Wyatt knew why he was. He'd been having some trouble finding those fun-loving girls. Of course, it wasn't tourist season yet.
It had been a long winter with spring just breaking through now. But it was a dry spring, which was conducive to fires—especially west of where they were based in northeastern Michigan. The Hotshots traveled the US and Canada, dropping in where they were needed to fight fires. Just as there was a tourist season in Northern Lakes, there was also a fire season. Usually the first fires started out west, where it was driest.
Maybe Braden was right.
Maybe there was something out there, just getting started.
Over his grunts, he caught the sound of footsteps against the cement floor of the weight room. Maybe Braden had realized he was right.
"Sheesh," he remarked without stopping his reps, "you must be super tense and edgy. You can't even wait until I'm finished, you want to get laid so badly."
He waited for Braden's laugh. No matter how glum the guy had been since his wife had left him, that was no excuse for losing his sense of humor. And Wyatt was damn funny. He even uttered a laugh at his own joke.
But it echoed off the cement walls with that same weird hollow sound. While he had only been razzing his friend to get him out of the funk Braden had been in since his divorce, Wyatt knew his joke had fallen flat. He settled the bar onto the bench rest and sat up, ready to be serious. He was a good listener—which he'd proven to Braden plenty when the captain's marital problems had begun.
He was also a good adviser when he wasn't being a smart-ass. He had a bachelor's degree in psychology and plenty of experience as a mentor for the county's youth services division. "I'm—" He swallowed the apology he'd been about to make and nearly swallowed his tongue, as well.
Braden wasn't the one who'd walked into the weight room. This person's green-eyed glare was far more lethal than the captain's. Fiona O'Brien stood before him—all fiery red hair and outrage.
"What the hell did you just say to me?" she demanded, her voice raspy with indignation.
He could have explained. He should have, really.
But on the few occasions he had seen Fiona O'Brien over the years, he'd never seen her like this. Oh, she'd glared at him before, but with more benign disdain—like a cat staring down at the puppy pissing on the carpet. Now her face was so flushed her freckles had disappeared into her complexion. And her body—which she insisted on concealing with businesslike suits—trembled with her temper. She'd always acted so cold and snobby around him that he hadn't thought she was capable of such passion. And he'd considered her good looks wasted on an empty, emotionless shell.
He'd had no idea what she'd been hiding beneath that flawless, impervious surface.
"What did I say?" He paraphrased her question as he jumped up from the weight bench and closed the distance between them. She stepped back, stumbling slightly on her high heels.
She might have only been wearing the heels because she was petite and wanted the extra height. Or maybe she wore them because they made her legs look longer, toned and sexy as hell. The beige suit couldn't hide her curves, either—not when the skirt was snug and ended above her knees.
Her eyes widened briefly in surprise at his nearness, but then narrowed in another glare. "You know what you said."
"That you must be really tense and edgy," he repeated the words he'd meant for his boss.
He should have pointed out that he'd had no way of knowing she was the one who'd walked into the weight room. He couldn't imagine why she had stopped by the firehouse at all. She had never gone out of her way to speak to him those few times they'd previously met. So why had she driven across town to seek him out now?
He wanted to know that. But he couldn't resist seeing just how much passion lurked beneath that beautiful surface. So he stepped closer to her as he said the rest, as if he meant the words for her, "You can't even wait until I'm finished, you want to get laid so badly."
His head snapped back as her hand connected—hard—with his face. His skin stung from the force of her slap. While she was petite, she packed a wallop. That wasn't quite the way he'd wanted to test her passion. So he jerked her up against him and lowered his head.
