Flashpoint

“Mary’s temp is here,” Zach said into the general chaos. “Brooke O’Brien, everyone.”

People gave a quick wave, one or two even quicker smiles, and kept moving. Zach squeezed her shoulder as he headed to the door, once again a simple touch from him giving her a jolt. “See you around, New Hire Number Seven.” And just like that, he was gone.

They were all gone.

Yeah. Definitely still the new kid.

Chapter 2

BROOKE SPENT that night walking through the three-story Victorian her grandmother had so unexpectedly left her, marveling that it was in her name now. She’d never met Lucille O’Brien, who’d been estranged from her only child, Brooke’s mother, Karen, so it’d been a shock to everyone when Brooke had been contacted by an attorney and given the details of Lucille’s will.

As she’d been warned by the attorney, every room was indeed filled to the brim with…stuff. For Brooke, for whom everything she owned could fit into her car, this accumulation of stuff boggled the mind. All of it would have to go in order to sell the house, but she didn’t know where to start. Her mother had been no help, wanting nothing to do with any of it, not even willing to come West to look.

But Brooke was glad she’d come. If nothing else, being in Santa Rey, experiencing that inexplicably over-the-top attraction to Zach, staying here in the only place her family had any history at all, gave her a sense that she might actually have a shot at things she’d never dared dream about before.

She finally decided to go top to bottom and headed to the attic. There she went to the first pile she came to and found a stack of photo boxes that unexpectedly snagged her by the throat. The way she’d grown up hadn’t allowed for much sentimentality. None of her few belongings included keepsakes like photos. She’d told herself over the years that it didn’t matter. She liked to be sentiment light.

But flipping through boxes and boxes of pictures, she realized that was only because she hadn’t known any different. Karen and Lucy hadn’t spoken in years, since back when Brooke had been a baby, so she hadn’t known her grandmother, or how the woman felt about her. But some of the pictures were from the early 1900s and continued through her grandmother’s entire life, enthralling Brooke in a way she hadn’t expected.

She had a past, and flipping through it made her feel good, and also sad for all she didn’t know. She and her mother weren’t close. In fact, Karen lived in Ohio at the moment, with an artist and wasn’t in touch often, but now Brooke wished she could just pick up a phone and share this experience.

That she had anyone to pick up a phone and call…

She fell asleep just like that, surrounded by her past, only to wake with a jerk, the sun slanting in the small window high above her. She had two pictures stuck to one cheek, drool on the other. She’d been dreaming about the big house, filled with memories of her own making.

Was that what she secretly wished for? For this house to represent her roots?

Was that what she needed to feed her own happiness?

She glanced at her watch and then panicked. Tossing off the dream and the photos, she raced through her morning routine, barely getting a shower before rushing out the door, desperate not to be late on her first day at work.

The hammock by the firehouse was empty, and she ignored the little twinge of disappointment at not getting to gawk at Zach again. Not that she was going to gawk. Nope, she was going to be one hundred percent professional. And with that, she stepped inside.

“Well, look at you. You really came back.”

Danger, danger…sexy firefighter alert. Slowly she turned and looked at him, thinking, Please don’t be as hot as I remember, please don’t be as hot as I remember—

Shit.

He was as hot as she remembered. He didn’t look tired this morning. Instead, the corners of his mouth were turned up, and his eyes—cheerful and wide-awake—slid over her, making her very aware of the fact that while she might have a little crush going, it was most definitely, absolutely, a two-way thing.

Which didn’t help at all.

“Guys,” he called out over his shoulder. “She’s here.”

“Number Seven showed?” This from a tall, dark and extremely drool-worthy firefighter in the doorway to the kitchen.

“Meet Aidan,” Zach said to Brooke. “He dated New Hire Number Two and she never came back, so he has orders to stay clear.”

“Hey, I didn’t plan on the shellfish giving her food poisoning,” Aidan said in his own defense. “But just in case…” He flashed a smile at Brooke, a killer smile that rivaled Zach’s. “We’d better not go out for shellfish.”

Several more men crowded into the hallway to take a look. Yeah, they really did make them good-looking here. Must be the fresh sea air. “Hi,” she said, waving. “Brooke O’Brien.”

The bell rang, and everyone groaned, their greeting getting lost as they headed for their gear.

“Aidan and I roll together,” Zach said, stepping into his boots. “With Cristina and Blake.” He gestured to two additional firefighters, the first a tough-looking beautiful blond woman who smiled, the other, male, tall and lanky, not smiling.

Zach shook his head. “Or, as we call Blake, Eeyore.”

Okay. Brooke wasn’t smiling, either, so she put one on now, but it was too late; they’d turned away.

“You’re with Dustin,” Zach called back.

Dustin, who looked like Harry Potter The Grown-Up Years, complete with glasses, raised his hand. “We’re the two EMTs on this shift. Nice to meet you. Hope you orientate fast.”

She hoped so, too.

Dustin gestured to the door, nodding to the two firefighters not moving. “This is Sam and Eddie. Their rig wasn’t called, so they get to stay here and watch Oprah and eat bonbons.”

They took the ribbing with a collective flip of their middle fingers, then vanished back down the hall.

“Actually, they’re scheduled to go to the middle school on Ninth this morning and give a fire safety and prevention speech to the kids,” Dustin told her with a grin. “They’ll eat their bonbons later. Let’s hit it, New Hire Seven. It’s a Code Calico.”

“Code Calico?”

But he was already moving to the door that led directly to the garage and the rigs.

Cristina brushed past Brooke and set her mug in the sink. “Good luck.”

“Am I going to need it?”

“With Dustin, our resident McDweeb? Oh, yeah, you’re going to need it.”

“What’s a Code Calico?”

Cristina merely laughed, which did nothing to ease Brooke’s nerves.

Blake poked his head back in the door. He’d pulled on his outer fire gear, which looked slightly too big on his very lean form. “Hey, New Hire. Hit it means hit it.”

So she did what was expected of her—she hit it. Dustin drove, while she took the shotgun position. “So really, what’s a Code Calico?”

Dustin navigated the streets with a familiar sort of ease that told her he knew what he was doing, not even glancing at the GPS system. “Want to take it?”

“Take it?”

“Be point on the call.” He glanced at her. “The one in charge.”

She sensed it was a test. She aced tests, always had. That was the analness in her, she supposed. “Sure.”

He pushed up his glasses and nodded, but she’d have sworn his lips twitched.

Huh. Definitely missing something.

When they pulled onto a wide, affluent, oak-lined street, she hopped out and opened the back doors of the rig.

“Gurney’s not necessary on this one,” Dustin told her.

Behind the ambulance came the fire truck. Zach and the others appeared, smiling.

Why were they all smiling?

Before she could dwell on that, from between the two trucks came an old woman, yelling and waving her cane. “Hurry! Hurry before Cecile falls!”

The panic in her voice was real, and Brooke’s heart raced just as Dustin nudged her forward, whispering in her ear, “All yours.”

This was the job, and suddenly in her element, her nerves took a backseat. Here, she could help; here, she could run the show. “It’s okay, ma’am. We’re here now.”

“Well, then, get to it! Get my Cecile!”

“Where is she? In the house?”

“No!” She looked very shaky and not a little off her rocker, so Brooke tried to steer her to the curb to sit down, but she wasn’t having it.

“I’m not sitting anywhere! Not until you get Cecile!”

“Okay, just tell me where she is and I’ll—”

“Oh, good Lord!” The woman blinked through her thick-rimmed glasses, taking a quick look at the others, who stood back, watching. “She’s another new hire, isn’t she?”

“Yes,” Brooke said. “But—”

“What number are you?”

Brooke sighed. “Seven.”

“Well, get a move on, New Hire Number Seven! Save my Cecile!”

“I’m trying, ma’am. What’s your name?”

“Phyllis, but Cecile—”

“Right. Needs my help. Where is she?”

“That’s what I’m trying to tell you!” The woman jerked her cane upward, to a huge tree in front of them. Waaaay up in that tree, on a branch stretched out over their heads, perched a cat.

A big, fat cat, plaintively wailing away.

Brooke turned and eyeballed Dustin, who seemed to be fascinated by his own feet, and that’s when she got it. She was going through some ridiculously juvenile rite of passage. “I’m beginning to see how they got to number seven.” Good thing she was used to being the newbie, because she hadn’t been kidding Zach yesterday. Little scared her, and certainly not a damn cat in a damn tree.

“Hurry up!” Phyllis demanded. “Before she falls!”

“I’ll get her.” Zach had separated from the others and walked toward the tree.

Oh, no.

Hell, no.

They’d wanted to see her do this, they were absolutely going to see her do this.

“Brooke—”

“No.” She kept her eyes on Phyllis. “Cecile is a cat,” she clarified, because there was no sense in making a total and complete fool of herself if it wasn’t absolutely necessary.

“Yes,” Phyllis verified.

Okay, it was going to be absolutely necessary. Damn, she hated that.

By now, Barbie Firefighter Cristina was out-and-out grinning. Cutie Firefighter Aidan was smiling. Harry Potter look-alike Dustin was, too. Not Eeyore, though. Nope, Blake was far more serious than the others, she could already tell, though she’d have sworn there was some amusement shining in his gaze.

Zach was either wiser, or maybe he simply had more control, but his lips weren’t curved as he watched her. Quiet. Aware. Speculative.

Sexy as hell, damn him. Fine. Seemed she had a lot to prove to everyone. Well, she was good at that, too, and she stepped toward the tree.

“Brooke—”

She put a finger in his face, signaling Don’t You Dare, and something flashed in his eyes.

Respect? Yeah, but something else, too, something much more base, which would have most definitely set off one of their trademark chain reactions of sparks along her central nervous system, if she hadn’t been about to climb a damn tree. “I can do this,” she said.

His eyes approved, and even though she didn’t want it to, that approval washed through her.

So did that sizzling heat they had going on.

Oh, he was good. With that charisma oozing from his every pore, he could no doubt charm the panties off just about any woman.

But though it had been a while since anyone had charmed Brooke’s panties off, she wasn’t just any woman.

Reminding herself of that, she stepped toward the tree.

Chapter 3

ZACH WATCHED how Brooke handled herself and something inside him reacted. He didn’t know her, not yet, not really, other than that they had some serious almost chemical-like attraction going, but she was crew, and as such, she was family.

Except he felt decidedly un-family-like toward her. Nope, nothing in him looking at her felt brotherly.

Not one little bit.

The gang was being hard on her, there was no doubt of that, but he’d seen many new hires hazed over the years—six in the past few weeks—and it had never bothered him.

Until now. This bothered him. She bothered him, in a surprising way. A man-to-woman way, though that wasn’t the surprise. It was that he felt it here, at work.

People came in and out of his life on a daily basis. It was the nature of the beast, that beast being fire. Every day he dealt with the destruction it caused, and what it did to people’s existence. Hell, he’d even experienced it in the most personal way one could, when he’d lost his own parents to a tragic fire. He coped by knowing he made a difference, that he helped keep that beast back when he could.

What also helped were the constants in his life, and since the loss of his mom and dad at age ten, those constants were his crew. Aidan, his partner and brother of his heart. Eddie and Sam, fellow surfers. Dustin, resident clown, a guy who gave one hundred percent of himself, always, which usually landed him in Heartbreak City. Blake, whom he’d gone to high school with and who’d lost his firefighting partner Lynn in a tragic fire last year, a guy who’d give a perfect stranger the heavy yellow jacket off his back. Even Cristina, a woman in a man’s world, who was willing to kick anyone’s ass to show she belonged in it. All of them held a piece of Zach’s heart.

For better, for worse, through thick and thin, they were each other’s one true, solid foundation. They meant everything to him.

But the emergency community they lived in was a lot like the cozy little town of Santa Rey itself—small and quirky, no secrets need apply. Everyone knew that the constant gossip and ribbing between the crew members acted as stress relief from a job that had an element of danger every time they went out. Zach had always considered it harmless. But looking at it from Brooke’s perspective, that ribbing must feel like mockery.

She dropped her bag to the ground and walked to the tree.

She was going to climb it for the cat. And hell if that didn’t do something for him. He didn’t interfere—she was Dustin’s partner, not his—but he wanted to. The chief would have a coronary, of course, but the chief wasn’t there throwing the rule book around as he liked to do. Zach wasn’t much for rules or restrictions, himself, or for drawing lines in the sand—which hadn’t helped his career any. Nor did he make a habit of stretching his emotional wings and adding personal ties to his life. How many women had told him over the years that he wouldn’t know a real relationship if it bit him on the ass?

Too many to count.

And yet he felt an emotional tie now, watching Brooke simply do her job. It shouldn’t have been sexy, but it was. She was sexy, even in the regulation EMT uniform of dark blue trousers and a white button-down shirt, with a Santa Rey EMT vest over the top, the outfit made complete by the required steel-toed boots.

She made him hot. He thought maybe it was the perfectly folded-back sleeves and careful hair twist that got him. Her hair was gorgeous, a shiny strawberry blond, her coloring as fair as her hair dictated. He knew after any time in the sun—and in Santa Rey, sun was the only weather they got—she’d probably freckle across that nose she liked to tip up to nosebleed heights. She was petite, smallboned, even fragile-looking, and yet he’d bet his last dollar she was strong as hell, strong enough for that tree.

She looked up at the lowest branch, utter concentration on her face. A face that showed her emotions, probably whether she wanted it to or not. It was those wide, expressive baby-blue eyes, he knew. They completely slayed him.

She put her hands on the trunk of the tree and gave it a shake, testing it. Nodding to herself, still eyeing the cat as if she’d rather be facing a victim who was bleeding out than the howling feline on the branch twenty feet above her, she drew a deep breath.

Unbelievable. She was slightly anal, slightly obsessive and more than slightly adorable.

And she had guts. He liked that. He liked her. She was taking his mind off his frustration over the Hill Street fire and Tommy’s investigation. But while his career was shaky at the moment, hers was not, and she was going to climb that damn tree if no one stopped her. “Dustin.”

Cristina shushed him. Blake, the one of them who couldn’t stand to see anything suffer, even before losing Lynn last year, shot her an annoyed look. Zach leaned toward Dustin. “Stop her.”

“On it.” The EMT stepped forward and put his hand on Brooke’s shoulder, saying something that Zach couldn’t quite catch, though he had no problem reading her expression.

Relief that she didn’t really have to climb the tree.

Embarrassment that she’d let them all fool her.

And a flash of a temper that made him smile. Good. She might be reserved, but she wasn’t a doormat.

Aidan grabbed the ladder. Zach helped him. As he passed a brooding Brooke, their eyes met before he climbed the ladder to reach Cecile.

Yeah, quiet and reserved, maybe, but also a little pissed. So was Cecile, but she was one female he could soothe, at least, and when he brought the cat to Phyllis, he had to smile.

Brooke had the older woman sitting on the curb and was attempting to check her vitals, which Phyllis didn’t appear to appreciate.

“Ma’am,” Brooke said, “you have an elevated blood pressure.”

“Well, of course I do. I’m eighty-eight.”

Brooke lifted her stethoscope, but Phyllis pushed it away. “I don’t need—Cecile! Give me my baby, Zachie!”

Blowing a loose strand of hair from her face, Brooke gave Zach a look. “Zachie?”

“Small town.” With a half-embarrassed shrug, he handed the cat to Phyllis.

“I used to change his diapers,” Phyllis told her, and patted Zach’s cheek with fingers gnarled by arthritis. “You’re a good boy. Your mother would be so proud of you.”

He’d found it best not to respond to these types of statements from Phyllis, because if he did, she’d keep him talking about his family forever, and he didn’t like to talk about them. He thought about them every day, and that was enough. “I thought we decided you were going to keep Cecile inside.”

“No, you decided, but she hates being cooped up.” She nuzzled the cat. “So how’s all your ladies, Zachie? Still falling at your feet?”

Brooke arched a brow but Zach just smiled. “You’re my number-one lady, Phyllis, you know that.” Her color wasn’t great, plus her breathing was off, which worried him. She’d probably forgotten to pick up her meds again. He crouched at her side and took her hand. “You’re taking your pills, right?”

She bent her head to Cecile’s, her blue hair bouncing in the breeze. “Oh, well. You know.”

With a sigh, he reached for Brooke’s blood pressure cuff. “May I?”

Their fingers brushed as she put it in his hand, and again he felt that electric current zing him, but as hot as that little zap was, he didn’t take his gaze off Phyllis. “You know the drill,” he said, gently wrapping the cuff around her arm as above him he heard Brooke say to Dustin, “So did I pass the test?”

“Yep. Nice job, New Hire Seven.”

“You’ve got to keep the cat inside,” Zach said to Phyllis, handing back the blood pressure cuff to Brooke, making sure to touch her, testing their connection. Yep, still there. “Cecile’s not safe out here, Phyllis.”

“She’s safe now.”

“Yes.” With effort, he shifted his mind off Brooke and focused on Phyllis. “We have a new chief.”

“Yes, of course. Allan Stone. Santa Rey born and raised, back 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.