Not as big a part as my mother wanted of course and that was why I was here. One Sunday a month I was summoned back for lunch, whether I wanted to come or not. Stella Smith didn’t care whether it was convenient or that I was coming off a night shift. She wanted me home and that was that. I’d decided not to argue about it this month. I’d just left the radio station, where I was the overnight DJ Friday, Saturday, and Sunday night, at the end of my shift and made the two-hour drive south. My quick departure meant my long brown hair was in a messy bun on top of my head and my outfit was nothing more than a promotional tank top from the radio station and jean shorts. With luck, I’d be able to take a nap for a couple of hours before lunch and change before anyone but my family clapped eyes on me.
I turned down Banksia Street and left the panoramic view behind me. I was a mile from home. The house would smell like toast from breakfast and coffee. My mother would be peeling potatoes or whipping up some delicious cake for dessert. If I wasn’t so exhausted, I’d be looking forward to it.
Banksia Street was a tree-lined avenue that seemed strangely at odds with its coastal location and its name, for there was not a banksia in sight. In autumn, the oaks shed their leaves and it became a riot of color, but it was late summer, so they formed a canopy of green. It was hot already, and the temperatures should reach a hundred degrees later. You can’t work in radio and not hear the weather at least twice an hour.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw something shiny and low. A quick flash coming onto the road. Not a quick flash, a small child on a tricycle. Crap. I needed to.
Brake. Brake. Brake.
I must have really banged my head because the next thing I knew a bare-chested man with the most delicious eyelashes and deep dark eyes was staring down at me. Holy guacamole, he was smoking hot.
“You’re back.” His voice was deep and rich and kind. “That’s good.”
“Back from where?”
He leaned in my car window and rubbed a thumb gently across my forehead. “You blacked out. Bumped your head.”
I looked up. The front of my car was slammed into a tree, mainly on the driver’s side, and steam was rising from beneath the hood.
“Sit tight. Try not to move,” the hot guy said.
He rounded the car and slid into my passenger seat. “I’m Campbell.”
“Saffy.” I hated telling people my name. I hated my name in fact, but what could I do? Technically, I could change it, but my mother would kill me. So that was the name I had to use.
“Okay, so I think your legs are a little wedged in there, but help is on its way.”
“You’re not help?”
“More help.” He smiled. “Meanwhile, I’ll just sit with you until the ambulance and fire department get here.”
“Is it that bad?” Then I remembered. The toddler. Oh no! “Did I hit the bike, the little kid?”
He gave me a reassuring smile. And squeezed my arm, gently. “No, no, you did great. You swerved and missed him entirely. His mother nearly had a heart attack but for all the good reasons.”
“Thank goodness.” I let out a breath I didn’t know I was holding.
“Where does it hurt? Apart from the head?” sexy Campbell asked me.
I took an inventory. “My wrist is really sore, and I can’t move my feet out. Is there blood? I faint when I see blood, especially my own.” Panic rose up in my throat.
Mr. Sexy went upside down in the seat beside me so all I could see was the fine muscles of his back. His muffled voice came up. “It’s okay, your feet are wedged in, but they look good, not damaged. Wriggle your toes.”
They moved. They hurt but hallelujah for movement. “Good job.”
His head reappeared, and he smiled at me. His eyes snaked up my body. I suspected he was checking for injuries not checking me out. That smile was . . . wow. “No blood.”
“What about Beryl? Do you think she’ll be okay?”
He looked into the back of the car, confusion clouding his face. “You’re the only one in the car. I didn’t see Beryl.”
“Beryl is the car,” I explained.
“You named your car Beryl?”
“Yeah, it’s a little old lady car, and I thought that was a good little old lady name.”
He laughed. “You got that right. Well, Beryl might not make it, but we’ll let my buddies from the firehouse work that out.”
“You know the firemen?”
I heard sirens wailing and getting louder. “I am a fireman.”
Well, if you had to crash your car on a Sunday morning, having a hot, shirtless fireman come to your rescue wasn’t the worst thing ever.
“How come you’re not in uniform?”
He looked down and suddenly realized he was half naked. “Oh yeah, sorry. I was jogging down to the beach for a swim when I saw your accident. So even though I’m not dressed like a professional, I am one, sit tight, try not to move, and I’ll take care of you.”
The wail of the sirens grew and then came to an abrupt stop. The cavalry was here.
“Will you stay with me?” I asked. He was calm, he was comforting, and sadly, this was the closest thing I’d had to a date in eighteen months.
“Of course.”
The thing about growing up in a small town is you know everyone. I knew the Fire Chief because he and my dad played golf together, and I was pretty sure the ambulance would include one of my sister’s exes and at least another guy we went to high school with, but I didn’t know Campbell. He must be new to town.
“Saffy?” Chief Duggan peered into the window.
“Hey, Chief,” I said in my most optimistic voice.
He looked over at Campbell and glowered at his appearance.
Campbell didn’t seem bothered. “First on the scene. Saw the whole thing.”
“Oh. Good, well, that was lucky for you, Saffy. We call Cam here the golden boy. Nothing to worry about with him around.”
I arched my brow. “Golden boy?”
He blushed. How adorable was that? A grown man blushing. “Everyone has a nickname, and sadly, you don’t get to choose.”
“My name is Sapphire, I understand.”
“Sapphire. Oh, you’re one of the Jewel Sisters?” His eyes popped a little.
“Guilty.”
“Yeah, Golden Boy, you just saved one of the Jewel Sisters. Get ready for a ride.”
Let me explain. My mother is a member of the founding families of Caudal Bay. She’s always fancied herself as Bay royalty. One of her relatives had named the bay. He’d stopped at the top of the hill above the bay and observed that the bay was shaped like the tail fin of a fish, the Caudal fin, and hence, the town was named. He was a scientist and a fisherman, my mother liked to say. And a man with vision, otherwise, I’d have grown up in Tail Fin Bay. Smith was way too dull a name for Stella, so she came upon the idea to name each of her children after an exotic jewel. Lucky for everyone, she kept having girls, because as bad as it is to be called Emerald, Sapphire, Ruby, and Amethyst, it would be far, far worse to be a boy called Topaz, wouldn’t it?
Around town we became known as the Jewel Sisters, which I suppose was cute when we were toddlers but now having my mother describe us constantly as “The jewels in her crown” is cloying to say the least. Still, there’s no stopping Stella. The woman has the will of an army general and her finger in every pie in town. And now that we’re all still single and in our twenties, avoiding the Jewel Sisters is a good idea for men everywhere because Stella is on a matchmaking mission.
“Sorry.” I shrugged. “Feel free to leave now.”
“You’re not going anywhere, Golden Boy. We’re going to have to have someone in there with Saffy, and you’re already there.” Chief Duggan had other plans.
“It’s fine.” He gave me that smile again. “I wasn’t leaving anyway. So, Saffy, that’s short for Sapphire, huh? I should have guessed.” I gave him a nod. “And you’re the one that got away?”
Huh? “Sorry?”
&nbs
p; “The sister that bravely made her escape and left town.”
“That’s me. Thank goodness this happened here and not in the big bad city,” I joked. My mother was hell-bent on getting me home. The city couldn’t stand too many more strikes against it.
People were moving around the car, and someone handed him an ice pack for my head. “I’ll hold it in place. So, what do you do up in the big city?”
I told him about my job as the weekend overnight DJ for 2CLC. “That’s City Life Country. It’s a terrible name, and we have almost no listeners, but we are the number one country music station in Sydney. We’re also the only country music station.”
“Do you like country music?” he asked, his dark eyes searching my face and scanning my body again. I felt rather warm despite the ice pack.
“I do, I mean, I’m not a crazy fan or anything, but I do. I like most music. I also work as a PA for Ryan Storm a couple of days a week.”
“Ryan Storm the huge country star?”
I gave him a nod. “It’s a long story, but I help him out with his local stuff, even though most of it happens in Nashville.”
“Wow, you’re a busy girl.”
“Oh yeah, and I also work the bar at a local sailing club a couple of nights a week.”
“That’s a lot of work.”
“Sydney rentals are expensive, and I’m trying to build a nest egg and . . . anyway, sorry, I’m rambling.”
“Ramble away.”
I looked out the window and saw a crowd forming. No doubt the crowd included several of my relatives, but they’d been kept back so I couldn’t see too well. “Do you know any of my sisters?”
“I know Amy from the hospital. And I think I met Ruby once at a party. I haven’t been in town long, maybe six weeks. No Emerald sightings as of yet.”
That explains how news of his hotness hadn’t reached me yet. When a hot guy like this moved to town, it was big news. Huge.
“Do you like it? The town I mean?” I couldn’t quite understand anyone choosing to move here having spent my entire life trying to escape but to each their own.
“It’s growing on me.”
“Yeah, like a vine, don’t let it suffocate you.”
“Spoken like a true exile,” he said with a grin.
The chief leaned down and told him something, and he gave a nod. “So, they’re going to spring into action now. I don’t think Beryl is going to like how they treat her, but we’re doing our best to make sure you get out of here as unscathed as possible.”
“Okay.”
“Just warn me if there’s blood. I used to think I was going to be a vet, but then that plan needed to change.”
I heard the whirl of a loud saw. “And it’s going to get loud.”
“What?”
He leaned in super close. His beautiful mouth was inches from mine. I could see the muscle on his jaw tick. “It’s going to get loud, Saffy. Hang on.” And then he used his forehead to hold the ice pack in place so we were nose-to-nose and covered my ears with his large hands to block the noise. My whole body went tingly. Yep, not the worst rescuer in the world.
I was okay, but poor old Beryl was being cut in two. A small tear slid down my cheek. Beryl had been my first car, and we’d had some adventures together. The thought of her being sliced by saws broke my heart. It felt harsh to think “better Beryl than me” even if that was true. Campbell wiped my tear with the pad of his thumb and mouthed, “It’s okay.”
And then it was over, and I was being carefully extricated from my poor dead car and lifted onto a gurney. The police were having a hard time keeping the crowd behind the line. The crowd consisted, I could see now, of half the town, including my mother and my sisters Amy and Ruby. They were the yin to each other’s yang. Amy was tall, blonde, and willowy, favoring the Smith genes, and little Ruby had the dark curls and curves of our mother Stella. Stella was screaming my name. It was like A Streetcar Named Desire in reverse. She was Marlon Brando.
The paramedic Miles, who was indeed one of Amy’s exes, looked down at me with pity.
“You want me to wheel you over there.” He kind of winced at the idea.
“I think I have to take one for the team. Once she sees I’m okay, surely she’ll calm down.” My mother’s flair for the dramatic was legendary, so neither of us was sure that it would indeed calm her down, but it couldn’t hurt.
Campbell was still hovering over me. A warm hand on my arm. It looked like he was in for the long haul.
When we got close to the crowd, my mother wailed. “Saffy. You’re alive.”
“I’m fine, Mum. Some bumps, some bruises, and maybe a break or two, that’s all.”
“That’s all! It’s because you were too tired working in the city. It’s too much.”
Campbell cut her off. He knew not who he was dealing with. “Actually, Saffy swerved to avoid a toddler in the street. She’s a hero.”
My mother let her gaze fall on Campbell. She was both annoyed by him and delighted. At last, a hot man hovering over her dateless daughter. “How do you know? And who are you?”
“I saw the incident, ma’am, and I’m Campbell Williams. I’m a fireman.”
“Without a shirt.”
“Off duty,” I said.
My sister Amy leaned into the fray, fluttering her lashes at him. “Hi, Cam.”
“Hi, Amy.” His tone was neutral. I heard Miles let out a low groan. Okay, Amy wanted Cam and Miles was not over Amy. My mother was hysterical, and all of a sudden, I wanted to get in that ambulance and fast.
“We should go,” I said to Miles.
“We will.”
“I’m coming with you,” my mother announced.
“Actually, you’re not. Cam is coming with me. If you want to help me, can you get my bag out of the car and bring it to the hospital, please, Mum?”
“I’m your mother.”
“I know, that’s why I want you to get it. I don’t trust just anyone with my stuff.” I gave Ruby and Amy pointed looks. They’d steal half my wardrobe before I made it to the hospital. “And then maybe you could bring me a nice coffee, Mum. I was really looking forward to having one at your place with you.”
Okay, I was laying it on a bit thick, but she liked that. It soothed her. “Okay, darling, if you insist.”
And just like that, Miles, shirtless Cam, and I were in the ambulance and on our way.
“So, you and Amy, huh?” Miles asked Cam.
“There’s no me and Amy, Miles. There’s me over here and her over there.”
“She likes you.”
“Nah, she’s just trying to get you all worked up. She normally ignores me.”
I didn’t add that she might have been trying to get me worked up too. Amy and I have a bad history with boyfriends. By that I mean, all the boys liked Amy and so she dated pretty much every guy I ever crushed on in high school.
“Are you sure?” Miles looked skeptical.
“Absolutely.” And then Cam turned that megawatt smile on me. “How are you going? You were very brave.”
“You mean speaking to my family?”
He let out a low laugh.
“Nah, I mean in the car. I’m sorry about Beryl, may she rest in peace.” I didn’t want to think about Beryl. “And I meant what I said to your mother, your quick instincts saved that kid’s life.”
“Saffy always was my favorite Jewel Sister,” Miles added.
“You lie, Miles.” I gave his hand a squeeze. Everyone knew Amy was the love of his life. “But thanks.”
And then we were at the hospital and I was being whisked away from shirtless Cam and into the Emergency Room.
“He’s a good guy,” Miles yelled to me. Like there was a chance of anything happening there.
Several hours later, I’d been prodded and poked by Caudal Bay Hospital’s finest. I had a cast on my wrist, a huge lump on my head, and the mother of all headaches. Still, that wasn’t reason enough for them to keep me overnight.
“Please
, doctor, there’s no way I’ll get rid of the headache if I go back to my parents’ house,” I pleaded.
He laughed because he was a friend of the family and knew I wasn’t entirely joking. “You’ll be fine, Saffy.”
I would not be fine. I was missing a night’s work, I was being released to the hounds, and I was car-less.
Lucky for me, it was my dad who had stayed behind with me while my mother went home to prepare for my return. My dad was the balm to the irritants of life with my family. He was calm and measured. He was an accountant.
“You did good today, honey. Lacey Abbot, whose son was on that bike, is beside herself that you’re hurt.”
“It was no big thing.” I shrugged.
“It was a very big thing. I’m proud of you.” He leaned in and kissed my forehead.
“Thanks, Daddy.” He put an arm around my shoulder and guided me out to the car. “Do you think you can drive me home tomorrow? Or I can catch a train.”
“You don’t want to give it a few days?”
“Doc says I’m fine, and honestly, I don’t want to jeopardize any of my jobs.”
“You don’t have to work so many jobs, honey.” He pressed the button on his keys to unlock his car.
“Dad, we’ve been over this. I want to work in radio, that’s my dream, and that’s what I’m doing. When I get something full time in the industry, then I’ll quit the other stuff, but until then, this is how it is.”
I lowered myself into the car and hoped that would be the end of it, but when he took the seat behind the wheel, he wasn’t done.
“I love that you’re a hard worker, but I don’t want you to miss out because of it. You do need to have some fun.”
“I have fun.” He looked at me, eyebrows raised. “I do. Dad, can we drop it? My head really does hurt.”
“Okay, but think about it.”
I wasn’t going to do that. I had a plan. A very neat, color-coded five-year plan that would have me working breakfast or drive radio within five years, and I was working the plan. I didn’t need Dad sticking his nose in and messing with my system. After all, I had my mother for that.
Be Mine: Valentine Novellas to Warm The Heart Page 10
