Fire and Love

by Erin Wright

  It wasn’t that Troy didn’t think that a woman could be a reporter; it’d just never crossed his mind that she would be. The stereotypical reporter that Troy had imagined…

  Well, that image was nothing like the woman in front of him, that was for damn sure.

  She’d reached Moose and was now shaking his hand, chatting easily with him as Georgia looked on and glowered possessively. Even as Troy was busy trying to accept the truth of what he was seeing in front of him, he also found his mouth quirking up a bit with humor at the territorial look on Georgia’s face. What, exactly, had happened up at Eagle’s Nest when Moose and Georgia had tried to stay safe from the wildfire raging around them? It sure looked like they’d practiced some mouth-to-mouth resuscitation on each other.

  And then, Penny Roth was walking towards him, and his mind went blank.

  How she’d noticed him over in the corner, sitting on the tailgate of the water truck, accustomed – and expecting – the world to walk right on by, he’d never know. He wasn’t used to being noticed. In fact, he counted on it, so her laser-focused gaze on him as she walked over…he just didn’t know what to think.

  Or perhaps it was the aforementioned 2x4, padded or not. He’d been walloped but good, and he wasn’t quite sure he was breathing.

  “Hi, I’m Penny Roth,” she said again, reaching her hand out to shake his. He was frozen on the tailgate of the water truck, Sparky leaning against his legs and trapping him there even though he should be rising to greet her but moving didn’t seem possible just then, except for his hand – thank God he could move it – so he raised it up and shook hers, and when their palms touched…

  It was like grasping a bolt of lightning. Her gaze flared, as bright and brilliant as her smile, as they locked eyes. “Troy Horvath,” he got out, wanting to hang onto her hand for the next six months or so. Just until he got used to the feeling shooting up his arm. Then he could let go.

  But not a moment before.

  Somehow, though, she seemed to be immune to this overwhelming desire to keep their palms pressed together to feel the electricity arcing between them, and instead pulled her hand out of his, dropping to her knees in front of Sparky to love on her. “Aren’t you a sweetie,” she cooed to Sparky, letting his dog give her face a bath while Sparky’s tail swept up a storm on the dusty cement floor.

  Troy was in shock. Moose was in shock. Levi was in shock. Every person in the room just froze, watching this unfold in front of them.

  Sparky didn’t like anyone except Troy. Not even Moose and Georgia, who’d saved her from the wildfire just two days ago, were freely allowed to pet her. As best as they could figure, she’d been beat by some sadistic son-of-a-bitch and now chose who was allowed within ten feet of her very, very carefully.

  She didn’t give out face baths easily. Hell, Troy’d just gotten his first one from her this morning. And here she was, loving on Penny like they were the best of friends.

  His heart twisted a little at the sight.

  Of course, it was good to see Sparky love someone else other than Troy. He was happy that it was happening. He was just in shock, was all. Nothing more than that.

  “So, you’re the one who saved Georgia from the fire?” the reporter asked, looking up at Troy, her eyes intense as she studied him from her kneeling position on the dirty fire station floor. She didn’t seem to notice that Sparky was shedding white and black hairs all over her skirt and blouse, just like she shed all over everything else she came in close contact with. Troy had given up on being dog-hair free about an hour or so after he’d adopted her; it just wasn’t gonna happen. Was Penny gonna be pissed when she saw where Sparky’s fur was ending up?

  He opened up his mouth to warn her, but decided to answer her question instead. This’d be a good test to see how much she really liked dogs; if she freaked out about having some stray hairs left behind, well, that’d tell him all he needed to know. Unlike Jaxson, Troy didn’t believe he had to bend over backwards to impress the press.

  He balled up his fist where her hand had slid into his, pushing the buzzing electric feeling away.

  “No, not me.” Troy finally managed a reply to her question – embarrassingly slowly but he got there – and jerked his head towards Moose, who’d followed Penny over to the water truck, Georgia trailing along behind him. “He did.”

  “I thought the dog was found up in the fire,” Penny said, her brow knotted with confusion. “How did she end up with you, then?”

  “She likes me,” Troy said simply, shrugging his shoulders. Just like she likes you were the unspoken words left hanging in the air. Sparky loving on someone else…Troy was pretty sure in that moment, he could’ve been knocked flat on his ass with a feather.

  Sparky did another swipe across Penny’s face with her long pink tongue and Penny laughed. “How long have you been a firefighter?” she asked, continuing to pet Sparky as she looked up at him, ignoring the whole supposed reason for her being there – i.e., Moose and Georgia and the wildfire that’d burned hundreds of acres before nature had intervened and had kept the valley from going up in flames. Troy’d gone out on that call, of course, but by time they’d begun their work, nature had already taken pity on them and had reversed course.

  You win some, you lose some, and sometimes, you’re just damn lucky. Georgia had been the one to name Sparky; perhaps she should’ve named her Lucky instead.

  Troy forced himself to focus on Penny’s question. If he kept answering her ten minutes after she asked him something, she was gonna start to think he was slow in the head.

  “All my life, it feels like,” he admitted. “My uncle used to be the head firefighter,” he was choosing his words carefully, as carefully as he ever had, landmines waiting for him at every turn as he did his best to hopscotch across them. “So I began young. But he retired, and Jaxson—” he felt his tongue wanting to seize up but he got the name out without making an ass of himself, “—took over in January.”

  Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Moose and Georgia move away, and he wasn’t sure if he wanted to thank them for it, or yell at them to come back. He wasn’t supposed to be the one talking to the reporter; they were. They were the ones who saved the dog. They were the ones who lived through a wildfire all by themselves up in the wilds of Idaho. Troy’d had as much to do with all of that as he’d had helping Santa Claus deliver presents this last Christmas. But telling Penny to go talk to someone else, to go pin someone else down with her sparkling eyes, intent on drawing answers out of them…

  He gulped.

  “Your uncle was the fire chief, but after he retired, they didn’t choose you to be the next one?” she asked, the surprise clear in her voice.

  He laughed a little at that. “It isn’t a hereditary position,” he said carefully, choosing each word before speaking it. He shrugged. “Plus, I didn’t apply. I didn’t want the job.”

  He heard Moose and Jaxson say something to the guys, and then everyone laughed. He hadn’t heard what they’d said, but he was sure – absolutely sure – that they’d been discussing the two of them. He felt the tips of his ears go red. He wanted to shoot them a glare and tell them to back off, but pretending deafness seemed like a much safer plan.

  Less talking was involved, anyway, which always made it a safer plan.

  “What job do you have that is better than fire chief?” Penny asked, finally standing and swiping at the hair and dirt all over her clothes. She didn’t seem pissed that she was filthy; she was just straightening herself out. Her curled blonde hair swung as she worked to clean up, and his mind paused on the idea of touching it. Would a curl wrap around his finger?

  He forced himself to concentrate on her question.

  Huh. What was her question again?

  Job. She wants to know where you work, you dumbass.

  “The Horvath Mill. The new one outside of town,” he clarified. Sadly, the old one had burned to a crisp this past January after the mayor’s son had thrown a cigarette butt into a pi
le of old rags and set the place on fire. Damn teenagers. That building was part of his family’s heritage, and his heart still hurt at the idea of it burning like it did, leaving a shell of blackened bricks behind.

  “Horvath, eh?” She slid onto the tailgate next to him, seemingly oblivious to the dirt and grime encrusted there. She was settling into place before Troy could stop her, so again, he snapped his mouth shut. The damage was done now, and hell, her elbow was brushing up against his. He could no more warn her to move than he could chop off that elbow. “Is the mill owned by your uncle, the former fire chief? Or by someone else in your family?”

  Damn, she was quick on the draw. Family relations and who owned what and who was related to who was a constant struggle to keep straight in a small town, but Miss Penny Roth was apparently up to the task.

  “Uncle,” he said simply. It was the Horvath family mill, and as soon as Aunt Horvath could convince her husband to retire fully, it would be Troy’s. None of their three kids wanted it, and since Troy’d been working there for most of his adult life, it just made sense for him to take it over.

  And most importantly, it was what he was supposed to do. He always did what he was supposed to do.

  “Do your parents live in town, too?” she asked as Sparky laid her head on Penny’s lap and began begging for some attention. Troy sent his not-so-loyal dog a dark look of his own. It was good to see her feel comfortable enough that she would allow other people to touch her, of course, but did she have to go that far? Penny began absentmindedly stroking Sparky’s head, scratching right behind her ears just like the spotted setter loved, and sure enough, Sparky’s tail started flying again, dirt and hair going every which way.

  “No, they live in Boise. I’ve lived here with my aunt and uncle since freshman year, though.” He tried to quickly come up with a question to ask her so he could just listen to her talk and he could be free to retreat into blessed, comfortable silence, but she beat him to the punch.

  “Have you fought a lot of fires, then, since your uncle was the fire chief? Is it an old hat to you by now?” Her eyes were pinned on him, a mysterious dark blue color that matched her shirt. He’d never seen quite that shade before, and wondered for a moment if she was wearing colored lenses.

  He laughed uncomfortably. “Firefighting is never an old hat to anyone. Complacency is a good way to get yourself killed. But I have fought a lot of fires – both house and wildfires.” He was surprised by how many words were rolling off his tongue effortlessly, as if speaking easily to a beautiful woman – or anyone at all – was something that he did all the time. Did she know how strange this was for him?

  Looking at her – beautiful, smart, outgoing – he was pretty sure she had absolutely no concept of what it was like to be trapped inside a body that didn’t always cooperate.

  “You guys are all volunteers, right?” she asked, bringing him back to the present. He nodded, and she continued, “I’ve always wondered if it was hard to find people to volunteer to risk their lives. Why are you willing to do this if you’re not even going to get paid?”

  “Volunteer doesn’t mean unpaid,” he hurried to tell her. “We get paid every time we respond to a fire. We just don’t get paid otherwise. It is hard to find volunteers, though. People are busy with their own lives.” He shrugged. It was understandable, really. He’d been raised to focus on the fire department and making sure that every fire was responded to no matter what, but he wasn’t like everyone else, and that was okay. They didn’t need a hundred guys to respond to every call-out; just enough guys to make sure the people of Long Valley were safe.

  Anything beyond that was a bonus.

  “Is fire chief also a volunteer position?” she asked.

  He flinched. Without meaning to, she’d hit right on that sore spot with a hammer.

  Looking at her, really trying to gauge who she was, Troy hesitated. Penny was part of the press. The press could say whatever they wanted; could twist his words and make him out to be a jealous jackass or a real gentleman. It was all in how she wrote it.

  Could he trust her enough to talk about how virtually the entire town had been up in arms over Jaxson being made a full-time employee from day one, when Uncle Horvath had been a simple volunteer like everyone else? Last month, after Jaxson had saved Gage and Sugar from the Muffin Man bakery fire, the town had settled down a whole lot, seemingly forgiving Jaxson for being an upstart kid from the big city, there to raise their taxes and tell them how it was done in a real town, but for Troy, it still smarted a little.

  Finally, he settled on telling Penny the truth, but nothing more. Personal feelings didn’t matter anyway and certainly weren’t newsworthy.

  “He’s a full-time employee,” he said simply.

  Penny raised one eyebrow in response to that, silently asking him to tell her the rest of the story, but Troy sidestepped the unspoken request. “Are you from Franklin?” he asked instead. He was damn sure she wasn’t from Sawyer – if he’d ever laid eyes on her before, he would’ve remembered it.

  Forgetting Penny Roth just wasn’t something that happened.

  “Born and raised,” she said with a disgruntled sigh. Sparky let out a blissful sigh of her own as she snuggled deeper into Penny’s lap, looking like a poster child for relaxation. With her eyes closed, the dog missed the second dark look Troy sent her way. Did she have to appear so at home so quickly? “I graduated in 2006,” Penny continued, oblivious to the looks Troy was sending his traitorous dog. “You?”

  “2000. Been here ever since. You?”

  “Left town on graduation night.” She shot him a laughing look. “Yup, I was one of those kids – attended graduation with my car packed to the brim with my stuff. I couldn’t get out of here fast enough. Got my bachelor’s in graphic design from a university down in San Diego. I—” She caught the surprised look on his face, and grimaced. “Being a reporter is just a temporary gig.” She waved her hand dismissively. “I’m going to be leaving Long Valley soon, thank God, and heading back to civilization. No more living in a town where the most exciting thing that happens all year is the quilt auction, or when Mr. Cowell’s cows get out and block the road into town.”

  Troy forced a polite smile onto his face, even as his heart sank. Of course Penny the Reporter wasn’t planning on staying in the area. What part of the elegant, gorgeous woman sitting next to him looked like it belonged in rural, mountainous Idaho? Not those sparkling high heels. Not the frilly blouse. And certainly not her bright red lipstick. There wasn’t a damn inch of her that fit in here, which would probably explain his overwhelming gut reaction to her. Of course he’d react that way. She was like no one else in the whole of Long Valley.

  But now he knew she was leaving, and that meant she was untouchable. He’d be better off letting her walk away, no matter what the burning sensation in his palm where they’d touched was urging him to do.

  He pushed off the end of the water truck. “Ready to go interview?” he asked, jerking his head towards the group of firefighters who appeared to be training on safety equipment. Georgia was still there, sitting off to the side at a decrepit desk covered with yellowed forms, patiently waiting around for Penny to ask her questions.

  Penny pushed herself off the tailgate of the water truck also, a tight smile on her face, both of them ignoring the very humanlike groan from a disappointed Sparky. “Absolutely! I better get my job done, right?”

  As they walked towards the knot of firefighters, Troy told himself that she wasn’t the only one there who had a job to do. His whole purpose in life was to take over the Horvath Mill, nothing more, nothing less.

  Dating the local reporter who was on her way out the door just wasn’t in the cards, no matter how many 2x4’s were involved.

  Burned by Love, the 4th book in the Firefighters of Long Valley series, can be found on a wide variety of storefronts – find your favorite storefront here!

  A FREE Story For You…

  Enjoyed Fire and Love? Not ready to q
uit reading yet? If you sign up for my newsletter at http://news.erinwright.net, you will receive Stampede of Love, the love story of Rex and Kimber, right away as my thank-you gift for choosing to hang out with me.

  Stampede of Love

  Eight seconds…

  That’s all Rex Kingsley wants. Eight seconds on the back of Bodacious, the most feared bull in the PBR. Two years ago, the massive bull threw him and stomped him into the sands of the Tulsa Rodeo in front of ten thousand spectators. Rex survived. Barely. Now his single goal is to conquer the bull touted as “unbeatable.” No bull rider has lasted eight seconds on Bodacious’ back for over five years. Rex aims to break that streak, and his lofty ambition leaves no room in his life for a woman.

  Until Kimber…

  Kimber Adams just wants to celebrate her birthday with friends. A few drinks. Maybe a spin on the dance floor. But when she falls into Rex’s arms, literally, her plans change. She and Rex share a night of passion but the handsome cowboy wants more. Kimber’s no stranger to the perils of bull riding, though. She makes it clear that Rex needs to choose between eight seconds on Bodacious…or a lifetime with her.

  Their love is young and fragile. Can it survive the dangers of a rodeo cowboy’s life?

  Read on for a taste of Stampede…

  Stampede of Love Preview

  (Rex and Kimber have just met in a bar, and sparks are flying…)

  “I never caught your name,” he said, realizing that he couldn’t use her name if she hadn’t been the one to tell him. That was just stalkerish and weird.

  “Kimber, not Kimberly.”

  “Well, Kimber Not Kimberly, I’m Rex.”