by Paige Tyler
Ablaze
Dallas Fire & Rescue
by Paige Tyler
Copyright © 2016 by Paige Tyler
All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission from the author.
Cover Design by Kim Killion Designs
Editing by Wizards in Publishing
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Dedication
With special thanks to my extremely patient and understanding husband, without whose help and support I couldn’t have pursued my dream job of becoming a writer. You’re my sounding board, my idea man, my critique partner, and the absolute best research assistant any girl could ask for!
Thank you.
The heat is on...
Paramedic Lexi Fletcher is thrilled to transfer to Station 58. For one thing, her commute time is half of what it used to be. For another, Station 58 has a much better facility and far more exciting calls. It doesn’t hurt that Dane Chandler, the firefighter she’s been crushing on since joining Dallas and Rescue, works there. Okay, to tell the truth, maybe Dane is the biggest reason she requested the move!
But just when things with Dane start to heat up, Lexi’s dream job takes a turn in the freaky direction. Patients she’s been bringing to the hospital are turning up dead, even though they were in stable condition when she dropped them off. Her instincts are screaming there’s something fishy going on, but she can’t figure out what it is, and she can’t get anyone to believe her—except Dane.
Can he help her find the killer and stop him from striking again, or will Lexi become the target of a madman?
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Chapter One
LEXI FLETCHER CURSED under her breath as she and fellow paramedic Trent Barnes rushed over to the burning apartment complex to take the older man off firefighter Jax Malloy’s hands. Crap, it felt like the flames were searing her skin—and they were a dozen feet away. Giving them a quick nod, Jax turned and ran back into the raging inferno engulfing the building like it wasn’t there at all. Then again, that’s what firefighters did. They ran into burning buildings when everyone else ran out.
The old man was coughing so hard Lexi thought he might pass out before they got him to their rescue vehicle. She and Trent draped his arms around their shoulders and hauled butt over to the ambulance. The moment they had the man on a gurney, Lexi reached for the oxygen mask while Trent checked his vitals.
“Contusion to the top of the head,” she said to Trent as she fitted the mask over the older man’s face. “Possible concussion.”
After Trent took the man’s pulse, the dark-haired paramedic moved up and began checking the man’s eyes, ears, and nose with a small flashlight. “Sir, I’m going to ask you a few questions. You don’t have to say anything out loud, just nod your head. Do you understand?”
The man kept the oxygen mask pressed to his face as he nodded. He was still coughing a little, but not nearly as badly as before.
As Trent went into the concussion protocol, asking about blurred vision and ringing in the ears, Lexi checked the man for other injuries. She kept one eye on the burning apartment building while she worked, praying there weren’t more people in there. The fire was bad enough for dispatch to call in two full stations worth of firefighters, pumper engines, ladder trucks, and rescue vehicles. That wasn’t counting the three other reserve rescue vehicles there to take care of the injured if needed.
While there were a lot of people who required medical attention, it wasn’t nearly as bad as it could have been. Thankfully, a teenaged boy had smelled smoke and pulled the alarm then gone around banging on doors and shouting for everyone to get out before the fire had gotten too out of control. She had no idea who the kid was, but he deserved a medal.
There were still a lot of firefighters in there though, some going apartment to apartment checking for anyone who hadn’t been able to get out while others tried to vent the fire away from the structure. With a fire this size, both operations were extremely dangerous. Lexi tried to mentally keep a running count of how many firefighters had gone inside and how many had come out.
She worried about all of them, but she had to admit she paid special attention to the firefighters from Station 58. Those were her people. They worked together, lived together, laughed and cried together—they were her family. Until they were all out of there safe and sound, she was going to worry about them.
Lexi and Trent were lining the gurney up so they could slide the mobile bed and the old man on it into the back of their rescue vehicle when she caught a flash of movement out of the corner of her eye. She turned to see two big firefighters coming out of the smoke and flames enveloping the front of the building, dragging an equally tall firefighter between them. Her breath caught. While it should have been impossible to identify anyone in the turnout gear the DF&R issued to every firefighter in the city, she instinctively knew those three were from Station 58. Worse, she feared she knew exactly who the tall guy in the middle was.
Since she and Trent had their patient ready to roll to the hospital, another paramedic team should have stepped up to tend to the injured firefighter, but every single rescue team had their hands full at the moment. Trent must have realized that, too, because he shooed her in the direction of the three men from Station 58.
“Go take care of him,” Trent said. “He’s one of ours, and Wayne isn’t in crisis.”
It took Lexi a moment to figure out that Wayne was the older man. When had Trent learned his name?
Nodding, she grabbed her emergency bag and ran toward the firefighters, waving her arm to get their attention. She reached them as Jax and fellow firefighter Tory Wilcox helped Dane Chandler to the ground and got his air bottle pack off his back.
Lexi dropped to her knees beside the big firefighter and quickly unfastened his helmet and slipped his SCBA mask off. She didn’t hear much in the way of escaping oxygen, meaning Dane had already been close to running out of air even before Jax and Tory brought him out. That scared the hell out of her. A firefighter was trained to leave a fire well before his tank approached empty. The only reason he would stay longer was to save a life, or if he was in trouble.
She skimmed Dane’s Nomex fire hood off next, once again struck by how incredibly handsome he was. Dark haired, with brown eyes the color of espresso, he had a strong jaw and the most kissable lips she’d ever seen. Lexi gave herself a mental shake, forcing herself to stop thinking about Dane as a man and instead focus on him as a patient and check for injuries. He seemed a little dazed, but she couldn’t see anything obvious.
“What happened to him?” she asked, glancing at Jax and Tory as they took off their masks.
“We were venting windows on the third floor,” Jax said, concern clear on his face as he started undoing the jacket of Dane’s turnout gear. “One second, he was standing right beside me, and the next the floor gave out under him and he fell all the way down to the second level—which was fully engulfed in fire at the time.”
> Lexi’s eyes went wide. Crap.
Dane waved a hand and shook his head. Or tried to anyway. Lexi cupped his face in both hands and held him still. “You could have a concussion.”
“I’m fine,” Dane insisted with a frown. “I landed on the remnants of king-size bed. I even bounced when I hit.”
“Right,” Tory said sarcastically. “The part he’s leaving out is the fact that he landed on his head on the bed’s metal frame then had to smash his way through a flaming bedroom door on his way out.”
This kept getting better. Or rather, worse.
Dane shrugged. “It wasn’t a big deal. I have a hard head. Besides, there wasn’t much left of the door to smash. Get me another bottle, and I’m ready to go back to work.”
Both Jax and Tory snorted at that.
Lexi slipped her hands inside the top of Dane’s turnout gear and gently pressed her fingers against his ribs and stomach looking for tender spots. While she was somewhat distracted by all the muscles she felt there, she couldn’t miss the way he flinched as she glided her hands over his lower ribs. He did it again when she pressed her fingers into the muscles of his neck.
Jax saw the reaction, too, and didn’t have a problem calling his friend on it. “You’re not going anywhere.”
“Except to the hospital in the back of my rescue vehicle,” Lexi added.
She slid her hands down to check out Dane’s chest and abs once more. It probably wasn’t necessary since she’d already figured out he wasn’t seriously injured, only heavily bruised. But she was a trained professional. That was her job.
She glanced up to see Dane regarding her with a knowing look on his face and a twinkle in his eyes. Crap, he hadn’t noticed how incredibly thorough that exam had been, had he?
Dane leaned in a little closer and chuckled softly in her ear. “You know there are easier ways to get me strapped down to a bed, right?”
She felt her face heat as she realized she’d definitely been caught. But instead of feeling embarrassed, she kind of felt…challenged. It was like Dane was playing with her, waiting to see how she’d react to his over-the-top line.
Lexi was still trying to come up with a snappy comeback, which she had to admit wasn’t her strong suit, when Captain Earl Stewart—their boss at Station 58—walked over to them. Nearing sixty and whipcord lean, he looked like he could still fight fires alongside the men and women under his command.
“I heard what happened,” the captain said. “How bad is it?”
He was looking at Lexi as he asked the question, but it was Dane who answered. “I’m good. Ready to get back in there.”
Stewart glanced at him, a scowl on his weathered face. “Was I talking to you?”
Dane opened his mouth to complain, but the captain had already turned back to Lexi. “Is he good?”
Lexi didn’t even have to think about it. She wasn’t going to let Dane go back in that building, no matter how much he wanted to.
“No, he’s not good,” she said, shaking her head. “It’s nothing serious, but he needs to go to a hospital and get checked out for possible cracked ribs and neck damage.”
“Captain—” Dane began, but Captain Stewart interrupted him.
“Put him in the next rescue vehicle heading to the hospital,” he said to Lexi, then jabbed a finger at Dane. “That’s an order.”
That ended the argument. Jax told Dane that he’d come pick him up later if he needed a ride, and less than a minute later, Lexi had him in the back of the rescue vehicle with her and Wayne while Trent drove. She would have preferred Dane on a gurney, but that would have meant waiting for another vehicle and she wasn’t willing to do that. So, instead, he sat beside her, listening as the older man told them about a piece of the ceiling falling down and hitting him on the head. She sat there and monitored both men’s vitals as they talked about what Wayne was going to do now.
“I don’t really know.” The older man’s face clouded. “Everything I owned was in that apartment. I don’t even have any fresh clothes to put on.”
“I think I can help with that,” Dane said. “We have plenty of clothes people donate to our firehouse for situations like this. I’ll make sure you get something to wear. Is there anyone you want me to call? Family, maybe…or friends?”
Wayne shook his head, his blue eyes sad. “Not really. Family’s all gone. Friends, too. Only me, now. I don’t even have any pictures of anybody anymore. They were all in my apartment.”
Dane gave him a small smile. “Don’t be too sure of that. Not all of the apartments are completely destroyed. There’s a good chance we’ll be able to get some of your stuff out of there.”
Lexi wasn’t too sure of that, but it was nice of Dane to give the older man some hope. It sounded like he really needed some of that right then.
As they drove to the hospital, she filled the intake forms out on the station-issued iPad, and listened in as Wayne told them about his family, friends, and a long life of travel and adventure as a sports reporter. Dane smiled at her once or twice, but mostly he sat there and listened to Wayne talk, occasionally asking questions the older man obviously wanted to answer. Wayne clearly enjoyed talking to Dane. Lexi could understand why. The big firefighter was the kind of person others were immediately drawn to. Lexi should know. She’d moved her butt all the way across town for a chance to work in the same station as Dane.
She’d had a thing for Dane from the moment she’d seen him at one of her first multi-alarm fires. Even dressed like every other firefighter there, he’d stood out. There was simply something special about him. Something more than the good looks, great body, and quick, boyish smile. After running into him at dozens of incident scenes and citywide department functions, she’d wanted to get to know him better. The problem had been getting him to notice her. She’d flirted when she’d gotten the chance, but he was a guy—which meant clueless. It didn’t help that her uniform wasn’t exactly the most alluring outfit she’d ever worn, and the department kind of frowned on wearing dresses and high heels during duty hours. So after talking to some of the female firefighters and paramedics at his station to make sure he wasn’t involved with anyone seriously, she’d asked for a transfer to 58.
Dane hadn’t been the only reason she’d requested the move, though. She wasn’t that insane. Moving to Station 58 was also a good career move.
Lexi had spent the past two years working at Station 44 over on Frank Street. It was a good station with great people, but it was one of the smaller stations in the DF&R, servicing mostly single-story residential homes. The work had been okay, but she’d become a paramedic so she could help people and use the skills she’d been taught. The best way to do that was to work at a station that went on a lot of calls, and Station 58 was one of the busiest squads in the city. Their area of responsibility covered everything from small homes to fifteen-story condos, and everything in between.
Then there were the facilities. Station 58 was one of the newer houses in the city, and the company had put a lot of work and effort into making the place amazing. They had state-of-the-art showers, an awesome dayroom with a big screen TV, a killer kitchen, and comfortable beds. It also didn’t hurt that Station 58 was much closer to her apartment.
So, she had a lot of good reasons for transferring to 58. But while she’d been here over two months, and had even managed to get on the same shift as Dane, she still hadn’t gotten him to notice her. In fact, checking him out after he’d fallen through the floor of a burning building was the closest she’d come to having a real moment with the man in two months.
Wow, that was sad.
Sighing, Lexi glanced out the front of the rescue vehicle to see that they’d arrived at the hospital. Trent pulled up to the sliding glass doors of the emergency center then came around to the back of the vehicle to help her with the gurney. Two nurses immediately met them inside. Trent explained the older man’s condition to one nurse while Lexi filled the other in on what had happened to Dane. A few minutes later,
nurses whisked both patients to exam rooms, and she and Trent were left standing in the now empty hallway.
Well, crap. She’d missed her chance to talk to Dane again. Maybe she could convince Trent to hang around for a while so they could give Dane a ride back to the station. If they got a call, dispatch could still reach them on the radio.
“Hey, what’s up?”
Lexi turned to see her roommate and best friend, Melinda Turner, coming toward them. Petite, with blond hair and hazel eyes, Melinda was an emergency room nurse at the hospital.
“I’m going to check on the guy we brought in,” Trent said.
Flashing Melinda a grin, he headed for the exam rooms. Melinda smiled back, openly checking out his butt as he disappeared down the hallway.
“Stop that,” Lexi ordered. “He’s my partner.”
Melinda lifted a brow. “You planning to make a move on him?”
“No!” Lexi couldn’t stop the horrified look that crossed her face. “That would be too weird. Besides, I told you, I’m interested in Dane.”
Melinda shrugged. “Then there’s no harm in my checking out the goods, is there?” When Lexi frowned, her friend laughed. “Don’t worry. I won’t put you in the position of seeing your coworker naked if he sleeps over at our place and gets up to use the bathroom in the middle of the night. I’ll make sure he puts on some clothes.”
Lexi shook her head. “Thanks for that image. I’ll probably never get it out of my head.”
“Not sure why you’d want to get a visual like that out of your head,” Melinda said. “He’s a hunk.”
Lexi fell into step beside her friend as Melinda led the way to the frenetic madhouse that was so much a part of everyday life in this part of the hospital. Off to the side, a handsome reporter was interviewing a gray-haired doctor for a local news station.
