Up In Flames (Flirting with Fire Book 2)

by Jennifer Blackwood

  OTHER TITLES BY JENNIFER BLACKWOOD

  Flirting with Fire

  Burning Up

  Rule Breakers

  The Rule Book

  The Rule Maker

  Snowpocalypse

  Landing the Air Marshal

  Falling for the Fake Fiancé

  Drexler University

  Unethical

  Foolproof

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Text copyright © 2018 by Jennifer Blackwood

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Published by Montlake Romance, Seattle

  www.apub.com

  Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Montlake Romance are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.

  ISBN-13: 9781503903487

  ISBN-10: 1503903486

  Cover design by Letitia Hasser

  To the women in my life. You are beautiful, strong, and an inspiration.

  CONTENTS

  Start Reading

  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

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  One year later . . .

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Time: 0815

  15 minutes into B shift

  Dispatcher notes: 1432 Butternut Lane. Male, late twenties, attempting suicide. Needs medical attention.

  Reece tore down Butternut Lane, sirens silent, red light swirling against the unlit houses. His team had barely even had a chance to do their daily check of the engine and their gear before they were called out here.

  “Ready to bring this man out alive, brothers?” Reece said into the intercom.

  His fellow firefighters, Jake Bennett and Cole Gibson (a.k.a. Hollywood), gave a resounding “Hell yes” as Reece parked the engine across from the house they’d been dispatched to.

  They hopped down onto the sleepy street nestled on the edge of the West Hills. For a Sunday, it was especially deserted. Nobody walking their dogs. Nobody shuffling out in their robes and slippers to the front of their driveways to grab newspapers. That could be attributed to the early winter chill. Two weeks till Thanksgiving, and Jack Frost had taken downtown Portland into the single digits. Reece’s ears stung as he exited the engine and hooked around to the other side to grab his airway bag.

  Jake and Hollywood had lugged their kits over their shoulders and were making their way up the driveway.

  “Should we wait for the PD to get here?” Jake asked.

  It was protocol to wait for police presence if there was a remote possibility of a threat. One that Reece was willing to look past if a man’s life was at stake.

  “There wasn’t any message about weapons. I say we go in. Don’t know if we’re already too late,” Hollywood said.

  Reece examined the exterior of the house. Little reddish flecks Reece didn’t even want to begin to imagine the origins of peppered the walkway. A light was on in the bedroom on the top level, but other than that, it was dark in the house. Paint peeled from the mottled wooden door. The siding wasn’t much better off. In its prime, the house appeared to have been painted some type of dark blue or brown. Now it was the color of a grease stain. Peeking into a window, he saw stacks of newspapers and trash littering the front room. Not a single person in sight.

  He looked over to Jake and wasn’t surprised that his friend seemed unsure. Jake had been overly cautious these past few months, especially with Erin in his life. It was still weird to think of his best friend and his sister together, but they were happy, and that was all that mattered.

  Jake and Hollywood both looked to him. They’d been on hundreds of calls just like this. Nothing new here. So Reece made the final decision.

  Reece moved to one side of the entryway and pounded on the door. “Portland Fire Department. Open up.”

  He went to reach for the doorknob to see if it was unlocked when a loud bang rang in Reece’s ears, and he stumbled backward as debris from the door exploded. His foot caught on the cracked pavement, and he fell to the ground. Everything went to static and moved in slow motion as something dark in the corner of his vision caught his attention. Blood. Everywhere. And that’s when all hell broke loose.

  Concrete dug into Reece’s back as he lay there, momentarily stunned. He moved to sit up, to make sense of where the loud sound had come from, when a searing pain burned in his shoulder, forcing him to suck in a sharp breath.

  Jake kicked in the door and disappeared into the house as Hollywood hovered over Reece. He was saying something to him, but Reece couldn’t make out the words, Hollywood’s voice sounding like he was talking underwater.

  Four cops rushed past them into the house, guns drawn.

  His hearing finally regained clarity, and several voices boomed from the house’s entryway. Hollywood’s voice cut through the ringing in his ears. “Are you okay, man?”

  “Yeah.” Reece tried to get up again, and Hollywood put a hand to his chest to stop him. “We should be in there with Jake.”

  “Are you serious right now? You just got shot. Save the heroics for the cops.” Hollywood grabbed gauze out of his med kit and looked at him uneasily. “You wanna take off your shirt, or do you need me to?”

  “You’ll need to buy me a few drinks before I show skin,” Reece said.

  Hollywood shook his head and sat back on his haunches while Reece unbuttoned his shirt with one hand, hissing out a breath as he slid it over his shoulder. From what he could see, it was a graze.

  Hollywood pressed a wad of gauze against the wound, and sparks of pain jolted through Reece. He glanced to his shoulder, the white material staining red beneath Hollywood’s hands. “What the—?” Where had he gone wrong? He always made sure to stand to the side when knocking, but had he forgotten this time? Was he getting too comfortable in the job?

  As if Hollywood could read his thoughts, he said, “Gunshot came through the door. A hell of a shot, since you were standing pretty far to the side.”

  Just then, two cops, Watkins and Juarez, exited the house with a handcuffed guy in between them. The guy glanced over at Reece and smirked.

  Fucker.

  Chapter One

  Time: 0830

  30 minutes into B shift

  Status: On call

  “I’m fine. Will everyone cut the shit and stop fussing?” Reece gripped his shoulder, the bandage beneath it already staining with his blood.

  The initial shock of getting shot had worn off, and everything around Reece was sharp and irrita
ting. So maybe it wasn’t the smartest idea to go into a suicide call without the PD. Lesson learned. Luckily, he was the only person to pay the price for his stupidity. Jake and the PD had been quick to disarm the man.

  His shoulder ached, and all he wanted to do was kick back a cold one and a few aspirin. Instead, he was sitting in an ambulance with two overly concerned EMTs, Emma and Brice. Really, it was just a graze. He was lucky—he knew that. He didn’t even want to think about all the ways it could have gone south. A bit of broken skin was the least of his worries.

  “Maybe next time try not to get in front of someone’s bullet?” Emma said while she applied fresh gauze and bandages to his wound. She was new to Portland Metro. He’d seen her on a few calls in the past month, and he liked her laid-back personality. “You’ll need to go down to the hospital and get stitched up.”

  “I’ll get around to it. Thanks.” Reece hopped down from the back of the ambulance and pulled a fresh shirt Jake had found for him over his shoulder. He winced as he carefully guided the fabric over the bandage. “Soon.”

  He walked over to Jake, who was pacing in the driveway. His friend stopped abruptly when he saw Reece.

  “What did Emma say?” Jake asked.

  “That I needed to stay on people’s good sides.”

  Jake shot him a look. Guess he wasn’t up for joking around. Usually he was the one to bring some levity to a situation, but instead, Jake’s face pulled into a tight expression.

  “Said I need stitches,” Reece said.

  “Then go down to the hospital, idiot. I’ll ride in the ambulance with you, and Hollywood can take the engine back to the station.”

  “I’m willing to take my time.” He’d pissed off enough nurses. He had to be strategic about who stitched up his arm.

  “Your reluctance has nothing to do with Susan or Ellie, does it?”

  “Brittany.”

  So he went on dates. Sue him. He was always up-front about what that entailed. Which meant that there’d be no seconds. Or thirds. No phone calls or texts. Reece kept it simple and liked it that way. No need to add complications to his life.

  They walked back to the ambulance, giving a few nods to the crowd of onlookers who stood behind a barrier the PD had set up, aiming their phones at the scene. A local news van pulled up just as Reece hoisted himself into the back.

  Emma and Brice marked their unit as “on a call” in the system and drove down to the hospital.

  Twenty minutes later, they arrived at the entrance to Portland General. For the past twelve years, Reece had been on the other end of hospital visits; he’d been the one wheeling the patient into a room. He prided himself on taking care of others. Now Jake walked beside him, bypassing the main entrance and instead going through the doors reserved for emergency personnel and up to the nurses’ station in the ER.

  Tina, one of the nurses who’d been working at Portland General since before Reece had been born, smiled up at them. He mentally blew out a sigh of relief at the fact that this was one nurse he hadn’t managed to piss off.

  “What’s up, guys?” Tina asked.

  Jake propped an elbow on the counter and jutted his chin toward Reece. “Reece is having a rough start to the day.”

  “I told you. Lay off the nurses, Jenkins.” Tina gave him a pointed look. After a moment, her gaze settled on Reece’s shoulder. His wound was already starting to bleed through the new shirt. “What happened?”

  “Just a graze to the shoulder.”

  Jake shook his head. “He’s downplaying it. He got shot, Tina. Can we get someone to stitch him up?”

  Her eyebrows rose. “Room three is empty. All the docs are swamped right now, but I’ll send our nurse practitioner to take care of that.”

  “You’re an angel,” Jake said.

  Reece and Jake made their way to the room on the opposite side of the nurses’ station and shut the door behind them. Jake slumped into the seat next to the hospital bed. The last thing Reece wanted to do was sit. That would give him the opportunity to stew over what had happened. He didn’t need that right now. So instead, he paced the room, his eyes scanning over the HAVE YOU GOTTEN YOUR FLU SHOT? poster.

  “What are the chances you’ve pissed off this nurse practitioner?” Jake said while he played a game on his phone.

  “Not very high.” He wasn’t even on a first-name basis with any of the NPs. Which was good, because he wasn’t in the mood for regretting any more life choices today. “Why are you smiling?” Reece’s adrenaline had bottomed out, and a headache pulsed at his temples.

  “Because I think I know who’s on shift today, and this should be good,” Jake said, barely able to hide his amusement.

  Reece turned to tell him to screw off, but the movement pulled at his bandage, sending a hiss of breath through his gritted teeth. “You’re really going to mess with a man who just got shot?”

  “Like you said, it was a shoulder graze.” Jake raised his brow at him.

  Before Reece could say anything else, the one woman who’d hated him for the better part of a year walked into the fluorescent-lit hospital room. Shit. He’d take the jilted one-date wonders over this woman any day.

  “Well, look what the cat dragged in,” Sloane said. He’d grown up with her. She’d been best friends with his younger sister, Erin, since they were kids. She was his friend by proxy. Until about a year ago, that is.

  “Hi, Sloane.” The painkillers weren’t doing nearly a good enough job pacifying the biting pain of the wound, and Reece gritted his teeth.

  “Guess it’s my lucky day to be on the ER floor. What brings you in? Sprain your wrist playing Xbox or whatever you boys do over at the station?”

  “I got shot.”

  Her brows knit together in concern and then smoothed out as she did a once-over of Reece. Obviously deciding he wasn’t in any imminent danger, she put her hands on her hips. “Go ahead—show me.”

  Out of all the nurses to walk through the hospital-room door, Sloane was by far the last pick he had in mind. Not that she wasn’t a great nurse. She’d managed to stay at the same hospital for seven years. No, the merits of her skills had nothing to do with it. It was more that she’d be the most likely candidate to leave him in a ditch for naught, which he was sure violated the whole Nightingale Pledge. To say their relationship was rocky was putting it mildly. Still, he wasn’t going to piss her off any further.

  He gingerly gripped the bottom of his shirt and slid it off.

  She let out a low whistle. “Lucky. How did this happen, anyway? I thought the only people you pissed off were nurses.”

  “Your bedside manner leaves much to be desired.” Reece winced as the shirt descended his arm. He could really use something stronger than Tylenol at the moment.

  Sloane grinned and moved to the sink, lathering up and washing her hands. After grabbing a pair of gloves from the bin on the wall, she slipped them on and pulled out antiseptic, bandages, and thread. “Just for you, Reece.”

  He eyed the needle that she extracted from another drawer and swallowed hard. He’d never been shy of them—his whole body was covered in tattoos—but the thought of a needle in Sloane’s hand? That was enough to make him second-guess his decision to get stitched up. If there wasn’t a good half-inch gap in his skin, he’d hop down from the table and sprint out of there, pride be damned.

  “Is now too late to say I adore you and you’re the best nurse ever?” he asked.

  “You’re a year late to that party, man,” Jake muttered, and shot him a sympathetic look. Like he wouldn’t want to be in Reece’s situation either.

  Reece and Sloane . . . well, they’d had an incident a year back. One in which he’d acted like a complete moron and for which he was continually paying the price.

  Sloane focused on the tools on her metal tray, placing them each an equal distance apart. “Don’t be a whiny baby. I’m not going to hurt you.” Although he could have sworn the word much was said under her breath.

  Jake pushed up
from the chair in the corner and strode over to the door. “On that note, I’ll just wait outside. Don’t want to see poor Reece cry.”

  “Thanks a lot, man.” So much for his fellow firefighter and best friend always having his back.

  But Jake was already out the door, and it was just him and Sloane.

  “Sit still and this’ll be over before you know it,” she said as she sterilized the wound.

  He sucked in a breath as the antiseptic stung his skin. “Is that what you say to your boyfriend?”

  Last he knew, she was on-again, off-again with that complete tool she’d dumped the year prior. Right before the incident. Brandon? Byron? Whatever the guy’s name, Reece didn’t like him. Didn’t give him a good vibe with the way he looked at every other woman in the room except Sloane.

  “Really want to say those types of things when I have a needle in my hand?”

  “Isn’t a doctor supposed to do this?”

  “Lucky you, I’m now a certified nurse practitioner. I get to do all the fun stuff.” After administering a shot of lidocaine, she tore open a plastic case and took out the supplies for stitching him up. The skin barely had time to numb before Sloane threaded the string through.

  “Yes, lucky me.”

  She paused for a second, examining her work. “You really should be more careful out there.”

  “Aw, Smurfette, would you miss me?”

  Sloane glared at him. She hated the nickname he used for her. But when she had blue hair and wore Smurf scrubs, was there really any other option?

  “Smurfette has blonde hair. Get it right. As for missing you? If I wasn’t on the clock, I’d tell you exactly how I’d feel,” she said, not missing a beat. Sloane’s hand worked steadily—up, down, in, out.

  “Noted. I’ll make sure you’re in charge of the eulogy if it comes to that.”

  “I think it’d go something like this: Reece Jenkins, loving brother, son, and absolute prick of a human being who thinks of no one but himself. Does that sum it up okay?” She finished the final stitch, dropped her tools back on the cart, and plastered a bandage to the neatly stitched wound. Then with a fluid grace, she spun around, tore off her gloves, and disposed of them in the waste bin.