Flame (The Firefighters of Darling Bay Book 3)

by Rachael Herron

  The medic looked up from where she was bandaging a little girl’s arm. She gave a long-arm toss and threw Hank the pen that was in her shirt front pocket.

  “Here,” he said, thrusting the pen and paper at her. “Write them down.”

  “What?”

  “Your dreams. All of them. Write ‘em down for me.”

  “Hank…” But something started to grow inside her, a green tendril of hope uncurling, slowly.

  “Write.”

  She made a list. She handed the folded envelope to him.

  He read it, tiny wrinkles creasing at the corners of his eyes. “Okay. Uh-huh. Yeah, okay. Yes.” He nodded with each word.

  “What? You think all of that’s possible?”

  Looking at the paper, Hank said, “Climbing the side of a volcano? Bungee-jumping in New Zealand? Riding the Trans-Siberian railway? You think we can’t do all this? Have I mentioned that not only do I get four days off a week, but I have two months of vacation a year and I can get trades for up to four more months? And they pay me well for this gig, not sure if you knew that. I’ll order my passport online as soon as I get home and pull these bandages off.”

  “What about the other things?” Samantha's heart beat so hard she was sure he would hear it, even over the chaos around them.

  She saw his Adam’s apple bob as he swallowed. “Have a baby. That one I can’t quite manage on my own.” He looked directly into her eyes, and the warm coffee of them melted her heart. “Maybe you’d be able to help me with that someday.”

  “Someday, maybe,” she said, breathless. “That’s a someday-maybe list.”

  He nodded, looking back down at the envelope. “I like the getting married one, too. Again, I’d need help with that.”

  “I’m actually kind of good with helping people,” Samantha said. “Not as good as you are, but…”

  “I need to know this, though.”

  Samantha nodded, the green tendril of hope inside her quaking.

  “Are you brave enough to choose someone safe?”

  That was the question. That was what she’d been trying to answer, and she hadn’t even known how to put it into words.

  Safety.

  It was the most dangerous thing of all. To risk her heart on someone who was steady. In place. Someone who wasn’t going anywhere, or at least, not going anywhere without her.

  Samantha had never been so terrified in all her life.

  But she knew the answer.

  “Yes. I think I’m exactly that brave.”

  The paper fluttered out of his hands, and he was kissing her then, his mouth firm and hot on hers, and Samantha was kissing him back. She tasted salt and ash, and she didn’t know whose tears were in her mouth—it just mattered that his arms were around her, and she could finally, finally come home. And stay there.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  THE ATTACKER BARRELED out of a side door, his prey the small, bird-like woman who perched nervously in the folding chair. She screamed when he knocked her to the ground, and the group watching the attack gasped collectively.

  Samantha, watching closely, couldn’t help noticing that the people in the audience who were having the hardest time weren’t the family members of the women who were graduating, but the ten firefighters who’d come to watch Hank demonstrate what he did on his days off. Each one of them was wound so tight that Samantha wouldn’t risk touching any of them—they might explode like that gas line had last month. When Wally had tested Kelly, they’d started the fight with her pinned against the wall in exactly the position she’d been pinned when she was raped in the bathroom of her bar. Pre-scripted, he said the same ugly words to her that the man had said then. Standing in the audience, Kelly’s sisters bounced on the balls of their toes as if they wanted to elbow their way in and fight for her. But they understood that Kelly had to fight her own way out.

  The firefighters might have understood that mentally, but physically, at a base level, it was obvious they hated this. To a man, they were twitching. One had let out an outraged bellow when the first student had been knocked over by her attacker. Tox had his hands balled at his sides, and Coin kept moving toward the mat, only drawing back when his girlfriend Lexie took his hand. These were men who ran toward the problem. They were men who, when something blew up, turned around and hurled their bodies at the fire to put it out instead of running away like average people. When someone was threatened, they moved to help without even thinking, and watching women have to fight their way out of an attack, alone, was almost killing them. Samantha had already seen a couple brush away angry, emotional tears.

  Tears were normal during a graduation. Emotions were high, for everyone involved.

  Especially for Linda McCracken, who hadn’t managed yet to win a fight. In all cases, Hank or Wally had to stop because she gave up, curling into a ball on the floor, refusing to fight back. Samantha was going to let her graduate with the rest of the class tonight because she deserved it, but she’d keep working with her after this until Linda had successfully used the power of her body to stop a full-strength attack.

  Hank didn’t hold back, even though just that morning, he’d confessed to Samantha that he could barely bear to fight her anymore. “It’s like beating up a child. I’m not sure I can be that guy anymore. Even though she’s paying you, and you’re paying me.”

  “Maybe if you would cash a single check I’ve made out to you, you could make that complaint. But until you do…”

  He’d smiled but persisted. “Tonight will be the last time I fight her. If she doesn’t win, then she’ll have to train with Wally. I can’t take it anymore.”

  “You’re helping her,” reminded Samantha.

  He’d shaken his head. “I know that, mentally. But physically, I can’t do it to her anymore. Tonight’s the last time.”

  Now, Samantha could tell that Hank wasn’t holding back on the mat. He had Linda pinned to the ground, and she was stuck. She was thrashing too much—how many times had Samantha gone over that with her? Linda was wasting her precious physical and mental energy fighting that way and she was getting nowhere.

  Fight smart, not hard. Samantha willed Linda to remember. Smart, not hard.

  Then Linda stilled, gathering herself. A head butt—a hard one, followed by an elbow jab, thrown from the ground. Then Linda burst into a flurry of short, very sharp kicks, kicks that would have broken Hank’s leg if he weren’t wearing the suit. Hank must have known it too, because he slowed.

  Her teeth bared, Linda screamed the most important two words Samantha taught: “Stop. No!” Linda scrambled to her feet, but so did Hank. He caught her arm roughly, yanking her to him, but Linda—without seeming to think—drew her knee up, hitting him in the groin. With a groan that was probably pretty real, Hank dropped. Linda raced to stand at his head, something she’d never been able to do before.

  “No means no!” she yelled.

  All around her, the audience roared, “Down and out!”

  Hank was down, Linda was out, running off the mat, toward Samantha.

  Samantha wrapped her arms around the small, shaking woman. “You did it. You really did it.”

  Linda hiccupped a sob and nodded. “I did. I did.”

  Hank took off his helmet and came toward them. Linda launched herself at him, but this time in a hug. “Thank you. Thank you,” she said.

  Samantha heard more sniffling from the crowd and knew hers weren’t the only tears flowing.

  From next to her, a woman said, “Yeah, well, he did pretty good, too.”

  Maureen, Hank’s grandmother, had sidled up next to Samantha. She stood knitting in place, a striped green sock dangling from two circular needles.

  “He did,” agreed Samantha.

  “I never taught him to attack women.”

  “I think you taught him the opposite.”

  “So this—” Maureen flapped the sock at the crowd. “This is what you do now? Instead of drinking?”

  “This is my addiction.�
�� This and Hank.

  “Huh. I used to smoke before I took up knitting. Maybe sometimes we just have to switch a bad one for a good one. My first husband was no good so I got a better one, just for one example.”

  “I like your style.”

  Hank came up behind them. Maureen threw a fake jab with her elbow backward. “I can take you, young man.”

  “You know I can teach you, too, if you want to learn,” said Samantha.

  “I’d be scared of that. Gramma doesn’t need help in beating anyone up. She never has.” Hank caught Maureen's elbow lightly and then slipped an arm around them both. “How are my two favorite women?”

  Maureen peeked her head around Hank’s chest at Samantha. “I’d say we’re tolerable.”

  “Yeah,” said Samantha, feeling that by-now familiar kick of joy in her chest. “Tolerable’s just about right.” She looked around the room—her sister Grace was laughing with Tox at the doorway. Earlier, during Gina’s fight, Grace had grabbed Samantha’s hand and whispered in her ear, “Mom would be as proud of you as I am.”

  If she hadn’t been so focused on Gina, Samantha would have wept.

  Now Linda was talking earnestly with Gus near the water dispenser, and a cluster of firefighters were reading Samantha’s brochure, talking about which of their wives should take the class first.

  Samantha had built this. In one place, with her two hands and the scrap of an idea, Samantha had built this for herself.

  And when it came to love? Samantha had leaped off the cliff, unfurling the wings she hadn’t known she had.

  So yeah, things were tolerable if that meant being in love with the sexiest, sweetest, strongest man in the whole wide world. If tolerable meant finding the exact right place to land

  If it meant setting out for adventure with a soulmate at her side.

  Hank dropped a kiss on the top of her head. “You’re my favorite kind of trouble.” Then he whispered something in her ear that made her cheeks go red.

  Tolerable, indeed.

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  About Rachael Herron

  Rachael Herron is the bestselling author of the novels The Ones Who Matter Most, Splinters of Light and Pack Up the Moon (all from Penguin), the five-book Cypress Hollow series, and the memoir, A Life in Stitches. She received her MFA in writing from Mills College, Oakland. She teaches writing extension workshops at both UC Berkeley and Stanford and is a New Zealand citizen as well as an American. You can find her at RachaelHerron.com.

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  KEEP READING FOR A SNEAK PEEK OF THE NEXT BOOK!

  Don’t miss a minute in Darling Bay! One unforgettable town, three standalone series (read them in any order!). So many ways to fall in love!

  THE FIREFIGHTERS OF DARLING BAY:

  Playing with fire has never been this fun…

  Blaze: Tox and Grace - Book 1

  Burn: Coin and Lexie - Book 2

  Flame: Hank and Samantha - Book 3

  Heat: Caz and Bonnie - Book 4

  Or get all four together on sale, HALF OFF! Save $5.97!

  The Firefighters, Boxed Set

  THE SONGBIRDS OF DARLING BAY:

  Nashville meets the Gilmore Girls in this heartwarming new trilogy of estranged country-singing sisters seeking true love (and their way back to each other).

  The Darling Songbirds, Book 1, March 2016

  The Songbird’s Call, Book 2, September 2016

  The Songbird’s Home, Book 3, March 2017

  THE BALLARD BROTHERS OF DARLING BAY:

  The Bachelor meets The Property Brothers: Love, property, and construction. What could possibly go wrong?

  On the Market, Book 1, June 2016

  Build it Strong, Book 2, October 2016

  Rock the Boat, Book 3, January 2017

  STANDALONE NOVELS:

  Women and families finding their ways back to what really matters: each other:

  The Ones Who Matter Most

  Splinters of Light

  Pack Up the Moon

  CYPRESS HOLLOW ROMANCES 1-5:

  Knit-lit with more heat than just wool could ever provide:

  How to Knit a Love Song

  How to Knit a Heart Back Home

  Wishes & Stitches

  Cora’s Heart

  Fiona’s Flame

  Eliza’s Home (Historical Novella)

  MEMOIR:

  Rachael’s life as seen through the sweaters she’s knitted:

  A Life in Stitches

  Keep reading for a Sneak Peek!

  of the third book in the Firefighters of Darling Bay series, Heat:

  EXCERPT OF HEAT:

  CHAPTER ONE

  “It’s a right turn, here.” Bonnie pointed out the ambulance window. “At the post office.”

  Caswell Lloyd ignored her, blowing past the turn. The siren blared, and two children in a crosswalk waved.

  “Caz?” Bonnie waved back at the kids and then blew out a breath, thumping backward into her seat. “Fine. If you think you know where you’re going better than I do, even though you’ve worked this zone, for what, like five minutes?”

  He didn’t even have the grace to look her direction as he turned right at the bookstore.

  Bonnie bit the inside of her mouth to keep from saying another word. They’d been on three calls so far that day, and he’d been like this on all of them, taciturn, practically non-verbal, and now he wasn’t even driving in the right direction. He was going to have to double back half a block. Precious seconds would be lost, seconds that might mean the difference between life and death…

  Well. Since they were responding to a medical alarm at Ava Simon’s house, the chances were pretty good it wasn’t that big a deal. When Ava’s grandkids had given her the medical pendant a year before, she’d spent the first two months pushing it just “to see how fast you could get here.”

  Bonnie hated change in her ambulance. Just when she’d finally gotten used to her partner, she’d gotten stuck with someone new. Johnny Kling, her last partner, had taken her six months to train, and then he’d been promoted to firefighter and transferred to Engine Three, moving Caz up the list to Station One. Of course, Johnny took the transfer. They all went somewhere—anywhere—to get off the ambo.

  The problem lay in the fact that a lot of the guys, although they were all paramedics, didn’t actually want to be on the ambulance. Ever. They wanted to do their paramedic time and mark it off their checklists. They wanted to hurry up and promote. Then they could do what they really wanted to do which was roll code three to the calls in their nice, clean engines, assess the patient, save a life with some simple CPR if they could, and then hand that patient over to Bonnie and whoever she was paired with for the difficult and stressful transport to the hospital—drives during which the recently-saved patient might code and have to be restarted all over again, while the vehicle flew fifty miles-per-hour around curves. It didn’t help that the medics were the ones who spent hours waiting for busy hospital staff to take over care of patients, not the firefighters. The medics (not the firefighters) were the ones who ended up covered in vomit or worse. Who cleaned out the ambulance after a particularly gross call? Bonnie and her partner did.

  The thing was, Bonnie freaking loved it. Maybe few others did, but she knew she belonged on the ambulance. She’d taken and passed all the classes, her
log books were signed off. She could promote to firefighter during any testing phase. But she didn’t want to. Riding in the back of the ambulance, pushing the morphine and then holding the hand of a person who was more scared than they’d ever been in their whole lives? Nothing was better than being the person who got to look a terrified patient in the eye and reassure them that yes, she was going to be just fine.

  Even if it was—an awful lot of the time—a lie.

  It was a lie Bonnie Maddern was honored to tell, a lie she believed every time she told it. Because if she didn’t believe her patient was going to make it, who would?

  Caz had figured out his mistake and made the correct turn.

  “There,” Bonnie said, gesturing to the old house. It was covered in peeling olive paint, and upstairs, a broken window was held together with blue painter’s tape. A yellowed curtain hung crookedly at one window, and a rusted bicycle missing one wheel was upside down in what might have been a garden at one time.

  Caz still hadn’t said a word to her.

  Fantastic.

  Bonnie hadn’t spent much time with Caz since he’d joined the department two years before. He’d been consistently assigned to a different house, and they’d only crossed on overtime shifts, never partnered. He’d always seemed a bit too cocksure, too confident, with that wide cowboy walk of his that took up too much of the hallway now that he was at Station One. It was too bad he was so good-looking, the rancher version of Matthew McConaughey. Caz’s intensely light blue eyes made it startling to run into him in the dayroom. It made him a little less easy to ignore.