Danny Sullivan stood there in his navy-blue dress uniform, the pants and shirt perfectly creased as though he were about to stand inspection, his badge glistening. His midnight-black hair was combed back, the usually unruly curls tamed for the moment. She had an almost irrepressible urge to muss his hair with her fingers, to thread her hands through the fullness until he looked like—
She didn’t want to go there. Not now. Not in the presence of twenty wide-eyed preschoolers.
Nor did she want to admit how her lungs seized when his eyes snared hers, their color almost as bright as the royal-blue the children used to color the sky in their paintings.
Only when he stepped farther into the room and young Tami cried out, “He’s gots a doggy!” did Stephanie notice Danny had brought the station’s mascot with him. Mack Buttons, a chocolate Dalmatian with brown spots and a sweet disposition, waggled his tail as the preschoolers gathered around him. Looking a little uncertain about so many children, Danny ordered the dog to sit.
“Careful, children,” Alice warned, snaring the most fearless of the youngsters who had surged forward. “Remember you need to ask before you pet a strange dog.”
“But he’s so pretty!” Tami insisted.
“Yes, I know. And I’m sure Fireman Sullivan will let you all have a chance to pet him.” She hustled the children to the rug, asking them to make a story-time circle. Stephanie helped out by corralling those who failed to respond to the initial request.
Danny stood uncertainly at the edge of the rug while all the commotion went on around him. His gaze followed Stephanie. The room seemed to light up with her in it, everything else paling by comparison. Which was saying something given the rainbow-painted walls and bright splashes of color around the room.
He noticed how easily she touched the children, a brush of her hand on a shoulder to steer a kid in the right direction, a caress of her fingertips on a rosy cheek to elicit a smile.
In contrast, he felt like a giant among Lilliputians.
“Why don’t you sit in the rocking chair in the center of the circle?” Stephanie suggested.
“I think I’d rather stand.” It was better than being surrounded by a mob of giggling three- and four-year-olds.
“Is something the matter?”
“I don’t have much experience with kids. They, uh, make me nervous.”
She looked offended. “They won’t bite.”
“The hamster did.”
“I wish you’d told Alice when she called that you don’t like children, then we could have—”
“I like kids well enough,” he protested. “I just don’t have many occasions to be around them.”
“Think of this as your chance to get used to them, then.”
She took his hand, startling him with the feel of her slender fingers wrapped around his. A jolt of electricity shot up his arm. Not just static electricity but something high voltage. Sexual. Potent. With it came images of hot sweaty bodies—his and Stephanie’s—and rumpled sheets.
Before he could analyze what had happened, she led him to the chair. He sat because the shock had sent his heart into overdrive. He wasn’t supposed to feel any sexual attraction to Stephanie. And if he did feel any, he was supposed to keep it under tight wraps.
No way did he want to get involved with Harlan Gray’s daughter. The girl who had pestered him through half of his life. A woman who was pregnant with another man’s baby.
Buttons sat on the floor beside him, looking at the children expectantly.
Danny made it a point not to look at Stephanie. He didn’t want to know if she’d felt the attraction flowing between them, too.
“Before we give Fireman Sullivan his hero’s medal,” Alice said to the children, “would any of you like to ask him a question about being a firefighter?”
A half dozen hands shot up. Alice gave the nod to a pixie blonde. “Do you get to turn on the siren?”
“No, that’s the engineer’s job—the driver of the fire truck. I sit in back.”
His answer seemed to disappoint the little girl. Maybe he should have lied. A part of him wanted to impress the youngster—and Stephanie, too. But since her dad was the fire chief, she’d probably had her fill of sirens.
A boy asked, “Do you get scared?”
“Sometimes. But firefighters are very well trained. You all know fires can be dangerous and—”
“When were you scared?”
His gaze slid around the room. He had the kids’ attention. Stephanie’s, too. He didn’t want her to know that bravery didn’t always come easily. That sometimes the most courageous man could turn into a coward.
“I spent a couple of summers fighting forest fires in Idaho. I was a smoke jumper. Do you know what that means?”
When the kids shook their heads, he explained that he parachuted out of a plane near a fire that couldn’t be reached in any other way. He didn’t tell them of the terror of his last jump, the fear that still had the power to wake him up in a sweat from a dead sleep.
“That can be kind of scary,” he concluded after the briefest of explanations.
The questions got a little easier after that. Did he rescue cats from trees? Not usually. Was his helmet heavy? Not really, and he was sorry he hadn’t brought his along so they could try it on. Finally little blondie asked if they could pet the doggie yet.
A frequent school visitor, Buttons tolerated the petting with his usual patience, giving only a small yip when one of the kids stepped on his toe.
Then came the medal presentation.
Danny squirmed uncomfortably in the chair as the day’s designated “pet feeders” brought out the hamsters to witness the big event. Giving mouth-to-mouth to a rodent wasn’t Danny’s idea of being heroic. And every shift since last week, he’d been razzed by his buddies one way or the other. He’d be happy for everyone to forget the incident.
Solemnly two children carrying a blue velvet pillow marched in from the back of the room. They halted like little soldiers in front of Danny, an aluminum foil star with a red, white and blue ribbon resting on the pillow. The little girl gave him a shy smile. In a few years she’d be a killer, the boys unable to resist her.
“Let’s ask Miss Stephanie to put the medal around Fireman Sullivan’s neck, shall we?” Alice suggested.
The kids seemed amenable to idea. Danny wasn’t sure if he preferred Stephanie to do the deed or a four-year-old with sticky hands and a streak of blue paint on his chin. Neither seemed a good choice.
Stephanie’s teasing eyes as she approached suggested the kid would have been the better bet.
“Maybe I ought to call the Paseo Daily Press,” she said, grinning at his discomfort. “A front-page photo of this would be great PR for the fire department.”
“You pull a stunt like that and you’re toast!” he whispered through gritted teeth and forced a smile.
Her light laughter rippled around him like the rainbows circling the room. He caught her scent, something fresh and floral, as she leaned forward to place the medal around his neck. Her breasts loomed in front of him. Eye level. Tempting. Definitely not Twiggy.
Leaning back, he tried to escape the allure of her full figure. The rocker landed on Buttons’s tail in mid-wag. He yelped and scrambled away. The sudden movement caught Stephanie off guard. With a cry of alarm, she tumbled into Danny’s lap. Instinctively his arms wrapped around her.
She didn’t weigh much, he thought with a rush of conflicting emotions. She fit nicely where she had landed but she didn’t belong there. Her skin was soft, caressable. He ought to help her up but he didn’t want to let her go. Her kissable lips were enticingly close to his. His rebellious body wasn’t listening to his brain, definitely had a mind of its own.
Shoving her hands against his chest, she righted herself. Her breath came fast, in tiny gasps; so did his. Her cheeks were flushed and her hair mussed, the coffee-brown curls going every which way. He wondered if she realized how she affected him. A totally inappropriate r
eaction given the situation. And he didn’t know how she could have missed his response to her being in his lap.
With a whispered “Sorry” she stepped away from him.
Amid giggles and screams, the preschoolers had cleared the way.
Still unable to figure out quite what had happened, Danny stood, tugging Buttons to heel as a way to distract himself and get his reactions back under control.
Alice swept up beside him. “Perhaps we’d better let Fireman Sullivan put the medal around his own neck.”
“Good plan,” he muttered. Stephanie was still staring at him as if she’d felt the earth move. Or maybe she’d been offended by his reaction to having her in his lap. Or maybe she knew he wanted her there again without such a big audience.
Somehow they managed to make the exchange, their fingers barely brushing as she handed him the medal, which sent off a new round of sparks. He reversed his earlier conclusion. It had to be the dry air and static electricity that was giving him jolts with a high-powered charge. Not Stephanie.
“Thank you so much for coming,” Alice said, her voice as soft and sweet as ice cream as he looped the ribbon around his neck.
“No problem,” he lied.
“If you’re not doing anything this weekend, Stephanie and I are planning to paint the kitchen on Saturday. You know, spruce up the place after the fire.”
His head whipped around to nail Stephanie with a frown. “She shouldn’t be painting. She’s—”
“If you and some of your friends were to drop by, that might be a good idea.”
He got a seriously uncomfortable feeling in his midsection. He was being manipulated. He knew it and still he couldn’t figure out how to avoid the inevitable. He couldn’t let Stephanie expose herself to paint fumes. Not while she was pregnant. Who knew what that would do to the baby?
Grimacing, he swallowed hard. “I’ll be here.”
Alice smiled in a way that suggested she’d known all along he was a sucker.
“No, wait!” Stephanie protested. “I don’t want you to—”
He ignored her. “Bye, kids. Thanks for the medal.” They waved to him, and he made a hasty retreat out the door with Buttons on a short leash.
Naturally Stephanie didn’t leave it at that.
“Danny, wait!”
Running away wasn’t an option. He’d just been awarded a medal for bravery, hadn’t he? So he halted at the fence gate. He could still make a quick getaway if she’d gotten the wrong idea about him. About them. There wasn’t any them. There couldn’t be.
“I don’t want you to help paint the kitchen.”
“You shouldn’t be exposed to the fumes.”
“There’ll be ample ventilation.”
“I doubt your father would agree with that.”
“It’s not my father’s problem. It isn’t yours, either, and I don’t appreciate you trying to boss me around.”
“Me?” His hand covered his chest in mock surprise. “I never bossed you around in my life. Even if I tried, you wouldn’t listen.”
“You’ve always tried to boss me around, ever since I was a little kid. But you’re right about one thing.”
He frowned. Stephanie rarely conceded he was right about anything. “What’s that?”
“I don’t listen. Now will you please forget about coming in to paint on Saturday?”
He considered her request. He wanted an excuse to stay away but her health and that of the baby came first. “If you won’t listen to me, will you at least ask your doctor? Listen to him?”
“To her.” At the sound of recorded music coming from inside the school, she glanced back over her shoulder. “All right, I guess that’s fair. I’ll check with my doctor.”
A compromise. That felt like progress. Maybe he’d found a way out. “You’ll let me know if she says no so I can help out?”
She gave a weary shake of her head. “You certainly are pushy, aren’t you?”
“Yep.” He grinned. “That’s why the ladies find me so irresistible.”
With an audible sigh, she rolled her eyes.
“Gotta go. Keep me posted, huh?”
“Sure. And, Danny, I’m sorry about what happened in there.” She looked at him with her clear hazel eyes, the sparks of amber tamped down for the moment.
Danny decided to play it dumb. He knew what she was talking about. His reaction to her being in his lap. But he wasn’t going to admit anything. It would take the jaws-of-life to pry the truth out of him. “It’s okay. I just didn’t think I deserved a medal, is all.”
She tilted her head, a quirk she’d developed when she was puzzled by something.
The time was ripe for his escape before she asked any questions. “Come on, Buttons. Gotta go.”
Stephanie stood on the walkway as Buttons trotted out of the gate beside Danny and they both got into his SUV. Inside the school, the children were singing “Itsy-Bitsy Spider.” Stephanie felt as though she’d just been washed down the waterspout.
She couldn’t have imagined the sparks that had flown between them when she’d landed in Danny’s lap. In all the years they’d known each other, he’d never once given her a hint that he was attracted to her. Until today.
Not that it mattered. He’d made it pretty obvious he didn’t like kids. They made him nervous. He’d been uncomfortable the whole time he’d been inside the preschool, despite the fact he’d easily handled the children’s questions, and they’d warmed up to him immediately.
Very soon she’d be having a baby, who would quickly turn into a kid. Whatever his physical reaction might be to her awkward plop into his lap, Danny Sullivan wouldn’t be interested in pursuing a personal relationship with her. Not in this lifetime.
Given Edgar’s reaction to her pregnancy, she was all too familiar with a man’s aversion to paternity.
With a weary sigh, she headed back into the school as the kids began the final chorus of “Itsy-Bitsy Spider.” She’d have to find her own way back up the spout and learn how to stay there without getting washed down the next time a few raindrops came into her life.
Chapter Three
Carrying his uniform on a hanger, Danny headed into the station house shortly before the 8:00 a.m. shift change. The wide doors to the bay area yawned open revealing two fire engines, a ladder truck and a paramedic unit gleaming bright red in the overhead lights.
No hose lay stretched out drying, there was nobody hurrying to wipe down the trucks after a run. It looked as though B shift had had a quiet night.
Maybe C shift would be luckier and catch a good fire before their twenty-four hours were up.
The fire department’s administrative offices occupied the first floor of the main station—a fairly new building in town—with sleeping quarters, the kitchen and dining area on the two floors above that.
Danny made for the stairs but the sound of jingling bracelets brought him up short. He winced, a premonition of doom settling over him.
“Danny, there’s something I want you to take a look at.”
Turning, he eyed Emma Jean Witkowsky, the station’s dispatcher and resident gypsy fortune-teller, with suspicion. As usual she was all decked out with dangling earrings and an armful of silver bracelets. Her long skirt swayed at her calves and she clanked with every step she took.
“I gotta get changed before the shift starts,” he said.
“This will only take a minute. There’s something strange going on with my crystal ball. I thought maybe you could make sense of it.”
“I’m not really into crystal balls. Or fortune-telling.” Particularly Emma Jean’s version, which was invariably wrong.
She ignored his objection, shoving open the door to Dispatch and stepping inside.
With a shrug, Danny followed her. How long could it take to look into a stupid crystal ball and duck back out again?
“I just bought this new ball via the Internet and I think there’s something wrong with it,” she said, slipping behind the counter that separate
d visitors from an array of computer terminals and phones. She placed a globe on the counter and slowly removed the blue silk hankie that covered it. “Tell me what you think.”
Disinterested, he glanced at the glass ball…and nearly choked.
Looking back at him was the image of a grinning hamster with big red lips and long eyelashes. Beside it a typed note read, “Your love life is on the upswing.”
Danny was torn between laughter and an urge to throttle Emma Jean. “Thank God you haven’t gotten a prediction right in the past five years.”
Affronted, she widened her eyes. “I foretold Logan Strong and Janice getting together, didn’t I? And Mike Gables and—”
“Enough!” He backed toward the door. “Leave me out of your fortune-telling. And for God’s sake, could everybody please forget about that hamster? Next time, I’ll let the damn thing suffocate.”
He wouldn’t, of course. Not when somebody like Stephanie made him want to revive a stupid rodent or die trying—all to impress a beautiful woman.
BY AFTERNOON, DANNY was bored out of his gourd.
Engine 62’s only action so far had been to tag along on a paramedic call to old Mrs. Trumblebird, who managed to have palpitations or a wastebasket fire every week or so. Today she’d been short of breath. Mostly Danny thought she was lonely but the ambulance hauled Abigail off to the hospital anyway. She’d be pampered for a couple of days and maybe her family would visit her.
Heck of a way to spend your golden years.
After logging an hour on the stationary bike, then showering, he wandered out in back of the station. Tommy Tonka was sitting in the driver’s seat of Big Red, a vintage 1930s fire engine the adolescent had helped the department restore. Today he looked glum.
“What’s up, kid?”
He lifted his bony shoulders. “Nuthin’.”
Danny swung up into the seat beside him. “Funny, from the look of things, I would have guessed your best friend died.”
Head bent, shoulders slumped, the sixteen-year-old slid his hands around the steering wheel. When it came to anything mechanical, Tommy was a near genius. Personality wise, he was definitely on the slow side.
With Courage and Commitment Page 3
