by Teri Wilson
Sprinkles’s toenails click-clacked against the tile floor as she scrambled after it, nearly jerking Violet’s arm out of the socket in the process. The bakery box came perilously close to slipping from her grasp. She managed to keep hold of it long enough for Sprinkles to trot back to her side with the Ping-Pong ball in her doggy mouth.
“Here you go,” Griff said, stopping at a closed door situated behind two neat rows of leather recliners facing an enormous flat-screen television. “This is the new guy.”
“Thanks.” She pasted on a smile. “I’ll take it from here.”
“My pleasure.” Griff gave Sprinkles a scratch behind her ears and headed back toward the dispatch desk.
Violet pretended not to notice the warning glares he shot at the other firemen as he passed through the common area, but a ribbon of relief wound its way through her as they stopped openly staring at her.
Okay. She took a deep breath and knocked. Here goes nothing.
“Come in,” someone growled from the other side of the door. She would’ve recognized that cranky tone anywhere.
Violet wondered why he had an office. From what she knew about firemen—which was more than she cared to admit—they didn’t sit at desks all day. In fact, the last time she’d darkened the door of the firehouse, Chief Murray had been the only member of the department who’d had an actual office. His was located just off the galley-style kitchen, and a quick glance confirmed it was still there.
Whatever. She just needed to make nice and hand over the cupcakes so she could go back to the dog beach with her head held high.
She opened the door and stepped inside, where the aforementioned grumpy fireman sat bent over the most meticulously organized desk Violet had ever set eyes on. A desk plate with the words Sam Nash, Fire Marshal on it was placed near the edge of the smooth wooden surface. Oh right, he was a fire marshal, not a regular fireman. That explained the office. Four fountain pens were lined up neatly beside his name plate, spaced apart at perfectly equal distances. The file in front of Sam contained a stack of paper so pristine that it looked like he’d just taken it off the printer. Not a crease in sight.
Sprinkles’s identical twin rested on a fire engine–red dog bed in the corner of the room, regarding Violet with soft brown eyes.
“Hi,” Violet said.
Sam finally looked up.
“Oh. Hi.” He pushed back his chair and stood. Why did it suddenly feel like there wasn’t nearly enough air in his tiny office? “It’s you.”
Sprinkles scurried toward him and spat the Ping-Pong ball out of her mouth, where it bounced at Sam’s feet. Miraculously, the other Dalmatian completely ignored it.
Sam’s gaze shifted toward Sprinkles. “And you too.”
Sprinkles wagged her tail and nudged Sam’s hand until he patted her. Violet’s heart gave a rebellious little tug. Did he have to look so good petting her dog? There was a gentleness in the way his fingertips ran over her smooth, black-and-white coat—a tender reverence that put a wholly inappropriate lump in Violet’s throat.
“Don’t worry. She’s had a bath since you last saw her,” Violet said, trying her best to focus on something less dangerous, like Sam’s insanely organized office supplies.
“Yeah, I can smell that.” Sam wiggled his nose. “Am I imagining things, or does she smell like cake now?”
“Oh, that’s not her. I brought you cupcakes.” She thrust the pink box toward him.
His gaze remained impassive. “You did?”
“As a peace offering.” Her face went hot. “It’s what I do—I’m a baker.”
She added that last bit because it seemed crucial to point out that she hadn’t gone to any extraordinary lengths to cook something for him. She was a career woman, not Betty Draper.
Granted, she was a career woman who spent most of her time in a frilly pink polka dot apron and still lived in the rambling March family beach house with her father and two older brothers. Plus she’d owned her cupcake truck for less than a week, but those things didn’t make her any less of a professional.
“I see.” Sam glanced down at her whimsical logo: a Dalmatian behind the wheel of a food truck topped with a giant spinning cupcake. “Sweetness on Wheels, that’s you?”
“Sure is. Like I said, I just wanted to come by and apologize. Things are kind of nuts here when it comes to softball, and for a minute, I thought you were trying to steal Sprinkles as some sort of prank. But I realize now that you’re new in town. Cinder clearly belongs to you, and you obviously don’t know a thing about our nutty little feud.”
Sam’s gaze met hers, and then that stern mouth of his curved into a lopsided smile that made her go all gooey inside, like one of her molten hot chocolate cupcakes. Ugh, what was wrong with her?
She plunked the bakery box down on his desk with shaky hands, and when she looked back up at him, her gaze snagged on something over his left shoulder—something that snapped her immediately back to reality.
Sam raked a hand through his perfect hair. “Actually, I—”
Violet cut him off before he could continue. “What is that?”
Her tone went razor sharp, prompting Sam’s smile to vanish as quickly as it had appeared.
His gaze narrowed. “What’s what?”
Violet wasn’t about to spell things out for him. She didn’t have to. The damning evidence was hanging right there on the back wall of his office in the form of a framed newspaper article with a huge headline that read Local College Hall of Famer Sam Nash Turns Down MLB Contract to Join Chicago Fire Department.
Sam was practically a Major League Baseball player? This could only mean one thing. He was a ringer!
The fire department had brought him to Turtle Beach and installed him in a fancy office for the sole purpose of snagging the Guns and Hoses championship trophy this season. What’s more, he didn’t even have the common decency to try and hide it.
How low could a person get? How dare he come marching into town with his athletic build, his Hall of Fame muscles, and his despicably handsome face and think he could just hand the TBFD a victory. It was basically stealing. He deserved to rot in her father’s single-cell jail across the street. Maybe she should call 911 again.
“Violet?” Sam’s brow furrowed, as if he hadn’t a clue what she was suddenly so upset about.
Sprinkles and Cinder touched noses, tails wagging, and the adorable sight of the two dogs together nearly broke Violet’s heart. Somehow the fact that Sam had a Dalmatian made his betrayal so much worse. He didn’t deserve such a spotted sweetheart of a dog. Violet couldn’t believe she’d wasted a single second feeling bad about falsely accusing him of dognapping. She’d swallowed her pride and baked him cupcakes, and the man was nothing but a Dalmatian abomination.
Sam held up his hands. “I’m not sure what’s going on here, but—”
Finally, he followed her gaze and turned to glance over his shoulder. He muttered an expletive and ground his teeth so hard that an ultra-manly knot flexed to life in his jawline. Violet averted her gaze before she accidentally went all swoony again.
“Look, I can explain,” he said.
Why did that seem to be the one thing men always said when they’d done something atrocious?
“Don’t bother. I’ve heard that line before.” Most recently, from another fireman who’d worked at this exact station—a fireman who hadn’t been able to explain a thing, except that he’d used her.
Everything always came down to softball in Turtle Beach. When was she going to learn to steer completely clear of anyone with a badge?
She snatched the pink bakery box off of Sam’s desk. “Come on, Sprinkles. We’re leaving.”
“Seriously, you’re taking my cupcakes back?” Sam planted his hands on his hips and actually had the nerve to look incredulous.
“I certainly am,” Violet said.
&n
bsp; No more playing nice. She was finished with giving him the benefit of the doubt. Her initial instincts about Sam had been right all along. She should never have let herself be swayed by his charming doggy dad routine or his devoted Dalmatian.
From now on, when it came to firemen, Violet March had finally learned to see things in black-and-white.
Chapter 3
Sam’s office still smelled like frosting the following morning. The warm scents of sugary buttercream and whipped vanilla hung in the air, as tempting as the fiery Miss Violet March herself.
Not for Sam, of course. He could resist. He would resist. He’d rather run straight into another burning building than get tangled up with her again.
There was no reasoning with Violet. He’d tried to explain that the newspaper clipping on the wall hadn’t been his doing. Chief Murray had apparently discovered the article on the internet when he’d been checking up on Sam’s qualifications and had been so slaphappy to have found a fireman with a .333 college batting average that he’d printed the damn thing out and stuck it in a frame. But of course Violet was too impetuous to stick around and listen to Sam’s perfectly logical explanation.
Color Sam shocked. He’d known Violet was trouble when she accused him of dognapping. For some silly reason, though, when she’d turned up in his office the day before with that pretty pink box in her arms and her boisterous Dalmatian tethered to her slender wrist by a leash decorated with tiny cartoon cupcakes, he’d let down his guard. Only for a moment…but that tiny sliver of a second had been almost long enough to forget why he’d come to Turtle Beach to begin with. Spoiler alert: it wasn’t to let himself get wrapped around the beautiful little finger of the police chief’s daughter.
He should feel grateful, really. The fact that she apparently thought he was part of some grand softball conspiracy against the police department guaranteed that she’d give him a wide berth from now on, and that was exactly what Sam needed. Space. It was why he’d given up his brownstone in Chicago and left the city he’d called home for his entire life to start anew on the windswept beaches of the Carolina coast. He could breathe here. He could heal. He could sink his toes in the sand, close his eyes, and forget everything that had gone so terribly wrong three months ago—everything he’d lost. Everything he’d loved.
His new life wasn’t about putting out fires. It was about preventing them, both the actual kind and the metaphorical. The rush he used to get when he rode up on a fire in the rig was gone, and it wasn’t coming back. He used to live for the burn in the back of his throat and the sooty smell of his hair after he walked away from a call and peeled away his turnout gear. They’d meant he’d done something real, something important.
Something else had fundamentally shifted inside of him, though. He no longer craved the burn at the back of his throat. He loathed it, and he’d set out to do anything and everything in his power to prevent it. That was what the move to the Turtle Beach Fire Department had been about. As a fire marshal, he could stop tragedies before they ever happened—especially in an underserved community like Turtle Beach. His new hometown had never had a full-time fire marshal, but he was here now. He could do his part to make the town as safe as possible. Coming here had never been about softball, no matter what Violet might think.
Sam was content to let her believe whatever she wanted, however. He’d just as soon skip another round of apology cupcakes. The sight of her standing across from his desk had rattled him, and he didn’t like being rattled. He didn’t need the distraction of her soulful sea-glass eyes or her full cherry-red lips any more than he needed her Dalmatian spitting Ping-Pong balls at his feet.
Even so, when he’d stumbled out of bed this morning, poured himself a mug of steaming black coffee, and carried it out onto the deck of his new beach cottage, his entire body had flooded with heat at the sight of Violet riding a bicycle along the boardwalk on the bay side of the island.
Her bike was a vintage beach cruiser, Tiffany-blue with fat cream-colored tires and a wicker basket attached to the handlebars. Was she wearing a helmet? No, of course not. Her strawberry hair streamed behind her, kissed by glittering gold sunlight, and to make things even more dangerous, Sprinkles ran alongside the bicycle, attached once again to Violet’s wrist with the pink cupcake leash. The whole scene was an accident waiting to happen.
Sam’s grip tightened on his coffee cup. Beside him, Cinder let out an uncharacteristically mournful whine.
“We’re going back inside,” Sam said as cool, salty air caused Cinder’s ears to flap in the breeze. He had no desire to stick around and watch that crazy dog drag Violet into a wall or the ocean, minus appropriate protective gear.
Yet he’d inexplicably remained rooted to the spot until his coffee had gone cold and Violet had ridden out of sight, just a swirl of golden light and black-and-white spots in the distance.
“Have you got cake in here?” Griff said as he leaned against the doorjamb of Sam’s office, a damp towel slung over his shoulder.
Every fire station in America started its morning shift in the same way—inspecting all equipment and apparatus, followed by cleaning the rigs. Washing the fire trucks was as routine and predictable as the rising sun. Sam wondered when he’d get used to starting the day without a soapy sponge in his hand now that he rode a desk instead of a shiny red fire truck.
“Nope,” he said without elaborating. “No cake.”
“Weird, because it smells like cake in here.” Griff crossed his arms. “Also, I personally escorted Violet to your office yesterday, and I distinctly remember the bakery box in her hands.”
Sam glowered at him. “There’s no cake.”
“Geez, I was just asking.” Griff shrugged. “Too bad, because her cupcakes are out of this world.”
“Well, you won’t find any of them in this office,” Sam said, aggressively straightening the stack of papers on his desk.
He wasn’t sure why the lack of cake in his life bothered him so much all of a sudden. Cake was unhealthy and frivolous. It rotted the teeth. He’d never wanted a bite so badly in his life.
“Okay, then. The new guy doesn’t like cake. Duly noted.” Griff sank into the chair opposite Sam.
Cinder’s tail thump-thumped against the floor until Sam nodded, giving her permission to rise from her dog bed to greet the new visitor. Even so, she was ever polite, gently dropping her chin onto Griff’s knee and gazing up at him until he placed his hand on top of her smooth, spotted head.
Griff snorted. “Your dog looks a lot like Sprinkles, but they don’t act the same at all.”
Sam didn’t need to ask why. His tenure in the small beach town had been brief thus far, but he’d seen enough of Sprinkles to know exactly what Griff was referring to. “That’s because Cinder is trained and Sprinkles clearly isn’t.”
“Right, because Cinder is a fire dog and all that.”
Sam shook his head. “That doesn’t have anything to do with it. Or it shouldn’t, anyway. All dogs should be trained in basic obedience, even pets.”
Griff’s eyebrows drew together as he seemed to consider Sam’s words. “Sprinkles isn’t a bad dog. Violet takes her pretty much everywhere, so she’s familiar to the whole town.”
“So I’ve noticed,” Sam said. Over the course of the past twenty-four hours, no less than fifteen people had asked him what he was doing with Violet March’s Dalmatian. It was getting old and, frankly, a little insulting.
Could no one tell the difference between his highly trained partner and Violet’s unruly, dotted little monster?
“She wouldn’t harm a flea. She’s just a little”—Griff scrunched up his face—“excitable.”
Sam rolled his eyes. “That’s one word for it.”
“Sprinkles is a sweetheart, you’ll see. Plus she’s a rescue. Violet adopted her up in Wilmington. The poor thing had been living on the streets before the city pound picked her
up.”
“If Violet is ‘off-limits,’ how do you know so much about her dog?” Sam asked, trying not to think too hard about how he’d become the type of person who used annoying air quotes.
Griff shrugged one shoulder. “Word gets around, plus the paper ran an article about it shortly after Violet adopted her.”
Sam stared blankly at him. Two days ago, he couldn’t have conceived of a town where a pet adoption would make the local paper, and now he was living in one. Just another small-town quirk that had never crossed his mind.
He pinched the bridge of his nose. “It doesn’t matter if Sprinkles is a rescue or not. I adopted Cinder from a shelter in Chicago.”
“Really? I never would have guessed.” Griff appraised Cinder anew. He offered his hand, and she gently placed her paw into his palm for a shake. “Impressive.”
“Every dog can and should be trained in basic obedience,” Sam said, wincing as Sprinkles sprang to the forefront of his mind, writhing in the sand at the dog beach, reeking of dead fish and all manner of decaying sea life. “A dog that can’t follow simple orders causes chaos, and it’s just not safe.”
Griff arched a brow but said nothing.
“I’m serious,” Sam said. Why did he feel compelled to defend himself all of a sudden? “Sprinkles might be friendly and cute, but she’s also impulsive.”
“Mmhmm,” Griff said, nodding as his mouth twisted into a subtle smirk.
Sam wasn’t finished. “She’s flighty, easily distracted, and thoroughly undisciplined. Just because everyone in town knows and loves her doesn’t mean she isn’t without fault.”
Griff’s smirk grew larger until it seemed to take up his entire face. “I hear you.”
