Saved by the Firefighter

by Rachel Brimble

  “Yay!” Maya slapped her hands on the arms of her chair. “Can I have cream?”

  Trent smiled and slid his gaze to Izzy. Her gaze locked with his, and this time it was him who looked away. Her eyes were dark with desire and misted with a hint of promise.

  Was this it? No more turning back or separation?

  Maya and Kerri waved and left the bakery, calling out a goodbye to Marian as they reached the door. Trent watched them go, his heart pounding. Once the door closed behind them, he took a deep breath and faced Izzy.

  “Hi.” Her eyes were full of a quiet determination, a sense of self-assurance he hadn’t seen for a long, long time.

  He smiled. “Hi.”

  “So, I guess we need to get some things straightened out.”

  “I guess we do.”

  She moved forward to place her forearms on the table between them. She laced her fingers, and when he looked at her hands, the knuckles were white. Inhaling, he took a chance and reached out to cover her fingers with his own.

  He waited as relief she didn’t pull away pushed at his chest.

  “Trent?”

  “What?”

  “I believe you.”

  His heart turned over. There it was. The one thing he’d ask her to say to him when she was ready to believe his love was never going to change, that he’d given up firefighting for himself rather than her...that she was ready to be with him. Forever. No doubts. No turning away. For either of them.

  Shifting closer, he smoothed his hands up and down her forearms, looking deep into her eyes. “I believe in you too.”

  “I want to be with you. Always.”

  “Ditto.”

  Her smile faltered and a little of the light faded from her eyes. “But I only want you to give up firefighting if you’re sure it’s what you—”

  “I already have.”

  The light reappeared in her eyes. “You have?”

  He smiled. “Yes. With or without you, the explosion was a sign. I’m out, Iz. I don’t want it anymore. I want you. I want a wedding. I want kids...” His stomach knotted. Was he saying too much? “What do you want?”

  She grinned, tears glazing her eyes. “The same. Every single part of what you just said. I want it all.”

  Trent smiled, reveling in the quiet, fantastically beautiful sound of her laughter. Still holding one of her hands, he stood and came around the table to slide into her side of the booth. She inched toward him as he sat. Using his free hand, he brushed some of her hair from her eyes and took in the full beauty of a face he would never tire of watching.

  “Do you want to go to bed?”

  She laughed. “My word, you are so romantic.”

  He wiggled his eyebrows. “I know. That’s why you love me.”

  Leaning in, he covered her mouth with his and she slid her hands onto his shoulders, pulling him closer. Their tongues tangled and he kissed her deeper, harder, letting every ounce of his love and admiration for her pour into her as he felt hers pour into him.

  Neither of them moved away, stopped or even faltered in their kiss. Not even as the whole bakery burst into wolf whistles and applause.

  * * * * *

  Be sure to check out the other books in the TEMPLETON COVE STORIES miniseries by Rachel Brimble

  FINDING JUSTICE

  A MAN LIKE HIM

  WHAT BELONGS TO HER

  CHRISTMAS AT THE COVE

  HER HOMETOWN REDEMPTION

  All available now from

  Harlequin Superromance.

  And look for the next Templeton Cove story, coming in 2017!

  Keep reading for an excerpt from MATINEES WITH MIRIAM by Vicki Essex.

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  Matinees with Miriam

  by Vicki Essex

  CHAPTER ONE

  SHANE WAS PRETTY sure the Keep Out sign was clear. Then again, teenagers carrying six-packs of beer and what looked like a bolt cutter weren’t the kind of people who obeyed signs.

  The three boys clipped the edges of the chain-link fence and pulled up the corner. With surreptitious looks around, they ducked beneath it, then hurried around the back of the building. Shane clenched his jaw. After the three-hour drive from Brooklyn, he’d wanted to go straight to the bed-and-breakfast, but he hadn’t been able to resist driving by the properties before calling it a night. Good thing, he thought as he got out of his car. While the block of buildings would eventually be knocked down, he still didn’t like trespassers on his property.

  Well, it wasn’t all his yet. But it would be soon.

  As he slipped through the gap in the fence, his blazer caught on a wire and tore. Great. It occurred to him that he should’ve called the police instead of going after the punks, but he could take care of himself.

  The abandoned buildings on either side of the old Crown Theater were boarded up tight, but the rear fire door of the theater was ajar. He hesitated. The Keep Out sign aside, the owner had made it clear she wouldn’t welcome his presence.

  But those punks were in there. It was his civic duty to stop them.

  He slipped into the darkened building, quietly pulling the door shut behind him. The sound of breaking glass followed by a snide laugh reached his ears. He’d never understood bored teens and their need to get into trouble, especially in picturesque Everville. This town was straight out of a Norman Rockwell painting—watering holes, beaches, ice-cream parlors and a whole slew of awesome hangouts. And yet, they were in this building, messing around. His blood pumped hard. He didn’t get mad easily, but he took the intrusion personally.

  His eyes adjusted to the eerie red glow of exit signs. It’d been over a decade since he’d visited the theater, and coming in from the back, he didn’t recognize where he was immediately. He climbed the short flight of stairs leading to the main lobby, a vaulted space that reminded him of the rib cage of some huge, starving beast. An empty vending machine hummed in one corner, its cold inner light flickering. He listened hard, but heard no further sign of the teens.

  He wasn’t sure how he’d confront them—maybe just tell them to buzz off, or threaten them with calling the cops. He hadn’t been able to tell how old or big the intruders were in the half dark. Now that he thought about it, thre
e against one weren’t great odds.

  Something fluttered in the dark to his right. He whipped his head around—nothing. Just more tomb-like silence and a slightly dank smell. Sweat broke out on his upper lip. He stifled the urge to call out. What if those kids were armed? He was starting to regret not calling the cops.

  A faint scuffle and some low murmurs reached his ears. With all the stealth he could manage in a suit and dress shoes, he crept along the wall and wedged himself against the corner by a pillar. A whiff of freshly made buttery popcorn tickled his nose. The Crown had been out of commission for nearly ten years—who’d be making popcorn now?

  “C’mon, man, hold that light still,” a raspy voice said. Not that old, then—maybe sixteen or so.

  “You’re so full of bullshit, Jacob. You don’t know how to pick a lock,” another voice, a touch lower, drawled.

  “Shut up. I totally do, but it’s kinda hard with you shaking that light everywhere.”

  “That’s cuz he’s freakin’ scared, man,” the third voice sneered. “You don’t believe those ghost stories about old man Bateman, do you?”

  “Woo-oo!” The first guy cackled. “I heard that old guy hung himself off the balcony.”

  “I heard he blew his brains out in the projector room.”

  “I heard he was murdered by someone in his family.”

  Shane’s skin prickled. He hadn’t heard any of these grisly tales. If any proved to be true, he’d have to disclose it to the development board. It could affect sales of the units.

  The darkness stirred again, like shadows moving through smoke. He searched for the source but saw nothing. Maybe it was a rat...

  The PA system suddenly crackled to life. A funereal carnival dirge played on a tinny piano warbled through the lobby, making the hairs on his neck stand up.

  “What the hell?” one of the boys whispered.

  The raspy voice quavered. “Someone else is here.”

  More scuffling. Shane pressed against the wall, heart hammering. The boys were headed his way.

  Suddenly, all the lights went out. He hadn’t noticed the ambient hum of electronics, but the air was dead silent now. Only the piano continued its forlorn melody. His veins filled with ice. Ghost stories that his chachi Priya had told him rose from the depths of his memory. He suddenly felt very exposed.

  “Holy—”

  “Go, go, go!”

  Something metal clanged. A crash, and one of the boys yelped.

  In the pitch black, Shane sensed movement. A pair of doors leading to the auditorium banged open, and a blast of cold air hit him.

  The red exit signs flickered. A dark something glided soundlessly across the lobby, and Shane’s chest seized. He caught sight of the boys, the three of them heaped in a pile on the floor, staring wide-eyed at the approaching figure in black.

  And then it spoke.

  “Get. Out.”

  The lights went out again. From beneath billowing black robes, the outline of a skeleton glowed neon green.

  The boys screamed. Shane squinted against the strobe light flickering from within the empty vending machine, catching the stop-motion-like progress of the teens as they tripped over each other sprinting toward the front door.

  One of them paused to look back, the way an emboldened and inexperienced lion cub might when facing an angry badger.

  The shadowy figure stopped. It raised its arms. A series of soft cracking noises punctuated the piano melody. The boy yelped as bright green globs exploded on his chest and arms.

  Was that ghost using a paintball gun?

  The doors burst open as the three trespassers stumbled out. The wraith stood there a moment longer, then drifted toward the exit. It set the bolts on the top of the door, then locked a large dead bolt.

  Shane was still plastered to the corner when the figure turned around. It pulled out a smart phone and hit a few buttons. The strobe light stopped, and blinding emergency floodlights turned on, washing the lobby in dirty brown light. A second later, the piano music ceased. The figure in black wasn’t quite so menacing now. It stood barely five-three, draped head to toe in filmy, artfully ragged cloth. Not an inch of skin showed, not even the small, delicate hands. An indigo-hued black light hung from a chain around its neck, which explained how the skeletal figure could be seen in the dark.

  This was no ghost.

  Relief and amusement swamped him. He stepped out from the corner and cleared his throat. “Miriam Bateman, I presume?”

  He thought catching her off guard would shock her into revealing herself. He was wrong.

  With lightning reflexes, the figure raised the paintball gun and pulled the trigger.

  * * *

  MIRA HAD NO tolerance for trespassers. Why anyone thought they could simply waltz into her theater to hang out, drink beer and piss against the walls like a bunch of animals...

  The little bastards were lucky she didn’t own a real gun.

  The paintball gun huffed a fierce volley of Day-Glo green pellets at the remaining intruder. Not only would he be cleaning the stuff out of his clothes for days, but he’d probably have some nice bruises, too. The sheriff wouldn’t have a hard time finding him or his friends.

  As the first volley hit him square in the chest, he twisted away, hands shielding his head, exposing his ribs and thigh to the assault instead. He reeled back as she stepped forward. The closer she got, the worse the impact would hurt.

  She let go of the trigger briefly. “Get out,” she gritted, though it didn’t have the menace the voice-changing app on her phone gave her. “You’re trespassing. The sheriff is on his way. Get out or I’ll put one through your eye.”

  “I followed those boys in here. I thought they were causing trouble—”

  “I’ll cause you trouble. Get out!” She pulled the trigger again. Three paintballs hit him square in the crotch. His face contorted, his mouth opened in a silent scream and, eyes crossed, he collapsed.

  Mira lowered the gun. He wasn’t getting up. And she was pretty sure he wasn’t faking his agony. Crap. That wasn’t good. She put the gun aside and dialed the sheriff, filling him in on her situation.

  “I’m driving as fast as I can, Mira,” Ralph McKinnon told her gruffly, “but I’m still about ten minutes out. I called Arty. He’ll probably get there before me.”

  “There was a fourth one, Ralph. Older guy. I shot him in the nuts with my paintball gun. He’s down.” She kept her gun pointed at him and leaned in far enough to ascertain if the man was still breathing. He had his hands cupped around his crotch and his eyes squeezed shut.

  Only a little remorse broke through her self-righteous fury. He was wearing a fairly nice gray suit and a pink tie, all of it now splattered with neon green paint. Clearly he hadn’t been with those punks. Not that it excused him from breaking into the Crown.

  The sheriff sighed. “I should never have given you those shooting lessons.”

  “Hey, you were the one who was all about standing your ground.”

  “Does he need an ambulance?”

  “Hey, you,” she said to the stranger. “Do you need an ambulance?”

  The man gurgled something that sounded like a no.

  “Nah,” Mira told Ralph. “But get over here quick. If he tries to get up, I might have to unload on him again.”

  “Please don’t.” The man rolled over and looked up at her with wide eyes. “I just wanted to drive those kids off.”

  “I’ll see you soon, Sheriff.” Mira slipped her phone back into her pocket, muzzle still trained on the man. He was dark skinned with jet-black hair and large, dark eyes. No rings on his fingers, so he wasn’t married—no wife to come after her in case she’d accidentally neutered him.

  She hefted the paintball gun menacingly. “So you’re, what, a good Samaritan?”<
br />
  “I’m Shane Patel from Sagmar Corp.,” he said hoarsely, easing himself up. Worried he might try to disarm her, she brandished the paintball gun. He raised his hands. “Are you Miriam Bateman?”

  Mira realized she still wore the head-to-toe wraith costume. He wouldn’t have recognized her anyhow—she didn’t have much in the way of a social media profile and preferred to stay anonymous online. All the same, she kept the cowl and veil on.

  “Why are you here, Mr. Patel?” She recognized his name, of course. All those letters from the property developer had gotten on every last one of her nerves.

  “I wanted to speak with you personally.” He sat up, his knees pinched together protectively. Contrition inched onto his face. “I wanted—”

  “I already told you, the Crown’s not for sale. Sheriff McKinnon will be here shortly to escort you off my property.”

  He straightened, ready to argue. “My associates—” She gestured with the muzzle of her weapon, and he got the hint, cutting off his sales pitch sharply. “It was rude of me to call on you so late,” he amended hastily. “I’m sorry for barging in on you like this. Seriously, I meant no harm. I was only driving by when I saw those kids.”

  Doubt stirred inside her. He hadn’t tried to hurt her or damage the Crown as far as she could tell. Nor did he seem to be trying to burn down the place to expedite the sale of the property—she’d heard stories of developers doing just that. His nice suit was ruined, and he’d probably be covered in bruises tomorrow. She’d be lucky if he didn’t press charges against her.

  She lowered the gun. “Sorry about your suit,” she said reluctantly. “You can send me a bill for the dry cleaning.”

  “Not to worry. It was in need of a little color anyhow.” He got to his feet. “I’ll wait for the sheriff. I can give him a description of those guys who broke in.”

  “That’s not necessary.” She didn’t want him there any longer than he had to be. “You can go.”