With Valor and Devotion

by Charlotte Maclay

  The fire department had determined, however, that burning candles in the kitchen had started the fire. There hadn’t been any electricity in the house. Mike Gables had been right—whomever Randy had been living with were squatters. And they’d endangered a child. The worst kind of public enemies in Kristin’s view.

  If she could take the boy home with her, she’d do it in a second. But that was against the rules. Besides, she couldn’t take in all the children she worked with no matter how much she might want to. There were simply too many.

  “You’ll be staying here for a few days,” she tried to explain again. “Bud and Alice Gramercy are great foster parents. I know you’ll like living with them, and you’ll have lots of kids to play with.” The Gramercys operated a small group home for up to six kids at time, all of them loud and rambunctious as evidenced by the cacophony going on in the backyard.

  “What about Suzie? Can she come too?”

  “I’m afraid not, honey. The Gramercys already have two dogs. You can play with them.”

  His lower lip jutted out about a mile. “Suzie’s my dog.”

  “I know, but there isn’t enough room—”

  “Where is she?”

  “They’re keeping her at the pound. She’s fine, I’m sure.”

  He was losing the battle to keep his chin from trembling. “Can I go see her? Please. I promised I’d come back for her.” A sob caught in his throat, and tears edged down his cheeks. “She’ll think I forgot!”

  “Oh, Randy… “Unable to help herself, she pulled the child into her arms. “If you could just tell me if you have any relatives, who you were living with—”

  “They didn’t want Suzie neither,” he said glumly, and Kristin could almost hear the unspoken words, They didn’t want me.

  He rested his head on her shoulder, so sweet and needy it made Kristin want to bawl like a baby too. Who in the name of heaven would walk away from a child like this? Leave him alone in a vacant house with only a dog for company? If she could get her hands on—

  Gritting her teeth, she forced her emotions aside and concentrated on her job, what needed to be done to protect Randy.

  Surely somewhere she could find a foster family who would take both the boy and his pet. It was a crime to separate them. Boys and puppy-dog tails went together. And if someone didn’t claim Suzie within seven days, the pound would have to euthanize the dog. Kristin couldn’t bear the thought of telling Randy his dog had been put to sleep. It would break her heart as well as the boy’s.

  Alice came out of the kitchen where she’d been fixing dinner for the mob of children. “Come on, Randy. Tell Ms. McCoy goodbye. It’s almost time for supper. I’ll show you where to put your things. You’re going to be sharing your bedroom with Shane and Toby. Won’t that be nice?”

  Taking the boy by his shoulders, Alice gently pulled him away from Kristin.

  His big, brown eyes locked on Kristin. “Can you go see Suzie? Tell her I didn’t forget her.”

  Kristin nodded, though nowhere in her job description did it say she had to drop by a pound to visit a client’s dog, nor was there any time in her hectic schedule for that kind of an excursion. But maybe she’d go anyway. Maybe she could convince the animal shelter to hold off any final decision about the dog’s fate long enough for her to find a suitable family.

  Then again, as firefighter Mike Gables had suggested, bureaucrats often made decisions based solely on rules they felt compelled to follow. Kristin could defend the system until she was blue in the face, but she acknowledged there were times when it simply didn’t work to the benefit of her young clients.

  From the vehemence of Mike’s reaction, perhaps he had learned that lesson in a very personal way. She couldn’t help but wonder where and how.

  WHEN THE PHONE rang, Kristin had been back in her office only long enough to note that the pile of case files on her desk had grown by a foot in her absence. The darn things multiplied faster than rabbits!

  She picked up the phone. “McCoy.”

  “Hey, girlfriend, what’re you doin’ Wednesday night?”

  Kristin rolled her eyes. “Well, let me think, Addy. I’ve scheduled a quick flight to the Riviera. Thought I’d drop a few thousand dollars on the roulette tables then buzz back home in time to get to work the next morning. Of course, Las Vegas would be closer and cheaper, but you know me—a party girl at heart.”

  “Which is why I called you. Your social life sucks big time.”

  “I like my quiet life—”

  “We’re all going out Wednesday night and there’s no way I’m going to accept a no from you unless, heaven forbid, there’s a death in your family.”

  “Addy, I don’t do blind dates.” She rarely dated at all, and then only reluctantly, when one of her brothers absolutely forced a buddy on her and she couldn’t refuse.

  “Who said anything about a date? It’s us girls—Connie, Janice, Holly Mae, you and me. We’re gonna have us a high ol’ time out on the town.”

  They were her friends, too, all of them employed by the hospital in one capacity or another. Still, Kristin stalled. “Well…”

  “Trust me, girlfriend. You need a break and so do we. It’s not like being a nurse is all that much more fun than going around wiping the noses of whiny little kids who’d just as soon kick you in the—”

  “Addy!” Kristin laughed. If there was a softer touch in the world than Addy, Kristin had never met her. “So where are we going?”

  “Uh, we’ll figure that out once we get started. For now, let’s plan to meet at the hospital about seven. We’ll go from there.”

  Kristin didn’t like the hesitation she’d heard in her friend’s voice, but before she could ask for clarification, Addy said, “Gotta go, hon. There’s a big hunky UPS driver at my door. See you Wednesday.”

  Left holding a silent phone, Kristin decided a night out on the town with her friends was exactly what she needed. She’d been spending far too much time in the past day or so thinking about a studly firefighter with a wicked smile and a dangerous reputation.

  THEY’D tricked her!

  Kristin had been thinking drinks and dinner with Addy and her friends, maybe a movie. What she got was a bachelor auction to benefit the hospital’s burn unit and an auditorium filled with giggling, out-of-control women. The aisles were crowded, the seats filling up quickly.

  “There is no way I’m going to bid on anyone,” Kristin insisted.

  “You don’t have to,” Addy assured her. “The looking is almost as much fun as the buying. It’s like window-shopping.”

  Kristin wasn’t in the market for a bachelor of any size or shape. Forget that the money went for a good cause. She didn’t even want to look. Thinking about the absence of a special man in her life was a depressing exercise and one to be avoided.

  “Look, Addy, you and the others can go ahead without me. We’ll do something together next—”

  “Here we go.” Addy caught Kristin’s hand and forcefully dragged her into a row with several vacant seats. Connie was right behind her, pushing, and she was followed by the rest of Addy’s cohorts from the hospital.

  Not only had they tricked Kristin, now they’d trapped her!

  “You just let us know if you see anything interesting,” Connie said, settling beside Kristin.

  The only thing in the room of interest to Kristin was the red Exit sign. And she couldn’t get to it without trampling an entire row of excited women.

  As Kristin scrunched down in her chair in the faint hope none of her colleagues from work would see her, Connie passed Addy a big handful of money. With a smug smile, Addy tucked the wad of bills into her purse.

  Kristin had the distinct impression her friends were up to some stunt she wasn’t going to like.

  MIKE NOTICED her the moment he paraded out onto the stage with the other bachelors. Odd, in a sea of two hundred beautiful women, how he’d zeroed in on Kristin. Maybe it was because she was the only woman in the room who wasn’t screa
ming and waving. Or maybe it had to do with dynamite chemistry—on his side, at least. And he couldn’t help but wonder who she’d be bidding on.

  Fire Chief Harlan Gray picked up the microphone to act as MC and auctioneer. “Good evening, ladies. I’d like to welcome you all to—”

  “We don’t want any speeches, Chief,” someone shouted. “We’ve got money burning holes in our purses. Let’s have at it.”

  The women in the audience whooped their approval. Instinctively, every bachelor on stage including the chief, who was a widower, stepped back a pace. These were some scary ladies. Nobody wanted to be in their way if they stampeded.

  The chief sorted out the bachelors, asking Les Adams from Station Two to take center stage first. In all, about twenty bachelors were to be auctioned off, most of them firefighters, with a couple of doctors and a male nurse thrown into the mix. The bidding on Les started at a hundred dollars and made it to a hundred and fifty before running out of steam. Mike noticed Kristin wasn’t much interested in the proceedings.

  An hour later, amid whistles and catcalls, Mike finally took his place out front. He grinned at the ladies and blew them a kiss, which brought another round of cheers. He’d like to do well at the auction, bring in the big bucks. In addition to an ego stroke, there was a friendly rivalry between the fire stations in town. The one that garnered the least money for the burn unit had to deliver ice cream to all the other stations.

  Somebody started the bidding at two hundred. Before he could spot the first bidder, the price had gone up to two-fifty and he realized Addy Goodfellow had finally jumped into the fray with her first bid of the evening. Not Kristin, he thought with a twinge of regret. She looked like she’d rather be somewhere else.

  Two-seventy-five quickly became three-fifty, and it looked like Mike was going to grab top honors for the night. Suddenly, he remembered that weeks ago Emma Jean had predicted he’d get the highest bid this year—and never be eligible for a bachelor auction again.

  When Addy went to five hundred dollars, Mike began to sweat. He thought she understood he wasn’t a commitment kind of guy. She shouldn’t be spending—

  “Five hundred once,” Chief Gray called. “Five hundred twice. Sold to the lady in the red blouse!”

  The audience cheered at the top bid for the evening.

  Mike mentally groaned. He’d show Addy a good time on their date, but he’d make it clear that as nice as she might be, and as much fun as she was, they had no future together.

  The final bachelor went for two-fifty and the chief was about to call it a night when Councilwoman Evie Anderson stood up in the audience. An attractive woman in her sixties, she’d had her eye on the chief for some years, showing up at the fire station with home-baked goods for him and “his boys” and even baking him a birthday cake. Problem was, the councilwoman couldn’t cook worth a darn. From the taste of her strawberry syrup alone, which she’d brought to the pancake breakfast this past spring, Mike was convinced the woman was determined to poison every member of the fire department along with all their family members.

  “We’re not done yet, Harlan,” Evie said.

  “Yes, we are,” the chief insisted. “Steve was the last—”

  “You’re single, Chief Gray. And I bid one thousand dollars.”

  There was a moment of silence, as though everyone was intrigued by the blush that rushed up the chief’s throat and bloomed on his cheeks, virtually turning the roots of his gray hair pink. Then the audience cheered louder than they had all evening.

  The chief banged his gavel. “Sold,” he muttered, and the whole crowd was on their feet practically bringing the auditorium down with their enthusiastic applause. Only two people didn’t look happy about the evening—Chief Gray and Kristin McCoy.

  Despite the fact that he didn’t believe in Emma Jean’s psychic ability, Mike released a small sigh of relief. He hadn’t won the top-dollars honor after all. Logically, then, his bachelor status for next year’s event was still intact.

  KRISTIN wanted to escape.

  But Addy and Connie had her boxed in, trapped while Mike made his way through the mob toward where she was standing. Where Addy was standing, she corrected herself. She was the one who’d won the date with Mike, at no small expense.

  Lord, he was a big man, she realized. At well over six feet, he towered over most of the women in the room, giving each of them a quick smile as he edged past them. They ate it up, all but swooning at his feet. Kristin knew better. A sweet-talking man with a sexy grin meant nothing but trouble in her experience.

  When he reached the clutch of waiting women, Mike bent over and brushed a familiar kiss to Addy’s cheek.

  “You must have won the lotto,” he said to her. “If you’d just called me up, I’d have taken you out for a lot less than five hundred bucks.”

  She laughed a delighted sound. “Sugar, you and I had our fun, and I wouldn’t have missed it for the world. But I didn’t bid on you for myself. We all chipped in, pooled our money—” her gesture included all the nurses standing nearby “—for Kristin. She’s going to be your date.”

  Kristin’s jaw dropped. If the gods had opened up the floor beneath her feet, she would have gladly slipped out of sight. Mike Gables was the last man on earth she wanted to date. He was too charming, too sexy—too damn tempting.

  “No,” she murmured, her throat aching, barely able to find her voice.

  His gaze swung in her direction, dark eyes filled with amusement and a challenge. “You didn’t know about this?”

  “Not a chance.”

  “Interesting.” His lips quirked into one of his patented smiles. “Surprises can be fun.”

  His gaze was so intense, so totally focused on her, Kristin felt the rest of the room and everyone in it melt away. For all she knew, Addy, Connie and the others had abandoned her. She and this smiling, potently masculine man were the only two people left in the auditorium. An odd buzzing started in her head, blocking out any other sound. She couldn’t have looked away from Mike Gables if her life had depended upon it. If not her life, certainly her good sense was at serious risk.

  “I’m not really into surprises,” she said.

  “Then this will be a first for both of us. I’ve never had anyone bid five hundred dollars just to have a date with me.”

  “I didn’t bid on you at all.”

  “I know.” His slow perusal swept over her with obvious masculine interest. “That’s what’s going to make our date so interesting.”

  It took all of her willpower to draw herself up to her full five-foot-five inches to challenge him right back. “Why don’t we pretend we had our date, we both had a great time, no one will be the wiser and the burn center will still be five hundred dollars richer.”

  “That wouldn’t be honorable. I gave my word I’d go out with whoever bid the most for me—or her surrogate in this case. Your friends would be disappointed in us both if we didn’t go through with it after all the trouble they went to.”

  “I’ll explain to them it just wasn’t possible—”

  “Not good enough. How ’bout Friday night? There’s a great place in Pismo, good food, a small dance floor. We could—”

  “No,” she gasped. “I’m busy that night.”

  “Really?”

  “Absolutely. Very busy.” Friday nights she collapsed after a hard workweek, rarely able to stay awake late enough to watch a movie on TV. And that was typical for her social schedule every night of the week.

  He gave her a skeptical look, though his intense scrutiny didn’t let up an iota even as he tipped his head to the side, shifting those wavy curls off his forehead slightly. “Do you like scuba diving?”

  Without thought, she nodded. Too late to take it back, she stammered, “I, well—”

  “Great. I’ll pick you up Sunday morning at—”

  “I’m perfectly capable of driving myself,” she said hastily. “But I have no intention of—”

  “You know the marina at Morro
Bay?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “Perfect. Meet me there at ten. My boat’s moored in row 57A—the Lady Be Good. I’ll bring a lunch and I’ve got gear for you if you need it.” He bent down, brushed the same familiar kiss to her cheek as he had with Addy, and gave Kristin another wicked grin. “We’ll have a great time.”

  In stunned silence, Kristin stood in the middle of the aisle as Mike walked away. She wasn’t sure which was more irritating—his arrogant assumption that she’d go out with him, despite her refusal, or the fact that the quick brush of his lips had been a flashpoint of reawakened desire. Heated messages radiated through every nerve ending from that simple contact, speaking of possibilities and forbidden cravings. Low in her body she felt an unwelcome response, an ache of wanting she’d long denied herself.

  Damn, if Mike Gables was that potent with only a peck on the cheek, how much more damage could he do to a woman’s willpower if he set his mind to it?

  Turning, she spied her friends loitering near the exit, looking as smug as truants who’d made a clean escape from the school principal. She stalked toward them.

  “What on earth possessed the four of you to—”

  “It was for a good cause,” Holly Mae said, grinning like a fool.

  “You spent too much money, for one thing. For another, I have no interest in—”

  “You needed a date,” Addy said.

  Not someone like Mike Gables, she thought wildly. “I could use a new car, too. Why didn’t you buy me one of those?”

  Connie hooked her arm through Kristin’s. “We’ll work on that for next year.”

  “But, you work hard for your money. You shouldn’t be spending it on me.” She whirled back to Holly Mae. “You’re single. You can go out with Mike. I’m sure you’ll have a wonderful—”