First Kiss with a Cowboy: Includes a bonus novella

by Sara Richardson

  She nodded and tried to swallow the knot in her throat. “What—what was that sound? Is the structure stable enough for them to be inside?”

  “One of the ceiling beams in the attic was torn free.” He glanced back toward the house. “We’ve got every available man and woman on the job. Got another engine from Quincy running a hose with some of our crew from the back and a second and third ambulance at the ready in front of our truck. We assess the situation as best we can, making predictions on what we know about the fire and how we believe it will behave. But there’s always risk.”

  Casey squeezed Ivy’s hand and pointed toward the house. “Look!”

  A parade of firefighters exited the front door, one carrying Mrs. Davis’s cocker spaniel, Lois. Another had a box of kittens. And the third held Butch Catsidy, the three-legged foster cat she’d had since he was a kitten—and had kept when no one adopted him. The crowd of onlookers applauded, but Ivy knew Mrs. Davis’s beagle was still missing. Frederick was old and prone to hiding, and he was no doubt burrowed somewhere he thought was safe.

  A voice sounded on the chief’s radio, and he turned his back to listen and respond.

  Ivy let go of Casey’s hand and pulled out her phone and fired off a quick text to Pearl.

  With the chief. He’s outside. Mrs. Davis at the hospital but will be okay. No word on anyone else yet.

  She couldn’t bring herself to say Carter’s name. The not knowing was making it hard to breathe. She started slipping her phone back into her pocket but then changed her mind. Even though there was no way he’d see it now, she hoped with everything she had he’d see it soon. So she brought up her last text exchange with Carter and typed.

  I’m here. If you’ll let me, I will always be here for you. I love you.

  She pocketed her phone just as the chief turned back around.

  “They found Frederick,” he said.

  Ivy breathed out a sigh of relief. But it was short-lived.

  “He’s under Mrs. Davis’s bed. Two of them are trying to coax him out while another keeps watch on the soundness of the structure.” He shook his head. “I wanted everyone off the second floor by now.” He pulled his radio out again. “Lieutenant, you have two minutes to get your team out of there, dog or no dog. Do you copy?”

  “Copy that, Chief. Two minutes. But we’re coming with the dog. Over.”

  Ivy’s heart lifted. That was Carter’s voice. Carter was okay. The team was still okay.

  The firefighters on the ground had now moved to the bucket ladder just outside the fiery attic window.

  “Who else is inside?” she asked.

  “It’s just Lieutenant Bowen, O’Brien, and O’Brien.”

  Carter. Wyatt. Shane.

  “The dog is secured, sir. We’re coming out. Over,” Carter said over the radio.

  Ivy choked back a sob. In seconds he’d be out of the building and she’d be able to breathe again.

  But instead she heard another screech followed by a crash and then the unmistakable sound of the PASS device, a firefighter’s personal alarm that meant he or she was in distress.

  Seconds later, one of the firefighters and Frederick ran out the front door, but whoever was carrying the dog set him down on the lawn and ran back inside.

  Casey hooked her arm through Ivy’s and pulled her close. “He’s gonna come out, Ives, okay? This is Meadow Valley. We don’t do tragedy here. Plus, you’ve already had your fill for one lifetime, so this is only going to end with Carter Bowen walking out of that house.”

  Ivy nodded, but she couldn’t speak. Maybe she’d had her share of tragedy, but had she played a role in setting herself up for more? She shook her head, a silent argument with her thoughts. She could let her fear close her off from risk—and also happiness—or she could be here for Carter, believing in him and in what Casey said: This was going to end with Carter Bowen walking out of that house.

  “What if that’s not how it ends, Case?” she asked, her voice cracking with the reality of the situation.

  Casey looked at her, the tears in her best friend’s eyes mirroring her own.

  “Then you will fall apart, and I will be here to put you back together again. You’re not alone in this, okay? You will never be alone.”

  Ivy nodded and held her breath.

  “Lieutenant, what’s your status? Over,” the chief said, somehow maintaining his calm.

  “Sir, this is Shane O’Brien. Part of the attic ceiling came down over the stairs. Lieutenant Bowen and my brother—I was already at the bottom with the dog—got knocked down by a burning beam.” He went silent for a few seconds. “They’re under the beam and neither of them are moving.”

  Ivy could see the fiery beam through the window. It stretched halfway down the length of the stairs.

  The PASS alert ceased, and the chief’s radio crackled.

  Carter’s voice sounded over the radio. “The rest of the ceiling’s gonna go, Chief. Don’t send anyone else in. O’Brien’s got this. Shane?” Carter sounded pained, and Ivy stopped breathing altogether. “Shane can you hear me?”

  “Copy that. I hear you, Lieutenant Bowen,” Shane said. “But—I can’t do this. I can’t—”

  “I need you to stay calm but act fast. Your brother’s unconscious and my arm is broken, and my hand is pinned under the corner of the beam. All you need to do is unpin me, and I can help you carry your brother out.”

  “This shit isn’t supposed to happen here,” Shane said. “Nothing happens here.”

  “You can do this, Shane,” Carter said. “But it has to be fast. The rest of the ceiling is starting to buckle.”

  The radios went silent after that. Ivy swore she could hear her own heartbeat. Her hand was in Casey’s again, the two of them squeezing each other tight yet not laying voice to what they were both thinking.

  This was Charlie all over again. They got Charlie out but not in time to save him from the internal injuries the paramedics couldn’t treat.

  The firefighters on the outside still worked tirelessly, and the flames began to retreat. But Ivy knew that did nothing for the internal damage or the safety of the structure. The ceiling was already compromised, and the extra weight of the water would expedite its complete collapse.

  A buckling sound came from within the house, and Ivy knew their time was up.

  “Come on. Come on. Come on,” she chanted.

  Then the roof of the house dipped. Less than a second later, it folded in on itself as two figures burst through the front-door opening with a third figure’s arms draped over their shoulders.

  Shane and Carter ran with the toes of Wyatt’s boots scraping across the grass until they were far enough from what once was Mrs. Davis’s home and paramedics were able to retrieve Wyatt and get him onto a stretcher. Carter held his right arm against his torso, and when he tore off his hat and mask, she could see an expression wrought with pain as another paramedic escorted him to a third ambulance.

  Ivy dropped down to the ground and crawled under the barricade.

  “Go get him, Ives!” Casey called after her.

  And Ivy ran. She ran past the chief, who called her name, but she didn’t stop to listen. She ran past a police car where she recognized Daniela Garcia, who’d graduated high school with Charlie, standing against the bumper. Except she was Deputy Garcia now, and although Ivy didn’t think she was breaking any laws by bypassing the barricade, at the moment she didn’t care if she had, as long as she made it to Carter.

  “You can’t be back here, Ivy!” Deputy Garcia yelled. But Ivy still didn’t stop.

  Not until she was breathless and banging on the already closed back door of the emergency vehicle did she come to a halt.

  A paramedic swung the door open, and she climbed inside without being invited. Carter sat on the gurney still in his protective boots and pants, but his jacket had been removed and a ninety-degree splint was affixed to his right arm from shoulder to wrist. A clear tube that led to an IV bag hanging from the ceiling of
the vehicle was taped to his left hand.

  “Hi,” she said, barely holding it together. “All right if I ride along?”

  Chapter Eleven

  Carter looked at the paramedic who was closing the door, a younger guy from his team named Ty. “You think you could give us some privacy?” he asked.

  The other man hesitated. “With all due respect, Lieutenant—and that’s a mighty fine thing you did talking O’Brien through that situation—you know I can’t leave you alone back here.” He had to give it to the kid for following procedure. He wondered, though, if Ty’s name was on that petition.

  The ambulance lurched forward, and Ivy fell into the seat meant for the paramedic.

  “Guess that means you’re staying,” Carter told her.

  “I can sit here,” Ty said, taking a spot on the bench to Carter’s right. “And the best I can do about privacy is this.” He pulled a pair of wireless earbuds out of his pocket and stuck them in his ears. “Just tap my shoulder if you need something!” he said, already too loud over whatever music he was playing, and Carter laughed.

  “Looks like it’s just you and me,” he said. “Which means that now I can ask you what the hell you were doing so close to the fire. Dammit, Ivy. Don’t you know how dangerous that was?”

  Her eyes widened. “Me? You’re mad at me when I came here to show you that I support you no matter what? To tell you that I love you and that you’re not alone in this?”

  She threw her hands in the air, but with such limited space, she had to keep her arms close to her body. The whole gesture made her look like an exasperated T. rex, and Carter had to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing.

  “Are you—laughing?” she said. “I just heard you over the chief’s radio say that you were trapped under a burning ceiling beam and that your arm was broken, and you’re laughing?”

  Her voice trembled, and a tear slid quickly down her cheek.

  He wasn’t laughing anymore.

  “Jesus, Ivy,” he said. “You heard all that? How long were you out there?”

  She sucked in a steadying breath and blew it out slowly.

  “Long enough to know that you are really good at your job. Long enough to know that even in the worst situation, you were still in control and knew what to do.” She shook her head and pressed her lips together. “I will always be scared when you have to leave that firehouse with sirens blaring. But I also know that you’re the best shot your team has at coming home safe whenever you do.”

  He cupped her cheek in his palm. IV or not, he didn’t care. He needed to touch her, and he needed her to know the truth—that as good as he was at his job, he was scared, too, scared that he couldn’t guarantee he’d always walk away from a situation like today.

  “I can’t promise you that’ll be the case 100 percent of the time. If we hadn’t gone back in for that damn dog, no one on my command would have left in an ambulance. I mean, hell, if Shane wasn’t there—if he didn’t listen to me?” He dropped his hand and let out a bitter laugh. “You were right,” he told her. “The whole month I’ve been here I’ve been so hell-bent on proving myself. What if that clouded my judgment? What if—”

  “No what-ifs,” Ivy interrupted. “I heard everything. You listened to the chief’s orders. You’re alive. Wyatt’s alive. And Shane saved you both. I’ve spent the past four weeks promising myself I wouldn’t let you get too close because of what happened to Charlie. Because of What if? I never should have told you not to go tonight. And I never will again.”

  His brows furrowed. “You’ll never tell me not to go again or you’ll never not tell me not to go. Either the pain meds are kicking in or there are too many negatives in what you said that I’m not sure if you meant what I think you meant.”

  This time she was the one to laugh, and the effect of the pain meds paled in comparison to her smile. He could live with being unsure about the future as long as it meant she was in it.

  “Just to clarify,” he said, “are you saying that if I stay in town, you’re not going to turn the other way if you pass me on the street?”

  She let out something between a laugh and a sob. “If you weren’t all busted up, I’d punch you in the shoulder or something.”

  “Well then, I guess I’m safe from any further physical distress,” he said. “But are you gonna break my heart, Ivy Serrano?”

  She shook her head, then rested it on his shoulder. “Nah. I love you too much to do that.” She tilted her head up, and her brown eyes shimmered in the normally unpleasant fluorescent light.

  “That’s a relief,” he said. “Because I don’t think I could walk by you without wanting to do this.” His lips swept over hers in a kiss that felt like the start of something new. He couldn’t wrap her in his arms, and maybe the bumps in the road made the whole gesture a little clumsy, but she was here. And she was staying. And petition or not, dammit, so was he.

  Carter waited outside the chief’s office, anxious more about being late for Ivy’s fashion show than he was about what would be said behind the office doors. If he was being let go, he was being let go. He was damned good at his job, and he didn’t need anyone’s approval anymore to know that was true.

  Okay, fine, so he needed the chief’s approval to keep his job but not to know that he did everything he could for this company in the month he was here.

  The door swung open, and Chief Burnett popped his head out.

  “Come on in, Lieutenant. Sorry to keep you waiting.”

  Carter stood and brushed nonexistent dust from his uniform pants. His right hand had cramped, so he flexed it, still getting used to the air cast.

  He walked inside, expecting to find the chief alone waiting for him, but instead he saw Shane O’Brien standing in front of the chief’s desk.

  The chief cleared his throat. “Lieutenant Bowen, I hope you don’t mind, but I thought it best for Firefighter O’Brien to speak first.”

  Carter nodded. “O’Brien,” he said. “Heard your brother is being discharged today.”

  “Yes sir, Lieutenant. It was a pretty bad concussion, but thanks to you, he’s going to be fine.”

  Carter’s brows drew together. The formality from Shane confused him. Not that he’d expected the guy to mouth off, but this was a complete one-eighty from what Carter had seen from him.

  “He’s going to be fine, O’Brien, because of you,” Carter said. “Neither of us would be here right now if you hadn’t gotten us out of that house before the roof caved in.”

  Shane’s jaw tightened. “With all due respect, Lieutenant, I never wanted to be here. And I made sure everyone knew it. And then I made your life a living hell because I knew I wasn’t good enough, and it was your job to remind me of that.” He squared his shoulders. “The signatures on the petition were forged. Every one of them but mine. I am not proud of my behavior and need some time to regroup.”

  Carter opened his mouth to say something, but Shane cut him off.

  “I need to figure things out without everything that’s been hanging over my head since I was a kid. I’m leaving town, sir. And the company. Effective immediately.”

  Shane held out his hand to shake but then realized that was Carter’s broken arm and dropped it back to his side.

  “O’Brien,” Carter said. “You don’t have to do this.”

  “It’s already done,” the chief said. “I tried to talk him out of it, but I think his mind was made up the second he rode away from the Davis fire with his brother in an ambulance.”

  Shane nodded once, his eyes dark and expression stoic.

  “You’re a good firefighter, O’Brien,” Carter added. “I’d have been proud to keep you on my team.”

  “Thank you, Lieutenant,” he said. He nodded toward the chief. “You too, Chief.”

  The chief clapped Shane on the shoulder. “You always have a place here if you ever decide to come back.”

  Shane pressed his lips together but didn’t say anything else. Then he strode through the
door, closing it behind him.

  Carter blew out a long breath. “You think he’s going to get into trouble again?”

  The chief shook his head. “If you’d have asked me that a month ago, I’d have said yes. But something changed in him since you’ve been around. And the way you handled things in the Davis fire? We’re damn lucky to have you, Lieutenant.”

  He was staying in Meadow Valley. This was—home.

  “Thank you, sir. I feel damn lucky to be here.”

  After a long moment, Carter turned to head for the door.

  “One more thing, Lieutenant,” the chief said, stopping him in his tracks. “Your family was notified of your injury, and your father has called your aunt four times in the past two days to check on you. I thought you should know.”

  Carter swallowed hard but didn’t turn back around. “Appreciate the information,” he said. “But he knows my number.”

  “Give him time,” the chief said. “Father-son relationships can be a tricky thing.”

  Carter thought about Shane, who was leaving town to deal with his own tricky thing, and the weight on his shoulders lifted, if only a fraction of an inch.

  “Yes, sir. I suppose they are.”

  Then he was out the door and down the steps two at a time. When he pushed through the station’s front door, Ivy was there on the sidewalk, right where he’d left her on his way in. The sky was overcast, but she was a vision in her bright yellow sundress, brown waves of hair falling over her shoulders.

  He only needed one arm to lift her up and press his lips to hers.

  “I’m home, darlin’,” he said.

  “Good,” she said through laughter and kisses. “Because I wasn’t letting you go without a fight. Now come on. I need to show you something.”

  She led him down the street to her shop. She bounced on her toes as they slowed in front of the window where a single mannequin stood displaying a dress that could only be described as a field of sunflowers.