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  Crews shook his head, but hiding the smile hinting at the corners of his mouth was pretty much impossible. “Jesus Christ. It’s like kiddie hour over here. You’re worse than my daughters. What are you guys, twelve?”

  “Great timing, Jonesey,” Alex said, tipping his chin as the rookie made his way over to the engine and unstrapped his helmet. “Crews was just talking about you.”

  Jones grabbed a bottle of water, pouring half of it over his blond head before pausing to down the rest. “We can’t all be geriatric like you, Donovan.”

  “Careful, Jones.” Crews wagged one gloved finger at the rookie. “I’ve got seven years on Teflon, here, and I have no problem taking each and every one of them out on you for the rest of this shift.”

  “With respect, sir, you’d have to catch me first. And if there’s one thing you’ve taught me, it’s how to be slicker than owl snot.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” the lieutenant grumbled, although a smile threaded through his words. “Get your ass on the rig before I decide I want the workout.”

  Cole fought the bubble of laughter rising in his chest and lost. But it took a shitload more than a little smack talk to rattle Crews, or any of them, really. Thin-skinned firefighters lasted less than ten seconds, and that was before anything even caught on fire.

  “By the way,” Donovan said, delivering a firm but friendly nudge to Jones’s shoulder as they turned toward the engine, “I just turned thirty, dude. I’m in my fucking prime. Once you finish puberty, I’ll tell you all about it.”

  Jones’s smile was a flash of white teeth against his soot-smudged face. “Whatever you say, Father Time. Whatever you say.”

  They all finished the trip to their respective spots in the engine, with Alex and Jonesey climbing into the back step and Crews storing his coat and helmet before sinking into the officer’s seat in the front of the vehicle. Cole slid behind the wheel. He’d been driving Engine Eight more often than not for the last year, but man, the operator’s spot never got old. He’d miss it when his strategy finally panned out and he moved to squad. Whenever that happened to be.

  Damn, he wanted it to be today.

  Anticipation swirled with hope to form a potent one-two punch in his veins. Considering how exclusive rescue squads were, Cole had come to terms with the fact that he’d almost certainly have to leave Station Eight in order to be on one. Spots were few and far between across the board, and with an abundance of qualified guys looking to fill them, being choosy about location wasn’t really on the options menu. Of all the things he’d had to gut through in the last two years’ worth of studying and planning and training, leaving the station he’d called home for the last eight years had been the only thing to make Cole hesitate. The firefighters and paramedics at Eight weren’t just his coworkers. Hell, they weren’t even just his friends.

  Every single person who punched the clock at Station Eight was his family. They had his back, all the time, every time.

  Which was more than Cole could say about the people he was actually related to.

  He stiffened against the well-worn operator’s seat, his knuckles going tight over the wheel, and he battened down to extinguish the uncharacteristic spark of emotion pulsing through his rib cage. All this back-and-forth about the open spot on squad was turning his focus into tapioca. Searching for the control he normally wore like his favorite weather-beaten bomber jacket, Cole ordered the facts in his mind.

  Crews had made it clear that a position was opening up on squad, and he’d been equally crystal about Captain Westin wanting a one-on-one as soon as he got back from his trip to chief’s office. Westin might keep a keen eye on every man at Eight, but like the rest of them, he wasn’t exactly an air-your-feelings kind of guy. Every meeting had a purpose. Private meetings all the more. And despite giving it his very best effort, Cole couldn’t come up with a single reason Cap would ask for a sit-down with him, save one.

  Holy shit. After eight years as a firefighter and over a year of actively training for the rescue squad, Cole was going to get promoted.

  Today.

  His excitement burst out by way of a smile as he finessed Engine Eight into the far right side of the engine bay. A quick visual tour of the two-story concrete and cinder-block space revealed Captain Westin’s city-issued Suburban sitting quietly in its designated spot, and Cole swung a glance at Crews from across the cab of the engine with his pulse hammering.

  “Unless you need me to help off-load the rig, I’m going to go see Cap, as requested.” He hung the words between them like a question—it might be his last day on engine, but Crews was still his lieutenant. Scrimping on the respect that went with that definitely wasn’t on Cole’s agenda, squad or no squad.

  Crews acquiesced with a tight nod. “Copy that,” he said, waiting for Donovan and Jones to jump down from the back step and start moving through the engine bay before he tacked on, “Hey, Everett?”

  “Yeah?” Cole paused, but God, Crews’s expression was a wall of stone.

  “Take your time.”

  Cole took a few seconds to let the surprise from the lieutenant’s comment bounce through him before he followed the guy’s lead and clambered down from his seat in the engine. For a second, he thought about a quick trip to the locker room to trade his sweat-damp T-shirt and bunker pants for something decidedly less worked in, but screw it. Cap might run a tight house, but they were hardly a decorous bunch. He settled for tugging a hand through his hair to straighten what he could and making sure his FFD T-shirt was tucked in before hitting the hallway leading into the station.

  The din of voices and various kitchen sounds filtered in from the main room at the heart of the house, but Cole continued down the stretch of gray linoleum he’d mopped just this morning. Aiming his boots into a hard left, he found himself at the end of what everyone at Station Eight referred to as the hall of pictures. Frame after frame of photos and commendations lined the walls on either side, so many that the painted black picture frames were stacked four, sometimes five high. They spanned the two decades that Station Eight had operated from this building, the same two decades that Captain Westin had been at the helm, and a shiver ghosted down Cole’s spine as his boots echoed over the floor.

  Practice drills. Company barbecues. Active fires. Flash flood rescues. The group shot of everyone in the house slung arm in arm that had been taken not even two months ago in front of the house. The men he worked with every shift, who he knew without question would always have his six.

  He was so goddamn grateful not to be leaving this place.

  Cole placed a no-nonsense knock on the door at the end of the hallway, sliding a deep inhale all the way into his lungs as Captain Westin waved him in through the glass panel set in the wooden frame.

  “Come on in, Everett. Go ahead and close the door.”

  Cole’s pulse joined forces with his breath in a game of tag-team body betrayal at Westin’s non-question, but he didn’t hesitate to step over the threshold and pull the door shut. Westin waited until Cole had planted his boots on the floor tiles across from his desk before removing his reading glasses to pin Cole with a steely bronze stare.

  “I’m sure by now Crews has told you we’ve been approved by the city to add a permanent position to Squad Eight.” Westin delivered the words with the same straightforward tone he used on everything from fire drills to five-alarm blazes, and Cole tried his damndest to return the favor as he answered.

  “Yes sir.”

  “And am I correct to assume that per your active application on the city database, you’re still interested in transitioning from engine to squad?”

  Adrenaline whisked through Cole’s bloodstream in a hot burst. “Yes sir.”

  “Good,” Westin said, the slightest smile edging up at the corners of his mouth before his expression smoothed back to business as usual. “Then let’s not dance around the bullshit just so we can call it a party, shall we? I’ve spoken with Lieutenant Osborne about the position we have opening up here
at Eight, and we both agree you’d be a good fit.”

  Cole barely managed to get his “thank you” past all the holy shit barging through his chest. Dennis Osborne had been a firefighter for almost as long as Captain Westin, with nearly a decade under his belt as a lieutenant on squad. Getting the salty old man’s stamp of approval as rescue squad material was like winning the lottery. Only with steeper odds.

  “Don’t thank me yet.” Westin’s lifted blond-gray brows sent a sheen of moisture over Cole’s palms, but he’d seen enough guys come and go on both engine and squad to know the drill.

  “I understand that making the move to squad will put me back at square one with seniority, Cap.” Christ, if anyone could haze a rookie, it was Oz. And Cole’s eight years on engine wouldn’t count for squat in the face of the eight seconds he currently had on squad. Still . . . “I know I’ll have to prove myself.”

  Westin’s rumble of laughter arrived with a three-to-one ratio of irony to humor. “That you will. In more ways than one.”

  “I’m sorry.” Worry peppered Cole’s belly full of holes. “I don’t follow.”

  “As much as I’d like to offer you the spot free and clear, Everett, I can’t. Not yet, anyway.”

  Cole’s lungs burned for air, and he scraped together every last ounce of his waning calm as he managed a hoarse “Sir?”

  Westin gestured to the inches-high stacks of paperwork covering the desk in front of him. “This redistricting might be what prompted the city to approve another permanent spot on squad, but moving you into it—even if you are the best candidate for the job—will leave me down a man on engine. At the end of the day, robbing Peter to pay Paul still has me coming up short. Fortunately, after a bit of convincing, the chief was willing to help us out in that regard.”

  Just like that, Cole’s shock tolerance redlined. “That’s why you were at the chief’s office all morning? To figure out how to get me on squad?”

  “Among other reasons, yes.” Westin paused, so fast that Cole might’ve missed it if he hadn’t been trained to notice every last detail of his surroundings. “Chief Williams and I also met with Brennan regarding the latest class of recruits who just graduated from the academy.”

  Cole’s head snapped up, but the news allowed him a much-needed exhale. Nick Brennan was not only one of Cole’s best friends, but he’d also been a firefighter at Station Eight until a devastating injury had eventually sent his career path back to the academy as an instructor.

  “So we’re getting a new candidate on engine.”

  “While I’d prefer to train one candidate at a time, the city’s redistricting of our call jurisdiction has clearly provided us with a set of circumstances that defies normal protocol. In plain English, yes. Station Eight is getting a new candidate on engine.”

  Hope did a slow rebuild in Cole’s gut. “To replace me,” he clarified.

  “To fill your spot, Everett.” A hint of humor crinkled the edges of Westin’s otherwise by-the-book stare. “Jones will still technically be a candidate until he passes his one-year review, but he’s come along nicely over the past six months under Crews’s guidance. Since that mentorship isn’t broken, I’m not inclined to fix it. But the situation does leave me with another candidate who needs six weeks of orientation training.”

  Realization hit Cole with all the subtlety of a cartoon anvil to the head. “And you want me to do it before I transition to squad.”

  Under normal circumstances, the commanding officer for either engine or squad was directly responsible for training his candidate while other firefighters offered assistance as requested. But it was hard enough to keep tabs on one rookie when shit went pear-shaped, let alone two. Crews was a great firefighter—not to mention a tough son of a bitch—but he was only one man. Having three veteran firefighters on engine to balance out the two candidates made sense, at least until the new guy wasn’t quite so wet behind the ears.

  Westin exhaled, his expression softening by just a hair as he steepled his fingers over his desk and fastened Cole with a stare. “I truly believe you’re the best man for this spot on squad, Everett, and I know you want it.”

  Cole gave a deferential nod, not wanting to interrupt fully but also not wanting to let the sentiment go by without acknowledgment.

  The captain continued. “That said, I can’t leave engine running light with two rookies just to get you there. Jones is close, and if Crews buckles down on his training, in another six weeks, he’ll be all but good to go. Overseeing a new candidate through the orientation period would be an excellent use of the leadership skills you’re going to need on squad. The situation isn’t ideal. But it is the only situation we’ve got that can get you onto squad and keep this house right. Are you on board?”

  Cole didn’t even think twice. “I’m not going to deny that I want the spot, Cap, because I really do. But we’re supposed to have each other’s backs, no matter what. Upending engine for the sake of promoting me to squad isn’t right.”

  He tugged a hand through his hair, letting his palm rest on the back of his neck for a brief second before returning to attention. Okay, so he’d never led a rookie through his first six weeks, but Westin wasn’t wrong. Not only was it the decent thing to do for the guys on engine, but it would help Cole prove his worth in front of guys like Oz, who would surely be watching with a keen eye. The training wouldn’t be a cakewalk—adjusting to the adrenaline-drenched rigors of fighting fires and the grueling schedule of working in-house were hell on a guy’s body and his nerves. Their candidate would have growing pains, no doubt, and Cole would have to guide him through each one. But it was only six weeks. Cole could do this. He would do this.

  The promotion he’d wanted since he’d been a candidate himself depended on it.

  “If you need me to mentor a new candidate through his orientation before I transition to squad, of course I’ll do it,” Cole said.

  Captain Westin let out a rare smile. “Excellent. There is just one more thing you should know—” His gaze caught on something over Cole’s shoulder, cutting the response short and coloring his expression with an emotion Cole couldn’t quite place. “Well. I suppose there’s no time like the present.”

  Cap lifted his hand in a tight come in motion, and Cole turned toward the door. Confusion threaded together with a long, hot pulse of oh hell yeah in Cole’s veins at the sight of the brunette opening the door and walking her mile-long legs over the threshold. With the brown-and-turquoise cowboy boots on her feet, she had to be just shy of six feet tall. A healthy dusting of freckles dotted her sun-kissed face, her tawny skin the perfect complement for her milk chocolate stare and her darkly fringed lashes. Even in her plain white T-shirt, jeans, and the girl-next-door ponytail cascading down from the back of her head, she was a fucking knockout and a half.

  Never mind that Cole had no clue who she was or what she was doing there.

  “Sorry to interrupt, Captain,” the brunette said, a Southern drawl hugging the words and tripping Cole’s switch one notch farther. Even though her apology was sincere, she looked Westin boldly in the eye as she walked right up to his desk to deliver it, her confidence practically busting out of her. “Lieutenant Crews said I should come on back.”

  “You’re not interrupting, Ms. Nelson. In fact, you’ve got great timing. Cole Everett, meet Savannah Nelson.”

  “Ms. Nelson,” Cole said, and whoa. She packed a helluva handshake for someone so slender.

  “Nice to meet you.” Savannah let go of his palm and turned back toward Westin, all self-assurance. “Thanks for asking me to come meet everyone during today’s shift, Captain. I appreciate the opportunity for a little face time before things get official on Monday.”

  “Of course.” Westin stood, smoothing a hand over his faultlessly ironed uniform shirt. “I’ll go round up the rest of the house for introductions. If you’ve got any immediate questions you need answered before your first shift, you can go ahead and ask Everett now. You two should probably get acquai
nted anyway.”

  Realization slammed into Cole like a two-ton wrecking ball, but no way. No fucking way. This couldn’t be right. While one of C-shift’s two paramedics was a woman, and a pretty tough one at that, the difference in job description wasn’t even apples to oranges—it was more like apples to bacon.

  Station Eight had never had a female candidate on engine. Hell, female firefighters were so few and far between citywide that they’d never even had a female firefighter fill in for a shift. And now Cole’s livelihood depended on making sure their very first one was not only well-trained but well-acclimated to a job that nearly broke both the will and the backs of men twice her size?

  As if Cole had spoken the question out loud, Captain Westin split his stare between him and Savannah, pausing for just a breath before hammering the answer all the way home.

  “Firefighter Everett will be in charge of your orientation and training for the next six weeks, and you will be glued to his hip as such. Welcome to Station Eight, Ms. Nelson. Let’s make a firefighter out of you.”

  Chapter Two

  Savannah inhaled as far as her lungs would allow and channeled all her effort into keeping her pulse from pitching a fit in her veins. Rocking back on the heels of her lucky Tony Lamas, she silently repeated the mantra that had gotten her through her year at the academy along with the twenty-five that had come before it.

  Nerves of steel, girl. Be tough.

  Not exactly the easiest thing going since the guy standing barely two feet to her right—who was allegedly her lifeline to the job she’d busted her butt to finally land—was eyeballing her as if she had something horrifically contagious.

  Savannah breathed out, refusing to lower her gaze. Okay, so her social graces were questionable even in the best of situations, but they were already halfway to awkward. Riding out the silence wasn’t going to make things worse. Plus, it gave her a minute to size up the man who’d be in charge of her training for the next six weeks.

  Everett topped her by about two inches, which put him at a good six-one. His sandy-brown hair was just tousled enough to suggest he’d been tugging at it recently, and the trepidation in his olive-green eyes corroborated the theory. The T-shirt/turnout gear combo outlining his frame looked freshly used but not filthy, and okay, that was probably a decent sign. But between the hard set of his otherwise smooth jaw and the leanly corded arms knotted over his chest, he might as well have been advertising his unhappiness with a fifty-foot billboard.