With a grunt of her own, she pushed away from the kitchen counter and grabbed a clean spoon from the drying rack. She was going to eat her tuna salad out of the mixing bowl and find something—anything—to watch on TV. Something, anything, to get her mind off Becca's father and the way he looked in a black t-shirt as he avoided any and all interactions with her.
Because Kerry recognized the discomfort deep inside her. Something about the paramedic chief had grabbed onto her imagination, and she was projecting on to him all of her typical desires. She had a type, after all, and if she squinted, Owen Kincaid could be molded into that man. Big, strong, capable.
She didn’t usually have time for grouchy and grumpy, and definitely notbroody, that was the worst, but for some reason that wasn’t a turn off as much as it should be.
It should be a turn off because he’s a client’s father.It should be, but it wasn’t.
Kerry froze in the middle of her tiny kitchen. The spoon fell out of her hand and clattered to the ground with an angry, sharp sound.
No.
She needed to go the Hedgehog for a drink and flirt with literally anyone else, because she was horrified to realize that deep down, she was absolutely fine with having a secret little crush on Becca’s father.
And it wasn’t just the way he looked in a t-shirt. It was, perversely, a little bit the way he grunted and growled, like he might kill someone who looked the wrong way at his daughter—even if that person was her midwife, because he was clearly not okay with Becca’s pregnancy and the absent teenage father.
Kerry laughed out loud. He was projecting onto her, and she liked it because he was conventionally attractive? Oh, boy. She needed to get laid and fast.
Chapter Seven
The new Pine Harbour Emergency Servicesbuilding—which wasn’t actually new anymore, having been built almost two years earlier, but which would be known as the New Building for at least another decade—wasn’t technically a full firehouse. It was, primarily, an EMT station, with two fire trucks stationed there as well, for the volunteer firefighters who filled in the gaps in service on the peninsula.
But once a firefighter, always a firefighter. Owen had gone back to fire school after becoming a paramedic, to make himself more employable after his blink-and-you-missed-it marriage to Rachel burned out. That meant he was the right guy to supervise the whole building. Also the right guy to cook everyone dinner.
He did this once a week, at the volunteer training night. On the menu tonight was chicken thighs, dry rubbed with Korean barbecue spices, a celery and lettuce chopped salad, and oversized dinner rolls. As he prepped the salad, he replayed the conversation with Kerry in his head.Conversationwas a generous word for the way he’d stared at her, said her name, then bolted.
God damn it.
“Need help?”
Owen’s chef knife skidded against the cutting board as the question interrupted his thoughts. He glanced at the doorway and found Adam leaning casually against the frame. “What are you doing here?”
“It’s training night.”
Owen scowled. “You’re not joining the team.”
“That’s not up to you.” Adam gave him an easy grin. He wasn’t wrong. It wasn’t up to Owen, because the volunteer fire brigade was their own thing, separate from the EMTs. Owen supervised the building, but not the firefighters themselves.
But they’d talked about this. Repeatedly. Owen shook his head. “You should listen to me.”
“I do. I listen to what you say, and I watch what you do. This is what I want to do with my life next. Trust me.”
He did. Sort of. But Adam had only been nine when Becca was born, when Owen had been thrust into being a parent, a grown-up. And even though he was twenty-seven now, this was his third declaration of what he wanted to do with his life. So Owen trusted Adam to make his own decisions in the same way he trusted Becca, and frankly, he worried about their choices in the same way.
Especially if their choices could be deadly.
Adam looked pointedly at the vegetables on the counter. “So? Need help?”
Owen took a deep breath, then waved him in. “You can make the salad dressing. And we can talk about your plans to go back to school.”
“The only school I want to do is fire school, and you know that.”
But Owen wanted more than that for his youngest brother. Adam had joined the army right out of high school, did a couple of tours overseas, and when his contract came up, he got out unexpectedly. They’d all been relieved, but when he moved back to Pine Harbour, the only job he showed any interest in was working with Warriors Moving. Owen liked the guys who ran it, but it was a stop-gap thing. An opportunity for veterans, like Stevie, who weren’t in the right headspace to look for a more permanent second career.
Adam wasn’t like that.
Owen wasn’t stupid. He knew there was always a risk of PTSD after deployment. He’d seen it in his own ranks, with Matt Foster, a paramedic who worked for him. But Adam checked out. He was happy enough, had a good social network, and his life stretched out in front of him full of potential.
And now the dummy wanted to be a firefighter.
