Poppy walks over and sets the stew on the table. Scamp wakes up and starts to sniff the air.
“Yes. They live over in Oakfield. Mom is Dad’s carer and I help out a couple of times a week. My brother Elias and my sister Marigold both live in Snowflake.”
“Elias Evans? He’s sold me wood from time to time.”
“That’s him. I like having my family around me. How about you?”
“Got a cousin over in Ember Heart Ridge. Does search and rescue too. My parents are long dead, I’m an only child. So I guess you could say the firehouse is like my family. It suits me.” I’m not going to give her the full sob story.
“My sister says her boyfriend says the same about the firehouse. I guess being in danger makes you closer?” Poppy sits on the chair opposite. The firelight makes her dark hair glow almost amber.
“Something like that. Facing a fire, rescuing people in trouble…that does bond you. But we also hang out waiting for the alarm, and fix stuff at the firehouse. You get to know people well that way. This stew is incredible, Pixie.”
Poppy blushes at the compliment. I’m tempted to reach across and cradle her cheek in my palm, to see if it’s as soft as it looks. But that would freak her out. I’m intensely aware of how close we are. And how isolated, trapped by the storm raging outside.
“Thank you. This place is surprisingly well stocked.”
“Yeah, Grizz and I have been caught out by bad weather too many times. Sometimes he’ll nap here if he’s come back from Ember Heart on the way back to town. In the summer you’d be lucky to find a spare potato rolling around.”
Poppy giggles. “I should count my lucky stars it’s winter, then. I’m going to give Scamp a little meat, if you don’t mind.”
“Sure. Would you grab the brandy while you’re there?”
She smiles, taking our bowls to the kitchen as Scamp follows her, his tail wagging expectantly. My eyes fix on the sway of hercurvy hips, lush thighs and ass. It’s like she was made for me, stepping straight out of my fantasies.
Scamp’s snorting noises as he wolfs down the meat jolts me out of my reverie. I move from the table closer to the fire. Poppy brings two glasses of brandy over and starts to sit on the floor beside me.
I catch her arm. “Wait a second.” I grab a cushion and put it on the floor, patting it.
“Thanks! Although I have enough padding.”
“You have the perfect amount of padding.” I might as well be licking my lips.
She laughs. “Now I should employ you to say that in bikini season.”
The image of her in a bikini is playing havoc with my cock, so I change the subject abruptly. “How’s the ankle?”
“A little sore, but it already feels better. If it were anything serious, I think it would be getting worse?”
“Can I take a look at it?” I set down my glass.
Her cheeks flush that gorgeous shade of pink again. “Of course. I forgot, you must have medical training. I guess you must deal with people in pretty desperate situations up on the mountain.”
“I’m no doctor, but I know enough to patch people up until they can see one. Give me your foot.” I hold out my hand expectantly.
Poppy scoots back a little and unlaces her boot. She takes it off and extends her leg. Her foot is tiny, her heel not even filling my palm.
I roll her sock down as delicately as I can. A bruise darkens the top of her foot. I prod around her ankle as gently as I can. “That okay?”
She nods. “A little tender, but not bad.”
“I have some painkillers in my backpack.”
“I’m okay. This brandy is doing the trick. Nature’s painkiller.”
I smile, not letting go of her foot. “I carry some of that in my backpack too. The quickest way to cure mountain madness.”
“Mountain madness? What’s that?” She smiles back at me, a lock of hair falling in front of her face.
