"What?" I asked.
"You looked…” He paused and ran a hand through his damp hair, leaving it sticking up in about four different directions. "Never mind. They'll be here in a few minutes. The guys are bringing them down in the rescue truck."
I waited for the punchline. The joke. The sarcastic comment about finding me without my inventory sheet or my manager voice or my shit together. But it didn't come.
"Okay," I said. "How many people are staying here tonight?"
"Just Gabby and Mason for now. The rest of the crew will drop them off and head to their posts." He unzipped his jacket, revealing a flannel shirt underneath that was somehow still dry. "Except me. Captain wants someone stationed here in case stranded travelers start showing up. I volunteered."
I nodded and turned back toward the kitchen, but I could feel his eyes on my back the whole way. It made my skin prickle in a way I didn't want to examine too closely.
Elsa looked up when I pushed through the swinging door. My bartender had that knowing look on her face, the one that made her so good at reading the customers. And apparently so good at reading me.
"Storm's getting worse?" she asked.
"We've got incoming. Gabby's okay—she slid into a ditch on the way home, but the firefighters pulled her out. She'll be staying here tonight."
"Poor thing." Allegra shook her head. "I'll put some soup on. She's probably frozen through after all that."
"Good idea. And we should set up those cots in the back storage room." I checked my clipboard even though I already knew everything on it. Force of habit. "Looks like it's going to be a long night."
When I came back out to the main room, Conner was sitting at the bar. He'd taken off his jacket and hung it over a nearby chair, and he was looking around the roadhouse like he'd never really seen it before.
"You need something?" I asked. My voice came out sharper than I intended.
He turned to face me, and there it was again. That look. Like he was seeing me for the first time, even though we'd been in the same room almost every day since he arrived in town.
"Just waiting," he said. "For the others."
Right. The others. Gabby and Mason, who'd be here any minute. I had bigger things to worry about than one firefighter with an unsettling stare.
I busied myself behind the bar, checking the coffee supplies, making sure the hot water was ready, doing anything to keep my hands occupied. Conner didn't say a word. He just sat there, and the silence between us felt heavier than it should have.
This was going to be a problem. I could already tell. The way he'd looked at me when he first came through that door. The way he was looking at me now. I'd seen that look before on dozens of guys who wandered into this bar thinking I was part of the scenery. A pretty face to flirt with. A conquest to brag about to their buddies.
But something about the way Conner was watching me felt different. Less like a hunter sizing up prey and more like a man who'd just gotten hit by something he wasn't expecting.
I didn't have time for this. I had a storm to survive and staff to shelter and a hundred other things on my list that were way more important than whatever was happening in some firefighter's head.
Headlights swept through the windows. The rescue truck.
"They're here," Conner said, pushing off the barstool.
I straightened my shoulders, smoothed back my hair, and picked up my clipboard.
Time to be the manager again.
2
CONNER
I'd seen Kameron dozens of times since I relocated to Wildwood Valley to work on the town’s first paid fire crew. She was always moving, always busy, always had that clipboard clutched to her chest like a shield. I'd noticed she was beautiful the way you notice the sky is blue—just a fact of life, nothing that required further examination.
But I'd never seen her like that. Hair falling out of her ponytail. Shoulders slumped. Eyes closed. For about three seconds, she'd looked…soft. Human. Like a woman instead of a manager.
And something in my chest had just stopped working.
I sat at the bar now, staring at the bottles lined up against the mirror, not really seeing any of them. The rescue truck had come and gone. Mason was back at the firehouse, probably moping about being separated from Gabby for the night. The rest of the crew was scattered across town, handling whatever the captain needed handled.
