“How’s the lady friend?”Marco asks not one second after I step into the station.
I dump my bag into the fire truck.
Marco takes note of my rash movements and has his answer. “Sexual tension is the worst when it surpasses that exciting sweet point.”
“Tell me about it.” I jump into the back of the truck and do final checks to make sure we have everything ready for the night shift. I suspect it will be a quiet one. The only thing people do here in Maple Crossing is sleep. The money is easy.
I secure the back of the truck. Sweat is already running down my palms, and we haven’t even dealt with any fires yet. But I have a big one to put out in my pants, no thanks to Piper bending over and giving me a face full of ass.
My balls clench now at the memory.
“What’s her name again?” Marco asks.
“You have the memory of a fish.” I circle back around to the front of the truck. “And the Atlantic ocean is more likely to turn green than you are to help me out with loading the truck.”
“Tell me her name,” Marco demands once again in the middle of trying to reset the radio. “These damned things never work properly.”
I watch him with plain amusement. “Ever wondered that it’s maybe just your hearing?”
Marco and I met when I was here nine years ago, and bonded over the fact that we were both new in town. He had moved over a year before that. He was stationed over in Portland for most of his career, but eventually decided to move somewhere more remote.
A lot of us do.
Physically and mentally, you can only endure so much trauma as a human being.
And working in the city is tough.
Back-to-back work. No time for coffee. For food.
They pay double time and a half for the missed meals, which looks glittery on the paychecks. But after so many years of service, you reach a certain point in your life where you start to burn out more than the fires.
Stationed all the way out here in remote places like Maple Crossing gives you time to put your feet up between jobs. Or for the entire shift.
“My hearing might not be what it used to be.” Marco hops onto the couch beside me. “But I hear what I need. And right now I hear that you are smitten.”
“Exactly my point.” I point a finger at him. “That never came out of my mouth.”
“I read between the lines.” His eyes turn shrewd. “Tell me her name.”
Best to rip off the Band-Aid before he pries the answer out of me. The interrogation won’t stop. “Piper Hart.”
“Piper Hart,”he repeats, and then the penny drops. “That’swho you took in yesterday from the fire. The woman isher?”
“Yes.”
“Are you sure?”
“Is it your eyesight or hearing we need to test?” I huff. “Yes. Trust me. It’s Hart. It might have been hard to tell yesterday in the heat of it all with the smoke and whatnot, but I knew straight away…” I cut myself off. No need to overexplain. “Yes. She’s Piper Hart, and she will be staying at my place with her son until the insurance is cleared.”
“Her son. She didn’t have a son nine years ago.”
“She does now.”
Marco watches me for a moment before another thought takes precedence in his mind. “I received a text from Keller earlier today. A James Taylor from JT insurance is apparently interested in reading our case report.”
That sounds about right.
“It’s not his business to see the report.”
