“Never?” Iona asked.
“Hot firefighter,” Betsy said. “No time like the present.”
“Pretend it’s business. You could ask the president of France to lunch if it were business.”
Iona had a point. When it came to engineering and architecture, Sophie had the utmost confidence. She wondered if she could fool herself long enough to pull off asking Nate out. Maybe with another bottle of golden bubbly, or maybe two.
“I don’t know how to bake.”
“We bake together.”
“It’s a great plan,” Suri said as she held out the same sample-color selection.
Sophie normally wore pastels on her nails — both finger and toe, always self-applied — but she stopped herself before she could point to the shell pink on the second row. “Fire engine red,” she said, or rather, the champagne said.
“Theme!” Betsy hollered.
“Are you in?” Iona asked.
Sophie eyed her glass. She tipped it up and finished off the last swallow. She had to admit she didn’t like the thought of not knowing when or if she’d see Nate again. Iona’s plan was beyond Sophie’s comfort level, but she’d cross that bridge, well, in a couple of hours.
“I’m in.”
God help her.
9
“Good scald tonight, Ed. The habañeros…” Dylan gave the lieutenant, Nate’s dad, a fist bump as he cleared the older man’s bowl from the table in the fire station kitchen. “My mouth is on fire, man.”
“My chili’s not for the weak of heart,” Ed Rottinghaus said.
“He doesn’t do mild,” Nate told Dylan. “He serves the Thanksgiving bird with jalapeños and hot sauce. You gonna join us this year?”
“I just might.”
Nate and Dylan shared the cleanup duties tonight since Ed had cooked and most of the other guys on duty had just been called out on a medical. The TV in the corner of the room was on, and Ed turned the sound up on the local news. “Hey, look,” he said.
“Officials now believe the cause of the fire to be arson. The office building was a total loss, but the property owner says he plans to rebuild as soon as possible. Investigators have asked anyone who has information regarding the fire to call the hotline at the number on the screen…”
There was no new information in the segment, but Nate had turned off the faucet and set aside the dirty chili pot as soon as it had started. “Hope they catch the bastard,” he muttered to himself.
“How’s Sophie doing?” Dylan asked. “Have you talked to her?”
“She was released yesterday. She’s doing pretty well, all things considered.”
Nate heard his dad’s chair scrape the floor and knew his old man was now gaping at him, probably with a toothpick sticking out of his mouth. “Son, is there something you aren’t telling me? Who’s Sophie?”
“Sophie Alexander.”
“She’s the hottie he carried out of the fire,” Dylan said with a knowing grin.
Ed stood and took the empty bread plate to the counter, setting it down next to Nate, who’d resumed washing the large stainless pot. He could feel his dad’s gaze fixed on him.
“What?” Nate said, going for innocent because he didn’t know what else to do.
“You seem to know an awful lot about this ‘hottie.’”
Nate was a grown man, and there was no reason to hide that he’d visited Sophie. More than once. No reason other than avoiding the shit he knew his old man would flip his way.
