Page 2 of Ignite My Heart

Jared spins, and I run smack into him. “Calm the fuck down, Garrett. Christ on a cracker, man. I wouldn’t have told you if I’d known you were going to act like an idiot about it.”

“No. It’s good that I know. Because now I can prepare. Plan the perfect way to sweep her off her feet.”

“You’ve got this, Garrett,” Audrey says from across the store. “Everyone in town loves you. You’re sweet and funny and smoking hot.”

Jared growls from beside me. “Get to work, Audrey. I don’t pay your ass to flirt with the customers.”

She rolls her eyes at him.

“Get yourself under control so you don’t blow it. I’m not going to listen to you moon about that woman for the next twenty years.”

“Kathleen lied to both of us,” I explain. “I’m sure once Felicity knows the truth, she’ll be ready for us to have our shot.”

“Whatever you say. All I know is that by the time she left for college, she pretty much hated your ass.”

“Because she wanted me,” I say, crossing my arms over my chest.

“You’re so going to fuck this up, and I’m going to have to ban you from the store.” Jared marches to the office in the back and pours himself a cup of coffee. He fixes a second one, walks past me to the counter, and sets the other mug in front of Audrey.

“I can’t fuck this up, J. She’s got to give me a chance this time.” I scrub a hand down my face. “I’ve loved this woman since I was fifteen, and I didn’t fight for her the first time around. I won’t make that same mistake again.”

“You’re getting on my last fucking nerve,” Jared barks. “Stop panicking. You’ve got this.”

“You just said I was going to fuck it all up,” I say.

“Motivational speaking doesn’t seem to be your forte, big buy,” Audrey observes.

Jared growls in response.

“Thank fuck, Kathleen finally moved to Houston,” I say about my on-again-off-again ex-girlfriend. And good riddance. I was done once I found out she’d been lying to me for years. Hell, I’d only ever gone out with her in the first place because I couldn’t have Felicity. That sounds terrible, I know, but I was seventeen when we started dating, so it’s not like I was a logical man at the time.

“I’ve seen you run into a burning building without blinking. How is this the thing that gives you a panic attack?” Jared asks.

I shake my head. “Completely different. I have years of training and practice. I know exactly what to do when that happens. I know the plan.”

“So make a plan,” Audrey suggests.

I nod. “Yeah. Okay. I can do that. I can make a plan.

“Which is the exact same advice I gave you,” Jared grumps.

“Well, maybe if you’d stop glaring and growling at people, they’d listen to you.” Audrey stares at her boss over her mug of coffee as she takes a sip.

He tears his gaze from her and looks back to me. “You’re a firefighter. Women love that shit. Use that to your advantage.”

I mean, he’s not wrong. Women have changed their entire exercise path to ensure they walk past the fire station, especially when we’re outside washing the trucks. “Unless you can convince her to come to the station for a tour, I doubt she’ll see me in action, as it were.”

“Women in this town stage crises all the time so they can get rescued by firefighters. Isn’t that how your sister met her fiancé?”

I hold up a hand, closing my eyes to ward off any impromptu imaginings of Daphne and Fletch’s first encounter. “That was not staged. She locked herself out on her balcony.”

“Naked, is what I heard.” Audrey grins.

“Audrey, please. It’s my sister.”

Jared releases a rusty sound that may be a legit chuckle. “My point is, he came and rescued her, and the rest is history. You need to create a situation where you have to rescue her from a burning building or something.”

“Pretty sure that’s arson.”