by K. L. Fast
Gunner’s Firecracker
The Holiday Firecrackers, book 5
KL Fast
Flirty Filth Publishing
Gunner’s Firecracker (The Holiday Firecrackers, Book 5) By KL Fast
© KL Fast 2020 Flirty Filth Publishing.
All Rights Reserved
By the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without permission of the publisher is unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author except for brief quotations used in a book review.
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, locales, or organizations is entirely coincidental.
The use of actors, artists, movies, TV shows and song titles/lyrics throughout this book are done so for storytelling purposes and should in no way be seen as an advertisement. Trademark names are used editorially with no intention of infringement of the respective owner’s trademark.
This book is intended for adults only. Contains sexual content and language that may offend some. The suggested reading audience is 18 years or older. I consider this book as Erotic Adult Romance.
Cover created by Megan Wade © 2020
Created with Vellum
Dedicated to summer days and summer nights spent at the lake….
Contents
Blurb
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
About the Author
Acknowledgments
Other Books By KL Fast
Blurb
Gunner King is the new fire chief. When his men invite him out for a drink on his first day, he can't say no. Good thing he didn't. Behind the bar is the most beautiful woman in the world and he'd do anything to have her.
Sloane Scott grew up in Heart Falls and isn't impressed with the men until a stranger walks in her parent's bar.
This is a safe, over the top, red-hot novella from KL Fast.
Get your fire extinguisher ready, you're going to need it.
This is Book 5 in the Holiday Firecrackers Series.
Prologue
Gunner King
Ten Months Ago
Denver, Colorado
I have been a firefighter for over seventeen years, a captain for eight. I got my first paid job at Engine 1, where I still am to this day. I was eighteen, fresh out of high school when I started, working my way up the ladder, so to speak. I live and breathe this job. Currently, I work four tens, plus a twenty-four hour shift every other Saturday. Even with such a terrible schedule, meeting women isn’t hard when you are a firefighter in this town, but I am not interested in those bunnies. So, I avoid bars with the guys after work. Even the married guys try to pick someone up for the night and it creeps me the fuck out. Why be married if you can’t commit to loving the one woman meant for you? Besides, I can drink a beer at home for less money and avoid all the bullshit that comes with hanging out with the guys. The life of a firefighter isn’t all shirtless calendars and puppies, though that’s usually a fun day. It’s hard work. Besides fighting actual fires, we deal with things like false alarms, car accidents, and lots of ongoing training. I work out at the station as well as eat most of my meals there. We also spend an inordinate amount of time washing the trucks, so all in all not bad.
After a grueling shift, I trudge home and take a shower. I smell like ashes and soot, which I normally love, but I’ve got a headache brewing and I need a hot shower. I drop onto the couch and watch sports highlights with a cold beer before heading to bed. Tomorrow is my twenty-four-hour shift and I need all the sleep I can get. When I wake up, I get ready for work. It’s my turn to bring the donuts, so I leave a little early to grab them from Voodoo, the best donut shop in Denver. With them in hand, I walk the mile and half down the street to the station. Living and working downtown has its perks, like not needing to drive everywhere. I feel like today is going to be a good day.
I was fucking wrong about that. We have been battling a four-alarm fire at The Plex, or the huge performing arts complex located a couple of blocks over from the firehouse. It’s our first four alarm of the year and we had to bring an additional pumper truck, a ladder truck, and a squad from Engine 2 to the location. The blaze can barely be contained, but we are tamping it down as best we can. As the highest ranked officer on the scene, it’s my job to take charge and I’ve done just that. It’s the middle of the day and thankfully, the building isn’t as crowded as it could be. if it was even two hours from now when the Blake Shelton concert starts seating. In talking with a guitar player from Blake’s band, they can’t find a roadie. He never came out with them. After we get the blaze down enough to send in some firefighters, I do so.
“Davis, Winters,” I shout and they come forward. Winters is a probie, only been on the job six days, but Davis is coming up on his tenth year and is my very best friend.
“Sir?” Winters shouts back.
“You two head inside. The guitarist thinks the roadie was under the stage.”
“10-4. Let’s go, kid,” Davis says putting the mouthpiece of his breathing apparatus into his mouth then gives me a salute. Winters does the same and I watch them walk into the building. After a few minutes, I hear some static and decide to check in with the guys.
“Report?” I say into the radio.
“Nothing yet,” Davis answers.
“Wait. Something is ahead,” Winters answers.
Patiently, I hang on edge for him to answer, but no answer comes. I am already on the move toward the smoky entrance when there is an explosion. I am running at this point, barreling through new flames and so much smoke I can hardly see a few feet in front of me I call out both of their names but get no reply. Frantically, I search for my men until I come to a fallen ceiling beam. When I look down. I find Winters is on his back, the beam is laying on top of his chest crushing it. My heart goes into my throat and I feel bile come up my throat when I see the beam on Davies' neck and shoulders like he tried to push Winters out of the way. “Fuck.” I try to lift the beam off of their still bodies as I scream their names. When I can’t move it. I get on the radio and call for backup telling them we had two guys down. Eventually, we are able to get it off of them and drag both of them out the fire, but it’s too late. My very best friend and a kid just outta high school are dead and it’s all my fault.
After their funerals, I tried to get back on a truck, but I find that I can’t. So, I decided to clean the station house from top to bottom. I can’t wrap my head around the fact that I sent those men to their deaths. That kind of thing really messes with you.
Even though I technically did nothing wrong, I’ve quietly been seeing a shrink to get to the root of the problem. All we’ve come up with is that I’m feeling guilty about my actions. I fucking knew that before I went to the damn doctor. All I know is I avoid the locker room because their names are still on their lockers with black bands over them and it fucking kills me.
“King, my office now,” Chief Decker shouts. When I walk into the office, he gestures for me to sit. I do so.
“What’s up, chief?” I ask, confused.
“You gotta snap out of it, King,” he says as nicely as a man like him can be.
“I’m not sure what you mean, sir?”
“Bullshit. You know what I mean.
When you are in charge, men die and it’s not your fault. You had no way of knowing that stage equipment would explode.”
“Logically, I know that sir, but I am struggling with it,” I admit.
“That’s understandable. I know what you are going through. Davis and Winters knew the risks of the job when they signed on.”
“I know. We all do. I’ll get over it in time,” I lie because I know for the rest of my life, I will always think about those men and what I did to them. I leave the chief’s office and get back to work. This is like a curse looming over me and as of right now there’s no light at the end of that tunnel.
A change of scenery may just be what I need right now.
Chapter One
Gunner
Present Day
I shoot up in bed drenched in sweat, the sheets tangled around my waist. The nightmares are always the same. I am trying to save my men but I can never reach them in time. I swing my legs over the side of the bed and bury my head in my hands.
It takes me a few minutes before my breathing is under control and I don't feel like an elephant is sitting on my chest. There is no way I am going to be able to fall back asleep now so I decide to get the rest of the way out of bed and throw on a pair of sweatpants. Then I make my way out the sliding glass door breathing in the fresh mountain air as I do. I’m also taking in the view from my new home. This view never fails to amaze me. All mountains and trees.
I ended up leaving Colorado four months after the accident, I packed everything into my Ford pickup truck and moved twelve hours away to a podunk town in Montana called Heart Falls.
Making the move wasn’t that hard because nothing was tying me down. My parents were both older when they had me. I was their little miracle boy. They spent years trying to have a baby and the minute they finally stopped, I was conceived. They were absolutely amazing and my father taught me what it looks like for a man to love his woman with his whole being. They married young and were together for forty years. They loved each other so much that after my mother died unexpectedly when I was twenty, my father ended up passing away a month later in his sleep. They were both well off and left me a little nest egg when they passed.
I never had any use for it until I found this amazing piece of land with a run-down three-story cabin on it. I bought it outright and have been working on making repairs and refurbishing the house with my bare hands. Sometimes it helps and sometimes it doesn’t.
I almost never leave, only going into town when I need more supplies or food. When I moved up here, I had no plan on being chief or even working at the fire station. In fact, I spent three months being relentlessly pursued by one of the mayor's top headhunters for the job. I had every intention of saying no, in fact I did so on multiple occasions, but then the Mayor himself came down to my cabin. He pleaded with me to take the job just until they could find a replacement for the chief that just retired. The second shift chief is spread thin. I get that. Working twenty- four hours a day seven days a week has to be grueling.
He made a deal with me to give him a month to find a replacement then I can be left alone. After the way they’ve relentlessly hounded me for months, being left alone seems like a pretty good trade off. Today is my first day at the station and I am dreading it. Feeling anxious and wound up, I decide to chop some wood. You can never have too much firewood, too soon. It might be July, but it can snow at any time up here. It could literally be eighty degrees at noon and the next thing you know a blizzard is blowing off the mountains by five. It’s crazy, but mother nature is a fierce bitch and you don’t mess with her up here. After about an hour of chopping wood shirtless, I head inside for a hot shower. Getting dressed, I head to the station. As soon as I enter, I am greeted by a man with Reid printed on his t-shirt.
“Good morning, sir. I am assistant chief Jasper Reid.”
“Morning. Why didn’t they promote you?” I ask gruffly.
“Didn’t want the job, sir. I still like getting out there and fighting fires.”
“Good to know. Let me show you around. Alpha squad, your squad, reports for duty at oh, six hundred. We are in the chore portion of the day.”
“I apologize for my lateness then. The mayor didn’t say what time the shift started.”
“Chief Sanders didn’t really come to work when we did. He hadn’t for about fifteen years.”
“That’s not the way I’ll be handling business,” I say, thinking these guys are going to be lax about their duties. However, I was mistaken when I enter the garage and see that all seven crew members are washing the trucks or filling water reservoirs. “What does the rest of the day look like?”
“Chores six to eight, workouts, eight to nine; breakfast; paperwork; lunch; shopping; drills. Everything is subject to change if we get a call though. The sheriff’s office is next door to the left; EMT to the right. Our shift dispatcher is Regan. Beta shift’s is Sally-Ann.” The way he says Sally-Ann makes me think she’s his girl.
“Excellent. That’s a lot of information,” I tell him chuckling. “I’m ready to meet the crew.”
“Chief on deck,” Reid shouts as we enter and I smirk when they scramble into a neat line.
“Good morning, men,” I say and someone clears their throat. Looking around, I see a tiny girl. “Apologies. McCallum,” I say reading her name tag. “I am Chief Gunner King. You can call me King or Chief. Go down the line and tell me your full name and rank. Go,” I say pointing to McCallum.”
“Devyn McCallum, Probie.”
“Battalion Chief Broderick Talbert. Everyone calls me Rick.”
“Captain Conrad Felton.”
“Any relation to the mayor?” I ask him.
“He’s my father.”
“Very good. Next?”
“Lieutenant Declan Zale.”
“Driver Engineer Bentley Johnson.”
“Firefighter Alex Lynch.”
“Firefighter Hawk Sabatino.”
“This is a twelve on, twelve off shift schedule, correct?”
“Yes, sir,” Reid responds for the group.
“Excellent. Reid, meet me in my office. I do have an office, correct?”
“Yes. It’s private. Chief Marks has an office as well. They are on the second floor. I’ll take you now,” he says.
“Carry on,” I tell my crew. My crew. I like that more than I thought I would. They get back to their duties and I follow Reid upstairs. The desk is covered in paperwork and nothing is organized. “What the hell?” I ask.
“Chief Sanders didn’t really do paperwork. I tried to keep up with it, but it got away from us at the end there.”
I spend the rest of the day going through everything. Six months of reports needed approval. Finally at eighteen hundred hours the shift bell rings. I head downstairs and find the crew still waiting.
“What’s up?” I ask, cautiously.
“Let’s go, boss. It’s tradition,” McCallum says.
“What’s tradition?”
“Drinks at the Two Hearts,” Felton says.
“Yeah, and you can’t cry off. Everyone’s first day ends at the Two Heart’s,” Johnson replies.
“Well, I am not one to shirk tradition,” I say, thinking I could use a drink or two.
“You can actually walk there,” Zale says as I start walking over to my truck.
We walk down Main Street in a pack and arrive a little hole in the wall bar.
Here goes nothing.
Chapter Two
Sloane Scott
You ever just want the day to already be over? Yeah... me too. From my dishwasher flooding my apartment, the underwire of my bra snapping and stabbing me in the armpit, to my car’s AC deciding to take a shit on me at the end of June when it's almost a hundred degrees outside. It just hasn't been my day, and now I get to spend the next eight hours on my feet.
Normally, I love my job, I really do. However, I am dragging tonight and we haven't even hit rush hour yet. Two Hearts Bar & Grill has been in my family for
three generations. The only bar within the sixteen-mile radius of Heart Falls, Montana. My brother and I grew up within these walls. Momma would be in the office and Pops would be out at the bar serving the locals while I sat in the back corner doing my homework or in the office while momma worked on billing.
It's like my second home here. Hell, ever since I was little, I wanted to work the bar. I spent most of my adolescence trying to learn new tricks to do with the bottles. I wanted to be the best bartender in the universe when I was younger. By the time I was twenty-one I was a master at my skills. I’m not even going to bring up how many bottles I broke while trying to learn my super awesome moves or how many times I had to get stitches.
However my eight-year-old self didn't realize that no matter how much of a people person you are, you are still going to have shitty days. Days where it takes all you have just to plaster a fake smile on your face and be cordial to people. I would have asked someone else to cover my shift but it's the new fire chiefs first day, which means everyone is going to be coming by the bar to meet him.
It doesn't help that he is a bit of a recluse and only a handful of people have actually seen him. One thing you learn growing up in a small town is that everyone lives for the new town gossip. Believe me, a smoking hot mysterious man, who doesn't leave his land is all the gossip right now. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't intrigued to meet him and see what all the fuss is about.
So, I sucked it up and now I am here ready to start my shift. I take a deep breath and slap on a smile then walk through the back of the bar. I'm greeted with hellos as I make my way to the bar. I spend the next hour contemplating if meeting this guy was really worth missing out on “no bra, chili cheese fry” time.