“We’ll do that,” Libby said with a laugh as she poked her head through the open window for one last peck on Katy’s cheek. “Along with a cooler filled with healthy food. Enjoy your new job, ba—Katy.”
“I intend to,” Katy drawled past the growing lump in her throat. “And thanks for . . . Thanks for everything. I love you,” she added as she closed the door, then started the truck and drove off with a wave.
She would have been fine, too, if she hadn’t glanced in the rearview mirror when she reached the parking lot exit and saw her mother’s petite body engulfed in a bear of a hug as her father stared after his youngest child officially leaving the nest.
Katy blinked against the sting in her eyes as she drove away, only to concede defeat less than a mile later. She pulled to the side of the road instead of turning north onto Interstate 95, put the truck in park, and covered her face with her hands.
Well, crap. What was so all-fired great about being an adult, anyway, if it meant she could no longer run home crying to her parents when the world knocked her flat on her ass?
* * *
* * *
Gunnar slipped into the corner booth of the lively Bottoms Up Bar & Grill, tossed the fire chief’s badge on the table, and took a long guzzle of the beer he’d gotten at the bar because he’d been too impatient to flag down a waitress. He pulled out his phone and took it off silent with his free hand even as he continued to drink, then lowered the glass and read the text he’d gotten a little over an hour into the council meeting.
He took another guzzle of beer to hide his grin, figuring Miss MacBain should be arriving at the campground anytime now, and that in less than nine hours, he would finally be standing face-to-face with the mysterious missing woman. And while it was on his mind, he decided to head off what he knew would be queen-sized trouble if he didn’t report in soon. Fingers flying, he dashed off a text of his own, telling Jane that her BFF was back home and safe, apparently none the worse for wear. Hopefully she’d be all caught up in baby management and simply read the message without firing back a wave of questions. Fat chance, bonehead.
He slid his gaze to the badge and gave a snort. Instead of being a mere coworker like he’d planned, tomorrow morning he would be introducing himself to Katy as her new boss. All thanks to Chief Gilmore’s sudden resignation, which had forced the town councilmen to spend the last four days pouring over their roster of firemen, then most of tonight’s meeting arguing over which one of the two best candidates should fill the temporary position while they searched for a replacement.
That should teach him to be more careful what he put in his resume.
Duncan MacKeage had been the only councilman who’d remained calm throughout the three-hour meeting, and Gunnar didn’t know if he was flattered or concerned that the apparently influential man had gotten him named interim chief. Which should also teach him to pay better attention when three burly Scots—one of whom had been Duncan—made a point of coming to the station en masse to introduce themselves to the mostly male squad before their sweet, pretty, favorite cousin started her new job.
The reason for their visit couldn’t have been clearer, even though one of the Scots giving the unspoken warning had been Niall MacKeage, chief of the Bottomless Sea Police Force. And although Scot number three, Alec MacKeage, had affably introduced himself as a trail groomer at his family’s ski resort over in Pine Creek who lived in Spellbound Falls during the off-season, even the cockier firefighters had seen the deadly potential in those sharp green eyes and had all politely smiled and nodded when they’d shaken his hand.
Gunnar had known who the three men were, having researched Katy’s extended family at the onset of this little odyssey. He’d also crossed paths with Chief MacKeage at a couple of accident scenes, as well as having seen both Duncan and Alec in town, though he’d gone out of his way to avoid speaking to them. Katy’s resident watchdogs had, however, inadvertently been responsible for keeping him sane these last two weeks by their very lack of concern about where she was. Though he did wonder how the seemingly astute men were unaware their sweet, pretty, favorite cousin was lying through her teeth to her entire family.
Gunnar concealed his surprise by taking another sip of beer when he realized the police officer sliding into the booth across the table from him was familiar.
The uniform most definitely was not.
“Is there something about to go down here I should know about?” his uninvited—and sure as hell unexpected—visitor asked, eyeing Gunnar’s own uniform. “Or is business slow?”
“Apparently I’m not the only one affected by global economies tanking, Officer . . .”
The man extended a hand across the table. “Sheppard. Officer Jake Sheppard, Chief . . .”
“Gunnar Wolfe,” Gunnar said, fighting back a grin as he shook his hand. He picked up his beer again. “And about the only thing I’m aware of going down in this backcountry tourist mecca is my blood pressure.”
The man he knew as Jayme Sheppard—or rather, Shep—stopped his coffee mug halfway to his mouth, amusement creasing the corners of his intelligent brown eyes. “You obviously haven’t had any dealings with the Grange ladies yet. And maybe if you charged reasonable fees, several of those global economies would stabilize.”
“I’ll start charging less when they stop trying to hang me out to dry right along with the bad guys so they can skip the payment part entirely.” Gunnar also stilled in the act of lifting his beer. “Wait. Is there something going down here I should know about?”
That got him a chuckle. “Not unless an uptick in jaywalking constitutes the beginnings of a conspiracy. Hell, I’ve seen rowdier tombs.” Shep’s expression turned hopeful. No, more like desperate. “Come on, Wolfe, you can tell me if you’re after a particular . . . tourist you heard is planning to visit this ninth natural wonder of the world. I promise not to buy a full-page ad in the Bottomless Press Herald announcing you’re here.”
“Sorry, my friend, I’m merely on sabbatical.” Good word, he told himself; could mean lots of different things—change of scenery, romantic interlude, career transition. If even he didn’t know why this mission mattered so much, it sure didn’t make sense to give Shep any accidental clues.
“Last I knew you liked hanging out with a bunch of nomads in northern Russia whenever you got tired of acting like a civilized human being. You get the tribal leader’s daughter pregnant?”
Gunnar merely snorted and took another sip of beer.
Shep gestured at the badge on the table. “I thought I was finally going to get to draw my weapon when the council voted to make you interim chief instead of the other guy.”
Christ, Shep had been at the meeting? “Is there a reason our paths haven’t crossed in the last two weeks?” Gunnar drawled to hide his consternation. How in hell had he missed the only black guy in the room tonight—especially one wearing enough law enforcement paraphernalia to stop a full-blown riot?
“Because I always made sure I saw you first,” Shep drawled back.
Gunnar cut himself some slack, recalling the bastard had once spent two weeks searching an English manor right under the noses of the entire family and staff.
“Those were some pretty impressive credentials I heard Duncan listing off,” Shep continued. “Refresh my memory. Instead of getting a master’s degree in fire science, weren’t you rotting in prison in some obscure little country on the Bering Sea three years ago?”
“The country was Shelkova, and I was recovering from a gunshot wound under house arrest. And since timber is their major resource, the only non-dry reading in the palace library was on fighting forest fires.” He shrugged. “If the woods around here ever go up in flames, I’m the man you want to call.”
“Your house arrest was in a palace?”
Gunnar shot him a grin. “Once I was healed and I promised my buddy, who was Prince Markov at the time, that I’
d stop using Shelkova’s remote coastline for some of my sting operations, he kindly commuted my sentence.”
Of course, that hadn’t stopped Gunnar from getting a little revenge four months ago by forcing the recently crowned king to spend three days tracking down Anatol’s tribe in order to retrieve his wife. In his defense, how was he supposed to know Markov had been that much in love with the little termagant? “So, if you’re not here on patriotic duty,” Gunnar continued, “what’s up with the uniform and shiny badge? Hell, Shep, aren’t you afraid to trip over all that equipment while you’re chasing down jaywalkers?”
Officer Sheppard leaned back while adjusting the radio mike on his shoulder, then smoothed down the front of his crisp blue shirt. “It’s a proven fact women are attracted to men in uniform,” he said deadpan. “And it’s Jake. Our K-9 officer’s name is Shep. And,” Jake ground out when Gunnar choked on the sip of beer he’d just taken, “Cole and I decided to trade in our cloaks and daggers for jobs with a longer life expectancy.”
Gunnar stilled, forcing himself not to look around. “Wyatt’s here, too?” he asked, hoping to God he sounded casual. Shep sure as hell better be telling the truth about their motivation. Since this case was personal—Jane would hunt him down and finish him off personally if he didn’t find her friend and figure out what was going on—he had zero intention of letting anyone else muddy the waters.
Jake’s eyes lit with amusement. “Cole’s down protecting the good citizens of Turtleback Station. I haven’t told him you’re here yet because I wanted it to be a surprise for both of you.”
Great. He couldn’t freaking wait. Even though he’d more often than not been on the same side as the two . . . civil servants, Gunnar had usually found himself having to race them to the finish, because, hell, he didn’t get paid unless he delivered. And they’d separately been closing in on a particularly nasty target about a year ago when everything had suddenly gone to hell in a handbasket . . .
Oh yeah, he really needed to stop being an ass to the small handful of men in the world he actually respected. And even though he’d made sure Wyatt’s hospital room had smelled like a thousand-dollar brothel, he wasn’t in any hurry to meet the bastard anytime soon.
Gunnar’s cell phone started vibrating, the accompanying chime indicating dispatch was toning out Spellbound Falls Fire & Rescue. He snatched up the phone before it vibrated off the table and tapped the link to hear the seventy-second message.
A good ten seconds of tones went off, followed by static, then: “Attention Spellbound Falls Fire & Rescue. Units Nine-eighty-seven and Spellbound Ambulance Two are asked to respond to the north side of Fraser Mountain—they believe near the High Bridge campsite—for a sixteen-year-old male, breathing and conscious, with a possible broken leg. Patient is with a party of nine hikers also requesting transportation off the mountain. Be advised, caller mentioned hearing approaching thunder. Confirmed with Caribou NOAA; squall line expected to reach that area around . . .” The line crackled, followed by a soft chuckle. “Ah, now. Copy units Nine-eighty-seven and Spellbound Ambulance Two: Fraser Mountain, near High Bridge campsite, for sixteen-year-old male with possible broken leg. Piscataquis out, twenty-two-twelve.”
Gunnar grabbed his badge off the table and stood, then headed for the door.
“Wolfe.”
He stopped and looked back to see Jake also standing. His hands hovered casually—but no less menacingly—near his gun holster. “I find out you’re not here on sabbatical, you won’t be recuperating in a palace.”
Gunnar eyed him briefly, then merely nodded and strode out of the bar. Time to do his job.
Chapter Three
Katy had been quite proud of herself for getting to work a full forty-five minutes before the 7:00 a.m. shift change, even if a leaky roof had spurred her on more than a desire to impress her new boss. Only she’d arrived to find one of the five station bays empty and no one around to impress. Her nerves jangled in the silence, sending her thoughts directly to her lifelong anxiety fix: Jane. What a relief it would be to fill the emptiness with her best friend’s laughter, with a steadying round of “atta girls” and “you can do its.”
But one devastating detail kept her phone in her pocket. Jane would know. She’d hear everything—stated or not—in Katy’s tone, her words, even her breathing. They’d spent decades perfecting the shorthand, and Katy knew that gift would sell her out in the end. So now she sat on a bench in front of the newly completed state-of-the-art safety building, trying to decide how she felt about what she’d been told by the teenage intern she’d discovered washing mud off the impressively large rescue truck out back.
“Chief Gillman’s gone,” the kid told her. “Quit.”
Katy felt a hard pulse in her throat at the news. What on earth had made the jovial, grandfatherly chief who’d hired her three months ago suddenly up and quit what had to have been his dream job?
“Family reasons,” was all the kid offered.
“And where are the others?”
“Taking showers,” he said. “They came back dirtier than their vehicles after spending all night rescuing a bunch of backcountry hikers. One of them busted an ankle and had to be transported to a hospital about fifty miles from here.”
Now Katy sat and tried to tamp down her uneasy feelings. Because even with her parents’ blessing, maybe moving to this magical little town wouldn’t prove to be the best decision she’d ever made. Maybe it would represent another pothole on the crooked road of her life. The empowerment that came from getting a position on such an elite squad had helped pull her through the last three weeks, but apparently Spellbound Falls Fire & Rescue was experiencing its own personal—and personnel—crisis.
Katy spent ten minutes roaming the large station before she found the kitchen. She hunted down a mug, filled it with the questionable remains of the coffeepot, and went outside in hopes the bright morning sun would help banish the chill of the morning’s news.
Damn, she’d really liked Chief Gilmore. Katy smiled sadly, remembering the man’s hazel eyes shining with patient humor as she’d spent her entire interview in a nervous sweat, trying to persuade him to take a chance on her. She wanted the job. She thought she would be good at it. But this squad was such a big deal, it really took a lot of guts on her part to apply.
Heck, all the national news channels had run stories on Chief Gilmore’s search for the bravest and best firefighters and paramedics for the elite squad he was pulling together. He drew applicants from all over the country. Deeply qualified ones.
Katy figured she must have been temporarily insane to even go for it.
Or maybe Chief Gilmore had been for hiring her.
He’d told her he had faith in her and would be there to guide her. And now he was gone.
All of which had her worrying about how the new chief would feel, inheriting a medic who possessed a sum total of three years of volunteer experience. Oh, and a certificate from the highly respected wilderness school Gilmore had pulled a few strings to get her into, which claimed she was now competent in technical climbing, whitewater kayaking, and remote search and rescue. But would that be enough to satisfy the new chief, or would she be let go without even being given the chance to prove—
“Must be nice.”
Katy lifted a hand to her forehead and squinted into the sun at the elderly gentleman stopped on the sidewalk at the end of the station’s driveway. “Excuse me?”
“I was just saying how nice it must be,” he repeated, gesturing in her direction, “to have our hard-earned tax dollars paying you probably double what anyone around here makes, just so you can sit and drink coffee in front of a ridiculously overpriced fire station.”
Katy’s mouth dropped open, but before she could reply, a deep male voice cut in behind her.
“Be glad she’s sitting here instead of out on some road trying to keep your wife and granddaughter fro
m bleeding to death while we cut them out of what’s left of their car.”
Katy spun on the bench to gape at the tall, broad-shouldered man standing in the open bay doorway, his ice-blue gaze locked on the complainer. Despite the absence of a badge, she recognized he was a firefighter rather than a medic. Although he wore a dark blue T-shirt identical to hers, his matching station pants didn’t have cargo pockets to get in the way of slipping into bunker gear.
“Well, that was aggressive,” Katy said, even as she fought the urge to jump up and flee along with the duly chastised gentleman scurrying down the sidewalk.
He shrugged and turned those piercing blue eyes on her. “When people stop making stupid comments, I’ll stop correcting them. And speaking of stupid, lose the badge,” he added, nodding at the one clipped to her jacket.
“Excuse me? Why?”
“Our jobs are dangerous enough without pinning a target on our chests. Pissed-off people will often start shooting at anyone who looks like law enforcement.”
Katy swallowed her anxiety and watched the old man disappear into a local restaurant down the road.
Welcome to Spellbound Falls, she thought, with grim humor.
She turned back to the man and willed her heart to stop racing. Holy hell, were all the firefighters on the squad so imposing? Even though she’d grown up around tall, athletic men—there wasn’t a male in her family under six-foot-three—Katy doubted that even a solid wall of overprotective brothers and cousins would rattle this guy, who stood as solid and grounded as a thousand-year-old oak.
“Thanks for the advice,” she said in what she hoped was an even voice, “but I think I’ll wait for the new chief to tell me to lose the badge.”
“He just did.” His eyes flared briefly before they crinkled with his grin. “Gunnar Wolfe—with an E,” he said, tapping the name Wolfe printed on his shirt.
Call It Magic Page 4