Her Sexy Challenge (Firefighters of Station 1)

by Ballance, Sarah

  Table of Contents

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Find love in unexpected places with these satisfying Lovestruck reads… Ten Days with the Highlander

  The Hook Up

  In a Ranger’s Arms

  Driven to Temptation

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  Copyright © 2017 by Sarah Ballance. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce, distribute, or transmit in any form or by any means. For information regarding subsidiary rights, please contact the Publisher.

  Entangled Publishing, LLC

  2614 South Timberline Road

  Suite 109

  Fort Collins, CO 80525

  Visit our website at www.entangledpublishing.com.

  Lovestruck is an imprint of Entangled Publishing, LLC.

  Edited by Heather Howland

  Cover design by Heather Howland

  Cover art from iStock

  ISBN 978-1-64063-173-1

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  First Edition August 2017

  For Heather-from-Maine and her cohort The Albino, both of whom I’m told are the most awkward people to have ever stumbled through life. (And also a restaurant or two. Ahem.)

  Chapter One

  Caitlin Tyler adjusted her glasses and immediately regretted relinquishing her grip on the bridge railing that kept her from plunging to her watery demise. Despite the periodic blindness caused by her wind-whipped hair smacking her in the face, she already saw herself going over the edge, the dark swirling water below stealing her last sputtering breaths.

  She’d seen rivers before. Near her home in rural Wyoming, every roadside dip and swale had a sign naming the river or creek it marked. Sometimes they even had water in them.

  Sometimes they were raging torrents of death.

  This river was creeping up on the latter, agonizingly reminiscent of the flash flood that tore unexpectedly over dusty ground and swept away her family’s truck. She hadn’t seen water churn like this since that night.

  And the bridge…it was really high up.

  Why had she thought she could do this?

  Because most people can cross a bridge? She had crossed this very one the day before, in fact, only tucked safely within the confines of a bus.

  She’d traveled light, planning to start her new life in Dry Rock, Colorado—which, with its roaring river, was decidedly not dry—as proprietor of Shelf Indulgence, a used book store wedged between an old-fashioned ice cream parlor and a candy store in the trendy downtown district. She’d thought the location perfect for a brick-and-mortar bookstore revival, if a bit tough on skinny jeans.

  The potential for perfection was still there…if she ever managed to get to the other side of this godforsaken bridge. Maybe she could put a cot in the back of the store and survive on takeout?

  She should have taken the bus again. Or a cab. Anything that would have involved being forced across the span, the river comfortably out of view. Instead, she’d decided to tackle it head-on, big girl panties hitched to her neck, pride higher than those not-so-distant mountaintops. She wasn’t going to run away from her dream over a bunch of steel and concrete and a little bit of water.

  Or so she’d told herself before she’d walked onto the bridge. Approximately halfway, she’d dared a peek down, and all of that flagging bravado took the plunge without her.

  Ever since that moment, she’d had a death grip on the railing, her fingertips growing increasingly numb, every muscle fiber frozen by fear. Except her heart. Nope, that beat so hard the bridge shook.

  The bridge actually shook.

  Okay, so maybe giving up everything to run a bookstore in a random town she’d never heard of was crazy. She’d heard it a million times from just about everyone back home—her best friend, her mother, the postman, the guy who couldn’t get her name right at the coffee shop. Even the neighbor’s cat had tossed a haughty, accusing stare her way when she’d packed up the treat bowl she kept out for him.

  But that hadn’t deterred her. The cat could scowl all he wanted, because she was going to take that English Lit degree—the one they’d all assured her would be useless in life—and put it to work.

  At least, that had been the plan ten minutes ago.

  Now, she was almost certain she wouldn’t live long enough to hear everyone gloat. Which, come to think of it, might be an upside. One that didn’t make it any more comforting to find herself clinging to the cross-town bridge, life flashing before her eyes while a deluge of regrets flew past at a speed that far outpaced the steady, pavement-shaking pace of what had to be every vehicle within a thirty-mile vicinity.

  She gnawed on the inside of her cheek, too tense and terrified to bite her nails or do anything that would ever, ever require her to let go again.

  Passing cars churned exhaust in her face, sending road grit pinging against her legs. She tried to take a deep, steadying breath, but all she inhaled was road dust. She coughed, almost losing her grip and her glasses over the course of a single spasm.

  Distant sirens cut through the shuffle of the traffic.

  Before she could process what that meant, a motorcycle passed too closely, and she let out a high-pitched scream. A trio of big ugly birds that had been perched just a few feet away, staring down their hooked beaks at her, launched skyward. Another semi-truck roared by, sending a few brute tons of steel and concrete swaying beneath her feet.

  “Nope, nope, nope.” Steel and concrete were not supposed to move.

  A gust of wind rocked her, almost sending her glasses into the river again. She managed to smash them back against her face without fully losing her grip on the railing, though an unexpected draft suggested her skirt might have fluttered indecently around her thighs. Great.

  The sirens grew louder.

  Oh God. She literally couldn’t breathe. Her throat felt like a clogged vacuum hose, and the harder she fought for air, the more the world seemed to blur and spin around her. Hugging the railing felt like the worst idea in the world, but it was the only solid thing within her reach. Desperate not to fall into traffic, she edged closer to the barrier, almost grateful for the sparkly edges of her vision that kept her from seeing the rushing water.

  The last time she’d seen rushing water, she’d nearly lost everyone she loved.

  Her teeth started to chatter.

  No one slowed to check out the woman frozen mid-span. Apparently, pedestrians hung out on this bridge on a regular basis.

  They could have it.

  If she made it off that death span alive, damned if she’d ever touch toe to it again.

  …

  Lieutenant Shane Hendricks assessed the scene before him. The call had been for a jumper, and sure enough, a woman clung to the railing halfway across the span. Traffic ahead had slowed to a sta
tic crawl, which meant the wind whipping that mess of red hair had to come from the water. She didn’t look in imminent danger of going over, but he wasn’t one to take chances.

  He radioed down to make sure the rescue boat was in place. Not a stretch there…after years of calls like these, the vessel docked near the pilings, but he received confirmation they were ready. The ambulance waited at the foot of the bridge, ready to maneuver in either direction.

  Just another day at the office.

  He didn’t know what it was about this span, but at least once a month since he’d signed on with the department nearly ten years ago, they had someone threatening to go over the side. Those who had followed through tended to be thrill seekers in their teens and early twenties looking for a good time, and most walked away unscathed.

  People who wanted to jump just did it.

  In his experience, people who made a huge spectacle—like the woman in question—rarely wanted more than attention. And they got it after effectively shutting down the only bridge between the suburban sprawl of Dry Rock and the downtown area, which was wedged between the mountains and the river. Almost everyone had to cross that river to get to work or shop or actually do anything, and even then, the pickings were fairly light. Dry Rock only pretended to be a city.

  He hated it.

  It was an odd place to be, knowing he helped people, but feeling like he would never measure up to what he wanted from his career as long as he was stuck there. Fighting fires, outsmarting and outmaneuvering nature, was in his blood. He needed high rises and an urban hardscape—a place where they really needed him. Somewhere he could make a real difference, like his dad had.

  His father had died a hero.

  In Dry Rock, Shane helped cats out of trees and talked people off bridges. It wasn’t the most heroic of jobs, though that woman, who seemed to be alternately crying and talking to herself, might pose a bigger challenge than most.

  Two weeks. That’s all he had left in this town. He’d accepted a job in Denver, fighting real fires. Continuing his father’s legacy in the city that had taken him. Going back would break his mother’s heart, but he had to go.

  He was meant for it.

  “What do you think, Lieutenant?” Matt Freeman was Shane’s closest friend, but on a call, they kept things formal. That didn’t stop Matt from filling Shane’s truck with ping-pong balls when their shift ended, nor did it stop Shane from kicking his ass in retaliation, but there was a line.

  On the job, they had the routine down.

  Routine. Dry Rock in a nutshell.

  Shane sighed and kept his eyes on the woman. Peripherally, flashes of red faded from traffic that had continued ahead while Matt brought the engine to a stop. Behind them, all lanes were blocked. “I need to get the hell out of this town.”

  Matt’s soft laughter carried across the cab. “Before or after that woman does or does not jump?”

  “She’s not going to jump. She’d need a step ladder to get over the edge.” Shane wasn’t exaggerating by much, if at all. The pedestrian railing was more than half her height. Throwing herself over would prove a challenge, and the neon-white of her grip on the rail suggested she wasn’t going anywhere any time soon.

  He hopped off the truck, hitting the ground heavily in the turnout gear. He added the requisite helmet, kicking back the visor, and nodded to Matt. Show time.

  The woman barely glanced his way as he approached. He wished he could get a better idea of her expression, but with a mess of red hair whipping into a tornado from the updraft, all he could tell was that her face had momentarily shifted in his direction, then back to the pavement.

  His guys stopped traffic behind him, and by now the cars ahead had cleared the bridge. Red and blue lights flashed on the opposite side, suggesting the police had a barricade in place. The typically busy crossing had settled into an unnatural silence, over which he could hear stifled sobs that made whatever she mumbled between them indecipherable.

  “Mind if we talk?” Shane asked the woman when he was close enough to be heard without yelling. The distance between them narrowed from twenty feet to fifteen before he eased his approach. He took in her cute, if prim, skirt and a blouse he was sure his grandma had owned back in the day and, weighing that with a set of healthy curves he probably shouldn’t have noticed, decided she probably wasn’t strung out on anything.

  She looked at him in the same instant the wind died. Five seconds without her hair flying left him gut-punched. She was a redhead, all right, with killer green eyes. What he assumed to be mascara had fled the scene, having run to her neck in smears that stood vivid against her porcelain skin. Those same tracks had uncovered a smattering of freckles, and her tear-streaked face left her glasses without traction. He hadn’t even noticed them, clunky and retro, until that moment when she pushed them against her face, which really said something about the intensity of that shade of green.

  “Do I look like I’m standing here waiting for a sweaty fireman to come by and engage me in conversation?” she asked, sounding…annoyed, if shaky.

  Huh. He’d never gotten that reaction before. And sweaty? He might have been buried under a few pounds of gear, but the morning temps still hovered in the sixties, the air cool against his face. “We don’t have to talk. I’m here for whatever you might need.”

  “That sounds like a line from a bad date.”

  Some of the color came back to her knuckles. Either she was about to start climbing the fence, or her strange irritation over his presence made her forget whatever else had her clinging to the side of a bridge. When she didn’t make for the railing, he bet on the latter.

  “Pretty sure I’ve never been a bad date, so I wouldn’t know,” he said cautiously, watching her body language. Sure enough, her grip loosened, and she actually turned away from the railing instead of just twisting to look at him.

  Bingo.

  Her eyes flashed. “You just happened by to talk about your dating situation?”

  He’d managed to knock the distance between them to about five feet, and she hadn’t reacted to his proximity. Nor was she clinging to the bridge. He hitched an eyebrow and prayed he hadn’t misjudged her. “Do you want to talk about my dating situation?”

  He tried not to notice the way the morning sun set fire to her hair, or how those eyes reminded him of hiking in the spring when the evergreens sported new growth. He tried, and failed, which made her combative tone almost welcomed.

  Almost. Because he still had a job to do.

  “Yes,” she said, like he’d asked the dumbest possible question. “That’s exactly what I wanted from this day. Right after I found myself stuck on this bridge, I thought, I need a guy to come talk to me about his dating situation.”

  A grin tipped his mouth before he could stop it. He recognized the fear in her tone. Found her eyes swimming in it, but if turning fear into irritation toward him helped get her off this bridge the safe way, that was fine with him.

  He was grateful Matt and the rest of his guys were at his back so as not to witness his facade splinter. Not that it was one. He was just doing his job, and if that meant goading her away from the edge, so be it. “Better me than the guy down there on the rescue boat. His dating situation isn’t one for polite conversation, not that that stops him from oversharing.”

  Her eyes narrowed, then widened. She looked from him toward the direction of the fire truck, then toward the cops on the other end of the bridge, then back to him. “Wait. You think I’m going to jump?” Incredulity shook her small, curvy frame, and he noticed in every possible wrong way.

  “Ma’am—”

  Eyes lit, she launched on the offensive. “I don’t want to be on the bridge. Do you really think I want to be under it?”

  He studied her a moment, momentarily lost by the way the wind outlined her body through her clothes. Gawked was more like it. It was inappropriate and unprofessional, but damn, he wished he’d run into her at the diner instead. Or at the grocery store. Anywhere else
, because under any other circumstances, he could think of a hell of a lot more interesting things for her to be under than the bridge.

  To her question, he replied, “Well, ma’am, whether you ended up under the bridge would depend on the direction of the current.”

  Her jaw dropped, then snapped shut. “Is that what you say to people who are about to jump?”

  He kept his lips tight to hide another smile. “I thought you weren’t jumping.”

  He was close enough now to invade her personal space. He could have easily grabbed her, but he didn’t see any signs that she was about to go over the side, nor was there an obviously abandoned vehicle nearby. He couldn’t imagine anyone taking the route by foot if they were afraid enough to freeze up, but this was Dry Rock. If she didn’t have a ride, she might not have had a choice about walking across the bridge.

  The irritation twisting her expression did nothing to kill his gnawing—and yep, still inappropriate—attraction. “I’m not jumping,” she said, “so you can call off the fire trucks and the police cars.”

  “And the boat. And there’s an ambulance, too.” He moved closer, and she reclaimed every inch he gained, shuffling backward, her hand only lightly touching the railing. She probably hadn’t noticed her own retreat.

  “Please tell me you’re kidding. There’s really a boat?” She turned her head a fraction, then seemed to catch herself and jerked back toward him. The lull in momentum nearly had him tripping over himself not to walk right into her, though he wouldn’t harbor too many regrets. Not with a growing interest in this woman—one that turned more into an ache with every step away from emergency response territory. He tried to shake it. The last thing he wanted was an entanglement in Dry Rock. Not with everything he wanted waiting just two weeks away in Denver. He’d have plenty of time to twist a few bed sheets there.

  Off the clock.

  “We care about our citizens,” he said mildly. “That’s why we have this great big high bridge to keep you away from that little stream.”

  “Little stream?” Horror blanched her face, and she took a few more steps back. “It looks like a dam broke down there.”