by Jessie Evans
Saving You
Fire and Icing Book Five
A Summerville Novella/Short Novel
The one you save may be yourself…
Things in Summerville, Georgia are still hot, hot, hot—
Faith gets a send-off any bachelorette would envy—complete with sexy male strippers from Atlanta.
Maddie and Jamison encounter the first bump in their relationship (and a little grind, too).
Jake and Naomi are tested when a friend mysteriously disappears.
Psychic Lucy Bledsoe must learn to trust her new firefighter boyfriend, Brandon, as she struggles to save a life that hangs in the balance.
Come along for the ride as Summerville's sexiest firefighters and their soul mates take the final steps on the path to happily-ever-after as the second Summerville series winds to a close.
Other sexy, contemporary romances by Jessie Evans
The Summerville Novels
Always a Bridesmaid Series
BETTING ON YOU (Always a Bridesmaid Book One)
KEEPING YOU (Always a Bridesmaid Book Two)
WILD FOR YOU (Always a Bridesmaid Book Three)
CATCHING YOU (Always a Bridesmaid Four-Short Story)
TAKING YOU (Always a Bridesmaid Five-Novella/Short Novel)
Fire and Icing Series
MELT WITH YOU (Fire and Icing Book One)
HOT FOR YOU (Fire and Icing Book Two)
SWEET TO YOU (Fire and Icing Book Three)
PERFECT FOR YOU (Fire and Icing Book Four-Short Story)
SAVING YOU (Fire and Icing Book Five-Novella/Short Novel)
Cupid Island Novellas (Short Novels)
AUDITIONING YOU (Cupid Island Two)
A Cupid Island Christmas Anthology by Jessie Evans, Lila Ashe, and Ruby Laska
c. 2014 Smashwords Edition
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
Copyright © 2014 Jessie D. Evans
This book may not be reproduced or used in whole or in part by any means existing without written permission from the author. This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the author’s imagination and used fictitiously. Cover image by manifeesto for Shutterstock. Cover design by Bootstrap Designs. Editing by Edited Ever After Editorial.
Chapter One
Lucy Bledsoe woke before her 3:45 a.m. alarm, filled with a sense of foreboding. Immediately—before her eyes were fully open or the sleep haze faded from her thoughts—she knew something bad was going to happen.
Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but before the week was out, someone in this town would be in serious trouble.
Lucy had a sixth sense about things like this. She had a sixth sense about most things, really. Lucy was always the first to know when two people were falling in love, had an uncanny knack for guessing which horse would come in first at the races, intuitively chose the route with the least traffic congestion—without the use of a smartphone app, thankyouverymuch—and had rescued more lost things than anyone she knew aside from her grammy, Tutu, the other psychic in the family.
Grammy Tutu had been a fortuneteller in a circus for thirty years before she settled down at the ripe old age of thirty-eight and proceeded to have seven children in seven years. She and her husband, Rupert, were some of the last people to settle in Pottsville—a tiny country town that made Summerville look absolutely bustling in comparison—and had remained on their farm in the valley for more than fifty years. Grandpa Rupert was ninety-two, and Grammy Tutu was ninety, and both of them were determined to stay in their house until the Good Lord took their hand and led them on to the next adventure.
The couple had weathered six floods, two summers of drought so extreme the earth in their backyard look like the cracked floor of a desert, and their fair share of personal tragedy. They’d lost a son in Vietnam, their first granddaughter to childhood leukemia, and were forced to have their daughter committed after she tried to drive her car into the river—with her infant daughter still strapped into her carrier in the backseat.
Lucy didn’t remember much about her mother. Grammy said they went to visit her at the psychiatric hospital a few times when Lucy was little, but by the time Lucy was four, Rose’s mental state had degenerated to the point Grammy didn’t think it was wise to continue visits until Rose was feeling better. A few months later, Rose passed away after a bad bout of pneumonia.
The only memories Lucy had of her mother were of her funeral, a horrible rainy day that turned the mud around the gravesite slick and treacherous. Grandpa Ru had fallen on the way up the hill to the cars, and Lucy had lost one of her Mary Jane’s in the mud beside the grave. It was simply sucked away, never to be seen again.
As she lay in bed now, listening to the rain come down hard on the roof of the bakery, Lucy couldn’t help but think back to that day, to the way the rain came down so hard it shook the handle of the umbrella in her hand. Of the way the tears flowed down Grammy’s cheeks as she laid her second child to rest.
Grammy never cried. Grammy was the strongest person Lucy had ever known, and always seemed to know how to sweep the bad feelings away.
For a moment, Lucy was tempted to reach for her cell, and give Grammy a call, despite the fact that it wasn’t quite four in the morning. But Bledsoe women never slept. Grammy was up by four almost every day, and Lucy was the same. Her job at the bakery was a perfect fit for her high energy level and outgoing personality. And baking half the day and waiting on customers the other half was a heck of a lot less stressful than her last job.
Lucy started helping the Atlanta police on cold cases not long after getting her college degree in archeology—and realizing how hard it was to earn a living with a degree in digging stuff up. Grammy had consulted for various police forces for years before Lucy started, and by the time Lucy was twenty-one it was clear she had psychic ability that surpassed even her gram’s.
In her first few years working with the APD, she helped track down ten missing persons, one little girl who’d been kidnapped by her nanny, dozens of leads that led to arrests in high profile cold cases, and the burial site of the last victim of The Peachtree Killer, a serial killer who’d been active in Atlanta in the late seventies.
The last case affected her the most. She knew she would never forget the sight of the long-decomposed body or the horrible energy surrounding that part of the woods. It had broken her heart to be confronted with the work of the blackest part of humanity. She’d seen terrible things before then, of course, but nothing so completely evil.
She’d continued to work with the police for a few months after, but she could tell no one was surprised when she decided to stop consulting. Detective Pew, her main contact within the Atlanta PD, had actually seemed glad to see her quit, despite the fact that she’d been a useful addition to his team.
“Take care of yourself, and be happy,” he’d said, pulling her in for a hug. “This world has enough broken people walking around in it. It would be a damned shame to see you join them.”
And so Lucy had moved back in with Grammy, applied for the least angst-filled job she could imagine—working the counter at Icing, the new bakery in town, a place so pink and girly and happy it was impossible to think a tragic thought within its walls. The fact that the bakery was owned and operated by three of the nicest women Lucy had ever met was the icing on Icing. Lucy had settled right into working for Aria March and the Whitehouse sisters, letting the easy-going routine and sweet smells of the bakery banish the darkness from her heart.
After a few months, she’d earned enough trust to be charged with opening the store once a week. And barely three weeks ago—after Maddie Whitehouse got engaged and moved in with her fiancé—Lucy had move
d into the tiny apartment above the bakery, the better to fulfill her new, three-days-a-week opening duties. Naomi and Aria both had new babies, Maddie was busy planning her wedding, and Lucy had made it clear she was thrilled to take on more responsibility.
And thrilled to live in the cozy bakery apartment, as well. She loved Grammy and Grandpa to bits, but the farmhouse in Pottsville was starting to feel crowded. Her cousin, May, and her two kids had moved into Lucy’s old room after May was laid off and Lucy had been sleeping on the couch in the living room, where May’s dog, Tick, felt free to crawl up on her chest in the middle of the night and do his best to suffocate his favorite member of the household any time he pleased.
The apartment felt like paradise, a tiny refuge from the world—at least until this morning…
The ominous feeling lingered in Lucy’s chest as she slid out of bed and turned off her alarm. It hovered around her as she dressed in a long red peasant skirt and a black tank-top and pulled her short brown hair into pigtails that stuck out in stubby tufts on either side of her head. The sensation was so foul that Lucy took a few extra minutes to line her dark brown eyes with brown liner and apply mascara, hoping eye makeup would lift her spirits, but if anything the sense of looming dread only got worse.
She felt like she was fighting through emotional sludge as she fired up the ovens to preheat and started scooping cookie dough out onto the massive cookie sheets. Weighing out the bread dough Maddie had prepared yesterday and getting the loaves in the oven to cook took twice as long as usual, and she barely had the potato rolls out of the shaper machine and set to baking in time to make sure they’d be ready for Icing’s eight a.m. opening. She fetched the cakes and pies Naomi and Aria had made yesterday from the refrigerator with a heavy heart and by the time she was ready to settle down for breakfast and coffee before the bakery opened, she knew there would be no avoiding what had to be done.
For the first time since she resigned as the Atlanta PD’s psychic consultant, Lucy closed her eyes and reached out with that nameless part of her—the energy that lingered in her chest until she sent it seeking into the world. When she was first learning to use her gift, Lucy had pushed too hard, trying to give the energy a destination, but now she knew better. She simply let the energy go, and usually, within a few minutes, she had some sense of what had triggered the blip on her sixth sense’s radar.
She waited patiently, eyes closed, thoughts meditating on the steady rhythm of the rain hitting the sidewalk outside, but several minutes passed and Lucy was no closer to discovering the source of the bad feeling. She was still sitting in her chair beside the bakery window, cooling coffee clenched tightly in hand, praying for a clue, when the bakery door opened.
The bells tinkled and seconds later, a very drippy figure in a Summerville Fire Department raincoat stepped inside.
“It’s really coming down out there,” the man said as he slid his hood off, revealing a dark blond buzz cut and blue-gray eyes set in a no-nonsense face.
Brandon Nordstrom was one of the newest members of the SFD, but he was every bit as serious as his Captain, Jake Hanson. He was a six-foot one-inch alpha male with broad shoulders, a sharp nose, and earnest manliness practically oozing from his pores.
In short, he was the polar opposite of every man Lucy had ever dated. She tended toward artists and musicians, men who were as in touch with their feelings as their physical bodies and made a living with their brains, not their brawn. But Brandon was good people, and he couldn’t help not being Lucy’s favorite firefighter.
Jamison Hansen—the youngest Hansen brother, and her boss, Maddie’s, fiancé—was Lucy’s firefighter spirit animal. Not in a romantic way, of course, but she appreciated Jamison’s enthusiasm for life, the way he wasn’t afraid to wear his heart on his sleeve and always found something to laugh about.
Laughter was precious. After the things she’d witnessed working for the Atlanta PD and the loss she’d suffered last year, Lucy believed that with a ferocity matched only by her belief that animal testing was an abomination, and the melting polar ice caps were the biggest threat facing mankind.
“Would you rather I stay here by the door?” Brandon asked, running a hand over his face, wiping away the raindrops clinging to his nose. “I don’t want to track water everywhere.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Lucy said, rising and claiming her coffee mug before moving behind the counter. “I’ll get out the mop and keep it by the door. I’ll be mopping up all day, anyway. What can I get you guys this morning?”
Brandon wandered over to the counter. “Just the usual. Half a dozen chocolate croissants, half a dozen plain, and a loaf of sourdough bread if you’ve got it this morning.”
“We do,” Lucy said, turning to snag the still-warm loaf from the basket behind her. “Fresh out of the oven.”
“Great,” Brandon said. “That’s my favorite. I toast a slice with almond butter.”
Lucy nodded absent-mindedly as she filled a pink bakery box with croissants. “That sounds good.”
“It is,” Brandon said, shooting her a strange look as she set the box behind the bread and pushed them both across the counter. “Are you okay?”
Lucy blinked. “Yeah. Fine, I…just woke up with a weird feeling today.”
Brandon nodded. “I get that sometimes. Especially when it’s raining. Hard to keep your spirits up when the sky is peeing all over them.”
Lucy’s lips twitched. Under normal circumstances she would have laughed, but she wasn’t in the mood. A bad feeling was bad enough, but a psychic premonition she couldn’t pin down a reason for was plain awful.
“Is there anything I can do?” Brandon asked, gentleness in his tone that Lucy hadn’t noticed from Mr. Earnest and Manly before.
She met his eyes, surprised to find herself saying, “I think I may be broken.”
Brandon frowned. “In what way?”
“I’m psychic. I have been since I was a kid,” Lucy said, ignoring Brandon’s raised brows the way she’d ignored every Doubting Thomas she’d encountered since she was a little girl. “I worked as a consultant for the Atlanta Police Department for a few years, helping solve cold cases. Usually if I get a bad feeling, it isn’t long before I know the reason for it. Or at least have a hunch, you know?”
Brandon slowly shook his head. “Um…”
“But today I searched for a reason and I couldn’t find anything,” Lucy pressed on, needing to talk to someone before the bad feeling ate away her stomach lining. “I’ve been trying so hard to shut off that part of myself, but maybe…” She twined her fingers together on top of the counter. “Maybe I tried too hard, and now…I’m broken.”
Brandon let out a long, measured breath. “You confuse me sometimes, Lucy.”
Lucy sighed. “Thanks.”
“But I like you,” Brandon said with a smile. “And I know what it’s like to get down in the dumps, so…if you ever need someone to talk to, I’m right across the street.”
Lucy cocked her head, studying Brandon, reading the genuine concern in his pale eyes. “You lost someone?” she asked. “To depression?”
Brandon’s eyes opened a little wider. “Yeah…I did. The year before high school.”
“I didn’t read your mind,” Lucy said, rushing to reassure him. “That wasn’t being psychic, just perceptive. I’m sorry for your loss, whoever it was.”
Brandon nodded, the muscle in his jaw leaping. “Thanks.”
“But I’m not depressed, don’t worry,” Lucy said, feeling for the guy, and hoping she could put his mind at ease. “And I’m not crazy, either. There are just more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”
Brandon’s eyes narrowed. “Shakespeare?”
“Yeah,” Lucy said, surprised. “Hamlet.”
“We studied that in high school,” Brandon said. “Wasn’t really my thing.”
“Mine either,” Lucy said. “I just like the quote. My Gram cross-stitched it on a pillow
for me when I was little. She always told me that God made me this way and God doesn’t make mistakes. Some people say being psychic goes against the church, but I’ve only ever used what I can do to help people.” Lucy paused, screwing up her nose before she confessed, “Except that one time I used it to bet on a horse so I could pay my electric bill, but I felt guilty about it after.”
Brandon shot her a bemused smile. “Then why were you trying to turn it off? If you use it to help people?”
Lucy swallowed. “I needed a break. Just for a little while. But I didn’t want it to go away forever.”
Brandon shrugged. “Well…maybe it’s like working out. Maybe you need some time to get back in top condition. If I quit lifting for a week, I can’t jump right back in where I left off, you know.”
“Maybe…” Lucy nodded, mildly cheered. “That’s a thought.”
“I have those sometimes,” Brandon said, making Lucy chuckle when she realized he’d made a joke.
She looked up at him, seeing him through a different lens. “Thanks, Brandon. It was really nice talking to you this morning.”
“You too,” he said, eyes dropping to the pink box and bread on the counter between them before returning to Lucy’s. “So…think you might want to talk again sometime? Maybe over pizza or something?”
Lucy stared at him for a long moment before the meaning of his words penetrated. It had been so long since she’d been asked out on a date, she’d almost forgotten the warning signs.
“Oh,” she said, blinking fast, not sure what else to say. “Um…I…I don’t know, Brandon. I think I’m a lot older than you are.”
Brandon’s brows drew together. “Doubt it. I’m twenty-one.”
“I’m twenty-seven,” Lucy said, accustomed to people thinking she was younger than she actually was. It was a hazard of being five-two, on the scrawny side, and preferring to wear one’s hair in pigtails.