Desperately Seeking Fireman

by Jennifer Bernard

  Desperately Seeking Fireman

  A BACHELOR FIREMEN NOVELLA

  JENNIFER BERNARD

  Contents

  * * *

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  An Excerpt from Four Weddings and a Fireman

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  About the Author

  Also by Jennifer Bernard

  An Excerpt from Once Upon a Highland Summer by Lecia Cornwall

  An Excerpt from Hard Target by Kay Thomas

  An Excerpt from The Wedding Date by Cara Connelly

  An Excerpt from Torn by Monica Murphy

  An Excerpt from The Cupcake Diaries: Spoonful of Christmas by Darlene Panzera

  An Excerpt from Rodeo Queen by T. J. Kline

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Chapter One

  * * *

  Wayside Chapel, San Gabriel, California

  THE GROOM’S SIDE of the aisle was packed with an astonishingly high number of gorgeous men. Nita Moreno, standing near Melissa McGuire, soon to be Brody, surveyed the pews with widening eyes. There was enough testosterone in the building to fuel a small nation’s army—enough handsome, manly faces to fill an issue of Playgirl and enough brawny muscles to—

  Oops. Busted. From across the aisle, two steps behind Captain Brody, a pair of amused, tiger-striped eyes met hers. An unusual mixture of gold and green, surrounded by thick black eyelashes, they would have made their owner look feminine if he weren’t one solid hunk of hard-packed male. A smile twitched at the corner of his mouth. Even in this context, the so-called Bachelor Firemen crowding the wedding of their revered fire captain, he stood out. First there was that breath-taking physique. Then there was his face, a study in contrasts. His features were so strong they almost qualified as harsh. Firm jaw, uncompromising cheekbones. A man’s man, until one looked into those golden eyes, or noticed that he possessed the most beautiful mouth Nita had ever seen on a man.

  She narrowed her own eyes and met him look for look. Hey, she wasn’t checking out the available men. She had one of her own. Very deliberately, she let her gaze roam to the bride’s side of the aisle and settle on Bradford Maddox IV. Hedge fund operator, family scion, possessor of a killer business instinct and only a slightly receding hairline, he was hers, and she could still scarcely believe it. Maybe soon she and Bradford would be making their way down an aisle like this. Out of unconscious nervous habit, she clamped down on the inside of her cheek with her teeth. She loved Bradford, and knew he felt the same. He must.

  Bradford, who seemed lost in thought, startled when he realized she was looking adoringly at him. He gave her a faint smile, then pressed his finger to his ear. Lovely. He wasn’t lost in thought, he was listening to his Bluetooth. She sighed, telling herself to let it go. It came with the territory when you dated a hotshot financier. Of course he couldn’t focus his entire attention on the wedding of two people he didn’t even know.

  The right side of her body felt suddenly warm, and she realized the man across the aisle was still watching her, as if she fascinated him.

  Really? She fascinated him? That seemed unlikely. She raised a questioning eyebrow at him. He smiled, the expression transforming his face from the inside out. Goodness, the man was gorgeous, in a totally different way from Bradford. Dark instead of blond, tough instead of charming, virile and primitive—the kind of man who would toss you over his shoulder and have his way with you.

  He jerked his chin at her, as if signaling her to meet him in the chancel.

  She frowned at him, scolding. Excuse me? How inappropriate.

  He did it again, more urgently this time.

  What did the man want? She lifted her hands, palms up, in a frustrated question, as he mouthed something to her.

  “Bouquet.”

  Aw, crap. She swiveled toward Melissa, who had twisted in her direction, unholy mirth lighting up her forest-green eyes. The ivory antique lace adorning her bodice quivered as she held in her laughter.

  The first glitch, after Nita had worked so hard to plan her friend’s wedding to perfection.

  Digging deep for solemn dignity, Nita stepped forward and received the bride’s bouquet so that Melissa could marry her fire captain. She stepped back into position, fixing her gaze on the delicate ruffles of the white peonies, their petals as fine as living parchment, their fresh scent soothing the edge from her embarrassment. Gnawing at the inside of her cheek helped too.

  As soon as the reception started, she was going to throttle that man, whoever he was. In the meantime, there was a little thing called a wedding underway.

  “I will,” said Captain Brody, slipping a simple gold ring on Melissa’s finger and radiating a passionate devotion that made tears spring to Nita’s eyes.

  “And will you, Melissa Eleanor McGuire, take this man to have and to hold, to care for and to cherish, for the rest of your days?”

  “I will.”

  The deep joy in her friend’s voice propelled one of those tears down Nita’s cheek. It landed on a peony petal, where it left a translucent smudge.

  She blinked madly, refusing to draw any more attention away from Melissa. If someone was going to cry, it ought to be the bride, not the bridesmaid. Or maybe it ought to be the man across the aisle. Daring to raise her eyes again, she saw that he was once again staring directly at her. This time he didn’t look so much amused as . . . well, enchanted. Intrigued. Attracted. A bolt of heat traveled from the crown of her head all the way to the soles of her feet.

  For a crazy moment, she wondered if she’d been struck by lightning for ogling a man during her dearest friend’s wedding.

  San Gabriel Inn—private dining room

  MAKE THAT, OGLING a married man during her friend’s wedding. A married man with a bubbly, blond wife and a willowy teenage daughter. The three of them sat at a round table across the room. His arm was slung across the back of his wife’s chair as she chatted with the woman next to her, who Nita recognized as Sabina Jones, one of San Gabriel’s female firefighters. The man himself was laughing with his daughter, whose dark hair was fastened at her neck with a flower-clip. The deep rumble of his laugh made its way across the room to her, even through the animated chatter of wedding guests.

  Altogether, they made a perfect picture of a happy family. They made her teeth ache. Or maybe some other part of her body ached; she didn’t care to investigate.

  Standing at the bar as Bradford continued the phone conversation he’d begun during the ceremony, Nita pressed his arm against her side, as if to remind herself of her good fortune. Bradford—he hated being called Brad—had chosen her. A supporter of her boss Senator Stryker, he was perfect for her in every way. Both driven and hard-working, they had similar goals. Both wanted to be the best at what they did. Both wanted to make their mark on the world. They understood each other and respected each other. She was lucky, lucky, lucky. And she loved him.

  An image of Melissa’s peonies fluttered through her mind. Funny how flowers didn’t have to work so hard to be perfect. They just were. Imagine if flowers had to put in late nights to get ahead. Imagine if flowers had to worry about appropriate hairstyles and trends in business attire. The whimsical thought made her smile.

  “A glass of champagne for your thoughts,” said a deep voice in her ear. She swung around, somehow knowing instantly to whom the voice belonged. For safety, she
kept her hand nestled snugly in the crook of Bradford’s arm.

  Wise move. As she met the man’s tiger eyes, awareness flashed across her every nerve ending.

  “No, thank you. I’m with someone,” she said, which immediately sounded not only like a non sequitur, but completely obvious since she was smushed up against Bradford.

  “Does he know that?” The man’s raised eyebrow indicated the phone conversation in which Bradford was still immersed.

  “Of course he knows. He’s a very busy, important man, that’s all. He’s working on a million-dollar deal. Billion-dollar, I mean.”

  “You’re sure it isn’t a kajillion dollar deal?” Again, with that amusement. He was teasing her. Which was really only one step removed from flirting if you thought about it. How dare he flirt with her while his bubbly, pretty wife was sitting right over there?

  Nita decided to go on the offensive. “Beautiful wedding, wasn’t it? Wedding vows are so important, don’t you think?”

  His face immediately went shuttered, as if all the light had been snuffed out. “I do,” he murmured. “You have no idea how much.” He turned away from her and signaled to the bartender, while she turned that cryptic statement over in her mind.

  He ordered a Dos Equis and a glass of sparkling wine, then launched into a conversation with the bartender about the baseball playoffs. On her other side, Bradford was saying something about “debt burden” and “leverage.” Neither conversation held a candle to the speculation cartwheeling through her brain. When the baseball conversation paused so the bartender could do his job, she tapped the man on the arm. God, it was like a rock. Barely any give at all beneath her fingertips.

  “Excuse me, but I was wondering what you meant by that,” she asked when he turned back to her.

  “You ever been married?”

  “No. Not yet,” she added defensively. Ask her again in six months, and she hoped to have a different answer.

  “Then you wouldn’t understand.” With that dismissive remark, he collected his drinks, left an oversized tip on the bar—Bradford would be shocked—and wound his way through the crowd to his table. She felt annoyed with herself for assuming the man had been flirting with her simply because she found him so attractive.

  “How irritating,” she said to no one in particular. Except that Melissa had materialized at her side.

  “No one’s allowed to be irritated at my wedding,” she told Nita.

  “Sorry. Maybe you shouldn’t have invited him.” She gestured toward the broad, receding back of the mystery man. “Whoever he is.”

  “That’s Jeb Stone, captain of the C shift.”

  “I don’t know what that means, but I take it he, too, is a San Gabriel firefighter?” Melissa had been Nita’s closest friend in Los Angeles before moving home to San Gabriel, meeting Captain Harry Brody and falling head over heels in love. Melissa was a TV news producer; Nita, as State Senator Stryker’s press secretary, had fed her plenty of scoops over the years.

  “Yes, he’s a captain just like Brody.” Melissa’s face lit with tenderness as she said her new husband’s name. “Brody’s favorite captain, but don’t tell anyone else that.”

  “I thought they were all supposed to be Bachelor Firemen. Isn’t he married?” Okay, so some part of her was hoping against hope that he wasn’t married, that he was attending the wedding with his sister or the station receptionist who needed a date.

  “The stories are exaggerated. Some of them are married. Jeb is, Double D is,” she indicated a big-bellied man towing his wife to the dance floor, “but most are not. Vader’s single.” She pointed to a younger guy with a world-class body-builder physique then continued on a dizzyingly fast tour of the men present. “Stud,” an eager, brown-haired cutie, “Psycho,” electric blue eyes and edgy bad-boy vibe, “Hoagie,” handsome heartbreaker-type, “and that’s just the A shift. B and C are another story. I don’t know them as well. But I think the ratio of single to married is pretty consistent.”

  Nita wasn’t interested in the ratio of anything except Jeb Stone’s broad shoulders to his lean hips.

  And that of his ring finger to the rest of his digits.

  Her attention had snagged on the words, “Jeb is,” and stayed there. Jeb is married. Jeb is taken. Jeb is not for you. What did it matter anyway? She chewed at the inside of her mouth. Bradford was the man for her.

  Just then Bradford finished his call and bent his charming, social register countenance on Melissa. “Lovely wedding. I’m honored by the invitation.”

  From Melissa’s curl of a smile, Nita could tell she didn’t like Bradford. “Thank you so much for coming. Nita is one of my favorite people in the world, and she did an amazing job helping me plan. I’m so glad you could both be here.”

  Yep, definitely didn’t like him.

  “Here’s hoping that the next time we’re all at a wedding, someone else is saying those vows.” He transferred his smile to Nita, who took a moment to put his meaning together. When she did, a soaring giddiness nearly overwhelmed her. Bradford was thinking marriage. What else could he have meant? Bradford Maddox IV was considering marriage to her. This wasn’t a one-sided love, the way part of her kept fearing.

  So there, Mr. Non-Bachelor Fireman.

  She shot one last glance at Jeb Stone, who had risen to his feet and was taking his wife’s hand in his. With a wry expression, his wife said something out of the side of her mouth, something intended just for him. He responded with an intimate chuckle. They were perfect together. Revoltingly perfect.

  Wrenching her gaze back to her own date, she kissed her future husband on the cheek. She and Bradford were just as perfect together as Jeb and his wife were. See if they weren’t.

  Chapter Two

  * * *

  Three years later

  JEB STONE CRUISED along the Pacific Coast Highway in his rented Maserati, which he’d nicknamed Ira because it cost more than his retirement fund. A whiff of coconut caught his attention, followed by a cascade of giggles delivered by a Porsche full of blondes as they whizzed past him. They laughed and shook out their long hair, waving at him with gratifying flirtatiousness. The sultry driver winked, and another girl ran her tongue over her lips, porno-style, as she stared at him invitingly.

  He suppressed the urge to inform them that they were going fifteen miles per hour over the speed limit and that cutting accident victims out of mangled wrecks was one of the worst jobs a firefighter faced.

  Instead he gave them a brief smile from behind his sunglasses. Let them hang on to their illusion that he was some Malibu millionaire. Let them think he drove a Maserati every day, instead of the ten-year-old truck he’d inherited in the divorce. Let them think he was on his way to a meeting with Steven Spielberg, instead of . . . well, nowhere in particular. Just going. Away. Alone. For the first time in eighteen years.

  His phone rang, which made him jump because it was plugged into the sound system of the sports car. He pressed the button the rental clerk had showed him. It had taken the guy half an hour to walk him through the car’s many life-altering features.

  “Hey, Daddy-o.” Alison’s chipper voice boomed from the speakers. He turned the volume down so the rest of Malibu, and maybe even the ships at sea, couldn’t hear his daughter.

  “Hi sweetie. How’s Thailand?”

  This was code for “how’s your mother.” As planned, his ex-wife Belinda had filed for divorce a week after Alison had turned eighteen. The next day, she’d gotten on a plane to Thailand, where she’d booked herself a two-week yoga retreat.

  A year later, Alison had gone to check on her. “Better than I expected,” she said now. “Very happy. Weirdly happy.”

  Jeb felt the familiar boulder-sized weight in his heart ease just a bit. It was about time Belinda was happy. They’d met young, gotten pregnant by accident and married, but they’d never made each other particularly happy, for reasons that now seemed obvious. The sex part of the marriage had ended four years before the rest of it.r />
  But at least Alison had turned out great. He pictured her in his mind’s eye, so tall and confident. With her dark hair and hazel eyes, Alison looked a lot like him, if she were a workaholic, jaded fireman.

  “I’m glad she’s happy. Really glad.”

  “Now it’s your turn, Daddy-o. I’m serious. I want both my parents smiling.”

  “Oh no. No more dates. No more Match.com, no more of your Zumba teachers. I’m driving an Italian sports car next to the Pacific Ocean on a gorgeous day, talking to my gorgeous daughter. What could be better?”

  “You’re about to find out. I made an offering for you at a temple here. And I got Mom’s whole yoga class to chant a love prayer. You’re going down, Dad. Down like a broken elevator. Down like Bieber’s career.”

  “That college is worth every penny.”

  “Don’t change the subject. I’m just calling to warn you, that’s all. You’re going down like —”

  “You don’t know who you’re dealing with here, missy. I have immunity.”

  “If you’re talking about the Bachelor Firemen curse, not to worry. I dedicated a prayer flag to breaking that silly thing, if it even exists.”

  “Oh, it exists all right—” Another call flashed on the screen, this one from the firehouse. “I’d better go,” he told Alison. “Lay off the prayers and focus on the pad thai, okay? I love you.”

  “Love you too. But you’re going down like a turkey on Thanksgiving—”

  “Stone,” he answered the incoming call.

  “It’s Brody.” Captain Brody was captain of the A shift, and a legend in San Gabriel. As a captain himself, Jeb could connect with Brody in a way he couldn’t with the other firefighters. Just from the sound of his voice, he knew something was wrong.

  “I need a huge favor,” said Brody.

  “Done. But I’m on vacation. I’m driving up the coast.”

  “I know. That’s why I’m calling. Melissa got a tip on a hot story and up and left. Eight months pregnant and she decides it’s a good idea to get on a boat to track down some senator. A boat. In the ocean. Eight months.”