“Oh yeah?” Her brother put his hands on his hips, tilting his chin up slightly. “What about him?”
He knew very well what about him. “You don’t think maybe it would have been more appropriate if he stayed with one of the other guys?”
“I have a spare bedroom and the other guys don’t. Doesn’t make sense for him to crash on a couch or burden a family when I have an extra bed. And when a guy’s having a hard time, you try to be there for him. It’s called loyalty, you know.”
“How about your loyalty to our sister? Where’s that loyalty?”
“Lower your damn voice. And I am being loyal to our sister. If Danny goes out and rents an apartment, and then starts making do for himself, it’s just that much harder for them to get back together, and that’s what we all want, right?”
“It doesn’t matter what we all want. Do you want them back together because it’s better for Ashley or because it’s better for Danny?”
“I think it’s better for both of them. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t want them back together. I love Ashley—and you’re a liar if you claim you think otherwise—but I love Danny, too. He’s like a brother to me.”
“I get the whole brotherhood thing, trust me. I know all about it. But you’re taking it too far in this case, Scott. You need to remember whose brother you actually are.”
“You haven’t even been around for two years. Who the hell are you talking to about remembering who you are? You left. You walked away.”
“I left because of the same stupid bullshit Ashley is going through now, but at least when I left Todd, you had my back. It sucks that you don’t have hers.”
“You’re out of line, Lydia.”
“No, you’re out of line.”
The younger firefighter—Grant, she thought—walked back into the bay as she shouted at her brother and froze. After looking back and forth between the two of them, he turned and retraced his steps to make a hasty exit.
“Great. Nothing like a family spectacle to brighten everybody’s day,” Scotty said, his voice dripping with sarcasm.
“Ashley should be able to visit her own father without running into Danny,” Lydia said, trying to dial back the temper. Not because she cared about being a spectacle, but because she wouldn’t get anywhere butting heads with him. “You have to see that.”
He shrugged. “Ashley goes in the front door. Danny always uses the back stairs. She probably wouldn’t even know he was there.”
“Trust me, she’d know.”
“It’s not like she’s in the habit of stopping by for regular visits, anyway.”
“That’s not the point. She should be able to if she wants to. The family home should be a safe place for her.”
He rolled his eyes so hard she wondered if it hurt. “That’s a little dramatic, even for you. They’re just going through a rough patch.”
“I’m going to show you dramatic in about thirty seconds if you don’t get your head out of your ass. It doesn’t matter if it’s just a rough patch or if they end up divorced. Right now, they’re separated and Danny shouldn’t be living under Dad’s roof.”
“Look, Lydia, I’m working here, okay? And I’m not tossing Danny out. So why don’t you go to work and leave Ashley and Danny’s marriage to them.” He turned and started walking away.
“I’m not done talking to you,” she said, and he flipped her the bird without looking back.
Lydia inhaled deeply through her nose, trying to resist the urge to run after him and bring him to the ground in a full body tackle. That would be a family spectacle they wouldn’t get over anytime soon.
When Scotty walked away, leaving Lydia alone in the bay, Aidan knew he needed to leave it well enough alone. Not only because he should mind his own damn business, but because Lydia in a temper could be a lot to handle.
But when her shoulders sagged and she looked up, as if looking for some kind of divine guidance, he walked around the back of the truck. “Hey, Lydia. You okay?”
She jumped, and he wondered if the heat in her face was from being startled or if she was thinking about whatever it was she’d been thinking last night. “Oh, hey. I didn’t know you were there.”
When she tucked her hands in the back pockets of her jeans, it took every ounce of control Aidan had to keep his eyes on her face. But his peripheral vision happened to be excellent, so he couldn’t miss the way the Kincaid’s Pub T-shirt she was wearing stretched over her breasts when she put her arms behind her.
“Sorry. I wasn’t trying to eavesdrop, but you guys aren’t great at keeping things quiet.”
She shrugged. “I don’t care who knows. So I’m pissed my brother’s letting Danny stay with him. It’s not a secret.”
Aidan didn’t have a lot of experience with family dynamics outside of his own, and his own family was nothing like the Kincaids, but he suspected there was more to this than Danny crashing in Scott’s spare room.
If things were heated and sides were being taken, he could see it. If Danny had gotten caught stepping out on Ashley or he’d put his hands on her or something, then Scotty would have to close the door in his face. But as far as he knew, Danny and Ashley were just going through a rough patch and needed a little space.
He held up his hands in a conciliatory gesture. “I’m Switzerland.”
“Yeah, right.” She shook her head, looking around the bay. “There’s no Switzerland when firefighters are involved. Brotherhood first. Everybody else gets what’s left.”
And there was that more to it that he’d suspected might be an underlying problem. “That’s not entirely true, you know.”
She arched an eyebrow at him. “And you know what it’s like to be on this side of it how exactly? Doesn’t your family count money for a living?”
“It’s a little more complicated than that, but I see what you’re saying. But to us firefighters, that whole brotherhood thing kind of includes our families.”
“In theory, maybe.”
“Look, I love Tommy. You know that. He’s been more of a father figure to me than my own father has been, but he’s a hard-ass. Any...shortcomings he might have in the nurturing category might be his personality and not the job.”
She stared at him for a few seconds, that dark gaze locked with his, and then she smiled. “Good effort, kid.”
Kid? What the hell was that? She might have four years on him, but what was with the patronizing pat on the head? “It’s my take on it. Whatever.”
“This is exactly why I’m stuck back here again. Ashley can’t even show her face at the damn corner market—never mind the bar—without somebody trying to convince her Danny’s such a great guy and if she could just be more understanding and more supportive and give him another chance.” She took her hands out of her pockets to point at him. “Not a single one of you—not even her own father or brother—has told her that maybe she did the right thing for her and that Danny needs to make an effort to resolve their problems, or that he needs to be more understanding and supportive.”
Goddamn, but she was hot as hell when she got fired up. He tried to shove that awareness to the back of his mind, but it wasn’t exactly a switch that could be flipped. “I admit that sucks.”
“Yeah, it does.” She stopped pointing at him, but he could still see the temper on her face and in the set of her shoulders. God help Scotty should he walk back in at that moment. “But I’m here now. And since you say you know my family so well, you know I’m not going to let anybody shit on Ashley. If Danny gets his head out of his ass, then good. If not, screw him.”
She turned and walked away before he could say anything, not that he had any idea what to say to that. He actually was fairly neutral on the matter of the Walsh marriage, whether Lydia wanted to believe him or not. He liked them both a lot and he hoped they worked things out. And if they couldn’t, he hoped the split was amicabl
e and they both found happiness. That was about it for him.
Even though she left without giving him a chance to respond, he had to admit he liked watching her leave. She was a little taller than average, and nice and curvy. The long, angry strides did nice things for her ass, and Aidan was once again left with a Lydia-inspired hard-on.
And there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it.
The last thing he needed was to get caught jerking off in the bathroom. That had happened to a new kid once and they’d called him Palmer for so long they would have forgotten his real name if it wasn’t written or sewn on his gear.
“Is my sister gone?”
Scotty’s voice killed the hard-on as effectively as a cold shower. “Yeah. You’re not exactly her favorite person at the moment.”
“No shit.” Scott walked to the bank of metal lockers and yanked his open. “No wonder Todd drank so much and went looking for less bitchy company.”
Anger rose in Aidan’s chest and he turned away before it spilled out. Siblings fought and he was aware nobody knew your soft spots like family, but that was a cheap shot. It wasn’t Lydia’s fault her ex had turned out to be an asshole. And blaming her made Aidan want to plant his fist in his best friend’s face.
“That guy was a dickhead,” was all he said.
“Yeah, he was.” Scott sighed and slammed his locker. “I didn’t mean that. She just... God, she drives me crazy, you know?”
Aidan was starting to know a little something about being driven crazy by Lydia, yes. Just, in his case, for an entirely different reason.
Pick up Heat Exchange by Shannon Stacey today from your favorite retailer.
Copyright © 2015 by Shannon Stacey
Author’s Note
The processes and organizational structures of large city fire departments and emergency services are incredibly complex, and I took minor creative liberties in order to maintain readability.
To first responders everywhere, thank you.
Acknowledgments
Writing books isn’t easy, but having amazing support makes it a little easier. My gratitude for my editor, Angela James, as well as the entire Carina Press team for the work and enthusiasm they’ve brought to this series knows no bounds. Thank you.
About the Author
New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling author Shannon Stacey lives with her husband and two sons in New England, where her two favorite activities are writing stories of happily-ever-after and driving her UTV through the mud. You can contact Shannon through her website, shannonstacey.com, where she maintains an almost daily blog, visit her on Twitter, Twitter.com/shannonstacey, and on Facebook, Facebook.com/shannonstacey.authorpage, or email her at [email protected].
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Also available from Shannon Stacey and Carina Press
The Kowalskis
Exclusively Yours
Undeniably Yours
Yours to Keep
All He Ever Needed
All He Ever Desired
All He Ever Dreamed
Love a Little Sideways
Taken with You
Falling for Max
Boston Fire
Heat Exchange
Controlled Burn
Fully Ignited
Hot Response
Under Control
Holiday Sparks
Mistletoe and Margaritas
Slow Summer Kisses
Snowbound with the CEO
A Fighting Chance
Holiday with a Twist
Hold Her Again
Also available from Shannon Stacey and Harlequin
Alone with You
Heart of the Storm
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Flare Up (Boston Fire)
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ISBN-13: 9781488079245
Under Control
Copyright © 2018 by Shannon Stacey
All rights reserved. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express
written permission of publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 22 Adelaide St. West, 40th Floor, Toronto, Ontario M5H 4E3, Canada.
All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.
This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
® and ™ are trademarks of the publisher. Trademarks indicated with ® are registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the Canadian Intellectual Property Office and in other countries.
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Under Control Page 27