by Lila Ashe
“It’s Ava!” she yelled over her shoulder. Behind her, Caz was sitting on the gurney and had his tux trousers off, but it looked as if he’d forgotten to take off his cowboy boots first.
“Who?” He yanked harder on the pants.
Bonnie tried desperately not to ogle his red briefs. “You know, I broke her toilet!”
“She’s never really hurt,” said Caz, tugging at his left boot. “She probably needs her coffee pot cleaned or something. You should slow down if you want me to be decent by the time we get there…” But his voice was worried, too. The call hadn’t come in from a medical alarm—according to dispatch, it had come from a neighbor.
The house, in disrepair last time, looked even worse on the inside this time. There were dishes piled in the sink that might have been there for weeks, and Ava, lying on the floor of the washroom just off the kitchen, looked so thin Bonnie’s heart hurt.
“Oh, dear,” Ava said, grasping for glasses she wasn’t wearing. “They sent me the handsome one again, didn’t they? And me without my lips on.”
Caz smiled and kneeled next to her. “You’ve got quite a bump on your noggin there, don’t you?”
Bonnie reached for the gauze and butterfly strips. They’d clean out the head wound, but she was going to need stitches at the hospital. “Do you know when you fell, Mrs. Simon?” The bleeding was barely a trickle—it had to have been hours before.
Ava Simon blinked at her. “Who’s Mrs. Simon?”
Bonnie felt even more concern. “I’m sorry, I—”
The older woman laughed. “I’m just teasing. I have all my faculties, more’s the pity, or I could have had a lot more fun hallucinating down here for hours. I fell last night, when I was getting supper ready.”
Bonnie glanced at the counter behind her and saw the can of black beans, halfway opened, the can opener next to it.
“I like beans,” said Ava with a little flip of her hand. “You’d be surprised at how little you can get by on when you’re my age. I made a single bag of walnuts last three months.”
Bonnie gasped.
Ava laughed. “Got you again!” But then she grimaced, her laugh collapsing, as Caz touched her side. “Ooof. It’s bad, huh?”
Her left hip was broken, Bonnie could tell by the way she was folded up on herself.
It was only going to get worse for Ava Simon. How many times had Bonnie seen exactly this? An elderly person in good health, taken down by a hip, and never released from the hospital again. Ava was already frail. She wouldn’t stand a chance.
Caz said to Ava, “You’re going to be fine.”
Bonnie stared at him.
Ava’s eyes brightened. “You think so?”
“I know so. You’re going to be just fine.”
Ava looked at Bonnie, searching her face. “You think I can trust this young man?”
Caz followed Ava’s gaze. Both of them waited for Bonnie’s answer.
“Yes,” Bonnie said. “I think you can.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
At the hospital, after making sure Ava Simon was tucked in and full of meds that made her flirt woozily with every orderly that wandered by, Bonnie and Caz stood in the hallway leaning on the same wall.
They were inches away from each other. Around them, nurses bustled, family members hurried, doctors ambled. But to Bonnie, there was no one else in the hall. He was so close to her she could feel the heat from his shoulder, smell the scent of wood shavings and soap.
Her pinky finger touched his, and it felt like a burn. Or a kiss.
She didn’t move her hand away.
He didn’t, either.
“Did you mean that?” Caz asked, his voice as soft as it had been when they’d been in bed together, as soft as it had been that night when he’d told her how she felt in his arms. “What you said back there about trusting me?”
Bonnie paused before answering. Her heart did that weird fluttery thing again. “If I say yes, will you tell me what you were doing in the app bay? On the stage, in your tux?”
“I was just hoping.”
Her breath hitched in her chest. “For what?”
“For you to forgive me for what I said.”
“What you said to me was crap.”
“I know. And I’m sorry.” He cleared his throat. “I’m so sorry.”
Bonnie counted the beeps of a heart monitor she could hear in the next room. When she got to thirty, she said, “But what I said about your dad… and what I couldn’t tell you…I should have—”
“No, you shouldn’t have,” he said, turning to face her. His crystalline-blue eyes warmed. “I was the one who made all the mistakes. I was furious with you, with what you could do to me without even trying. You made my dad feel better, and that’s like winning the lottery for him. And me. That same night, you made me feel like I could touch the sky. Then, I not only shut you out, but I kept you out, and then I told you we had nothing together.” He paused, and touched her cheek so lightly she wondered if she imagined it. “I couldn’t have been more wrong. That’s what I was doing on the stage. I was trying to change the outcome, to make it right.”
Something joyful tugged inside her. “So…”
“So. I’m asking if we can move forward.”
Yes. Bonnie’s heart said yes. Her brain stalled, though, and her mouth said, “Where?”
“Wherever you are. I don’t care where that is. That’s where I want to be.”
“Huh.” It seemed as if she’d lost all the other words she’d ever known. She wanted to—longed to—lean forward and wrap her fingers around the collar of his work shirt, but she stayed still. “Huh.”
“I know you can’t tell me how you feel.”
Bonnie opened and shut her mouth. She wanted to.
Caz reached forward and tugged on the pocket of her sweatshirt. She swayed toward him. “I can say it for both of us. I love you.”
The words he said were huge and yellow—enormous balloons of delight that soared away, taking the stopper in her throat with it. “I love you, too,” said Bonnie.
Caz looked both shocked and delighted, as if someone had just handed him the thing he wanted the most, the thing he thought he’d never find. “You what?”
Bonnie laughed. “I love you.” The words tasted of salt. Nothing about them felt normal, but they felt right. Her truth. Her whole truth. “I’m in love with you, Caswell Lloyd.”
“Holy—” He broke off and gave a ranch-hand whoop. “You’re telling me how you feel.” It wasn’t a question.
“No,” she realized. “I’m telling you what I know.” That was the difference. Feelings changed, emotions swayed. That was why they couldn’t be trusted, couldn’t be believed.
Knowing was something else.
Bonnie knew her parents loved her, and she knew she loved them back. She knew Darling Bay was where she was meant to be, she knew she had the best job in the world, and she knew it just as surely as she knew how to whistle.
Most of all, though, she knew she loved the man in front of her, the one whose eyes said he knew it, too.
“One question. No, wait. Two.”
Caz grinned. “As many as you want.”
“Kiss me?”
He did, thoroughly. And she kissed him back. His lips were as hot as his fingertips were cool, and if they hadn’t been standing in the middle of the emergency room hallway, Bonnie might have gone looking for the briefs she’d seen in the rig. A nurse yelled, “Get a room!”
Bonnie pulled back, but stayed firmly where she was, in his arms. “That wasn’t the first question. The first one is will you take me to your cabin?”
“It’s pretty empty. Only if you help me fill it with things we love.”
She lost her breath as happiness filled her like helium. She took a few seconds to find it again and then asked, “Will you carve me a bicycle someday?”
Caz laughed.
Then he pulled a tiny block of wood from his pocket and showed her the minuscule pedals.<
br />
THE END
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When Lila Ashe isn’t working at the firehouse answering 911 and giving medical instructions, she’s writing the hot firefighters she knows so well. She’s lived in the big city long enough to know she craves the stars at night, and living on the rugged northern coast of California is just right. Fans of Kristan Higgins, Bella Andre, and Barbara Freethy will settle right into California’s Darling Bay and Florida’s Cupid Island. Lila is happily married and addicted to all things romantic, including surprise getaways to San Francisco for clam chowder or overnight trips to Napa for wine, but she’s also found that being romantic at home can be even more exciting.
Don’t miss The Firefighters of Darling Bay series:
Fire at Twilight: The Firefighters of Darling Bay 1
Fire at Dawn: The Firefighters of Darling Bay 2
Fire at Dusk: The Firefighters of Darling Bay 3
Everyday Hero: The Volunteers of Darling Bay Short Story
Or get the first three books together on sale! Save $3.98!
The Firefighters Boxed Set 1-3
And check out Cupid Island, where romance is tropical and sweet:
Kitty’s Song: A Cupid Island Novella
Chasing the Sunset: A Cupid Island Novella
Also from HGA PUBLISHING:
If you like small-town romance with the sound of the ocean roaring in the background, you might also enjoy Rachael Herron’s latest novel:
Fiona’s Flame: A Cypress Hollow Yarn
Keep reading for a sneak peek!
Excerpt from Fiona’s Flame, available everywhere August 1, 2014:
CHAPTER ONE
Knitting warms a body twice. – Eliza Carpenter
Fiona leaned back and crossed her black cowboy boots over each other. If anyone had to make their way down the aisle, she’d draw her legs back, but right now this was the best seat in the house. No one in the City Hall council chambers was going anywhere.
She should have brought popcorn.
On the stage, Mayor Finley’s face was turning a deep purple, a stark contrast to her perennial all-yellow outfit. She spluttered, “Elbert Romo, this shouldn’t even be an issue. Nudity is something one indulges in on the way from one’s bedroom to the shower. Not at the corner of Main and Third.”
Elbert Romo, his face as creased as his overalls, said, “You’re right, Mayor. But it’s the damn tourists.”
Old ranchers like Elbert didn’t ever say the word tourists without prefacing it with damn. Fiona figured it was probably something they learned in the back room at Tillie’s, where they hung out most mornings drinking coffee and gossiping.
The mayor said, “The tourists aren’t the problem here. What we’re talking about is outlawing public nudity on our public beaches.”
Elbert clapped his hands together. “But they’re the ones that started this. They come, they decide Pirate’s Cove is the best place around to drop their skivvies. Then they put it on the internet! On those, you know, those websites.”
Fiona watched the mayor take a deep breath and push the errant gray strands of hair back from her temples. “Make your point, Elbert.”
“Once it went online, we got famous. Those sites even tell you where to park, did you know that? And they tell where the rope to climb to the bottom is hidden. You kidding me? That rope used to be a Cypress Hollow secret. You could get horse-whipped for givin’ that info to the wrong person. Now we got nudies comin’ from all over the state, just to get our sand stuck in their cheeks. And I ain’t talking about the ones on your face.”
“We already know all this. That’s why we’re discussing the ban tonight.”
Elbert said, “I know. But no disrespect, ma’am, the thing is—a lot of us have found out how right the damn tourists are.”
A light laugh rippled around the room. Daisy, Fiona’s best friend, leaned over the arm of her wheelchair and whispered in Fiona’s ear, “Best show in town.”
The mayor, even redder now, said, “Would you care to explain that, Elbert?”
Elbert stuck a thumb under the strap of his overalls. “There are more’n a couple of us, ma’am, who’ve kind of seen the light, as it were, and it took the damn tourists pissing us off for us to figure it out. Pete Wegman, Jesse Sunol, and me, we went down the rope one day to shoo ‘em off for good.”
That must have been something to see, thought Fiona. Three old men, climbing down that rope, kicking away from the cliff-face, dangling over the sand. It was something Fiona hadn’t done in years, and she was an easy forty years younger than the youngest rancher in question.
“When we got down there, one nekkid damn tourist dared us to take off our clothes.”
A light laugh went around the packed council chambers. Everyone else was enjoying this as much as Fiona was.
Elbert shrugged. “Don’t knock it till you’ve tried it, is what I always say. And I’m here to say, the body is a beautiful thing.” He unclipped one strap of his overalls. “And to feel the sun where it don’t normally shine, to feel the ocean breeze caress your…well, lemme tell you, it’s nice.” He unfastened the other strap. Gasps rose to meet the sound of giggles in the room.
Fiona whispered to Daisy, “He wouldn’t.”
Daisy just shook her head.
Elbert’s overalls hit the polished wooden floor of the city chambers. His faded, blue engineer’s cap was next to come off, his gray buzz cut standing at attention underneath. Then he started undoing the buttons on his blue, button-down shirt.
One by one, the buttons opened. His chest hair was as gray as the hair on his head.
Daisy held her hand over her eyes. “I can’t. I just can’t.”
Fiona poked her in the shoulder. “You have to.”
Elbert was now in front of the crowd, wearing only tighty-whities which were no longer either tight or white. His skinny, wrinkled body was surprisingly tanned. He held himself proudly and tucked his thumb into the elastic of his underwear.
The mayor gripped the podium so hard it rocked on its base. “Mr. Romo. We will have our community discussion without visual aid assistance, thank you very much!” The microphone squealed with feedback.
Elbert shook his head. “It’s a point I gotta make. We voted, and the boys picked me, seein’ as I have the biggest package.”
Next to Fiona, Daisy squeaked, her hand still over her eyes. Someone did a drum roll with their fingers on the back of a chair.
And then Elbert Romo dropped his last remaining piece of clothing.
Chaos erupted. Some stood—others remained in their seats, immobilized by laughter. Some cheered, others clapped.
Both hands over his head, Elbert turned in a slow circle. He waited for the room to quiet and then said, “My point is, well. Look at me. Eighty-nine and a half. And thanks to a life of good hard work and a bit of time in the sun, I’m looking fit as a fiddle. I’m proud of my body, ladies and gentlemen, and being in the great outdoors with it is probably gonna let me live forever. Down with the ban on public nudity.” He drove his fist up in the air. “Naked is good! Naked is right! Naked is good! Naked is right!” He marched down the middle aisle, chanting, pumping his fist. By the time he hit the back door, he’d been joined in the chant by so many people that the overhead rafters shook with the noise.
Fiona’s stomach hurt from laughing.
It took Mayor Finley ten more minutes of gavel-rapping to get order restored, and even then it was clear she knew she’d lost. She directed her words to the line of city council members sitting to the left of the stage. “We don’t even need to put it to a vote, do we?”
Laughter was the answer she got.
“Fine. Publ
ic nudity—at Pirate’s Cove, and no place else—will not be prosecuted. Moving on.” She ignored the applause. “That’s enough for tonight. Grace, thanks for doing the minutes. They’ll be up on the website tomorrow, folks. In two weeks, we’ll be talking about the lighthouse.”
Fiona stopped clapping. She glanced at Daisy and then back at the mayor.
“Fiona Lynde, I’m looking at you.”
Fiona gasped. She tugged on her earring, schooling herself not to take it off. What she really wanted was the soothing warmth of the metal between her fingers. But instead she folded her hands in her lap.
“Yes, you,” continued the mayor. “I want to hear about that plan you keep pestering me about, the one to bring down the lighthouse and put in an accessible public garden.”
It was just an idea. She hadn’t pestered the mayor about it. Not officially, not really. She might have mentioned it a couple of times. In person and in email. That was all.
“And who was it talking about turning it into a museum? Abe Atwell, was that you?”
Fiona’s stomach lurched. Abe Atwell? She turned in her seat and scanned the room.
God, there he was.
A man playing cat’s cradle.
She would have bet that game couldn’t be sexy. Right? But if anyone could make something childish like that sexy, it would be Abe Atwell, damn him. There was just something about the rugged harbormaster, slouched back in his chair, boots kicked out ahead of him, his hands moving with that white piece of string—he could have been making nets or tying ropes. It looked right. And it made her heat up inside, in an embarrassing, alarming way.
Concentrate, she told herself. This was about the old wooden lighthouse. About making things right. Not about the way her heart raced when she watched his fingers. He kept his eyes down, his face thunderous. He obviously wanted to be called upon as much as she did.
Daisy whispered, “Maybe you’ll finally talk to him now.”
Fiona shook her head once. Hard. No way. She hadn’t managed to have an idiotic crush without speaking to him for years for nothing. She couldn’t ruin her track record. She cleared her throat and said as loudly as she could, “It was only an idea.”