All Wrapped Up (A Pine Mountain Novel)
Page 30
Brennan’s hands curled to fists at his sides, and she rushed to continue before he went all commando again. “But you were right. I had choices. I knew printing those details wasn’t right, so I called the owner of the paper to file a formal complaint against my boss. My fellow reporter Ian backed up my claims, but I couldn’t risk the article being run the way Gary wanted it run, no matter what.”
“Ava . . .”
She shook her head, adamant. If she didn’t get this out now, she wouldn’t have another chance. “So I quit. The research that was on my laptop stayed here, unfortunately, but I knew Gary couldn’t piece anything together without my extensive personal notes.”
Her mind flashed quickly over the tattered blue notebook she’d tossed into Big Gap Lake yesterday morning. “And because I no longer work for the paper, he couldn’t make me share them. I know it’ll never make up for what I did—”
“Ava—”
Ava’s throat threatened to tighten, but she stood firm. “No. I needed to be strong enough to stand up for what was right. Not for me, but for you. You deserve your integrity no matter what the story is, and it’s my job to give it to you regardless of cost. Not just because I’m a reporter, but because I love you. I know it’s crazy, and I know you’re still furious, but I love you. And—”
“Spitfire.”
The rest of her words crashed to a halt on her lips, and the edges of Brennan’s mouth ticked slowly, beautifully upward.
“It is crazy, and I was furious. But you were right. The story is worth telling. It just took me a while to figure that out.”
Ava’s heart sped up. “It did?”
“It did.” Brennan bridged the distance between them in three brisk strides. “But I think I’ve got it now, thanks to you.”
“But it’s not my story,” she said, confused.
“You’re right. It’s my story. But I’m trusting it to you. You had my back when I thought no one else did, and you believed in what you knew. I want to give you exclusive rights to write the story your way, but only if Gary gives you your job back. It’s what you deserve.”
“Gary can’t give me my job back.”
“Oh yes, he can.” Brennan renewed his efforts to reach the front of the newsroom, but Ava placed a hand directly over his heart.
“He can’t, because Mr. Royce fired him. Gary doesn’t work here anymore.”
Brennan shook his head. “But neither do you.”
Ava smiled, the irony playing on her lips. “Mr. Royce asked me if I’d reconsider. And with Ian as the new managing editor, I thought about it. But in the end, I decided to try freelancing for a while. It’s past time for me to take hold of my career, my way.”
“So you could still write the story. From anywhere,” he said, dropping his gaze to the hand Ava still had across the center of his chest.
Oh . . . God. “Only if you want me to.”
In less than a breath, Brennan’s hands cupped her face, drawing her close. “I want you for more than a story, Ava. I love you. I want you forever.”
He captured her mouth in a kiss she felt all the way to her toes, and Ava kissed him back with equal measure.
“Well, good. Because you just professed your love for me in front of a room full of reporters. I’m pretty sure there’s no way you’ll stay out of the news.”
Brennan flicked a glance at the twenty or so faces staring at them from the utterly quiet newsroom, but the spotlight didn’t rock him one bit.
“Let ’em talk,” he said, and then he kissed her again.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Two weeks later
Brennan held the envelope stamped with the official seal of the Fairview Fire Department between shaky fingers, inwardly cursing himself for not having the balls to just open the damn thing and get it over with.
“Is that what I think it is?” Ava’s bright green eyes sparkled above her mischievous smile, and she leaned over the bar from her perch in the very last seat.
He leaned back to steal a quick kiss despite his nerves. Damn, he loved this woman. “Yeah.”
“Adrian! Teagan! He got the letter,” Ava called over Brennan’s shoulder, and he coughed out a laugh in her direction.
“Traitor.” Within seconds, everyone on the Double Shot’s staff gathered behind the bar, with Lily and Pete keeping Ava company on the customer side of the wood.
“What are you waiting for, Slick?” Adrian tilted his stubble-covered chin at the envelope. “Do the honors.”
Brennan looked around the bar, his heart taking up residence in his windpipe as he stuck his finger into the seam of the envelope with a big, fat here goes nothing.
Dear Mr. Brennan,
We are pleased to offer you the position of instructor at the Fairview Fire Academy. . . .
Holy. Shit.
After three trips to Fairview, two interviews, and one hard-as-hell exam, he’d done it.
Brennan was going home.
“Well?” The look on Ava’s face suggested she already knew the answer, and God, not even a fully loaded tanker truck would crush her belief in him.
“I, uh. I got the job.”
The room exploded into excited cheers and raucous applause, and Ava flung her arms around him from her side of the bar.
“I knew it! I’m so happy for you.”
He let her kiss him for a minute—after all, he wasn’t an idiot—before pulling back to give her a questioning look.
“You’re sure?” he asked, turning to add Pete and Lily to the conversation.
Ava didn’t even blink. “We’ve talked about this. The editor at the Fairview Sentinel has already agreed to run the rescue squad piece, and I’ve got a line on a few other stories for them too. Fairview’s not up the street from Pine Mountain,” she said, pausing to let her brother squeeze her arm. “But places aren’t as important as people, and the person I belong with is you. If you’re going back to Fairview, I’m going with you.”
“I’m really going to miss you guys,” Brennan said, reclaiming the attention of everyone at the bar. The place might not be a firehouse, but the people in it had accepted him, no questions asked, for the last two years.
“You’re a tough act to replace, hero.” Adrian tipped a beer in his direction. He slung an arm around Teagan’s shoulders, his smile as natural as breathing, and hell if Brennan didn’t get the emotion behind it, once and for all. “Make sure you don’t forget us little people.”
Brennan laughed, reaching for Ava’s hand and knowing that second chances really did exist.
“I’ve got your back. You can count on it.”
You met the guys at Station Eight in
ALL WRAPPED UP.
Now get to know them in
RECKLESS,
Rescue Squad Book One,
coming next February.
SOMEONE’S BOUND TO GET BURNED . . .
Zoe Westin may be a fire captain’s daughter, but feeding the people in her hometown of Fairview is her number one priority. Running a soup kitchen is also the perfect way to prove to her dad that helping people doesn’t always mean risking life and limb. But when she’s saddled with a gorgeous firefighter doing community service after yet another daredevil stunt, the kitchen has never been so hot.
Alex Donovan thrives on adrenaline, and stirring a pot of soup doesn’t exactly qualify. He’s not an expert at following the rules either, not even when they come from the stubborn, sexy daughter of the man who’s not only his boss, but his mentor. Determined to show Zoe that not every risk ends in catastrophe, Alex challenges her both in the kitchen and out. One reckless step leads to another, but will falling for each other be a risk worth taking, or will it just get them burned?
Praise for Kimberly Kincaid and her novels
“An author on the rise.”
—RT Book Reviews
“A sweet and sexy treat!”
—Bella Andre
“Smart, fun, and heartwarming.”
—Jill Shalvis
No contest. No question.
“Okay, listen up, boys, ’cause it looks like we’ve got a live one,” Alex’s lieutenant, Paul Crews, hollered over the headset from the officer’s seat in the front of Engine Eight, scrolling through the confetti-colored display from dispatch with a series of clacks. “Dispatch is reporting a business fire, with smoke issuing from the windows at a warehouse for a chemical supply company on Roosevelt Avenue. Looks like the place has been abandoned since the company went under last year.”
“Is that down in the industrial park by the docks?” His best friend Cole Everett’s tried-and-true smile disappeared as he reached down from the seat next to Alex to yank his turnout gear over his navy blue uniform pants, and yeah, this wasn’t going to be your average cat stuck in a tree scenario.
“Yup. Nearest cross street is Euclid, which puts it four blocks up from the water and smack in the middle of Industrial Row.” Crews looked over his shoulder and into the back step of the engine, jerking his chin at the two of them in an unspoken get your asses in gear, and hell if Alex needed the message twice.
“Pretty shitty part of town,” he said, his pulse jacking up a notch even though he reached for the Scott pack in the storage compartment behind his seat with ease that bordered on the ho-hum. Not that his adrenaline wasn’t doing the hey-now all the way through his system, because it sure as shit was. But getting torqued over a promissory note from dispatch without seeing the reality of flames only wasted precious energy. He’d learned that well enough as a candidate nine years ago.
Plus, there would be plenty of time to go yippee-ki-yay once shit started burning down.
“Does it matter that we’re headed into Fairview’s projects?” Mike Jones asked from Alex’s other side, yanking his coat closed over his turnout gear with more attitude than anyone with three weeks’ experience had a right to.
Hello. The candidate has a sore spot. Not that it would change Alex’s response, or his delivery. Sugarcoating things was for ass-kissers and candy store owners, and neither title was ever going to go on his résumé.
He fixed Jonesey with a hard stare. “It does when there are probably squatters inside the building, Einstein. How do you think a fire starts in an abandoned warehouse anyway?” Even money said the place hadn’t seen working electricity in a dog’s age. With the city still in the hard grip of winter, there was zero percent chance this call site had nobody home.
“Oh.” Mike dropped his chin for just a split second before picking up the slack with the rest of his gear. “Guess I wasn’t thinking of it like that.”
But Alex just shrugged. He’d never been one for getting his boxers in a wad, let alone keeping ’em that way. Especially over the small stuff.
After all, life was too short. And hell if he didn’t know that, up close and personal.
“Gotta use it for more than a hat rack, rookie.” Alex tossed back the emotion in his chest like a double shot of Crown Royal, and it burned just the same as he slapped the kid’s helmet with a gloved hand. “You’ll learn.”
Crews eighty-sixed his smile just a second too late for Alex to miss it, the wail of the overhead sirens competing with the lieutenant’s voice over the headset as he blanked the momentary blip of amusement from his face. “There’s no reported entrapment, but Teflon’s right. An abandoned warehouse in a neighborhood like this is ripe for squatters, even in the daytime. Plus—” Crews broke off, the seriousness in his voice going full-on grim. “We don’t know what kind of chemicals might’ve been left in the place. We need to go by the book on this one. Thirteen’s already on scene.”
“Outstanding,” Cole muttered, tacking on a few choice words to the contrary about their rival house, and Alex’s gut nose-dived in agreement.
“Those guys are a bag full of dicks.” Not to mention their captain was a douche bag of unrivaled proportions. Alex might not stay mad at most people for long, but he sure as hell knew a jackass when he laid eyes on one.
“I mean it, Teflon.” Crews’s warning went from dark to dangerous in the span of half a breath. “I don’t like those ass-clowns at Thirteen any more than you do, but a call’s a call. Head up, eyes forward.”
“Yeah, yeah. Copy that.” Alex took off his headset, his mutter falling prey to the combination of Engine Eight’s growl and the rush of noise that accompanied the final prep for a real-deal call. He went the inhale-exhale route as he triple-checked his gear, monitoring his breath along with his time as they approached the edge of town leading into Fairview’s shabbier waterside neighborhoods.
“So, um, how come your nickname is Teflon?” Jones shifted against the Scott pack already strapped to his back, the heel of one boot doing a steady bounce against the scuffed black floor of the engine.
Alex’s laugh welled up from behind his sternum, and what the hell. The rookie might be ten pounds of nerves stuffed into a five-pound bag, but at least he was curious, too. “I guess you could say it’s because I’ve got special talents.”
Jones’s head jerked back. “You cook?”
Cole flipped the mouthpiece of his headset upward, tugging the thing off one ear to interject. “Hell no,” he said, although his tone coupled with his laugh to cancel out any heat from the words. “Clearly, you didn’t partake in dinner last week when he was on KP.”
“Hey,” Alex argued, although he had a whole lot of nothing to back it up. He was a single guy who’d lived all by his lonesome for twelve years. Sue him for not being a gourmet chef. “Dinner wasn’t that bad.”
“Dude. You fucked up spaghetti.”
“Italian cuisine can be extremely tricky.” He tried on his very best cocky smile, the one that got him out of speeding tickets and into the panties of every pretty woman he set his sights on, but of course, Mr. Calm, Cool, and Buzzkill just snorted.
“The directions are on the freaking box.” Cole lifted a hand to stop Alex from going for round two, turning his attention back to Jonesey. “To answer your question, Donovan here got his nickname for exactly what you just witnessed.”
The candidate’s blond brows lifted upward, nearly disappearing beneath the still-shiny visor on his helmet. “Which is . . . ?”
“He’s slick enough to sell a cape to Superman. No matter what he gets himself into—and believe me, I’ve seen him get into some high-level shit—he talks his way right out of it. Trouble always slides right off him.”
“Ah.” Understanding dawned on Jones’s face, and he swung his gaze from Cole to Alex. “Nothing ever sticks to Teflon.”
“Nope,” Alex said with a grin. Going through life on a bunch of should-haves and maybes was about as appealing as a prostate exam with a root canal chaser. If he wanted something, he did it without hesitation. Dealing with consequences was for after the fact, and despite Cole’s smart-ass delivery, he wasn’t wrong. Alex could handle anything that came his way, no matter how big, how bad, or how dangerous.
And he tempted all three on a regular basis.
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Copyright © 2015 by Kimberly Kincaid
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ISBN-13: 978-1-4201-3771-2
ISBN-10: 1-4201-3771-9
ISBN: 978-1-4201-3771-2