Chapter 2

Knox

“Fire at The Stafford Arms.”

Sometimes it felt that firefighters lived life at two speeds: idling along, barely moving as we dealt with paperwork, training, maintenance, and even cleaning, or this. As soon as the call came through, adrenaline started to pump through my veins, forcing me and my team to their feet.

“The Stafford?”

Charlie was grinning, something that no doubt would’ve freaked the general public out, but that angel face always seemed to inspire confidence when he turned up on the scene. I ruffled all that blond hair and then gave him a shove.

“Doesn’t matter where it is. We need to move.”

Noah came stumbling out of the toilets, hastily buttoning his uniform pants before we all moved, the rest of the blokes meeting us downstairs as we clustered by our fire truck. Firefighting gear was shrugged on and then we were all clambering into the truck, me in the driver’s seat.

This was what I was made for.

Slotting the key into the ignition and firing it up, the rumble of the engine had everyone holding tight as I started up the siren and then backed the truck out.

“Where’s The Stafford?” I barked at Noah, and he didn’t even look at the GPS.

“Prospect,” he barked above the sound of the sirens, his hands clawing at his legs. “Go down Main North Road. I’ll tell you where to turn off.”

“Down in your old stomping grounds?” Charlie asked, shoving his head between the seats.

“Settle down, pup.” Henry was a veteran, telling us he’d attended more fires than we’d had hot meals often enough. He was a good man to have on a job, and the only reason why he wasn’t promoted to lead firefighter was because he didn’t want it. “Remember, there’s people in danger right now.”

And I was about to meet one of them up close and personal.

Details came down the radio the closer we got to the pub. An oil fire that had been mismanaged, some idiot tossing water on it rather than smothering it, or hey, using a fire extinguisher for just that purpose? I frowned so hard my face started to ache when I saw the fire licking the roof tiles of the pub. As I parked the truck, I sized up the distance between the building and the ones around it. Lucky for us, the pub was surrounded by a car park and had few trees, so not a lot of additional fuel to add to this already raging fire.

“Time to go, boys,” I said, as I jumped out of the truck. “Kitchen looks like it's towards the left. Apparently, there’s gas tanks?—”

“You heard the man!” Henry directed the others with a slice of his hand, and the team moved as one, connecting the hoses and then unrolling them, ready to put this fire out.

I was all geared up to be pissed, to read the riot act to whatever dickhead let this happen. An oil fire in a suburban pub? We did training sessions all the time to try and condition people to do the exact opposite of what their instincts told them. Water tossed on the fire would’ve just had the flames and their fuel splashing across the walls, no doubt resulting in this shit fight.

Then I saw her.

Everyone else was being semi-sensible, hanging around the periphery of the car park, but sometimes it felt like there was always someone wanting to be a hero. She stumbled, her bloody high heels obviously catching on the concrete before she kicked them off. Not to run away from the fire, because that would be the smart thing, but towards it. I was moving, a growl building in my chest, getting louder and louder as I ran, closing the distance between us. As soon as I got close, my hand snapped out, grabbing her by the arm. I tried to be a gentleman outside of work, but I wasn’t above dragging a woman away from a fire if circumstances dictated. However, when she spun around, the world stopped.

“What the hell…?”

I took in that long bob of light brown hair, the pixie-like features, her eyes wide. Her teeth sunk into a bottom lip so plush my fingers itched, my thumb wanting to test how soft they were. It wasn’t just that she was pretty, scared, and in the midst of doing something so stupid that took my breath away, but her. I knew what smoke inhalation did to you, had felt its deadly grip on my lungs, but it was nothing on this. My heart beat ponderously slow, the entire world coming to a stop as I stared at this girl, right before her whole body convulsed in a coughing fit.

Get her the fuck away from the fire.

The instincts that were kicking my butt the entire time finally came back online, and I was moving, scooping this silly girl up and carrying her across the car park, away from the fire.

Why did this feel so right?

Rescuing people was what made it all worthwhile, cancelling out the boredom and the heartache that came from being a firie, and while I’d pulled some people from some terrible situations, none of them felt like this. Like they fit perfectly in my arms, her body slotting in against mine, that sensation only increasing until I was forced to set her down and check her over. I didn’t need to take my gloves off to inspect her face, but the desire to touch her skin-to-skin was riding me too hard to resist. The bones of her face seemed to press into my palms, leaving a mark there that went deeper than burning metal. She branded me, but right as I was marvelling at that, a train of thought jerked me out of my reverie.

Reckless. Witness. Get evidence. The demands of the job kicked back in belatedly, forcing me to ask the question.

“What the hell happened?”

“Um…” She blinked, blinked, looking way too young to be responsible for this shit fight. “I…”

The whoosh of the fire hoses was a reassuring sound as I stepped forward, knowing what to do. She was a civilian, not like us, used to the crackle and burn of the flames.

“It’s OK,” I told her.

This was something I always told members of the public, but her, I wanted her to believe it. All righteous anger was wiped from me the moment I stared into those beautiful blue eyes. My hand moved of its own accord, squeezing her shoulder, just to feel the heat of her body through the thin, wet silk of her blouse. My eyes wanted to drop down, taking in everything the damp fabric revealed, but I forced myself to meet her eyes. “Everything’s OK. We’re here now, so how about you tell me what happened?”

“Oil fire.” She blurted that out, the same as the person who called the job in, I was willing to bet. “Turned the gas off, but the tanks…”

“And you tried to go back to remove them?”

If she was anyone else, male, female, adult, or child, I’d have been giving her a serve right now, but something about her had me holding my tongue. Perhaps the fine tremor that had her shaking like a leaf under my grip.

The sound of more sirens let us know that back up was coming. I was dimly aware that the cops had arrived and were working to move everyone on, but I could only focus on her. Her rapid breaths, her chest heaving with the effort, the quick flick of her eyes, it wasn’t hard to imagine her responding in a similar way to much more pleasant stimuli.

That’s what summoned a stab of shame.

The girl was scared and what she needed was help, not someone creeping on her.

“It’s OK.” Shit, I already said that. “Just give me the details that you remember. Just the facts.”

“The deep fryer caught fire. Geoff mustn’t have changed the oil recently, even though I ask him every single Sunday to sort that out.” Steel came back into her voice at the same time as her spine straightened. Her eyes met mine, and I saw then the small flare of gold around the irises. “If he doesn’t, it smokes and gets unstable, then the punters complain because their chips taste like shit.” She began to move, pacing back and forth in little circles. “I was dealing with about a billion customers wanting Christmas drinks.”

“A billion?” I asked, looking around me.

“A few hundred then,” she amended sheepishly. “I heard a shout from the kitchen and then…” Her focus was jerked back to the pub, as if seeing it for the first time, and I watched her brows crease, the flames reflected in her pupils. “Then I went into the kitchen. Geoff filled a bloody bucket up with water and I…” Her throat worked, and my hand found hers. Those little fingers gripping mine, they drove everything else out of my head. “I shouted at him to stop, but then he tripped?—”

“Got it. It’s OK—” It wasn’t. It really, really wasn’t. “We’ve got this now.”

“I remembered what the old guy told us in the training session.” She wouldn’t let me go, and my whole body got hot, as if I was the one fighting the fire right now. “I know you’re not supposed to put water on it. I grabbed the lids to the fryers.”

No, I wanted to say, imagining her doing just that and only just being able to bite back my sharp retort.

“I smothered the flames.” She was staring at me, begging me for understanding, absolution. Plenty of people did this, even when a fire had nothing to do with them, so I nodded. “I know that’s what you’re supposed to do.”

“You’re safe.” I shouldn’t be touching her, that’s what our training on interacting with the public told us. Sometimes you couldn’t avoid it, having to carry people from buildings, but I had no such excuse right now. Both hands landed on her shoulders, feeling the fine bones there. “You’re safe, and you did everything you could.”

“Knox!” Charlie jogged over, looking flushed but triumphant. “Fire’s out. Noah’s checking the gas bottles, but I reckon we’re good.”

“I’ll take a look,” I said, going to pull away, but that’s when my teammate caught sight of the girl.

“You in charge?” he asked with a well-practised smile. It was the kind that had women dropping their panties everywhere we went, and for some reason, I felt the need to step in front of the girl to protect her from it. “I’m Charlie, and you are…?”

An angel. A picture of feminine perfection.

Mine.

Where the fuck did that possessive growl come from? I jerked my hands down, remembering all the stuff the psychologists told us about the vulnerable states victims found themselves in after a fire. She blinked then, her brain coming back online.

“Millie…” She shook her head. “Amelia McDonald. I manage The Stafford.”

She offered him her hand, and he took it with a smile.

“Pretty shitty circumstances, but it's a pleasure to meet you, Millie.”