Flashpoint (3 page)

Z
ACH WATCHED
how Brooke handled herself and something inside him reacted. He didn't know her, not yet, not really, other than that they had some serious almost chemical-like attraction going, but she was crew, and as such, she was family.

Except he felt decidedly un-family-like toward her. Nope, nothing in him looking at her felt brotherly.

Not one little bit.

The gang was being hard on her, there was no doubt of that, but he'd seen many new hires hazed over the years—six in the past few weeks—and it had never bothered him.

Until now. This bothered him.
She
bothered him, in a surprising way. A man-to-woman way, though that wasn't the surprise. It was that he felt it here, at work.

People came in and out of his life on a daily basis. It was the nature of the beast, that beast being fire. Every day he dealt with the destruction it caused, and what it did to people's existence. Hell, he'd even experienced it in the most personal way one could, when he'd lost his own parents to a tragic fire. He coped by knowing he made a difference, that he helped keep that beast back when he could.

What also helped were the constants in his life, and since the loss of his mom and dad at age ten, those constants were his crew. Aidan, his partner and brother of his heart. Eddie and Sam, fellow surfers. Dustin, resident clown, a guy who gave one hundred percent of himself, always, which usually landed him in Heartbreak City. Blake, whom he'd gone to high school with and who'd lost his firefighting partner Lynn in a tragic fire last year, a guy who'd give a perfect stranger the heavy yellow jacket off his back. Even Cristina, a woman in a man's world, who was willing to kick anyone's ass to show she belonged in it. All of them held a piece of Zach's heart.

For better, for worse, through thick and thin, they were each other's one true, solid foundation. They meant everything to him.

But the emergency community they lived in was a lot like the cozy little town of Santa Rey itself—small and quirky, no secrets need apply. Everyone knew that the constant gossip and ribbing between the crew members acted as stress relief from a job that had an element of danger every time they went out. Zach had always considered it harmless. But looking at it from Brooke's perspective, that ribbing must feel like mockery.

She dropped her bag to the ground and walked to the tree.

She was going to climb it for the cat. And hell if that didn't do something for him. He didn't interfere—she was Dustin's partner, not his—but he wanted to. The chief would have a coronary, of course, but the chief wasn't there throwing the rule book around as he liked to do. Zach wasn't much for rules or restrictions, himself, or for drawing lines in the sand—which hadn't helped his career any. Nor did he make a habit of stretching his emotional wings and adding personal ties to his life. How many women had told him over the years that he wouldn't know a real relationship if it bit him on the ass?

Too many to count.

And yet he felt an emotional tie now, watching Brooke simply do her job. It shouldn't have been sexy, but it was.
She
was sexy, even in the regulation EMT uniform of dark blue trousers and a white button-down shirt, with a Santa Rey EMT vest over the top, the outfit made complete by the required steel-toed boots.

She made him hot. He thought maybe it was the perfectly folded-back sleeves and careful hair twist that got him. Her hair was gorgeous, a shiny strawberry blond, her coloring as fair as her hair dictated. He knew after any time in the sun—and in Santa Rey, sun was the only weather they got—she'd probably freckle across that nose she liked to tip up to nosebleed heights. She was petite, small-boned, even fragile-looking, and yet he'd bet his last dollar she was strong as hell, strong enough for that tree.

She looked up at the lowest branch, utter concentration on her face. A face that showed her emotions, probably whether she wanted it to or not. It was those wide, expressive baby-blue eyes, he knew. They completely slayed him.

She put her hands on the trunk of the tree and gave it a shake, testing it. Nodding to herself, still eyeing the cat as if she'd rather be facing a victim who was bleeding out than the howling feline on the branch twenty feet above her, she drew a deep breath.

Unbelievable. She was slightly anal, slightly obsessive and more than slightly adorable.

And she had guts. He liked that. He liked her. She was taking his mind off his frustration over the Hill Street fire and Tommy's investigation. But while his career was shaky at the moment, hers was not, and she was going to climb that damn tree if no one stopped her. “Dustin.”

Cristina shushed him. Blake, the one of them who couldn't stand to see anything suffer, even before losing Lynn last year, shot her an annoyed look. Zach leaned toward Dustin. “Stop her.”

“On it.” The EMT stepped forward and put his hand on Brooke's shoulder, saying something that Zach couldn't quite catch, though he had no problem reading her expression.

Relief that she didn't really have to climb the tree.

Embarrassment that she'd let them all fool her.

And a flash of a temper that made him smile. Good. She might be reserved, but she wasn't a doormat.

Aidan grabbed the ladder. Zach helped him. As he passed a brooding Brooke, their eyes met before he climbed the ladder to reach Cecile.

Yeah, quiet and reserved, maybe, but also a little pissed. So was Cecile, but she was one female he could soothe, at least, and when he brought the cat to Phyllis, he had to smile.

Brooke had the older woman sitting on the curb and was attempting to check her vitals, which Phyllis didn't appear to appreciate.

“Ma'am,” Brooke said, “you have an elevated blood pressure.”

“Well, of course I do. I'm eighty-eight.”

Brooke lifted her stethoscope, but Phyllis pushed it away. “I don't need—Cecile! Give me my baby, Zachie!”

Blowing a loose strand of hair from her face, Brooke gave Zach a look.
“Zachie?”

“Small town.” With a half-embarrassed shrug, he handed the cat to Phyllis.

“I used to change his diapers,” Phyllis told her, and patted Zach's cheek with fingers gnarled by arthritis. “You're a good boy. Your mother would be so proud of you.”

He'd found it best not to respond to these types of statements from Phyllis, because if he did, she'd keep him talking about his family forever, and he didn't like to talk about them. He thought about them every day, and that was enough. “I thought we decided you were going to keep Cecile inside.”

“No,
you
decided, but she hates being cooped up.” She nuzzled the cat. “So how's all your ladies, Zachie? Still falling at your feet?”

Brooke arched a brow but Zach just smiled. “You're my number-one lady, Phyllis, you know that.” Her color wasn't great, plus her breathing was off, which worried him. She'd probably forgotten to pick up her meds again. He crouched at her side and took her hand. “You're taking your pills, right?”

She bent her head to Cecile's, her blue hair bouncing in the breeze. “Oh, well. You know.”

With a sigh, he reached for Brooke's blood pressure cuff. “May I?”

Their fingers brushed as she put it in his hand, and again he felt that electric current zing him, but as hot as that little zap was, he didn't take his gaze off Phyllis. “You know the drill,” he said, gently wrapping the cuff around her arm as above him he heard Brooke say to Dustin, “So did I pass the test?”

“Yep. Nice job, New Hire Seven.”

“You've got to keep the cat inside,” Zach said to Phyllis, handing back the blood pressure cuff to Brooke, making sure to touch her, testing their connection. Yep, still there. “Cecile's not safe out here, Phyllis.”

“She's safe now.”

“Yes.” With effort, he shifted his mind off Brooke and focused on Phyllis. “We have a new chief.”

“Yes, of course. Allan Stone. Santa Rey born and raised, back from Chicago to do good in his hometown. I read all about him in the paper.”

Everything was in the Santa Rey paper. Not that Zach needed to read it. Not when he and the chief were becoming intimately familiar with each other; every time Zach put his nose into Tommy's business regarding the arsons, he got some personal one-on-one time in the chief's office. “After all he saw in Chicago, he's not going to think this qualifies as an emergency.”

“But it was an emergency.”

“I'm sorry, Phyllis.”

“Yes.” The older woman sighed. “I know. I'm old, not senile. I get it.” She lovingly stroked the cat, who sprawled in her lap, purring loudly enough to wake the dead. “It's just that Cecile loves the great outdoors. And you always come—”

Seemed his heart was going to get tugged on plenty today. “That's my point. We can't always come. If we're here when there's an emergency, then someone else might go without our help. I know you don't want that to happen.”

“No, of course not.” She hugged the cat hard. “You're right. I'm sorry.”

“No apologies necessary.” He scratched the cat behind her ornery ears and rose to leave.

Brooke blocked his path. She still held her stethoscope and blood pressure cuff, looking sweetly professional while she tried to maintain her composure, but her annoyance at being played was clear.

“I'd like to talk to you,” she said primly.

He enjoyed that, too, the way she sounded so prissy while looking so damn hot. So put together, so on top of everything, which perversely made him want to rumple her up. Preferably the naked, hot and sweaty kind of rumpled. “Talk? Or bite my head off?”

“I don't bite.”

“Shame.” Passing her, he headed back to his rig to help Aidan put away the ladder. But she wasn't done with him yet, and followed.

“I nearly climbed that tree, Zach. Without the benefit of the ladder, I might add.”

Aidan shot Zach a look that said Good Luck, Buddy and moved out of their way. Zach turned to face a fuming Brooke. “No one was going to let you climb that tree.”

“Really? Because I think that the crew thinks I was sent here to amuse them.”

“You have to understand, you're the seventh EMT—”

“To walk out, yeah yeah, got it. But I'm not going to walk out. I'm not.”

“I believe you.”

“You do?”

He smiled at her surprise. “I do. And I was never going to let you climb that tree, Brooke. Never.”

She stared at him for a long, silent beat. “Is your word supposed to mean something?”

He was a lot of things, but a liar was not one of them. Not that she could possibly know that about him yet. “Hopefully it will come to mean something.”

She continued to look at him for another long moment, then turned and walked away with a quiet sense of dignity that made him feel like an ass even though, technically, he'd done nothing wrong.

 

O
VER THE NEXT FEW DAYS
the calls came nonstop, accompanying a heat wave that had everyone at the firehouse on edge, Zach included. If they'd had the staff that they used to, things would have been okay, but they didn't. So they ran their asses off in oppressive temperatures with no downtime, while the higher-ups got to sit in air-conditioned offices.

By the end of the week, they were all exhausted.

“Crazy,” Cristina muttered on the third straight day of record-high temperatures
and
calls. “It's like with the heat wave came a stupid wave.”

They were all in the kitchen, gulping down icy drinks and standing in front of the opened freezer, vying for space and ice cubes. Cristina rubbed an ice cube across her chest, then gave poor Dustin the evil eye for staring at her damp breasts.

Zach didn't blame Dustin for looking; the view was mighty nice. He did worry about the dreamy look in the EMT's eyes. Dustin tended to put his heart on the line for every single woman he met, which left him open to plenty of heartbreak. If Cristina caught that puppy-dog look, she'd chew him up and spit him out. Instead, she elbowed everyone back and took the front-and-center spot for herself.

“You forgot to take your pill this morning,” Blake told her, not looking at her chest like everyone else but nudging her out of the way so he could get in closer.

“I'm not on the pill,” Cristina said.

“Not that pill. Your nice pill.”

Dustin snorted and Cristina glared at him, zapping the smile off his face.

Zach cleared some space for Brooke to get in closer, and she sent him a smile that zapped him as sure as Cristina had zapped Dustin, but in another area entirely.

He wished she was rubbing an ice cube on her chest. He maneuvered himself right next to her. Their arms bumped, their legs brushed and every nerve ending went on high alert.

The bell rang, and with a collective groan, they all scattered. It was exhausting, and
he
was seasoned, as was the crew. He could only imagine how Brooke felt. If he'd had time to breathe, he'd have asked her.