Fire at Dawn: The Firefighters of Darling Bay 2 Read online

  Somehow he would have to find a way to be okay with being just friends with her. He couldn’t imagine it—being with her in dispatch and not noticing the way the sun came through the window, lighting up those red curls. Sitting next to her while they did the crossword and not being distracted by the light scent of that flowery hand lotion she liked. Knowing how far that rose tattoo went and not getting to caress it again. Hearing her speak, watching her mouth move without wanting to kiss her.

  He released a painful breath and closed his eyes. That was why his chest ached so much. Not the bullet wound. It was the broken heart that hurt the most.

  For Serena, he was glad he’d lived. But she was the only reason he had any gladness at all.

  “Daddy!”

  Coin’s eyes flew open and he smiled at the sight of his daughter, her hair taken out of her usual messy pigtails and combed neatly. “Come here, kiddo.”

  She looked as if she was almost overcome with the effort of not moving, her eyes blinking faster than normal. “I can’t hug you. They said.”

  “I don’t care what they said. I won’t heal without a hug. You can fix me.”

  “Daddy,” she laughed. “No, I can’t. I’m not a wizard.”

  “If you can’t fix it,” he started.

  “I’m not trying hard enough,” Serena finished. Carefully, she leaned forward and gave him a sideways half-hug. It was enough. It was exactly what Coin needed.

  “I can tell I’m already better. You think I should get up?”

  “No!” Serena grinned. “No way.”

  “I love you, kid.”

  She shrugged. “I know.”

  “Where’s your mom?”

  “At home.”

  He frowned. “Oh. The nurse said … Wait, your mom left you alone in the waiting room?”

  “Seriously? There’s like eleven hundred million firefighters out there playing poker. I already made fifteen bucks. Mom left me with Lexie.”

  Maybe they’d left something in his chest, because it suddenly felt as if Coin couldn’t breathe. “Lexie’s out there?”

  “No,” came a voice at the door. “I’m here.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  Lexie wanted more than anything to go to him like Serena had, to lean over and kiss him. To touch him. Her fingers itched to reach for him, to smooth the line between his eyes, to touch the stubble that had grown dark and thick over the last twenty-four hours.

  But it wasn’t that easy.

  “Hi,” she said.

  “Hi, you.” His voice was scratchy, as if it hurt to use.

  “You look like crap,” she said.

  “Thanks. So do you.”

  Lexie laughed, surprised at how easy it was. To be here. She pushed her hair off her face. “Yeah, well. I haven’t slept in a day and a half.”

  Coin took his daughter’s hand. “Serena, honey?”

  Serena rolled her eyes. “I’m not stupid. But be quick about it. I want to show you my favorite new card trick. Hank taught me.” She ran out the door, whistling.

  Lexie said, “Don’t worry, I made sure he didn’t use the naked lady deck.”

  Coin laughed, but his face went white.

  Extending her hand, Lexie gripped the rail on his bed. “No, don’t laugh. You should sleep. I should let you sleep more. You just woke up …” She turned, flustered, but Coin’s hand on her wrist stopped her.

  “You’re here.”

  “Of course I am. We’re friends. Where else would I be?”

  A light went out in his eyes, a light Lexie didn’t know was so important to her.

  “Call me darlin’,” she said, surprising herself.

  “What?”

  She shook her head. “Just do it.”

  “Darlin’.”

  Lexie’s hands started to shake.

  “Darlin’,” he said again, and there it was, the light was coming back.

  She clenched her fingers into fists, but the trembling got worse.

  “You know what, darlin’?”

  She shook her head.

  “I didn’t know if I’d ever get to call you that again.”

  “You probably say that to all the dispatchers.” She was glad her voice didn’t quaver like the rest of her body had decided to do. What if he didn’t remember anything? Any of it?

  “Only the ones I love.”

  She opened her mouth but couldn’t find the words she needed.

  “Only the ones I’m in love with.”

  Lexie gave a strangled laugh. “I sent you away.”

  “I was going to honor that, I swear I was. It’s just that, when I was in the rig with that guy—Louis—I could see in his eyes he wasn’t going anywhere if he didn’t get his fix, and he was going to take someone with him.”

  Coin’s eyes asked the question he didn’t voice. Lexie said, “He was a better shot with the bullet he put into himself. He didn’t make it.”

  He said, “Yeah. I figured that. And I knew that I couldn’t leave this big old world that I love so much without telling you and Serena one more time that I loved you.”

  Lexie reached for his hand. “Will I hurt you if …?”

  “Nothing you can do can hurt me.”

  Oh, she wasn’t sure about that. If he felt one tenth of the emotion that she held in her heart right then, then she could hurt the hell out of him with a few well-chosen words.

  So Lexie chose her words wisely.

  “I love you.” He opened his mouth, but she said, “Hush. I’m the dispatcher. I do the talking.” She could feel her fingers trembling in his, and his lips—the lips she wanted to kiss, over and over—curved into a smile. “I think I’ve always loved you. Since the day you cried at my father’s funeral. I think I knew that day I couldn’t love another man in the fire services. Since that day, I knew I couldn’t have you. And that’s why no one I’ve ever dated has worked out.”

  Coin’s voice was rough. “Why?”

  “Because not one of them was you.”

  “Darlin’.”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  He laughed, a rusty noise, and no sound had ever made Lexie’s heart more glad. “I’m not. I’d take a couple more bullets just to hear you say you love me again.”

  She lowered her mouth to his ear and whispered it to him. “I love you, I love you, I love you.” Then she moved her lips to his, and before she kissed him, she said it again, in a different way, in a way she knew he’d understand.

  “Always.”

  EPILOGUE

  “You have to see this.”

  Lexie groaned and buried her face in her pillow. “S’early. Too early.”

  “No, you have to get up.”

  She rolled to her side and looked at Coin through tangled eyelashes. “You keep me up all night and this is what I get?” She twisted to look at the clock on the bedside table. “At five forty-five in the freaking morning?”

  “Just get up.”

  “I’m going to kill you.”

  “I think you gave it your best shot last night, darlin’. I’m proving pretty hardy, I think.”

  “Hardy as a weed. As Bermuda grass,” she grumbled, but she took the hand he offered as he led her out of the bedroom and onto the deck.

  Outside, scarlet warred with crimson as the sunrise split the sky right down to the bright blue water. Huge clouds loomed, banked with blue darkness, the red dawn spilling gloriously behind them. A storm was on the way to the island and far out on the purple horizon, Lexie could see a water spout dance.

  Lexie clutched the bamboo railing. “It looks like …”

  “Like the whole sky is on fire.” Coin grinned and turned his face to the dawn.

  “Let’s move here,” said Lexie, staring at how the palms bowed and swayed in the tropical wind that was still warm even though it was getting stronger. The air smelled of plumeria and salt.

  “I don’t have the equipment to fight this kind of fire. I don’t think anyone would hire me.”

  Lexie nodded
in agreement. “You don’t have the training, I guess.”

  “No training to fight sky fire, no.” Coin wrapped his arm around Lexie’s waist and pulled her against him. “I have other skills.”

  “That you do. Like having girls pay your way to Bora Bora.”

  “Only one direction,” he protested. “And I’m paying our way back. And anyway, with what we’re going to save by living together—”

  Lexie cut him off with her laugh. “I’m teasing you, my love. Hey, what time is it at home?”

  “Almost nine a.m.”

  “Let’s call Serena.”

  Coin smiled and pressed a kiss against her forehead, warming her even more than the rising sun did. “Okay. Why?”

  “Because that looks like a big storm coming.”

  “You worried about the lines going down? I think it’s all satellite now, but okay …”

  “No, big guy. I need you to check off your only to-do, because I have big storm plans for that hotel bed.”

  “I see,” said Coin. “And you call your mom. Just to check her off the list.”

  Lexie nodded. “She’s been so much better ever since I told her to back off.”

  Coin said, “I think it’s me. She adore me, what can I say? What about supplies? Do we have enough to ride out a typhoon? A firefighter’s always prepared.”

  “Let’s see,” Lexie said, and Coin pulled her against him, hard, showing her exactly how prepared he was. “Candles. Plenty of those in the cabana. All that wine we bought last night. Pineapple, and mango, lots. Extra bubble bath. I think we’re good to go.”

  “You still sleepy?” Coin nipped her bottom lip then soothed the bite with a kiss.

  She kissed him back, and after a long moment, she said, “No. But I want to go back to bed.”

  “Darlin’.”

  It was all Lexie needed to hear.

  She glanced at the fire in the sky behind him as they went back inside.

  Always.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Join Lila’s newsletter to stay up-to-date on new releases and automatically be entered for giveaways!

  Visit Lila at her website or Facebook or Twitter.

  … or keep reading for an excerpt of Fire at Dusk…

  When Lila Ashe isn’t working at the firehouse, 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.

  DID YOU ENJOY FIRE AT DAWN?

  Enjoy the rest of The Firefighters of Darling Bay series:

  Fire at Twilight

  Everyday Hero: The Volunteers – A Darling Bay Short Story

  Fire at Dusk

  And check out Cupid Island, where romance is tropical and sweet:

  Kitty’s Song: A Cupid Island Novella

  Excerpt of Fire at Dusk follows….

  EXCERPT OF FIRE AT DUSK

  CHAPTER ONE

  THE MAN CAME at her fast from the side, out of the shadows. His fist swung toward her jaw but Samantha ducked and caught the blow on her forearm. “No!” she yelled. “Stop!”

  The man wheeled, coming back at her again. He roared, driving his fists against her shoulders, slamming her back into the brick wall, knocking the wind out of her.

  Samantha took almost a full second to think, to dig inside herself for what she needed. The man was taller, broader, and outweighed her by sixty pounds. He had her pinned against the wall, and she could move nothing but her right leg.

  That would be enough.

  She kicked her foot left, driving her heel into her assailant’s shin. His response was muffled but clearly displeased.

  “No!” she managed to shout again. “No!” Her foot connected again, this time higher. She might have hit his kneecap.

  One last time she yelled “Stop! Someone call 911!” The man pulled back his head, as if her voice had hurt his ears. Samantha used the moment to shove her shoulder forward, freeing her right arm from his grip. Without a pause, she raised her fist and pummeled his ear, or where his ear would have been. She propped her foot against the wall and used it to push off from. The man lurched backward, struggling to keep his grip on her upper arms.

  With a jerk of her neck, Samantha head-butted him, earning a muffled, “Ooof.”

  Both her hands finally free, Samantha flew into motion. She jabbed, punched, kicked and clawed. She was a piston, each pump a blow. She didn’t stop until the man was on the ground, curled onto his side, his arms protecting his head.

  She’d done it. She’d won. Samantha’s heart beat heavy and fast in her ears. No matter how many times it happened, she was always frightened. That was the point. Fighting past the fear. She turned to face the group behind her.

  “This is when you run. Don’t waste your breath calling for help at this point—right now you’re using all your energy to put as much space between you and him. Get to a well-lit space or behind a locked door. Find a phone. Find a safe group of people and ask them to call 911. I call it Down and Out. He goes down, you get out.”

  A light laugh rippled around the room, but mostly Samantha heard rapid breathing as women took in quick sips of air. The first scene was always the second-worst part of the class. The worst part, of course, was the first fight each woman took part in.

  The best part was the first scene each woman won, but they were still quite a way from learning how to do that.

  “I know. This is intense. Take a deep breath.”

  The participants, to a woman, looked as if they might fall right over, especially Linda McCracken, a woman who had been considering taking the class ever since her husband died a few months before, and was observing today. She’d looked nervous just walking in the door, but now she had a sheen of perspiration at her hairline and her hands were clenched at her sides.

  Samantha said, “I mean all of you. Each one of you. You, too, Linda. Breathe. Right now. In…” A collective inhaled breath was followed by the out-breath. “Good.”

  Their eyes were all on Jim Hinds. Of course. Samantha had just beaten the tar out of him and he was still lying on the ground behind her.

  “Jim’s an old hand at this,” she reassured them. “And he’s trained for years to take this kind of beating. I’ve only been punching him for two months, but he worked down the coast for one of my trainers for a long time. He can take a lickin’, for sure. Come on, Jim, stand up and strip out of the suit. Let them see who I was actually protecting myself from.”

  It was always a nice moment when Jim Hinds took off the padded gear and the women saw that the terrifying assailant, the stuff of nightmares, was actually the well-built librarian without his glasses on.

  “Come on, Jim.” Samantha turned. He was still lying exactly where he’d fallen. “Show them what you look like under all that padding.”

  But in the big white suit, Jim remained still.

  There was another collected gasp. Linda McCracken started to weep.

  “Jim?” Samantha leaned over him. “You all right, buddy?”

  A strange wheeze was the only answer she got. Samantha dropped to her knees and pulled off Jim’s helmet as gently as she could. His skin was pale and sweaty. His eyes met hers and telegraphed what he needed.

  Samantha said clearly to Martina Miller, standing in the front row, “Use the pay phone by the front door. Call 911.”

  Martina’s eyes widened. “Really?”

  “This isn’t part of the training. 911. Now.”

  Read more of Fire at Dusk now! Click HERE.

  Table of Contents

  Table of Contents

  Title Page


  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  EPILOGUE

  About the Author

  Did you enjoy Fire at Dawn?

  EXCERPT OF FIRE AT DUSK