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  Katy smiled. “Thank you.”

  Gretchen’s eyes narrowed. “For what?”

  “For your backaches and heartaches and lost relationships and all you endured so that when I show up at a scene on the worst day of someone’s life, they don’t look past my shoulder and ask when the paramedic is arriving.”

  Gretchen stared at Katy for several heartbeats, hugging Tux a little tighter, then suddenly headed for the door. She stopped in the hall and looked back. “I suggest you bring that bright smile along when you ask the chief to transfer you to one of the other shifts, because, Katy, I only work with people I trust to have my back if a scene turns ugly.”

  Like this one just did? Katy listened to the rushed footsteps fading down the hall. Well, she’d asked. And Gretchen had not-so-delicately confirmed what Katy had known even as she’d dropped her application in the mailbox all those months ago, which was that she really had no business being here.

  Except she did. Because no way did she take women like Gretchen for granted, knowing full well that without them fighting the big fight, she never would have been able to come bouncing in here with her bright smile and perky boobs and minimal experience. Katy finally lowered the snacks into the canvas bag and decided that, just like Gretchen had been doing for twenty-six years, she would keep right on proving her worth every damn day.

  But hopefully without a chip on her shoulder.

  “Funny how some people love to dish it out,” Welles drawled as he sauntered into the kitchen grinning like a Cheshire cat, “but they can’t take it.”

  Oh, yeah. Russo and Mason and Bean hadn’t liked it when, less than half an hour after they’d left their new medic and intern dangling off the hose tower, they’d walked in the kitchen arguing over who was cooking to find Katy and Welles sitting at the table eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. She hadn’t even gotten to ask the slack-jawed trio what they were having for dinner, since the men had nearly tripped over their own feet rushing back out. Katy and Welles had given each other conspirator’s smiles as they’d heard two sets of footsteps running down the stairs and the squeak of one set of hands sliding down the pole to the first floor. Welles had gone to the window, then relayed the news that all three men were storming the rescue truck, with Mason climbing in to get the SD card from the dashcam.

  “Are you still rubbing it in their faces?” Katy asked, trying but failing to give the boy a stern look. She couldn’t help it; it tickled every last funny bone to think of those pranksters finding the video erased. “I told you the real victory is in acting as if you do that sort of thing every day.” She arched her brow higher. “You didn’t tell them how we got down, did you?”

  Welles held his hands up in surrender, although he couldn’t stop grinning. “Not even when Bean and Mason threatened to lock me in the hazmat room for the entire campfire.” He suddenly sobered. “I, ah . . . I may have embellished what happened today when I called Jaycee, my girlfriend. So when you meet her tonight, could you maybe not mention that I kind of panicked when I realized the guys had left us?”

  Katy gasped in mock horror. “Are you serious? The only reason I didn’t panic was because you were so calm.” But then she also sobered. “You did excellent today, Welles, and you’re going to be an amazing firefighter.” She went back to smiling when he ducked his head to hide his flush. “Aren’t you breaking rank by coming to the campfire tonight?”

  He looked up, his chin rising defensively. “I think they’re a great idea. And so is encouraging parents to bring their kids to the station.” His grin returned. “Whenever we went to cities or a town big enough to have a full-time fire department, I used to throw a fit until Mom or Dad took me to visit the fire station.” He moved to the table and toyed with the handles on the canvas bag, suddenly serious again. “Ah, speaking of Jaycee,” he said, two flags of red darkening his cheeks when he looked up. “Can I ask you a sort of personal question?”

  Not sure how they’d jumped from fire stations back to girlfriends, Katy merely nodded.

  Welles suddenly strode to the door, looked down the hall, then turned and looked in the general vicinity of Katy’s feet. “I was wondering if you could tell me how to . . . if you could give me some pointers on . . .” He took a deep breath and lifted his gaze to hers. “Look, I’m a virgin, okay, and I want to make love to Jaycee,” he said rather aggressively, his entire face and neck now crimson. “But I need for you to tell me how.”

  Katy wasn’t sure she’d heard right, but from the mortified expression etched on the kid’s face, she probably had. “Excuse me—what?”

  “I’m a virgin,” he repeated. “And I only have nine weeks left before I leave for college.”

  “What’s college got to do with it?”

  “I can’t show up there still a virgin. So, what do I do?”

  Good Lord, he couldn’t possibly be serious. “Why are you asking me?” Katy asked, fighting to tamp down the wave of anxiety building in her gut. Heck, she was certainly no expert. “This is something you should be asking a guy. Ask Chief Wolfe or Russo or Mason.” She shook her head. “No, not Mason. Ask Gunnar or Ike.”

  Welles glanced down the hall again then walked back in the kitchen. “I can’t tell any of them I’m a virgin. I . . . it’s embarrassing.”

  And this isn’t? Katy wanted to shout. “Then ask your father.”

  “Cripes, no!” he yelped, taking a step back. “I don’t need a two-day sermon on being our family’s last chance to have a kid go to college because I didn’t get a girl pregnant.” He eyed her for several seconds, then blew out a sigh. “Look, I just need a few pointers on what a girl likes during sex is all. And you’ve got to be what . . . nearly thirty?”

  “And just what does my age have to do with it?” Katy whispered—again so she wouldn’t shout. Honest to God, this was the first time she wished the alarm would sound.

  He shrugged, apparently as deaf to the warning in her voice as he was clueless. “I figured by now you’ve had sex with lots of guys.”

  “Welles!”

  His eyes widened, and he held up his hands. “I didn’t mean that like it sounded. I don’t think you’re a—that you sleep around or anything.”

  Katy sucked in another calming breath. “Okay then, let’s start with my pointing out that girls don’t like being used for practice.”

  “No, it’s not like that. In fact, losing our virginity before we leave for UMaine was Jaycee’s idea. She doesn’t want to look like a backwoods hick to her roommate any more than I do.”

  “Contrary to popular belief, Welles, there’s going to be plenty of female and male virgins arriving at colleges all over the world in September.”

  “Were you?”

  “That’s none of your business,” Katy said softly, this time to keep from smacking him. Come on, you stupid alarm—ring!

  “Never mind,” he muttered as he turned away. “I’ll just ask some of my buddies.”

  Well, cripes, indeed. “Oh, no you don’t,” Katy said as she stepped forward and spun him around, not about to leave a bunch of horny idiot seniors in charge of his sex education. “Give me a minute, will you? You can’t just spring this on me without warning and expect me to start rattling off ways to get in a girl’s panties.”

  “Getting in isn’t the problem,” he said, dryly. “I’m asking about what to do once it’s a go. Cripes, Katy, you’re not only a woman, you’re a paramedic. How hard can it be to give me a few pointers?”

  “What’s my being a para—wait, Dr. Bentley. You should be talking to him about this.”

  Welles was shaking his head before she’d finished. “I already know the mechanics. And when I sort of brought it up at the physical I took last month to join the department, all Bentley did was give me a ten-minute lecture on safe sex, along with a brochure on STDs and a pocketful of condoms.” He brightened. “So, you’re not saying you w
on’t help me, only that you need time to think about it?”

  No, she needed time to find Jaycee and smack some sense into the girl. “Yeah, give me at least until my next shift, okay?” So I can Google books on pleasing women and give you a list of them, she refrained from adding. Because honestly? If all she had to go by was her own experience, she was afraid Jaycee was going to be equally disappointed.

  “All right, then,” Welles said, grabbing the canvas bag off the table. “I can’t wait for you to meet Jaycee.” He stopped in the hallway when he realized Katy wasn’t following. “I told her how cool you are when I called and invited her to the campfire. And my dad dropped off some firewood and we stacked it between some trees near the pit.” He glanced toward the window. “The sun’s not setting for a couple of hours yet, so my mom sent a bunch of citronella torches with Dad in case it doesn’t cool off fast enough this evening. She said if we stick them in a circle outside the sitting area, they should help with the mosquitos until it gets fully dark.”

  “You go ahead and start setting them up,” Katy said, waving him away. “I need to stop by my cubicle and grab a fleece, and then I’ll be right out.”

  Katy listened to his running footsteps fade to rhythmic thumps down the stairwell, then pulled out a chair and sat down, propped her elbows on the table, and dropped her head into her hands with a groan. He hadn’t really just asked her how to make love, had he? She’d always thought guys talked about that kind of stuff between themselves. Heck, that was practically all she and Jane used to talk about in high school.

  The two of them would sit for hours in the tiny hunting shack at the far end of the Christmas tree field, devouring articles on what boys liked in a girl, how to make them notice you, and how to keep them interested. And once she’d worked up the nerve to plop Cosmopolitan and Marie Claire on the counter, she and Jane had graduated to reading what men liked in a woman, how to make them notice you, and how to keep them interested. Then they’d spend hours discussing what traits a boyfriend needed to have to be considered for the role of husband.

  They’d actually made lists. Long lists, Katy remembered with another groan.

  But she’d stopped sneaking into Brody’s room and stealing his Playboy and Penthouse magazines when she’d realized that seeing all the beautiful women, airbrushed and lens-filtered to perfection, had started depressing Jane.

  Katy snorted. Either Jane had forgotten she had a deformed foot and noticeable limp, the self-esteem of a salamander, and the sexual prowess of a nun, or else the man she’d saved from drowning last fall was simply more stubborn than she was. Because Miss Orphan Nobody Jane Doe Abbot was right now happily married to a real live king, making her a freaking queen and mother of a princess, and living in an honest to God palace.

  What were the chances of that happening to a small-town Maine girl who had still been a virgin at twenty-eight?

  Katy lifted her head and smiled. The next time she went home, she was finding their old lists and sending Jane’s to her. A sharp pang rattled her chest, reminding her that she should actually call her best friend instead of just dropping something in the mail. She sure had enough to tell her.

  Darkness surged, a rush of cold sadness like dirty floodwater, but she jumped to her feet and shook off the chill. Pulling up some memories didn’t have to mean all of them. Biting her lip, she fought to distract herself.

  Maybe it would be worth taking a gander at her own list to see how Mr. Gunnar Wolfe measured up to her teenage ideal of a perfect husband. The thought made her blush and shake her head. Heaven help them both if the man didn’t even meet her criteria for boyfriend.

  Chapter Nine

  Not wanting to miss Katy’s reaction when she came out to SFF&R’s second community campfire, Gunnar sat on a stump next to the stump holding her canvas bag, keeping an eye on the open bay doors while also conversing with guests stopping by to welcome him as their new fire chief.

  His vigilance finally paid off when Katy came rushing out of the station and actually stumbled to a halt at the sight of what had to be thirty people sitting and standing in small groups around the blazing campfire. They talked and laughed and drank what Gunnar hoped to God were nonalcoholic beverages. Noticing Katy’s wide-eyed gaze slide to her left, he looked over to see another dozen people walking up the driveway, most all of them carrying folding chairs, bags of food, and small coolers. He looked back just as she finished taking a long guzzle from her metal water bottle, then watched her take a deep breath, smooth down her shirt, plaster her signature smile firmly in place, and casually saunter toward the monster she’d created. Gunnar turned when he heard a snort to see Jake—decked out in his crisp blue uniform and weighted down with various police toys—drop the stump he carried on the other side of the one holding the canvas bag and then sit down.

  “Looks like we might have to start calling ahead for reservations,” Jake said.

  “Unless you’ve got a mouse in your pocket, there is no we.”

  “You ask permission yet, or you waiting to grow a bigger pair first?”

  “I’m waiting to see what kind of response I get from the ads I took out all over Europe.”

  Jake stood with a grin broad enough to be seen from space and plucked the canvas bag off the stump. And then the bastard moved in front of it and gestured for Katy to take his stump. “I’ve been saving a seat for you.”

  She hesitated a couple of heartbeats, then stepped around him and sat down where her bag had been. “Thank you, but I believe it’s better if I sit between you two.”

  It was all Gunnar could do not to laugh as the thwarted bastard sat on his old stump.

  “Feeling pretty proud of yourself this evening, I suppose,” Gunnar drawled to Katy.

  She looked at him in surprise. Or maybe that was horror. “I never dreamed all these people would show up,” she said—in yup, definitely horror—as she gestured at the crowd. “Ten or twelve people were the most we ever had at one time in Pine Creek.”

  “I imagine it will settle down here once the newness wears off. But I was actually talking about your little victory this afternoon.”

  A big, bright smile replaced her horror. “I will cherish the look on everyone’s faces all the way to my grave.”

  “So, when did you realize you were being filmed?”

  That smile turned smug. “When I realized where our safety lines were tied off and found myself wondering why they’d parked the rescue truck at such an odd angle.” She chuckled. “Someone forgot to put a piece of black tape over the little red light on the dashcam.”

  Gunnar leaned closer. “If I promise not to tell, will you tell me how you got down?”

  She glanced over at Russo and his wife and two sons sitting across the fire, then flashed a mysterious look. “By magic.” She laughed when he scowled at her. “Okay,” she said, leaning his way. “We went up.”

  Gunnar straightened with a snort. “Hell, you should be proud of yourself,” he said, knowing it would have required far more upper-body strength than anyone on the squad thought the new rookie possessed. Damn, he wished she hadn’t erased that video.

  Katy took the canvas bag from Jake when she noticed him rummaging through it, then pulled out a plastic tub and set it on her lap as she looked around at all the people again, her gaze occasionally stopping on a group before moving on. She looked down at the tub and sighed. “I only popped a pound of popcorn.”

  “Buttered, I hope,” Gunnar said, plucking the tub off her lap just as Jake reached for it. He pulled off the top and grabbed a fistful of popcorn but stilled with it halfway to his mouth when Katy arched a delicate brow at him.

  “Didn’t I just watch you devour two large helpings of lasagna and half a loaf of garlic bread, then wolf down a quarter of a pie?” she said, only to laugh. “Sorry, no pun intended.”

  “Do you know how many calories a six-foot-three body needs every d
ay just to maintain itself?” Gunnar asked, stifling a grin when Jake snorted again. “Wait. Never mind. I met your brother.” He leaned forward. “Have you met Robert MacBain, Shep—I mean, Jake?” Gunnar slid his gaze to Katy. “He’s gotta be what? Six-six? Six-seven?”

  And there was that gleam. “Robbie’s six-foot-seven-and-a-half in his stocking feet.”

  Like shooting fish in a barrel. Gunnar straightened and shoved the handful of popcorn in his mouth to keep from laughing out loud. Hell, not only was Katy fully aware of what was going on, the little minx was even helping him throw Sheppard under the bus!

  Which was kind of scary, actually. Katy MacBain was an overly astute, mischievous, bona fide celestial being who could also magically scale brick walls, apparently.

  He heard her softly gasp. “Ohmigod, Welles just bumped into Titus and made him spill some of his drink, and the kid never even slowed down.”

  Gunnar followed her gaze to see Welles weaving toward them with Jaycee in tow, but he had no idea which of the men in the young couple’s wake was Titus. He studied the group, trying to decide which of them seemed to fit the name, when a small figure with shining silver hair passed behind them, face blocked by the crowd. Heart pounding, he peered harder, waiting for what he thought—based on height—was a woman to emerge, but she seemed to evaporate from his view.

  “I wonder how Welles would feel,” Katy continued dryly, “if he knew he’d just assaulted the person funding his entire college education.”

  Nearly choking on the second mouthful of popcorn he’d managed to grab before she’d snatched the tub away, Gunnar quickly took a large guzzle of his energy drink to wash it down. “Who’s funding it?” he asked, giving all the men a longer look.

  She leaned closer. “We can’t really tell Welles,” she whispered. “The Oceanuses insist on remaining anonymous.”