Chapter One
Siren wailing, Engine 62 roared out of the station house and turned onto the main street of Paseo del Real in central California.
Riding backward behind the driver, Danny Sullivan tightened his shoulder harness, aware of the pleasant hum of adrenaline flowing through his veins. This is what a firefighter lived for—a chance to use his training. To put a little wet on the red, to douse a fire with water or foam.
“This could be a bad one,” his buddy Greg Wells in the adjacent seat commented. “Dispatch said it was a preschool.”
“Yeah, I heard.” Danny didn’t relish the thought of kids trapped in a structure fire, scared, maybe even hysterical. Definitely hard to manage. Rescue would be the first order of business. “Let’s hope they have sprinklers and that they worked.”
Looking relaxed, Wells settled into his seat. “I was kinda hoping they’d have a couple of cute teachers.”
Chuckling, Danny nodded his agreement. Between the two of them, he and Greg had an ongoing competition to see who got the first date with any good-looking single woman they happened to rescue from a fire. So far they were neck and neck. It was time for Danny to apply a little pressure, prove the Irish were head and shoulders above any Englishman—three generations removed or not—when it came to romance.
The engine peeled off the main drag of town onto a side street lined with small businesses and drab apartment houses, then pulled to a stop in front of a one-story structure with a fenced yard filled with kid’s play equipment. Gray smoke drifted up from the back half of the building, a good omen suggesting things weren’t totally out of hand. The brightly painted sign over the front entrance read Storytime Preschool.
With a flick of his wrist, Danny released his harness, grabbed his air pack and hopped down from the cab. He headed to the back of the truck for the hose.
“Thank goodness you’re here!” a woman cried. “We have to get them out.”
He turned, had a fleeting glimpse of short brown hair, a familiar face and the flash of a bright yellow blouse before she raced away toward the front door of the building.
“Stephanie?” When the heck had she come back to town?
He cursed and ran after her. Kids still had to be inside. Otherwise the fire chief’s daughter would have more sense than to go running into a burning building. But then, growing up on the same block where she lived, Danny knew Stephanie Gray could be damn mulish when she made up her mind about something.
He took the porch steps in one leap and burst through the open door. “Stephanie! Where are you?” A fire alarm was still ringing off its mount but there wasn’t much smoke, only the lingering acrid scent of burning wood and fabric. The sprinklers must have done their job. But no sign of kids, either, only building blocks and toy trucks hastily abandoned in the middle of the room.
“In here! Help me!”
He followed the sound of her voice toward the back of the house, his heart pumping.
“Oh, the poor little things,” she cried. “Hurry.”
God, he dreaded what he’d find. Injured kids were the worst. He could only hope he was in time to—
She thrust a small metal cage into his arms. “Take Arnold outside. I’ll bring Polly. We’ll have to try mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.”
“We’ll what?” Dumfounded, he stared at the cage. My God, she’d handed him a hamster, who was lying motionless on his side in a pile of wood shavings. “What about the kids?” He whirled, looking for an unconscious child curled up in a corner. Or a hot spot the sprinklers hadn’t entirely cooled.
“They’re fine.” With her arms around a matching cage, she shoved him back toward the front of the house. “They’re all outside at our assembly point.”
“You’re telling me—” She’d risked her neck—and his—for a couple of hamsters? Somehow, it figured.
Greg and Jay Tolliver from Engine 61 brushed past him, pulling a length of two-inch hose through the building as he went out the door. Their gazes rested on the cage he gripped in his hand.
“Great rescue, Sullivan,” Greg said, grinning. “Way to go!”
So great, Danny was likely to get razzed about this for months. At least until somebody else at Station 6 did something equally heroic.
“Hurry up.” Stephanie placed the cage she was carrying on the ground well away from the refurbished house, kneeling beside it. “The poor little things can’t be without air long.”
“You really expect me to give a hamster mouth-to—”
The expression she shot him practically made him bleed. If he didn’t do this, he’d be toast in the department. Not that her old man would do anything overt, but Stephanie was the chief’s daughter. Hell, Danny hadn’t even known she was back in town. Last he’d heard she was in San Francisco. Just his luck she’d shown up here during his shift, in the middle of a fire, with a frazzled hamster needing kissy-face resuscitation.
With a muttered curse, Danny lifted Arnold out of the cage. Damn, he’d never live this one down.
POLLY GAVE A TINY COUGH, shuddered and began breathing on her own.
With a relieved sigh, Stephanie Gray settled back on her haunches. It was bad enough that the candle-making project had gone so desperately awry. She didn’t know what she would have done if she’d had to explain to the children that their pet hamsters had died of smoke inhalation.
She glanced over at Danny to see how he was doing. All turned out in his bunker pants, heavy jacket and helmet, he looked bigger and taller and broader than she remembered him. But her recollections were quite clear of his flashing blue eyes—Irish eyes—and wickedly sexy smile. As an adolescent, she’d spent hours spying on him down the block, making up any excuse to stroll by when he was outside. Not that he’d noticed.
Unfortunately she had his attention now, and he was scowling.
“Didn’t your dad teach you anything about fires? You could have been killed going back in there.”
She gave him her sweetest, most innocent smile. “But you were there to save me, weren’t you? Like always.”
“Just because one time I pulled you out of a tree when you got stuck doesn’t mean I’m going to save your bacon every time you get in trouble.”
If only he could. But no one could help her out of the mess she’d gotten herself in this time, which is why she’d moved home, her tail figuratively between her legs.
“So how’d the fire start?” Idly he stroked Arnold, who appeared to be breathing again. Feeling pretty grumpy, too, because the damn hamster bit down on Danny’s thumb. He swore. Loudly. Stuffed Arnold back into his cage, and gave his hand a quick shake.
“Hush. You can’t use those kind of words in front of the children.”
Warily he eyed the preschoolers, who had lined up along the outside of the fence. Alice Tucker, Stephanie’s friend and the owner of the preschool, had them well in hand.
“Are Arnold and Polly gonna be okay?” Bobby Richardson asked.
“They’re fine, children,” Stephanie answered.
“Unless I strangle the one with the fangs,” Danny grumbled under his breath.
Stephanie swallowed a laugh. Despite his gruff, macho exterior, Danny was among the sweetest, most sympathetic