Flashpoint

Chapter 3

Zach 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.

Over 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.

As it was, they couldn’t do much more than glance at each other, because between the multitude of calls, they still had the maintaining and keeping up of the station and vehicles, not to mention their required physical training.

But he did glance at her.

Plenty.

And she glanced back. She appeared to hold up under pressure extremely well; even when everyone else looked hot, sweaty and irritated, she never did. Look sweaty and irritated, that is.

Hot? That she most definitely looked.

It’d been a long time since he’d flirted so slowly with a woman like this, over days, mostly without words. A very long time, and he’d forgotten how arousing it could be. He figured if they had to pass each other one more time without taking it to the next step-and he had plenty of ideas on what that next step should be, all involving touching and stripping and nakedness, lots of nakedness-they’d both go up in flames.

One late afternoon a week and a half into Brooke’s employment, he headed toward her to see about that whole thing, but of course, the bell rang.

It was a kitchen fire, with a man down. Zach and Aidan were first on scene, with Dustin and Brooke pulling in right behind them in front of a small house that sat on a high bluff overlooking the ocean. By the time they got inside, the fire had been extinguished by the supposedly downed man himself, who was breathing like a lunatic and looked to be in the throes of a panic attack. Zach and Aidan checked to make sure the doused fire couldn’t flare up and then began mop-up while Dustin tried to get the guy to sit, but he wasn’t having it.

“No.” Chest heaving, covered in soot, he pointed at Brooke. “I want her. The chick paramedic.”

Everyone looked at Brooke. For some reason, she looked at Zach. He wanted to think it was because they’d been looking at each other silently for days, building an odd sense of anticipation for…something, but probably it was simply that he’d been the first person she’d met here.

“I’m an EMT,” she told the victim. “Not a paramedic.”

“I don’t care.” The guy was gasping for air, clutching at his chest. “It’s you or nothing.”

Her or nothing. Brooke could honestly say that she’d never heard that sentence before, at least directed at her. She looked at the crew around her, all of whom were looking at her, perfectly willing and accepting of her taking over.

And in that moment, she knew. They might tease her and call her New Hire, but the truth was, they treated her as a part of their team, a capable, smart part of their team, and she appreciated that. “What’s your name?”

“Carl.”

“Okay, Carl. Let’s sit.”

“I’m better standing. Listen, I was just cooking eggs, but then the pan caught fire.”

“It’s okay,” Brooke assured him. “The fire’s out now. Let’s worry about you.”

“I have a problem.”

Yes, he did. He was pale, clammy and sweating profusely. “Let’s work on that problem.”

“It’s, uh, a big one. It won’t go away.” Still breathing heavy, the guy looked down at his fly. “If you know what I mean.”

Everyone stopped working on the kitchen mop-up and looked at the guy’s zipper, and Brooke did the same.

He was erect.

She glanced at the guys. Dustin pushed up his glasses. Aidan busied himself with the cleanup. Zach rubbed his jaw and met Brooke’s gaze, his own saying that he’d seen it all, but not this.

Carl shoved his fingers through his hair, still trying to catch his breath. “See, I was supposed to have this hot date last night, but Mr. Winky wasn’t working. So I took a vitamin V.”

“Vitamin V?” Brooke pulled out a chair and firmly but gently pressed him into it. “What’s vitamin V?”

“Viagra.”

Brooke processed that information while Carl stared down at his lap with a mixture of pride and bafflement. “It worked, too. A little too well.”

“Okay.” Brooke opened her bag and began to check his vitals, carefully not looking at the guy’s zipper again.

“So…can you fix this? I’ve never had a twelve-hour case of blue balls before. Could it…kill me?”

“No one’s dying today.” Behind her, Dustin was checking in with the hospital, as was protocol. From the victim she took the basics: name, age, weight, etc. Dustin set down his radio and turned to her. “We have a few questions.”

“Not you,” Carl said, shaking his head. “Her.”

“Right.” Dustin wrote something down and pushed the piece of paper toward Brooke. It was the questions the E.R. doctor wanted answered. She paused, tucking a nonexistent stray piece of hair behind her ear while she tried to figure out how to do this and keep Carl’s dignity, not to mention her own. “Carl? How many Viagras did you take?”

“Oh. Um.” He looked away, catching Aidan’s and Zach’s eye. “Just the one.”

Brooke gave him a long look. She was not a pushover, not even close. “One?”

“Okay, two.”

“Are you sure?”

Mr. Vitamin V caved. “Four. Okay? I took four. I really wanted to do this.” Still breathing unsteadily, he put his hand on his heart. “Am I going to have a heart attack? Because I feel like I’m having a heart attack.”

Brooke was waiting on Dustin, who was talking to the E.R. about the four pills. “Just hang tight for a second.”

“Hanging tight. Or at least my boys are.” He smiled feebly at his joke. “Do I have to go to the hospital?”

“Finding that out now.” She did her best not to squirm, extremely aware of all the eyes on her, especially Zach’s, as Dustin gave her another piece of paper, which she read. Oh, boy. “Carl, when did you last have sex?”

Carl blinked. “When did I last have sex? Are you kidding me? That’s why I took the pills in the first place!”

Again Brooke accidentally met Zach’s gaze. He was cool, calm, and not showing a thing, but she felt her own face heat. If she had to answer this question, she’d have to admit that she couldn’t even remember. “We need to know when you last ejaculated.”

“Oh.” Carl let out a long breath. “Jesus. Yesterday. In the shower.”

Nodding, she made the note.

“Twice.”

Brooke dropped her pen.

“That’s normal, right?” He looked at Aidan, Dustin and then Zach for affirmation. “Back me up here, guys. It’s just what we do, right?”

Aidan got really busy, fast.

Dustin scribbled on his notepad.

Zach just raised a brow.

“Damn it!” Carl slapped his hands on the table. “Don’t you guys leave me out here hanging alone! Tell her.”

Dustin sighed, then after a hesitation, nodded.

Aidan, too.

Brooke looked at Zach, who met her gaze evenly, not looking away, neither embarrassed nor self-conscious as he nodded, as well.

Carl was waiting for her next question, but she couldn’t stop staring at Zach, couldn’t stop picturing him-

Oh, perfect. And here came the blush.

Dustin nudged her and she jumped, jerking her gaze off Zach.

“Really, it’s what guys do,” Carl was still saying.

It was what guys did.

Drive her crazy.

They made the decision to transport, and while loading the patient in the small kitchen, Brooke bumped into Zach. She looked into his face, feeling hers heat, watching him smile as if he knew what she was thinking.

It’s what guys do… She moved past him but their arms touched, and damn if she didn’t feel her stomach quiver. Because their arms touched. How ridiculous was that? If he ever touched her in a sexual way, she’d probably come before he even got her clothes off.

“You okay?” he murmured. “You’re looking at me funny.”

“Me?” Her voice was as high as Mickey Mouse. “No. Not at all.” I was looking at you like I wanted to gobble you up for my next meal, that’s all.

He cocked his head and studied her a moment. “Sure?”

“Sure.” Liar, liar…