Kansas City's Bravest

Their gazes locked. A familiar, dynamic energy flowed between them. Quickening his pulse. Filling him with want and need and questions and regrets.

Meghan blinked with the force of a slamming door, severing the connection and shutting him out.

Her downcast eyes refused to meet his again.

Stale air from a breath held too long rushed out of Gideon’s lungs. Hell. What had he been thinking? As his heart hammered back to life in his chest, his compassionate instinct died and common sense took its place.

God. Two years. And he still hadn’t gotten her out of his system.

These weren’t old times.

Meghan no longer wanted his help. She’d made that abundantly clear. She’d turned down his proposal and walked out of his life.

And he’d walked straight into hell.

Throwing up a stoic wall of silence that was starting to fit him like a second skin, Gideon turned and walked into the rubble of the gutted building.

At least fire was a demon he could understand.

Chapter Two

“Yeah, yeah. Fifteen minutes of fame, my ass.” Meghan chucked John Murdock’s big shoulder to show the guys she worked with that she knew they were teasing and that she would give it right back. “You guys are just jealous that Saundra Ames didn’t give any of you her card.”

She endured their oohs and ahhs and manly remarks about prowess with women by rolling her eyes and clicking her tongue. It had taken her a long time to learn to take their flirty remarks in sisterly stride—to understand that their teasing was a means of inclusion, not criticism. Now that she was part of their team, the men usually curbed their locker room chatter around her. It also didn’t hurt that the biggest man in the unit, John Murdock, had been assigned as her partner—to compensate for her smaller size, no doubt. She knew him to be a big teddy bear who preferred books to football, despite his pro-wrestler stature. But, intimidating by looks alone, nobody messed with John.

So, normally, the nine men who shared duty with her were on their best behavior. Tolerable, at least.

But right after battling a multialarm blaze, they needed to blow off some steam. And if giving her grief about her instant stardom was the way to do it, she’d let them.

“I keep telling you boys that women like men with a sensitive side.” They paused in a circle around her, waiting for her insight into the secret ways of women. “Go get a puppy and the women will be knocking down your door to meet you.”

Another round of hoots and laughter followed her as the crowd of onlookers began to disperse.

One of the rookies thumped his chest. “I get to rescue the mutt next time.”

“My wife would shoot me if I brought home a dog.”

“Hey, I put up with my girlfriend’s cats. Isn’t that sensitive enough?”

“Let’s get back to work, guys.” Meghan pocketed the number from the animal rescue worker who would be taking the dog to the shelter for a thorough check from a vet. Since the dog had been spayed, they also wanted to run the collarless pup’s description through their database to see if she was someone’s missing pet.

But if no one claimed her, Meghan had a pretty good idea where the miniature, German shepherd-marked mutt could find a home. She knew four boys who would benefit from the unconditional love a pet could bring them.

When she’d spotted her team heading toward the trucks to pack up their gear, it had given her the perfect excuse to escape the glare of the Channel Ten spotlight. The whole idea of girls looking up to her as some kind of role model had turned her stomach into knots.

You freak. I’ll make you a real woman.

That degrading voice, slurred by booze and accusation, had suddenly bombarded Meghan’s psyche from the hidden recesses of her memory, robbing her of her temporary confidence. Her skin crawled with the memory of cruel hands and a whiskey-soaked mouth.

She hadn’t known whether to scream or to run or to faint—in front of a crowd, on television—as old wounds felt real again.

But then she’d seen Gideon.

Live. In the flesh. Not a memory.

Tall and perfectly proportioned.

Dark brown hair, trimmed short to control its tendency to curl, was half hidden beneath an omnipresent baseball-style cap. His sturdy shoulders tapered to a trim waist, and she knew his legs would be long and well-muscled. His eyes were as she remembered, rich and dark and as inviting as her strong morning coffee.

The strength of his quiet presence had calmed her like the soothing stroke of his hand or the gentler caress of his silky whisper in her ear. For one cherished moment she’d breathed easier. The remembered pain receded.

But then she’d noticed the changes in him.

His rugged features etched in unsmiling stone. New lines of strain marring the taut, tanned skin beside his eyes and mouth.

The cold shutters of distrust that suddenly dulled the warmth of his gaze.

And why should he smile at her?

She didn’t deserve that kind of support from him. She had no right to ask. Not anymore.

So she’d blinked and turned away like a coward before she did something foolish such as run to him or call out his name or beg his forgiveness.

By then, Saundra Ames had been talking again. The camera rolling. Meghan had dug deep into the reserves of her composure and come up with a cogent answer. By the time she’d felt brave enough to look again, Gideon had disappeared.

Thank God she had her work. The physical and mental challenges, the sense of duty and purpose, had given her something to concentrate on besides questions about her past and what advice she could give young, career-minded women.

Her co-workers had gathered at the edge of the impromptu audience to egg her on about getting out of cleanup work. Nine men in K.C.F.D. T-shirts, each eye-catching in his own way, attracted their own sort of attention from the crowd, providing the distraction she’d needed to slip away from center stage to gather her wits and hide her wounds.

Some of the men were still talking about puppies and outrageous ways to impress the ladies as they reached the Station 16 trucks and went to work. There were hoses to fold and stack, ladders to mount on the engine, gear to stow.

Meghan didn’t want to shirk her duties, or she’d never hear the end of it at the station house. She figured her TV interview would already earn her enough razzing to last a week. She picked up a wrench and two axes and opened a compartment door near the cab of Engine 31. Fitting together like a three-dimensional puzzle, each piece of equipment had its assigned place, making the most efficient use of the truck’s limited space.

She slipped the wrench in first, then pressed each ax into its mounting clips. After latching the compartment door shut, she climbed up onto the running board beside the open cab to gather the rigging equipment that had been tossed inside. She plunked down onto the passenger side seat to rest while she rolled a nylon rope between her fist and elbow. She had the length of it tied into a bale before she noticed the conspicuously unofficial item resting in the folds of her black turnout coat on the floorboards at her feet.

“What the hell…?” Meghan stowed the rope beneath the seat and frowned as she bent to pluck a long-stemmed yellow rose from her coat. With the stem caught lightly between the thumb and forefinger of one hand, she rested the silky soft bud in the palm of the other. “Where did you come from?”

An unbidden urge of feminine curiosity made her lift the petals to her nose. Its sweet, fragrant scent tickled her sinuses and nearly gave her a headache. But it was soft to the touch, as gentle as a caress as she stroked it against her cheek. What a sentimental gesture. What a generous gift. Except…

Meghan looked through the windshield and scanned the scattering crowd for any indication of someone watching her reaction to the discovery. Everyone seemed to have a purpose to keep him or her busy that had nothing to do with Meghan. She hopped out of the cab and turned to sift through her coat. Where had it come from? Thirty minutes ago, she’d deposited her gear and had tried to tuck her hair back into its braid before talking to those reporters. It hadn’t been here then. And there was no clue, no note of explanation, for its appearance now.

A giant shadow fell across her shoulders, diverting her attention. She looked over her shoulder into John Murdock’s curious expression. “What’s that?”

“I found it lying in the truck on my coat.”

“You been holding out on me?” he teased. “Who’s it from?”

“Do you really think it’s for me?” She glanced down. Wright stared up at her, the name label clearly visible on the front left placket of her coat. “I don’t want to assume.”