A Firefighter in the Family

Zac had laughed and given him a beer on the house.

The two of them had a similar take on life—the less stress and responsibility, the better. For Zac, the Beach Bum was a bar where he could listen to the ocean all day and call the shots. For Adam, the fishing pier concession paid the bills and afforded him the opportunity to watch said bikinis all day and fish to his heart’s content.

“Now what is wrong with this picture?” Adam asked.

Zac looked up the beach. A woman with a blond ponytail and one heck of a big black Lab walked toward the bar. “You mean that there’s a woman on the beach who isn’t wearing a bikini or the fact that the dog looks like he might be part horse?”

“There’s a dog?”

“Jeez, you’re incurable.”

“Thor, stay,” she said from the edge of the bar.

“Thor, huh?” Adam evidently thought noticing the dog would win him points with its owner. “That seems appropriate.”

Zac was about to make a smart-ass comment about Adam’s flirting when he realized he recognized her voice. He looked up as she stepped into the bar and shoved her sunglasses onto the top of her head. His hand tightened around the edge of the bar.

Randi Cooke.

She ignored Adam and turned her attention toward Zac. Her forehead scrunched, and he could nearly hear the gears turning behind those gorgeous blue eyes of hers. She had that out-of-place expression on her face—like when you go on vacation and bump into someone from back home.

“Zac?”

“Randi,” he said with as little emotion as possible. Not as easy as it sounded.

“You two know each other?” Adam asked from his scoping-the-hotties perch.

“We’re acquainted,” Zac said. He turned his back and straightened bottles of liquor that didn’t need straightening. He ignored the awkward silence behind him. What he wouldn’t have given for some warning of her arrival.

“Well, I’m not,” Adam said.

“Randi Cooke with the state fire marshal’s office,” she said, her formal introduction and tone quashing any hope that she’d just happened by for a drink.

A Cooke investigating a fire. Not to mention a Cooke he’d wronged and who had fled town partly because of him. Just what he needed. Time to nip this in the ol’ bud and send her on her way.

He turned toward her and leaned back against the metal sink. “Before you ask, I wasn’t around when the fire started,” he said as he nodded toward what remained of the condos.

She raised her eyebrows.

“Doesn’t take a genius to figure out you’re here to ask if I saw anything suspicious, not to ask for a martini,” he said. “The bar closes at one. The fire started after that.”

“The call came in at one-seventeen, to be exact.”

Zac stiffened. He scanned the few patrons at the outer edge of the bar. They apparently hadn’t heard her. “You’d better not be accusing me of anything.” Been down that road with her family, didn’t want to revisit.

Surprise widened her eyes for a moment. “I don’t recall doing so. Is there a reason I should?” she asked, a coolness seeping into her words.

“Runs in the family,” he muttered.

“What?”

“Well, gotta go,” Adam said as he grabbed his beer and fled.

Zac barely noticed Adam leaving. Instead, he stared at Randi. Damn her for standing so close while being so distant, as if they’d never met, while he wanted to crush something with his bare hand at the thought that suspicion might touch him again. What irked him even more was that in the midst of the chilly reunion, he couldn’t help noticing she was even prettier now than when he’d seen her last. Her bright eyes seemed wiser, her body more toned, her hair even more blond and silky. Every aspect of her physical appearance made it more difficult to deal with her.

He broke eye contact. “Listen, Oldham tried to buy me out. I said no. He was ticked. End of story.”

“Just how bad was this disagreement?”

There she was doing it again, acting as if he were a stranger, as if they hadn’t once worked side by side. As if they hadn’t once been more than co-workers. Still a Cooke through and through—despite everything that had happened.

Zac moved to the edge of the oak bar and leaned down so his voice didn’t carry. “Bad enough to think tossing the jackass in the Gulf might be amusing—yes. Bad enough to burn his eyesore to the ground—no. Now you know and can move on to the next person on your list.”

“You’re a bit belligerent for an innocent man, aren’t you?”

Yeah, he was belligerent. It felt like déjà vu all over again. “Anyone would be if unfounded accusations were being cast at him.”

She caught and held his gaze, and for a second he thought he glimpsed a sliver of the old Randi. He couldn’t help the yearning for what they’d once shared, what might have been, however ill-advised that might be.

“I’m not accusing you, Zac,” she said. “I’m just asking questions. Looking for the truth.”

Zac’s stomach knotted. The last time someone had questioned him about a fire and he’d told the truth, they’d rewarded him with handcuffs and a trip to jail.

He wouldn’t be falsely accused again.

Chapter Two

Zac huffed and turned away as he shoved individual wine bottles into a glass-fronted cooler to chill.

“You don’t seem to like me very much anymore,” Randi said, trying to sound as if she didn’t care one way or the other.

“I’m busy. I have a business to run.”

“Yeah, about that—what’s with the whole bartender shtick?” Not that he didn’t look yummier than any cold, fruity drink he could serve up.

Randi leaned one arm against the edge of the bar and stared at Zac’s back, a very nice, muscled back from what she remembered, and his tanned forearms. When he glanced to the side, she eyed his profile. Short, dark hair. Strong jawline. Stubborn. Why, of all the people in Horizon Beach, had she crossed paths with Zac Parker? And why did the mere sight of him still make her pulse race as if it were trying to break free of her veins?

A blonde in a pink bikini with a flowered wrap around her hips wandered up to the bar and asked for two beers. Randi waited while Zac turned, pulled the bottles from the cooler and took the girl’s money. He didn’t ogle the eye candy, and Randi was annoyed by how much that pleased her. Which made no sense, considering the circumstances the last time they’d seen each other.

He looked up, his expression casual. “You’re still here?”

“Let’s leave past animosity in the past, shall we?” She was here in her professional capacity, and what they’d once meant to each other wasn’t relevant to the task at hand.

“Fine.” He bit out the word as if it was anything but fine. As if to contradict his tone, he placed a lemonade in front of her. He glanced up, caught her gaze for a moment before breaking eye contact. “I have a good memory.”

She didn’t let it show, but she was shocked he’d remembered.

Zac leaned against a metal cooler and crossed his arms.