“Look, I can explain,” he said.
Why did that seem to be the one thing men always said when they’d done something atrocious?
“Don’t bother. I’ve heard that line before.” Most recently, from another fireman who’d worked at this exact station—a fireman who hadn’t been able to explain a thing, except that he’d used her.
Everything always came down to softball in Turtle Beach. When was she going to learn to steer completely clear of anyone with a badge?
She snatched the pink bakery box off of Sam’s desk. “Come on, Sprinkles. We’re leaving.”
“Seriously, you’re taking my cupcakes back?” Sam planted his hands on his hips and actually had the nerve to look incredulous.
“I certainly am,” Violet said.
No more playing nice. She was finished with giving him the benefit of the doubt. Her initial instincts about Sam had been right all along. She should never have let herself be swayed by his charming doggy dad routine or his devoted Dalmatian.
From now on, when it came to firemen, Violet March had finally learned to see things in black-and-white.
Chapter 3
Sam’s office still smelled like frosting the following morning. The warm scents of sugary buttercream and whipped vanilla hung in the air, as tempting as the fiery Miss Violet March herself.
Not for Sam, of course. He could resist. He would resist. He’d rather run straight into another burning building than get tangled up with her again.
There was no reasoning with Violet. He’d tried to explain that the newspaper clipping on the wall hadn’t been his doing. Chief Murray had apparently discovered the article on the internet when he’d been checking up on Sam’s qualifications and had been so slaphappy to have found a fireman with a .333 college batting average that he’d printed the damn thing out and stuck it in a frame. But of course Violet was too impetuous to stick around and listen to Sam’s perfectly logical explanation.
Color Sam shocked. He’d known Violet was trouble when she accused him of dognapping. For some silly reason, though, when she’d turned up in his office the day before with that pretty pink box in her arms and her boisterous Dalmatian tethered to her slender wrist by a leash decorated with tiny cartoon cupcakes, he’d let down his guard. Only for a moment…but that tiny sliver of a second had been almost long enough to forget why he’d come to Turtle Beach to begin with. Spoiler alert: it wasn’t to let himself get wrapped around the beautiful little finger of the police chief’s daughter.
He should feel grateful, really. The fact that she apparently thought he was part of some grand softball conspiracy against the police department guaranteed that she’d give him a wide berth from now on, and that was exactly what Sam needed. Space. It was why he’d given up his brownstone in Chicago and left the city he’d called home for his entire life to start anew on the windswept beaches of the Carolina coast. He could breathe here. He could heal. He could sink his toes in the sand, close his eyes, and forget everything that had gone so terribly wrong three months ago—everything he’d lost. Everything he’d loved.
His new life wasn’t about putting out fires. It was about preventing them, both the actual kind and the metaphorical. The rush he used to get when he rode up on a fire in the rig was gone, and it wasn’t coming back. He used to live for the burn in the back of his throat and the sooty smell of his hair after he walked away from a call and peeled away his turnout gear. They’d meant he’d done something real, something important.
Something else had fundamentally shifted inside of him, though. He no longer craved the burn at the back of his throat. He loathed it, and he’d set out to do anything and everything in his power to prevent it. That was what the move to the Turtle Beach Fire Department had been about. As a fire marshal, he could stop tragedies before they ever happened—especially in an underserved community like Turtle Beach. His new hometown had never had a full-time fire marshal, but he was here now. He could do his part to make the town as safe as possible. Coming here had never been about softball, no matter what Violet might think.
Sam was content to let her believe whatever she wanted, however. He’d just as soon skip another round of apology cupcakes. The sight of her standing across from his desk had rattled him, and he didn’t like being rattled. He didn’t need the distraction of her soulful sea-glass eyes or her full cherry-red lips any more than he needed her Dalmatian spitting Ping-Pong balls at his feet.
Even so, when he’d stumbled out of bed this morning, poured himself a mug of steaming black coffee, and carried it out onto the deck of his new beach cottage, his entire body had flooded with heat at the sight of Violet riding a bicycle along the boardwalk on the bay side of the island.
Her bike was a vintage beach cruiser, Tiffany-blue with fat cream-colored tires and a wicker basket attached to the handlebars. Was she wearing a helmet? No, of course not. Her strawberry hair streamed behind her, kissed by glittering gold sunlight, and to make things even more dangerous, Sprinkles ran alongside the bicycle, attached once again to Violet’s wrist with the pink cupcake leash. The whole scene was an accident waiting to happen.
Sam’s grip tightened on his coffee cup. Beside him, Cinder let out an uncharacteristically mournful whine.
“We’re going back inside,” Sam said as cool, salty air caused Cinder’s ears to flap in the breeze. He had no desire to stick around and watch that crazy dog drag Violet into a wall or the ocean, minus appropriate protective gear.
Yet he’d inexplicably remained rooted to the spot until his coffee had gone cold and Violet had ridden out of sight, just a swirl of golden light and black-and-white spots in the distance.
“Have you got cake in here?” Griff said as he leaned against the doorjamb of Sam’s office, a damp towel slung over his shoulder.
Every fire station in America started its morning shift in the same way—inspecting all equipment and apparatus, followed by cleaning the rigs. Washing the fire trucks was as routine and predictable as the rising sun. Sam wondered when he’d get used to starting the day without a soapy sponge in his hand now that he rode a desk instead of a shiny red fire truck.
“Nope,” he said without elaborating. “No cake.”
“Weird, because it smells like cake in here.” Griff crossed his arms. “Also, I personally escorted Violet to your office yesterday, and I distinctly remember the bakery box in her hands.”
Sam glowered at him. “There’s no cake.”
“Geez, I was just asking.” Griff shrugged. “Too bad, because her cupcakes are out of this world.”
“Well, you won’t find any of them in this office,” Sam said, aggressively straightening the stack of papers on his desk.
He wasn’t sure why the lack of cake in his life bothered him so much all of a sudden. Cake was unhealthy and frivolous. It rotted the teeth. He’d never wanted a bite so badly in his life.