Page 44 of The Firefighter's Fate

“Is this about that journalist our father has hired?” I quiz my brother.

He nods, gauging my reaction with his darkly intelligent eyes.

“Yep.”

“Great,” I mutter angrily. “That’s not me creating a little stir, though. Blame that all on the man who raised us. He’s behind it all. He’s got her swooping into this town to spy on me. I can’t shake her, despite my best efforts.”

It always comes back to Ember. It always comes back to the girl who makes my heart skip a beat and my body to tense when she’s around.

I really can’t shake her. Not physically. And not from my thoughts.

“She came to see me, you know?”

I freeze.

“Ember did?” I ask Spencer, nearly uncharacteristically stuttering over her name.

“Yes,” he replies with a glimmer of a smirk. “She’s a nice girl, Connor.”

“Don’t give me that crap.”

“She’s pretty, isn’t she?”

“Stop it right there, brother.”

“Olivia thought that, too. She reckons you two would get along.”

“Spencer, stop.”

“Why don’t you talk to her?” my brother asks.

“You know why,” I reply. “I don’t want to be known. I don’t want there to be a fucking article about me going up online. I just want to be left in peace.”

“It’s a bit hard when you have the Penmayne last name,” Spencer says.

“Yep. That’s true. That’s hard enough as it is without some journalist sniffing around the fire station.”

“Royce told me she went to his Air Force base as well,” my brother says. “She had questions for him.”

“So, she is really gathering information,” I reply. “She’s good at her job. What did you say to her?”

My brother smiles even more.

“I told her nothing except that you’d be impossible to talk to.”

I look at my brother.

He looks back at me.

And I begin to laugh and laugh and laugh.

“Yeah, you were right about that, brother.”

22

EMBER

I walk into the fire station, hoping that today is my day - the day I finally get that freaking interview with the trickiest man I’ve ever met.

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