Page 4 of Set Me On Fire

If she was anyone else, male, female, adult, or child, I’d have been giving her a serve right now, but something about her had me holding my tongue. Perhaps the fine tremor that had her shaking like a leaf under my grip.

The sound of more sirens let us know that back up was coming. I was dimly aware that the cops had arrived and were working to move everyone on, but I could only focus on her. Her rapid breaths, her chest heaving with the effort, the quick flick of her eyes, it wasn’t hard to imagine her responding in a similar way to much more pleasant stimuli.

That’s what summoned a stab of shame.

The girl was scared and what she needed was help, not someone creeping on her.

“It’s OK.” Shit, I already said that. “Just give me the details that you remember. Just the facts.”

“The deep fryer caught fire. Geoff mustn’t have changed the oil recently, even though I ask him every single Sunday to sort that out.” Steel came back into her voice at the same time as her spine straightened. Her eyes met mine, and I saw then the small flare of gold around the irises. “If he doesn’t, it smokes and gets unstable, then the punters complain because their chips taste like shit.” She began to move, pacing back and forth in little circles. “I was dealing with about a billion customers wanting Christmas drinks.”

“A billion?” I asked, looking around me.

“A few hundred then,” she amended sheepishly. “I heard a shout from the kitchen and then…” Her focus was jerked back to the pub, as if seeing it for the first time, and I watched her brows crease, the flames reflected in her pupils. “Then I went into thekitchen. Geoff filled a bloody bucket up with water and I…” Her throat worked, and my hand found hers. Those little fingers gripping mine, they drove everything else out of my head. “I shouted at him to stop, but then he tripped?—”

“Got it. It’s OK—” It wasn’t. It really, really wasn’t. “We’ve got this now.”

“I remembered what the old guy told us in the training session.” She wouldn’t let me go, and my whole body got hot, as if I was the one fighting the fire right now. “I know you’re not supposed to put water on it. I grabbed the lids to the fryers.”

No, I wanted to say, imagining her doing just that and only just being able to bite back my sharp retort.

“I smothered the flames.” She was staring at me, begging me for understanding, absolution. Plenty of people did this, even when a fire had nothing to do with them, so I nodded. “I know that’s what you’re supposed to do.”

“You’re safe.” I shouldn’t be touching her, that’s what our training on interacting with the public told us. Sometimes you couldn’t avoid it, having to carry people from buildings, but I had no such excuse right now. Both hands landed on her shoulders, feeling the fine bones there. “You’re safe, and you did everything you could.”

“Knox!” Charlie jogged over, looking flushed but triumphant. “Fire’s out. Noah’s checking the gas bottles, but I reckon we’re good.”

“I’ll take a look,” I said, going to pull away, but that’s when my teammate caught sight of the girl.

“You in charge?” he asked with a well-practised smile. It was the kind that had women dropping their panties everywhere we went, and for some reason, I felt the need to step in front of the girl to protect her from it. “I’m Charlie, and you are…?”

An angel. A picture of feminine perfection.

Mine.

Where the fuck did that possessive growl come from? I jerked my hands down, remembering all the stuff the psychologists told us about the vulnerable states victims found themselves in after a fire. She blinked then, her brain coming back online.

“Millie…” She shook her head. “Amelia McDonald. I manage The Stafford.”

She offered him her hand, and he took it with a smile.

“Pretty shitty circumstances, but it's a pleasure to meet you, Millie.”

Chapter 3

Charlie

Who the hell was the babe?

Putting out fires always had me bouncing. I’d been taken aside and people had been forced to have a few words with me about it, checking to see if my enthusiasm for the job had a sinister element, but I was no pyro. If I hadn’t become a firefighter, I would’ve signed up to be a cop or in the military, because sitting behind desks killed me. I needed to always be moving, like a shark, my dad observed.

“Let Knox know we’ve got this sorted,” Noah said, the guy’s vibe the complete opposite to mine. Always quiet, always sober, was Noah. Pretty sure that’s why we got teamed up together. He always had his eye on the prize, whereas I…

Damn.

Why’d she have to be so damn pretty?

I expected the manager to be some lady in her sixties, complete with a Victoria Bitter beer tattoo, not some freaking hottie in her late twenties. I drifted closer because I was supposed to be updating our lead on what was happening, but… I watched Knox step in, saw his hands go to her shoulders, andmy eyebrow cocked up. Knox was smart, level headed, and a damn good fireman.

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