Tyler Armstrong needed a drink. Urgently. Three weeks of arduous, backbreaking hotshot training had taken everything out of him.

“Come on, we don’t have all night,” he called out to the group of guys -- and one girl -- who’d become his friends during the past twenty-one exhausting days and nights.

“Actually, we have,” Gunner, a strong and tall guy with blond hair answered him with a broad grin. “For once there’s nothing else we gotta do than drink ourselves senseless.”

“Or hit the sack with a willing woman,” Joe said, eyeing some of the females in the bar.

“But to proposition one of them, you’d have to able to stand.” Tyler chuckled and slid onto the bench with a resounding thump. He barely contained a groan as his sore muscles protested the movement.

Gunner mirrored his actions and grimaced in pain. “Point taken. Three weeks ago, I thought I was in great shape, but now I’m not so sure anymore.”

Tyler and Gunner had been friends and colleagues for years in the L.A. fire department, and had applied for the hotshot training together.

“You are one sorry bunch of wimps,” Florence, the only female who’d made it through the grueling training, teased as she flopped on the bench opposite theirs at the table.

“Now you’re telling us you’re not wrought out, Blondie?” Gunner said to the slim, blond woman. They’d nicknamed her Blondie from the first day, because she looked the part. But beneath her slim frame, her soft blue eyes and the gorgeous blonde waves lingered a fierce determination to succeed. Tyler had never seen such a steely will in a human before. After hating her nickname at the beginning, she’d soon come to accept it as a compliment.

“I could go on a ten-mile run, no probs,” she boasted.

Tyler laughed. “Feel free, but don’t expect company. I need a beer. Where’s the waitress?”

Moments later the waitress appeared out of nowhere, smiling at the loud and happy bunch. Since the bar was located near the hotshot base, she’d probably gotten used to loud and adrenaline-driven firefighters.

“Beer, and lots of it,” someone ordered.

The waitress smiled and counted the number of people aloud, “Eight beers?”

Everyone nodded, and Tyler leaned back, stretching out his long legs beneath the table.

“Hey, get your pins out of my way,” Joe complained.

“Not possible. I won’t be moving one inch until after I’ve downed my first beer.” Tyler watched the six men and one woman around the table, engaging in friendly banter. They’d grown into a unit during the last three weeks, which was a welcome byproduct of the hard training. Physical fitness wasn’t the only thing necessary to become a hotshot. Out in the wilderness a firefighter depended even more on the expertise of his colleagues than in the city.

Tyler loved being a firefighter, and had never wanted to be anything else. When his best friend Gunner had sprung the idea on him of becoming a hotshot, he hadn’t hesitated for a split-second, despite the possible challenges and the danger. Even now as he leaned against the back of the bench, sore and exhausted from head to toe, excitement pushed through his veins at the thought of their first real wildfire.

Man against nature. A battle as old as mankind, but it never lost its appeal. Not for Tyler, he thrived on the thrill, the rawness, the power. The waitress jolted him out of his thoughts as she set eight beer glasses onto the table with a loud thump. Gunner had the presence of mind to order another round, before she disappeared.

“So, tomorrow is the day,” Tyler said after downing the entire pint in one big gulp.

“Pah, the arduous fitness pack test is peanuts,” Florence said. “After everything they’ve made us do, we can manage a three-mile run within forty-five minutes.”

“Don’t forget the forty-five-pound pack, Blondie. That’s about half your body weight.” Every single one of the twenty-something hotshot trainees, including Tyler, had tried to hook up with Florence during the training, but she’d made it clear that she considered herself off-limits for her coworkers. Which actually was a sensible point of view and they’d soon come to see her as one of the guys.

But that didn’t mean they had sworn off all women. Tyler looked around the bar, taking notice of the small groups of single women gathered here and there. “Looks promising,” he murmured, mostly to himself, but the guy from Colorado, Kevin, overheard it and joined in on the conversation.

“Looks like there’s more to do tonight than drinking,” Kevin said.

“You boys looking to get lucky tonight? Anything on your mind besides booze and sex?” Florence asked, rolling her eyes.

“What did you expect? After three weeks passing out each night completely exhausted, I, for one, could do with a warm and soft body in my bed,” Kevin chuckled, eying a buxom brunette.

“Not too shabby,” Tyler murmured, following the direction of his eyes.

Gunner lifted his glass and proposed a toast, “Here’s to us and our companions for the night.”

“Here, here.”

One guy named Jeb, from one of the northern States, rubbed his hands together and pushed away from the table. “I don’t know about the rest of you, but time’s a wasting. I think I’ll test the waters.”

Tyler watched him saunter across the crowded bar and stop where a group of three young women were laughing and having a good time. He smirked as Jeb not only had them eating out of his hands within a few minutes, but they made room for him in the booth, sandwiching him between the two blondes while he waved his bunkmate over to talk to the red head.

“That boy moves fast,” Steven, another trainee commented.

Tyler shook his head saying, “No, he just got lucky. I’m guessing the women who come here know the score, and also know when training is about over. I see it all the time back home. Most of the fire crews hang out at a local bar a few blocks from the firehouse. It’s not unusual to find girls on the prowl trying to entice us single guys into getting between the sheets with them.”

“That sounds a little too easy, if you ask me,” Steven said with a shake of his head. “They don’t make you work for it at all, huh?”

Tyler shrugged. “Comes with the job description. Not that I’m complaining.”

“One of the perks of being a firefighter,” Gunner added.

The waitress arrived with the second round of beers and Tyler inhaled half of his, before he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Nothing beats a cool blonde.”

Nick shot him a dirty grin, tipping his glass toward the pool tables at the back of the bar. “Check out the rack on that one. Not blonde, but still good.”

Tyler’s eyes followed Nick’s gaze to see a brunette wearing a barely-there sundress leaning over to take a shot. “Be my guest” he muttered, appreciating her gorgeous ass, and the ample breasts almost spilling out of the small halter dress. Boring, he thought. The woman was gorgeous, but she lacked the sass that warmed his blood. A few years ago, he would have looked his fill, maybe even sampled some of what was being offered, but not now.

After seeing his four brothers fall head over heels in love with the one, he was getting tired of pretty faces with no brains and secretly yearned to leave the playing field behind and get steady. Not that he’d ever admit this to anyone, even himself. But especially not to his friends, who would just ride him about it without mercy.

“I will go introduce myself,” Nick pushed away from the table, tossing some bills on the top to cover his portion of their tab. “I’ll find my way back to base.”

“Be careful. Safety first,” Tyler cautioned him good-naturedly, receiving a rude hand gesture from Nick in return, to which the rest of the guys left at the tables laughed.

“What about you, Steven? You game to find a friend tonight?” Steven was the oldest of the trainees this class, having just turned thirty-five. Due to his quiet nature, Tyler knew the least about him.

Steven took a big drink of his beer and then shook his head. “Not me. I’ve got me a good woman up north I’m aiming to see soon.”

“You’re married?” Tyler asked, in shock.

Steven grinned and nodded. “Almost fifteen years now. Sheila and I met in tenth grade and we’ve been together ever since.”

Tyler shook his head saying, “I don’t get it. Why would you want to train to become a hotshot with a wife back home?”

Steven shrugged. “I’ve always wanted to be a hotshot. I held off while Sheila and I were trying to have kids, but it turns out that’s not going to happen for us. At least, not our own biological kids, anyway. I figured I’d get the training and work this season, possibly the next. The money is three times what I make back home. Adoption costs money, and this way, I can provide for our bills and still save enough to make our dreams of becoming a family real.”

Steven’s well thought out plans stunned Tyler. He didn’t plan that far ahead. It just wasn’t in his nature. At the age of twenty-six, he preferred the spontaneity of living day by day.

“I admire your thought process. Is your wife okay with you doing this?”

Steven shook his head. “Not really, but she understands the why and does her best to be supportive. I don’t know. Maybe after one year, I’ll decide it’s not for me and go back to working as a paramedic for the county.”

Tyler started to respond, but his eye caught sight of a new arrival to the bar. A jolt of electricity shot through him, and it was all he could do to keep his mouth from hanging open and drool from running out. A young woman stepped through the doors of the bar, her auburn hair in a tousled bob cut. She scanned the room, connected with his eyes for a moment, before she turned and laughed at something one of her friends had said.

During the short moment he’d caught a glance into her pale blue eyes, the earth had stopped moving and Tyler reeled from the impact. His stomach clenched as if someone had actually punched him.

She was with a group of friends, two girls and five or six incredibly well-built guys. He squinted his eyes at her, following her every movement, before he decided that none of the men were romantically interested in her or the other woman, a blonde. They were just a group of friends.

They damn well better be just friends. With the first tug of her magnetic pull, he’d already staked his claim.

Suddenly his heart hammered way up in his throat. If he were going to have sex tonight, it would be with her. All other woman he’d met in his entire life paled compared to this bundle of energy in front of him. Her sparkling laughter reverberated through the room and it seemed the entire place had lit up with the sound.

Her tall and slim body showed the muscles of vigorous exercise, and God, how he loved a strong woman. One he could go rough on without having to fear he’d snap her in half. Tyler already envisioned how he’d press her up against the wall, hammering into her, while he filled his hands with her perfect breasts. A few inches shy of six feet, she showed off the best-sculpted pair of legs in khaki shorts he’d ever set eyes on. He imagined those firm legs slung around his hips while she begged him to take her harder…he almost lost it with the delicious erotic thought and swallowed hard to regain some control over his libido.

She seemed to be a regular, because she greeted the bartender by name and ordered a round of beer, before she hiked herself up onto a bar stool and turned her back to Tyler.

“Holy Lord,” he hissed when he saw her gorgeous backside. Her off-white crop top with a delicate laced fastening exposed a good chunk of perfect tan skin, and he almost toppled over trying to keep himself from storming over to her.

“That one’s a true knockout,” Gunner said, and for a moment Tyler pondered strangling him, but in the end, he only sent him a deadly stare.

“Wowza,” Gunner said, holding his hands up, “she’s all yours. I’m not even looking.”

“Look this way,” Tyler murmured to himself, his entire body tensed as it craved another look at her face.

She gave him his wish a few seconds later when she turned on the bar stool and took a slow leisurely glance at the other patrons. When her eyes passed over him, Tyler had to hide his grin when they automatically came back for a second glance.

He watched her facial expressions, knowing the exact moment she realized he was watching her watch him. A delightful blush spread across her cheeks, but instead of hastily averting her eyes as he expected, she pursed her lips and raised one eyebrow at him, before presenting him with her devastatingly gorgeous back.

Hot. Hot. Hot.

The delectable brunette was just his type, and in this very moment he decided she’d be the perfect distraction after his weeks of hard training. He drained his beer glass, tossed more bills onto the table and then slid off the bench to target the bombshell of a woman sitting at the bar with only one goal in mind – get back to her place as soon as possible and take them both up the mountain of ecstasy as many times as possible before the sun rose.