Chapter One
“Never mess with a man’s ham.”
Luke Almeda high-fived his medic partner Will and slammed the ambulance door shut. He hadn’t stopped chuckling since his medic unit and the fire department rolled back into the fire station a few minutes before.
Of the hundreds of 911 calls he’d been on this year, the Ham Incident was easily in the top ten craziest. If not for his medic-in-training and long-time best friend Greer’s quick thinking, it might have turned deadly. For a rookie, she was really living up to the Good Luck Charm nickname he’d given her. Nearly every shift she’d been on with him and Will this past month had turned out okay when it could have gone very differently, and the common denominator was her.
Eager to rehash the incident with her, he called out, “Hey, Lucky.”
He peeked around the ambulance to where she’d been a minute before, but she was gone. Disappointed, he gave a cursory glance around. Nada. She’d probably gone to gather supplies or something. Usually, they hung out around the driver’s door for a minute or two to talk about the call before she started restocking. It had become a little routine he looked forward to.
Funny how smoothly they’d gotten back into stride, as if the four years they were apart while she was in college never happened. She was an old-money sweetheart on a pedestal of her mother’s making, and he was a middle-class grease-monkey’s son. How they’d ever become friends as kids was beyond him. She’d always been out of his league, but it hadn’t stopped him from caring about her and coveting her friendship. Nor had it stopped a hole from opening inside him when she’d left for college.
She’d been back in his life for six months, and he was already used to seeing her every day, a blessed relief from sending texts, Facetiming once a week, and waiting for her to visit on holidays.
Now, it was just like old times.
Sort of.
The Greer who’d left for law school had been the innocent girl he’d known her to be. The version of her who’d walked into his ambulance station was a grown woman with luscious curves and an ass that made tactical pants look as if they’d been tailored to her body.
It wasn’t just her beauty that threw him off-center. She carried herself with confidence that belied her former shy and tender nature. He could honestly picture her standing in the courtroom, commanding attention and walking out of there with exactly the result she’d hoped to achieve.
Little Greer Imogen Worth was fierce and sexy, and a new kind of hole had opened in his heart—one that wanted her for more than friendship. It was a feeling he couldn’t shake, even though he knew “more” wasn’t happening anytime soon.
Grabbing his paperwork, he headed down the hall toward the office.
“Let me get this straight. The dude from across the hall broke into his neighbor’s apartment and stole his ham?”
Luke recognized the rough male voice as Coss, a medic from truck 248, and he knew the light female laughter that followed. His jaw tightened as he diverted his path to follow the sounds.
“His freshly baked and still steaming ham,” she said excitedly.
“So, the dude breaks into the ham-stealer’s apartment and stabs him with a fork?” Coss asked.
Luke approached as she was holding out her hands excitedly.
“Right through the back of his hand, all the way through his palm. I mean…the ham smelled delicious, so I’d be a little stabby if someone took it, too.” She made a stabbing motion, clearly enjoying the reenactment.
Coss moved closer to her. “So, he’s got a fork through his hand, but he picks up the ham and—”
“Throws it out the window and onto the fire escape, knocking over a candle on the kitchen table, which started the curtains on fire.” She laughed, the clear, feminine sound sending warmth over Luke’s spine. She was a study in multi-faceted personality, and he’d spent more time than he wanted to admit trying to figure her out over the years. One minute, she was the engaging extrovert with a laugh and smile that drew a crowd. The next, she’d hole herself up in a room somewhere like a true introvert and paint, sometimes for days, barely seeking human company or remembering to feed herself. In between, she was bubbly and softhearted and loving.
Coss made another half step into her space and touched her wrist as he leaned his body toward her. Luke’s right hand clenched into a fist. Catching himself, he relaxed and tried to brush off his emotional response. Something was up with him this past week or two. He couldn’t seem to look at her without feeling…things.
Then again, any man on a self-imposed break from random hookups like him was bound to get a little twitchy over an attractive woman with the sweet taboo of being off-limits. Lack of sex was pumping him full of shit he otherwise ignored by, well, having lots of sex. Sex with his best friend was off the table—way off—and he really needed his hormones to get the memo.
“What dumbasses.” Coss anchored his elbow on the wall and leaned into Greer. His fingers slid over her wrist. She blushed, but didn’t pull away. What the hell?
The firefighter was nearly old enough to be her father. And the fire district’s newly minted “interpersonal relationship policy” clearly stated that coworkers within the department weren’t allowed to fraternize. Thanks to a former paramedic couple who turned the supply closet into a sex dungeon, complete with a stash of porn in the ceiling, the district had put its foot down on relationships between employees. The fire and ambulance services were a singular department and shared the firehouse, which meant no one could get frisky with anyone else, period.
So Coss could back the hell off.
Enough of this shit. He stepped into the hallway so he was clearly visible and sauntered over. The older medic gave him an irritated glance and opened his mouth to keep talking, but Luke interrupted him.
“The assholes decided to try and get through the broken window at the same time, both ending up on the fire escape. The kitchen is completely in flames. And the ham, the poor, delicious ham—” He looked at her and winked.
She spread her arms wide. “It gets kicked off the fire escape and falls onto Engine One as they pull up to the scene. There’s a dent in the hood the size of my head.”
Keeping his eyes on Coss, he bumped fists with Greer. He leaned in so their arms touched, and maintained the contact because, well, this was his friend and no way in hell was a man who’d been married three times and had a tattoo of spread-eagle Amy Winehouse on his back going to get hard over her.
He waited for her to mention how she’d grabbed the back of Fork-Hand’s shirt to keep him from falling twenty feet off the fire escape, but she simply looked up at him, the darker blue specks in her seafoam-green eyes bright from storytelling excitement. Pink flushed her cheeks in stark contrast to her white-blond hair, pale skin, and freckles. How had he never noticed the delicate pattern of those freckles scattered over the bridge of her nose?
He had to stop this. They’d had their chance one night before she’d left for college, and he’d fucked it up by walking away instead of giving in. He’d hoped time would help him forget the feel of her body under him.
It hadn’t.
If anything, time had made the tangled emotions from that night worse. He’d tried to move on—but the best he’d managed was a string of one-nighters and no desire for more commitment than that. If he thought about it a lot, he’d get catapulted back into regrets he didn’t want to deal with. Plus, their jobs and his chance at a promotion depended on their professionalism. Still, the longing was deep and crept up way too much.
“I need you.” The words tumbled out, tripping him up for a second. He did, for a lunch partner, but to his ears, his tone had been pathetic.
Coss made a disgusted sound. The older medic might have a few years on him, but if the cards landed right, Luke would be his superior soon. He might have to keep Greer close by and pat her belly for continued good luck. If he beat Coss out of this promotion, he’d finally have a shot at being the man Greer’s mother said he’d never be.
He nodded for her to follow him. He waited for her to reach his side, then nudged her with his elbow. The small contact was something he’d done hundreds of times over the years. It never used to give him a little shock like it did now, but whatever.
“What’s up?”
“Where do you want to go for lunch?”
Don Tacos.
“Don Tacos,” she said without missing a beat. “Why do you ask me that every day? You know what I’m going to say.”
Yeah, he did. She was picky as fuck about her food and Don Tacos made her chicken enchilada muy perfecto, so she stuck with it, despite him complaining that her limited palate was muy boring.
“Walk on the wild side, Greer. How about something different today?”
“No way.”
“God, you’re predictable. I bet you still lay out an entire week’s worth of clothes every Sunday night, with six pairs of the same socks and…other underthings.” He cringed internally. Why the hell had he said that? Knowing her, she’d blush and ignore it.
“Seriously, underthings? I wear grown-up underwear now. We women like to call them panties.”
He whipped her a look. She was lighthearted and fun, but dirty was not on her repertoire. High school Greer would have turned red at his very mention of underwear. Panties? Not a word in Old Greer’s vocabulary. His gaze dropped to her lips as an ache developed beneath his ribs. His brain wanted free rein, but he clamped down on the brewing mental images. He refused to imagine her in panties, for fuck’s sake. The idea of her in granny undies with a waist high enough to cover her chin had kept him out of trouble many a time they’d been alone together growing up.
She looked innocent, as if she had no idea what she’d just said. “Besides, there’s not much wardrobe planning with the standard EMS uniform. That does leave a little room to liven things up under the uniform, though.”
He faltered.
Why was his heart racing so hard? His hands itched to push her against the wall and see what she had on underneath those tactical pants. He looked up at the ceiling, welcoming the burn of bright fluorescent light in his eyes. If it were any other woman talking like this, he’d consider it a sexual invitation. But it was Greer.
And they were going to break the rules if they kept this up. It was tempting to break any fucking rule for her, but his promotion depended on his ability to enforce and uphold. His lonely, neglected dick needed to stay the hell out of it.
She walked a step ahead and threw him a quizzical look. Normally he’d tease and bait her back…when they were on safe ground. This was not safe ground. She tossed her braid over one shoulder. It glinted nearly white in the light.
“Oh, come on. I’m not that predictable. You never imagined I’d become a medic and show up on your squad.”
Hell no, he hadn’t seen that one coming. She’d only been a few weeks out from passing the bar exam when she’d called to say she was back in Southampton and had enrolled in the paramedicine program at the local tech school. He’d been overjoyed that she was home, yes, but had trepidations, too. Why hadn’t she just taken a position at her family’s criminal law firm and surrounded herself with prestige and financial security? She’d never really explained. Paramedicine was an emotionally trying job, with shitty pay and even shittier hours, that he wouldn’t recommend to his worst enemy.
She’d completed the one-year medic program, passed her exams, and gotten hired at the station like it had all been a cake walk. As her training officer, it made him feel a bit better to see how nicely she was breezing through her new-employment training. Tomorrow was the last day of her six-month orientation, which meant she’d leave him and Will and be partnered up with someone else. He rubbed the back of his neck. With limited openings on the squad, he had a suspicion who her new partner was going to be, and it pissed him off.
“What’s the matter?” Her voice lost its happy edge. Was he that easy to read?
“I’m starving,” he said, covering for his distraction.
They walked silently down the main hall. He increased his pace, wanting to sneak away before anyone caught on they were headed out to lunch. He held the door for her and dug his truck keys from his pocket.
“Please tell me my mother isn’t still bugging you.”
He grimaced. Hell, yes, she was. She called him almost weekly to passively aggressively cajole him into talking her precious daughter out of sinking to his level in her career choice.
“She’s convinced I can talk you into joining the law firm, where everything is fancy vacations and money.”
She gave an annoyed huff. Her relationship with her mother had been difficult as long as he’d known them. “Not happening,” she said. “I like what I’m doing, and I’m good at it.”
True, she was. For a newbie, anyway. He never sided with Marvelene Worth on anything, but he did agree that being a paramedic was, at best, a middle-class endeavor that frequently chewed new medics up and spit them out with a hefty side of PTSD.
Nah, he’d never been good enough for the Worth’s only daughter. He’d always been the mechanic’s son, living in the fancy house across the street thanks to his grandmother’s inheritance, with nothing more than a middle-class future. And now that Greer was following in his footsteps, poor Marvelene was going out of her mind.
“It’s not that you’re not good at it, Lucky. It’s a hard job. She’s just worried that you can’t…”
“I can handle it.”
She hooked his gaze with hers, pure stubbornness pooling in her expression. Her determination didn’t make him worry about her any less.
The handheld radio clipped to his waist vibrated before it began to beep.
“Fire 31, Ambulance 245, you’re needed for a two-vehicle accident on Highway 2. Extrication needed for a trapped infant.”
Without a word, she darted ahead of him as they ran back inside. Luke followed on her heels, her words playing in his head.
I can handle it.