True North (Golden Falls Fire Book 1) by Scarlett Andrews (30)

For Josh Barnes, a serious relationship is the last thing on his mind. Since coming home from the military, all he wants is to fulfill his childhood dream of racing the Iditarod.

But while he treasures being out in the vast Alaskan wilderness with his team of sled dogs, it’s not easy managing the kennel while working as a firefighter in his charming hometown of Golden Falls, Alaska. And it’s darn near impossible to make time for love—not that he’s looking for that, anyway. Short-term and casual is more his style, at least until he meets a certain hazel-eyed beauty who throws off all his ideas about romance.    

Hayley March, start-up entrepreneur of an Alaska-based dating service, has great success helping others find “their person.” But when it comes to finding love herself, the professional matchmaker doesn’t know what she’s doing wrong. Enter Josh Barnes, the sexy firefighter she uses as a profile subject for her Bring Your Heart to Golden Falls campaign. Josh is perfect in every way—except he’s only looking for a fling, while Hayley’s looking for forever.

When Hayley enlists Josh to be her dating coach, she agrees to a temporary liaison under the condition that he point out her dating blind spots and help her become a catch for the next guy who comes along. She reluctantly moves on after their passionate fling, and Josh realizes he might have been a fool to let her go. But is he really ready for forever?

* * *

His alarm clock wouldn’t go off for another half hour, but Josh Barnes woke when the floodlights in his backyard went on at five o’clock, followed soon after by the not-so-faint furor of barking by his kennel of twenty sled dogs, who eagerly anticipated the soupy slop delivered to them by Josh’s dad, Bruce.

Yard lights. The cacophony of the dogs. The revving sound of his dad’s snowmobile starting up. It all marked morning feeding time at the Sourdough Kennel, at least on the days Josh reported for work at the Golden Falls Fire and Rescue Department. Otherwise, he’d be the one loading his snowmobile to feed the dogs, who were kept at the edge of his twenty-acre property, away from the house to lessen their noise.

And oh, the noise.

You’ll never get a wife this way, his most recent ex-girlfriend, Shannon Steele, had chided him one morning, unhappy about being woken so early and in such a manner. The girlfriend before had said much the same thing, adding, You’d never really expect a woman to live out here with a bunch of yapping dogs, would you?

When he’d been serving overseas in Afghanistan and gotten the call from Bruce telling him old man Ferris next door had passed away and his widow wanted to sell the kennel and house dirt cheap, preferably to Josh if he wanted it, women and marriage had been the last things on his mind.

He’d been thinking only of Golden Falls, where it was greener-than-green in summer and whiter-than-white in winter and where in spring the rivers cracked and the meadows bloomed. Before enlisting as a Navy Hospital Corpsman attached to the Marine Corps, he’d considered relocating to the Lower Forty-Eight and seeing what life had to offer down there, but by the time his dad’s call came in, Josh had seen enough. He just wanted to go home.

Some of his favorite childhood memories were helping old man Ferris train the sled dog puppies. He’d drive a four-wheeler in summer, or a snowmobile in winter, and the Alaskan Husky pups would trail after him, learning to follow their leader. He’d have them haul wood on a sled and teach them not to chew the rope lines.

During his deployment, Josh had been dreaming of the dogs and he’d been dreaming of Denali, the great mountain to the west, which was always in his sights as a child and forever fixed in his mind as the image of his true home.

He’d been dreaming of steering a sled behind a team of dogs out on the tundra without another person in sight.

He’d been dreaming, too, of the Iditarod, the last great race on earth—of its beauty and its brutality, and how racing it would by necessity blot from his brain everything having to do with war and ugly brown deserts and soldiers dying.

He’d thought sled-dog racing might help him forget.

He hadn’t been thinking of women at all.

* * *

Josh bought the property.

Bruce, by then retired as chief of the police force, agreed to help manage the kennel, both until Josh got back from the service and afterwards. Josh came home and was hired on as a firefighter for Golden Falls. He’d since gotten his paramedic license, and the job itself gave him a lot of free time, but his forty-eight-hour shifts meant he still needed a kennel manager, a position his father served.

On a fire shift morning, it was just his dad feeding the dogs in the bitter pre-dawn cold of early November in Alaska’s interior, and while Josh could have gone back to sleep for another half-hour, he instead decided to help him. He turned off his alarm clock, turned on the lights, hit the remote to get his electric fireplace going, and got out of bed. He did his daily upon-waking pushups and then layered up. He stopped in the kitchen to get a pot of coffee brewing, then trekked across the yard to the kennel. It would be dark yet for hours, and Josh always found it a lonely time of day.

“Morning, Josh.” His dad greeted him with a nod, his cheeks ruddy.

“Damn cold this morning,” Josh said.

“Always is this time of year. You’re up early.”

“So are you.” The morning feeding was usually a couple hours later, at about seven. “You couldn’t sleep?”

Bruce shook his head. “Tossing and turning, as usual.”

“Ditto.”

Josh couldn’t remember the last time he’d had a solid night’s sleep. Certainly not since high school, and probably not since his mom died when he was thirteen. His mind was restless at night; it was when his ghosts came to haunt him. He guessed it was the same for his dad.

They worked together in companionable silence as the dogs barked en masse, excited because they knew food was coming soon. Each dog had its own little dog house to which it was chained, and several began running to the end of their tether and back, jumping on and off their doghouse, over and over. Others simply stood, barking, tails wagging. Josh and his dad went around with slop buckets and gave each dog his portion, and one by one, the kennel quieted as each began to eat.

“I’ve got coffee on,” Josh said.

“Music to my ears. Want to hop on?”

“Nah, I’ll walk.”

“You go ahead, then. I’ll load up the slop buckets.”

Josh was at his back door when Bruce pulled up. Always a relief to step inside, it was doubly nice to be greeted by the smell of fresh coffee. As Josh poured two mugs, Bruce took a seat at the table with a groan.

“You okay?” Josh asked as he handed his dad his mug and sat at the table across from him.

“My bones feel old on these cold winter mornings.”

“I hear you.”

Bruce smiled. “You’re twenty-nine. What do you know about feeling old?”

“Hey, I’ll be thirty next month.”

“That’s right.” Bruce sipped his coffee. “Speaking of which, your sister wants to know the best day to throw you a surprise party. Any thoughts?”

Josh grinned. His family was famous for faking surprise parties, a little joke they played on the rest of the world. “Well, we’ve got the race my birthday weekend, so not before then.”

Josh had signed up to race the dogs in the Akpaliki Taurtut, a hundred-mile race sponsored by the city of Golden Falls to bring winter business to the area, as a prelude to the Iditarod in March.

“That’s right.” Bruce said. “We do, don’t we?”

“You don’t sound too enthused about it.”

“Winter camping at the age of sixty-one? What’s not to like?”

Josh sized up his dad. For someone who was never one to complain, it sounded quite a bit like a complaint. It sounded, too, like his dad might soon bail on him. He couldn’t blame him. Josh’s older twin sisters lived in the Florida Keys and co-owned a thirty-six-foot sailboat. Why wouldn’t his dad prefer to spend winters there near his daughters and three grandchildren instead of feeding slop to dogs before dawn in below-freezing temperatures? Josh had been lucky to have had his dad’s help for the past three years, and he well knew it.

“Should I try to find someone else to be my kennel manager?”

“No, no,” Bruce said. “I always keep my obligations.”

“I wish it didn’t feel like an obligation.”

“I don’t mind.” His dad shrugged. “I know how important the dogs are to you.”

“It’s not only the dogs that are important to me, Dad. You and Maggie are, too. Your happiness is important to me.”

“We’re happy enough.”

Maggie was Josh’s sister, older by one year. An ICU nurse on the graveyard shift, she was also his roommate and arguably his best friend. Their brother Jack, also a firefighter like Josh, lived on the opposite side of downtown, but there was bad blood between Bruce and his oldest son. To the best of Josh’s knowledge, no one other than the two of them knew why. Josh had grown up idolizing Jack, but he now resented how he’d ruined the family’s cohesiveness. It had been bad enough losing their mom, but losing all the big-family traditions and holidays had been a second death, a preventable one. So while the brothers worked together at Golden Falls Fire Station One, Josh on the ladder crew and Jack on the engine crew captain, a current of unease still ran between them.

“Speaking of happy, do you have any goals for your thirtieth year?” Bruce asked.

“Just one—not to finish dead last in the Iditarod.”

The race coming up in March would be Josh’s third. The first time he dropped out because of too many dog injuries, and the previous year he’d come in last.

“Third time’ll be the charm.” Bruce peered at him. “And then what? You think you might be ready to get as serious about a woman as you are about dog-sledding?”

“You’ve already got three grandkids,” Josh reminded Bruce. “Can’t you leave me in peace?”

He already got those types of comments from the various women he’d dated since coming home from the military. He was a physical guy in the prime of his life, and he liked sex as much as the next guy, the wilder the better, but he began each potential relationship with the same five words—I don’t do long term.

And he meant them.

Still, hookups commenced, one-night stands turned into short-term flings, and all was great until words like love and forever started to find their way into the conversation. And then things got messy, and Josh broke things off and retreated to the companionship of the dogs, who never asked for anything more than food and water and long miles pulling a sled.

“This isn’t about grandkids,” Bruce said. “Young single women are already few and far between in Alaska. I worry that when you’re finally ready to settle down, all the good ones are going to be taken.”

“Maybe I won’t ever want to settle down.” He grinned at his dad. “It’s not like I’ve been lonely in the bedroom.”

“No,” Bruce said. “But I think you’ve been a little lonely in life.” The words stung, because his father knew him very well. “And, son, trust me when I say there’s nothing quite like the love of a good woman.”

Josh remembered then it was the anniversary of his mom’s death, and Bruce’s uncharacteristic seriousness made more sense.

“Are you going to the cemetery today?” he asked quietly.

“Sure am.” Bruce took a deep breath and stared at the nearly-gone coffee in his mug and looked so, so tired. “You can sleep at night with a good woman beside you. Did I ever tell you that? That’s how you know you’ve found the right one.”

Josh thought of all the nights spent tossing and turning with a woman beside him, of all the hours he’d spent watching them sleep so peacefully while he lay starkly awake, his body satisfied but his mind as unquiet as ever. He felt most alone those nights.

“If that’s true, then I definitely haven’t found the right woman yet,” he said.

“Which is why you should keep on looking.”

“I haven’t been looking.”

“Okay,” Bruce said. “Then it’s why you should start looking.”

* * *

When Hayley March burst through the door of the North Star Café, all eyes turned to her. More than any place else in Golden Falls, the North Star Café was where you went to see and be seen, especially in the early mornings when the town’s movers and shakers gathered for business, coffee, and the signature cinnamon buns. It was the quintessential anchor of the tidy downtown square, with a deco-style metal awning out front and big glass windows with decorations that changed with the seasons.

Hayley was there to meet Claire Roberts, her fifty-something boss and business mentor. While earning her marketing degree from Alaska State, Hayley had gotten an internship with the employment agency owned by Claire, one of the many local business she owned. Hayley had flourished in her role and was hired after graduation, and now she wasn’t only working for the employment agency matching people to jobs, but launching her own side-along business, matching people to people: helping others find love as Golden Falls’ one and only matchmaker.

Claire was already at the café, of course, because Hayley was five minutes late and Claire was never late to anything. Hayley settled into the booth near the roaring stone fireplace.

“Sorry I’m late,” she said, knowing Claire considered promptness an essential quality for successful businesswomen. “For the first time in a long time, I actually cared how I looked in the morning.”

“It’s your big interview day! Are you excited?”

“I’m kind of nervous, actually.”

Hayley, the budding entrepreneur, was scheduled to be interviewed by the glamorous Cassie Holt of KFLS Channel Eight later that morning. She’d tried on and decided against four different outfits before settling on black dress pants and the form-fitting teal cashmere sweater Claire had given her for Christmas the year before. The outfit wouldn’t hide the extra ten pounds Hayley was carrying, but it would have to do.

“I love that sweater on you, Hayley,” Claire said. “It contrasts so nicely with your auburn hair, and it makes your eyes even more hazel-y. It’s the perfect thing to wear for TV.”

“You think? It doesn’t make me look too fat?”

“No, because you’re not fat.”

“I gained a few pounds after Danny and I broke up,” Hayley said, having recently gotten on the scale for the first time since her last break-up, which had taken place at about this time the previous year. After that, she’d vowed to get her act together. She’d hit the gym that day, and the next day, and resolved to go every day for the rest of her life. It would be her job, just like going to the office was. She’d be the fittest, sexiest, most successful businesswoman Golden Falls had ever seen … since Claire, anyway.

“Well, it’s a fair tradeoff,” Claire said. “Weight you can lose. Immature, man-child boyfriends like Danny can weigh you down for life if you end up marrying them. Trust me. I speak from experience.”

Claire had one failed marriage behind her, but she seldom talked about it. Once, she’d told Hayley she nearly forgot having been married at all.

“I know. Plus, I got an awesome apartment out of it! Honestly, Claire, I owe you forever for renting it to me on short notice like you did.”

The apartment was a spacious, newly-remodeled one-bedroom on the upper floor of a duplex Claire owned overlooking the Golden Falls City Park and the downtown square. It was perfectly opposite the café, in fact. Claire herself had rented the apartment back when she was Hayley’s age, and when her first business took off, she’d bought the duplex from her landlord. Over the following thirty years, Claire had built up a large portfolio of residential housing in town, mostly near the college campus, as well as owning nearly half the commercial buildings on Main Street—including the one in which they were having breakfast.

“I’m glad it was available at the right time.” Claire smiled. “I loved it, too, when I lived there, although I didn’t decorate it as nicely as you have.”

“You also didn’t go six thousand dollars into debt like I did to decorate and furnish it,” Hayley said with some chagrin.

“More lessons learned,” Claire said without judgment. “At least you got yourself out of it quickly.”

“One bartending shift at a time,” said Hayley, who’d worked at the Sled Dog Brewing Company three nights a week through the busy summer tourist season for the sole purpose of paying off her credit card debt. She still worked there a few nights a month and used her earnings for splurges. “Rebecca made me. She was more stressed about my debt than I was.”

“Speak of the devil.” Claire smiled as Rebecca Miller approached their table, looking happier than a person had a right to be after waking up at 3 a.m. to start baking. In her mid-thirties, Rebecca co-owned the café with her brother, Eric, who managed the people and the books. All Rebecca wanted to do was bake, and her customers were grateful for it.

That morning, she came bearing gifts—two bowls of chocolate bread pudding with heavy cream to pour over it.

“Devil’s right,” Hayley said, inhaling the scent of warm chocolate as she reached for her bowl. “Rebecca’s the real reason I’ve gained weight.”

“Hey, I just make it,” Rebecca said. “I don’t force you to eat it.”

“You could at least charge me for it.”

“But you’re my number one taste tester!”

“And it’s the best job in the world,” Hayley said, happily pouring cream over the pudding. “Speaking of jobs, mine is finding you a date, Rebecca. Are you coming to Singles Night this week?” Hayley was referring to the weekly event she hosted at the Sled Dog.

“If anyone can make me a believer in love, it’s you, Hayley. I’ll be there.”

“Hayley’s being interviewed by Cassie Holt this morning,” Claire said. “She’s doing a feature story on the Bring Your Heart to Golden Falls campaign.”

Rebecca grinned. “Bring your heart, leave your baggage?”

Weeks away from being launched, Hayley’s online campaign was designed to attract women from the Lower Forty-Eight to move to Alaska in general, and Golden Falls in particular.

“We’re leaving the baggage part out.” Three bites in, Hayley set down her spoon. “This is fantastic, but I can’t eat before the interview. I’m actually feeling kind of sick.”

“Don’t be nervous about Cassie,” Claire said. “She’s very nice. Definitely direct and East-Coasty, but friendly.” Claire, acquainted with Cassie Holt, had been the facilitator of the interview.

“Yeah, she comes in here all the time,” Rebecca added. “She and her firefighter boyfriend. She is nice. And hey, you could ask her for advice about the marketing campaign. She’s new to town and exactly your target age, isn’t she?”

“Any age is my target age,” Hayley said. “But I will ask her. She came for a job and stayed for a man. We need a few hundred women to do the same thing.”

“Cassie didn’t stay for just any man,” Rebecca said. “She stayed for Cody Bradford.”

“Those firefighters,” Claire said. “They sure are something.”

Her wistful tone make Hayley laugh. “You have a thing for younger men, Claire? Or firefighters?”

“Maybe a little of both.” Claire’s sharp blue eyes sparkled as she held up a forkful of bread pudding. “I definitely have a thing for this bread pudding, though. It’s wonderful. Say, what time do you have to go?”

Hayley glanced at the clock on the wall and stood. “Now.”

“Don’t worry.” Claire got up and gave her a hug. “You’ll be great.”

* * *

Hayley kept Claire’s words in mind as she bundled up and walked the short block to the Golden Touch Barbershop, where the interview would be held. She’d suggested the barbershop because the owner, Andrew Blake, was a retired firefighter who’d graced the cover of the annual firefighter calendar ten times. That’s how sexy he was. And, thanks to Claire’s urging, he was going to be one of the faces of her Bring Your Heart campaign. Hayley had already interviewed him for his profile piece.

In his fifties and tall with a medium build, Andrew was clear-eyed, friendly, and had a quick smile. An ex-military man, he looked great in the Levi’s and brown leather jacket he was fond of wearing. His thick brown hair wasn’t even peppered with grey … or was it? As the city’s best barber, and a city councilman to boot, he’d never tell.

Hayley brought him a cinnamon bun from the North Star, and he thanked her and set it aside for after the interview. He then introduced her to Cassie Holt, who was setting up for the interview, along with her cameraman.

“Hi, Hayley,” the reporter said. “Call me Cassie. It’s great to meet you.”

Cassie looked like Hayley expected from what she’d seen on TV, although shorter, and she had about the most perfect flip to her blond hair. Hayley had stubborn waves and always envied women with straight hair. But what most surprised Hayley was the big smile Cassie gave her as she said hello. On camera, she came across as all-business. Of course, Hayley reminded herself, warming up an interviewee was her business. In any case, Hayley appreciated it.

“Can I just say what a great idea I think this campaign of yours is?” Cassie said. “It really shows how this whole community is so welcoming, and everyone looks out for each other. It’s a big reason why I decided to stay after—” Cassie stopped, shrugged. “Well, I’m sure you heard all about what happened.”

“I’m glad you decided to stay,” Hayley said, “even after you were out of danger.” Cassie had been the victim of a violent stalker who’d followed her from New York to Golden Falls. He’d been caught and was now in prison.

“Thanks.” Cassie said. “This place won my heart, that’s for sure!”

“Ah, yes—I hear you’re dating a firefighter?”

“Word gets around fast! Cody. He’s ...” She sighed and smiled in a way that said true love.

Hayley couldn’t help but smile, too, and felt a twinge of wistfulness that she herself might have that glowing expression over somebody. Someday.

“Yeah, Golden Falls is one big small town,” Hayley said. “But whatever keeps you here. I know the winters can be brutal to newcomers. I’ve also noticed the station can’t seem to keep female anchors for very long.”

“That’s probably got more to do with my co-host than the weather, to be honest. He’s kind of a douche.”

Hayley laughed. “Michael Driessner.”

“The one and only.”

On a few of the occasions Hayley had actually used her gym membership, she’d seen Michael hitting on some college girls. He was twice their age at least, and Hayley must have counted a dozen eye-rolls between them.

“He looks so squirrelly. How has he not been fired?” she asked. “I can’t imagine he’s got high ratings.”

“He does, actually,” Cassie said. “The old ladies think he’s the cat’s meow. They never miss his newscast. Once I went with him to the senior center, and they flocked to him like he was the reincarnation of Elvis Presley. But enough about him. This interview’s about you. Are you from here?”

“No. I moved here when I was eighteen,” Hayley said.

“From?”

“Hibiscus Island. Near Miami.”

“That’s geographically about as far away as you could go and still be in the United States.”

Hayley smiled. “That was the point. My parents aren’t the nicest people.”

“That’s understandable,” Cassie said. “So you’re a graduate of Alaska State?”

“Yep,” Hayley said. She’d left home the summer after she’d graduated from high school and never looked back. In doing so, she’d given up her ample trust fund, but gained her freedom from a toxic family environment. The glorious feeling of standing on her own two feet in harsh Alaska had only affirmed she’d made the right decision.

Cassie said, “Before we start recording, can you explain if this is an actual business or just a marketing campaign for the town?”

“It’s definitely a business,” Hayley said. “My matchmaking service is a traditional subscription model, but the Bring Your Heart campaign is a mix of sponsorship and referral fees. I work for the Roberts Staffing Agency, and the major local employers are always looking for ways to attract and keep talent, so that’s where referrals come in. Then I’ve secured sponsorships from other local businesses and even a couple cruise lines.”

“How many women do you hope to recruit?” Cassie asked.

“Fifty a year would be great,” Hayley said. “I think we can get even more, because there are tons of job opportunities in the tourist sector during the summer months, as well as decent year-round jobs at the university and the hospital.”

“Are you going after women of certain ages?”

“Not really, no,” Hayley said. ”We need more women, period, and I think the type of woman who’s adventurous enough to take a chance on love by moving to the hip and thriving metropolis of Golden Falls, Alaska, is exactly the type of woman we want. I just have to make sure they make new friends fast and hopefully find a boyfriend right away. If they give me a year, I’ll give them a husband.”

Cassie laughed. “That should be your tagline.” She saw her cameraman tap his watch and nodded. “Are you ready for the interview?”

“I think so.” Hayley bit her lip.

“Don’t be nervous. You’ll be great.”

It was easy for her to say. She was a pro. “Do you have any advice for me?”

“Mostly just speak slowly. When people are nervous, they tend to rush their words. This isn’t a live interview, so if you mess up, don’t worry. We’ll only use the good stuff.”

“Alright, I’m ready,” Hayley said. “And thank you for being so nice. I was kind of intimidated to meet you. You’re so polished, and I’m so … not.”

“You’re totally polished!” Cassie said. “Not to mention, your sweater really makes your eyes pop.”

Cassie positioned her where she wanted her, and as the camera light went on and the big fuzzy boom microphone hovered over her head, Hayley’s heart raced. She took a few deep breaths and reminded herself to speak slowly. After a few questions, she found her groove.

And then Cassie asked her about her own love life.

“So a matchmaker like you—how did you find your perfect match?”

“Oh, uh, ooh.” Hayley froze. It was one thing to joke about it with her friends at the North Star Café but another thing entirely to become the laughingstock of interior Alaska. “I’m too busy building my business to be concerned about my own love life at the moment. I honestly don’t have time for love!”

It was a lie, and she was sure it came across on camera. The truth was, Hayley was very concerned about her love life, or lack thereof, and the mistakes she kept making in relationships. She just didn’t know what those mistakes were or what to do about them.

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have asked that,” Cassie said. “Don’t worry, I’ll cut it.”

She gave her a few softball questions and then moved on to a short interview with Andrew, who turned his gorgeous blue eyes to the camera and charmingly implored the lovely ladies of Anchorage and the Lower Forty-Eight to find their way to Golden Falls—and to him, specifically. Hayley smiled from the sidelines. Andrew was swoon-worthy in a silver fox sort of way, and she was sure more than one woman would answer his call.

After the segment ended, the cameraman began gathering his things. Andrew said his goodbyes and disappeared into his office.

“I’m sorry I got all flustered there,” Hayley said, embarrassed. “I wasn’t expecting you to ask me anything personal.”

“God forbid.” Cassie smiled. “I have a feeling you and I are probably a lot alike. In our jobs, we get to ask people intimate questions, and they’ll tell us almost anything, but they don’t even notice how little we reveal about ourselves.”

“That’s very true,” Hayley said.

“It’s by design, right?”

“In my case, for sure,” Hayley said.

“Mine, too,” Cassie said. “Which is why I think we should be friends.”

“I’d love for us to be friends,” Hayley said, and it was true. Her two closest girlfriends had moved back to the Lower Forty-Eight after college, and Hayley had yet to fill the void.

“Do you need more guys to help promote your campaign?” Cassie asked. “Because I happen to have connections with some very hunky firefighters. Most of the ones on Cody’s crew are single, and they’re pretty good sports. Should I introduce you?”

“That would be awesome—yes!”

“Good, it’s settled. We’ll do it. They might need a little convincing, but between the two of us and Cody, we’ll make it happen.”

“Ooh, I know!” Hayley said. “Do you think you can get them to come to a singles’ event I’m hosting Thursday night at the Sled Dog? I’ll buy them a round.”

“Probably,” Cassie said. “That’s on their four days off. If we can get one of them to come, we can get all of them to come. But we’re going to save one of the single guys for you!”

“I’m haven’t had good luck with men,” Hayley said, feeling her cheeks redden. “Although I’m not sure how much of it’s me and how much of it’s them.”

“It’s all them!” Cassie said. “If I’ve learned one thing, it’s that these Alaska boys need to be tamed. They’ve been allowed to run wild for far too long.” Her green eyes gleamed. “And I have to say, taming them is more fun than I imagined.”

As she put on her coat, she gave Hayley an appraising look.

“I know exactly the guy for you. He’s fun, and funny, and, of course, hotter than hell like all the firefighters are.”

“Thanks, but I’m not really looking,” Hayley said, which of course wasn’t true. She was always looking but never finding.

“That’s even more perfect—neither is he!”

“So it’s doomed before it even starts.” Hayley sighed. “Welcome to the story of my life.”

Cassie laughed. “You need a new story—and Josh Barnes is just the man to give you one.”

…Excerpt from BRING YOUR HEART by Scarlett Andrews ©2017.