Chapter 3

“All right, kids, any questions?” Luke Elliott asked, surveying the twenty or so first-graders staring up at him.

A tiny girl in a pink dress and a crooked ponytail shot her hand in the air.

He nodded and pointed at her, prepping to go over the nuances of stop, drop, and roll. Again. “Let’s hear it.”

The girl’s hand fell and she opened her mouth. “Can I pet the dog?”

A dozen other kids nodded enthusiastically, and Luke heard his partner give a snort behind him.

Luke’s gaze lifted over the top of the kids’ heads to their teacher, a pretty blonde who’d been a year behind him in school and had married one of his old football buddies.

Millie Taylor rolled her eyes good-naturedly and nodded.

Luke looked back at the kids before gesturing to where the station dog sat obediently next to the fire truck. “Sure, yeah. Oreo loves the attention.”

“I love Oreos!” one of the kids shouted as they moved as a mob toward the dog.

“Hey, hey, don’t crowd him!” Millie said, charging forward and taking control of her class as dozens of little hands reached out to pet the eager-for-attention Dalmatian.

Charlie Bander clamped a hand on Luke’s shoulder. “Nice work there, bro. Clearly they really picked up the important parts of your speech.”

“Didn’t see you chiming in,” Luke said, rubbing the back of his neck.

“Hey, I did the stop, drop, and roll demonstration. You owe me,” Charlie said, pulling out a stick of his ever-present bubble gum, unwrapping and folding a piece into his mouth. “And, look, don’t take it personally. Oreo always steals the show at these things.”

Too true.

“I think Deb Bryant is checking me out,” Charlie said around a bubble. “Verify.”

Luke rolled his eyes but scanned over his friend’s shoulder. The pretty third-grade teacher had brought her flock out to recess, and, sure enough, her attention seemed to be on Charlie’s backside.

“You angling for short ginger kids?” Luke asked.

The petite redheaded teacher’s bright hair matched Charlie’s almost exactly.

“Hell yes,” Charlie said, blowing a bubble. “We’ll be taking over the world someday. And I’m short only compared to a giant like yourself.”

Luke grunted as he began picking up the gear he’d brought out to show the kids. At six feet tall he was hardly a giant, but he definitely had a couple of inches and a bit of brawn over Charlie’s wiry five-foot-eight frame.

“You wanna go strike out with the teacher?” Luke asked, hauling a tank onto his shoulder. “I can clean up while you crash and burn.”

“Hold that thought,” Charlie said. “Looks like Henderson’s bringing us a hot blonde instead.”

Luke turned, intrigued. Not because Charlie had dubbed someone hot—he thought anyone with breasts and legs qualified—but because it was an unidentified blonde that his friend didn’t know by name.

Lucky Hollow had lots of things. Newcomers weren’t often one of them.

A little girl broke free of the group surrounding Oreo, flinging herself at Ryan Henderson’s legs. “Daddy!”

Luke’s fellow firefighter and lifelong friend scooped up his daughter and gave her a smacking kiss on both cheeks.

It was a familiar scene, and Luke absorbed it all in his peripheral vision even as most of his attention went to the unfamiliar.

Damn. Charlie hadn’t been lying about the hot blonde.

The woman walking straight toward him was all tight jeans, high heels, and confidence. And hot. Very, very hot.

Charlie muttered something admiring under his breath, and Luke’s gaze flicked to the man beside the woman. Tried to place him. Couldn’t.

Not too many guys around here wore light-purple shirts and white pants with the same easy comfort that Lucky Hollow residents wore jeans and flannel.

No doubt about it—neither was from around here. Not by a long shot.

The man was a half step behind the woman, and Luke assessed that the woman was calling the shots.

His eyes narrowed as he realized that she hadn’t once wavered in her approach.

She knew what she was after:

Him.

She got closer and Luke saw that the face matched the body. Wide blue eyes, full lips, sassy shoulder-length blond hair that was just tousled enough to make a man wonder how it had gotten that way—and to want to be the one to muss it.

Her gaze flicked over him, and Charlie whistled and muttered under his breath. “She just checked you out, man.”

She had indeed, but Luke was far from flattered. It hadn’t been the assessment of a woman checking out a man so much as a predator evaluating its prey.

As though she was evaluating him for…something.

Blondie stopped in front of him, and the second her blue eyes locked on his, Luke felt a little jolt of attraction and was irrationally annoyed. It had been a long time since he’d been quite so aware of a woman.

Once, he’d enjoyed the feeling—sexual chemistry was almost the perfect combination of pain and pleasure. A subtle punch in the gut that you wanted to experience again and again.

These days, though, he was having a hard time getting past the pain part. The shitty parts had outweighed the good parts just one time too many. Now he mostly settled for casual hookups with a divorcée a few towns over who was even less interested in commitment than Luke was.

He had zero use for attraction to a pretty, bold woman in high heels.

Luke noticed that for a sheer moment she had a slightly off-balance look, as though she too had felt the annoying zip of arousal when their eyes met, but she recovered quickly.

Pasting a sunny, generic smile on her face, she stuck out her right hand. “Luke Elliott. I’m Jordan Carpenter. This is my colleague, Simon Nash.”

Good manners had him setting down his equipment and extending his own right hand toward hers even as his brain caught on her name. Familiar, and…

Shit. Shit!

He managed to stop from jerking his hand back, but just barely. Instead, he gritted his teeth, gave her hand a perfunctory shake, and then fixed her with a glare. “You’re wasting your time, Ms. Carpenter. And mine.”

Blue eyes narrowed. “Aha. So you did get my emails.”

Those. The voicemails. The letters.

“Sure,” he said with a nod, shoving his hands in his pockets. “Just like I suspect you got the message that I didn’t want to be a part of your show.”

Charlie looked from the woman to Luke and back again. “Show?”

Ryan ambled over, his shit-eating grin telling Luke that this damn woman had already spilled the beans on why she was here. “Luke’s gonna be a national heartthrob.”

“International,” said the blond guy in the purple shirt.

Jordan Carpenter didn’t look at her companion, but all three firefighters did.

The other man gave the sort of easy smile that probably had him making friends easily. Luke didn’t want a new friend.

Especially not one who wanted to use his shitty romantic past for the sake of TV ratings.

The fancy blond guy smiled. “CBC’s big time, and they’re putting all their resources behind Jilted. It’ll be in international markets.”

“Oh, well, in that case,” Luke grumbled sarcastically.

Jordan hadn’t looked away from him. Not once. “There’s money. Not a lot to start, but enough.”

“Not interested.” He picked up one of the oxygen tanks to take it back to the truck. “Save your money.”

“You could give the money away,” she said, her voice stopping him. “You may not want or need it, but what about the firehouse? The school? Surely someone in your town could benefit from the check.”

He gave her an incredulous look. “Is this how they do things in New York? Using charity as a bargaining tool?”

She had the decency to flinch. “All I’m saying is hear me out. You’re saying no without knowing any of the details.”

“Someone want to tell me what’s going on?” Charlie asked.

Luke just shook his head and walked away. The kids’ interest in the dog had waned, their attention shifting to their teacher, who was promising snack time of apple slices and string cheese.

Millie caught Luke’s eye and directed the kids’ attention to him. “Okay, guys, let’s say thank you to Firefighter Elliott and Firefighter Bander!”

“Thank you, Firefighter Elliott. Thank you, Firefighter Bander,” they chorused obediently.

Luke ruffled the hair of a pint-size blond—Joey, the youngest son of the town vet. “Anytime, kids.”

“Can I ride in the truck with the siren on?” Joey asked, looking up at him.

“Maybe next time.” Luke held up his hand, and Joey’s much smaller palm slapped his. “Awesome.”

Luke started to load up the gear and, realizing he was doing it alone, glanced over his shoulder to see where the hell his partner was.

Unsurprisingly, his friend was chatting up City Girl. Neither Charlie nor Ryan seemed to mind in the least that these two fancy-pants had swooped into their town to capitalize on Luke’s past.

What was more surprising was that Jordan Carpenter was chatting right back, her smile seemingly genuine, her laugh real.

Luke ground his teeth.

He couldn’t say he’d put much thought into the woman behind the name as he’d unceremoniously deleted her emails and voice messages, but if forced to assume, he’d have guessed aggressive shrew.

He suspected he was wrong there. Because while there was no mistaking the ambition in the woman, it wasn’t the cutthroat, ball-busting kind.

Her lean body might be all angles and long lines, but there was a softness to her as well. The way her hair did its own thing. The easiness of her smile, the quick laugh. The small but pert breasts.

Damn. He was staring.

He slammed the door shut. “Bander!” he shouted across the lawn at Charlie. “Let’s clear out!”

Charlie leaned into Jordan, whispering something in her ear that made her laugh, before walking away with a last wink.

Luke rolled his eyes. Really? This was happening?

“Hey, Elliott!” Ryan called. “You want to come over for a barbecue tonight?”

Luke crossed his arms and studied his friend suspiciously, waiting for the catch. “Who’s on the guest list?”

He saw Jordan and her purple-shirt friend exchange a look. Well, that answered that question.

Damn. Ryan never had been able to resist the urge to stir up trouble.

“It’s no problem if you don’t want to join us!” Jordan called out, lifting her hand to shield the afternoon sun from her eyes. “I’m sure your friends here can fill me in on everything there is to know about Luke Elliott.”

All about Luke Elliott’s romantic history was more like it. City Girl wasn’t even pretending to be coy about the reason she was here.

All former positive thoughts about her evaporated. Only the worst sort of human would use another’s failed relationships to advance her own career—for entertainment.

Luke turned away without another word, hauling himself into the driver’s seat of the truck as he waited impatiently for Charlie to get done shouting goodbye to every single person within earshot.

He drummed his thumbs against the steering wheel, refusing to even think about going to the BBQ tonight. If his friends wanted to cause trouble, they could do so without his cooperation.

As for the two New Yorkers, they’d flame out all on their own. Weren’t East Coasters known for being impatient and fast moving?

Surely they’d be off to find some other glory-seeking asshole if he ignored them. One of the other guys could play the role for all he cared.

As Charlie hauled his ass up, Luke started the truck, his eye catching on Jordan Carpenter, who was watching him with a stubborn, determined look on her pretty face.

Damn it. She’d make all sorts of havoc unless he ran interference.

Luke pulled out his phone to text Ryan.

I’ll be there. Have beer.

Charlie leaned over, unabashedly reading Luke’s iPhone screen. “Ha. Knew it.”

“What?” Luke glared at his friend.

Charlie grinned wider, gesturing over his shoulder. “You’ve got a boner for the hot blonde.”

“Are you kidding me with this? She wants me to be the next bachelor.”

How were Ryan and Charlie not getting the absurdity of this?

Charlie shrugged. “So? Maybe it’d be good for you.”

Luke stared at his friend for a moment longer before putting the truck in drive. “The only thing that would be good for me is to push you out of this truck.”

Charlie was waving goodbye to Jordan and Simon. “See you tonight!”

Luke ground his teeth harder. He was already dreading the BBQ, but not going would only make matters worse. Clearly he needed to have a very blunt conversation with Jordan Carpenter.