teeth. He had to admire a woman who didn’t even pop a sweat when she was in the spotlight on a one-hundred-degree day. The lady was a real pro.
“Now I’d like to introduce you to one of Kansas City’s bravest—the firefighter who saved the puppy we met earlier.” The reporter thrust the microphone toward her interviewee. The cameraman shifted positions.
Gideon’s world froze for a heartbeat in time.
Meghan.
His heart lurched in his chest. His lungs constricted so tightly, for a moment he felt as if he were breathing in hot, toxic air.
She’d stripped her gear down to her royal-blue K.C.F.D. T-shirt and regulation black pants.
But her wholesome beauty was just as uncomplicated and straightforward as he remembered. She wore her hair pulled back in what she’d called a French braid. In shades of amber and wheat and champagne, a few wavy wisps clung to the damp sheen of her soft, honey-freckled skin.
She looked fresh and young, with no makeup except for the blush of color on her cheeks and the natural, peachy tint of her lips.
And though she smiled at the mutt that squiggled in her arms and licked her chin and sniffed the microphone, her big brown eyes still held the same guarded expression he’d come to know so well in the months they’d been together.
It was really her.
Time moved forward again as Saundra Ames asked her next question. “Are there a lot of women firefighters?”
Gideon drank in every nuance of Meg’s expression, every detail of beauty that resonated through his body—waking dormant yet familiar desires.
He breathed in heavily, trying to dampen his body’s incendiary response to the mere sight of her. He didn’t want to feel anything. Not for her. Not anymore.
“There are a few of us,” she answered. “More and more with each graduating class from the academy.”
“How long have you been a firefighter?”
“About four years.”
As the interview progressed, Gideon began to notice the way Meghan shifted on her feet, betraying the self-conscious tension she’d once tried to hide behind a tough-act facade. What had started as a physical awareness moved on to other parts of his body that were harder to control. His compassion. His curiosity. His heart.
“And yet you risked your life for a dog. Why?” the reporter asked, clearly not understanding the size of Meghan’s heart.
Meghan’s gaze went out of focus and she frowned. “She needed me.”
Gideon shifted with a bit of tension himself.
If she pressed her lips together, then he’d know her emotions were getting the best of her. Meghan could handle anything if she set her mind to it. But she’d never really liked to call attention to herself.
She squinted against the bright light shining in her eyes.
“How does it feel to be a role model for young women in the Kansas City area?”
“Role model?” Meghan’s lips flattened into a straight line. She stuttered to find her answer. “I—I’m…just doing my job. I’m not trying… Please don’t set me up to be something…” She squeezed the dog in her arms.
Gideon pulled off his sunglasses and stepped forward, obeying an unspoken impulse to move in closer to protect her. To support her. To remind her she wasn’t alone. The poor kid had always been so alone.
Meghan’s gaze flew past the reporter, past the cameraman, past the crowd, and connected with his. As if somehow she had known he was there. As if she needed him.
Her eyes widened in startled recognition. Her lips parted in a silent gasp.
Their gazes locked. A familiar, dynamic energy flowed between them. Quickening his pulse. Filling him with want and need and questions and regrets.
Meghan blinked with the force of a slamming door, severing the connection and shutting him out.
Her downcast eyes refused to meet his again.
Stale air from a breath held too long rushed out of Gideon’s lungs. Hell. What had he been thinking? As his heart hammered back to life in his chest, his compassionate instinct died and common sense took its place.
God. Two years. And he still hadn’t gotten her out of his system.
These weren’t old times.
Meghan no longer wanted his help. She’d made that abundantly clear. She’d turned down his proposal and walked out of his life.
And he’d walked straight into hell.
Throwing up a stoic wall of silence that was starting to fit him like a second skin, Gideon turned and walked into the rubble of the gutted building.
At least fire was a demon he could understand.
Chapter Two
“Yeah, yeah. Fifteen minutes of fame, my ass.” Meghan chucked John Murdock’s big shoulder to show the guys she worked with that she knew they were teasing and that she would give it right back. “You guys are just jealous that Saundra Ames didn’t give any of you her card.”
She endured their oohs and ahhs and manly remarks about prowess with women by rolling her eyes and clicking her tongue. It had taken her a long time to learn to take their flirty remarks in sisterly stride—to understand that their teasing was a means of inclusion, not criticism. Now that she was part of their team, the men usually curbed their locker room chatter around her. It also didn’t hurt that the biggest man in the unit, John Murdock, had been assigned as her partner—to compensate for her smaller size, no doubt. She knew him to be a big teddy bear who preferred books to football, despite his pro-wrestler stature. But, intimidating by looks alone, nobody messed with John.
So, normally, the nine men who shared duty with her were on their best behavior. Tolerable, at least.
But right after battling a multialarm blaze, they needed to blow off some steam. And if giving her grief about her instant stardom was the way to do it, she’d let them.
“I keep telling you boys that women like men with a sensitive side.” They paused in a circle around her, waiting for her insight into the secret ways of women. “Go get a puppy and the women will be knocking down your door to meet you.”
Another round of hoots and laughter followed her as the crowd of onlookers began to disperse.
One of the rookies thumped his chest. “I get to rescue the mutt next time.”
“My wife would shoot me if I brought home a dog.”
“Hey, I put up with my girlfriend’s cats. Isn’t that sensitive enough?”
“Let’s get back to work, guys.” Meghan pocketed the number from the animal rescue worker who would be taking the dog to the shelter for a thorough check from a vet. Since the dog had been spayed, they also wanted to run the collarless pup’s description through their database to see if she was someone’s missing pet.
But if no one claimed her, Meghan had a pretty good idea where the miniature, German shepherd-marked mutt could find a home. She knew four boys who would benefit from the unconditional love a pet could bring them.
When she’d spotted her team heading toward the trucks to pack up their gear, it had given her the perfect excuse to escape the glare of the Channel Ten spotlight. The whole idea of girls looking up to her as some kind of role model had turned her stomach into knots.
You freak. I’ll make you a real woman.
That degrading voice, slurred by booze and accusation, had suddenly bombarded Meghan’s psyche from the hidden recesses of her memory, robbing her of her temporary confidence. Her skin crawled with the memory of cruel hands and a whiskey-soaked mouth.