Fire Me Up

Book 0: Pine Mountain Novel

by Kimberly Kincaid

Genres: Small Town & Rural; Women's Fiction; Contemporary Romance; Workplace Romance

Synopsis

2016 RWA RITA finalist!

If You Can't Stand The Heat...

Teagan O'Malley can handle a crisis. She's a paramedic, it's her job. But she never expected to land in the kitchen of her father's pub, with no notice, no cash, and no room for error. The kitchen is not her favorite place. Lucky for her, she just scraped a bad-boy chef off the pavement after a motorcycle accident--and something about him says he can turn up the heat in more ways than one.

Adrian Holt has had a rough few years, and he's not eager to get tangled up in anything more complicated than a good risotto. But with a broken arm and a head full of bad memories, he needs a challenge to keep him sane. Teagan's dare-me attitude and smoldering mess of a bar are just what the doctor ordered. And the two of them together might cook up some even better medicine...

"Smart, tart, and sexy" -- USA Today

Release date: February 1, 2015

Publisher: Zebra Books

Print pages: 352

Sample

Adrian Holt got three steps past the back door at La Dolce Vita before the dangerous combination of fear and anger cemented him to the kitchen tile. He fisted the keys to the building in his palm, hard enough to feel the metal bite into his calloused skin.

Someone was in the kitchen.

He was supposed to be the first one in and the last one out, just like he had been for the past twelve days while Carly was on her honeymoon. She’d made it clear, both as his boss and best friend, that the kitchen—her kitchen—was in his hands. The place should be a ghost town, especially at nine o’clock on a Friday morning.

Muffled noise sounded from down the hallway, filtering past the dishwashing station and the tidy, darkened office, sending his heartbeat into a staccato, adrenaline-soaked rhythm. The telltale clink of pots and pans grated on his ears from the center of the kitchen, and Adrian’s muscles thrummed with instinct.

If some chucklehead from the resort was back here messing around, he was going to be seriously irate. Just because La Dolce Vita served as Pine Mountain Resort’s only full-service restaurant and shared a wall with the main lodge, that didn’t give anybody free rein to—

What was that smell?

Adrian followed his nose through the dishwashing station as quietly as he could, although admittedly, at six-foot-five, stealth had never been his strong suit. Damn it, he wasn’t even in the position to get a parking ticket right now, much less jump in some wannabe chef’s face for being here uninvited and unattended. But Carly had trusted him, and no way was he going to let some deviant creep his way into the place like he had a claim to the real estate. Dicey or not, Adrian owed it to Carly to at least keep the kitchen she’d worked her ass off for intact.

Actually, he owed her a hell of a lot more than that, but now wasn’t the time to split hairs.

He rounded the corner by the pastry chef’s prep space at the back of the kitchen, the keys put away but his fists still curled into place. The warm, mellow scent of caramelizing onions tempted his anger to slacken, but Adrian didn’t bite. The intruder could be making European white truffles drowning in Cristal for all he cared. Whoever it was had picked the wrong fucking kitchen for playing house.

Adrian hit the back of the line with the edgy tension of twelve days’ worth of double shifts in his stride and his pulse playing chicken with his blood pressure. The perpetrator had his back turned and body crouched, head halfway into the lowboy for God-knows-what, but that didn’t change Adrian’s snap first, ask questions later mind-set.

“Hey!” He threaded his arms into a thick knot of black leather and menacing intentions over his chest. His voice matched his tension with every razor-sharp syllable as he planted his boots on the tile. “I don’t know who you are, but you’re about three seconds from getting tossed out of here on your ass, and I started counting two seconds ago.”

A pair of slim shoulders hitched upward in surprise before the person unfolded to a slow stand, and recognition slammed into him, too late.

“All things considered, that might not be your wisest plan, Chef Holt.”

The familiar timbre of Carly’s voice scattered Adrian’s edgy irritation like bread crumbs in a shallow bowl, although it left a trail of unease in its wake. Okay, so her braid had been slung over her shoulder where he couldn’t see it, and yeah, he wasn’t expecting her for another two days, but had he seriously been strung tight enough not to put two and two together?

“You’re not supposed to be back at work until Monday,” he accused, although the smile tugging at his lips canceled out the sting of the words.

“I missed you, too. Even if you did just technically threaten to throw me out of my own kitchen.” Carly’s eyes glinted, brown and knowing, as she met his gaze over the stockpot in front of her. She gave the fragrant contents one last stir before eyeballing them with a stern look, as if willing them to behave while she broke rank to place an affectionate kiss on each of his cheeks.

“Sorry.” Adrian hid his sheepish expression over her shoulder as he returned her embrace, his heartbeat finally rediscovering neutral ground. “And you just spent twelve days in Italy on a honeymoon you postponed for three months due to your work schedule. Not to put too fine a point on it, but I hope you didn’t miss me. In fact, I hope you didn’t even think of me.”

He might’ve been her sous-chef for five years, and friends with her for nearly as many before that, but airtime in Carly’s love life had always been a polite but firm no-thank-you in Adrian’s book. Despite the fact that most chefs had no trouble blurring the boundaries, as far as he was concerned, mixing work with pleasure had bad things scribbled all over it. Being Carly’s sous-chef—and staying as busy as humanly possible in the kitchen—trumped all that personal stuff by leaps and bounds.

After all, his nonna had always said idle hands were the devil’s workshop. And testing the theory wasn’t on Adrian’s agenda.

Been there, done that. Complete with the battle scars and rap sheet to prove it.

“Okay, okay.” Carly laughed, yanking his attention back to the kitchen. Her knife skimmed over the tomato in front of her with an insistent tat-tat-tat, and damn, it was good to get back to business as usual. “But we flew back yesterday like we planned, and Jackson got called in on some work emergency. I figured it wouldn’t hurt for me to come in a few days early to get back in the swing of things and work off the jet lag. I’m totally rusty.”

“Please,” Adrian cracked, easing into a grin. “You’ve got to stop moving to get rusty.” Carly might not have thought about him while she was gone, but no way had she ditched thoughts of food. She’d once tried to chop a butternut squash with one hand while getting stitches in the other, for Chrissake.

Never one to pass up an opportunity for some good ribbing, Adrian continued. “I’m sure the chef at the villa where you stayed was just thrilled to share his space with you. How long did it take before you caved and had to cook something? A day? Two?”

But Carly just shook her head, wiping her hands on her low-slung apron before returning her attention to the stockpot. “Actually, I didn’t cook at all.”

“Uh-huh. And I’m Derek Jeter. Seriously, how many recipes did you come up with while you were gone?” Fifty bucks said the number was well into the double digits, and Adrian’s mouth watered at the thought.

“I’m dead serious, Ade. I ate a lot and jotted down some suggested wine pairings, but I didn’t do any hands-on cooking the whole ten days Jackson and I were in Italy.”

He opened his mouth to go for round two of giving her a hard time, but her serene, honest-to-God smile sent a pop to his gut like a back alley brawler.

She really hadn’t given the kitchen—or anything in it—a second thought while she was gone.

“Oh.” He shifted his weight, fingers suddenly itching for something to chop, stir, or whisk together. “Well, I didn’t think you’d be back until Monday, so we prepped for specials through the weekend. I can get the pantry set for the produce delivery if you want to get reacclimated with the food.”

Between managing the produce delivery that was due in about twenty minutes, whatever tweaks Carly wanted to put to things now that she was back, and the typical busy Friday dinner shift on tap for later, he’d be good and exhausted by the time today ticked into tomorrow.

Outstanding.

“Adrian.” The single word slashed his movements to a halt, and she turned to fasten him with a no-nonsense stare. “Normally, you come in here smiling and humming old Sinatra tunes. Today you barged in like a one-man commando unit. Why don’t you take the weekend off and relax?”

“Work relaxes me.”

Her hand went to her hip like a harbinger of not so fast. “You’ve been here for the past twelve days with no sous-chef.”

“I’m the sous-chef, gnocchella.” Oh hell. Now Carly had that look on her face, the one that reminded him of a pit bull, only more tenacious. “Seriously. We’re booked solid this weekend. Plus, I’m fine.”

She took a step away from the bubbling stockpot, as if she didn’t want to contaminate the food with the sharpness of her frown. “I don’t think so. There’s more to life than just the kitchen, you know?”

Frustration curled in his chest like steam fingering out of a teapot, but he tamped it down. They’d gone through this Zenmaster, bigger-picture, this-is-your-life song and dance a couple of times now over the last few months, and his standard answer springboarded from his mouth.

“For you, that’s true, and I’m glad. But I’m good with just the kitchen.”

For a second, he was certain she’d plow forward with the next line in their now-scripted argument, to the point where he preloaded his next response about how he really was happy. He should’ve known she’d come back from her honeymoon all brimming with uncut bliss, and if anyone deserved it, Carly did.

But guys like him? Not going the hearts and flowers route in a million years. Plus two. Stuff like that only spelled trouble in the long run, and no way was he splitting his attention between the kitchen and . . . well, anything. He belonged here.

Period.

After a lingering glance, Carly simply nodded, and Adrian’s breath eased out at the unexpected gimme.

“Okay, you win. But I’ve got the produce delivery. At least go home and get a little sleep before the dinner shift. I don’t want to see you back here before two.”

“Come on,” he said, only halfway joking, but she shook her head with zero wiggle room.

“I’m saying this with love, gnoccone, but you look like shit. Get some rest.” Carly’s sugar-sweet smile belied the seriousness of her words, but she didn’t back down.

Ah, hell. The pit bull thing only got worse if he argued with her, and if Adrian stuck around—or worse, put up a fight—she might rethink letting go of the topic at hand. Probably better for him to take the hit for a couple hours now and come back for the dinner shift, when they’d have so many plates flying around, the topic would be forgotten. Until next time, anyway.

“You’re the boss. I’ll see you at two.” He pulled his keys out of his pocket and forced a crooked smile as he made his way back out of the kitchen, his belly so full of unease, he’d swear he ate a bowl of it for breakfast.

Which was stupid, really. Carly was back, they had a full house on the books every night for the next month, and in a handful of hours, he was going to dive headfirst into a dinner service that would keep him too busy to breathe, let alone think.

Okay, maybe he could use a little shut-eye.

Adrian swung one leg into place over his Harley-Davidson Fatboy, finding familiar comfort on the bike as he skinned into his riding gloves and buckled his helmet with a snug pull. The bike rumbled to life with all the subtlety of a twenty-pound sledgehammer, and as he put it into gear and started to drive, the weariness of the last few weeks invaded him down to his marrow. He’d always thought sleep was pretty overrated—plenty of time for shit like rest when you were dead, and all—but yeah. He’d been cranked tight enough to not even recognize Carly in her own damn kitchen. Maybe he could stand to loosen his grip on his hours. Maybe Carly was right, and there was more to life than filling tickets and firing up the grill.

Or maybe he was just getting soft. After all, wasn’t that “something else” how he’d screwed up his life in the first place?

Adrian’s knuckles hardened over the polished chrome handlebars as he downshifted to turn off of Rural Route Four. A flash of movement, time-warp fast, blurred in his rearview mirror, filling his mouth with the bitter taste of foreboding, black and awful like the scrapings from a forgotten skillet. Ominous recognition shot into place, bringing the rush of motion in a swift, too-close-to-avoid-contact push, and cold sweat slid its clammy fingers beneath his helmet.

He was going to die, right here on the asphalt, and his last earthly vision was that of a minivan.

Christ, that thought alone was enough to kill him.

The vehicle behind him clipped his Harley’s back tire in a tight, forceful arc as it swerved away too late, the impact knocking his teeth together with an unrepentant clack. The force sent him toward the road’s yellow center line at a sick angle, every one of his muscles in lockdown.

The gut-twisting screech of metal on pavement slammed into Adrian’s ears like a violin concerto gone horribly wrong, but it only lasted a bare second before the ground rose up to meet him in a rush of asphalt and imminent danger. His well-worn survival instinct crashed together with undiluted adrenaline, making him jerk the handlebars hard to the left in a Hail Mary attempt to avoid getting pinned to the pavement—or worse yet, crushed outright.

In a stroke of blind luck, the torque was just enough to propel the bike out in front of Adrian instead of on top of him. He exhaled a heartbeat’s worth of relief that his reflexes hadn’t seized in fear.

That relief met a quick death, however, when the same sixth sense that kept him from becoming road pizza sent his left arm out to brace his unavoidable contact with Rural Route Four.

White lightning ricocheted from Adrian’s leather-gloved hand all the way to the center of his chest, stealing his oxygen as his arm crumpled beneath him and he fell from the bike. Time hung in an eerie, slow-motion balance, delivering a slideshow of images that didn’t seem to belong together. Shiny, sharp-edged bits of safety glass exploding from his rearview mirror, the lilt of his nonna’s voice as she hummed along with Sinatra on the radio, the velvety red of a perfect summer strawberry.

And here he’d thought the whole life-flashing-before-your-eyes thing was bullshit.

As quickly as it had slowed to allow him one last glimpse of his life, time yanked back and hit fast forward. Adrian made the rude, full-bodied acquaintance of the wet spring asphalt, turning everything to an indistinct blur but the ripping agony in his chest. Up became down and then up again, hitting his vision like a Tilt-a-Whirl with a busted kill switch. For just a heartbeat, Adrian was weightless, soaked in the sweet, preternatural darkness beckoning from the edges of his consciousness.

And then he sucked in an ear-popping breath, his lungs expanding as if they’d been taken by surprise, and he tumbled back into his body on the serrated edges of all the pain in the world.

In the six years Teagan O’Malley had been a paramedic with Pine Mountain’s Fire and Rescue Squad, she’d seen boatloads of terrifying things. None of them scared her quite so much, however, as the sight of her name posted next to the words clean out the fridge on the station’s chore calendar. She battened down over the dread clenching her stomach like an industrial-grade vise and popped the thing open, taking a peek inside.

Takeout containers marked with cryptic scribbling and questionable food stains lay strewn about the dim interior, smelling about as appetizing as the Styrofoam they were made of. Two brown bags, both grease-tinged and labeled Touch this and lose a limb ! sat stashed in the far corner, where they’d likely been for two weeks, easy. She didn’t even want to ponder the possibilities for the leftovers-slash-science experiment jammed on the bottom shelf, affectionately known among her colleagues as Where Food Goes to Die.

There might be an upside to being a woman in a male-dominated profession, but living with heathens sure as hell wasn’t it.

“Ugh.” Teagan slammed the refrigerator shut with a chorus of oh hell no jingling through her head. Getting out of this was going to cost her, but some prices were worth every red cent.

She kicked her legs into a purposely casual saunter across the station’s common room, sliding her fingers into the pockets of her careworn navy blue uniform pants. Although the station manager scheduled ten people on any given shift, four of the firefighters were out clearing a small-time call with no injuries. The remaining four were napping away the still-early hours of the morning in the sleeping quarters down the hall, leaving Teagan to set her sights on the couch where her partner sat sprawled with the Pine Mountain Gazette.

“Hey, Evan. What do you say we swap chores this week? I totally don’t mind taking the floors off your hands.”

“Let me guess. You’ve got the fridge.” Evan didn’t even look up from the sports section, the pain in the ass. But that refrigerator was her own monogrammed version of hell on earth. No way was she giving in without hauling out every last thing in her arsenal of please, pretty-please, and do-this-or-I’ll-spill-your-deep-dark-secrets-on-the-ten-o’clock-news.

“I’ll do the floors and whatever you get next week, too. Consider it an act of camaraderie among paramedics.” As a pair, she and Evan were half the certified paramedics on Pine Mountain Fire and Rescue’s payroll, plus they were partners. There had to be honor in there somewhere.

Right?

“Camaraderie, my ass. That chill chest hasn’t been properly cleaned out since Christmas. It’s going to take more than next week’s chores to move me, O’Malley.”

Teagan dialed her pout up to ten and tried for some good old-fashioned sympathy as she upped the ante. “I’ll buy you a drink at the Double Shot after shift.”

“A pretty woman offering to ply me with liquor. Sweetie, I think you’ve made a bit of a tactical error.” Evan buried his smile in the newsprint in front of him, but it held way more amusement than heat.

She returned the expression with genuine ease and deadpanned, “You’re already busy tonight?”

“Uh, that, and I’m still as gay as I was when we met four years ago. You didn’t seriously think that lower-lip thing was going to work on me, did you?”

So much for the pout being a universal ploy for sympathy. It had been worth a shot, anyway.

Teagan released her breath in slow increments, discouraged enough to give in, but too stubborn to actually follow through. “I don’t suppose you’d just cut me a break? I get enough interaction with the fridge at my dad’s bar.”

God, was that the truth. Teagan’s fingers did double duty as prunes at least four nights a week from all the cold bottles of beer she served up. It was enough to make even the toughest person want to run screaming from anything culinary, including the appliances. And lately, it had only gotten worse.

“You’ve been at the Double Shot a lot this month, huh?” Evan’s sandy brows kicked up in question, prompting her to force a shrug. She was no rookie when it came to an honest day’s work, but even she’d been running on fumes since their day cook ran off with their only good waitress and they had yet to replace either one.

But if Teagan had it rough spending a few extra shifts behind the bar, her father had it exponentially worse trying to keep the whole damned place afloat. A little sleep deprivation was the least she could do for the man who’d raised her all by himself.

“Yeah, we’re a little short-staffed, that’s all.” She laughed, because it was either that or cry. “Know any gourmet chefs willing to work for peanuts in a small-town bar and grill?”

“Maybe you should bite the bullet and learn how to cook, T. Or does your fear of the refrigerator extend to the entire kitchen?” Evan lobbed a good-natured smirk over the edge of the paper as he folded it up.

Heat prickled at the back of her neck, but she swiped it away before he could catch the flush that surely went with it. In this profession, the only thing worse than fear was showing fear. And anyway, you didn’t last more than a day at this job by getting all girly about a little ribbing.

Even ribbing about the stuff that hit home.

“Let’s just say I’m all fridged out.” Relieved to have a segue out of the conversation, Teagan went full circle. “Look, if you switch chores with me, I’ll even take the next belligerent patient we get, no matter what the injury. Scout’s honor.” She held up one hand in a show of good faith, throwing on her very best doe-eyed look. “Please?”

Evan’s laugh was as agreeable as his smirk, and Teagan heaved a silent sigh of relief through her too-tight smile as he caved. “Okay, okay. I’ll take the fridge, but you can sell that innocent-girl routine somewhere else.” He dropped his thick-soled boots from the futon to the floor, allowing himself a good stretch before heading over to the refrigerator.

“Thank you!” She paused, tacking on, “And ouch on the innocent-girl thing.”

But Evan wasn’t having it. “Teagan, please. You single-handedly broke up two bar fights last week alone. It’s pretty clear you’re not rocking a halo.”

Eh. He had a point. “Okay. Maybe innocent isn’t the best word for me,” she said, crossing the dove-gray linoleum to rummage through the supply closet for a broom.

“Innocent is the last word for you.” Evan’s quip came out more endearment than insult, and Teagan pointed the broom handle at her partner with a grin.

“Aw, stop. You’ll make me blush.”

He opened his mouth, presumably to launch an obnoxious comeback, but the piercing alarm signaling an incoming call from dispatch interrupted him. The broom was barely an afterthought as Teagan shoved it back toward the closet and yanked up the handset from the desk acting as command central between the kitchen and the common room.

“This is Pine Mountain Fire and Rescue. Go ahead, dispatch.”

The radio hissed out a quick breath of static before carrying the reply, “Pine Mountain Fire and Rescue, this is dispatch. Requesting fire and EMS for a two-vehicle MVA on Rural Route Four, a mile north of Pine Mountain Resort. Police have been dispatched, over.”

She shot Evan a look, but he was already moving with brisk steps toward the in-house intercom that would rouse the rest of their team from sleep.

Teagan cradled the handset against her palm, her thumb finding the smooth groove of the reply button with the same ease she used to draw in breath. “Received, dispatch. Engine Seven and Paramedic Two responding to Rural Route Four for an MVA, out.”

Adrenaline raised Teagan’s heart rate another level as she replaced the radio handset with methodical resolve, but she was far from holy-shit panic mode. Car crashes were pretty ordinary fare for a paramedic, and all things considered, a two-car bang-up was usually pretty tame since it was tough to go terribly fast on most of Pine Mountain’s winding roads.

Still, she relayed the information to Evan and the rest of the responding team in clipped tones that meant business. Taking care of whomever was on the receiving end of this accident might be her job, but she sure wasn’t in it for the money or the glamour. Somebody needed help, plain and simple, and she had the knowledge and tools to take care of business.

Plus, if she wore herself out saving other people, maybe nobody would notice that she couldn’t patch her own life together if someone spotted her a needle and thread.

Teagan squashed her thoughts like the contents of an overly full trash bin, yanking open the ambulance’s passenger door with barely enough time to haul herself inside before Evan threw the thing into drive.

“Dispatch, this is Paramedic Two. We are en route to the scene. ETA eight minutes.” Teagan caught Evan’s look of approval out of the corner of her eye as she returned the radio in the rig to its perch.

“You know we’re probably a good ten minutes from the resort, right?” Evan hitched the wheel to the left, steering the ungainly ambulance up Pine Mountain’s main road with mind-boggling finesse.

“Mmm-hmm. I also know you could get us there in six if you push it.” After all, not every MVA was a fender-bender. Even if the cops beat them to the scene and had it secured, someone’s life could well be on the line.

That fact got hammered into place as soon as she caught a distant glimpse of the black and chrome Harley lying belly-up on Rural Route Four. Shit. Shit. This had very bad things written all over it. In block letters. With a Sharpie.

Teagan shouldered her first-in bag and jumped out of the rig, her boots barely making contact with the pavement before one of the cops securing the scene had fallen into step beside her. “Morning, Officer. What’ve we got?”

Although her eyes were locked in on the scene about thirty yards away—which was thankfully blocked from incoming traffic by a pair of police cruisers—Teagan’s attention was just as sharply focused on the cop’s response.

“Motorcycle versus minivan. Motorcycle driver is over there, single rider, wearing a helmet. Denies losing consciousness, no visible head injury, but he’s combative and complaining of left arm pain. I’ve got an officer on him now, just to make sure he didn’t fly before you got here. He’s going to be a handful.”

“Oh goodie. I eat those for breakfast,” Teagan said, moving swiftly past the barricade. “How about vehicle two?”

The officer tipped his chin at a dark green Honda Odyssey sitting halfway on the shoulder of the road, hazard lights flashing in perfect orange rhythm. “Minivan driver has her two kids in the backseat, all parties belted in. Everyone appears stable with no visible injuries, no complaints of pain. Scene is secure. Just let us know what you need.”

“Got it, thanks.” She swung her gaze at Evan before letting it land on the Honda. “You want the minivan before the cops take her report? I’m grabbing Chris and Jeff from Seven to help nail down this single rider and make sure he’s stable for transport.”

Evan shook his head and shot her a wry grin. “I know you owe me, but I can take the cranky biker.”

As if on cue, strains of a heated altercation filtered past the scene noise, pulling a sardonic laugh from Teagan’s throat. “Call it even for the fridge. I’ve got this.”

He turned with a shrug toward the nearby minivan. “You’re a glutton for punishment, O’Malley.”

Understatement of the frickin’ year.

Teagan called for the two firefighters before turning her attention toward her patient, who stood arguing with one of Pine Mountain’s finest in the middle of the road in spite of the fact that she was certain he’d seen better days.

Holy big-man-on-a-stick, . . .