Reckless (4 page)

Well, at least his slick charisma came with a side order of no bullshit. Zoe shook her head. “I guess not. What'd you do to get yourself four full-time weeks of mandatory CS anyway? That's a pretty long assignment.” In fact, it was the longest one she'd seen since she'd come back to Fairview.

“I told you, it was stupid. I had a difference of opinion with a captain at another house.” He curled his palms over a pair of chairs, one-handing each of them to the time-scuffed floorboards with a
clunk
. The long, lean muscles in his forearms flexed and released as he repeated the process once, then twice, and Lord, she really needed to get out more. Or at the very least, dig up her DVD of
Magic Mike
for a good, long re-watch.

“Sounds like a little more than a difference of opinion,” Zoe said, her field-tested caution sensors thankfully dousing her libido with a giant bucket of ice cold
don't be stupid.

“Well, obviously the department agrees with you, which is why I'm here.” Alex finished clearing the table next to hers, his no-bones-about-it shrug making an encore performance. “We were second on scene at an abandoned warehouse fire four days ago. Not far from here, actually.”

Recognition tugged at her mind. “The old chemical place over on Roosevelt.” According to Tina, the place had been boarded up for at least a year.

“Yeah. Anyway, the captain over at Thirteen was being a dick about us searching ahead of the water lines.” He paused, inspecting the floor beneath his boots as he cleared his throat. “Uh, pardon my language.”

Zoe huffed out a laugh, although the back of her neck heated upon its exit. She wasn't in middle school, for God's sake. “I'm familiar with the word
dick
, Alex.”

“Right. Of course. So Captain McManus told us we didn't need to sweep the warehouse, but I thought it was a bad call. He and I got into it and I went in anyway, and I guess the rest is history.”

Hold on . . . “So you ignored a direct order from a captain in an already dangerous situation.” Jesus, that took brass.

Alex's shoulders became a rigid line beneath the thin layer of his T-shirt, but he didn't stop flipping the dining room chairs into place. “It wasn't that big a deal. McManus just blew it out of proportion because he was pissed I knocked him down.”

Zoe took it back; brass didn't even begin to cover this. “You knocked him
down
?”

“Not intentionally,” he argued. “The situation got heated and I just shoved past him to get to the scene. There could've been squatters in that warehouse. It's my job to get them out, period.”

“You didn't find anyone, though, did you.” No way she wouldn't have heard about a rescue like that in this part of town, especially one where her father's house had responded, and the tight silence filling the dining room hammered her suspicion home.

Of course, Alex wouldn't stand down in the face of a little thing like common freaking sense. “Making absolutely sure the building was empty was a risk I was willing to take.”

“But you were clearly told it was an unnecessary risk. Captain McManus must've felt sure no one was in there if he told you not to go inside, plus, there was obvious danger. The place was on fire.” A sudden burst of realization had her chin snapping up. “Did you go on this little recon mission all by your lonesome?”

“Of course not.” He turned to look at her, his hard, blue stare narrowed in confusion. “You know the drill. Everything in pairs. Cole went with me.”

“So not only did you go all commando against another captain's orders, but you risked Cole's ass, too.” The words flew past her lips, brazen and unchecked, but come on. There could've been forty-seven kinds of danger in that warehouse, and Alex had not only barged right into the middle of it against a fire captain's better judgment, but he'd rolled out the red carpet for another man to take the same impetuous gamble.

And Zoe knew all too well how much a risk like that could cost.

“Let me make something perfectly clear, Zoe.” Alex set the last chair over the floorboards with an impetuous
clunk
, crossing the room until he was close enough to make her heartbeat hijack her lungs. “I'm in this soup kitchen because I have to be, not because I want to. No amount of rehabilitative community service, including judgment from you, is going to change who I am or how I do my job. So do yourself a favor. Don't try.”

With that, he turned and walked through the swinging doors to the kitchen, not even sparing her a backward glance.

Chapter Three

Alex sat back against his bar stool, his mood in the shitter despite the cold beer in his hand and the warm smile of the waitress who'd brought it. But the ten hours he'd spent hitting the bricks in Hope House's kitchen today had done their level best to kill both his stamina and his patience.

The grunt work, however, couldn't even hold a flamethrower to his new boss.

Alex tilted his bottle to his lips, swallowing a long, smooth sip of pale ale to cover his frown. Yeah, he'd cop to the fact that he hadn't come out of the gate with a stellar first impression, but it wasn't as if he'd meant to drift off to dreamland while he'd waited for Zoe in the dining room. With the circadian rhythms that went hand in hand with Alex's job, five minutes in the dark meant one of two things—either he was falling asleep or getting laid. He had to admit, when he'd first seen Zoe standing there in Hope House's dining room, with those blazing brown eyes and jeans that showcased more curves than a Grand Prix racetrack, the option behind door number two had seemed awfully freaking appealing.

Until he'd realized who she was. But how the hell was he supposed to know his captain's only daughter had ditched out on her fancy career as an up-and-coming chef to direct a small-time soup kitchen in Fairview's projects? Or that she seemed to have been living on a steady diet of no-risks, all-rules since he'd last seen her five years ago?

Or that despite the fact that she'd pulled a Judge Judy on his ass over the way he'd landed his community service sentence, then met his cold shoulder with an equally arctic counterpart as she'd worked him into the kitchen tiles, he still found her unbelievably and unequivocally hot as hell.

God, he was screwed. And not even in a way that would leave a smile on his face.

“What's the matter, Donovan? One day of plates and pots enough to send you around the bend?”

Alex blinked himself back to his usual table in Bellyflop's bar area just in time to catch the good-natured glint in the eyes of his former squad mate Nick Brennan. If anyone knew the twists and trials of working in a professional kitchen, it was definitely Brennan. After suffering a career-ending injury two and a half years ago, the guy had spent his time doing exactly that before coming back to Fairview last month to teach at the fire academy.

After all, once a firefighter . . .

“Laugh it up, fry boy,” Alex said, giving up half a grin before sliding off his padded leather bar stool to shake his buddy's hand. “I take it you heard about my disagreement with McManus.”

“Who hasn't? The story's all over the department.” Brennan tipped his darkly stubbled chin at their passing waitress, pointing to Alex's beer bottle with one hand while holding up two fingers with the other as he parked himself across the table. “Gotta hand it to you, dude. When it comes to going all-in, you are definitely committed.”

Alex shrugged. He'd had the same philosophy for the last twelve years, and while it might've gotten him into a bunch of scrapes, his all-in, all-the-time mindset was definitely better than the alternative. “From where I sit, there's really no other way to be. After all, Cap's not running a knitting circle. We either take risks or people get hurt.”

“You're preaching to the choir. Believe me, I remember what goes down on shift.” Brennan plucked a specials menu from between the salt-and-pepper shakers on the table to give it a nice, long look-see, and even though his expression didn't vary from its terminally easygoing status, guilt poked holes in Alex's chest all the same. Brennan had been injured the same night they'd lost Mason in that gut-twisting apartment fire. One minute, they'd all been clearing the building, business as usual. The next, part of the third floor had collapsed, Brennan's career had been shattered along with a pair of his vertebrae, and Mason was gone.

And wasn't that one more balls-out reminder that life was short.

“Yeah.” He finished the last of his beer, the empty bottle finding the polished wood table with a
thunk
, and Brennan leaned in, his voice notched low against the music spilling down from the overhead speakers.

“Listen, Teflon, I get where your head is, but do you think maybe—”

“Well, well, look who it is! I heard this guy's gonna be the next Martha Stewart.” Tom O'Keefe, one of Station Eight's paramedics, arrived at the table, clapping his palm over Alex's with a wry laugh. Cole followed behind him, sending a thread of relief beneath Alex's breastbone. While he'd never disrespect Mason's memory, giving his emotions airtime—especially in the middle of a moderately populated sports bar—wasn't part of Alex's game plan. The past was past. What mattered was the moment you were in, and not a whole hell of a lot more.

After all, if you weren't busy living, you were busy dying, and no way was he going out with a fizzle instead of a slam-fucking-bang.

“You're hilarious, O'Keefe. Really. Asshole,” Alex tacked on, but his buddy just lifted his brows in an exaggerated waggle.

“Oh, now you're just flirting with me.” O'Keefe shrugged out of his dark blue quilted FFD jacket as the waitress delivered Alex and Brennan's beers, and he twirled his finger in a tight circle over the table as he put in an order to make the round complete. “So,” he said, commandeering the bar stool across from Brennan and next to Cole. “All kidding aside, the house is too quiet without your mouthy ass. What's the word with this community service thing?”

Alex rolled his eyes, suddenly grateful for the fresh beer in his hand. “The word is, the next four weeks are going to be an exercise in futility.”

“You're actually going to do the whole four weeks?” Brennan's dark brows winged upward, and as much as it burned, Alex met his buddy's shock with a resigned nod.

“Don't get me wrong. I'm not planning on any circle-of-love transformations while I log my time. But as far as the community service goes, I don't have a choice.” Christ, this whole thing was such a waste of time and resources. He should be out there fighting fires, not serving up dry sandwiches in some cafeteria line because that idiot McManus was suffering from a bruised ass and an ego to match. “I've got four weeks before I go in front of the fire chief for my review. Until then, it looks like the department has got me by the short and curlies. I either do this community service as penance, or I lose my job. And I'm
not
losing my job.”

“Yeah, but if you do the whole four weeks, you're also not getting paid,” O'Keefe said. “That's got to sting.”

“I'm good there,” Alex replied, the words firing out just a little too fast. Ah, damn it. This situation was sideways enough without having to dig into the truth behind his statement. There were only three people at Eight who were privy to all of his sticky particulars, and Alex wasn't about to bump the number higher, not even by one.

He forced his shoulders into their loosest setting, dialing his expression up to damage control status. “I've got some scratch saved up from my part-time gig. It'll last.”

“Right. I forgot about that.” O'Keefe propped both forearms on the table, tilting his head as he thankfully switched gears. “Still. You spent all day at this soup kitchen place. You haven't tried to sweet-talk the director into giving you a shorter assignment, maybe moving the whole thing along so you can get back in-house? This is
you,
after all.”

An image of Zoe with her hands locked over her lush, denim-wrapped hips as she ran him in circles around Hope House's kitchen ricocheted through Alex's brain, and he barely managed to cough out a humorless laugh with his answer. “Uh, yeah, no. As much as I want to trim some time off my assignment, sweet-talking the director isn't going to be a viable strategy.”

Cole's brows slid together, his gaze darkening in confusion under the low light of the bar. “Talking your way out of things is always your strategy. What's so special about this director that makes her a game changer?”

“Well, let's see. For starters, her last name is Westin.”

The stunned silence at the table lasted for a breath, then another, before O'Keefe finally broke it with a low whistle. “Ho-ly shit, Teflon. Zoe Westin is the director of Hope House's soup kitchen?
That's
the hush-hush project she came back home to work on?”

Alex's sip of beer went down way more sour than smooth, and he made a face to match. “Unfortunately, yes.”

Cole frowned, and hell if it wasn't the sentiment of the day. “Didn't she land an apprenticeship with some high-profile chef or something last year? Why would she come back to Fairview to run a soup kitchen?”

“I didn't ask, and she wasn't exactly forthcoming with her life's details. But not only is she the soup kitchen's first in command, the place is so freaking understaffed, she's the
only
one in command.”

“Well, that explains why sweet talk is off the table,” Brennan said. “Zoe is Cap's golden child. I know you've got balls of solid steel, but . . .”

“I'm reckless, dude. Not brainless.” There were only a handful of hard and fast rules that Alex stood by, but he stood by them hard. Always have another firefighter's back, live every second like it could be your last, don't piss into the wind unless you can handle the mess....

And the captain's daughter is hands down, one hundred percent off-limits. No questions. All the time.

Especially since barely four days ago, Captain Westin had gone to bat to save the career Alex desperately needed, and Alex had sworn above all not to let the man down.

O'Keefe narrowed his eyes in obvious thought, leaning back against his bar stool. “So flirting your way to less time is a no-go, clearly. But Zoe is still Westin's daughter, and even though she hasn't been around much lately, it's not as if she doesn't know all of us from being around the station. You can't get her to throw you a mercy bone for being in-house?”

Alex fought the urge to let loose a rude snort, but just barely. “Despite her heritage, I'm pretty sure Zoe is unfamiliar with the concept of mercy. She's as serious as a sledgehammer, especially when it comes to getting things done at Hope House.” Hell if Alex didn't have the screaming muscles and throbbing feet to prove it. Running a kitchen wasn't supposed to be literal, for Chrissake.

“Okay,” Cole said, ever the calm, cool strategist. “If you can't catch a break in the soup kitchen with Zoe, how about trying to switch to a different placement?”

Unease took a tour through Alex's gut as he did a mental revisit of the phone call he'd placed on his fifteen-minute lunch break. “Already ahead of you, brother. But apparently these placements are one and done. You either take what they give you, or you don't take a thing.”

The rep from the fire chief's office had been summer-sunrise clear. The only way Alex was getting out of being placed at Hope House was if the director booted him, and if that happened, there would be no parting gifts at the door. As bitter as the community-service pill was on his tongue, his only available option was to grit out his time in the soup kitchen with his head down and his eyes forward.

No matter how curvy Zoe's hips looked beneath that freaking apron.

Alex shook his head in an effort to dislodge the mental picture—and all the heat that went with it—from his frontal lobe. Aside from the fact that, hello, she was his captain's freaking daughter, she was essentially his boss for the next four weeks. Okay, so it was more theory than technical fact. After all, the FFD still signed his paychecks—or at least they would when he got his job back. But Zoe was one hundred percent in charge of Hope House's soup kitchen, and by default, his fate lay smack in the center of her iron fist. Thinking about her curves, or anything other than punching the clock and getting this ridiculous sentence done as fast as humanly possible, was a crap idea of the highest order.

Especially since the last time he'd seen her at the annual barbecue, Alex had damn near obliterated one of the few rules he lived by and kissed Zoe Westin senseless.

“Damn,” O'Keefe said, remarshaling Alex back to the crowd noise and clinking glassware at Bellyflop's bar. “That sucks, man. At least maybe the department will let Cole do his community service there with you.”

Alex's thoughts screeched to a stop like an old record being yanked from a turntable, his thoughts of Zoe disappearing in a hard snap. “What community service?” He divided his stare between O'Keefe's foot-in-mouth wince and Cole's well-
crap
grimace, his knuckles turning white over the amber bottle in his grasp. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“It's not that big a deal,” Cole said, although Alex knew better than to take the qualifier at face value. The guy was levelheaded even in his sleep, and all the unspoken communication flying between him and O'Keefe turned the words into fertilizer anyway.

“Uh-huh. Start talking.”

Cole shifted against his bar stool, his palm taking a slow trip over the back of his neck. “Cap gave me the news when we were on shift yesterday. I was assigned fifteen hours of community service for following you into the warehouse fire against McManus's orders.”

“Are you shitting me?” Alex asked, the question spiked with both anger and disbelief. “It was my decision to blow off what he said and go in.”

“Yeah, but it was my decision to follow you, even after I'd heard him tell you to stand down. You may have led the way, but I didn't think twice about following, and McManus was definitely bent enough to make a point.”

Cole's matter-of-fact response glued the rest of Alex's diatribe to his throat. Captain McManus
had
gone all piss and vinegar, to the tune of Alex getting screwed with four whole weeks in Hell's Kitchen. But he'd never thought for a second that Cole would get caught in the crossfire of the guy's posturing.