Mountain Firefighter (Tinsel & Timber #2)

Chapter 1

KENDRY

The first wisps of smoke curl from beneath the hood like ghostly fingers reaching for the snow-filled sky.

“No, no, no. Not now. Not here.” I throw the gearshift into park and turn it off with a groan, but the smoke keeps coming, darker now, carrying the acrid smell of burning rubber and melting plastic.

Twenty-five years old, and this is how my fresh start will end— stranded on a mountain highway in the middle of nowhere Montana, three days before Christmas, with nothing but a duffel bag of clothes, my camera equipment, a canine companion experiencing a freak out, and the shattered remains of my pride.

I should’ve known better than to think I could outrun heartbreak in a car held together by duct tape and wishful thinking.

I grab my phone from the cup holder.

No service.

Of course not.

Because the universe has apparently decided that getting dumped by the man I loved since I was seventeen wasn’t enough cosmic punishment for whatever sins I’ve committed in a past life.

Eight years. Eight years of birthday cakes and inside jokes, of Sunday morning pancakes and Thursday night trivia at O’Malley’s. Eight years of planning a future that evaporated the moment Derek looked at me across our apartment —his apartment now— and said, “I think we want different things.”

What he really meant was “I want different things.” He wanted Emma from accounting, who doesn’t smell like espresso and doesn’t have calluses on her fingers from adjusting camera lenses. He wanted someone who doesn’t still dream of making it as a photographer while slinging lattes to pay rent.

And in the end, he didn’t want… me

The smoke thickens, and my pulse spikes.

I roll down my driver’s side window and then pop the door handle and stumble out into the December cold, my breath forms clouds that mingled with the ones escaping my car’s hood.

Snow begins to fall in fat flakes that catch in my tight curls and melt against my anger flushed cheeks.

Merry is well-trained and only sticks her nose out of the window.

Should open the hood? Isn’t that what I’m supposed to do?

Or is that exactly what I’m not supposed to do with an engine fire?

“Step back from the vehicle!”

The voice cuts through the wind and my panic. Deep and commanding enough that I obey before my brain has fully processed the words. I backpedal several feet, nearly slipping on the icy shoulder, and turn to find a large pickup truck pulling up behind my car, emergency lights flashing.

The driver’s side door of a massive pickup truck swings open and out steps a man who looks like he’s carved from the mountains themselves.

Merry jumps out the window and I reach out for her leash, but she’s already to him and he’s picking it up while she looks up with unmitigated admiration.

Her hero… but what is he for me?

The guy’s tall —well over six feet— with broad shoulders straining against a dark green jacket marked with a Forest Service patch that reads something I can’t quite make out.

Black… Simba… Pucks? No, it can’t be that. Black Timber Pimps? I hope it’s not that!

His hair is chocolate brown, silver strands catch the weak afternoon light and sparkle, and it’s cut short and slightly mussed, as if he’s been running his hands through it.

Probably mid-to-late-forties, with the kind of weathered face that speaks of years spent outdoors, all strong jaw and serious eyes the shade of smoke.

His eyes lock on my car, assessing, even as he reaches back into his truck for a fire extinguisher, still managing Merry’s leash in one hand like he’s used to this.

“How long has it been smoking?” He hands off the leash. “Sit and stay.”

And she does, but so do I.

The stay… not the sit, although… I kinda like how he demanded it. Weird.

He’s already past me, his boots crunching on the gravel.

“Maybe… two minutes? I pulled over as soon as I saw the… that.” I motion wildly to what can’t be good and is making my head fester with fears and anxiety.

“Good.” With gloved hands, he lifts the car’s hood.

Not a hesitation in sight. It releases a fresh billow of smoke that makes me cough.

But he doesn’t flinch, just aims the extinguisher and unleashes a stream of white foam into the engine compartment with the practiced efficiency of someone who does this sort of thing before breakfast.

The smoke slowly dissipates, like mist off of a lake.

Merry barks a pleased little ode of happiness and I give her a side-eye. She’s never liked men. Hated my ex. Peed on the male veterinarian. Moody… but in the cutest way. At least I think so.

She takes after her human.

Gloves on the fender, the muscles in his forearms flexing beneath his pushed-up coat sleeves despite the chill in the mountain air, he works methodically, covering every inch of the engine bay.

I find myself staring at those muscles— tight, sinewy, with a light dusting of hair.

And the way his large hands move with surprising precision is both admirable and stimulating.

Stop it! The last thing I need right now is to be fawning over the man who’s putting out my car fire. This isn’t the time and this isn’t the place. Plus, he probably doesn’t need this gawk-show either.

But my photographer’s eye has already cataloged so many details.

The slight furrow between his brows as he concentrates, the way snowflakes catch in his barely salt-and-peppered hair, the white clouds of his breath in the freezing air.

He looks like he belongs here, in this wild and unpredictable place, as essential to the landscape as the pines and the mountains themselves.

After what feels like an eternity but is probably less than a minute, he slides back, surveying his work with a critical eye.

“Should be out,” he says, his voice rougher now, probably from the smoke. “But this engine is shot. You’re not driving this car today or maybe any day now.”

My stomach drops to somewhere around my knees. “What?”

He turns to look at me fully for the first time, and the impact of his direct gaze nearly knocks me back a step.

Up close, his eyes aren’t just gray— they’re slate blue.

Like the color of the sky before a storm, ringed with a dark navy and framed by laugh lines that suggest he smiles more often than his serious expression implies.

“Looks like the timing belt snapped,” he says, with a run of his hand through his hair, tussling what wasn’t perfect into chaos, but it looks just right.

“That caused the engine to overheat, which started melting things that really shouldn’t melt.

Even if I could get it started, which I can’t, you wouldn’t make it half a mile before it seized up completely.

” He pauses, studying my face with an intensity that makes my skin warm despite the cold. “Where were you heading?”

“Colorado Springs.” My voice comes out smaller than I intended. “To stay with my aunt for Christmas.”

Something flickers across his face— concern, maybe, but more likely disbelief.

“Colorado?” he asks.

I nod.

“Ummm… you’re a long way from Colorado Springs, Colorado.”

“I know.” I wrap my arms around myself, suddenly aware that I ran out of the car without grabbing a coat. Merry stands and slides in close to share her body heat.

I’m wearing only jeans, boots, and an oversized burgundy sweater I’d thrown on this morning in Seattle— before loading up everything I own that matters and pointing my car east.

Running away, my best friend Simone had called it.

Taking control of my own narrative, I corrected her… and then realized she was probably right.

Possibly. Potentially. Actually.

Anyway, I’m stuck in the middle of Montana with a dead car and a rescuer who looks like he’s stepped out of a mountain man charity calendar shoot.

“Here.” The man shrugs out of his jacket, revealing a thermal Henley that does absolutely nothing to hide the solid build beneath. He holds the jacket out to me, and when I hesitate, his eyebrows rise slightly. “You’re turning blue. Please, take it.”

The jacket is still warm from his body heat when I slip it on. It swallows me, the sleeves hanging past my hands, but it smells like pine and smoke and something else, something masculine and clean that makes me want to bury my nose in the collar.

But I won’t do that.

I still have some dignity left.

Okay, maybe not… but still, I have manners.

I think.

“Thank you,” I manage to squeak out.

“Calder Brennan.” He extends his hand, and I shake it, noting the calluses, the strength in his grip, the way his hand completely engulfs mine.

“I’m with the Hotshot crew based out of Black Timber Peak.

We’re in off-season right now, but I was heading back from a training exercise when I saw your smoke. ”

I don’t know what a hotshot is, but I’m not going to ask. I’ll assume something with fire because of the way he handedly took care of the situation.

“Kendry Sullivan.” I shake twice and then pull my hand back, trying to ignore the tingle that runs up my arm from where we touch. “And I’m really grateful you stopped. I had visions of my car exploding into a fireball.”

A smile tugs at the corner of his mouth, transforming his face from seriously handsome to dangerously goodlooking. “Movies aren’t real life. Cars don’t usually explode, even when they’re on fire. But you did the right thing, getting out when you did.”

“Well, that’s one thing I’ve done right today.” The words burst from my mouth before I can stop them, tinged with more bitterness than I intended.

Calder’s expression shifts, the concern returning. “Bad day?”

“Bad month. Bad year. Bad life.” I glance back at my car— my dead… smoking… useless car.

Kind of a fitting end to this shitty day.

“You hungry?” he asks.

He verbally shakes me from my downward spiral. “Um, yeah, kinda.”

“Let’s get you fed.”

Merry barks.

“You, too, snowflake,” he says to her like bringing along a dog is no big deal.

Not once did Derek ever ask me if Merry or I were hungry… or anything.

Not only does he put out fires, but I think he’s starting one inside of me.