Single Dad Hottie (Return to Starlight Bay #21)

Chapter 1

Chapter One

EMBER

“Come down,” I shout at the white fluff ball on the roof of my bungalow.

She meows, tail twitching, as if she’s mocking me.

With a huff, I tighten the sash on my dressing gown and stomp back inside for the stepladder my brother, Flint, lent me after the last time one of my cats decided the roof was their new playground.

He promised he’d cut down the tree on my front lawn to stop this happening again, but as the town’s fire chief, he’s too busy saving everyone else to deal with my feline emergencies.

Cupid winds around my legs as I drag the ladder out of the garden shed.

My cats are probably wondering why I’m stomping about at this hour when I should be tucked in bed.

I’d planned a hot date with a dragon shifter, a box of chocolates, and a mug of cocoa before turning in early due to class tomorrow.

Instead, I’ve spent the last hour outside like an idiot, coaxing Fidget down from her self-appointed throne.

I could call Flint, but he’d just call me the crazy cat lady when he finds out I’ve taken on another rescue kitten. I can’t help it. These fur balls are my babies and the only babies I’ll ever have.

Out front, I prop the ladder against the house, already sweating despite the cool October air.

Heights make my stomach twist, but the thought of Fidget stuck up here all night is worse.

So I climb anyway, clinging to the rungs—and to the hope I can rescue the kitten and still squeeze in thirty minutes in bed with my fire-breathing hero.

“Here, Fidget,” I coo, holding a tin of tuna.

The little thing scrambles higher up the roof as if afraid of the crazy lady waving a tub of tuna at midnight. It’s times like this I question my life choices.

“Fidget, please come down. You don’t want me to call my brother.” I huff as the kitten just meows.

“Ember? What are you doing?” my neighbour Seraphina calls. She and her nan never could resist poking their noses into my chaos. Now it’s just her, but the habit stuck.

“I’m living my best life. What’s it look like?” I puff, not exactly the fittest or leanest person to be climbing roofs in the dark, but it’s unavoidable. At least last year’s fairy lights still cling to the gutter, throwing off a faint glow on where to place my foot under the cloudy night sky.

“Shall I call Chief Sparks?” she shouts, all too familiar with my brother the chief since she dated his son.

“No, I’ve got it.” I edge farther onto the tiles, praying this roof holds my weight. How much can a tiled roof actually hold? “Here, Fidget,” I say, my tone not as cheery as it was before.

Fidget crawls to the ridge of the roof, sitting there looking innocent. The little minx is going to be the death of me.

My foot slips. Oh shit. This is it. I spread out like a snow angel on my roof, only less graceful, clinging to whatever I can, but there’s nothing to cling to.

The tiles are smooth. One false move and it’s all over.

I always knew I’d die alone, but in my bed with some dignity at least. Not like this.

Not in my scruffy pyjamas with a taco stain on the front and for the love of all that is holy, why didn’t I wear nice underwear?

My heart pounds against my ribs. A sheen of sweat coats my cool skin. The mortician will have to remove my big granny panties from my corpse, and I’m not even wearing a bra.

“I’m calling Flint,” Seraphina shouts as I cling to the tiles like a scene from a comedy sketch on National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation. Only this is no vacation. This is my life. I wonder if Flint will miss me when I’m gone?

Unable to move for fear of breaking another tile, I call to Fidget, hoping she’ll take pity on me. But she just meows as if laughing at me.

“There’ll be no more tins of tuna when I’m gone, you mischievous little fluff ball.”

Another meow like she hasn’t a care in the world.

My palms sweat despite the cool night air in the middle of October. I reach for another tile. If I can just make it a few more feet to reach the ridge, I could get to her. My hand slips.

“Ember, be careful.” Is all I hear as I slide down the roof.

My life flashes before me in slow motion. The irony that a crazy cat lady dies saving a kitten. Fidget looks like an angel, but she’s the devil in disguise, here to finish me off.

The lights snap, another tile slips, and I go clattering with it, grabbing for anything, everything—only to find nothing.

“Ember!” Sera shrieks.

Fuck my life.

A crack, a crash.

Blackness.

I’m dead.

I must be.

I’m weightless in the arms of the most handsome man I’ve ever seen.

Piercing blue eyes lock onto mine, so intense I forget how to breathe. Though the smirk on his face is more sinner than saint.

Heaven, hell, I don’t care—if this is the afterlife, I’m not complaining.

“How many fingers am I holding up?” he asks in a British accent, and it’s official—I’ve died and gone to firefighter-calendar heaven.

I don’t see any fingers. Just swirls of blue, dazzling like the shimmer of dragonstone. At least he’s looking into my eyes and not at the taco stain on my tatty pyjamas.

“You took quite a tumble there, miss,” he says, his voice rough, but it caresses me like velvet.

“But you caught me. Mr. October.” I can’t seem to wipe the doe-eyed smile from my face.

The blue-eyed fireman looks around, then back at me. “Mr. October, huh?”

“Yes, or are you Mr. July because I feel fireworks in my tummy?”

He chuckles. “Okay, maybe you hit your head on the way down.”

Boots crunch around me, voices murmur, and the cold bite of October air seeps through my dressing gown.

“My head?” I don’t feel any pain in my head. “It’s my ankle that hurts.”

He sets me down on the damp grass. Large calloused hands glide down my leg, and I wince at the three-day-old stubble on my calf.

The tree on my front lawn looms overhead as if it wants in on the joke of my life, its shadows dancing across me like fingers poking fun, while the fairy lights sag uselessly from my gutter, no longer twinkling. Figures.

I thought in heaven we all looked hot and in our prime.

But I’m still fat and forty, and my sight’s not the best without my reading glasses.

And what’s this throbbing pain in my ankle where his glorious hands are warming?

I haven’t died at all. I’m outside my bungalow and, even worse, the most beautiful fireman from my brother’s unit is caressing my foot and… oh crap.

“Fidget?” I croak, cheeks heating as I pull my dressing gown closed over my chest before he notices my boobs slipping into my armpits.

He glances up at the roof, then back at me. “Don’t you worry about the kitty, miss. I’ll take care of it.”

Something deep in my chest twinges, as if he’s shocked my heart back to life after ten long years.

My body is on fire, burning as if I have a fever.

The embarrassment of it all is too much.

Voices muffle, getting further away as I’m pulled back into the darkness, hoping this time the ground will swallow me whole.

Black.

Now I really am dead.