Chapter 2
DIEGO
The firehouse smelled like smoke and hot metal, and my shirt still carried the scent of the grill from earlier.
Fourth of July never really slowed down.
Sure, we’d done the picnic thing, smiled for the town, done our bit for community outreach, but this was the part of the night where we waited for the next dumbass whose celebratory drinking made setting off a roman candle inside was a good idea or the teenagers who set a field—or a house—on fire having a bottle rocket war.
We all pretty well hated this season until everybody ran out of the fireworks they’d stocked up on for the holiday.
The bay doors were cranked wide open, letting in whatever sluggish breeze could find its way through the humid evening air.
The massive fans mounted high on the walls hummed steadily on their highest setting, their industrial blades cutting through the thick atmosphere and pushing the oppressive heat around in lazy circles that did little more than stir the sweat on our skin.
Someone—probably Meatball, judging by the way he’d been complaining about the temperature every five minutes—had dumped a fresh twenty-pound bag of ice into the big red Igloo cooler that lived permanently by the back wall.
Every so often I could hear the musical clink of glass against glass as one of the guys fished around in the icy slush for another cold beer or soda, the sound sharp and clear against the white noise of the fans.
The department scanner mounted on the wall above the dispatch board popped and hissed with its familiar static symphony, the disembodied voices of dispatchers calling out other crews to other parts of Riverside County.
House fire on Oak Street. Medical assist on the interstate.
Brush fire contained. The voices were calm, professional, routine—the soundtrack of a busy holiday night that we all knew by heart.
We stayed half-dressed in our turnout gear, suspenders hanging loose around our waists, boots unlaced but ready to slip on at a moment’s notice, just in case our number came up.
I’d always loved this in-between time, this suspended moment when we existed in the space between calls.
The rhythm of the station felt like something solid and dependable under my feet, like a steady heartbeat that had nothing to do with me personally but was generous enough to let me borrow it, anyway.
For a kid who’d spent his entire childhood bouncing from one stranger’s house to another, from one temporary placement to the next, never knowing how long he’d be welcome anywhere, that borrowed rhythm was everything—a foundation I could count on even when everything else felt uncertain.
It usually calmed me. Tonight? Not so much.
“So, Rivera.” Twitch’s voice came from behind me, lazy as a cat and twice as dangerous. Not the natural state for Kyle Russo, who barely stopped moving, even in sleep. “You gonna tell us who the redhead was?”
I pulled at the knot of one bootlace and kept my voice even. “What redhead?”
Donkey—otherwise known as Powell Ferguson—laughed so loud the sound echoed off the rafters. “Don’t play dumb, man. The one you locked onto like a damn searchlight. Then ran away from. Smooth, real smooth.”
Twitch chimed in, grinning like the devil himself. “You looked like a kid at a middle school dance, trying not to get caught staring.”
A couple of the others barked out quick laughs. I didn’t look up. Experience had taught me that looking up only encouraged them.
Of course, that never stopped the peanut gallery.
Meatball—Daniel Costello, biggest mouth in the building—stuck his head out from behind his locker door. “Wait, wait, wait. Rivera was looking at somebody? I thought you’d taken some kind of monk vow. Celibacy or something. Isn’t that why we call you Paladin?”
I rolled my eyes.
“Not celibacy,” Captain Rhett MacAvoy—Tater to everyone—put in from the doorway, arms crossed, watching this like it was better than TV. “Vow of secrecy. You know how many years we’ve been trying to figure out what Paladin even likes? If he has a type, apparently it’s redheads.”
Jarrod Sato—Moose, so named for his long, gangly limbs—who normally only opened his mouth when it really counted, shook his head and added his two cents. “Never thought I’d see the day Paladin got shook.”
Their laughter filled the bay, bouncing off concrete and metal. Normally, I’d be able to tune it out, let it roll over me. That was the deal. You stayed quiet; they got bored; they moved on.
But tonight? Tonight I just sat there with one boot half off, feeling every damn look on me.
The bay door creaked, and a shadow crossed the concrete. Chief Holloway stepped in from the office hallway, coffee mug in one hand, strolling with the ease of a man who’d seen it all.
“What’s this about?” His eyes cut to me. “Rivera finally blinked at a woman?”
The place went absolutely feral. My crew turned into a bunch of idiots when they didn’t have anything better to do.
Meatball practically doubled over, laughing. “Not blinked. Bolted.”
Tater, always ready to pour fuel on a fire now that he’d sorted things out with his used to be ex-wife, Pepper, leaned back against a locker, arms crossed. “Like she was carrying a hose and a marriage license.”
The laughter echoed hard enough to make the walls vibrate.
I tugged my second boot off and lined it up slowly, taking my time, letting them wear themselves out. Then I looked up, completely deadpan. “You’re imagining things. I was watching the grill.”
Twitch snorted. “Yeah, because the grill has long legs and red hair now.”
Meatball was still grinning like he’d just struck gold. “So who is she?”
“Nobody.” Too fast. Too sharp.
And just like that, they scented blood in the water.
Donkey slapped his locker shut with a grin. “Ohhh, boys, did you hear that? Nobody. That’s code for somebody.”
Tater tipped his chin toward me, smug. “Somebody who clearly still has Paladin’s head messed up four hours later.”
I ignored them, grabbed a rag, and started wiping down a counter that was already clean, hoping the motion would hide the fact that my hands weren’t as steady as I wanted them to be.
It had been four years since I’d even said her name out loud. Four years of pretending that summer hadn’t carved something out of me I’d never quite filled back in.
And still, one look this afternoon and I was right back there—twenty-four, raw and stupid, hoping for more than I’d ever had any right to want.
Back to those stolen summer nights when she’d sneak out to meet me by the creek, her hair smelling like jasmine and her laugh soft against my neck.
Back to mornings when I’d wake up with her curled against my chest, and for just a few minutes, I’d let myself believe we could make it work somehow.
Gillian Holliday had never been for me. Not really.
Her family made sure I knew it without ever saying a word—the way her father’s jaw would tighten when he spotted me at family gatherings, the polite but distant smiles from her mother, the careful way conversations would shift whenever I walked into a room.
They didn’t need to spell it out. I could read the writing on the wall just fine.
And when she packed up for law school that August, that sealed it.
She had a life mapped out from birth, a future carved in stone that didn’t have room for a former foster kid who’d barely scraped by in high school and had gone to the fire academy instead of some high-brow university with ivy-covered walls and seven-figure price tags.
I’d known it even then, deep down. Known that what we had was borrowed time, a beautiful mistake that would end the second real life came calling.
I’d made my peace with that. Or thought I had.
And then she showed up in a sky-blue summer dress that hugged her curves in all the right places, and every single scar I’d built over that old wound split right back open like tissue paper.
Damn, but she’d looked fucking incredible.
More than incredible—she’d looked like every sleepless night I’d tried to forget rolled into one devastating package.
The dress was simple, nothing fancy, but it skimmed her body in a way that made my mouth go dry.
The color brought out her eyes, made her skin glow in the late afternoon sunlight filtering through the trees in the park.
Her hair was longer now, falling in soft waves past her shoulders, and when she’d turned to scan the crowd, I’d caught a glimpse of that smile—the one that used to make me forget my own name.
Sexy. Confident. Untouchable as ever. And a younger, dumber part of me half wondered if she’d worn that dress for me, having remembered how much I loved those little summer dresses and all the easy access they afforded back when we couldn’t keep our hands off each other.
How many times had I peeled similar dresses off her shoulders in the back of my truck, or on a blanket by the creek, or pressed up against my bedroom door in that crappy first apartment I’d had back then?
But that was ridiculous. Gillian had left Huckleberry Creek in her rearview mirror and never looked back.
Whatever reason brought her back to our little slice of Alabama had nothing to do with me, and she’d probably be gone in a few days anyway, back to whatever high-powered life she’d built for herself in the city.
“Drop it.” The words came out sharper than I meant them to.
That got their attention.
It wasn’t loud. It wasn’t angry. Just a little too hard-edged for someone who was supposed to be unshakable.
Every single one of them stilled for a beat, trading looks over my head. Because if there was one thing about me they all knew? Paladin didn’t get rattled. Not by a call. Not by a fight. And sure as hell not by a woman.
Until now.
Meatball leaned back against his locker, grinning like a cat who’d cornered a mouse.
“This is going to be fun,” he said. “We’ve got ourselves a mystery woman—”
The alarm bell split the air like a gunshot.
Instantly, everything else fell away. Laughter cut off. Conversations died.
Boots slammed back on. Jackets came off hooks. We were moving before the second tone sounded, muscle memory taking over.
I pulled my coat on, checked my gear without thinking about it, and jogged for the truck. The night outside was a wall of heat, fireworks still cracking somewhere far off, the promise of chaos waiting.
By the time I climbed into the rig and slammed the door, my head was clear again. It had to be.
That’s what I did best—lock it down, box it up, shove it somewhere nobody can see.
Because Gillian Holliday might have walked back into town today, but she sure as hell wasn’t walking back into my life.