Chapter 4
Chapter Four
Clay
I’m halfway through inventorying hose nozzles when the bay door rolls up and trouble walks in wearing paint-splattered jeans.
Ember Quinn doesn’t just enter a room—she pours into it. Warm. Loud. Bright. Like someone left the kiln on too long and it condensed into a woman with wild hair and a mouth I keep telling myself I’m not going to taste.
She shouldn’t be here.
She is here.
And she’s holding something cradled in both hands like it’s a newborn.
Great.
“Hey, fiancé,” she calls, all sunshine and sin. “Got a delivery for the hero who’s very bad at pretending he doesn’t like me.”
I don’t look up right away, mostly because the guys are in the lounge, and if they hear that sentence I’m never hearing the end of it. I set the nozzle down, wipe grease off my palms, and finally lift my head.
She’s already watching me. Always is.
“You can’t just walk in the bay,” I tell her, voice flat. “It’s not a bakery.”
“Hi, Clay,” she sing-songs, ignoring every boundary ever established. “Love of my very public life.”
“Ember.”
She grins wider. “God, I love when you say my name like it’s a fire you have to control.”
“Because it is.”
“Aw.”
She crosses the concrete toward me. Her boots squeak. Her dark waves are in some messy knot that is definitely going to fall apart later. She smells like clay and oranges and female trouble.
“What is that,” I ask, nodding at the thing she’s carrying.
“A bribe.”
“Not taking bribes.”
“A gift.”
“Don’t need gifts.”
“Too bad.”
She stops right in front of me—too close—and lifts it.
It’s a mug.
Terracotta base, glazed a deep, glossy red, letters stamped imperfectly around the curve.
FIREPROOF HEART.
I look at it.
Then I look at her.
She’s watching me like I’m a kiln she’s waiting on. Like she cares whether I like it. Which I hate. Because I do.
I take it from her, big hand swallowing the handle. The clay is smooth, still warmer than room temp. She must’ve fired it this morning.
I run my thumb over the letters, slow. Raised indents. Her work. Her hands.
“Cute,” I say.
Her mouth drops open. “Cute? Clay. It’s a bespoke, hand-thrown, small-batch piece of functional art.”
“It’s a cup.”
“It’s a gesture.”
“It’s still a cup.”
She jabs a finger at me. “You are impossible.”
“Been told.”
She huffs, all theatrics, then narrows her eyes suspiciously at the mug in my hand. “You like it.”
I set it on the workbench carefully—because I do like it, and I’m not letting any of the guys break it—and lean back on my heels. “I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t not say it.”
I give her a look. “You always argue like this?”
“Only with men who rescue me from burning buildings and then pretend they’re not soft inside.”
I snort. “I’m not soft, firecracker.”
“Uh-huh.” She tips her head, eyes flicking to the mug. “Don’t act like you’re not touched.”
“I’m touched, all right.” I let my gaze drag over her, unhurried, lingering on the paint smudge at her collarbone, the way her shirt falls off one shoulder. “Just not where you’re hoping.”
Her cheeks flush. Not shy. Just…hit.
Bingo.
The air between us tightens. I feel the shift happen—like oxygen getting sucked out right before a flashover.
She swallows. “Who says I’m hoping?”
“Your face.”
“My face is innocent.”
“Your face is loud.”
She laughs under her breath, throatier than before. “You’re so obnoxious.”
“You keep showing up.”
“Because we’re engaged, remember?”
“Wrong word.”
“Temporarily engaged.”
“Fake engaged.”
“Semantics.” She waves it away. “Anyway, I brought you that so you remember not everyone burns.”
I go still.
She realizes what she said a half-second too late. I watch it hit her—her bright expression flickers, like she stepped where she didn’t mean to.
“Clay, I didn’t—I just meant—”
“I know what you meant,” I say, voice lower. “And you’re wrong.”
Her brows knit. “About what?”
“Everything burns.”
For a second, the clowning drops out of her eyes. There’s that look I saw last night at the bonfire, the one she tried to drown in sugar and jokes—loss, deep and familiar. It hits something in me I don’t want hit.
She looks like she wants to argue. She always does.
Instead, she takes a breath. “Then maybe some of us are supposed to,” she says quietly. “Maybe that’s how we get warm.”
Christ.
I have to look away.
Because that line? That’s the kind of soft-hearted, reckless poetry that gets a man killed. Gets him making mistakes. Gets him reaching.
And I don’t reach.
Not anymore.
Before I can redirect, I hear footsteps and a too-amused voice from the doorway. “Well, if it isn’t Firehouse Fiancées,” Gabe calls. “We get donuts or just Clay gets pottery?”
Ember brightens like someone plugged her in. “Hey, Gabe! I brought art.”
Gabe grins. “You bring anything that doesn’t get broken in five minutes?”
“A good time.”
He barks a laugh. “I like her.”
I glare at him. “Don’t you have reports?”
“Already done.”
Ember props her hip against the bench, casual as hell. “Don’t let me keep you from an Important Fireman Meeting.”
“I won’t.”
“But before you go—”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“Ember.”
She bounces on her toes once, mischief blooming. “Put the flannel on.”
I stare at her. “What.”
“The flannel. The green one the town lost its mind over. You can’t break their hearts now. They’re invested.”
“Absolutely not.”
“Clay.”
“No. You wore it last night–”
“Because I was freezing. You’re my fiancé. We have to match aesthetically.”
“We do not.”
“Clay.”
“Ember.”
We stare.
She grins.
I sigh.
“Jesus,” I mutter, turning to the rack by the door where I hung it earlier. I grab the damn green flannel and shrug it on over my navy tee. The material pulls across my shoulders. It smells like smoke and—annoyingly—her.
I look back at her.
She’s staring.
Hard.
“What?” I ask.
She licks her lips. Tiny movement. Full-body hit.
“That’s illegal,” she says softly.
“It’s a shirt.”
“It’s foreplay.”
Gabe coughs from the doorway, trying and failing not to laugh. “I’m gonna go before HR appears out of thin air.”
“Go,” I snap.
He goes.
I turn back to Ember.
She’s still looking at me like she could eat me for breakfast and lick the plate clean.
“You good?” I ask.
Her eyes flick up to mine, wide and much too aware. “Yeah,” she breathes. “Fine.”
“You don’t look fine.”
“Then stop looking at me like that.”
“I’m not looking at you like anything.”
She arches a brow. “Clay. You’re looking at me like you’re deciding which part of me you want to bite first.”
Yeah?
Because I am.
I close the distance between us without thinking about it. Two steps. Boots on concrete. Now I’m in her space, my shadow over her, her back brushing the bench.
Her breath hitches.
“Ember,” I say, low.
“Yeah.”
“You really shouldn’t look at me like that, firecracker.”
Her pupils blow wide. “Like what?”
“Like you want me to set you on fire.”
She swallows. “Maybe I do.”
I brace a hand on the workbench beside her hip, leaning in just enough to feel her heat, not enough to give in. I can see every fleck of brown and gold in her eyes. Her scent fills my lungs.
“You got no idea what you’re asking for,” I murmur.
“Try me.”
“Don’t tempt me.”
“Too late.”
My jaw tightens. My body is way ahead of my brain—heavy, awake, ready. I can picture it too easily—her up on this bench, legs wrapped, clay under her nails digging into my shoulders while I—
No.
I pull back an inch.
“You know what our deal was,” I remind her. “No touching. No kissing. No trouble.”
“You added the trouble.”
“I knew who I was talking to.”
She smiles, soft and wicked. “Then maybe you also knew you didn’t really want to keep your hands off me.”
My lips twitch. “You done?”
“Not even close.”
She pushes off the bench and slips out from under my arm, all fast, slippery fox. Grabs her bag. Looks back.
“Enjoy your mug, Fireman,” she says, eyes flicking to the red glaze. “It’s heat-safe. Like you.”
“Ember—”
But she’s already walking backward, grin too big for this building. “Don’t break it,” she sings. “Or my heart. They’re kind of a matching set.”
Then she spins and leaves, boots clacking on the bay floor like she belongs here.
The door rolls down behind her.
Silence rushes in.
I look at the mug.
FIREPROOF HEART.
My thumb runs over it again.
I don’t smile.
I don’t.
But I feel something ease that hasn’t eased in a long fucking time.
I make it about four hours before I cave and use the thing.
I tell myself it’s because my old mug is chipped.
I tell myself it’s because Ember will 100% ask me about it later and I don’t wanna have to say it sat in a cupboard.
Truth?
I want her hands on my hands.
I rinse it, fill it with black coffee, and stand at the bay door watching late afternoon bleed over Copper Mountain, mug warm in my palm. The guys rag me about it, of course.
“Cute cup, Walker.”
“Aw, did your fiancée make you a love potion?”
“Where’s ours?”
I tell them all to shut up.
They don’t.
They never do.
But they stop when the Gazette article drops.
My phone pings around five. Then again. Then again. Then again.
I pull it from my pocket, thumb over the screen, and there it is:
LOVE FROM THE ASHES: COPPER MOUNTAIN FIREFIGHTER SAVES HIS brIDE
Featuring a zoomed-in, very unflattering, very close shot of me putting my flannel on Ember last night.
I stare.
Then I swear.
Loud.
From the office, Chief calls, “Everything all right, Walker?”
“Peachy,” I grind out.
The guys crowd around, laughing, whistling. Gabe reads over my shoulder.
“Oooh, they called you stoic.” He grins. “And ‘enigmatic.’ And ‘heartbroken hero who found love again.’”
I scroll.
There’s a quote from Ember.
My jaw locks.
He didn’t just save me from the fire, she said with that obnoxious smile. He stayed. He made sure I wasn’t alone. That’s the kind of man you marry.
I close my eyes.
God, firecracker.
You really didn’t have to go that hard.
“Walker,” Chief calls again, sharper. “My office. Now.”
Perfect.