Fire Me Up: North Fork Series Read online

  Fire Me Up

  North Fork Series

  Alicia Street

  USA Today Bestselling Author

  Copyright © 2019 by Alicia Street

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from Alicia Street with the exception of brief quotations embodied in reviews.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

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  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Epilogue

  A Note From the Author

  Bonus Excerpt ~ Rainy Day Lovers

  Also by Alicia Street

  About the Author

  Chapter 1

  Marni Ross stood on the sidewalk outside the Just For You Cards and Gifts shop, shifting from foot to foot and blowing on her gloveless hands as she waited for her best friend, Kaylee, to pick her up. Seemed like forever, but then what did she expect when it had been snowing on and off all week, making the winter’s icy roads unpredictable?

  A frigid breeze sailing in from Greenport’s harbor sent a shiver through her shoulders. “Soon, please,” she murmured to herself.

  Having forgotten her earmuffs, Marni couldn’t help catching some of the stressed-out dialogue taking place only a few steps away. Actually she only heard one side of it since the guy was arguing with someone on his smart phone that was pressed tight against his cheek. He was turned away from her, facing a storefront, his shoulders hunched against the cold.

  “Gimme a break, Alexa. We can’t afford a house at that price. … Look, you’re the one who wants to move out here. I’d just as soon stay in Bay Ridge.”

  Uh-oh. Relationship problems. A subject Marni knew all too well. She felt bad for the guy and found herself being drawn in. Okay, so she was snooping.

  “No, Alexa, I didn’t. Yeah, I looked at the one on Sea Crest Lane. … Sorry, I’m doing all I can. I’m a firefighter, remember? Not a Wall Street banker.”

  A firefighter? Hmm. Marni knew some of the firefighters on the North Fork, but she didn’t remember any as hot as this hunk. An athletically built six-footer in jeans and a short leather jacket, he had a sexy kind of slouch and a way of shifting his weight that spoke of a dynamic muscular power on hold. Like a resting lion. Just looking at him warmed her up more than she’d like to admit. And tweaked her ever-curious mind.

  Being a schoolteacher active in community affairs, Marni had met a lot of first responders in the small towns and villages across the North Forth and wondered which fire department he worked with. But then he turned slightly, and she saw “FDNY” on his black wool beanie cap—and below that a face that would make any woman’s knees weak. Wow.

  But now it was clear why she had never seen him before. He lived in New York City. And judging from the conversation, he and “Alexa” were looking for a house out here. So Alexa was probably his wife.

  Marni scolded herself for her sudden disappointment at the realization that he was taken. How pathetic to start having fantasies about some stranger on the sidewalk just because he happened to be outrageously gorgeous.

  Back to reality, Marni looked away from him to her left, and when she did, she saw a white SUV speeding down the sleet-covered street in her direction. The car hit a patch of ice and came careening over the curb and onto the sidewalk—right toward the two of them.

  Unfortunately the fireman wasn’t picking up the memo. In an instant, Marni barreled toward the man, diving for him and wrapping her arms around him as she shoved him backwards into the confines of a shop’s alcove. He went down on his butt and then to his back—with Marni on top of him. The killer SUV whizzed past them and spun into a parked truck that brought it to a halt.

  A few people nearby came rushing over to the car, helping the driver out. Meanwhile, Marni and the man underneath her on his back just stared at each other.

  Holy crap. A girl could get used to this.

  Maybe it was the fact that they’d nearly been crushed by two tons of steel only a moment ago. Or maybe it was that this guy nestled between her legs was looking up at her with the sexiest eyes and mouth she’d ever seen—and their faces were mere inches apart—but Marni had the strongest urge to dip her head forward and kiss him.

  Suddenly embarrassed at the suggestive position they were in, she blurted out, “Sorry about that.”

  “Sorry? You just saved my life.”

  “I did? Oh, yeah. I guess so.” She climbed off of him, not very gracefully.

  “You sure did. And that’s usually my job,” he said, as they stood up and dusted the snow off their clothes. “I don’t know how to thank you. What you did was pretty amazing.” He smiled and his face went from gorgeous to spectacular.

  “No, I, uh…” She tried to think of something to say, but she couldn’t get her mind to move past the sensation of how good it felt to have his body under hers, his lips so close.

  Luckily, Marni heard a familiar voice calling to her along with a car horn beeping. She glanced over her shoulder and saw Kaylee double parked on the other side of the street. “Have a nice day,” Marni blurted out to him, then turned and raced across the street.

  Have a nice day? Oh well, she had never been great at boy-girl conversations. Besides, Marni thought as she hopped inside the car, I’ll never see him again anyway.

  “Who was that?” Kaylee asked, with emphasis on the word “that.”

  Marni shrugged. “Just this guy I bumped into.”

  “Wish he’d bump into me.”

  * * *

  Harper looked at Alexa’s beautiful profile as she gazed out at the raw February rain battering the streets of Brooklyn’s Bay Ridge. The neighborhood where they had both grown up. A place he never thought he’d leave. But now he was ready to do just that. For her.

  They sat at a table tucked in the back corner of Vesuvio’s, his favorite Italian restaurant. Harper had considered taking Alexa to a super fancy place across the river in Manhattan, but then he decided this would be perfect. Aside from the fact that they both loved the food here, this was where he had brought her on their first date a little over a year ago.

  Harper Sheehan wasn’t exactly the type of man to think in romantic terms like this—he usually left that to the female species—but the ultimatum Alexa had given him two weeks ago joggled him and made him take a hard look at what he wanted and what he was willing to give up to have it.

  After motoring his way through his dish of pasta with artichokes and spinach, Harper got antsy. He couldn’t wait to make his big announcement, even though his happily married buddy at the firehouse told him dessert would be the best time for it.

  The conversation had been sparse during dinner, Alexa saying barely a word, but no big deal. His lively twenty-six-year-old fiancée frequently came home with her battery power on low particularly on Fridays after having completed another week of boring administrative work followed by her standard vigorous workout at the gym.

  Except tonight her favorite dish—grilled chicken with portobello,
zucchini, and eggplant—sat barely touched in front of her.

  “Not hungry, Alexa?” he asked, taking a sip of red wine. Harper preferred beer, but he thought wine would be better for toasting their future when he told her his news. “You’ve hardly touched your dinner.”

  “Sorry.” She turned her head, smiled, and went back to taking small bites of her meal.

  Seeing how fake her smile looked, Harper knew something was going on in her head. In fact, now that he thought about it, she’d been acting strange since he picked her up earlier. Was she still angry with him? Did she think they had reached a stalemate? That he would never give in to what she wanted?

  Harper knew he had a stubborn streak a mile wide. But his uncle’s phone call and the past week of soul searching left him actually elated about making a change. And at thirty-two he was good and ready.

  “It’s okay, Alexa. I totally get it. Over the past month our head butting got pretty intense. But one reason I avoided getting together with you in the last ten days was because there were big decisions for me to make and I needed to make them on my own. And I have.” He lifted his glass of wine. “I wanted to come here tonight to celebrate our new plans. I spoke with my battalion chief about resigning from the fire department. I’m taking my uncle up on his offer. Yesterday I signed papers making me partner in his bar-restaurant out in Greenport. Uncle Phil even showed me some other houses we could afford out there. Not as fancy as the ones you wanted me to look at, but different from the one I picked out that you didn’t like.”

  A pained, almost panicked look shot across Alexa’s face. Instead of springing out of her seat and throwing her arms around him, she closed her eyes and paused, her hand coming up to massage her temple as if she had a headache.

  Not the response he expected.

  Harper didn’t like her silence. He could feel the tension in the air. Like a bomb ready to explode in his face. “What’s going on? Did I say something wrong? This was exactly what you wanted.”

  Alexa looked up at him. “I can’t marry you.”

  Stunned, Harper shook his head as if to dislodge the words he thought he’d heard. “Did you say—?”

  “I can’t marry you. I discovered I have feelings for someone else.”

  He wasn’t sure which was stronger, the pain searing through his chest or the urge to kill whoever this someone was. “Have you been cheating on me?”

  “No! I would never do that. But that’s why I need to break up with you now. What we had…it’s just not there anymore for me.”

  “So why were you showing me all those fancy houses online only a few weeks ago?”

  “I was trying to show you what I wanted. So you would realize…” Her words drifted off.

  “Realize what? You said you wanted to move out to the burbs and raise a family.”

  “I still do, but…” She pressed her lips together, brows knit.

  “Not with me.” Harper set down his glass, the taste of wine suddenly bitter. “It’s Neil, isn’t it? That asshole Wall Streeter who likes to brag about all the money he’s making.”

  Looking down at her plate, Alexa answered with a silent nod.

  Harper let out a cynical snort. “I thought it was interesting that you had this sudden passion to learn indoor rock climbing—which just happened to be his thing.”

  The blush that filled her cheeks said it all.

  Harper fought to hold his fury in check. “Was that why you gave me that ultimatum about not wanting to have kids with a firefighter who could die any day? Figuring my refusal to quit would get you off the hook?”

  “I…I don’t know. I guess I was just trying to say you’re not the right man for me.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me this before I gave notice? You think the decision to give up my job with a world class fire department was easy?”

  “I didn’t think you’d ever do it.” She sat forward and reached for his hand, but he pulled away. “They’ll take you back, Harper. Your family is royalty among the New York City firefighters.”

  “And what does that make me look like? A total shlump. I got my pride. Not to mention the big surprise I wanted to give you tonight was the contract I signed taking part ownership of my uncle’s bar-restaurant out in Greenport. No way can I renege on that. Aside from the money I put in, I gave my word to him. I got my honor. And I’m not about to piss all over it by breaking my word at the whim of a woman so shallow her definition of love is based on what’s in a man’s wallet.”

  Chapter 2

  It was a perfect June day, the sky clear with a light breeze. The farms and vineyards of the North Fork were burgeoning, the boating marinas revving up for the summer. Back when she was growing up here on this narrow finger of land that jutted into the Atlantic Ocean—the Long Island Sound on one side, the Peconic Bay on the other—Marni Ross had been so eager to leave it. But now she couldn’t imagine living anywhere else.

  This morning she led her second graders out to the paved parking lot behind Peconic Bend Elementary School where the fire safety trailer was parked alongside a couple big red firetrucks that brought delighted squeals from her students. She had already given them classroom activities for the fire prevention program, so she was curious to see which of her flock could answer the questions the captain challenged them with during his little speech.

  With the promise of a ride in the firetruck egging them on, the children lined up to first walk through the fire safety trailer, its side panel painted with a cute dog in a firefighter’s helmet. Inside, it was set up like a small house, with a kitchen, living room, dining room, and bedroom. Marni hovered over her students, herding them through the door and telling them to pay attention to the firefighter stationed there.

  It was Mr. Holsky, who’d been giving this same lecture on potential fire hazards in the home since Marni was in grade school. Although he had the girth, white hair, and red cheeks of a Santa Claus, the traditional yellow-striped black jacket and firefighter helmet transformed the now-retired captain into the dedicated public servant he was.

  He gave Marni a nod and a smile and went into his talk about faulty electrical wires, candles, fireplaces, and the danger of playing with matches. He told the children how and when to dial 911 and managed to keep their attention with his demonstration of using a fire extinguisher, a few volunteers even getting to try it.

  Then came the finale of filling the trailer with “real” smoke and showing the importance of determining escape routes out of a house. This was the part that most kids loved—but Marni still hated it. When she was a kid it had only been about embarrassing herself when the smoke made her throw up. But after her ill-fated nightmare of a marriage, the subject of escape routes and being trapped brought on memories that had her heart racing.

  Trying to remain a good example for her class, she kept her demeanor calm but slowly backed up toward an exit in one corner of the trailer. Mr. Holsky had the situation well in hand, and she needed to get out into the open air.

  As Marni hurried down the outside steps of the trailer, glancing backward to make sure none of her students witnessed her uneasy escape, she tripped on the last step.

  Two large hands gripped her as she tumbled into the broad chest of a man dressed in firefighter turnout pants with suspenders and a dark blue polo with the fire department logo on it.

  “Are you all right?” he asked, helping her off the last step and steadying her on her feet.

  “Yes. Thanks. I just—” Marni’s breath caught in a short gasp when she looked up at the gray-blue eyes. The chiseled, movie-star-worthy face was one she would never forget.

  Her shocked surprise must have shown on her own face because he said with a short and way-too-sexy laugh, “We’ve got to stop meeting like this.”

  She nodded, smiling, totally mortified and not sure what to say. “I’m sorry about tumbling into you. I was checking on my second graders instead of watching where I was going. But the smoke in the trailer made me nauseous and I…” Okay, now sh
e was babbling, so she just stopped talking.

  He stood there, politely waiting for her to finish, and when she did not, he said, “I’m glad I was here to catch you, but it’s no comparison to what you did last February in Greenport. That car would have killed us. You saved my life.” His expression turned serious. “You were so quick and decisive and forceful. Have you trained as an EMT by any chance?”

  “Me? No.” She could see he meant it sincerely, so she didn’t laugh or tell him she was a wimp who couldn’t even handle the sight of bloody nose.

  He shook his head. “What you did was incredible. If it had been somebody else standing near me that day, I would not be standing here right now. Thank you.”

  Marni shrugged. “It was kind of a sloppy tackle.”

  “Hey, I enjoyed it.” He gave her a look that sent heat right to her core.

  Yeah, sitting on top of this handsome muscular hunk in an extremely intimate position had definitely left her with fantasies she’d rather not mention. She could tell her face went pink.

  Luckily he didn’t seem to notice. “But here I am talking while you’re feeling ill and probably need to sit down.” He took her elbow and began steering her toward what looked like a rescue squad truck at the side of the lot. Around six foot five, he towered over her, something that ought to unnerve her considering her past. But instead it felt as if he was protecting her, sheltering her.

  She shook off the sensation, reminding herself that she didn’t need any man to rescue her, and managed to find her voice. “Thank you, but it’s just the smoke. I’ll be okay in a minute.”