The Firefighter's Fiance. Kate Hardy
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I’d cooked it for you.’
‘Yep. Means we don’t have to call your lot to put out the flames in the oven—or my lot to rescue us from the food poisoning afterwards,’ he teased.
‘Oh, ha, ha.’ She walked over to the fridge. ‘Two nights, then four blissful days off.’ Luckily their shifts were pretty much the same. Her night shifts were slightly longer than Matt’s, but at least one of them didn’t have to creep around the house on days off while the other was on nights.
‘Nearly twenty-four hours until I’m due back in at the station. I could go wild and have a few beers tonight. But I need a clear head to work on my fire management stuff. So I think I’ll stick to just the one.’ She uncapped two bottles and brought them over to the table. It had taken her six months to persuade Matt that cold beer tasted better from a bottle than a glass. And why make extra washing-up?
He finished dishing up the curry, then lifted his bottle in salute. ‘Cheers. Here’s to us. Top team.’
‘Top team,’ she echoed.
Which they were. Since she’d shared the house with Matt, she’d always felt she was coming home, not just going back to rented digs.
Not that she and Matt had that type of relationship. They were just friends. Best of friends. Had been ever since he’d moved into the house eighteen months ago, when his engagement to Cassie had broken up and Sarah—the paramedic who’d originally shared the house with Kelsey—had asked her if Matt could use their spare room for a few nights.
But it had worked so well that Matt had stayed. And although Sarah had moved out to live with her boyfriend in London a few months ago, Matt and Kelsey hadn’t bothered replacing the third person in the house. It was comfortable, just the two of them.
Cassie had been crazy, Kelsey thought. She really couldn’t have had any idea what she had missed. What she had given up. A smart, funny guy who was good at his job, respected by everyone—and was domesticated into the bargain.
Mr Perfect.
Except Kelsey wasn’t going to let herself take that last step. Been there, done that. She wasn’t giving herself the chance ever again to lose anyone who mattered to her. Besides, why wreck the best relationship she’d ever had for a short-term fling?
‘Penny for them?’ Matt asked.
Oh, no. She wasn’t going to tell him that. She smiled. ‘Nothing much. How was your day, by the way?’
‘Usual summer Friday. One case of heatstroke in the park; one bad back from someone who’d overdone it in the garden yesterday and couldn’t even get out of bed; then a maternataxi case.’
Paramedic jargon for a pregnant woman who’d left it way too late to ring the maternity unit to say she was having contractions, then had to be rushed to hospital in an ambulance—and Kelsey knew that Matt had delivered a few babies in his time.
‘Then it was your RTA—’
‘RTC,’ Kelsey corrected.
‘RTA,’ Matt continued with a grin. ‘I’m using ambo terminology, not fire. After you, there was a possible heart attack, and then it was the end of my shift. Did you have a lousy day before the RTA?’
‘School safety visit this morning, one out-of-control barbecue at lunchtime—can you believe that people actually think it’s a good idea to throw lighter fuel on top of a lit barbecue?’ She flexed her shoulders. ‘I enjoyed doing the safety visit.’
‘You always do. It’s the teacher in you,’ Matt said.
‘Well, I’m not a teacher any more. Never was, really.’ She shrugged. ‘I walked out before I qualified.’
‘Ever regret it?’
She shook her head. ‘I love what I do now. Same as you. You never know what you’re going to face when you go on shift. Could be absolutely anything. Could be quiet, could be rushed off your feet—and I wouldn’t swap it for anything.’
Sometimes she thought that she got a buzz from the danger—the risks she took were calculated, but her job was still dangerous. Like Matt’s. It was one of the reasons Cassie hadn’t been able to handle Matt’s job—as well as the unsocial hours, there was the fact that he could always be hurt on duty. He had to deal with Friday or Saturday night callouts in the middle of the city, where people had been drinking or doing drugs—the wrong word at the wrong time, and they could react badly. Lash out or put a knife through his ribs.
Then again, Kelsey routinely had to face explosions, flashovers, clearing up dangerous chemicals…It would take someone special to understand why the danger was never uppermost in her mind when she was at work. Her focus was rescuing someone from a bad situation, putting their life back together again. Mending the hurt. Just like Matt did.
When they’d finished dinner, they cleared the table. Kelsey picked up the teatowel, ready to dry the dishes, but Matt took it from her with a smile. ‘Leave this. You’re studying. Two hours, you said.’
‘Ye-es.’
‘So why don’t I go to the video shop and hire us a good film? We can start watching the film at half-nine—you’ll still be in bed by midnight.’
Typical Matt: this was his way of making sure she didn’t work too hard, but without nagging her. Thoughtful. She adored him for it. ‘Sounds just about perfect,’ she said with a smile. ‘Thanks, Matt.’
‘No worries.’ He flapped the teatowel at her. ‘Go do your studying. I’ll sort this.’
Two hours later, there was a rap on her door.
‘Come in.’
‘Hey. I have popcorn, a tub of ice cream and that new thriller that went on release today.’
‘What flavour ice cream?’
‘Strawberry cheesecake.’
Her favourite. Kelsey saved her file and shut down her laptop. ‘I’m there.’ She followed him downstairs and flopped on the sofa next to him.
The perfect Friday night. A good film, her best friend and her favourite munchies.
‘If you guess who did it, just don’t tell me,’ Matt said.
‘As if I would,’ she teased. She rolled her shoulders, easing the kinks out of them.
‘You study in the wrong position, you know. Slumped over your desk. It’s hardly surprising you get backache. Come here and I’ll sort that out for you.’ He nudged her round so that her back was to him, and began massaging her shoulders.
‘Mmm.’ Kelsey almost purred with pleasure. He knew just the right spot to touch her. ‘If you ever decide you’ve had enough of being a paramedic, you could make a fortune as a masseur.’
‘But then I’d be stuck in one place, and I’d know exactly what I was doing every day. It’s like you said earlier—I get a buzz in never knowing what I’m going to face when I go on shift. Though I don’t need to explain that to you. You’re the same.’
‘Yeah.’ And it was good. Living on the edge. Making a real difference to people’s lives.
‘Better?’ he asked, just resting his hands lightly on her shoulders.
For a moment she was tempted to say no. So he’d continue touching her. And then maybe, if she leaned back against him, he’d let his hands slip lower to cup her breasts and—
No. Oh, hell. She shouldn’t have listened to Joe earlier that day. Having to face a traffic accident and cut someone out of a car had rattled her a bit, stirred up the feelings she normally kept compartmentalised and locked away. And, good as sex would undoubtedly be with Matt, she wasn’t going to mess things up between them for the sake of one night’s comfort.
She shook herself mentally. ‘Much better, thanks. And for that you