Matt caught a smile from a twenty-something-year-old brunette pushing a cart in the next line over.

On autopilot, he smiled back before looking away.

“Can’t take you anywhere, Romeo,” Tom teased. Matt was the only single guy on their crew. Even Jessie, who was only twenty-three, was married with a baby on the way.

“I think Juliet was blonde.”

Tom laughed and helped stack food on the belt.

“How you boys doing today?” The lady behind the register had to be in her sixties, but even she managed a smile that said what her mouth didn’t.

The captain smiled with the clerk and kept the conversation going while they stacked groceries.

The minute Matt had told his family he wanted to be a firefighter, they’d given him hell. Well, humorous hell, but hell nonetheless. “What’s the deal, Matt? Dating half the women in the valley isn’t good enough, you have to add a uniform and make sure you have a chance with all the others?” Grace, the baby of the family, lit into him.

“Badge Bunnies will come out of the woodwork,” his father had told him. As retired law enforcement, Emmitt knew the consequences more than most.

Then there was Colin, the oldest brother. “You have to make up for the fact that I’m the good-looking son.”

His brother was taller, but Matt made up for it by spending time at the gym. In truth, they both didn’t do poorly in the looks department. Their parents passed on some decent genes that gave them an edge in life.

They walked away from the register with a sigh of relief. They’d managed to get what they needed without a call, and the station was only five miles away. Outside the store, their truck took up the red zone space, their own personal spot wherever they needed to go. Tom walked around to the driver’s side while Matt and Jessie shoved the bags inside the rig.

“Excuse me?”

Matt turned, saw the smiling brunette from the store walking toward him. “Yes?”

“You dropped this back there.” She reached out, all smiles, and handed him a small business-size card.

“I don’t think I—”

The card was pushed into his hand.

“I saw it fall out of your back pocket when you were reaching for your wallet.”

Matt hadn’t paid for the groceries. He glanced at the card, saw a name and a phone number on it with a big smiley face.

Jessie said something under his breath with a chuckle and jumped up into the truck.

“Right, ah . . . thanks.”

She actually flipped her hair over her shoulder. He hadn’t seen that move since high school. “You guys be careful out there.”

“We will. Thank you.” Matt waved the card in the air before tucking it into his pocket. A card he intended to toss in the trash the second he arrived at the station.

The woman turned around and walked away with a look over her shoulder.

“Coming, Romeo?” the captain asked.

Matt shook his head and climbed on board.

The second he shut the door, their radios went off.

At least they got out of the store with food before the call came in. Now they could only hope it wouldn’t spoil before they could get it to the station.

They all put their headsets on so they could talk over the sirens. The Captain jotted down information, and Tom hit the lights and sirens before pulling out of the parking lot.

In order to be a voyeur, didn’t the party being watched have to be naked?

Erin stood in the parking lot, eyes glued to the fire engine, or more importantly, the men climbing in. She secretly loved seeing Matt in uniform.

Watching the man smiling at another woman, however, was another thing.

Not that Erin invited his smiles.

No. That was the opposite of what she’d done since she met the man.

But he obviously didn’t reserve his attention for just her.

Erin shook her head. No . . . voyeurs ogled the naked. What she was doing was stalking. Well, not technically, since she hadn’t sought Matt out.

But she knew the station he worked at and Parker had told her he was working today, so when she saw the truck she waited outside in the parking lot for him to leave. Even that wasn’t stalking. It was avoiding.

Nothing illegal about avoiding.

Matt watched the woman he’d been talking to walk away and then climbed into the truck.

Erin sighed.

He hadn’t seen her. Good.

She stepped out of her car and jumped when the siren on the engine filled the air.

Once again she peered over at the massive red fire truck . . . engine, or whatever they called it, and felt her heart skip a beat.

Matt was running toward something.

What, she didn’t know.

She really hoped it wasn’t a fire.

And nothing dangerous.

Please, Lord, nothing dangerous.

She followed the truck with her gaze as it left her view, the noise following the lights.

For Parker and Colin’s sake, she told herself. She hoped Matt was safe for them.

Ignoring the flutter in her chest, Erin lifted her chin and walked into the store.

An hour later, back in her tiny house, she searched the internet for any breaking news in the valley and didn’t find anything. After twenty minutes of looking, she tossed her phone on the couch like it had grown too hot to hold.

“You’re not interested,” she chided herself.

She stood, went over to her refrigerator, and pulled out a bottle of sparkling water.

When she returned to the couch, her phone looked at her.

Okay, it didn’t look, but it was there and telling her to pick it up.

She twisted the cap off the water, chugged it a little too fast, and found herself with the hiccups.

After the third time her diaphragm spasmed, she gave in and picked up her phone. She opened it and searched for emergency responses for LA County firefighters.

Ten minutes later, she found an app called PulsePoint and downloaded it.

“Payday!”

Within a few minutes, she was able to pinpoint Matt’s station and discovered that he hadn’t been called to a fire.

The call was labeled medical. The location was far up a local canyon.

She scrolled through the app and realized that most of the calls with the county, and especially in their valley, were medical.

That was a relief.

Not that she was interested.

She shook her head and moved into the kitchen. One look into the fridge and she decided she wasn’t hungry. Instead of a late lunch, she grabbed an open water bottle and headed outside with her laptop. Even though it was Saturday she decided to get a few hours of work in.

As a freelance editor in the digital publishing world, she always had work.

And she was able to read at the same time.

Winning.

CHAPTER THREE

Even though Matt’s crew didn’t have to roll on every medical call, the bells and whistles inside the station woke him up throughout the night. There was an accident on the interstate that forced them out of bed and on the road at one thirty in the morning. By six thirty, he’d managed five hours of broken sleep, and by broken it was an hour here, two hours there, and a scattering of catnaps. Still, they signed off to the next shift, and Matt left the station in time for morning rush hour.

Within half an hour he was home, dropping his clothes on the bathroom floor, and stepping into the shower. Twenty minutes after that, he’d poured himself a bowl of cereal, finished his third cup of coffee for the morning, and dialed his brother.