“I think you’ve got staff that does that and you look things over because your father has drilled it into your head to know where everything is and is going. Hence, the reason I said you should rent out your condo when you aren’t using it.”

  “I’ve thought of it,” Egan said, sipping his beer. “But too many times things come up last minute and I’m stuck there. It’s not like I need the money.” Alex knew his cousin wasn’t saying that as a way to rub it in that he was part of the wealthy branch of the family, but had more to do with his laid back personality. “Anytime you want to stay, drop me a text and come get the key. It’s yours. You know, to bring a woman back.”

  “Thanks,” he said. His cousins were good that way. “I might take you up on it sometime, but I’m good. I don’t get to Boston often.” The last thing he wanted was a woman thinking he was trying to be someone he wasn’t again. That they’d assume Egan’s nice place was his when he wasn’t from the wealthy side of the family tree.

  Egan slapped him on the back. “Please. Ethan told me you two were hitting up a club a few months ago and went back to his place after.”

  “Someone has to loosen your brother up,” he said.

  It was true. Alex did go to Boston at times and met up with Ethan who lived there. It’s funny how he didn’t mind staying with Ethan but didn’t feel right saying yes to Egan’s offer. Maybe because Ethan was with him there and there’d be no misconceptions?

  Who knows and it didn’t matter either.

  “Tell me about it,” Egan said.

  No one could say he needed to be loosened up. He tended to work a lot and when he wasn’t at the firehouse, he was filling in when his cousin Carter needed him at his garage. But the holidays had been nuts and he pulled a ton of overtime and was taking a little time off with Carter too unless he got too backed up.

  He didn’t mind getting his hands dirty and changing brakes or fixing tires. Simple car maintenance he could manage and do quickly. Oil and filter changes, tires and alignments. He left the detailed engine repairs to Carter and two guys worked on body damage repairs.

  No one expected work to be done fast on the island; they were used to the life, so he was taking time for himself this week.

  Besides, he had a ton of shit to do in his house. He’d been renting way too long. He and Mac had shared a place for years and then Mac bought his house. Jarrett just found himself a nice small home he was fixing up too. It seemed to be the only way they could get a home on the island.

  Alex figured it was time he grew up and did the same. He was thirty-five and his mother kept reminding him he needed to calm down and settle in. He didn’t think so.

  He’d tried to find women over the years and no one wanted to settle down.

  Or maybe he felt his trust in women was still jaded and it was better to go the way he’d been. Find a woman, have fun, then move on.

  Only he was getting sick of that too.

  So last year, to make his mother happy and get her off his back about a woman, he started a house hunt. His budget wouldn’t go as far as his brothers’ did so he’d asked Drew a year ago to let him know if anything came up and he’d put the sweat equity into it.

  He’d struck gold about four months ago, sweated his balls off signing on the dotted line and was the proud owner of his own two-bedroom Cape Cod home. The attic had all sorts of potential to expand a primary suite up there someday. But someday was a long time away.

  For now, he was thrilled to get new hardwood floors finally installed in all the rooms. The bathroom was the first thing he did months ago. The floors had been a bitch and taken time while he worked his other two jobs.

  He planned on painting everything but the kitchen this week.

  The last thing to tackle would be his kitchen and it wasn’t in the budget just yet. It was functional and would have to do.

  “I’m glad not to be doing much tonight, which is why I’m here. I was hoping to have some company and didn’t think it’d be you.”

  Egan grinned and looked around the bar. “My thoughts too, but as you can tell it’s pretty dead. It’s Thursday night, we should know better,” Egan said.

  “If you wanted company so badly, you wouldn’t be on the island right now and you know it. Easy flight over and back. Here, not much around but the locals.”

  Egan threw his beer back and lifted his hand for another, looking at Alex’s half-empty one. “You ready?”

  “Not yet,” he said.

  “Well, you’re right about not much being here. And I should have gone to Boston.” Egan pulled his phone out and started swiping his finger fast. “You working Saturday night or Sunday?”

  “Nope,” he said. “I’m back on shift Monday. Why?”

  “Got plans?” Egan asked with a smile on his face.

  “Not unless something comes up.”

  “My last client Saturday is at four. What do you say we fly into Boston and hit the clubs, then crash at the condo that night? I’m sure we’d easily find some female company for the night.”

  Alex normally didn’t go home alone when he was out looking for someone and it’d been a few months—last time he was with Ethan—since he’d picked a woman up. He figured they’d have one hell of a night.

  “Shit yeah,” Alex said. “I’ll be at the strip at four and we’ll be ready to go.”

  Time to have some fun since it seemed like being the responsible adult was so boring.

  3

  A Hero

  Jennie was driving to work the next week thinking that her commute might get a little smaller soon.

  Not that it was all that much since the retirement community was in the middle of the island, but her apartment was closer to the south end.

  Griffin lived on the north end of the island, not far from Bond Casino or Atlantic Rise. Her brother had moved into Penelope’s house. It was over thirty minutes to get to him from her apartment. Twenty to get to work. That wasn’t much in the scheme of things, but moving into the house Griffin purchased would put her close enough to even run home for lunch if she wanted to.

  There was part of her that was pissed off he’d done it, but the other part that wasn’t surprised either.

  Yeah, he had guilt on his shoulders that he was going to carry for a long time. She got it. On one of their many talks since she’d lived here, he’d confessed that he still carried guilt over failing to protect their mother like he’d promised. He felt like a failure.

  At seventeen her brother shouldn’t have felt that way. And looking back, he was right. He couldn’t put a roof over his own head, how was he going to care for his sister when he turned eighteen?

  The letter he’d sent her when he graduated never said he was going into the service, just that he was going away. She wondered if he did that to not worry her and assumed that was probably the case.

  She had to learn to put it behind her now too.

  She turned the corner and noticed smoke coming out a window. That was odd. It was like seeping out and she wasn’t sure how she even noticed.

  Pulling over, Jennie parked her car and grabbed her phone, as she noticed the inside was filled with smoke. Running toward the house, she called 911 to report it.

  No way she was waiting around if someone was inside.

  She went to the door and tried to open it, but it was locked. Crap.

  She was banging away and ringing the bell and there was no answer.

  Moving to a window, she tried to look in and it seemed to her through the smoke there was someone on the couch. Shit!

  Back at the front door, she tried to kick it and realized that wasn’t going to work, though it did wiggle. An older home, so maybe she could knock it in with her shoulder.

  Jennie slammed into it once and it moved again. Hurt like a bitch, but she wasn’t going to think about that.

  A second try wiggled it more and she pushed the pain back, only thinking of the person on the couch and the house filling with smoke. She hadn’t seen a fire so she figured she had time yet.

  Taking a few steps back, she ran into the door with her shoulder, heard a pop and the door broke open. She hoped to hell the pop was the door and not her body, but the white-hot pain she was feeling told her that might not be the case.

  The couch was close to the door. She still didn’t see a fire, and tried to wake the woman, who was elderly and looked to be in her nightgown.

  Damn it.

  With one arm, she started to pull the woman off the couch and hitched her under her good shoulder and got her outside into the cold. Nothing she could do about that. The fire trucks were on the way and they’d have blankets.

  The woman started to cough and talk. “You’re okay,” she said. “You’re out.”

  “My cat,” the woman said. “She’s in the house.”

  She’d thought she’d seen something yellow move but hadn’t been focused too much on it.

  “Let me see if I can find her,” she said.

  Jennie went back into the house, noticed the fire was only in the fireplace and realized the damn vent might not be open, so she went to try to open that and burned her hand. “Fuck!”

  The cat was by the door, so she went to grab it. At the same time she felt herself yanked from behind by her sore arm. She screamed and swung with her other arm, knocking the fireman’s helmet hard with her fist.

  He picked her up as if she weighed nothing at all and brought her outside. “Her cat,” she said.

  “Are you kidding me!” the fireman yelled.

  “She wants her cat. There is no fire. It’s only smoke.”

  “Stay put, damn it,” he said and turned to go back into the house with the other fireman.

  It wasn’t as if she felt like she had much of a choice because now that she was on the ground trying to catch her breath she realized she couldn’t lift her arm at all and feared she busted it. Then she felt a wave of nausea come over her matched with a mild anxiety attack she’d experienced enough in her life when she was taken off guard.

  Five minutes went by and the fireman came back out, coughing and whipping his helmet off to suck in air, and saw her sitting there with her head between her knees.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked between coughs. “Are you hurt?” There was someone else taking care of the elderly woman.

  “My shoulder. Or arm,” she said. “I can’t move it.”

  “Shit,” he yelled again. The damn guy did a lot of yelling. “Look at me. Can you get your jacket off and let me see?”

  “You’re a fireman,” she said. “I’m not burned. Well, my hand is.”

  He grabbed her hand and looked at it, then dropped it down. “Let’s get your jacket off. I’m an EMT too.”

  She wiggled out of her jacket and let him examine her. She was trying to fight back the fact that with a face like that, he should be on a calendar and not standing crouched down in front of her examining her shoulder.

  “Shouldn’t you be inside the house?” she asked.

  “No,” he said, still coughing. “You knocked my respirator loose and I’ve inhaled too much smoke. The rest of the team has it covered. They are airing the house out now and got the vent open.”

  “I told you there was no fire,” she said sarcastically.

  “Whatever,” he said, touching her arm and shoulder. “You dislocated your shoulder. Lie down.” She did because she thought she was going to throw up. “I’m going to pop it back in and give you relief because it looks as if you are going to puke.”

  “Huh,” she said.

  “I’m going to count to three,” he said, but he didn’t even start before he snapped it back and she yelled again.

  “What the hell,” she said, sucking in air as he had when he came out of the house.

  “It’s better to not have you prepare. Better?” he asked.

  “Yeah.” Not like she had much of a choice, as the guy just did it, but it was helping.

  The ambulance pulled up next and went to the elderly woman who was in and out of consciousness, but they were giving her oxygen.

  Then an EMT came over to her and the fireman, examined them both and made them get in the ambulance too.

  “I don’t need to be on a bed,” she argued. “There is nothing wrong with my legs.”

  “Too damn bad,” the firemen said. “You’re going.”

  “You too, Alex,” the EMT said. “You’re coughing too much and the captain said you took in a lot of smoke.”

  “Yeah, I know,” the fireman said. She was assuming his name was Alex. “I’ll hop in the back with these two. This one tried to be a hero.”

  She ground her teeth over that comment. “Being a decent citizen doesn’t make me a hero,” she snapped.

  They were situated in the ambulance and on the way to the hospital ten minutes later. Not the best way for her day to start. Her car was still on the side of the road with her purse and ID and she never thought to tell them to get it for her. At least she had her phone in her pocket.

  “What are you doing?” Alex asked her when she went to try to reach into her pocket.

  “Getting my phone to tell my employers I’m going to be late.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Alex said. “I’m sure they aren’t going to care and will understand.”

  “I know they will,” she said, “but it’s common courtesy to tell them.” She managed to get her phone out and shoot a text off to the office manager to say she’d be late and wasn’t feeling well. She could fill them in more once she was in the hospital, but at least they knew not to expect her and worry.

  They pulled into the hospital and the bed lowered. She felt like a freaking fool when she could walk. Her shoulder still hurt but not nearly as bad as it had before.

  The sexy fireman hopped down. The three of them had been given oxygen in the ambulance. She and Alex alternated the same mask since there were only two and the elderly woman needed it more.

  Her coughing had slowed down, but Alex’s seemed to be getting worse, more so with him walking next to her on the bed.

  “He should be the one on the bed, not me.”

  That seemed to just set him off when she’d said that as the doors opened and the doctor came running toward them.

  “I’m fine,” Alex said, narrowing his eyes at her. “You’re the one that is hurt.”

  “Bay four,” the doctor said to the EMT pushing in the elderly woman.

  The doctor turned to her while she had a coughing fit to disprove him. “I’m fine. She wanted her cat. It was right by the door.”

  “Stupid!” Alex shouted. “Completely stupid and you’re damn lucky we pulled up when you ran back in there and I got you out.”

  “Did you get her cat?” she asked wondering why she hadn’t thought of this before. Maybe because the pain in her shoulder was clouding everything else.

  Alex’s face almost twisted in fury. “It ran out when I went in to get you. But there was enough smoke that you wouldn’t have even seen that and been looking for nothing.”

  “Bay five,” the doctor said to the EMT. “Alex, talk to me while I walk.”

  Guess the doctor and fireman knew each other. She shouldn’t have been surprised on a small island like this.

  “I cannot believe she did that,” Alex said.

  “I’ve never seen you lose it like this before. What’s going on?” the doctor asked

  “That’s Griffin’s younger sister, Jennie. Obviously she is lacking in the common sense department and her brother got all the damn genes there in the family.”

  What the hell? How did Alex know who she was? Or he knew her brother. Double shit now. The last person she wanted to know what was going on was her overly protective big brother.

  “All right. I’ll check in on her and have someone call Griffin,” the doctor said. Alex started to cough and hack himself. “Go sit in one of the empty bays and we’ll check you over too.”

  “I’m fine,” Alex said. “Nature of the job.”

  “Don’t argue with me and do it. Even if you just get oxygen.” The doctor walked away from Alex and then she soon realized that the stubborn fireman wasn’t going to follow orders and parked his ass next to her in a chair while they waited.

  4

  Off Limits

  “You need to go to another room,” Jennie said to him.

  “Nope,” Alex said. “I’m staying here to make sure you stay put.”

  She ground her teeth and shut her mouth the minute the nurse pulled back the curtain. “I thought you were told to go to another bay,” the nurse said.

  “Told you,” Jennie said to him.

  “I’m not leaving. I don’t trust her.”

  The nurse sighed and must have decided it wasn’t worth the battle, moving on to check Jennie over and ask questions, then hook her up to the monitors.

  Alex couldn’t stop the coughing, so the nurse left and brought over an oxygen mask for him to put on while one was placed on Jennie too. Jennie had still had the one from the ambulance on her, but now it was swapped out.

  It was almost forty minutes later of silence on his part, the stewing he felt building in his gut and making it churn before his cousin Hudson Mills made his way back to them.

  In that time, he’d ditched most of his gear and was sitting there in his overalls and T-shirt, trying not to sweat his balls off even more.

  When he’d seen the woman standing there in the house, he did what he was trained to do. Walk over to get her attention and escort her out. He didn’t expect to be fought. It wasn’t like he pulled her arm that much or so he thought, but he must have to dislocate her shoulder.

  Except there was no way he could have done it grabbing her arm and played it back in his head a few times realizing the door had been knocked off the hinges so Jennie had to have done it. He took a guess it was with her shoulder.

  In any case, when he realized it was the same woman he’d had his eye on at his cousin Eli Bond’s wedding last month, he freaked out.

  He knew who she was. And he knew who her brother was too. Not that he’d known Griffin even had a sister before the wedding.