Chapter One
Nothing made a guy feel conspicuous like walking down the hall of an office building in full turnout gear.
Or he would if anybody actually noticed him, Derek Gilman thought as he shifted to the right to avoid running into a woman looking down at her phone. How people navigated the hallways with their eyes glued to their screens was beyond him.
One guy actually looked up from his phone as he brushed by, and then did a startled double take. “Should I be evacuating?”
“You can evacuate if you want,” Derek said, “but there’s no reason to. We’re just doing some high-rise training.”
Which was a fact everybody in the building was supposed to have been made aware of before they arrived. They didn’t have much in the way of glass skyscrapers in their neighborhood, so the crews of Engine 59 and Ladder 37 had schlepped across Boston on what should have been a day off to hone their skills.
Remembering to bring everything they needed from the apparatus was apparentlynotone of their skills, however. Though he was over a decade past being a rookie, Derek was new to this Ladder 37 crew, so he’d been sent to retrieve the paperwork Rick Gullotti—their lieutenant and the guy in charge of paperwork—had forgotten.
A woman stepped out of an office ahead and turned, walking ahead of him in the same direction. She was notable for two reasons. One, she wasn’t looking at a cell phone. That in itself was enough to make her stand out in this crowd.
But it was her looks that captured Derek’s attention. He only got a glimpse of her profile before she turned, but she had delicate features and dark blond hair drawn up off her neck in a loose bun. Her navy suit looked as if it had been tailored specifically for her body, and the coat flared slightly, accenting the curve of her hips. Her legs were long, and his gaze lingered on her calves before sliding up to the soft spots behind her knees that were playing peekaboo with the hem of her skirt.
And he’d never realized how sexy the click of high heels on a marble tile floor could be. When he was a kid, he’d hated the sound because the high heels usually belonged to an angry teacher he was following down the hallway to the principal’s office. But followingthiswoman as she walked down the hallway with long, confident strides was a hell of a lot more enjoyable.
Of course, she reached the elevator just as the door opened and a man stepped out. Because he’d slowed to leave enough space to appreciate the view, Derek knew there was a good chance the door would close before he reached it and there was no way in hell he was taking the stairs if he didn’t have to.
“Hold the door, please,” he called as the woman stepped in and pushed a button on the panel.
She looked up at him and he saw the hesitation in her body language. She didn’t want to, but he watched the fact he was a firefighter register, plus it would be rude to pretend she hadn’t heard him after making eye contact. He smiled as she hit the button to hold the doors.
“Thank you.” The button for the lobby was already lit, so he stepped back as the doors slid closed.
She only nodded and pulled her phone out of the back pocket of the leather journal she was holding, which was stuffed with notebooks and paper from the looks of it. But Derek could see her reflection in the highly polished metal door and she was looking at him. And not a quick glance to make sure the stranger was staying on his own side, but a lingering look.
He should say something, but he wasn’t surewhatto say, since women wearing power suits in the Back Bay were way out of his league. The floors were ticking past like seconds on the clock, though, and he was running out of time.
She was taking a step forward, probably in anticipation of reaching the lobby level soon, when there was a grinding sound and the elevator lurched to a stop. Off-balance, she stumbled and—thanks to good reflexes and maybe some good luck—he ended up with an armful of beautiful woman.
Apparently he was getting an extension.
She tilted her face up to him, and he saw the distress in her pretty greenish-blue eyes. “What’s happening?”
“We stopped,” he said, hoping she’d find the obvious answer funny. In his experience, humor relaxed people. She didn’t even crack a smile, and he cleared his throat before continuing. “There are a few reasons it could happen, but the system probably has a problem or a malfunction somewhere and it shut the elevator down to be safe.”
“This is not safe.” She wasn’t in a full-blown panic, but her anxiety practically crackled around her, and she was clutching his arm so tightly he could feel her grip through the heavy bunker coat. “And what do you mean by a malfunction? So something could bemorewrong than the fact we’re not moving anymore?”
“Everything’s fine.” He had to let his arms fall away from her as she backed away, wincing a little. “Are you hurt?”
“No.” He wasn’t reassured by the quick way she said it, as if it was a reflex and maybe not the truth.
He pulled out his phone to send a quick group text to Danny Walsh—Engine 59’s LT—and Rick Gullotti.Elevator’s stuck. Why?Then he peeled off the heavy coat and tossed it on the floor, dropping the helmet on top of it while she sent a text message of her own to somebody. “We’re okay in here. Just try to stay calm and we’ll be out in no time.”
“Stay calm,” she muttered as her phone vibrated and she sent another text. “That’s easy for you to say. Being brave in the face of death is part of your job.”
That was a little dramatic, but she wasn’ttotallywrong. About his job, anyway. “You’re not facing death. I promise.”
His phone vibrated with a response from Walsh.Working on it. Stand by.
The woman’s face was slightly flushed. “Shouldn’t you... I don’t know. Go up through the ceiling hatch and climb up the cable or something?”
Derek managed—barely—not to laugh outright at her, but he couldn’t hold back a short chuckle. “I’m a firefighter, not John McClane.”
“Who’s John McClane?”
