Page 93 of Falling for the Grinchy Bad Boy

I leaned down to kiss her goodbye. It was a quick, practical gesture that was meant to be nothing more than a polite farewell. But Joy caught my face in her hands and turned it into something deeper, something that was a promise she would be waiting when I got back.

“For luck,” she said against my lips, and the simple words hit me harder than they should have.

I was still feeling the warmth of that kiss when I climbed into the jump seat. Matt was behind the wheel and Tony was in the front passenger seat. Elijah was practically vibrating with excitement. He was still new to the department and had that excited energy that only a probie could have.

I pulled on my gear with the siren wailing, and we pulled out of town, cutting through the quiet evening like a knife.

“Where are we headed?” Matt asked, navigating the familiar streets with practiced efficiency. “I think I recognize the address.”

“Ziegler ranch,” I said.

“Oh shit,” he murmured.

He knew, of course. Everyone at the station knew about my history with the Ziegler family, though no one ever talked about it directly.

We turned onto County Road 15, the paved road giving way to dirt and gravel as we headed toward the property line. In the distance, I could see the orange glow that meant we weren’t too late—the fire was contained enough that it wasn’t lighting up the entire sky, which was encouraging.

The Ziegler ranch sprawled across forty acres of prime land, with a main house that had been in the family for three generations and outbuildings that spoke to decades of successful cattle ranching. I’d been here before, many times, back when I thought I might become part of this family someday.

Back when I’d been naive enough to believe that love was enough to build a life on.

We pulled into the circular driveway, and I could immediately assess the situation. It wasn’t a full-scale disaster, no five-alarm inferno threatening to consume everything in its path. Instead, I could see the telltale signs of what looked like a classic holiday cooking disaster.

It was probably the tenth one since Thanksgiving.

Old man Ziegler stood near the side of the house, wielding a garden hose with the determination of someone who’d spent his life solving problems with whatever tools were at hand. The stream of water he was directing at the flames wasn’t extinguishing the fire, and it was actively making it worse. He was lucky the entire house hadn’t gone up in flames.

Someone probably should have told him water on a grease fire was like adding gasoline.

Mrs. Ziegler stood beside him holding what appeared to be a fire extinguisher she’d clearly already emptied. I could see the turkey fryer that had obviously gone spectacularly wrong. The kind of disaster that made viral videos and gave fire departments nightmares during the holiday season. Hot oil, frozen turkey, and the laws of physics had combined to create exactly the kind of fireball that safety experts spent every November warning people about.

“Anyone inside the house?” I called as I approached, grabbing a hose line from the truck.

“No,” Mr. Ziegler replied, not taking his eyes off the flames. “Just us. Lynn’s in Salt Lake City.”

The mention of my ex-fiancée’s name had me clenching my jaw even though I’d been expecting it. Of course Lynn wasn’t here. She’d been living in Salt Lake City since our breakup, pursuing whatever new life she’d decided was more appealing than the one we had planned together. Why they felt the need to tell me didn’t matter. Did they think I was going to storm the house and look for her? Throw her on the fire?

I pushed the thought aside and focused on the immediate problem. The fire had spread to some decorative landscaping and was threatening a storage shed, but it hadn’t reached the house itself. With proper suppression, it was entirely manageable.

“Get a line around to the back side,” Matt directed. “Elijah, help me with the primary suppression here.”

We worked with the kind of coordinated efficiency that came from years of training and dozens of similar calls. Turkey fryer fires were unfortunately common during the holidays—people who’d never used the equipment before, frozen birds creating steam explosions, and the hot oil reaching flashpoint temperatures.

Unfortunately, there was a breeze, and the flames were now jumping all over the property. The place was surrounded by dry winter trees. They were acting like torches.

It took us an hour before we had the fire completely suppressed. The turkey fryer was a total loss, obviously, and there was some damage to the landscaping and the side of the storage shed. But the house remained safe and no one had been injured.

“Could have been a lot worse,” I said to Mr. Ziegler as we finished our cleanup. “Turkey fryers are tricky. The oil gets so hot that any moisture—ice crystals on a frozen bird, even humidity in the air—can cause exactly what you experienced.”

He nodded grimly, surveying the damage. “Should have listened to my wife. She wanted to just roast the damn thing in the oven like normal people.”

Mrs. Ziegler gave him a look that suggested this conversation would be continuing long after we left. “He wanted to do a test run. We were going to serve fried turkey for Christmas. At least that’s what he wanted.”

“I think the traditional way is the best,” I muttered.

“If I might interject,” Matt said. “Have you considered smoking a turkey next time?”

I went back to the truck while Matt expressed his love of turkey legs to Mr. Ziegler. As I loaded equipment back onto the truck, I felt the familiar satisfaction that came with a successful call. No one was hurt and the property damage had been minimal. Basically, disaster averted.