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Not even anger.
Surprising.
Maybe I don’t want to waste any more of my time hating Lindsay or anyone else.
“You forgive me?”
I shrug. “Sure. Yeah. Water under the bridge.”
“Good.” She smiles and pulls her hand away. “And who knows, maybe we can figure out how to be, you know, friends.”
That might be pushing it, but I don’t say so.
I’m processing all of this, trying to formulate some sort of response when I turn and catch a glimpse of Emmy just inside the door. She looks at me, then at Lindsay, and then away.
I don’t have time to sort through her reaction, though, because she’s with my sister, and Mack is like a bull just let out of its pen.
And Lindsay just happens to be wearing red.
Chapter Eighteen
Emmy
Thirty Minutes Ago
“I cannot believe you agreed to this.”
Yeah, I’m having second thoughts too, I think to myself.
Mack is sitting at the Book Smart coffee counter with me after hours, snickering to herself about my misfortune.
On Monday, a female firefighter who introduced herself only by her last name, Clemons, gave me the sales pitch of the century. She told me I needed to do my civic duty and participate in this year’s firefighter calendar—and made a really good point about being the only woman in a male-dominated profession.
I tried to tell her that what happened to me isn’t the same as what she does on a daily basis—it’s not like she was the one who pulled me out of my house and saved my life, it was a guy saving a girl.
She let me know that any advantage, any goodwill, any positive exposure for her profession was needed, and it certainly couldn’t come from her. She said that my being pulled out of my burning house made me something of a local celebrity, and when I tried to point out there are a million other things I’d rather be praised for, she said, “But this will help us get more money. Better equipment, better facilities, that means I can do my job better.”
Fair point.
“I didn’t exactly agree to it,” I say. “I feel like I was volun-told.”
She shakes her head. “This is how things get done around here. She’s smart.”
“She was very convincing,” I say.
Mack laughs, then her face turns serious. “Wait, this isn’t going to be like a photo of shirtless Owen, just suspenders and fireman’s pants, leaf-blower aimed at him off camera, carrying you to safety, is it?”
A flash of the cover of Roses and Flame, from the Hot in Memphis series by an author named Penelope Cryden, enters my mind. I can still remember the back cover copy, and it was a gem.
“Kevin Parker is a muscular, good looking, and fun loving firefighter from Memphis. His life is going nowhere until he meets Katherine Bishop, an uptight woman with a passion for climate change.
“When a rival tries to lie about Kevin, Katherine springs to the rescue. Kevin begins to notice that Katherine is actually rather soft at heart.
“But the pressures of Katherine’s job as an airline pilot leave her blind to Kevin's affections and Kevin takes up recycling to try to get Katherine to notice him.
“Finally, when a misguided nurse, Marci Thornhill, threatens to come between them, Katherine has to act fast. But will they ever find the fiery love that they deserve?”
I actually think it was written by plugging things into a random romance plot generator. But the cover—that was pushing the envelope, even for contemporary open-door romance.
