Light up the Night (Firehouse Three #2)(7)

Damn, this was a great view.



Belinda Pearce flipped her perfectly straight, blonde hair forward over her shoulder as she stared into the salon’s floor to ceiling mirror.

“What do you think?” the stylist asked as she stepped aside, smiling nervously in the reflection behind Belinda’s left shoulder. “You look spectacular to me.”

“It’s not the honey-tone we talked about. It’s really more of a butterscotch.” Belinda frowned at her reflection. This was not going to do it. Perfection. She needed perfection if she was going to convince him to come back.

“We can add some more toner,” the stylist frowned as she began mussing the back of Belinda’s long blonde tresses. “Lighten it up a little.”

Belinda blew an exasperated breath as she swiped to unlock the screen on her cell phone. Six hours she’d been here. And it still wasn’t done.

But six hours wasn’t anything when it came to investing the time to get what she needed. What she deserved. He’d packed up and moved out of Tucson, for God’s sake. This meant she had to get drastic, and fast. The gala was tonight, and she was going all-in.

Drake Hammerfell wasn’t putting down a single root unless it was right beside her, f*ck-you-very-much. She’d spent too much time chasing him. Grooming him. Fitting herself perfectly into his life, making sure they were the ideal couple. She’d picked him in her senior year of high school and had never looked back. And it had worked, for a while. But then something had gone wrong. She didn’t know what.

It wasn’t the best friend any more. Hunter Shaw had left Tucson like a good little pain in the ass. First good thing the * had ever done in his life, as far as Belinda was concerned.

The job thing? Please. Drake was just playing fireman because he was young and needed adventure. She’d thought once he got passed over for the promotion, he’d finally settle down and join his family company. Like he was supposed to. Hammerfell Investments—an investment company with special interest in technology, which his parents had started back when Steve Jobs was a nobody—would be his, eventually, and he needed to start working toward that.

But he hadn’t. He’d left. And now she was scrambling to put her scattered pieces back on the game board.

“Do it,” Belinda said, scrolling through her contacts to find her only appointment for the day. “I’m canceling my afternoon plans, and I suggest you do the same. I’m not walking out that door until my hair is perfect. And it had damn well better be before 8 p.m. If you make me late for this event, so help me God—”

Her stylist’s professional smile faltered. “But I’ve got another client coming at—”

“Then I suggest you reschedule,” Belinda said, flashing her perfect teeth as she smiled in the mirror directly at the nonplused stylist. “I need your full professional attention.”

“I—well, I guess I can see if someone else can take my other—”

“Good,” Belinda said as her call connected. “Daddy, it’s me. I’m not going to be able to get that massage before the gala. Can you cancel for me? No, there was a problem at the salon.” She leaned forward and picked at her bangs.

Butterscotch. Please. As if she could go back and get her man with butterscotch blonde hair.

Nothing less than perfection could put her life back on track.





3.

Everly wasn’t sure what was wrong with her. Normally, when faced with a man who should be legally required to walk around naked everywhere—he was that damn beautiful—she’d freeze up and stutter and generally make a gigantic ass of herself until she could escape to somewhere and hyperventilate.

But with this guy? He teased, he took, he made her so frustrated and angry that she couldn’t see straight. Even when he was being kind, which, let’s face it, he’d been exceptionally nice to her since he’d first rolled into her parking lot, he had a way about himself that just seemed to get under her skin.

Inside the lobby, she rounded the counter. Drake set the cardboard box, which had stopped yowling and was now meowing pitifully, on a broad empty space on the corner.

“Let me see your hand,” he said, unzipping the canvas tote with the words “first aid” emblazoned on its lid.

“Kitty first.” She shook her head as she lifted the cardboard box, being careful this time to avoid the gash on her palm. To his credit, he didn’t argue this time, just followed her back through the swinging door to the animal areas.

The cat rooms were first, and Everly propped the box on one knee in order to reach for the doorknob of the first one. Before she could grasp it, Drake was there, opening it for her.

“Thanks,” she said. God, why did her cheeks get so hot when he was close to her? And why did he smell so good? Clean, and musky, like a pine forest full of sexy, half-naked lumberjacks.

Shit. She was definitely going insane. Had she actually fallen out of that tree and knocked her head open on the pavement? Only that would explain her complete lack of sanity.

Pressing through to the cat intake area, she waited for Drake to close the door behind them. The last thing she needed was another escape from this furry one.

“Hey, there,” she crooned as she carefully opened the box. The black cat meowed at her, pressed into one corner of the box. “Are you okay?”