“After being hurt during the earthquake…my face didn’t heal right. It probably never will.”

Frowning, Jay gazed at Kim with unseeing eyes. “What are you trying to tell me?”

“I’m ugly Jay. That side of my face is—”

Jay framed her face between his big, gentle hands. His fingertips traced every bit of her face. Her eyebrows, the shape of her nose. The cheekbone that had been shattered and the one that was whole. His fingertips skimmed across her lips, following the outline and sketching the seam.

Kim stood immobile, afraid to breathe. A surge of adrenaline urged her to flee. But her body could only respond to Jay’s tender touch.

“Kimberly Lydell, you listen to me.” His rich baritone vibrated with conviction. “Even when my vision is twenty-twenty again, you’ll still be the most beautiful woman in the world to me. That’s how I’ll always see you.”

Dear Reader,

Welcome to another month of wonderful books from Harlequin American Romance. We’ve rounded up the best stories by your favorite authors for you to enjoy.

Bestselling author Judy Christenberry brings readers a new generation of her popular Randall family as she returns to her BRIDES FOR BROTHERS series. Sweet Elizabeth is about to marry another man, and rodeo star Toby Randall will let nothing stand in the way of him stopping her wedding. Don’t miss Randall Pride.

An injured firefighter and the woman he rescued in an earthquake learn about the healing power of love in Charlotte Maclay’s latest novel, Bold and Brave-Hearted. This is the first book of her exciting new miniseries MEN OF STATION SIX. In Twins Times Two! by Lisa Bingham, a single mom agrees to a marriage in name only to a handsome single dad in order to keep together their two sets of twins, who were separated at birth. And enemies are forced to become Mr. and Mrs. in Court-Appointed Marriage by Dianne Castell, part of Harlequin American Romance’s theme promotion THE WAY WE MET…AND MARRIED.

Enjoy this month’s offerings, and make sure to return each and every month to Harlequin American Romance!

Wishing you happy reading,

Melissa Jeglinski

Associate Senior Editor

Harlequin American Romance

Bold and Brave-Hearted

Charlotte Maclay

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Charlotte Maclay can’t resist a happy ending. That’s why she’s had so much fun writing more than twenty titles for Harlequin American Romance and Harlequin Love & Laughter, plus several Silhouette Romance books, as well. Particularly well-known for her volunteer efforts in her hometown of Torrance, California, Charlotte says her philosophy is that you should make a difference in your community. She and her husband have two married daughters and two grandchildren, whom they are occasionally allowed to baby-sit. She loves to hear from readers and can be reached at P.O. Box 505, Torrance, CA 90501.

Books by Charlotte Maclay

HARLEQUIN AMERICAN ROMANCE

474—THE VILLAIN’S LADY

488—A GHOSTLY AFFAIR

503—ELUSIVE TREASURE

532—MICHAEL’S MAGIC

537—THE KIDNAPPED BRIDE

566—HOW TO MARRY A MILLIONAIRE

585—THE COWBOY & THE BELLY DANCER

620—THE BEWITCHING BACHELOR

643—WANTED: A DAD TO BRAG ABOUT

657—THE LITTLEST ANGEL

684—STEALING SAMANTHA

709—CATCHING A DADDY

728—A LITTLE BIT PREGNANT

743—THE HOG-TIED GROOM

766—DADDY’S LITTLE COWGIRL

788—DEPUTY DADDY

806—A DADDY FOR BECKY

821—THE RIGHT COWBOY’S BED*

825—IN A COWBOY’S EMBRACE*

886—BOLD AND BRAVE-HEARTED**

Who’s Who at Fire Station Six

Jay Tolliver—Dedicated to fighting fires, he doesn’t need perfect vision when it comes to recognizing a beautiful woman.

Kimberly Lydell—Her life-changing scars can be healed only by a man who sees with his heart.

Harlan Gray—The dedicated fire chief will go the wall for his men; the only thing he can’t do is escape a pursuing councilwoman.

Councilwoman Evie Anderson—Has her eye on the most eligible widower in town, Chief Gray.

Emma Jean Witowsky—The dispatcher has an uncanny way of predicting the future, especially when it comes to matters of the heart.

Tommy Tonka—An adolescent genius in all things mechanical, but he needs help from his firefighter friends when it comes to girls.

Mack Buttons—The station mascot, a five-year-old chocolate dalmatian who loves kids, people and the Men of Station Six.

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter One

The show must go on.

Those were the first words that popped into Kimberly Lydell’s head when she felt the beginnings of the earthquake right through the seat of her panty hose. She’d been through plenty of California earthquakes and knew that’s where you felt it first. In your butt, if you were sitting down. No big deal.

So she kept on reading the news report from the teleprompter as if nothing were wrong, looking straight into the camera, forcing an easy smile.

“In the Mideast, the prime minister of…”

She grabbed the studio set to steady herself as the vibrations of the earth escalated to an undulating roll. Overhead, the kleig lights began to swing in ever-increasing arcs. A roar like an approaching subway train resonated through the studio walls and shook the floor.

“…We seem to be experiencing…”

“Geez, let’s get out of here!” Her co-anchor for the local six o’clock news kicked back the stool he was sitting on and made a dive for the far side of the room.

The cameraman and floor director headed for the exit, and in the control booth the show’s director waved frantically at Kim to get off the set.

She got the message.

But trying to move was like fighting a riptide. The floor rose and fell in angry waves. The noise was ear-shattering. A camera fell over. A light crashed to the floor. The plywood desk where she’d been sitting offered no protection. Nowhere safe to duck, cover and hold.

Struggling like a drunken sailor, Kim got her legs tangled in her mike cord. She yanked herself free, only to trip over a cable in her now-frantic effort to escape. Panic clawed at her. She’d never been at the epicenter of an earthquake. Now she suspected she was. A big one.

In response to a high-pitched screeching sound, she looked up. The overhead light right above her had broken free. The screws pulled loose.

That was the last image she had before the room fell into total darkness. An agonizing pain sliced across the left side of her face. Screaming in terror, she fell to the floor. An instant later something impossibly heavy collapsed on her, pinning her legs. Dust filled her lungs.

And then there was only eerie silence followed by the sound of sirens.

THE FIRE ENGINE from Station Six roared to a stop outside the KPRX-TV building. Jay Tolliver hopped out as he had a hundred times before in response to fires, explosions and other disasters, man-made and otherwise. The earthquake had been a substantial one. He’d heard calls for help coming into dispatch from all over Paseo del Real, a moderate-size town in central California.

Their dispatcher, Emma Jean Witkowsky, had loudly announced between calls that she’d predicted this was earthquake weather. She hadn’t, of course. But that never stopped her from claiming she had psychic powers—all due to her gypsy blood, she assured them.

A controlled surge of adrenaline shot through Jay as he pulled his helmet down tight. His job was to concentrate on this one building, saving lives and property where he could—the former more important than the latter.

In the cab of the truck, the fire station’s mascot, Mack Buttons, a chocolate dalmatian, waited to see if he’d be called upon to calm traumatized children—or adults. Everyone at Station Six had a job to do.

The battalion chief was already at the scene shouting orders.

“Tolliver and Gables, we’ve got a partial collapse of the back third of the building and reports there are still victims inside. Do a preliminary search.” He turned away quickly and ordered another pair of men into the neighboring building that had fared somewhat better, at least from outward appearances.

Jay snagged a fire ax and so did Mike Gables. Together they jogged toward the TV building’s entrance. In the adjacent parking lot, car sirens set off by the earthquake screamed. Lights from emergency vehicles flashed red across the Spanish-style stucco building and the surrounding scaffolding that suggested the TV station had been in the process of remodeling—or maybe earthquake proofing.

Too little too late, Jay thought grimly.

He pushed through the front door into a lobby where only an emergency light shone from high up on the wall. The floor was covered with broken stucco and the furniture had been rearranged as though by some decorator gone mad.

Gables said, “Looks like KPRX evening news is off the air.”

Flicking on his flashlight, Jay thought about Kimberly Lydell, the news anchor with the face of an angel and the smoky voice of a blues singer. He’d known her in high school but only from a distance. With a typical eighteen-year-old’s raging libido, every time he’d heard her voice back then he’d gotten aroused. The past dozen years hadn’t changed anything. Watching her on the tube was still an exercise in frustration—she’d gone from sixteen-year-old prom queen material to star quality.

He hoped to God she wasn’t one of the victims trapped inside this old building.

They made their way along the hallway to the stairs.

“Anybody here?” Jay shouted, his voice muffled by the hard plastic shield in front of his face.

Cautiously they started up the stairs. Gables was a good partner to have. Experienced. Someone you felt safe with protecting your back.

On the second floor the debris was thicker, glass and plaster under their feet. A beam down. They’d passed the door to the first office when they heard a sound.

“I’ll check it out,” Gables said.

Jay kept going down the hallway. An electrical wire dangled from the ceiling, clicking a slow rhythm against the wall. No danger there unless they suddenly regained power. Then the wire would be hot and could start a fire.

“Help!”

He stopped in his tracks. The call had been weak. Female.

“Help me!” she cried again.

He followed the sound. “Keep talking, lady. I’ll find you.”

“In here.”

Giving his shoulder to a jammed door, he pushed it open and swept the room with his flashlight. A broadcast studio, he realized, and his adrenaline kicked up a notch. Kimberly did the six o’clock local news. He ought to know. Like most of the men in Paseo del Real, he caught it as often as he could. The earthquake had struck at 6:14. It was probably 6:45 by now.

Whoever was here had been stuck for a half hour. Dangerous business.

The beam of his flashlight zeroed in on a woman with collar-length blond hair. His gut clenching, he called on all of his professional training to keep calm. Not to race in there and make matters worse.

Pressing the talk key on the mike attached to his jacket, Jay said, “I’ve got a female victim on the second floor, third door on the right. I’m going in.”

Gables’s voice warned him to be careful. His male victim was conscious and Mike was moving him to safety. He’d be back.

“Please…I’m…hurt.”

“Stay put. I’m on my way.” Jay worked his way around toppled cameras and other debris. The roof had collapsed on the far side of the room, bringing down part of the ceiling with it. A wooden beam, one of those heavy Spanish-style numbers, had fallen into the middle of things. It’d be hell to drag out of there on his own and he saw immediately that the beam was resting right across her legs.

He knelt down next to her, forcing a calmness he’d been trained to communicate but one he wasn’t feeling at all. “Hi. How’re you doing?”

“Outside of being scared to death, you mean?”

He grinned behind his visor. One tough lady—

Then he noticed her bloody face. From what he could see, there were deep lacerations on her left cheek, her creamy complexion already showing signs of discoloration.

Pulling out a sterile compress stored in the lining of his hat for this very purpose, he fought a wave of nausea as he ripped open the package. Hell, he’d seen injured people before. Dead people, too. But not Kim—every man’s dream woman.

“Looks like you’re doing a little bleeding. Let me put this compress on your wound and then we’ll see if we can get you out of here.” He placed it on her cheek and she winced but didn’t cry out. Tough. And brave. “Can you hold it in place for me?”

She nodded, watching his every move.

It didn’t take Jay long to determine he’d need help to lift the beam off Kim’s legs. He couldn’t get enough leverage with his ax. Sitting back on his haunches, he keyed the microphone—

And that’s when the second quake struck.

Instantly he grabbed his hat and placed it over Kim’s head to protect her from falling debris. He covered the rest of her slender body with his own to shield her as best he could. She felt fragile and vulnerable as more stucco and plaster rained down and the building shook on its foundation. Wood splintered and metal groaned. Sirens wailed.

Finally the ground stopped shaking. But he didn’t. A good, solid quake could give even a professional a bad case of the jitters.

“You still with me?” he asked, lifting the hat from her face.

“I wouldn’t think of leaving the party early when it’s as exciting as this.” She gave him a tremulous half smile.

He chuckled.

Over his mike, Gables said, “Jay, you okay?”

“We’re both enjoying the ride,” he replied. “But any time you can get us some help, I’m sure the lady would like to dance with somebody else for a while. She’s pinned under a beam. I’m going to need a pry bar and some extra muscle. A paramedic would be helpful, too.”

“Gotcha. Unfortunately, that last roller knocked the staircase loose. It may be a while before we can get to you.”

Jay checked on Kim. She wasn’t bleeding heavily but he was worried about her pinned legs. Loss of circulation could have serious effects. But he couldn’t do much about that at the moment.

“We’ll be here when you get here, buddy,” he said into the mike. “Just don’t take a long lunch break, okay?”

“Understood.”

Looking up at him, Kim said, “If there’s another quake, this whole building could go down. Maybe you ought to—”

“I’ve got no plans to leave the dance without you, Kim. Just relax. My buddies will get us out of here.”

“You know my name?”

“Sure. Everybody in Paseo del Real knows you.”

A little frown tugged at her forehead, though it didn’t appear to be because of pain. Probably experiencing some confusion from the trauma she’d experienced.

“Should I know you, too?”

“Probably not. But we did go to Paseo High together.”

She studied him a moment before her eyes widened—eyes the shade of the blue lupines that grew on the hillsides around Paseo del Real in spring. “Jay? Jay Tolliver?”

He grinned, pleased in spite of himself that she recognized him. “Guilty as charged.”

“Oh, my gosh—” She winced, this time from pain.

“Easy, Kim. It’s best if you lie still.”

“I know…” Her battle not to panic was bright in her eyes along with the courage it took to stay calm. He held her hand and felt it tremble. “I remember you.”

“I’m flattered.”

“You shouldn’t be—” She groaned and bit down hard on her lip.

“Let me see if I can get some of this weight off of you.” Using his ax, he worked to wedge another piece of wood under the beam. Raising it only a fraction of an inch would help. But he couldn’t get much leverage and the beam was damn heavy.

“Wait!”

Her cry stopped him.

“Why don’t we just talk till someone comes? I mean—”

“Sure.” Her lips had grown pale and that worried him. She was likely going into shock. Where the hell were his buddies? This woman was in deep trouble or would be soon enough if someone didn’t get her out of here. “So what would you like to talk about?”

“You. I often wondered what had happened to you. How’d you get to be a fireman?”

“Firefighter. That’s the politically correct term these days.”

Her smile was weaker than before. “So?”

“I figured eventually I’d rescue some damsel in distress and she’d fall into my arms pledging her undying love.”

“Count me in on that one, hero. What girl could resist?”

A lot of them, Jay suspected. Particularly those who knew his background—raised by a single mother on disability, the two of them living every day only inches away from disaster. A kid who had to work his way through high school, let alone community college, which he’d squeaked through during night classes, working extra jobs and trying to support his mother. Not exactly the kind of man who conjured up romantic dreams in the life of a high-school prom queen like Kimberly Lydell.

Damn, he’d wanted to know her so much better. But there hadn’t been time. Not between his classes and two part-time jobs. Not when he knew damn well she was dating the most popular jocks on campus.

He shrugged off his memories. What he needed to do now was to keep her alive until help came. That would take all of his concentration. The only thing that mattered.

Adjusting his hat on her head to shield her from the plaster dust that continued to drizzle from the ceiling, he sat back.

“I don’t think it’s quite my size,” she said as the visor virtually covered her eyes.

“Looks fetching though. Who knows, you could start a new fashion trend. You’ve always been the most stylish girl in town.”

Hesitantly, she slid her free hand into his again, slender and delicate in his much larger palm. “Jay, how badly is my face cut? It feels…I need to know.”

“Superficial.” He wasn’t a doctor but he suspected he’d just told her a lie. “You know head wounds bleed like hell and can hurt like crazy. You’ll be fine.”

She squeezed his hand tight, stronger than he had expected. “Thank you for being here.”

“All in a day’s work.”

IT TOOK the urban rescue unit an hour to extricate Kim from the wreckage of the building. Jay held her hand the whole time; she wouldn’t let him go until they lifted her into the ambulance.

Jay spent the night handling more calls because of the quake and couldn’t get to the hospital until his shift ended at eight the next morning. Still grubby from work, he went directly to the nurses’ station. His timing was perfect. The doctor was filling out Kim’s chart.

“How is she, doc?” Jay asked.

Harry Plum, an old-timer in the community and everybody’s favorite doctor, looked haggard. It had been a long night for the medics, too. “We’re not releasing any information to the media yet.”

“Doc, I was the one who found her in the building. I’d like to know.”

He nodded. “She’s in critical but stable condition.”

“Her legs?”

“Not so bad—extended loss of circulation in her right leg, but we don’t think she’ll lose it. Lucky you fellows got her out of there as fast as you did.”

That was a relief. “How ’bout her face? It didn’t look good.”

Plum turned his attention back to the chart. “Plastic surgery isn’t my specialty.” He shook his head. “I’m not optimistic. Some serious damage to her left cheek and the wound is ragged. They’ll do their best, I’m sure.”

Jay exhaled. He’d been afraid of that. “Any chance I can see her?”

“Not now. They’re just taking her up to surgery. The OR has been going full blast all night.”

The next day he tried to call Kim, but the telephone operator reported Miss Lydell wasn’t accepting calls. No visitors either. He sent flowers and included his phone number on the card.

But he didn’t hear back.

That was okay. She’d probably gotten hundreds of flowers from her fans. Jay was just another guy with a crush on her.

He didn’t even mind the guys at the station razzing him about rescuing the prettiest woman in town, at least not much. He’d been doing his job. That’s all any man could ask of himself.

And he’d do it all over again in a heartbeat if it meant keeping Kim Lydell safe.

KIM HAD STOPPED answering her door four months ago, right after she’d come home from the hospital. Isolated from the world, she’d been content with books to keep her company and her amateur efforts at sculpting clay to express her artistic nature. It wasn’t that she was vain, although she’d always taken pride in her appearance.

Despite the doctor’s best efforts, her scars hadn’t healed properly. Her fair complexion meant every jagged line showed even with heavily applied makeup—which only made her look like a wax reproduction, as though one side of her face ought to belong to a macabre clown.

No, she didn’t answer the door any longer.

Except whoever was out there now was damn persistent.

She slipped quietly to the window and eased back the curtain. The house she’d so proudly purchased when she’d first landed her job at KPRX-TV was small but secluded, perched on a hilly five acres covered with California live oaks. From her porch on a clear day she could see the sunset on the Pacific through a notch in the coastal range.

Unfortunately, a man now occupied that porch and he wasn’t one to give up easily.

She sighed. From her days of reporting local news, she recognized Paseo del Real’s fire chief, Harlan Gray. She couldn’t ignore him.

Opening the door, she stood back so he couldn’t see her clearly through the screen.

“Chief. What brings you out this way?” As far as she knew, no wildfire was about to burn over the top of the ridge. And she’d cleared the brush from around her house per local regulations.

He took off his hat, revealing a head of almost white hair that he kept neatly cut in a butch. “Good morning, Miss Lydell, it’s good to see you.”

“Is it?” Not everyone would think it a pleasure to look at her these days; certainly looking in her own mirror was a less than pleasant experience.

“I wonder if I could come in?”

“I’m sorry, Chief. I’m afraid I don’t entertain much these days.”

“I see.” Idly, he fingered his cap. “Well, then, did you happen to hear about the explosion at the plastics plant a few days ago?”

“I rarely watch the news any more.” It was too much of a reminder of the career she’d strived so hard to achieve and then had lost.

“One of my finest men was injured in that explosion. He’d given his helmet to a victim he was trying to get safely out of the building and some glass containers blew up on his face.”

“I’m sorry.” She was. Truly. But she was barely coping with her own disfigurement. How could she possibly help—

“The young man was blinded—the glass cut the corneas of both his eyes. We think the blindness is temporary but the doctors can’t be sure.”

Blinded. Guilt gave her a sharp jab to her conscience. She’d been so devastated by her own problems, she sometimes forgot others were far worse off. “I am truly sorry, but I don’t understand why—”

“The young man is Jay Tolliver. I think you may remember him.”

It was almost as if the fire chief had struck her. The air left her lungs; her knees went suddenly weak. Fate had played an odd trick on her to have the boy—now a full-grown man—on whom she’d had a huge crush in high school be the one to rescue her after the earthquake. She’d known as an adolescent, as she knew now, it was not a relationship she’d ever be able to explore. Not because in the past she hadn’t cared. But because he’d barely acknowledged her existence. And now it was too late.

When she didn’t respond to the chief’s revelation, he said, “Jay tends to be a little macho. He’s out of the hospital but he won’t let any of us help him. He’s got this burr under his saddle that makes him want to be independent, even if it kills him. Almost literally. He’s determined to do everything he’s always done, despite the fact he can’t see.”

“I don’t see how I could—”

“Miss Lydell, after the earthquake Jay talked about you for days—even when his buddies gave him a hard time about it. If he would accept help from anyone, it would be you.”

Panic shot through her like a thousand-volt current.

She couldn’t! The fire chief was asking too much of her. For months she’d only gone out of the house to doctors’ appointments and then only when wearing dark glasses and a scarf to cover as much of her face as possible. Not that the medical profession had done her much good. Everything else she needed, she ordered by phone to be delivered. As much as she might like to help Jay…

She began to tremble. Dear God, she couldn’t! The thought of anyone seeing her. Pitying her. Or more likely being revolted by her appearance was too much to bear.

“I’m sorry….”

“He needs someone, Miss Lydell. I’m afraid—”

She shoved open the screen door and stepped out onto the porch. Into the afternoon sunlight. It took all of the courage she possessed to lift her face so the chief could get a good look. She had to make him understand so her own guilt wouldn’t rest so heavily on her shoulders.

“Do you really think anyone who looks like I do could help anyone else?”

Unflinching, she waited while the chief studied her.

“He’s blind, Miss Lydell.” He spoke quietly, persuasively, as a father would. “I don’t think he’ll care.”

Chapter Two

What in the name of heaven was the man doing?

Shortly after noon on the day of the chief’s visit, Kim pulled her car up to the curb in front of Jay’s house. It was a small wooden structure in a neighborhood of modest homes, each one featuring a porch with a swing perfect to enjoy on a warm summer evening. The front yard boasted a postage-stamp lawn, which Jay was now mowing.

Mowing with a power mower that was spewing exhaust and cut grass out the side.

Either Chief Gray was wrong about Jay being blind, or Jay was totally crazy. Not that he didn’t look thoroughly macho in his cut-off jeans, his legs muscular and roughened by dark hair, and a cropped stenciled T-shirt that revealed a washboard stomach. Just the thought of running her palms over that hard expanse of abdomen made Kim shiver. The reflective dark glasses he wore and a few healing cuts on his cheeks took nothing away from the sexy image he created.

Her only regret might be that instead of wearing his hair long enough to curl at his nape as he had in high school, he’d trimmed it far shorter, almost military in style. But definitely attractive.

Even in high school he’d held a special appeal for all the girls, dangerously so for Kim, who’d seen him as forbidden fruit—the bad boy who would be able to tempt her too much. Which hadn’t stopped her from spending a good many hours fantasizing over the aloof adolescent who didn’t seem to know she existed.

Some things never change, she thought as she adjusted the scarf she wore in public to hide the scarred side of her face. She got out of the car and slammed the door closed. With the mower roaring, he didn’t hear her. She walked into the yard, the scent of freshly mowed grass ripe in the air, then winced as Jay proceeded to mow right on past his property line and across his neighbor’s bed of yellow daffodils that under the warmth of the late February sun had just begun to bloom.

Two steps later, he turned the mower around and cut another swath back the way he’d come, clipping the flower bed again and leaving a narrow strip of uncut grass on his own lawn.

“Jay!” she shouted, jumping out of the way so he wouldn’t mow her down, too.

Jay shoved the mower into neutral, stopped and listened. He’d heard something—or someone. God, how he hated the eye patches that covered both his eyes making him dependent on his other senses, the oppressive darkness of being blind making him less than a man. Vulnerable in ways he hadn’t thought possible.

He tensed. “Is someone there?”

“Jay, it’s me. Kim Lydell. Turn off the mower!”

The familiar smoky, blues-singer’s voice of the TV newscaster sent a message directly to his groin. He killed the mower and turned his head in the direction he thought he’d heard her voice from.

“Kim? What are you doing here?” Over the years he’d had more than a few dreams about her, but never in the bright light of day—assuming he could have seen the sun, rather than simply feeling its warmth on his skin.

“At the moment I’m trying to save your neighbor’s flower bed.”

“Huh?”

“You managed to wipe out two big chunks of daffodils with that mower of yours. You want to try for some recently bedded pansies? The neighbor ought to love that.”

Of all the things he’d dreamed of Kim saying if and when they met again, a discussion of flowers hadn’t been the topic that came immediately to mind. “What are you talking about?”

“Jay, you mowed right on through the flower bed at the edge of property.”

“No, I didn’t. I paced off every foot of the grass before I began mowing. I wouldn’t—”

She shoved a slick handful of leaves against his chest, and he caught a faint floral scent. It could have been Kim’s sweet perfume, or the flowers she said he’d inadvertently trimmed. He wished it were the former.

“I messed up, huh?” he said. Worse than that, he’d done it in front of Kim Lydell, every guy’s fantasy newscaster. For the past four days, since the explosion, he’d been desperately trying to act as though everything was normal. Dammit, his blindness was temporary! And if the lawn needed mowing, he was damn well going to—

“I hope you have an understanding neighbor.”

“Yeah, probably.” Clarence and Essie Smith were both in their eighties and kept trying to adopt him, particularly since the accident. There was yet another in a long line of casseroles molding in his refrigerator while Jay tried to relearn cooking for himself blindfolded. At least he was getting pretty good at scrambled eggs, the middles only a little runny and the edges singed. God knew what the stove top looked like though. “So, besides rescuing the local flora and fauna, what brings you to this part of town?”

“I never got around to thanking you for the flowers you sent to the hospital…or for rescuing me, for that matter.”

He shrugged, wishing he could see her. But in his mind’s eye he pictured her collar-length blond hair curving softly against her jaw and eyes that special shade of blue that reminded him of springtime wild-flowers. “All in a day’s work.”

“The bouquet, too?”

“Yeah, well, I thought you might need a pick-me-up.”

“I did, more than you could know.” Her voice dipped to a low, husky note that was little more than a warm breath of air rippling across the hairs on his bare arms. “It was very sweet of you.”

“How are you doing since Paseo del Real’s little trembler?”

“Great, great. No problems at all.”

He caught a touch of agitation in her voice as if she didn’t want to talk about the earthquake and its aftermath. “So, I haven’t seen you back on TV yet.” Or in recent days, heard her, since he couldn’t see a damn thing.

“I’m, um, on a bit of a sabbatical.”

“Oh.” He wondered what the hesitation in her voice meant.

“So, are you going to invite me in for a glass of ice tea, or something?” she asked.

“Tea?” His forehead pulled tight as he did a mental inventory of his pantry. “I’ve got beer.” A beverage he could find in the dark.

“Even better.”

She hooked her arm through his and he felt the soft swell of her breast brush against his skin. Heat simmered through him, making him ache for her. “Guess I can leave the rest of the mowing till later.”

She laughed, warm and seductive. “I’m sure the neighbors will appreciate that.”

Her shoes made clicking noises on the walkway. High heels, he concluded. And there was a subtle rustle of fabric with each step she took. A silk skirt, he thought. Or maybe soft cotton. His fingers itched to touch the material, to feel the texture and imagine the vivid color—cornflower blue to match her eyes or bright salmon to set off her honey-blond hair.

The perfume was hers, he decided, the scent lightly riding on each molecule of air he breathed, and he inhaled deeply.

He sensed by the slight lift of her arm when she reached the porch steps. A beat behind her, he followed her up the stairs without falling on his face—a significant accomplishment these days as attested to by the tender scrapes on his shins.

Thank God the doctor said the eye patches would go in three more weeks or so. By then he’d have bruises on top of his bruises. Meantime, he wasn’t willing to sit around on his behind doing nothing. He wasn’t going to be a cripple.

With a minimum of fumbling, he opened the screen door for Kim.

She stepped past Jay into the house, her eyes taking a moment to adjust from bright sunshine to the dimmer light of the living room. An overstuffed couch and chair, worn but comfortable-looking, faced a small fireplace flanked by a bookcase on one side and a big-screen TV on the other. Magazines were stacked neatly on a coffee table along with a remote tuner and a half-finished mug of coffee that looked like it had been forgotten or misplaced several days ago.

A big tiger-striped cat eyed Kim curiously from the center cushion of the couch then rose, stretched and yawned.

“Make yourself comfortable,” Jay said. “I’ll get the beer.”

“Need some help?”

“Naw, I can manage.” He walked through the arched doorway of the dining room, swerved to miss the chair at the end of the table only to bump into a second chair. He swore.

Kim winced. “You sure I can’t—”

“Don’t worry. I’ve got everything under control.”

Kim got the distinct impression Jay was among the most stubborn men she’d ever met.

The cat eased off the couch, his bulk giving him the appearance of a yellow bowling ball with stubby legs, and followed Jay toward the kitchen.

Slipping her scarf off her head and looping it around her neck, Kim dropped her purse on the couch, deciding to follow the cat.

“What’s your cat’s name?”

“Cat.” He opened the refrigerator, an older model, and unerringly took two bottles of beer from the top shelf.

“Cat? That’s it?”

“He probably has another name but I don’t know what it is. He was a stray that just sort of moved in on me and he didn’t have a collar on or anything.” Closing the refrigerator door with his elbow, he asked, “You want a glass?”

“No, the bottle’s fine.” There was already a collection of unwashed dishes on the tile counter and Kim didn’t want to add to the clutter. “How long ago did he show up?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Three or four years ago, I guess.”

She stifled a laugh. “And you still just call him Cat?”

“That’s what he answers to.” He handed her the beer.

She took it firmly in her grasp so he’d know she had hold of it, and her fingers brushed his in the process. An electric warmth skittered up her arm in the instant before he released his grip.

“Thanks,” she whispered, startled by the powerful sensation of such a brief contact. She wished she could see his eyes behind his glasses, the distinctive copper-brown she remembered so clearly. Unfathomable eyes that gave away nothing. “I was sorry to hear about your accident.”

He paused in the middle of twisting the top off his beer. “A temporary problem. No big deal.”

Assuming, according to Chief Gray, that Jay didn’t manage to kill himself before he got his eyesight back. “I’m sure that’s true.”

He finished twisting the top off and took a swig. “I guess the explosion at the plastics company made the news, huh?”

“I wouldn’t know. I haven’t been watching TV much lately.”

“Then how did you—”

“Your boss dropped by to see me. Chief Gray thought—”

“The chief? Geez, what is this? A sympathy visit?” He whirled, his demeanor angry, and he marched across the room to the counter. “I don’t need your pity, Kim.”

She could understand that. The thing Kim dreaded most was seeing pity and revulsion in someone’s eyes when they saw her scars. “I dropped by to see if I could help you in some way, not to pity you.” He was too virile, too much of a man, to be the object of anyone’s pity, certainly not Kim’s.

“I don’t need your help, either. I’m getting along fine on my own, so you can finish your beer and be on your way.”

“I see.” She twisted off the bottle cap and took a sip. The cool liquid slid down her throat; his rejection left a bitter aftertaste.

In the silent kitchen, the cat nudged his empty dish with his nose, then padded across the room to wind his way between Jay’s legs. Ignoring the cat, Jay stared at a spot a little to Kim’s right, as if he didn’t quite know where she was standing but didn’t want to let on.

“I think your cat’s hungry. His dish is empty.”

“Right. I’ll take care of it.” Setting his beer on the counter, he opened a cupboard, and grabbed a box of Cheerios from a high shelf right next to a similar box of Friskies. Feeling his way with the toe of his tennis shoe, he found the cat’s dish, bent over and filled it to overflowing.

Kim pulled her lip between her teeth. “Does your cat always eat breakfast food?”

“What?”

Sniffing disdainfully, Cat didn’t appear impressed with the menu selection.

“You just filled his dish with Cheerios.”

“I didn’t—” He picked up one of the circles, smelled it and nibbled half. “He likes variety, okay?”

“The Friskies are in the box next to—”

“I know that. I got confused. It happens when you can’t see anything.”

Her heart ached for Jay, for his enormous pride that wouldn’t allow him to bend, to accept anyone’s help. “I did a story once at the Braille Institute in town. There are ways to organize your shelves and mark boxes and cans so you’ll be able to tell which is which.”

“That seems like a helluva lot of trouble when I’m going to get these damn patches off in three or four weeks.”

“Patches?”

“Two of them.” He lifted the reflective dark glasses, propping them on his forehead. “Great, aren’t they? A real attractive addition to a man’s wardrobe.”

In spite of the pain she knew he was in emotionally and the fear of permanent blindness he must be experiencing, Kim smiled. “You look like some totally radical pirate. Very dashing.”

She wasn’t lying. With his burnished complexion, strong jaw and straight nose, he could easily be cast as a pirate hero in any Hollywood movie and scripted to steal a sweet damsel’s heart. Not that she thought of herself as a damsel, of course, but the storyline had considerable appeal.

His full lips twitched with the hint of a smile, his mood switching back to the cheerful, determined man who’d been mowing his own yard—and making a hash of it. “You think so?”

“Absolutely. Very dangerous and very attractive.”

“Maybe I ought to lose the glasses. I could start a new fad with the guys at the fire station. Everybody on the job could wear eye patches.”

“That might be stretching it a little. Hard to drive those big fire trucks when you can’t see where you’re going.”

“The more I think about it, the more I like it.” Finding the cat’s dish again, he carried it to the counter, dumped most of the contents in the sink—the rest spilled onto the counter—and refilled it with Friskies, returning the dish to its place on the floor. “How ’bout you give me a chance to change my shirt and pants, and I’ll take you down to the station. We’ll lay the idea on the—”

“No!” Panic shot through her. She didn’t go out in public, not since the earthquake. Not unless she absolutely had to.

His eyebrows shot up. “What? You’re not going to let me prove to you how well I’m getting along on my own? That doesn’t seem very fair.”

“It’s not that.” She couldn’t bear the thought of the pitying looks strangers sent in her direction and their shock when they got a good look at her scars.

“Don’t worry about a thing. I’ll drive.”

“You’ll what?” she gasped. “You can’t do that.”

“Why not?”

“Jay, you’re blind.” And possibly a lunatic.

“So? Don’t you remember that TV commercial where the blind guy was driving a classic convertible? If he can do it, so can I.” He eased past her.

“He wasn’t driving, Jay. He was being towed!”

“Come to think of it,” he said as he sauntered down the hallway to what she took to be his bedroom, “I still could use some exercise. How ’bout we walk instead? It’s only a couple of blocks.”

She was so stunned by his offer to drive, Kim forgot she didn’t want to go at all. Before she knew what was happening, he had changed into jeans and a clean shirt. He took her arm, giving her only an instant to wrap her scarf around her head and pick up the purse she’d dropped on the couch, and they were out the door walking toward the main thoroughfare running through Paseo del Real. His strides were long and confident, his attitude filled with bravado. Not unlike the way he’d been as an adolescent, she recalled.

When they were growing up, Paseo del Real had been a quiet college town with a permanent population of about thirty thousand. That number had doubled in the intervening years. Malls had replaced strip shopping centers; a second high school had been built at the north end of town. Industry in search of cheap land and the tourist business had added a new flavor and vibrancy to the community. Tracts of new homes blossomed on what used to be farmland on the out-skirts of town, a more expensive crop than any farmer could afford.

At the end of the block, Jay stepped off the curb just as a car was turning into the street. The driver hit his horn hard and shouted an obscenity.

Kim yanked Jay back to the curb, virtually spinning him around.

Visibly shaken, Jay swore. “Where did that guy come from?”

“Around the corner. I didn’t see him either.” She’d been too involved in noting everything she could about Jay, the way his shoulders had grown broader over the years, that he’d added extra weight, all of which appeared to be muscle.

“Dammit all. I listen for crossing cars, not somebody making a turn. He sneaked up on me.”

“Maybe you ought to be using a white cane so they’ll watch out for you.” At least the driver might not have sworn so loudly.

“Not a chance. I’m fine.”

She gritted her teeth. Stubborn man. “How ’bout a Seeing Eye dog?”

“I’ll put a harness on Cat, okay?” He turned, stepped off the curb and started off again. “Come on.”

“Jay!”

He halted in the middle of the residential street. “What’s wrong now?”

“If you’re trying to get to Station Six, you’re going the wrong way.” She knew the main fire station was a block over on Paseo Boulevard and assumed that’s where Jay had been heading—anything farther away and he might really have tried to drive her there.

He tilted his head, trying to get his bearings again. Damn, he’d really messed up this time and almost got Kim killed in the process.

Of all the people in the world, he hated the most for her to see him impaired. Blind. Dependent on the sympathy of others and their charity, like his mother had been.

That wasn’t going to happen to him, not in this lifetime.

The chief should have minded his own damn business and not sent Kim around to “rescue” him. Instead, she was a woman he ought to be protecting. She barely came up to his chin, so slender he’d guess a good wind would blow her over, her hands delicate, small. Feminine. The kind of hands a man wanted to feel on him, all over him.

She wouldn’t be interested in fulfilling that fantasy with any man who wasn’t whole.

Standing stock-still, he listened carefully, hearing the street traffic on the main boulevard through town. Turning towards the sound, he felt the warmth of the afternoon sun on his back. This wasn’t much different than finding his way out of a smoke-filled building, he told himself. You listen. Use all your senses.

He pointed in the direction he knew was north. “The main road’s that way, right?”

“Yes,” she said softly.

“Great. Then let’s get going. I can’t wait to have the guys on C shift see me with the prettiest woman in town on my arm. They’ll all want eye patches.”

KIM HAD NEVER thought of herself as a coward. She did now as they approached the fire station, and she pulled her scarf more securely around her head. More than anything, she wanted to turn and run away before anyone saw her.

But she owed Jay more than that. He’d stayed with her in a collapsing building when she’d needed him. She could do no less for him now. And whether he admitted it or not, he needed someone. Otherwise, his ridiculous macho determination was going to get him killed.

The three-story building was relatively new, its big doors mawing open to reveal two fire engines and a ladder truck gleaming red in the shadowed interior. One firefighter was polishing the headlights on the truck, another man was outside hoeing a recently planted bed of snapdragons, their colorful heads moving gently in a light breeze.

From the back of the station, a dog came trotting out. He stopped, cocked his head to one side, then whined, breaking into a full gallop right toward Jay.

Kim opened her mouth to warn him too late.

The dalmatian leaped onto his chest, nearly knocking him down, and licked his face like a kid with a brand-new sucker.

“Hey, Buttons.” Jay laughed, scratching and petting the dalmatian as though they were old friends. “I’m glad to see you too.”

“I gather you two know each other,” Kim said dryly.

“Sure do.” Jay give the dog another scratch behind the ears. “Kim, meet Mack Buttons, station mascot. Buttons, this is Kimberly Lydell. Be nice to her and she’ll get you on her TV show, make you a star.”

Planting himself right in front of Kim, his tail whipping back and forth, Buttons looked up expectantly with his big brown eyes.

Unable to resist, she petted his head, finding his spotted white coat like smooth velvet. The dog couldn’t be blamed for not knowing she’d been off the air for months and there was little chance she’d make him or anyone else a star anytime soon.

“I’ve never seen a dalmatian with brown spots before,” she said.

“They call this breed a chocolate dalmatian. But we figure somewhere along the way, he got into the wrong can of paint and now we can’t get the brown out.”

She laughed, and the dog gave her a tentative, well-behaved lick with his tongue. “Yes, Mr. Buttons, you’re a good doggie, aren’t you?”

When she looked up, they were surrounded by a half-dozen firefighters all in their neat blue uniforms. Instinctively, she turned her face to the side, trying to avoid their direct looks.

“We aren’t usually that formal around here, calling the dog mister, I mean,” one of them said, flashing her an easy smile. He extended his hand. “I’m Mike Gables, Jay’s partner. He’d introduce us but he doesn’t have very good manners. I’m the one with all the panache around here.”

“Watch out for him, Kim,” Jay warned. “He never has fewer than three women on the string at once, one for each day off during the week.”

“I see.” In spite of herself, she smiled back at Gables, chancing a more direct look. She’d handled flirtatious men before. For the most part they were harmless—but not the kind of man she preferred. Tall, dark and a little aloof was more her style. Though in recent years she’d rarely had time to date, much less develop a relationship.

Two other men crowded forward to introduce themselves, Ben and Bill, equally good-looking but without the flirtatious glint in their eyes. She noted their curious looks, the way they checked out her scarf, but they didn’t appear to dwell on what she was hiding. Maybe they didn’t care.

They were quite solicitous of Jay, however. Eyeing him carefully. Asking how he was feeling. Any news from the doctor.

He shrugged off all their questions.

Another man who’d lingered at the back of the crowd finally spoke up. “Are you going to give the lady a tour of the place, Tolliver, or let these guys keep on ogling your girl?”

“I’m not—” she sputtered.

“Ignore Strong,” Mike told her. “Logan’s just bucking for a promotion.”

“Are you guys ogling?” Jay asked, his forehead furrowed in what had to be mock anger.

“Naw, not us,” they chorused.

“We just don’t know what a good-lookin’ lady like Kim would be doing here with an ugly-butt guy like you,” Mike said.

“Now just wait one darn minute.” Kim drew herself up to her full five feet three inches, tickled in spite of herself at the way the firefighters kidded each other. “I’ll have you know I’ve judged butt contests for KPRX-TV’s day at the beach and Jay’s would rate—” With an exaggerated effort, she took a look at Jay’s rear end encased in tight fitting jeans. Definitely a ten. “At least a nine.”

The guys hooted and hollered.

“Aw, come on,” Jay complained, but he was grinning too, the squint lines at the corners of his eyes visible beneath his dark glasses. “Gimme at least a nine and a half.”

“If you’re very nice to me, maybe I’ll let you appeal the ruling of the judges.”

The entire conversation deteriorated from that point on. Keeping a straight face was next to impossible, Kim’s self-consciousness about her scars slipping away under the sheer pressure of the firefighters’ camaraderie.

And then suddenly, a high-pitched tone sounded, ear-splitting. Before it had stopped, the men standing around Kim scattered, running to their fire engines, slipping their feet into boots parked beside the trucks, pulling up heavy pants, hooking suspenders over their shoulders and grabbing turnout coats. Even the dog scampered off, leaping into the cab of one of the engines. It all happened like a well-choreographed ballet to the sound of a squawking radio that dispatched the helmeted dancers.

Jay took her arm. “We need to get out of the way.”

He didn’t hesitate but knew exactly the direction they should go to avoid being run over by the trucks that had already started their engines. They waited by a wall while the fire trucks rolled out of the station, one by one, sirens wailing.

When they were gone, Jay lowered his head. His shoulders shook and she saw his chin quiver. In a futile effort, he whipped off his glasses and wiped at his eyes, forgetting the patches were in the way.

“Jay?”

He shook his head.

“Let it out, Jay. It’s okay.”

His Adam’s apple bobbed as he tried to swallow. “God, I miss that.”

Her heart aching for him, Kim did the only thing she knew how to do. There were no words to comfort Jay in his grief, so she simply took him in her arms and held him …as he had once held her when she was trapped beneath a pile of rubble. She hoped somehow she could give to him the strength and courage he had once shared with her.

Chapter Three

Jay stiffened and jerked back. Not that he didn’t like having Kim’s arms around him, her exquisite breasts pillowing against his chest, the floral scent of her hair tantalizing his senses.

He did.

But he hated like hell for her to see his weakness. To pity him.

Grasping her slender shoulders, he shifted her away, and immediately missed her closeness, the heat of her body blending with his. He shuddered as if a cold blast of air had swept between them.

“So,” he said, trying to cover his sense of loss. “You want a tour of the place?”

“I don’t want to be a bother.”

He heard an unfamiliar chill in her voice—a voice normally so warm and arousing, sexy as hell—and he silently chided himself for hurting her feelings. The fact that he didn’t want her help didn’t make her offer any less generous.

“No bother,” he said softly. “We’re all pretty proud of the place.”

“Fine then, if that’s what you’d like to do.”

Taking a moment to regain his bearings, mentally recalling where the door to the offices was located, trying not to make it obvious, he ran his hand along the wall until he came to the doorjamb. He shoved the door open and ushered her inside.

Except for the sound of the chief’s secretary talking on the phone, the interior hallway was quiet now that the station was empty of firefighters. No laughing. No bantering voices. The things he loved most about being on the job.

“Where was the fire?” she asked, sliding her arm through his. “I couldn’t understand what they were saying over the loudspeaker.”

“An apartment fire on Toledo. Second floor.”

“I hope it’s not too bad.”

“This time of day?” He shrugged. “Probably a grease fire in the kitchen.” It was nights when things could get hairy, where fires burned undetected and were already out of control when the trucks arrived.

“Why did you decide to become a firefighter?” Kim asked.

“You mean besides wanting to rescue damsels in distress?”

“I suspect there’s more to it than that.”

He paused in the hallway to give her the easy answer, the one they used for school kids touring the station. “For the cheap thrills. Every time that tone sounds, you’ve got a chance for a trip to Six Flags.”

“You’re an adrenaline junkie?”

He couldn’t leave it at that, letting Kim think he was that shallow. “I grew up in the house where I’m living now. As a kid, every time I’d hear the fire trucks roll, I wanted to be there with them putting out fires, rescuing people, wearing that cool helmet. But the real question is why any sane person would stay on the job and risk his neck every day for strangers after you get past the adrenaline high and the excitement.”

“And?”

He turned to her, picturing her blue-violet eyes looking at him, wishing he could touch her. Run his fingers through her hair. Weigh the silken blond strands in his palm.

“It’s the brotherhood on the job. We may fight like brothers here at the station and give each other a hard time every chance we get, but we’re there for each other when it counts.” He rubbed his hand over his face, forgetting for the moment about the glasses and knocking them askew. He hadn’t done a very good job of shaving that morning and there were patches of stubble on his jaw. He couldn’t do anything about the press of tears at the back of his eyes, caught there behind those damn patches that kept him from being a whole man. “That’s what I miss the most about being off the job. They need me and I can’t be there for them.”

“You will be, Jay. A few weeks, and then you’ll be back on the job.”

“Yeah.” God, he hoped so. Otherwise he’d go crazy. He hated pretending everything was okay; hated swallowing the fear that rose up in the night to grab him. The dreams he was unable to halt, the explosion happening again and again.

Shaking off the feeling, he continued down the hallway, Kim at his side, her heels making those feminine clicking noises on the hardwood floor. Her scent faint. Seductive. Something that good dreams were made of.

“I’ve lost track of how many steps I’ve taken,” he admitted, distracted by her nearness and his own fantasies. “The dispatch office—”

“Is right here. You want us to go in?”

“Yeah. No tour of the station is complete without meeting Emma Jean Witkowsky, our dispatcher and resident psychic.”

“Psychic?” Kim frowned at the comment. “You mean she predicts fires before she gets a 911 call?”

“That’s what she says…about two minutes after a call comes in. Says it’s her gypsy blood.”

Kim nodded, chuckling, though she wasn’t sure she quite understood.

Jay shoved open the door marked Dispatch and Kim entered. Certainly the woman sitting in front of a U-shaped console of computer keyboards and screens could be a gypsy. Her dark hair was in wild disarray as though she had just finished a fiery dance to the music of violins and a concertina, and large silver hoops dangled from her ears.

“Hey, Jay, I knew you’d be coming in today. How are you, hon?”

Jay nudged Kim with his elbow. “Now she knows I was going to show up, but a half hour ago? Not likely.” To the dispatcher he said, “Doing fine, Emma Jean. I’d like you to meet Kim Lydell. I’m giving her a tour.”

“Hey, hon, I know you.” Her dark eyes flashed with recognition. “You’re that TV person. Haven’t seen you on the air for a while.”

Kim tensed, feeling the now-familiar self-consciousness wash over her when she met someone new. Automatically, she tugged her scarf more tightly around her face.

“I’m on a sabbatical.” There wasn’t much call for news anchors who look like macabre clowns.

The dispatcher gave her a closer look, her gaze uncomfortably penetrating. “Don’t worry about a thing, hon. I’m getting good vibes about your future.”

Although Kim wasn’t a great believer in psychics, she said, “Thanks. I’ll hold that thought.”

“You do that, hon.”

Kim noticed a plate of what looked to be homemade oatmeal cookies covered with plastic wrap on the counter that separated the computer area from the rest of the room. “Those look good. Are you the cookie maker?” she asked Emma Jean.

“No, not me, but help yourself. Mrs. Anderson brought them over for the guys and they’re going a little slow.”

“Thank you.” Tempted, she reached for—

Blindly, Jay grabbed for her wrist just as her hand closed around a cookie. “Don’t touch those. They’ll kill you.”

Her head snapped around. “What?”

“Evie Anderson is the world’s worst cook.”

“The city councilwoman?”

“The same,” Emma Jean said. “She’s also got a mad crush on the chief. Thinks the way to his heart is through his stomach.”

“A stomach pump is what you need when you eat any of her cooking.”

“Oh, they can’t be that bad.” Gingerly, Kim bit off a tiny bite of the cookie she’d snatched, chewed and choked, desperately wishing she could spit it out. “Eeew, yuk.”

“Told you so,” Jay chided.

“She must have dumped a whole box of salt in there. They’re terrible.”

“She fell a couple of years ago and suffered a concussion,” Jay explained. “I think she lost her sense of taste.”

“But she’s a very nice lady,” Emma Jean said, defending the councilwoman. “And I predict—”

“Don’t!” Jay held up his hand. “If the chief and that woman get together, there’ll be mass resignations from the department. That’s my prediction.”

Kim couldn’t help but laugh. Councilwoman Anderson was an attractive woman in her early sixties, practically an institution in Paseo del Real, if a little conservative for Kim’s taste. She and the widowed fire chief would make a good-looking couple—assuming he had an iron stomach, she thought as she dropped the remains of the cookie in a nearby waste-basket.

“Say,” Emma Jean said. “I bet you’d like to come to the station’s pancake breakfast this weekend.” She whipped out a pre-printed pad of tickets. “Only five bucks a crack. It’s for a good cause.”

Kim glanced at Jay in the hope of an explanation.

“We’re restoring a vintage fire truck to ride in the Founder’s Day parade next September,” he offered. “Whoever sells the most tickets gets to drive. I figure I’m a shoo-in.”

“In that case, maybe I ought to buy my ticket from Emma Jean.”

“What kind of loyalty is that?” he complained. “Wasn’t I the one who brought you to the dance?”

The dispatcher grinned at her. “A girl after my own heart. Don’t let these guys and their egos get ahead of you. How many, hon?” She started tearing off tickets. “You got a boyfriend you could bring? A good-lookin’ brother about my age?”

Kim shook her head. “Maybe my parents would come,” she said impulsively. Both professors at the local university, they did try to support the community in a variety of ways. And even if they didn’t want to come, Kim’s investment wouldn’t be large, only ten extra dollars….and it was for a good cause, as Emma Jean had said. That amount of money wasn’t about to break her, particularly since KPRX was still paying her salary. Her boss, Alex Woodward, had told her to “take all the time she needed” for her recovery, although his generosity wasn’t likely to last indefinitely.

She dug into the small purse she carried and passed over the money in exchange for three tickets.

A moment later, Emma Jean had to answer a call, so Kim and Jay excused themselves.

“Some friend you are,” he grumbled, but she knew he was kidding.

Surreptitiously using his hand on the wall to guide him, he took her upstairs to the living quarters. Instead of a dormitory as she had expected, each firefighter had a separate bedroom that he shared with the men on alternate shifts, although each man had his own private locker. Then Jay demonstrated how to change the men’s room into a women’s restroom with the simple flip of the sign on the door.

“I think my preference would be for a lock,” Kim said, a little suspiciously. “On the inside.”

“We firefighters are the last true gentlemen in America,” Jay assured her piously. “We’d never violate that sign. Unless we were invited to, of course. Or, in my case, if I didn’t see the sign, which would be a darn good excuse.”

She laughed. How he could joke about his blindness and at the same time be so stubborn about accepting help was beyond her.

They were in the third-floor TV room with its rows of recliners lined up in front of the big screen when the fire trucks returned. A loudspeaker announced, “Engine 61 in quarters.”

“Let’s go see how the guys did.”

She followed Jay across the room where he opened what looked like a closet door. Her eyes widened. She screamed and snared him by his T-shirt, pulling him back. “That’s not the way out.”

“Sure it is.”

“No, Jay! It’s a big hole! You’ll kill yourself.” And this was a man who didn’t think he needed help? She’d been right when she’d called him a lunatic.

“Not hole, sweetheart.” He laughed. “It’s our pole. Quickest way to get downstairs.”

She peered past him. There was a pole in the center of the closet, all right, about six inches in diameter, but it looked like a hole to her—a deep one all the way from the third floor to the ground level.

“Come on,” he said. “I’ll slide down first, you follow me and I’ll catch you.”

She bristled. “I’m not going to do any such thing.”

“What’s the matter? Are you chicken?”

“Certainly not.” Although she did have a certain fear of heights.

“You’re not afraid I’ll look up your skirt, are you? I promise I’ll keep my eyes closed, if that’s the problem.”

She whacked him on the arm with the back of her hand. “It’s just that I’ve…I’ve got heels on.”

“I know. I’ve been listening to them when you walk.” He waggled his eyebrows above his dark glasses. “Very sexy.”

The heat of a blush rose up her neck. She hadn’t been aware he was paying that much attention to the details about her, fully scrutinizing her in the same way she was noticing his attributes, all of them thoroughly masculine. And sexy. Like his full lips, especially when he was holding back a smile. Kissable lips.

“You get downstairs any way you like,” she told him, whirling away from both Jay and her reckless thoughts. “I’m going to use the stairs.”

His teasing laughter followed her out of the room as did his footsteps. She was intensely aware that he was “seeing” her in ways only a blind man could and very likely with more clarity than most sighted men would. She could only be grateful her disfigurement wasn’t as apparent to him as the style of shoes she was wearing. Any man with reasonable vision would turn away from her, repelled by the scars that had healed so poorly.

At least any man she’d consider having an intimate relationship with—and that errant thought rocked her back on her mental heels.

THEY’D BROUGHT back the acrid smell of smoke to the firehouse and it hung in the air amid the sounds of his buddies checking out the equipment, readying everything for the next run they’d get.

Jay had never felt quite so left out, not even in high school when he hadn’t had time to be a part of any clique. Or had the money to ask out the girl he wanted, he recalled, aware that Kim was standing beside him. What irony that she would be here now when he was in no position to do anything except enjoy the smoky sound of her voice and remember the face that had been a frequent visitor to his adolescent dreams.

The thing he hated the most—feared the most—his blindness, had brought her to him. Temporarily.

But it didn’t change the fact that under other circumstances she’d be far out of his reach. Unattainable. And he’d still be one of the guys sitting in the stands, Kim his favorite fantasy.

He silently cursed the fact that though years had passed, their relative positions had remained pretty much the same—she was still the beauty queen, a local celebrity, and he was just a working stiff with ambitions above himself. A blind man who was only too likely to bash into a wall or trip over a crack in the sidewalk.

Buttons licked his hand in greeting, pulling Jay back to the action in the station house. In gratitude, he petted the dog and scratched him between the ears.

“How’d it go?” he called out to the men he couldn’t see.

“Looked like the lady of the house was playing a little hanky-panky in the bedroom with her boyfriend,” Gables replied. “She forgot about the lamb chops in the broiler and they turned into crispy critters with flames shooting up the vent.”

“I figured it for a stove fire this time of day.”

“Yep. Fun part was the lady’s husband came home to check on what was happening. The boyfriend was hard-pressed to explain where he’d left his clothes.”

“Oh, my,” Kim gasped, a quick giggle escaping.

“Not a pretty sight,” Gables added and the rest of the crew joined in with their laughter.

“Sometimes we need a degree in social work in addition to fire-suppression courses,” Jay told Kim, still petting Buttons.

“Yes, I can see that.” She touched his arm lightly, sending an arc of desire through him. “Look, I think I’d better be going. Would you walk me back to my car?”

For a panicky moment, he searched for an excuse to keep her around—a few minutes longer. An hour. He’d settle for whatever he could get. He didn’t want her to leave. And he didn’t have any right to ask her to stay.

“Hey, I’ve got a great idea,” he said, knowing he was being a fool.

“Why does that make me feel like I ought to be running for cover?” Skepticism laced her voice as though she’d just announced some heavy-handed politician had promised never to take a campaign contribution from his favorite lobbying group.

“Kim, sweetheart, you’ve got to learn to be more trusting of men.”

“Yeah, right.”

“I just figured—since you were so worried about me—that you’d like to help me train Buttons to be my Seeing Eye dog.”

“Your what?” she gasped.

“You were the one who suggested I get a dog. Buttons will be great, won’t you fella?” With exaggerated affection, he scratched the dalmatian’s coat.

“I thought you were going to harness your cat.”

“I promise Cat won’t feel displaced. I’ll make it up to him by giving him some extra Cheerios in the morning.”

Kim sputtered a laugh. The man was absolutely impossible, and more than a little endearing. “Just how do you propose training Buttons to be your guide dog?”

“He’s got a leash around here someplace.” As if he could actually see, he glanced around the large garage that housed the fire trucks. “Hey, Gables, can you get me Buttons’s leash?”

“Sure.” Mike jogged to the back of the building and returned a moment later with a leather leash. “Here you go.” He flashed Kim a questioning look.

She shrugged, mouthing, “Don’t ask.”

Jay bent down and snapped the leash onto Buttons’s collar. “Okay, we’ll think of this as a trial run. Buttons, heel.”

The dog immediately complied with the order.

“Good dog.” Jay grinned and rose to his feet. “Buttons, forward.”

Jay and the dog began striding toward the open bay doors, and Kim was pushed to keep up with them, forced to hurry in her high heels. Darned if it didn’t look like this experiment might—

“Jay, stop!”

He halted, turned back, frowning. “What’s wrong now?”

She caught up with him. “I think it would be safer if you walked on the sidewalk instead of in the middle of the street.”

“Good point.” He didn’t seem at all contrite about another near miss that had sent a passing car swerving around him. “Guess that’s what happens when you’re being led around by an amateur guide dog.”

Not knowing whether to laugh or cry at the man’s antics, she slipped her arm through his. “Until Buttons gets the hang of things, why don’t we do this together?”

“Perfect,” he murmured, and she wondered if the ridiculous idea of Buttons guiding him hadn’t been a ploy to spend a little more time with her. Whatever the reason, he was a hard man to resist, particularly for a woman who hadn’t yet gotten over her adolescent crush on him.

In spite of herself, a little thrill of feminine pleasure shot through her. Before the earthquake, a good many men had been interested in dating her. But most, it seemed, were attracted by her physical appearance, or by what they thought she could do for them in the entertainment business. Jay didn’t have any such agenda.

The air had cooled considerably since the sun had slipped behind the coastal range of mountains, leaving Paseo del Real in shadows, and Kim shivered. She should have thought to bring a sweater with her.

“You cold?” he asked.

“Hmm, a little.”

In an easy gesture, he looped his arm around her shoulders. Immediately she felt warmer, his touch rekindling a long-banked fire within her.

To casual passersby they’d appear to be a couple out taking their dog for an early-evening walk. Except Jay’s dark glasses were neither a fashion statement nor an effort to shade his eyes. He couldn’t see her, didn’t know she’d changed from the woman he’d seen on television as well as the girl he remembered from high school. That she was now ugly, a woman few men would want to have on their arm.

If she didn’t tell him that unpleasant truth, she was an impostor, a fake who didn’t deserve to be in the same room with a man as courageous as Jay.

She stopped on the sidewalk. “There’s something I have to tell you.”

“Oh, damn, don’t tell me Buttons has gotten us lost.”

“No, we’re on the right track. It’s just that…”

“I knew it. I couldn’t be that lucky. You’ve already got a boyfriend.”

“No, not that either.” She smiled, the movement of her lips tugging on the scar tissue that marred her face, and instinctively she ducked her head. “After the earthquake, the doctors did everything they could to rebuild the left side of my face. It didn’t heal right. It probably never will.”

Frowning, he gazed at her with unseeing eyes. “What are you trying to tell me?”

“I’m ugly, Jay. That side of my face is—”

He let go of the dog’s leash and framed her face between his big, gentle hands. The scarf was in his way, so he carefully slid it back and then with his fingertips traced every bit of her face. Her eyebrows, the shape of her nose. The cheekbone that had been shattered and the one that was whole. His fingertips skimmed across her lips, following the outline and sketching the seam. With infinite care, he measured the shape of her jaw. And the dreadful, jagged scar.

Kim stood immobile. Afraid to breathe. Afraid of the revulsion she might see in his expression, hear in his voice. Her heart thudded painfully with that fear; a surge of adrenaline urged her to flee, to shut herself away again in total isolation. But her body could only respond to Jay’s tender touch, thick ribbons of heat fluttering through her.

“Kimberly Lydell, you listen to me and you listen real good.” His rich baritone vibrated with conviction. “Even when my vision is twenty-twenty again, you’ll still be the most beautiful woman in the world to me. That’s how I’ll always see you.”

Tears escaped to edge down her cheeks. She wanted to thank him but she didn’t have the words to express the depth of feeling that filled her chest and tightened in her throat.

Her ego had been shattered along with her cheek, and whether it made her seem shallow or not, she’d needed to hear a man say she was beautiful—a man she cared about—even if his words were a lie.

Chapter Four

Jay treated himself to one last caress of her satiny cheek with the back of his hand. The loss of his eyesight had heightened his tactile senses. He relished the sensation of her smooth flesh, warm and vital, against his rougher skin. It hadn’t occurred to Jay that she might need him instead of the other way around.

And, despite the courage she’d shown the night of the earthquake, the determination he’d seen in her blue eyes, she still did need him. Her tears proved that. And the gossamer bit of fabric—a scarf, he presumed—she’d been wearing to hide her face from others. Now he had to convince her she didn’t have to hide from anyone.

“Hey, sweetheart, I’ve got another one of my great ideas.”

She drew a shaky breath, audibly pulling herself together. “Spare me. Do you get these grand ideas often, or do you only hallucinate late in the day?”

“Think of yourself as my inspiration.” Reaching down, he found Buttons and caught his leash. “There’s a bar about a block from the fire station that’s got the best beef dip sandwiches in the county. Let’s have dinner there.”

“I don’t think so, Jay….”

“You’ve gotta eat, don’t you?”

“I don’t go out in public much these days. My face—”

“But that’s the beauty of the place. The bar’s as dark as a tomb—which is probably why the beef dip tastes so good. God knows what kind of meat they’re using.” Taking her arm, he made a U-turn and headed back toward Paseo Boulevard. “Come on, Buttons. I’ll buy you a hamburger without the bun.”

“You don’t like to take no for an answer, do you?” Kim complained as he ushered her along.

He smiled. Not when something important was involved.

KIM WASN’T at all sure going to dinner with Jay was a wise idea. Her nerves felt on edge, her emotions raw. After months of near-total isolation, she’d about used up her courage for meeting new people. Only the fact that the firefighters had been so unconcerned about her appearance gave her encouragement that she would survive a dinner in a dimly lit restaurant. And Smoke Eaters Bar and Grill was dark, she discovered. About two-candle power and very intimate with small tables and cozy booths, few of them occupied at the moment. At the very back of the room was a pool table, a shaded hanging lamp illuminating the green felt, and on the wall there was a cork dart board with a bright red bull’s-eye.

“Hey, there,” the bartender shouted. “You can’t bring a dog in here.”

“It’s okay, Curly,” Jay replied, keeping Buttons on a short leash. “He’s my Seeing Eye dog.”

“You’re putting me on. That’s no guide dog. He’s a dalmatian!”

Jay drew a sharp breath in mock surprise. “My God, I didn’t know that! Thank heavens they didn’t give me a dachshund!”

Kim nearly choked trying to swallow a laugh. Jay was totally outrageous and made her want to join in the fun. “According to section 1202 of the equal access statute,” she told the bartender, “guide dogs have to be admitted anywhere the owner can legally be present.”

Curly, who lacked even a single hair on his head, scowled at her.

“Is that true?” Jay asked under his breath.

“I have no idea if that’s the right section of the law, but it sounds pretty good.”

Jay barked a laugh. “Find us the best table in the house, sweetheart. We’re going to have us some dinner.”

TRYING TO AVOID curious looks from customers and employees alike, Kim selected an inconspicuous booth at the side of the room where the shadows were the deepest. She and Jay both ordered the beef dip sandwiches, and Jay covered his French fries with enough catsup to consider he’d had a full serving of vegetables with his meal. Kim opted for fresh fruit instead of fries.

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