Stephanie looked up and her heart did a ridiculous stutter step.

Danny Sullivan stood there in his navy blue dress uniform, the pants and shirt perfectly creased as though he were about to stand inspection, his badge glistening. His midnight-black hair was combed back, the usually unruly curls tamed for the moment. She had an almost irrepressible urge to muss his hair with her fingers, to—

She didn’t want to go there. Not now. Not in the presence of twenty wide-eyed preschoolers.

Nor did she want to admit how her lungs seized when his eyes snared her, their color almost as bright as the royal blue the children used to color the sky in their paintings.

But he’d made it pretty obvious he didn’t like kids. They made him nervous. Very soon she’d be having a baby, who would quickly turn into a kid. Bottom line—Danny Sullivan wouldn’t be interested in pursuing a personal relationship with her.

Not in this lifetime….

Dear Reader,

March roars in like a lion this month with Harlequin American Romance’s four guaranteed-to-please reads.

We start with a bang by introducing you to a new in-line continuity series, THE CARRADIGNES: AMERICAN ROYALTY. The search for a royal heir leads to some scandalous surprises for three princesses, beginning with The Improperly Pregnant Princess by Jacqueline Diamond. CeCe Carradigne is set to become queen of a wealthy European country, until she winds up pregnant by her uncommonly handsome business rival. Talk about a shotgun wedding of royal proportions! Watch for more royals next month.

Karen Toller Whittenburgh’s series, BILLION-DOLLAR BRADDOCKS, continues this month with The Playboy’s Office Romance as middle brother Bryce Braddock meets his match in his feisty new employee. Also back this month is another installment of Charlotte Maclay’s popular series, MEN OF STATION SIX. Things are heating up between a sexy firefighter and a very pregnant single lady from his past—don’t miss the igniting passion in With Courage and Commitment. And rounding out the month is A Question of Love by Elizabeth Sinclair, a warm and wonderful reunion story.

Here’s hoping you enjoy all that Harlequin American Romance has to offer you—this month, and all the months to come!

Best,

Melissa Jeglinski

Associate Senior Editor

Harlequin American Romance

With Courage and Commitment

Charlotte Maclay

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Charlotte Maclay can’t resist a happy ending. That’s why she’s had such fun writing more than twenty titles for Harlequin American Romance, Duets and Love & Laughter, as well as several Silhouette Romance books. Particularly well-known for her volunteer efforts in her hometown of Torrance, California, Charlotte’s philosophy is that you should make a difference in your community. She and her husband have two married daughters and four 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 90508.

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**

890—WITH VALOR AND DEVOTION**

894—BETWEEN HONOR AND DUTY**

915—WITH COURAGE AND COMMITMENT**

WHO’S WHO AT FIRESTATION SIX

Danny Sullivan—Wanted to follow in Chief Gray’s footsteps, but he never imagined the chief’s pesky daughter could teach him about love and family.

Stephanie Gray—The fire chief’s daughter returns home six months pregnant and unmarried, and discovers the boy next door she once idolized has matured into the man she can love forever.

Harlan Gray—The dedicated fire chief will go to 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, and is gaining ground.

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

Tommy Tonka—An adolescent genius when it comes to mechanical things, 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

Epilogue

Chapter One

Siren wailing, Engine 62 roared out of the station house and turned onto the main street of Paseo del Real in central California.

Riding backward behind the driver, Danny Sullivan tightened his shoulder harness, aware of the pleasant hum of adrenaline flowing through his veins. This is what a firefighter lived for—a chance to use his training. To put a little wet on the red, to douse a fire with water or foam.

“This could be a bad one,” his buddy Greg Wells in the adjacent seat commented. “Dispatch said it was a preschool.”

“Yeah, I heard.” Danny didn’t relish the thought of kids trapped in a structure fire, scared, maybe even hysterical. Definitely hard to manage. Rescue would be the first order of business. “Let’s hope they have sprinklers and that they worked.”

Looking relaxed, Wells settled into his seat. “I was kinda hoping they’d have a couple of cute teachers.”

Chuckling, Danny nodded his agreement. Between the two of them, he and Greg had an ongoing competition to see who got the first date with any good-looking single woman they happened to rescue from a fire. So far they were neck and neck. It was time for Danny to apply a little pressure, prove the Irish were head and shoulders above any Englishman—three generations removed or not—when it came to romance.

The engine peeled off the main drag of town onto a side street lined with small businesses and drab apartment houses, then pulled to a stop in front of a one-story structure with a fenced yard filled with kid’s play equipment. Gray smoke drifted up from the back half of the building, a good omen suggesting things weren’t totally out of hand. The brightly painted sign over the front entrance read Storytime Preschool.

With a flick of his wrist, Danny released his harness, grabbed his air pack and hopped down from the cab. He headed to the back of the truck for the hose.

“Thank goodness you’re here!” a woman cried. “We have to get them out.”

He turned, had a fleeting glimpse of short brown hair, a familiar face and the flash of a bright yellow blouse before she raced away toward the front door of the building.

“Stephanie?” When the heck had she come back to town?

He cursed and ran after her. Kids still had to be inside. Otherwise the fire chief’s daughter would have more sense than to go running into a burning building. But then, growing up on the same block where she lived, Danny knew Stephanie Gray could be damn mulish when she made up her mind about something.

He took the porch steps in one leap and burst through the open door. “Stephanie! Where are you?” A fire alarm was still ringing off its mount but there wasn’t much smoke, only the lingering acrid scent of burning wood and fabric. The sprinklers must have done their job. But no sign of kids, either, only building blocks and toy trucks hastily abandoned in the middle of the room.

“In here! Help me!”

He followed the sound of her voice toward the back of the house, his heart pumping.

“Oh, the poor little things,” she cried. “Hurry.”

God, he dreaded what he’d find. Injured kids were the worst. He could only hope he was in time to—

She thrust a small metal cage into his arms. “Take Arnold outside. I’ll bring Polly. We’ll have to try mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.”

“We’ll what?” Dumfounded, he stared at the cage. My God, she’d handed him a hamster, who was lying motionless on his side in a pile of wood shavings. “What about the kids?” He whirled, looking for an unconscious child curled up in a corner. Or a hot spot the sprinklers hadn’t entirely cooled.

“They’re fine.” With her arms around a matching cage, she shoved him back toward the front of the house. “They’re all outside at our assembly point.”

“You’re telling me—” She’d risked her neck—and his—for a couple of hamsters? Somehow, it figured.

Greg and Jay Tolliver from Engine 61 brushed past him, pulling a length of two-inch hose through the building as he went out the door. Their gazes rested on the cage he gripped in his hand.

“Great rescue, Sullivan,” Greg said, grinning. “Way to go!”

So great, Danny was likely to get razzed about this for months. At least until somebody else at Station 6 did something equally heroic.

“Hurry up.” Stephanie placed the cage she was carrying on the ground well away from the refurbished house, kneeling beside it. “The poor little things can’t be without air long.”

“You really expect me to give a hamster mouth-to—”

The expression she shot him practically made him bleed. If he didn’t do this, he’d be toast in the department. Not that her old man would do anything overt, but Stephanie was the chief’s daughter. Hell, Danny hadn’t even known she was back in town. Last he’d heard she was in San Francisco. Just his luck she’d shown up here during his shift, in the middle of a fire, with a frazzled hamster needing kissy-face resuscitation.

With a muttered curse, Danny lifted Arnold out of the cage. Damn, he’d never live this one down.

POLLY GAVE A TINY COUGH, shuddered and began breathing on her own.

With a relieved sigh, Stephanie Gray settled back on her haunches. It was bad enough that the candle-making project had gone so desperately awry. She didn’t know what she would have done if she’d had to explain to the children that their pet hamsters had died of smoke inhalation.

She glanced over at Danny to see how he was doing. All turned out in his bunker pants, heavy jacket and helmet, he looked bigger and taller and broader than she remembered him. But her recollections were quite clear of his flashing blue eyes—Irish eyes—and wickedly sexy smile. As an adolescent, she’d spent hours spying on him down the block, making up any excuse to stroll by when he was outside. Not that he’d noticed.

Unfortunately she had his attention now, and he was scowling.

“Didn’t your dad teach you anything about fires? You could have been killed going back in there.”

She gave him her sweetest, most innocent smile. “But you were there to save me, weren’t you? Like always.”

“Just because one time I pulled you out of a tree when you got stuck doesn’t mean I’m going to save your bacon every time you get in trouble.”

If only he could. But no one could help her out of the mess she’d gotten herself in this time, which is why she’d moved home, her tail figuratively between her legs.

“So how’d the fire start?” Idly he stroked Arnold, who appeared to be breathing again. Feeling pretty grumpy, too, because the damn hamster bit down on Danny’s thumb. He swore. Loudly. Stuffed Arnold back into his cage, and gave his hand a quick shake.

“Hush. You can’t use those kind of words in front of the children.”

Warily he eyed the preschoolers, who had lined up along the outside of the fence. Alice Tucker, Stephanie’s friend and the owner of the preschool, had them well in hand.

“Are Arnold and Polly gonna be okay?” Bobby Richardson asked.

“They’re fine, children,” Stephanie answered.

“Unless I strangle the one with the fangs,” Danny grumbled under his breath.

Stephanie swallowed a laugh. Despite his gruff, macho exterior, Danny was among the sweetest, most sympathetic guys she’d ever known. She’d seen him put baby birds back in their nest when they’d fallen out and stand up for younger children who were being bullied by bigger kids. Though she’d never tell him she knew the truth about him. It would ruin the tough image he’d tried to project ever since his father had deserted him and his mother. Danny had been about ten at the time.

The rest of the firefighters were coming back out of the building now, coiling the hoses to put them back on the truck.

“Thanks, gentlemen,” she called to them with a wave.

“There’s still a pretty big mess in the kitchen,” the battalion chief told her. “We’ll get it cleaned up for you. Won’t we, Sullivan?” he said pointedly.

“Yes, sir.” Danny got to his feet.

Awkwardly Stephanie did, too. She knew the instant Danny realized she was pregnant, six months along but on her otherwise slender frame it looked as though she were carrying an elephant.

His eyes widened and his jaw dropped halfway to his knees. “Stephanie? Twiggy? What the hell happened to you?”

She didn’t know which irritated her more—the fact that he’d used his old nickname for her when she’d been a skinny thirteen-year-old or the sudden surge of shame that coursed through her.

Lifting her chin, she looked square into his piercing blue eyes. “Same thing that happens to a lot of women.” She’d thought she was in love, accidentally got pregnant and found out the feeling wasn’t reciprocated.

“Man, I didn’t even know you were married.”

She winced but she could hardly keep her marital status a secret when he still lived down the street from her father’s house where she was staying. Temporarily. “I’m not.”

If anything, he looked more stunned than when he’d realized she was pregnant. He opened his mouth to speak then slammed it shut again.

“Hey, Sullivan!” one of the men shouted. “You gonna talk all day to that pretty lady or are you gonna earn your salary for a change?”

He glanced over his shoulder then back to Stephanie. “I, uh, gotta go. I’ll see you around, huh?”

“Sure. We’re neighbors, after all.”

“Yeah, right.” Turning, he jogged up to the porch and inside the building.

Well, she sure as heck had ruined her reputation with the tough guy down the street, hadn’t she? She could only imagine what he was thinking now. The skinny, Goodie Two Shoes daughter of the fire chief had shown her true colors. She wasn’t any better than any other woman and no more able to hang on to a boyfriend now than she had been when she’d worn braces in high school and had knobby knees.

She sighed. Unrequited adolescent infatuation didn’t get any less painful at the age of twenty-five.

Picking up the two cages, she carried them to the children waiting by the fence. “Careful now,” she warned them. “Polly and Arnold are a little upset by all the excitement. No fingers in the cages, remember.”

The youngsters gathered around, oohing and aahing, reassuring each other and their pets that everything was all right. That wasn’t precisely true, at least not for Stephanie. But she was determined that someday—someday soon—things would be all right again. She’d build a new life here in Paseo del Real. She’d raise her baby and they’d both be just fine, thank you very much.

So what if Danny now thought she was a slut?

“You really shouldn’t have gone back in there,” Alice said, her voice soft-spoken so the children wouldn’t become upset. “With you being pregnant and all, the firemen would have—”

“Firefighters don’t generally risk their lives for a couple of hamsters.” Guiltily she realized she’d put Danny at risk—and her baby—even though she’d known the sprinkler system had already squelched the flames. There could have been other hidden dangers. She’d simply lost her head in the urgency of the moment, anxious to rescue the childrens’ pets. If her father heard about this particular stunt of hers, she’d be in deep yogurt. Harlan Gray was very protective of his men.

Of her, too, she admitted. Particularly so since her pregnancy had shown and she’d had to admit the truth. There would be no wedding in her future. She’d practically had to tie her father down to prevent him from driving to San Francisco and throttling Edgar Bresse with his bare hands.

With a sweet smile and an angelic face, Alice waggled her brows suggestively. “That guy who brought out Arnold was certainly a hunk. Maybe we ought to have fires more often, at least small ones.”

“No, thanks.” Danny was the last man on earth she’d wanted to see her pregnant and unwed. From now on, she’d keep her distance. Even if it was only across the street and a few houses down the block.

By now parents had heard about the fire and were arriving to pick up their children. Alice talked with each mom or dad, assuring them the damage had been slight, limited to the kitchen area. After a good airing and a little elbow grease, they would be open for business tomorrow morning.

Stephanie guessed it would take a lot of elbow grease to get the kitchen back in working order again. They would have to make some adjustments for snacks and lunchtime.

“Miss Stephanie?” Bobby Richardson looked up at her with sad brown eyes. “I’m sorry I spilled the candle stuff.”

“It’s all right, honey.” Kneeling, she hugged the four-year-old. He’d been acting silly and knocked over the hot paraffin, which then caught fire. They’d all been lucky no one had been burned. “It was an accident.”

“You’re not mad at me?”

“Of course not. Accidents happen.” Just as unintentional pregnancies happen if you get a little careless, like when you’re taking an antibiotic and you’re on the Pill. That combination changes everything. “But we’ve both learned a good lesson about being careful, haven’t we?”

Solemnly he nodded.

She squeezed him more tightly, his slender young body molding against hers. Someday soon she’d have a little girl as sweet and cuddly as Bobby, proving that “accidents” could be a blessing.

BACK AT THE STATION, Danny stripped to his Skivvies and headed for the shower. Greg was already there singing one of his favorite country-western tunes. Nobody had told him his voice was good. Just the opposite, in fact. Not that their kidding had slowed him down much. Hell, he probably would have brought his guitar into the shower with him if he hadn’t been so protective of his precious instrument. Would have worn his Stetson, too, for that matter.

Truth was, Greg probably could have had a career in show biz but chose firefighting instead. That and helping operate his family’s nearby cattle ranch, located on the rolling hills between Paseo and the coast.

“So, did you ask that hot-looking teacher out?” Greg asked.

Danny bristled. He knew who Greg meant, and she wasn’t hot, at least he’d never thought of her that way. She was—hell, he didn’t know what to think now. How could Stephanie have gotten pregnant and not have a husband? She wasn’t that kind of girl. “No.”

“Then she’s still available, huh? Maybe I’ll just drop by the preschool tomorrow when I—”

Danny grabbed him by the arm and swung him around. Soap suds flew in the air, spattering the white tile wall and across the floor. “What’s the matter with you, man? Are you blind? She’s pregnant. Didn’t you see that?”

“Hey, ease up. I only got a glimpse of her, okay? I didn’t know she was married.”

“Yeah, well…” He wasn’t about to tell Wells that the chief’s daughter was pregnant and not married. It was none of Greg’s business. None of his either. “So she’s off-limits, okay?”

“Fine by me. I’m not eager to be a daddy anytime soon, anyway.”

“Me, neither.” And he resented like hell the stab of regret he’d felt when he’d realized Stephanie was pregnant—and he hadn’t been the one to get her that way.

He had no idea where that thought had come from. It wasn’t as if he’d ever so much as dated her. She’d been too damn young. Eight years his junior. And by the time she’d grown up, he was moving in a lot faster crowd than she could have handled, and her old man was the big boss in the fire department, for God’s sake.

Which hadn’t stopped Danny from keeping his eye on her over the years. Noticing her sexy little behind as she strolled by. Checking out her breasts when she’d gone from twiggy to nicely rounded.

Yeah, he’d kept an eye on her. And his hands off.

That was still a good idea.

“So,” Greg said as he turned off the shower and wrapped a towel around his waist. “What’s it like to kiss a hamster?”

Jay Tolliver chose that exact moment to come into the shower room. “Looked to me like ol’ hot lips here was enjoying himself. Whaddaya think?”

Mike Gables sauntered in, buck-naked like the rest of them. “The singles scene must really be getting tough if a hamster is the best our buddy can do. Maybe we oughta fix him up with Emma Jean downstairs. At least she could read his palm while he worked on his technique.”

Danny groaned and shut off the shower. Emma Jean Witkowsky was the department’s dispatcher and self-appointed gypsy fortune-teller, whose predictions more times than not were a hundred and eighty degrees wrong. Dating her was not an option he wanted to consider.

And he sure as hell didn’t want to think about the next week or so until his buddies forgot all about the hamster incident. His next few shifts were going to be the pits.

His days off weren’t going to be too swift, either, knowing Stephanie was living down the block again. And was pregnant with some other guy’s baby.

When he returned to his quarters on the third floor of the main fire station, he discovered someone had cut out a big cardboard star and propped it on his bed. Across it they’d written #1 Rodent Kisser.

He groaned again. This was going to be a very long shift.

THAT EVENING, AFTER HOURS of scrubbing soot-stained walls, Stephanie placed a bubbling dish of vegetable lasagna on the table in front of her father. As a trade-off for her room and board, she was keeping house for her dad. Which had the added benefit of preventing his lady friend, Councilwoman Evie Anderson—a widow and Paseo del Real’s worst cook—from bringing him meals. Tonight, though, Stephanie was so tired she would personally be willing to give Evie’s culinary efforts a try.

“I understand you had some excitement at the preschool today.”

Her hands stilled on the salad bowl she was about to deliver to the table. Had the word gotten back to him about the Great Hamster Rescue?

“We had a small fire,” she said casually. “Nothing too dramatic.”

“Two engines and a rescue unit rolled on the call.”

She set the salad down and took her seat across from her father. “Good response time, too. You can be pleased about that.”

He nodded and dished some lasagna onto her plate then served himself. At age sixty-three, he was still as fit as he had been at thirty, Stephanie suspected, although his hair was gray now and he wore it in a short butch cut.

“Evidently Alice was happy,” he commented.

Stephanie’s brows shot up. “She called?” When? They’d both been scrubbing—

“Yep. Seems the kids were so impressed with my firefighters they want to give one of them an award. Danny Sullivan, as a matter of fact.”

Fortunately Stephanie hadn’t taken a bite of food yet because she would have choked. She forced a smile. “Really? How nice.”

“That’s right.” He forked some lasagna into his mouth. “Seems he saved Arnold’s life. Pretty courageous of him, I’d say.”

She nodded, thinking it was time for her to get an apartment of her own—before her father threw her out for putting one of his men at risk.

“I’ve always liked Danny, even when he was a little wild as a kid. You know, he’s our top man on the department’s triathlon team.”

“I guess I hadn’t heard that.” Although she did know fire departments across the country were always coming up with one athletic contest or another in order to encourage physical fitness.

“Yep. Without Danny, Paseo wouldn’t have a chance of winning the state finals this spring.”

“Interesting.” All the more reason her father was about to hand her her head on a platter for making Danny rescue a hamster.

Harlan Gray glanced up from his meal and gave her a fatherly smile. “Why don’t we do something nice for him, like invite him over for dinner some night?”

She gaped at her father as he resumed eating his meal with obvious relish. That was it? She wasn’t going to get the lecture on fire prevention? Safety first? The importance of human life, which included his men?

A seriously uncomfortable feeling raised the hackles on the back of her neck. Her father couldn’t be doing a little matchmaking, could he? In cahoots with her friend Alice? She knew her father was distressed about her not being married. But she was in no condition to be matched with anyone.

Besides, what man in his right mind would be interested in a woman whose silhouette would soon resemble a blimp?

When she finally took a bite of dinner, the taste was bitter, much like the knowledge that if Danny hadn’t been interested in her years ago, he certainly wouldn’t be now.

Chapter Two

“You shouldn’t be doing that.” Danny wheeled his racing bike up behind Stephanie’s ancient Honda, which was parked in her driveway, the trunk open. He’d been about to go out for a training run on his day off when he’d spotted Stephanie hauling heavy sacks of groceries into the house.

She straightened with a sack in her arms. “Doing what?”

“Lifting heavy stuff. Pregnant women aren’t supposed to do that.”

“So now you’re an expert on pregnant women?”

“Evidently I know more than you do.”

“Being pregnant is not a physical disability. I’m fine.”

More than fine. She had the usual fire in her eyes, golden embers and hot sparks shooting in his direction. She’d been an imp as a youngster. As a woman, she was—

On a sudden surge of irritation, he unsnapped his bike helmet, rolled his bike out of sight behind some bushes near the back door, then took the sack from her arms. “You go sit somewhere. I’ll bring in the groceries.”

“Oh, for pity sake! I’m not disabled.”

“Sit,” he ordered and marched inside, as familiar with the Gray’s house as he was with his own. Not much had changed since he’d been here as an adolescent—Harlan Gray as close to a father as he’d had in those days, Mrs. Gray like a doting aunt. And Stephanie a pesky little sister.

Naturally Stephanie hadn’t listened to him any more today than she had when she’d been younger. Instead she’d picked up another bag of groceries and followed him inside. She gave a little toss of her hair that set the waves bouncing and put the groceries on the counter. “There are two more bags in the car,” she said with false sweetness. “If you really think poor little me can’t handle it.”

He glowered at her. “I’ll get ’em.”

“Oh, my, such a big, brave man,” she crooned.

On the way past her, he almost gave her a friendly little swat on her backside as he might have when she was a kid. But she wasn’t a kid anymore. She was a woman. A pregnant woman wearing a bright red oversize T-shirt with a yellow target in the middle. Suddenly he didn’t know what to do with his hands except stick them into his pockets. Except his bicycle shorts didn’t have pockets.

He grimaced as he walked back to the car to get the last of the groceries. He never should have stopped to help her. He’d known that. Perversely he hadn’t been able to stop himself.

STEPHANIE SQUEEZED HER EYES shut and took a deep breath. If she’d thought Danny was overwhelmingly masculine in his bunker pants and turnout coat, she was blown away by him in a skintight riding shirt and thigh-hugging shorts. Every muscle from shoulder to calves was well defined. A classic sculpture created in the flesh. No doubt warm flesh.

None of which gave him the right to boss her around. She’d had enough of that with Edgar, both at the office and in their relationship. Served her right for getting involved with her employer. But he’d been so smooth, so sophisticated—

So uninterested in becoming a father until the twenty-second century.

“Where do you want this stuff?”

She whirled toward him. “Anywhere. I can handle it from here on my own.” Because that’s how she was going to be from now on—on her own with a baby to raise.

And no one to tell her what to wear to the opening night of the San Francisco opera or what she should prepare for a dinner party for seventeen of his closest friends, all of whom were big clients of his advertising agency, not friends at all.

“Great. I’ll be on my way then. I’ve gotta workout for a big race.”

“I know. A triathlon.” She plucked a gallon of nonfat milk from the first sack and put it in the refrigerator. Danny lingered by the back door. Maybe if she got out the fly swatter—

“When did you get back in town?”

“About a week ago. Alice needed a part-time teacher. All things considered, it seemed like a good time to come home.” There hadn’t been any point in remaining in San Francisco longer. Edgar wasn’t going to change his mind about the baby. After the way he’d acted these past few months, she didn’t even want him to.

Danny’s gaze slid to her belly. “So you’re going to be staying a while in Paseo?”

She refused to flinch. “Indefinitely.”

“That’s great. Uh, I’m sure your dad’s happy to have you home.” He made a show of glancing around the room as though her pregnancy made him uncomfortable, which it probably did. “The place looks pretty much the same as when I was here last. I remember when your mom framed that painting.”

Involuntary Stephanie glanced at the wall above the kitchen sink that displayed her blue-ribbon high school painting—a helter-skelter modern cubist affair of reds and blues with streaks of virtually every color to be found in a box of crayons. It was awful.

“Mom thought I was going to be the next Rembrandt.”

“You got a scholarship. How wrong could she have been?”

In spite of herself, Stephanie smiled. It had been nice to have parents who believed in her, and she still missed her mother, who had died four years ago during Stephanie’s senior year in college. “Commercial art was the best I could do.”

He leaned against the doorjamb as though he had nowhere else to go. “I’m pretty good with stick figures if you need some help with any of your projects.”

She laughed. She couldn’t help herself. “The only art I’m doing these days is the four-year-old variety. Mostly finger painting and setting candle wax on fire.”

“Yeah, well, they tell me primitive styles are back in vogue.”

She lifted her brows. “What do you know about primitive art styles?”

“Hey, I watch a lot of PBS when I’m riding my stationary bike, okay? Broadens the mind.” He touched a two-finger salute to his forehead. “Unless you need some other heroic deed done, I gotta go. You know what they say about practice, practice, practice.”

She swallowed another smile. The last time she’d heard that remark she’d been sixteen years old and it had been a comment about sexual prowess. She hadn’t gotten the meaning then. She tried not to now, though the heat of a blush crept up her cheeks, and she became defensive. “I think I’ll be able to manage without you—barely. You might want to leave a couple of quarts of blood and your cell phone number just in case some grand catastrophe happens and you’re not here to rescue me.”

“I recommend you call 911.”

Now, that conjured an interesting image. Frustrated pregnant woman puts in an emergency call to the fire department to quench her hormonal upsurge—Daniel Sullivan specifically requested to fill the bill.

She couldn’t even begin to imagine what Chief Gray would do about that kind of call coming into dispatch. Although Emma Jean at the station would probably be able to handle it with considerable aplomb, her silver gypsy bracelets jingling as she did.

Sighing, Stephanie wondered what Emma Jean would see in her crystal ball about her future. Right now the best Stephanie could see was that the chocolate ice cream she’d purchased—purely for medicinal reasons, of course—was melting. She reminded herself to worry about only one thing at a time.

Instinctively she slid her hand across her belly. The future would take care of itself whether she wanted it to or not.

STEPHANIE POURED SMALL amounts of blue paint into four paper cups, setting them on the miniature easels in preparation for the children’s arrival at school.

“I don’t see why you had to make such a big deal out of Danny Sullivan rescuing the hamsters,” she complained to Alice, who was unstacking pint-size chairs from the play table. “It’s not like he did anything all that brave.”

“The children think he’s a hero. And you do have to give him some credit for kissing a hamster.”

“He did mouth-to—”

“Besides, I was talking to one of the other fireman after all the excitement was over. Turns out he’s single, and the way he was looking at you I got the distinct impression—”

“Aha! You are trying to do some matchmaking. For your information, Danny and I go back a long way and there hasn’t been a single ounce of chemistry between us.” Not on his part, at any rate. Her adolescent angsting didn’t count.

The angelic smile on Alice’s face didn’t quite match the devilment in her gray eyes. Happily married women with devoted husbands and the standard two-point-seven healthy children were the bane of all single women. Constitutionally unable to pass up an opportunity to matchmake.

“Well, you do need a daddy for your baby and if you two have a past—”

“No past, not like you mean. No future, either.” She dumped red powder into a clean cup and mixed in some water, stirring more vigorously than was wise. “I’m probably the last woman on earth he’d want to get involved with, even if I wasn’t pregnant. Which I am. So just cool it, okay?”

Alice’s retort was cut off by the arrival of the first two children of the day. She lifted her shoulders in an unconcerned shrug, then hurried to greet the preschoolers.

Stephanie frowned at the spatters of red across the newspaper she’d been using to protect the table—and at the matching spots on her blouse. Fortunately she liked wearing bright colors. The print on this particular maternity blouse was of a flower garden in full bloom with the words, “From little seeds grow the most beautiful things.”

She sighed. At least the paint was washable.

For the next hour, she supervised outdoor play, the February morning so mild the kids only needed a light sweater to keep them warm. Then she brought the youngsters inside for juice and show-and-tell. Jason Swift announced that he’d stuck an ant up his nose yesterday, and Tami Malone shared the news that when her daddy slept on top of her mommy, her mommy made funny noises, but it was all right because they loved each other.

Stephanie ruled out both topics from any further discussion.

She was about to send them off for free play with blocks and plastic dump trucks and the indoor playhouse, when the front door opened. She looked up and her heart did a ridiculous stutter step.

Danny Sullivan stood there in his navy-blue dress uniform, the pants and shirt perfectly creased as though he were about to stand inspection, his badge glistening. His midnight-black hair was combed back, the usually unruly curls tamed for the moment. She had an almost irrepressible urge to muss his hair with her fingers, to thread her hands through the fullness until he looked like—

She didn’t want to go there. Not now. Not in the presence of twenty wide-eyed preschoolers.

Nor did she want to admit how her lungs seized when his eyes snared hers, their color almost as bright as the royal-blue the children used to color the sky in their paintings.

Only when he stepped farther into the room and young Tami cried out, “He’s gots a doggy!” did Stephanie notice Danny had brought the station’s mascot with him. Mack Buttons, a chocolate Dalmatian with brown spots and a sweet disposition, waggled his tail as the preschoolers gathered around him. Looking a little uncertain about so many children, Danny ordered the dog to sit.

“Careful, children,” Alice warned, snaring the most fearless of the youngsters who had surged forward. “Remember you need to ask before you pet a strange dog.”

“But he’s so pretty!” Tami insisted.

“Yes, I know. And I’m sure Fireman Sullivan will let you all have a chance to pet him.” She hustled the children to the rug, asking them to make a story-time circle. Stephanie helped out by corralling those who failed to respond to the initial request.

Danny stood uncertainly at the edge of the rug while all the commotion went on around him. His gaze followed Stephanie. The room seemed to light up with her in it, everything else paling by comparison. Which was saying something given the rainbow-painted walls and bright splashes of color around the room.

He noticed how easily she touched the children, a brush of her hand on a shoulder to steer a kid in the right direction, a caress of her fingertips on a rosy cheek to elicit a smile.

In contrast, he felt like a giant among Lilliputians.

“Why don’t you sit in the rocking chair in the center of the circle?” Stephanie suggested.

“I think I’d rather stand.” It was better than being surrounded by a mob of giggling three- and four-year-olds.

“Is something the matter?”

“I don’t have much experience with kids. They, uh, make me nervous.”

She looked offended. “They won’t bite.”

“The hamster did.”

“I wish you’d told Alice when she called that you don’t like children, then we could have—”

“I like kids well enough,” he protested. “I just don’t have many occasions to be around them.”

“Think of this as your chance to get used to them, then.”

She took his hand, startling him with the feel of her slender fingers wrapped around his. A jolt of electricity shot up his arm. Not just static electricity but something high voltage. Sexual. Potent. With it came images of hot sweaty bodies—his and Stephanie’s—and rumpled sheets.

Before he could analyze what had happened, she led him to the chair. He sat because the shock had sent his heart into overdrive. He wasn’t supposed to feel any sexual attraction to Stephanie. And if he did feel any, he was supposed to keep it under tight wraps.

No way did he want to get involved with Harlan Gray’s daughter. The girl who had pestered him through half of his life. A woman who was pregnant with another man’s baby.

Buttons sat on the floor beside him, looking at the children expectantly.

Danny made it a point not to look at Stephanie. He didn’t want to know if she’d felt the attraction flowing between them, too.

“Before we give Fireman Sullivan his hero’s medal,” Alice said to the children, “would any of you like to ask him a question about being a firefighter?”

A half dozen hands shot up. Alice gave the nod to a pixie blonde. “Do you get to turn on the siren?”

“No, that’s the engineer’s job—the driver of the fire truck. I sit in back.”

His answer seemed to disappoint the little girl. Maybe he should have lied. A part of him wanted to impress the youngster—and Stephanie, too. But since her dad was the fire chief, she’d probably had her fill of sirens.

A boy asked, “Do you get scared?”

“Sometimes. But firefighters are very well trained. You all know fires can be dangerous and—”

“When were you scared?”

His gaze slid around the room. He had the kids’ attention. Stephanie’s, too. He didn’t want her to know that bravery didn’t always come easily. That sometimes the most courageous man could turn into a coward.

“I spent a couple of summers fighting forest fires in Idaho. I was a smoke jumper. Do you know what that means?”

When the kids shook their heads, he explained that he parachuted out of a plane near a fire that couldn’t be reached in any other way. He didn’t tell them of the terror of his last jump, the fear that still had the power to wake him up in a sweat from a dead sleep.

“That can be kind of scary,” he concluded after the briefest of explanations.

The questions got a little easier after that. Did he rescue cats from trees? Not usually. Was his helmet heavy? Not really, and he was sorry he hadn’t brought his along so they could try it on. Finally little blondie asked if they could pet the doggie yet.

A frequent school visitor, Buttons tolerated the petting with his usual patience, giving only a small yip when one of the kids stepped on his toe.

Then came the medal presentation.

Danny squirmed uncomfortably in the chair as the day’s designated “pet feeders” brought out the hamsters to witness the big event. Giving mouth-to-mouth to a rodent wasn’t Danny’s idea of being heroic. And every shift since last week, he’d been razzed by his buddies one way or the other. He’d be happy for everyone to forget the incident.

Solemnly two children carrying a blue velvet pillow marched in from the back of the room. They halted like little soldiers in front of Danny, an aluminum foil star with a red, white and blue ribbon resting on the pillow. The little girl gave him a shy smile. In a few years she’d be a killer, the boys unable to resist her.

“Let’s ask Miss Stephanie to put the medal around Fireman Sullivan’s neck, shall we?” Alice suggested.

The kids seemed amenable to idea. Danny wasn’t sure if he preferred Stephanie to do the deed or a four-year-old with sticky hands and a streak of blue paint on his chin. Neither seemed a good choice.

Stephanie’s teasing eyes as she approached suggested the kid would have been the better bet.

“Maybe I ought to call the Paseo Daily Press,” she said, grinning at his discomfort. “A front-page photo of this would be great PR for the fire department.”

“You pull a stunt like that and you’re toast!” he whispered through gritted teeth and forced a smile.

Her light laughter rippled around him like the rainbows circling the room. He caught her scent, something fresh and floral, as she leaned forward to place the medal around his neck. Her breasts loomed in front of him. Eye level. Tempting. Definitely not Twiggy.

Leaning back, he tried to escape the allure of her full figure. The rocker landed on Buttons’s tail in mid-wag. He yelped and scrambled away. The sudden movement caught Stephanie off guard. With a cry of alarm, she tumbled into Danny’s lap. Instinctively his arms wrapped around her.

She didn’t weigh much, he thought with a rush of conflicting emotions. She fit nicely where she had landed but she didn’t belong there. Her skin was soft, caressable. He ought to help her up but he didn’t want to let her go. Her kissable lips were enticingly close to his. His rebellious body wasn’t listening to his brain, definitely had a mind of its own.

Shoving her hands against his chest, she righted herself. Her breath came fast, in tiny gasps; so did his. Her cheeks were flushed and her hair mussed, the coffee-brown curls going every which way. He wondered if she realized how she affected him. A totally inappropriate reaction given the situation. And he didn’t know how she could have missed his response to her being in his lap.

With a whispered “Sorry” she stepped away from him.

Amid giggles and screams, the preschoolers had cleared the way.

Still unable to figure out quite what had happened, Danny stood, tugging Buttons to heel as a way to distract himself and get his reactions back under control.

Alice swept up beside him. “Perhaps we’d better let Fireman Sullivan put the medal around his own neck.”

“Good plan,” he muttered. Stephanie was still staring at him as if she’d felt the earth move. Or maybe she’d been offended by his reaction to having her in his lap. Or maybe she knew he wanted her there again without such a big audience.

Somehow they managed to make the exchange, their fingers barely brushing as she handed him the medal, which sent off a new round of sparks. He reversed his earlier conclusion. It had to be the dry air and static electricity that was giving him jolts with a high-powered charge. Not Stephanie.

“Thank you so much for coming,” Alice said, her voice as soft and sweet as ice cream as he looped the ribbon around his neck.

“No problem,” he lied.

“If you’re not doing anything this weekend, Stephanie and I are planning to paint the kitchen on Saturday. You know, spruce up the place after the fire.”

His head whipped around to nail Stephanie with a frown. “She shouldn’t be painting. She’s—”

“If you and some of your friends were to drop by, that might be a good idea.”

He got a seriously uncomfortable feeling in his midsection. He was being manipulated. He knew it and still he couldn’t figure out how to avoid the inevitable. He couldn’t let Stephanie expose herself to paint fumes. Not while she was pregnant. Who knew what that would do to the baby?

Grimacing, he swallowed hard. “I’ll be here.”

Alice smiled in a way that suggested she’d known all along he was a sucker.

“No, wait!” Stephanie protested. “I don’t want you to—”

He ignored her. “Bye, kids. Thanks for the medal.” They waved to him, and he made a hasty retreat out the door with Buttons on a short leash.

Naturally Stephanie didn’t leave it at that.

“Danny, wait!”

Running away wasn’t an option. He’d just been awarded a medal for bravery, hadn’t he? So he halted at the fence gate. He could still make a quick getaway if she’d gotten the wrong idea about him. About them. There wasn’t any them. There couldn’t be.

“I don’t want you to help paint the kitchen.”

“You shouldn’t be exposed to the fumes.”

“There’ll be ample ventilation.”

“I doubt your father would agree with that.”

“It’s not my father’s problem. It isn’t yours, either, and I don’t appreciate you trying to boss me around.”

“Me?” His hand covered his chest in mock surprise. “I never bossed you around in my life. Even if I tried, you wouldn’t listen.”

“You’ve always tried to boss me around, ever since I was a little kid. But you’re right about one thing.”

He frowned. Stephanie rarely conceded he was right about anything. “What’s that?”

“I don’t listen. Now will you please forget about coming in to paint on Saturday?”

He considered her request. He wanted an excuse to stay away but her health and that of the baby came first. “If you won’t listen to me, will you at least ask your doctor? Listen to him?”

“To her.” At the sound of recorded music coming from inside the school, she glanced back over her shoulder. “All right, I guess that’s fair. I’ll check with my doctor.”

A compromise. That felt like progress. Maybe he’d found a way out. “You’ll let me know if she says no so I can help out?”

She gave a weary shake of her head. “You certainly are pushy, aren’t you?”

“Yep.” He grinned. “That’s why the ladies find me so irresistible.”

With an audible sigh, she rolled her eyes.

“Gotta go. Keep me posted, huh?”

“Sure. And, Danny, I’m sorry about what happened in there.” She looked at him with her clear hazel eyes, the sparks of amber tamped down for the moment.

Danny decided to play it dumb. He knew what she was talking about. His reaction to her being in his lap. But he wasn’t going to admit anything. It would take the jaws-of-life to pry the truth out of him. “It’s okay. I just didn’t think I deserved a medal, is all.”

She tilted her head, a quirk she’d developed when she was puzzled by something.

The time was ripe for his escape before she asked any questions. “Come on, Buttons. Gotta go.”

Stephanie stood on the walkway as Buttons trotted out of the gate beside Danny and they both got into his SUV. Inside the school, the children were singing “Itsy-Bitsy Spider.” Stephanie felt as though she’d just been washed down the waterspout.

She couldn’t have imagined the sparks that had flown between them when she’d landed in Danny’s lap. In all the years they’d known each other, he’d never once given her a hint that he was attracted to her. Until today.

Not that it mattered. He’d made it pretty obvious he didn’t like kids. They made him nervous. He’d been uncomfortable the whole time he’d been inside the preschool, despite the fact he’d easily handled the children’s questions, and they’d warmed up to him immediately.

Very soon she’d be having a baby, who would quickly turn into a kid. Whatever his physical reaction might be to her awkward plop into his lap, Danny Sullivan wouldn’t be interested in pursuing a personal relationship with her. Not in this lifetime.

Given Edgar’s reaction to her pregnancy, she was all too familiar with a man’s aversion to paternity.

With a weary sigh, she headed back into the school as the kids began the final chorus of “Itsy-Bitsy Spider.” She’d have to find her own way back up the spout and learn how to stay there without getting washed down the next time a few raindrops came into her life.

Chapter Three

Carrying his uniform on a hanger, Danny headed into the station house shortly before the 8:00 a.m. shift change. The wide doors to the bay area yawned open revealing two fire engines, a ladder truck and a paramedic unit gleaming bright red in the overhead lights.

No hose lay stretched out drying, there was nobody hurrying to wipe down the trucks after a run. It looked as though B shift had had a quiet night.

Maybe C shift would be luckier and catch a good fire before their twenty-four hours were up.

The fire department’s administrative offices occupied the first floor of the main station—a fairly new building in town—with sleeping quarters, the kitchen and dining area on the two floors above that.

Danny made for the stairs but the sound of jingling bracelets brought him up short. He winced, a premonition of doom settling over him.

“Danny, there’s something I want you to take a look at.”

Turning, he eyed Emma Jean Witkowsky, the station’s dispatcher and resident gypsy fortune-teller, with suspicion. As usual she was all decked out with dangling earrings and an armful of silver bracelets. Her long skirt swayed at her calves and she clanked with every step she took.

“I gotta get changed before the shift starts,” he said.

“This will only take a minute. There’s something strange going on with my crystal ball. I thought maybe you could make sense of it.”

“I’m not really into crystal balls. Or fortune-telling.” Particularly Emma Jean’s version, which was invariably wrong.

She ignored his objection, shoving open the door to Dispatch and stepping inside.

With a shrug, Danny followed her. How long could it take to look into a stupid crystal ball and duck back out again?

“I just bought this new ball via the Internet and I think there’s something wrong with it,” she said, slipping behind the counter that separated visitors from an array of computer terminals and phones. She placed a globe on the counter and slowly removed the blue silk hankie that covered it. “Tell me what you think.”

Disinterested, he glanced at the glass ball…and nearly choked.

Looking back at him was the image of a grinning hamster with big red lips and long eyelashes. Beside it a typed note read, “Your love life is on the upswing.”

Danny was torn between laughter and an urge to throttle Emma Jean. “Thank God you haven’t gotten a prediction right in the past five years.”

Affronted, she widened her eyes. “I foretold Logan Strong and Janice getting together, didn’t I? And Mike Gables and—”

“Enough!” He backed toward the door. “Leave me out of your fortune-telling. And for God’s sake, could everybody please forget about that hamster? Next time, I’ll let the damn thing suffocate.”

He wouldn’t, of course. Not when somebody like Stephanie made him want to revive a stupid rodent or die trying—all to impress a beautiful woman.

BY AFTERNOON, DANNY was bored out of his gourd.

Engine 62’s only action so far had been to tag along on a paramedic call to old Mrs. Trumblebird, who managed to have palpitations or a wastebasket fire every week or so. Today she’d been short of breath. Mostly Danny thought she was lonely but the ambulance hauled Abigail off to the hospital anyway. She’d be pampered for a couple of days and maybe her family would visit her.

Heck of a way to spend your golden years.

After logging an hour on the stationary bike, then showering, he wandered out in back of the station. Tommy Tonka was sitting in the driver’s seat of Big Red, a vintage 1930s fire engine the adolescent had helped the department restore. Today he looked glum.

“What’s up, kid?”

He lifted his bony shoulders. “Nuthin’.”

Danny swung up into the seat beside him. “Funny, from the look of things, I would have guessed your best friend died.”

Head bent, shoulders slumped, the sixteen-year-old slid his hands around the steering wheel. When it came to anything mechanical, Tommy was a near genius. Personality wise, he was definitely on the slow side.

“I got dumped,” he said.

“By that pretty redhead you brought to the Founder’s Day Parade last fall?” The two of them had ridden down Paseo Boulevard in Big Red with the Station 6 crew and their wives, Tommy looking so proud of himself Danny thought the kid might burst with it.

“Yeah. Rachel. She’s dating a jock now. Varsity basketball.”

“That’s rough.” Leaning back, Danny propped one foot on the dashboard. “So what are you gonna do about it?”

“What can I do? Heck, he’s a big school hero, scores twenty points a game.” Mimicking Danny’s position, Tommy scooted lower in the seat and propped his size twelve tennis shoe against the dashboard. The laces were untied and the sole looked like it was about to come off.

“I’d bet you have a lot more between the ears than this other guy has. You can figure out a way to get her back—if you want to.”

His face flushing, which emphasized a bad case of acne, Tommy slid his gaze across to Danny. “You know how to turn me into a jock before the spring dance?”

“Uh, that’s kind of a hard one.”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought, too.” Dejection drove his shoulders lower.

“But hey, you can’t just give up if that’s what it will take to get Rachel back. Nothing is impossible if you want it bad enough.”

Tommy didn’t look convinced.

Mentally trying to pluck a rabbit out of the hat, Danny said, “You could go out for the triathlon.”

The boy’s head snapped up. “You want me to do what?”

“You can swim, can’t you? And ride a bike? And I know you can run.” In each case, Danny gave a dispirited nod. “Then all you have to do is put them together. There’s a junior division in the upcoming firefighters triathlon. You could train with me.”

“I don’t know. I’ve never been out for any kind of sport, not even Little League. My mom never had the money for fees or uniforms, stuff like that.”

“It’s okay. We’ve got weight-training equipment in the basement. We’ll get you some decent shoes, and I’ve got an extra bike you can use. At the very least, it will keep your mind off your troubles. What have you got to lose?”

The faintest spark of hope appeared in the kid’s eyes. “You think I could—”

“Damn right you could.” He grinned at the boy and got a tentative smile in return. “And if I know anything about women—which I do—Rachel’s gonna fall all over herself trying to get back together with you. Brains and brawn are a tough combination to beat.”

“Then, could I maybe start now?”

Suddenly the boy looked so eager, Danny almost laughed. Instead he clamped his hand on Tommy’s shoulder and gave a little squeeze. “Now sounds like a perfect time.”

Danny wasn’t entirely sure what he’d gotten himself into. But he did know what it was like to be raised by a single mom. There was never enough money to go around. Pinching pennies was a way of life. And it hurt like hell not having a dad like the other kids.

For Danny, Harlan Gray had filled some of that void.

He couldn’t help but wonder who would be the man Stephanie’s baby would turn to.

Silently cursing the guy who had gotten Stephanie pregnant, then dumped her, Danny jumped down from the fire truck. With an effort, he battled back old memories of anger and helplessness, and a fury that made him want to punch out that stranger’s lights.

“Come on, Tommy, my man. Let’s see a little hustle, a little en…thuu…siasm!”

He jogged off ahead of the boy, into the station and down the stairs to the basement. He’d pedal another hour on the bike to bleed off his anger while Tommy worked out. Maybe, if he was lucky, he’d be able to sleep tonight without worrying about Stephanie and her baby.

SHE HAD TO STOP PEERING out the kitchen window trying to catch a glimpse of Danny.

Through her adolescent years, Stephanie had logged hours upon hours puttering in the kitchen, just far enough back from the window so he wouldn’t catch a glimpse of her. Assuming he ever looked in her direction. Which he probably hadn’t.

Nonetheless, she’d turned snooping on the boy down the street into an art form.

“Is something wrong out there?”

She jumped at the sound of her father behind her. “No, nothing.” Her voice squeaked.

“Good, then I’m hoping it’s about dinnertime.”

“Coming right up.” Chastising herself for her wayward thoughts, she used a hotpad to pick up the frying pan filled with Sloppy Joe mixture and carried it into the dining room where the family had always eaten their dinners when Stephanie’s father was home. When he was working, her mother had served her two daughters their meals less formally in the kitchen.

“C shift is on duty tonight,” her father commented idly from his place at the head of the table.

“Oh?” She went back to the kitchen to get milk for herself and water for her dad.

“I can get you a station schedule, if you’d like.”

Acting unconcerned, she placed the glasses on the table. “Did I ask?”

“No. I just thought it would easier for you if you knew when to bother looking out the window to see if Danny’s home.”

She glared at her father, which didn’t do an iota of good. The only redeeming merit of this conversation was the faint hope Danny would be too tired after twenty-four hours on duty to show up tomorrow at the preschool to help them paint over the fire and smoke damage.

By morning she knew that wasn’t going to happen.

At ten minutes after eight there was a knock on the door.

“Are you ready to go?” he asked.

Dressed in ratty jeans and an old T-shirt, he looked sexy as all get out. In contrast, her ballooning blouse and baggy shorts simply made her look fat.

“Go where?”

“To the preschool. It’s painting day.”

“You mean you’re not going to tie me to a chair and leave me here at home in order to protect me from those nasty fumes you’re so worried about?”

He cocked one eyebrow, an incredibly seductive mannerism he’d perfected during his adolescent years. “Darn, I hadn’t thought of that. You got any rope?”

“Oh, hush!” Barely able to suppress a smile, she swatted his arm with the back of her hand. “I could drive myself, you know.”

“I figured it didn’t make any sense for both of us to drive since I’ve gotta come back here tonight anyway. Better to save on gas.”

As if an eighth of a gallon would make much difference. “What? Saturday night and no big date? You’re slipping, Sullivan.”

“Some of us are willing to make huge sacrifices for the greater good.” He glanced past her as if expecting her father to appear. “Come on, Twiggy. Time’s a’wasting.”

She bristled. She really didn’t need to hear that nickname again, especially when this particular twig had swollen to proportions previously unknown to humankind.

And she wasn’t done growing yet.

They walked down the driveway together, and he halted at the passenger side of his SUV, blocking her way. “You did talk to your doctor like you promised, didn’t you?”

“Of course.”

He cocked a brow. “And she said?”

“For the sake of my blood pressure, I should stay away from exasperating men like you.”

His rich baritone laughter wrapped around her like an old, familiar blanket on a chilly night and did something extraordinary to her insides.

And it irritated her like crazy that he could affect her so strongly after all these years.

“You don’t have to come at all, you know, since the doctor said I’d be fine.”

Ignoring her comment, he played the gentleman, helping her up into his SUV—which annoyed her even more.

ALICE HAD RECRUITED HER husband, Jeffrey Tucker, to help with the painting job. A grocery store manager by trade, he was long and lanky with a receding hairline that he’d covered with a white painter’s cap. Carrying a gallon can of paint in each hand, he greeted Stephanie and Danny when they arrived.

“Alice has the coffee brewing. Should be ready in a minute.”

“Sounds good to me,” Danny said.

“Is there more stuff in your van?” Stephanie asked, noting the familiar nine-passenger vehicle parked at the curb that the school used for field trips.

“Right. Ladders, drop cloths, rollers, the works.”

Danny angled toward the van. “We’ll get ’em.”

Stephanie followed him, making a concerted effort not to notice his tight buns. Either bicycle riding was an excellent firming exercise or men got all the genetic breaks when it came to avoiding cottage cheese derrieres. Probably some of both.

He handed her a bundle of old drop cloths. “I don’t want you climbing any ladders today.”

“Oh?”

“And you need to take lots of breaks, too. I don’t want you to get overtired.”

“Oh, you don’t, huh?” A spark of anger fed her rising temper.

“Nope.” He reached for an extension ladder to slide it out of the van. “We’ll have to be careful that the place is well ventilated so you—”

She clamped her hand on the ladder. “Daniel Sullivan, I have spent the past two years in a relationship with the bossiest man on the face of the earth. He told me where we would go, what I should wear and where I should shop. Half the time he ordered dinner for me as if I were a child who didn’t know my own mind. And the worst thing is, I let him do it.” She leveled Danny the sternest look she could manage. “No man is going to boss me around like that again. I’m a grown woman and I can decide for myself what I’m going to climb and what I’m not.”

His eyes held hers, the most sincere, most stubborn shade of blue imaginable. “Fine by me. Then I’ll assume you’re smart enough to know you shouldn’t be climbing ladders in your condition.”

“I can climb—”

“For the sake of the baby.”

She wanted to argue but, of course, he was right. No way would she risk her unborn child. “As long as you know I’m not climbing ladders because you ordered me not to. Only because of the baby.”

“Absolutely.” A teasing smile threatened at the corners of his lips and his eyes began to sparkle. “You never did anything I told you when you were a kid. Can’t think why you’d start now.”

Rather than giving him the satisfaction of returning his smile—which she was sorely tempted to do—she sniffed with mock disdain. “See that you remember that.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he muttered as she whirled, bundle of drop cloths hugged to her chest, and marched into the preschool.

Danny watched her for a moment, taking special note of her long, firm legs, then hauled the ladder out of the van.

He’d discovered yet another reason why he’d like to get his hands on the guy who’d gotten Stephanie pregnant. He didn’t like the thought that she’d cared for the guy so much that she’d forgotten how to be feisty, to talk back. To argue until she was blue in the face.

In his view, that was one of her most admirable qualities. She didn’t take guff from anyone, including him.

Smiling, he carried the ladder up the walkway. Seemed to him that Stephanie was well on her way to being her old self again. She certainly seemed ready enough to give him plenty of grief. He was looking forward to sparring a few rounds with her anytime she gave him the go ahead.

Within hours, Stephanie was more than ready to take one of those breaks Danny had been so insistent upon. Alice and Jeff were struggling to paint in the close confines of the storeroom while she and Danny labored in the kitchen area. Her back ached. She had the troubling feeling her ankles had begun to swell.

Ah, the joys of pregnancy, she thought as she boosted herself up to sit on a worktable to watch the master painter.

“You missed your calling,” she said.

Perched on the ladder, Danny was cutting in a swath of paint where the ceiling met the walls to make the roller work easier. “How’s that?”

“You wield a mean paintbrush.”

He glanced over his shoulder and grinned. “I have all kinds of talents you have yet to plumb.”

Stephanie suspected that was true—and many of those talents were no doubt related to his ability to seduce women. She wasn’t about to lead the conversation in that direction.

“I didn’t know you were a smoke jumper. Do you still parachute for fun?”

His brush stopped in midstroke and his shoulders visibly tensed. “No. Too many memories.”

Stephanie sensed she’d touched an emotional hot button. “What happened?” she asked cautiously.

He climbed down the ladder and moved it to the right a few feet, but he didn’t look at her.

“They were dropping us way inside the wilderness area. Two planeloads of guys. Hotshots going after lightning-started fires. Something happened—” Resting his hand on a rung of the ladder, he shook his head. “The wind shifted just as we were bailing out. It blew us right smack into the face of the fire. Two of the guys…”

Hopping down from the table, Stephanie crossed the room to him. His shoulders shook and she placed her hand on his back, soothing him.

Visibly struggling with his memories, he fought to pull himself together. “They drifted right into a couple of trees that were already on fire. The turpentine in a pine tree turns it into a torch, the flames going maybe a hundred feet high. Even with all their protective gear on—”

“Oh, God…” Her fingers trembled. She could see what he saw, feel what he felt. A firefighter’s daughter knew the awful realities of fighting a fire. The danger. The fear. What the red devil could do to a man.

“My damn canopy melted in the heat, and I hit the ground hard. And then I ran.” He looked up at the ceiling, the uneven border of new paint over old, his Adam’s apple working in his throat. “It’s not something I’m exactly proud of.”

“Shh.” Instinctively she took him in her arms. Tall and strong, yet as vulnerable as a child whose invisible wounds had never healed. How many other scars did he have? she wondered. His childhood hadn’t been easy. Yet somehow he’d found the strength to make the most of himself. “There wasn’t anything else you could have done. You couldn’t save your friends. There was no way.”

“Yeah, I know.” Gathering himself, he gave her a quick hug, then stepped away. “Gotta tell you, though. Seventy-five pounds of gear and I swear I set a new world’s record for the quarter-mile run. I’ve never moved so fast in my entire life.”

She recognized he was trying to lighten the mood and went along. “Maybe instead of the triathlon, we ought to sign you up for the next Olympics.”

“Not much chance of that.” With an easy shrug, he started up the ladder again, brush in hand.

Stephanie wished he’d hugged her a little longer. She liked the feel of his arms around her. She even liked the paint-tinged smell of him clashing with the lingering soapy scent from his morning shower.

But she reminded herself the most she could hope to have with Danny was a platonic relationship. Neighbors. Part of the extended family of firefighters. Friends who cared about each other.

Not that she’d want more than that, given her pregnant state. Or even if she wasn’t pregnant, she told herself.

But she really did like the way his arms felt wrapped around her. And how her head fit so neatly resting on his shoulder at the crook of his neck. And how her palms itched to cup that tight butt of his.

She sighed and mentally swore. Her hormones must be on the fritz. Pregnancy did that to a woman, or so the book said.

Picking up the roller she’d been using, she ran it through the pan of paint. “Dad says you’re the big gun on Paseo’s triathlon team.”

“Yeah, and every race I rededicate myself to those guys in Idaho.”

She shivered. No man could outrun such a terrible memory.

Just as she’d never forget she had once placed her trust in a man who was unable to love her…or her baby.

“YOU LOOK LIKE YOU’VE BEEN infected by a severe case of white spotted fever.” Painting job completed and ready to head for home, Danny opened the truck door for Stephanie.

“I always looked forward to your compliments. They’re so…” She boosted herself into the seat. “…flattering to a woman’s ego.”

“Hey, on you, white spots are kinda cute. Like freckles.”

“Wonderful.” Rolling her eyes, she half turned in search of her seat belt.

Automatically Danny helped her out by grabbing the metal connector and reaching across her lap to snap it in place. For a moment, his forearm rested on her midsection, making him intimately aware of the swell of her belly. Then something poked him.

He froze and so did Stephanie.

“What was that?”

“The baby.”

“He kicked me?”

“She kicked you. I had a sonogram last week. It’s a girl.”

He wanted to move away, to ignore the sudden tightening in his throat, the twist in his gut. Instead he slipped his palm across her belly, cupping her. This was real. Not a shadowy, half-formed thought that Stephanie—the pesky kid who lived down the street—was someday going have a baby of her own. This was now.

Beneath his palm, the baby moved again. A tiny foot pressing into his hand or a tight little fist.

An unfamiliar emotion filled his chest. He could barely breathe and had to clear his throat before he could speak. “Feisty as her mom, huh?”

A sheen of tears filled Stephanie’s hazel eyes, dimming the flecks of gold hidden there. “With any luck, she’ll come out ready to arm-wrestle you.”

“Probably beat me, too.”

Her teary smile nearly undid him. Without removing his hand, he leaned forward and kissed Stephanie on her temple. She’d perspired during the day, making her natural waves frizz around her face, and the strands were soft against his lips.

“You’ll be a great mom, Stephanie. A great mom.”

Chapter Four

The heat of his palm seeped through Stephanie’s blouse to warm her belly. The sweetness of his breath swept across her damp forehead like a refreshing spring breeze.

But it was the intimacy of his touch that brought a tightness to her chest. A fierce longing she hadn’t recognized she’d been harboring.

Other than herself and assorted medical personnel, Danny was the first person to feel her baby move, to acknowledge her daughter existed in more than an abstract way. In the depth of his blue eyes, she saw the same awe she experienced every day. The reflection of her own wonder that a tiny, helpless person was growing inside her.

She ached to share her amazement, her excitement with someone special. To relate each change in her body, every new sensation, the pokes and prods the baby gave her, her daughter’s periodic hiccups that jiggled her tummy.

In return, she longed for someone to reassure her that her fears were unfounded. Motherhood was as natural as waking up in the morning. She and the baby would both be fine.

But she couldn’t lay all of that on Danny. She wasn’t carrying his baby; he wasn’t responsible for either her or her daughter. He wouldn’t want to be.

He’d made it pretty obvious that he wasn’t comfortable around kids. They made him nervous. And unless things had changed since his high school days, he didn’t lack for women in his life. No way would he want to be saddled with a pregnant woman who he still thought of as the pesky kid down the street.

No, he wouldn’t want her and her baby any more than Edgar had. In their own way, they were too much alike—playboys who were too damn bossy.

Stephanie would simply have to get on with her life without that special someone. Single moms managed on their own all the time. She would, too.

“Guess we’d better get home,” he said, taking a step back.

She struggled not to miss his touch, to ignore the tender ache of longing that filled her chest. “Fine by me. Dad’s likely to be home soon and looking for his dinner.”

His dark brows pulled together. “Don’t you think you ought to take a nap or something? You had a long day.”

“Evidently you haven’t heard that old story about a woman’s work is never done.”

“Yeah, but—”

“Home, Daniel. I’m fine.” Which didn’t mean the thought of a nap lacked appeal. A chance to put her feet up for a while was equally tempting.

He closed her door and walked around the truck to the driver’s side.

“You and your dad still like to go up to San Francisco to take in a baseball game now and then?” he asked as he pulled the truck away from the curb.

She smiled at the memories his question brought back. “I haven’t been in years. I don’t think Dad has, either.”

“Your, ah, boyfriend didn’t enjoy sports?”

“Not likely. He was more into opera and the theater. Opening night box seats right next to the ones his parents had held for years. Formal attire. Dinner afterward at whatever place was currently in with the wealthy crowd.”

“Big spender, huh?”

“Very. New Jaguar every two years. Weekend flights on the Concorde to Paris whenever the urge struck him, at least he did before the planes were grounded.” Everything he did designed to sweep a woman off her feet, which is exactly what he’d done to Stephanie—to her great regret now.

Danny glanced at her. “Funny. For my money, baseball is a lot more fun than listening to some screeching soprano.”

She laughed. “Let’s say the experience broadened my horizons.” Just as the pregnancy was broadening her hips.

“I remember your dad taking me along to Giants’ games with you and your sister. It was great. You know, freezing our buns off in that cold wind coming off the bay at Candlestick Park. The Giants always managing to lose their big lead against the Dodgers and blowing the game.” He laughed softly. “Your dad stuffed us with popcorn and pizza and sodas until I could barely walk back to the car.”

“And I’d eat so much I’d get sick on the ride home.”

Danny shuddered. “Yeah, I remember that, too.” He glanced over at her and winked. “You were such a wimp.”

“I was not!” She huffed dramatically. Despite the car sickness, those trips had been fun. More so than a lot of the operas she’d attended. “I simply had a sensitive stomach, not a cast-iron one like some folks I know.”

“Speaking of your sister, how’s Karen doing these days? I don’t see her around much.”

“Fine, I guess. Her husband’s stationed in Texas now, when he’s not being deployed to some hot spot around the world. She’s pretty busy with the kids, I imagine.”

About the time Stephanie was graduating from college, her younger sister had announced she was getting married. The reason for the hurry-up nuptials had become apparent six months later when Christopher Malone was born. Eighteen months after that Bryana arrived.

Apparently the Gray sisters hadn’t paid close enough attention in the sex education classes at Paseo High School. They’d missed the meaning of “Just Say No.”

Never once had Stephanie’s father criticized either of his daughters for their slips in judgment. He simply gave them a hug and said he loved them. Pretty terrific guy.

She slid her gaze to Danny as he turned onto their street. With a father who had deserted him, he hadn’t had the breaks she and her sister had enjoyed. Still, he’d made the most of what he’d been given. She’d give him credit for that.

But that didn’t mean she could rely on him any more than she’d been able to rely on Edgar. Once burned, as they say, could happen to anyone. But twice burned, shame on me! Stephanie wasn’t going to risk getting burned again anytime soon.

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